Why E/lectrify? Why me? Why now?

When people ask me what I do, I tell them I write about energy — the U.S. clean energy transition in particular. If they have more specific questions, I warn them I know way too much about way too many wonky things and can and will go on at length about whatever bit of wonk they’re curious about.

My best efforts to scare people off notwithstanding, when I start talking something unexpected happens. More often that not, people don’t just listen; they lean in, physically and metaphorically. They are engaged, focused. When I stop to take a breath, and say, “Enough! I won’t bore you any more,” they say, “No. Keep going. This is really interesting.”

The conventional wisdom in the energy industry is that the vast majority of people only think about electricity in two situations: first, for the three to five minutes they spend looking at their utility bills each month and, second, when a power outage knocks their lights out. 

I do not disagree, but my experiences talking about energy to all kinds of people in various social situations have given me a different view of the personal and political dynamics involved. 

Maybe people would be interested in electricity and care about the clean energy transition if the stories we told about the changes now underway were interesting and engaging, with people and situations they could relate to and care about.

Finding and figuring out how to write those stories is at least part of the reason I am launching E/lectrify.

Why me

I have been writing about energy for the past 20 years, as a reporter in the mainstream and industry media and as a communications professional for nonprofit and corporate organizations. I have seen the opportunities and challenges storytellers face at both ends of the media/communications spectrum. 

I first started writing about energy at The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif., in 2005. Back then, my editor had only one question about almost every story: “How will this affect people’s electric bills?” When I tried to explain the complicated issues I was writing about, he had only one response: “Make it simple.”

In the nonprofit and corporate worlds, the focus was on controlling the narrative, or rather crafting carefully tailored messages for targeted audiences.

In both cases, the clean energy transition in all its messy, uneven complexity has often been reduced to adversarial stories – good guys versus bad guys – and either mis- or underreported, if considered newsworthy at all.

Why now 

But telling the story of the transition, its successes and failures, in ways that are clear, compelling and engaging for a broad audience is absolutely critical, now more than ever.

The U.S. clean energy transition is under siege, politically and economically, from a Trump administration determined to advance a fear-driven narrative in which the U.S. faces a crisis of energy supply and reliability. With the explosive growth in energy demand from data centers, imminent threats of blackouts can only be averted by an immediate buildout of fossil fuel production and generation.

Clean energy advocates of all stripes are trying to counter this onslaught with conferences, webinars and reports that make convincing, rational arguments for positioning wind, solar and energy storage as vital to Trump’s vision for U.S. energy abundance and dominance. Their strongest selling point is that wind and solar are cheaper and can be put online faster than natural gas or any other form of generation. 

As Washington correspondent for an energy industry trade publication, I covered the election and the rapid pivot of the clean energy industry toward such efforts at Trump-friendly messaging. But I have also seen how the economic, common-sense case for clean energy is being overwhelmed by political rhetoric.

Coverage in the D.C. political and energy industry media is often sharp and insightful but mostly exists within its own online echo chamber. 

Since the election, I have asked a range of industry leaders, “how do we break through the noise?” and beyond lobbying lawmakers and continuing to put out more studies, they have no new answers. At this point I’m not sure that I do either, but I know the only way to find out is to start writing – and talking.

Why E/lectrify

At least to start, I have three main goals for E/lectrify:

• To find and tell stories about the clean energy transition in the U.S. and elsewhere that will engage and inspire a broad audience, with a special focus on cool stuff flying under the radar;

• To break through the thick wall of technical and bureaucratic jargon that surrounds the U.S. electric power industry, with pieces that explain the basics of the industry and why people should care about them; and  

• To provide a strong counternarrative to Trump’s fossil fuel agenda. 

I am dedicated to making this newsletter as jargon-free as humanly possible. I have no technical background. All the wonky stuff I know I learned from talking with all kinds of experts – company executives, utility and regulatory staff, and industry advocates, analysts and researchers – and making them translate all their jargon into plain English, something I will continue to do.

As a journalist, I am also committed to ensuring all voices are heard, while acknowledging that, like all reporters, I have opinions and biases.

E/lectrify will likely reflect those biases, including: 

• Climate change is not Santa Claus; it is not something you do or don’t believe in. It is a current and accelerating scientific reality and an existential threat to all life on the planet. 

• All forms of energy generation have environmental, economic and social impacts that require tradeoffs, and whether specific tradeoffs are economically viable or socially and politically acceptable changes over time.

• We need to focus on what we can control: cutting greenhouse gas emissions from power generation, transportation and industry. 

• To work toward a just and equitable transition, we need to recognize that, like all technology transitions, energy transitions are uneven, messy and inconvenient. Winners, losers, unintended consequences and collateral damage are inevitable. 

• There are no good guys or bad guys – just imperfect individuals and organizations with vested interests, trying to stay ahead of technological innovation, shifting customer demographics and the need to maintain a healthy bottom line – all with varying degrees of success.

My stretch goal here is that you, my readers and subscribers, will become part of the narrative. Wherever it takes us, the story of the clean energy transition must be told fully, with passion and commitment, and it must be about all of us.