Energy Gang’s year in review: the highs, the lows, the people and the technologies of 2025

19:16So it started to, you know, stoke some questions, but I think he inadvertently pushed the maturity level of the AI CapEx cycle into a higher level of now we're execution focused versus just saying the biggest numbers. So that was my unconventional take on probably an obvious answer for a lot of folks.

19:32Ed Crooks:Well, and I would take that to the next level because, you know, you say, you know, he's everywhere. He's at the White House, whatever. And of course, the big talk was AGI, artificial general intelligence. You know, are we getting there? When will we get there? and everybody loves someone in the limelight and then everybody loves to draw down someone in the limelight. So, you know, you can attract too much attention. So now the discussion about whether AGI is reachable, is it reachable using training of LLMs or do we have to have a totally different approach? You know, you have the Tesla robotics and other kinds of company robotics announcements.

20:10Ed Crooks:Can you do that? Do you need AGI? and this whole question about what is AGI? Should the U.S. government be funding AGI? Do we have to get to AGI? Can only one player get to AGI? You know, is AGI realistic? Is it really going to be ChatGPT? Could it be Google? Could it be this one? Could it be that one? Could it be totally not the way we're thinking about it? And it's going to be approached in a totally different technological form. All of that has caused the finance community, the utility industry, the oil and gas industry. I mean, I'm having to like read, read, read about AGI now because every forum I go into to speak about whether it's about LNG or it's about U.S.

20:57Ed Crooks:electricity or it's about U.S. China trade. You have to know the details of AGI. and Goldman Sachs recently, a week or so ago, put out an interesting report on AI, which is quite a good read. And it turns out NYU is a big place, so I don't know everybody and I don't even know everybody who's famous, but it turns out there's an emeritus professor of cognitive science at NYU named Gary Marcus. And he was, I mean, apparently he's written these amazing books and he's on the book tour and quite a desirable speaker, but they had a Q &A with him in this Goldman Sachs study. And he explained in a very interesting, easy to understand terms, why as a cognitive science, he does not believe LLMs will be the means to reach AGI.

21:53Ed Crooks:And as he explains that out, he says how when he first said that, he was viciously attacked, but now people are coming around to his point of view, partly because of all the hallucinations of all these LLMs and the fact that bigger isn't getting us better. We don't seem to be getting closer.

22:11Amy Myers Jaffe:Indeed. So is he your person of the year?

22:12Ed Crooks:He could be my person of the year. Good idea. Good idea.

22:16Amy Myers Jaffe:Okay. Yeah, I agree. It's fascinating stuff. Go on, Melissa. What's yours? I can't tell y 'all how hard this was. Like, it was so hard. I went through so many tech entrepreneurs, small and big, different breakthroughs, different new creations. I actually thought about nominating a national lab as a person of the year and then figured that was being too liberal with it. So I pulled it back. So then I finally came down to two familiar names and I'll explain why. I debated towards, and I did pick Ed. I did pick one. So I debated between Fatih Birol and Catherine Hayhoe. And this is where I got to.

22:50I think it's kind of like your Sam Altman comment, Amy, where there were lots of really big, and Shani, I think it's a great choice. I'm not criticizing it, but there were a lot of big headlines. And I was like, all right, in the middle of these big headlines, where have I seen steady voices bringing us back to what we need to accomplish if the goal is to get emissions down? And I felt like Fatih and Catherine both did a really good job this year of just like bringing it back. Hey, these are the numbers. So I picked Fatih in the end, and here's why. I got into his workforce report and their data center and energy use report.

23:20And so the workforce report spoke to me on a community level on how we're actually going to practically move stuff forward. We need skilled folks to do things. And if we lose sight of that, that's a long-term investment. And I just, in the middle of all the flash and the noise, I'm like, y 'all, we cannot forget this. So good on you for bringing it up. And I kept seeing quotes from him about that report in interviews that were about other reports that had come out. He kept going back to workforce. And I was like, I like that. I like that solid. Just let me tell you what the numbers say. And I really enjoyed that.

23:51Catherine was such a close second. So there you go. But that's my big flash, you know, highlight person of the year. That's what I picked. I did not pick an organization. I picked two individuals, but Fatih wanted outside lane. It was for those two reports.

24:03Amy Myers Jaffe:Yeah, that's a really good point, actually, on Fatih Beryl and the work he does and an aspect of what he does that I hadn't really thought of. Catherine Hay, who explained just why she's your runner up. Yeah, so runner up, there may be some bias in this because I'm an energy person first, you know, who thinks about energy systems working in climate. But Catherine was my number two because she's continued around this. Here is how climate change is affecting us right now. Here are the things we need to accomplish. Let's bring it back to the atmospheric science. You know, the climate is a function of these things going in.

24:34Let's bring it back to fundamentals. And then also the communication strategy she has around meet people where they are, answer their questions and speak clearly. So I can give you a$10 word. Heck, I could probably give you a$10 ,000 word for something. But if I have a 10 cent word that works, I should use that 10 cent word to explain the thing that is affecting your life and then help you to have tools to actually respond to it. And she's been very consistent in that. And this year was no exception. So I follow her newsletter. I follow her talking events. And I just thought it was really good to have, again, in the midst of a lot of noise this year.

25:10It just felt like a very noisy year to me. I don't know about y 'all. And these were two voices that kept it like, here's what the data tell us. Here's what the atmospheric science is telling us. Here's what the energy systems are looking at. And let me be your voice of what the data are telling us, what are the options for doing things about it, where are the opportunities, should you choose to step into it, and then bringing it back to our lives. So there you go. Does that answer your question?

25:33Amy Myers Jaffe:It certainly does. No, that's fantastic. Yeah, and 100 % endorse your point about the importance of clear communication, certainly something I'm a massive believer on. I think probably everyone who comes on this show is as well. So I want to talk about my person of the year, who is Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York State, which is, should absolutely not be taken as a general endorsement of her politics one way or the other from any direction. But I'm nominating her for the very specific reason that she introduced and then backed and defended against quite a lot of pressure, congestion pricing for New York City, which is just a really great policy.

26:13Amy Myers Jaffe:I think very, very sensible policy, which clearly having materially positive benefits already in New York. There's an interesting study just published the other day talking about measurable drops in congestion, in pollution. It's quicker to get around the city. Actually, foot traffic to businesses within the congestion pricing zone has gone up quite significantly. So it's good for business as well. And that just seems it feels like something that took quite a bit of political courage, actually, to stick to it. There was a lot of very noisy opposition. But in my experience, I lived in London when the congestion charge was introduced there.

26:51Amy Myers Jaffe:And it was one of these things that was a bit controversial when it first came in. But as soon as it was in effect, everyone came on board with it. No one would dream now of getting rid of it. Everyone, I think, great majority of people would agree that's been a positive thing for London. And everyone defends it. and I could see that very much the same thing would happen in New York as well. And I do think that has been the case that now it's here. I think it's here to stay. And I think it's very interesting. It's an example, one of these policies that I think is very much backed by sort of economists and policy wonks.

27:25Amy Myers Jaffe:And everyone says, obviously, the right thing to do is to have congestion pricing. And sometimes those kind of policies don't actually work. And the theory is great, but the implementation isn't. The practice turns out to be messy and people turn against them. But actually, as I say, if you look at London, congestive pricing has really worked there. It's a great example of a situation where it works in theory and actually really does work in practice as well. And I think that's happening in New York as well. So that is my reason for choosing Kathy Hochul.

27:57Ed Crooks:Let me add to that, Ed, you know, sitting in New York, because she did a lot of interesting things this year. She negotiated with the Trump administration to make sure that New York's project for offshore wind didn't get canceled. Right. She then continued New York's lawsuit with 13 states against the Trump administration and got a ruling from a federal judge that the Interior Department's decisions and other executive orders about wind were capricious. And so therefore, offshore wind could legally now be back on track. She did something very controversial in New York. She stood up against, you know, right and left and said that New York was going to revisit nuclear energy.

28:46Ed Crooks:She then actually worked with her administration and they approved permits for the Northeast Supply Enhancement Natural Gas Pipeline, bringing more Pennsylvania gas to New York City. underneath Raritan Bay in New Jersey and New York Harbor. I want to tell the listeners, because the listeners are not all from New York and don't listen to Kathy Hochul on a day-to-day basis. Here's her quote. We need to govern in reality. As governor, a top priority is to make sure the lights and heat stay on for all New Yorkers as we face potential energy shortages downstate as soon as next summer, she said.

29:28Amy Myers Jaffe:Actually, so having said I don't support her, you know, or not expressing an opinion about everything she's done overall, hearing you list those things in terms of the pipeline, wind development, nuclear, all those things, I'm listening to you and thinking, yeah, that was good. Yeah, that was good. Yeah, yeah. So actually, perhaps my support for her is broader than I was initially letting on. So I want to highlight one thing for a go-away with it. I totally get why it's your choice, why she's your choice, and lots of highlights in there. From an air pollution and health perspective, that study, I think, were you referencing the one from Cornell that just came out a week ago?

30:05Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

30:06Amy Myers Jaffe:Yeah. So, Shana and Amy, if you haven't already read it, and to our listeners, what it showed, it took a bunch of air pollution measurements over, I think it was 500 and something days. So before and after this, you know, congestion pricing stuff came into effect. And they said essentially that its overall impacts have been a drop in, let's go with particulate matter. So PM 2.5, that's the stuff that leads to like asthma attacks, respiratory illness, COPD. There's a long list of bad things it does to our body because it's super tiny. It goes into our bodies, goes into our bloodstream, you know, bad stuff happens.

30:40And it dropped by something like 22%. And so when you think about it, if I was living in those areas and I had a child with asthma, I might be in my life seeing a drop in critical acute asthma attacks there. or I might soon see that. I am at a lower risk of a whole host of diseases that none of us ever want to get. And so that's a really big public health impact and a measurable impact. I am going to be following it. I'm really curious, you know, where these numbers go in the future, but those real public health impacts of that, they're now being documented and the numbers are very clear that it's been positive from a public health perspective.

31:17Absolutely. It's incredible. Over what time period was that measured? Out of curiosity, just for that. So the congestion charging, Ed, it came in in January?

31:23Amy Myers Jaffe:Yeah, it came in in January, yeah. So yeah, it's like pretty meaningful updates in like short time. And they measured it. So the measures, because they need a baseline, right? So before and after. So I think it was something like, you know, a year before. And then, and I'll put up the study. Maybe we can put it in the show notes because the study just came out a week ago and I was reading all the highlights of it. And so they pulled all of those air pollution data measurements and just compared, okay, before and after. And, you know, controlling, okay, was there anything else major going on? Well, this was pretty much the major thing.

31:51And for PM 2.5, transportation for New York City and that section of Manhattan, I mean, that's the driving force of it. Yes, you can get particular matter for construction. You can get it from other sources, but that's the major one. And so that's what they put up. But we'll drop it in the show notes. But that's incredible. An action led to 22 % drop in a single year. Whoa. Amazing. So air pollution person, that is amazing, those numbers.

32:17Amy Myers Jaffe:That's true. It's true. It really has been a great thing. so let's go on to the next one technology technology of the year who wants to go first on that one and see melissa you shaking your head so i don't know shana do you want to come in first on the technology again or because i think amy i think i know what you're going to say and i think you and i are paired on this so we are paired on opposite sides of the argument so correct yeah um shana do you want to do yours first sure yeah again sorry for being the single theme guy here today, but it's kind of two I'd pick just because it's Nano Banana 3, which is one of Google's new AI tools, and then Cloud Code.

33:00So for those that don't know, I mean, I'm like the resident finance guy, right? Finance and accounting background. I have zero coding experience. I don't know any of the technical details of how AI models work and everything like that. But for the first time this year and since at least the 18 months was the first like wow moments I've had where I was like fundamentally blown away about how good these models work. So for those that don't know, Nana Bananas, Google's image generator tool. And so like what folks are doing is like, you could upload like a hundred page technical paper. So for example, that came as Princeton study, I brought up on bring your own capacity slash demand response.

33:33You put it in there in a few minutes, it gives you a five minute plus video that is explained in layman's terms, a 15 page slide deck that articulates the most important parts and then an infographic that summarizes it in a single image. And to give you like a perspective on that too, like I had a friend that was interviewing for something. He ran three deep research studies on the startup, fed it into that tool. And then it came up with something that I would say is like a first year private equity associate level work deliverable. And it was in a span of like, you know, five, 10 minutes. So that just like blew my mind away.

34:02I think most importantly, I'm really excited about education. I think like it was like one of those like wild moments where you're like, or people can learn things in a really accelerated fashion and they can kind of meet you where you're at in terms of understanding. So that was like part one. Part two is literally this weekend was this like cloud code, vibe coding thing. I've always heard the term. I had no idea what it meant. But basically you can speak in natural language to your computer and it will literally code stuff. And I started doing it this weekend and it truly was another wow moment where I built three web interactive dashboards on data sets that I've maintained where I can interact with them, do everything.

34:36Again, I don't know zero code. I don't even know what it wrote, but I just spoke to it in normal plain English language and it spun these things up in a matter of five to 10 minutes. And I could see now why people are so excited when they talk about like, oh, coding is solved and things like that, where like, it was just like, it literally felt like magic where you're just like, okay, like here's, I put in like Ember's monthly electricity data set, for example, all of a sudden I can manipulate it and see all these data sets over like three decades worth, click into things, manipulate it, drag and drop, like everything.

35:03Again, I don't zero coding background. I built that in like five minutes. So two wild moments in the sense of like the leaps that these models are making.

35:11Ed Crooks:Well, I have to be a little bit of a naysayer here, though it does sound really pretty productive. And that's because I tried teaching a seminar this past summer where we only used LLMs as our textbook. And I tried to, I brought in guests and the class did different exercises that if you worked for someone like yourself, Shana, when I was a first-year associate or whatever, I might get asked to do. And one of the things we discovered in doing this class, which had 12 students, is that if we gave the students a prompt and an exercise, it didn't matter what the task was. You know, do a permitting report or application for a particular location, size a DER for Walmart.

36:00Ed Crooks:We did different things. Universally, even when, I mean, we had one time we were so frustrated that the thing wouldn't give all the students the right answer that we actually took the entire worksheet and told all the students to load the worksheet and the NREL data and all this stuff. You can't believe how hard it is to actually train your personal version of your use of an LLM to do something if you're not someone who already knows how to do it. Right? So when I put the props into my computer, I would get the right answer. But to get the other 12 students to put a prompt in and have the machine give it the right answer was really a chore.

36:47Ed Crooks:And so it does raise this question about, you know, it's useful to people already know what they want to do, but how good is it for, you know, junior staff and for teaching, right? The whole course became, how do we all get these programs to give us the right answer, as opposed to, this is how you use the thing to do different tasks.

37:13Amy Myers Jaffe:I don't know. I mean, I think those caveats are important. It still seems to me like there is something very, very significant changing here. And as Shano says, the world is going to be very, very different as a result of this kind of progress. I think that's... It's the worst I'll ever be, right? That's a reminder. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

37:31Ed Crooks:Well, that's true. That's true.

37:32Amy Myers Jaffe:So let's come on to our two technologies of the year, Amy, because did you want to go first or do you want me to go first?

37:40Ed Crooks:Well, you can go first because, you know, I like to, the listeners and I like to disagree with you.

37:45Amy Myers Jaffe:I'm going to be talking about what I believe to be the only real nuclear reactor with any kind of future in the United States, certainly and quite possibly in other parts of the world as well, which is the Westinghouse AP1000. there's a lot of talk about kind of yeah melissa we're looking forward to drag you into this about you know people will talk about small modular modular reactors and there's kind of a lot of hype over oh you know they'll be quick and cheap to build and they'll solve all the problems with existing uh nuclear technology and so on a lot of glamour a lot of hype most of which i think is unjustified, much less actual achievement, much less evidence of things actually being built.

38:27Amy Myers Jaffe:The AP1000 is a reactor that exists, has been built, is in service right now, and there are more of them are going to be built as well, in particular because of this commitment we have had from the Trump administration talking about$80 billion plus of support in this new venture to build new AP1000 reactors across the United States, that is something that is actually going to happen, unlike, as I think, certainly the vast majority of proposed SMRs, which are basically vaporware, don't exist and never will exist. There may be a few that may progress. There are, to be fair, some that are actually under construction right now and will be entering service, individual little pilot projects here and there.

39:11Amy Myers Jaffe:But in terms of actually making a material difference to nuclear generation in the U.S. in the next 10 years, let's say, to me, it's AP1000 or nothing. Okay, I appreciate all the footnotes and caveats. Amy, I've got so much, but please, please.

39:31Ed Crooks:I'm just going to scratch the surface and defer to Melissa, who really knows the field. But, you know, and I feel like if we're doing technology of the year, SMR should be the technology of the year. And that is because everybody's talking about SMRs. People who've never considered nuclear are talking about SMRs. Everybody, everybody, everybody's talking about SMRs. People still don't know what the AP1000 is. Maybe they listened to the show, they learned a little bit. So, you know, and why? I mean, it's, you know, I get what you're saying about a lot of these projects, but, and this is my but, let's not forget that the Chinese built the pebble bed helium coolant, their HTRPM SMR.

40:21Ed Crooks:I mean, it's different, but it's not 100 % dissimilar to X-Energy's, you know, helium gas-cold pebble bed design.

40:32Amy Myers Jaffe:If I may just interject, they built a lot more AP1000s, right? Or the Chinese version of that. I think it's the CAP1000. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

40:39Ed Crooks:Yeah, but I mean, you know, is an ICE truck the car of the year or would BYD's new EV that charges in five minutes, would that be the car of the year? I think one has to think about when you're talking about technology of the year, we still have to think about what do you think the future is? So are you actually arguing that this AP1000 is the one, it's the workhorse and it's just the technology of the future? Because I'm not sure I can go with you on that. No, and you got to go with the caveats he gave. So it was like in the next 10 years, and I am assuming you mean on a gross capacity, not necessarily functional benefits to the system, which is why I said I appreciate the caveats because, look, we got it.

41:27I should let you answer it. Sorry. One sec, though, on a couple of things, which is just kind of quote my Australian colleagues like horses for courses. Like these are different things to grip them all is like nuclear. It's like, OK, cool. Fuel resources. Are we talking about fission? Great. OK, get into the fusion conversation on a different show. But around it, there are different places where they make sense. And, okay, so you've got a front runner now in terms of what you could build out. If you started today and started building, fine. But these other technologies have so much potential and the potential to do things, it's that AP1000 is not set up to do.

42:03And that's not a disparaging remark about AP1000. It's just saying it's just two different tools in your toolbox. It's just two different tools. You would deploy them in different places for different applications.

42:12Ed Crooks:Melissa, correct me if I'm wrong. there are companies looking at real micronuclears. So not, I don't have to go through the whole regulatory puzzle. It's going to be so small. I'm just going to do some kind of a design. You know, some people are talking about how BWY, you know, has been building small nukes for submarines for a long time. Could that technology come to market as a solution? So I think there's a lot of different technologies out there that fit different purposes. I was just going to say, so I'm going to get just really practical for two seconds around how I think through the technology.

42:53So let's say I have an existing nuclear site with a big old reactor. Am I going to build another big old reactor on that site? Do I have enough space to do that? Do I have enough water to do that? Do I have enough all the different components you need? Or does it make sense to put some smaller stuff on that site and incrementally increase because those incremental increases can make huge differences in my market. So I would say without the caveats, people will see my facial expressions.

43:17Amy Myers Jaffe:They were like, oh, oh, oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the caveats came, and I was like, okay. So it's just, it's different horses for courses. Am I a quarter horse I need to do a sprint, or am I thoroughbred that I need just long-haul, mile-plus, you know, we're talking about triple crown kind of races? Both are valuable.

43:34Ed Crooks:There's another dark horse player out there that doesn't get a lot of media, but called Exodus, where they actually go to a site and then repurpose those spent fuel rods to generate steam as a waste solution. We might have a topic where there's two V2 here because I think I'm going to ride to Ed's defense. Okay, okay. Part of this might be a little bit, it depends, I guess, if you've looked at the SMR activity in the markets this year in terms of the amount of forward credit certain companies are getting. I think there is a rational conversation to be had around the promise of this technology and kind of alluding to Ed's prior point on things that make really good sense on spreadsheets and talk tracks and then the actual building of it.

44:19And I think there's a lot of wood to be chopped, as it's said, to get these first plants online. And then we've got to see where the costs land out, right? Like first-of-a-kind costs are like in the$15 ,000 to$20 ,000 per kilowatt install cost. And then you need someone to kind of continue funding it, assuming that you get the supply chain done and assuming the construction gets done all right without teething issues and then continue going forward. I love the promise of technology. I think there's a lot going on, but I do think there's a lot of forward credit being given around where I think I would like to see a plant be built before we're writing it off as a proven technology that we can scale into.

44:53Ed Crooks:Well, and your point is well taken about the fuel supply for these SMRs because we haven't really 100 % solved that problem. We even started the problem in some cases, right? Ed, you touched a nerve. Amy, you touched a nerve. It's so good, which is why we need to do probably another nuclear episode and go into it again because we need to revisit where these things are. I'll say a couple different things. Like in terms of applications and timeframes and the investments we need to technology neutral approach, having a lot of different technologies under development because they offer different benefits and have different risks, really important.

45:28And so for me, it is not AP1000 versus SMRs, microreactors, something else. It's about the portfolio you develop to have a suite of things ready to go when the time comes. Um, I was going to just talk about battery chemistries and I was just going to talk about, um, replacements for lithium ion, or at least complementing lithium ion batteries with other things. I was going to talk about iron sodium batteries and some of the like milestones that have been met the, you know, recent tests. So y 'all follow in light.

45:59Amy Myers Jaffe:No, I don't know them. No. Who are they? There is a research facility in the UK, uh, in light energy. They raised a bunch of seed funding a couple of years ago and they just did a test. I believe it was with Southern Company, you know, proving, okay, is this technology ready to go out into the system? So that's just one I'll flag for folks. I'm constantly looking at battery chemistries and trade-offs and the supply chain comments we made earlier, and this is one that raised to the top. In interest of time, I will quickly pivot to my second one, which is looking at how we use AI for permitting.

46:29So how we think about that. And Idaho National Lab's announcement that this has nothing to do with what I do in my day job. I just thought it was cool. using AI. So as a partnership with Microsoft Azure platform to actually streamline how we do permitting, to do a bunch of safety, data crunching, all that. How do we use these tools? So yes, in the hands, to your point earlier, Amy, of folks who know their stuff and are at that more, that part of their career where they know, you know, how to use these tools to accelerate our work streams in terms of accelerating permitting and getting to answers.

47:00Like I thought that was a really cool like energy AI intersection piece of work.

47:04Ed Crooks:So I will tell you that the class we had generously, the big solar and EV charging station developer, M &A, came to teach the students the class on researching permitting. And I would say that was one of the more successful uses of an LLM. You know, once a professional explained to us, you know, how would you go about this? it was much more consistent in how you would go about coming up with the right answer to a question. And I thought that really had a lot of, that had legs. You know, it's one of the different things we try to do with LLMs. That one really had legs.

47:45Amy Myers Jaffe:That is very interesting. So I'll just flag the announcement. It's from July from Idaho National Laboratory, just talking about its collaboration to use this for accelerating permitting. So with that, that's my quick flags. Yeah, that is really interesting. and linking bank nicely to my highlight of the year. So I know we're running out of time. I just quickly wanted to get some world cards. Maybe we call them free electrons on this show out of people. Other sort of random free choice of things. Maybe I'll start with this one because it again goes to this debate about AI. I just wanted to flag up Fermi, The company developing this huge data center and power generation project out in West Texas, estimated cost of up to$90 billion, 11 gigawatts of power they're planning to put in there and to support a lot of data centers for AI.

48:39Amy Myers Jaffe:That company IPO'd back in October. I think at the start of October, the shares were above$32. as I speak to you now they're about$8.60 or so so they have gone down about 74 % in less than three months and I guess this is just an example of although I'm really very much in agreement with you Shano about the power of these tools the way they are changing the world that does not mean that every investment in this sector is going to be successful. And clearly, I think when we think about perhaps what we might be looking ahead to next year in 2026, I think a theme is going to be a bit of kind of sorting out of which ideas are really kind of robust and well-founded and successful in the long term and which are not.

49:30Amy Myers Jaffe:And as I say, Fermi, I mean, so far, who knows, early days yet. They can still got time to turn it around, but that does seem to be one that's facing some pretty serious challenges. I picked one. Full disclosure, the book I'm about to share was written by my sister-in-law. That is not why I'm recommending it, okay? That's just why I got an early release copy, but I still ordered the hardback. So it's called The Borderless Healthcare Revolution. And y 'all know I sometimes bring in books that are like tangential to energy. And I find really interesting, this one's tangential to energy and tangential to AI and tangential to health, all of which y 'all know speak to me on many levels.

50:05And it talks about the tools we have and the practical limitations of those tools. So back, Amy, to your comments in class, it's like, what can we do with remote surgery? And we're like, no, no, no, no. What can you do with telemedicine? And what doesn't make any sense? What can you do with medical records and using AI tools to help with diagnoses and all that? And what doesn't make sense? And it's got lots of practical real world examples, which, because I'm not an MD, that was really nice. I didn't know she was doing it when she was writing. I didn't ask. I just brought her tea and sparkling water when she was writing.

50:37But when I read it, I was like, oh, a non-MD, I can actually understand what it's about. And I just think it's really interesting. The last point I'll make is it made me think many times when I was reading it about electrification goals with the United Nations and energy access goals, and how we think about crossing borders to transfer technology, how we think about the economic development that is currently unrealized because we haven't tapped into these possibilities. And then in a practical sense, how do the advances in the past couple of years help us to move that needle faster? Because the needle's not moving super fast in a lot of ways.

51:14So that's my, it's related to energy, but it's not. It's about health care. And yeah, that's my recommendation. Yeah, that is a great point.

51:21Amy Myers Jaffe:That's a great point to raise this holiday season as well when we are thinking about people around the world. Exactly. Well, and also gifting as well. Go on, Amy, what was your free electron?

51:30Ed Crooks:So my free electron, Ed, is because I'm just, you know, I don't know. I'm just like in this Ed and Amy contentious mood. You know, I wanted to point out that we're talking about 2025. I think 2025 was the year when AVs started getting momentum in terms of people using them. having them be a regular feature on the street in San Francisco, seeing them in Austin, seeing them in Boston. And then toward the end of the year, people started talking about commercial robots. So not just a robot that we're going to use an industrial facility or a manufacturing plant, but could this optimist or some of these other robots do my dishes or whatever it is that we want robots to do?

52:22Ed Crooks:And so I was just thinking about, as we grip this whole electrification question, and everybody is talking about the inflationary effect of their electricity bills, and we're all focused on the boogeyman of the data center, what would life be like if we're all taking robotic AVs that are electrified, because most of the ones that are coming into the market are electric vehicles? And then on top of that, what if we all start having robots at home? Since many people listening to the show are disagreeing with my characterization of LLMs because that has turned out to be a good companion for them, it's making vacation recommendations, they're using it as a counselor when they're in a fight with their boyfriend or girlfriend.

53:13Ed Crooks:It's just a hop, skip and a jump to stick that thing into an entity that can walk around my house with me and do the dishes while I'm talking to it about my personal problem. So just throwing it out there that maybe, you know, that's to me my free electron of how much electricity use is going to come as robots go mainstream.

53:34Amy Myers Jaffe:Yeah, I'm not actually going to disagree with you on that one. I do totally agree that that is something that's really interesting. as you say, the rise of AVs. I saw AVs in operation for the first time in my life this year in San Francisco. It's a world thing to see. And it does make you realize that there's something really happening here. Shano, your free electron. Cool. Yeah. My free electron is quick. It's not energy related, not AI related, finally. But it's a book. I think year end, it's a good time for people to like reorient around what matters, focus on the next year. And there's a book that I read, Five Types of Wilds by Hill Bloom, all about kind of how people orient around like, you know, external goals like work and things like that.

54:10But you kind of forget things like, you know, you spend the bulk of time of your parents before you're age 21, that, you know, physical health is like as equal or of higher priority than work and all these things. And it was a nice book to kind of just philosophically re-examine, you know, are you spending the time doing the things that you want to do and what makes you healthy is happiest and, you know, with more time with the people that you care about the most. So I think it's a good time to check in on things like that as, you know, everyone loves working hard and following all the latest headlines and stuff, but reminder to take care of yourself and your loved ones.

54:37Amy Myers Jaffe:Indeed. No, definitely. Yeah, very cool. I should check that out. Yeah, that does sound great. So I think, do we just have time before we go to do our holiday gifts? I think we have presents for each other, some small things. It's ready to ship. Yeah. It's ready. So shall I do mine? I'm going to say what I was getting for you, Melissa. I know, obviously, you made this very clear. We were talking about this, and you said in advance, it has to be a book. you know the only thing you want is books it has to be so a book which I don't know if you have read this already I hope you haven't but I discovered this from the Financial Times Business Books of the Year list which is always a great place to find recommendations have you seen this book it's called Consumed How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic by Sabir Chowdhury I have heard of this I haven't read it though I haven't ordered it well I bought it a few days ago and read it it's quite a quick read it's not that long a book it's just really great I hear it's slightly controversial too am I wrong?

55:34exactly No, no, no, very controversial.

55:36Amy Myers Jaffe:I don't think I agreed with all of it, but it's just really good sort of industrial history. Very, very nicely written, very kind of interesting, gripping read. My conclusion when I got to the end of it was basically we are kind of stuck with plastics and plastics use is just going to grow. So obviously plastic is very closely tied to energy because so much natural gas and oil goes into making plastic. I think the author would kind of like us to stop using plastic and get off them. But she's very honest about how hard that is and how plastics now are kind of integral to our modern way of life.

56:11Amy Myers Jaffe:Really interesting book. I think you should definitely check it out. I think you'll enjoy it. And Amy, I think the following shows how much we know each other. I got me a book. Amy, I'm trying to say it with a straight face. I got you an LLM that doesn't hallucinate. Oh! Good gift. Good gift.

56:27Ed Crooks:Like the best gift ever. So there you go. It's coming in this massive box. No, it's great. But had to do it, Amy, had to do it. I'm curious what you got for Shanu, though. So, you know, Shanu, for those listeners that do not follow Shanu on Twitter, you are missing out. Very true. He's great. He is a master of observation. But in addition to that, he just has visualizations that I just am always so envious of how wonderful his visualizations are. And I feel like he must go to a lot of conferences and he must listen to all kinds of presentations. And he's probably taking voracious notes all the time.

57:16Ed Crooks:And that's probably really tedious and hard. And so I have got you, Shanu, a pair of meta... Oh, those meta, the smart glasses?

57:25Amy Myers Jaffe:The meta glasses? Smart glasses. Okay, okay. So I'm gonna...

57:29Ed Crooks:So that you can wear them to conferences and just stick on the audio or take a picture or snapshot. Oh, it's game over for everybody now. Shanu and I know that we secretly hold our phones up and take a picture of a good visualization so we can then go back to our staff and say, hey, how could we do a good thing like this?

57:47Amy Myers Jaffe:so so i'm gonna have to get into this melissa i know you have to go you've got to run so we'll let you go yeah so i'm gonna say happy holidays y 'all yeah fantastic yeah great to see you great talking to you happy holidays have a good one see you in 2026 see you in 26 y 'all bye yeah incredible gift that's i think it's tough to follow up amy but uh well hold on hold on hold on just before we get to this sorry i have i would like to say my piece about these glasses I think they are deeply sinister. I think I'm not a wild about everyone being able to record everything on their phones, and so you're, you know, being able, which you can do.

58:25Amy Myers Jaffe:Am I not right in thinking you can record people with these glasses, and they will not necessarily know that you are recording them? I think they blink if they're recording. I think. I think a telegraph. Oh, okay. So you have to notice. Ed, those kind of look like metaglasses, if I'm not mistaken right now. This is mostly my problem, which is I'm now worried. Because of these glasses that I wear, Everyone will think I'm recording them. Yeah, so this is a problem for me too. So I don't know. And I can see that they are actually obviously very useful. And as you say, Amy, all kinds of great, genuinely very useful things you can do with them.

58:59Amy Myers Jaffe:Don't like the fact they've got a camera in them though. That worries me. It'll be interesting to see how the uptake of them, because I think they're going to run into that issue, like you said. But then if everyone eventually has them, then they'll become more normal. It's just a new world. Yeah, no, indeed, indeed. All right, Ed, you are one of the most well-read people I know, so I hope you haven't read this one yet. But it actually kind of ties into this whole China debate we're having. But the book is Breakneck, China's Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang, who is a very popular writer.

59:29He's talked a lot about the Chinese approach to building out infrastructure versus the U.S. I thought it was a really good book that built on a lot of themes that we're talking about today. And it really gets into that realm of the U.S. has kind of been markets driven and China has been really planned as an engineering oriented culture. And so hope you haven't read it. But you are the most popular person I know. So I need to hear your take after.

59:50Amy Myers Jaffe:Very, very kind of you to say, yeah, no, I haven't read it and would love to. Yeah, no, it's a great idea. And I will definitely take a look. It actually a book I have read this year, which I'd very highly recommend, is a book called House of Huawei. Oh, OK. That's really interesting. So it's basically looking at sort of Chinese history and the history of Chinese industry and the Chinese economy since the revolution. And but that's just fascinating on it. It's a good dramatic story as well. I think we do have to leave it there, though. Been great talking to you all. Many thanks, Amy.

1:00:25Ed Crooks:Thank you. Thank you to Melissa and Shanu and Ed. Always a great year on the energy gang. So looking forward to 2026.

1:00:32Amy Myers Jaffe:Absolutely. Many thanks, Shanu. Thank you, Ed. Happy holidays to you and Amy and Melissa. It's always a pleasure joining you all. Absolutely. Many thanks to Melissa. Sorry she had to run early, but it's been great talking to all of you. And I look forward to talking to you all again in the new year. Thanks to our producers, Toby Biggins, Gilchrist, Stuart Duffy and Dan Cottrell. And above all, many thanks to all of you for listening. We really value your feedback. Please do keep that coming. hope you all have a great holiday and we'll be back in 2026 with all the latest news and views on the future of energy until then goodbye