Let American Energy Move: Modernizing America’s Grid for Growing Demand

I wanted to talk with you about one of my favorite topics – The GRID! We use it every day without having to give a lot of thought. We use it when we light our homes, charge our phones, and store food in the fridge. Many of us rely on it at work to run computers, machines, and various devices. The grid makes our modern life possible. Our grid is an engineering marvel.

You can think of it like a big, interconnected machine with three main parts:

Today, let’s focus on the transmission part of our grid.

Those large steel towers that hold up power lines — That’s Transmission.  We have over half a million miles of transmission lines in the U.S. today, servingas the backbone of our grid. And, we’re going to need a lot more. A strong transmission system is crucial for America’s energy future, especially as we face unprecedented demand for power.

Here are some reasons why transmission is so important:

Transmission supports economic growth: If we want to build more manufacturing sites and power AI data centers to support more jobs, we need to be able to move the power to meet the demand. Transmission is needed to support all types of economic growth, whether you live in a rural community or a big city.

Transmission improves affordability: Better use of existing lines and building new transmission lets American energy move between regions, and that can help keep energy bills lower.

Transmission enhances reliability: By connecting many power plants over a wide region, transmission helps cover demand spikes and provides backup when a plant or line goes offline. More transmission means more ability to transmit energy where it is needed.

Transmission helps unlock innovation: Taking advantage of advanced geothermal in Utah, new nuclear plants in Texas or other next generation projects can’t happen without transmission.

At ClearPath, we believe that the U.S. needs to build more transmission to:

Right now, it can take 10+ years to build new transmission because of: 

So here are three policy solutions to fix it:

If we want America to lead, then we need to let American energy move.

Power Demand Explained: Watts, Gigawatts and the Future of Energy

These days, we hear a lot about the rapid increase in global energy demand due to various factors like growing economies, widespread electrification, and the rise of data centers as AI expands. And it’s true. Here in the United States, after 15 years of static growth, our electricity demand is rising at an accelerated rate. Researchers estimate that by 2030, we will need 20% more energy – a total of 5 million gigawatt-hours of electricity each year.

“5 million gigawatt-hours.” That sounds like a lot. But what does that really mean?

Let’s start with the basics. A watt is a measure of power in an instant. For example, the 60-watt light bulb in your lamp at home requires 60 watts of power to turn on. A Watt-hour is a measurement of that power usage over time.

So, let’s say you turn on your lamp to read a book for two hours, you use 120 watt-hours of electricity. Easy enough.

Now, let’s take a look at a few other examples, going in order from smallest to largest. But first a reminder about unit prefixes: there are one thousand watts in a kilowatt, one million in a megawatt, and one billion in a gigawatt. 

While you’re reading your book, your lamp might only use 120-watt hours of electricity, but the average American household will use 2.4 kilowatt-hours during that time. That’s your lamp, the AC, the TV playing, and so on. Scaling up – with 150 megawatt-hours – you could power 42,000 American households for three hours while they watch a Sunday afternoon football game… or you could use your 150 megawatt-hours to power the NFL stadium itself. In the same amount of time, a large city like Washington D.C. would consume 25 times that much electricity, almost 4 gigawatt hours.

Currently, the U.S. needs around 4 million of these gigawatt-hours a year – again that’s 4 million billion watt-hours – or 4 with 15 zeros after it – and those needs are met with a mixture of 60% fossil fuels, 30% renewables, and 10% nuclear energy. And to get us 20 percent more energy – up to 5 million gigawatt hours a year  – we would need the equivalent of 1,500 Hoover dams in additional generation. That means we are going to need a lot more of ALL of these energy sources to keep up with expected demand.

And, we don’t just need more energy, we need energy that is affordable, reliable and clean. In other words, we need to take a pragmatic, all of the above approach to U.S. energy development. To keep the lights on – at a price that consumers can afford, we need more baseload energy –  the 24/7/ 300 and 65 days a year electricity sources that provide clean power. That means things like advanced nuclear, geothermal, and natural gas with carbon capture.

Ultimately, in order to generate and move all this energy around, we are going to need more than 15,000 new energy projects in this decade alone, and every single one of those projects starts with a permit. Unfortunately today in the United States, you can get a college degree faster than you can get a permit to build a clean energy project. That is why we all must work together to streamline federal permitting processes and unleash American energy. 

ClearPath’s answer to the power demand challenge? It’s time to Let America Build.

Cement and Concrete Innovation Unleashed

Did you know that concrete is the second-most used material on Earth after water? Cement and concrete are all around us, and humans have been using them for over 2,000 years to build houses, monuments, and bridges. Concrete is essential to building due to its strength, low cost, and abundance.

Together, cement and concrete contribute up to 8% of global emissions. Because developing countries are rapidly building infrastructure, by 2050, cement and concrete emissions are expected to exceed the amount of emissions from all the cars on the road today.

Before we dive in, let’s clear up one thing. People often think concrete and cement are the same. But they’re not! So what’s the difference? Cement is the glue that binds together rocks, sand, and water to make concrete. Concrete is the final material used in buildings and infrastructure. This video will focus on Portland cement, the most widely used type of cement, and the industry standard. 

So, where do these emissions come from?Cement is made by baking limestone at extremely high temperatures to produce a material called clinker. Clinker is then mixed with other rocks and processed to make cement. Burning fuels to create these high temperatures generates roughly 40% of emissions. And then baking limestone, which contains carbon, releases CO2 into the atmosphere through an unavoidable chemical process that produces the remaining 60% of emissions.

Fortunately, new and existing producers in the U.S have been hard at work to reduce these emissions. 

One exciting technology is carbon capture and storage, or CCS for short. We expect it to be responsible for one-third of all emissions reductions by 2050. CCS systems can be retrofitted to existing cement facilities or built into new ones to capture, transport and then store CO2 safely underground. For example, Heidelberg Materials North America, a leading building materials company based in Irving, Texas, announced in August 2024 plans for carbon capture at its Mitchell, Indiana cement plant. The Mitchell plant is one of two U.S. facilities that received $500 million from the Department of Energy to install CCS. Combined, these two projects aim to avoid almost 3 million tons of CO2 emissions a year. That is roughly equal to the emissions from 650,000 cars. Utilizing CCS allows the industry to keep using Portland cement and preserves American manufacturing jobs, all while reducing emissions. 

The second exciting innovation is alternative cement chemistries. American companies are finding ways to produce cement with almost no emissions. Two of them, Brimstone and Sublime Systems, have come up with their own unique processes to replace limestone with other rocks and use technologies, such as electro-chemistry, to make safe, industry-compliant cement. In September 2024, existing producers Holcim and CRH announced a combined $75 million investment to scale up Sublime Systems’ cement manufacturing technology. Together, Sublime Systems and Brimstone have received over $276 million in DOE funding to bring their first commercial plants online. 

More policy support is needed to boost American innovation, unleash private-sector jobs and build a lot more. Through consistent policy support for American ingenuity and streamlined regulations to allow the use of low-carbon materials, the U.S. is set to enter a clean manufacturing revolution in cement and concrete production.

So let’s get building.

The Heat Beneath Our Feet: The U.S. Needs More Geothermal Energy

Hello I’m Matt Mailloux from ClearPath. 

What if I told you one of our best clean energy resources is right under our feet? We take for granted the heat buried in the Earth’s core. But have you ever thought about turning that heat into electricity — or harnessing it to power a heavy manufacturing site?

That’s ok if you haven’t, because at ClearPath, we think about this a lot!

Geothermal is one of the most reliable, zero-emissions energy sources. Even though it provides 24/7 clean reliable power, it is often the most overlooked. The good news is that private companies are now using geothermal to meet our energy needs – powering datacenters, U.S. manufacturing, and affordably keeping the lights on.

Enhanced geothermal projects are ready to go. Using technology from the oil and gas industry to unlock heat in a much wider set of geologic areas.

Some often think of geothermal as a technology prime for the Western U.S., but as these new innovations progress — we could see states all across the country deploying enhanced geothermal. Today geothermal is less than one percent of the U.S. electric grid. But, by 2050 the NREL predicts it could increase to provide up to 60 gigawatts of power added to the grid. That’s the type of energy supply we’ll need to meet ever-growing demand. 

First, let’s take a look at two exciting companies putting innovation into action… and then….we’ll look at the policy barriers standing in the way.

Fervo Energy is an enhanced geothermal company based in Houston, that leverages oil and gas technology to get heat. Fervo’s first projects rapidly reduced costs, reaching parity with drilling costs for oil & gas. 

Eavor [“Ever”] — Is another company pioneering the future of geothermal energy, using a series of closed loop wells that collect heat through conduction.

These two companies, paired with federal R&D support from the DOE FORGE site… have advanced drilling techniques to make drilling new geothermal wells more predictable, reduce upfront costs, and encourage more private sector investment.

With promising developments like these, let’s talk a little bit about the policy barriers that are holding them back. For starters, out of the $62 billion for demonstration projects at DOE from the IIJA, geothermal received a fraction of that amount. 

Think about it this way, Geothermal received just 10 percent of the funding allocated to technologies like energy storage or carbon management. We will need all of these resources to meet energy demand and provide clean, affordable, and reliable energy. 

But perhaps the biggest roadblock to geothermal is the permitting process. Geothermal projects can trigger environmental review up to 6 different times during development. Congress can expedite reviews for resource confirmation wells – like regulations for oil & gas development have allowed for two decades. Congress has been working to address these policy challenges in a bipartisan manner. 

Expediting environmental reviews and funding demonstration projects could lead to the huge increases in geothermal capacity like I mentioned before. It’s time for Congress to unlock the heat beneath our feet.

CO2 Pipelines Are Safe…and We Need a Lot More

You’ve probably heard about a clean energy technology called Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage – or “CCUS” for short.

This is a method of capturing carbon dioxide or “CO2” from emissions sources like power plants and industrial facilities. Another method for reducing emissions is called Direct Air Capture, which removes CO2 that is already in our atmosphere — think a giant vacuum. If we’re serious about global emissions reduction — we need both.

In addition to driving down emissions, captured CO2 is also a valuable commodity.  CO2 is not only used to make your beer fizz, carbon oxides can be used for everyday products like building materials, fertilizer, and fuels. CO2 that is not in use can be permanently and safely stored – usually underground – where it resides for thousands of years. 

Often, when CO2 is captured, it’s not located near an available storage or use site and has to be transported to another location. Today, the best and safest way to move CO2 is through pipelines. 

Pipelines are everywhere – often without us even realizing it. They are beneath our highways, run through our cities, and connect our homes. Other essential resources, like natural gas, water, and waste, are all moved by pipelines. That’s because pipelines are the most land-efficient way to transport materials while minimizing environmental impact.

The Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, also known as “PHMSA”, has long regulated the security of this infrastructure. PHMSA provides national standards for pipeline design, construction, maintenance and operation. These ensure that all necessary measures are taken to mitigate risks and safeguard the well-being of your family and the environment.

Now let’s talk about CO2 pipelines. The U.S. currently has more than 5,000 miles of these pipelines, which have been safely operating across our country for over 50 years. CO2 is a stable, non flammable gas – we know it’s safe. We breathe it in and out every day – it’s even used in fire extinguishers. Over the last twenty years, there have been zero recorded fatalities associated with the very few CO2 pipeline incidents that have occurred. A pipeline accident, like we saw in 2020 in Satartia, Mississippi, while concerning, is extremely uncommon and is not representative of the safety performance of this critical infrastructure over the last several decades.

As demand for clean, reliable, and affordable energy grows, so will the demand for effective carbon management technologies. That means, to meet our energy security and global emission reduction goals, the build-out of CO2 pipeline infrastructure is vital.  An estimated 30,000 – 96,000 miles of CO2 pipelines will be needed by 2050 – that’s roughly 5 to 18 times the length of our existing network. 

We get it, some people are uneasy about new infrastructure. But let’s face it, whether you care about climate change or U.S. competitiveness- we need these technologies. By building CO2 pipeline infrastructure, we are not only building our capacity to reduce emissions and protect our environment, we’re also creating jobs, bolstering local economies, and continuing to use the energy sources that make our country strong. In America, we’re not afraid to build — it’s what we do. 

And, through R&D and innovation, we’ll leverage the efficiency and maintain the strong safety record of this vital American infrastructure.

Let America build – A policy path to modernize energy permitting

Our team spends a lot of time on reliable, affordable, clean energy systems that run 24/7. These types of technologies are an integral part of our energy future, but with a growing economy and electricity demand doubling, we need MORE power.

This means building a lot of new nuclear, geothermal, and clean fossil power plants. We’ll also need immense new transmission and pipeline infrastructure to move energy around the country.

But we’ve got a ton of work to do in very little time. 

Whether you are motivated by deep emissions reductions, furthering our nation’s energy security, or enabling the next generation of American manufacturing, the coming decades are essential. By many estimates, that means at least 10,000 new clean energy projects this decade alone. And, every one of those projects will require new permits to build. 

Unfortunately, the U.S. has a world-class apparatus… for getting in the way.

Let me give you an example. The National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, calls for developers to measure the environmental impact of their projects. But NEPA was passed years before we had other laws with strict environmental standards like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, or Endangered Species Act. 

Each of those are important — but all together … permit reviews can spiral into extremely long efforts, spanning thousands of pages with duplicative analyses and dozens of bureaucrats required to sign off on each individual project. And, this is not even taking into account the time it takes for any local permitting or state regulations. While this system may have made sense 50 years ago, the surge in new energy demand requires a new way.    

When we think about how to build tens of thousands of new clean energy projects, and how to balance speed and safety, it’s obvious the U.S. needs a more predictable process. 

At ClearPath, we always focus on solutions. Here are two that should be pretty simple: 

First, grant immediate approval to projects on a site that have already undergone an environmental review.

Second, we must expedite court challenges so a final decision on projects is made in a timely manner. 

Let me simplify both concepts.

Do you remember standing in line at the airport before TSA pre-check? That was brutal! Now, individuals who have proven they are not a risk can move through an expedited line.

Here’s another example.

There are mountains of evidence that some projects have little to no environmental impacts, such as an advanced manufacturing facility that produces parts for clean energy on a brownfield, or converting a retired coal plant to an advanced nuclear facility or siting a new geothermal plant at a depleted oil and gas well. These are the types of projects we should automatically permit to move forward.

Just like random screenings at TSA, we can audit the operators to ensure they’re complying with all environmental laws as we go. So new energy accelerates at no new environmental costs.

And for those projects that do need permits up front, we should ensure reviews are complete within 1 year and resolve any legal disputes within 6 months.

Under the current system, clean energy projects can suffer long delays, sometimes decades, largely because of obstructive litigation practices. We must strike the right balance while halting the never-ending cycle of frivolous lawsuits. 

At ClearPath, we believe all of this can be done without rolling back environmental protections or eliminating the public’s opportunity to be involved in the review process. Even with these necessary changes, a project would still be required to comply with environmental laws during its entire lifetime.*

It’s a win-win. Let’s get building.

Emrgy: Reimagining Hydropower Technologies

Emrgy is expanding America’s hydropower portfolio with an exciting new twist on reliable, affordable, modular hydropower. The company has innovated hydropower to reduce new builds’ capital and regulatory challenges by making its turbines smaller and more modular.

Rich Powell’s TED Talk: How to Modernize Energy Permitting

Rich Powell, ClearPath CEO, recently delivered a TED Talk on modernizing the energy permitting process. Rich shines his quintessential optimism on the otherwise gloomy permitting outlook, and outlines a plan for Congress to expedite project development and improve the burdensome judicial review process. There is no doubt the permitting system is slowing down America’s path to building more clean energy, and there’s no single national straightforward solution for our current permitting emergency, but it starts with all of us.

Watch Rich Powell’s TED Talk below:

Carbon Management’s Role in Addressing Climate Change | COP28

ClearPath CEO Rich Powell joined Axios Publisher Nicholas Johnston on the sidelines of COP28 for a conversation on carbon management solutions.

Antora Energy: Thermal Batteries Revolutionizing Industrial Decarbonization

Roughly one-third of global emissions come from the manufacturing sector—more than electricity, agriculture, or transportation. By 2030, industrial facilities are expected to be the top source of U.S. emissions, too, exceeding those from both power plants and vehicles.

If we want to meaningfully reduce carbon dioxide emissions around the world using American technology — the industrial sector is a great place to focus.

Antora Energy has developed a way to store thermal energy and use it to deliver on-demand, zero-carbon industrial heat and power. Learn more from this video in less than four minutes!

Today, manufacturers have to generate a lot of heat and use a lot of fossil generated power for their process. Antora’s thermal batteries eliminate emissions from the equation.

You’re probably familiar with how to store energy using battery technology. And you may also know that the market for long-duration, grid-scale battery storage is growing rapidly.

The problem is, most batteries are too expensive to supply round-the-clock heat and power. There are also supply chain challenges associated with critical minerals like lithium and cobalt, which are key materials for many batteries.

Antora solves these problems using carbon blocks—the same blocks used in steel furnaces and aluminum smelters. The simplicity of this approach cuts out a lot of the complexity and need for critical minerals, eliminating the supply chain challenges that threaten conventional batteries.

In fact, of all the material options for thermal storage, carbon blocks may be the most energy dense, simplest, and lowest cost.

Antora’s thermal battery can store 15 megawatt hours in the footprint of a shipping container—that’s 5 times more than a Lithium-ion battery.

Antora’s thermal batteries take excess solar and wind energy not needed for the grid, and use it to heat blocks of carbon until they’re glowing hot — think of the glow from your toaster when the coils heat up. Then they discharge that heat to customers, on-demand, at temperatures up to 1500 degrees Celsius or higher.

We don’t recommend toasting bread at that temperature … in fact, it’s hot enough to melt and manufacture products like steel and cement.

Antora’s batteries can also convert the energy from those hot carbon blocks into emissions-free electricity. They do this with what are called thermophotovoltaic cells and it’s part of what makes their technology so transformational. Solar photovoltaic cells capture light from the sun. Thermophotovoltaic cells capture light coming off hot objects, including, say, carbon blocks that are glowing hot. Some technologies offer zero-carbon heat, others zero-carbon power — this process does both.

Antora has the potential to change the way large industrial companies generate heat and power, providing a zero-emissions alternative at prices even cheaper than options available today.

If we want to bring more manufacturing of heavy industrial products back to America, lowering costs is the most important thing we can do. And if we want to solve the global climate challenge, using American clean energy innovation is better than alternatives coming from China or Russia.

Antora’s technology is a win-win, and will put us on a clear path toward lowering our carbon emissions.