In this episode of the Tag Sustainability Talk Podcast, host Drew Bacchus is joined by Amol Naik and Rick Wrenn for a compelling discussion on the often-polarized intersection of energy and politics.
Amol Naik, former Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Atlanta, shares his journey from law and public policy at Google to successfully pushing for the city’s 100% clean energy plan. As the founder of Resurgent Strategies, he discusses his efforts to depoliticize sustainability by focusing on shared human condition and economic realities.
The conversation explores:
Bridging the Divide: How to overcome the deep urban-rural separation and foster authentic community engagement when deploying major infrastructure, such as data centers or EV charging stations, ensuring these improvements don't lead to gentrification.
The Economics of Renewables: Why affordability is the key to widespread adoption, noting that solar energy is now cheaper than coal, and why capital discipline and an "all-of-the-above" approach (including nuclear and leveraging oil/gas expertise for things like geothermal) are necessary.
Policy and Capital: The crucial role of government support for nascent technology, and the danger that political uncertainty poses to infrastructure investment, which is often funded by entities like teachers' pension funds.
National Security: Why clean energy is fundamentally a national security issue, reducing reliance on petro states.
Finally, Amol shares tips for having bipartisan conversations and introduces his Substack, "Power, Politics and Pavement," where he aims to moderate discussions on these topics without shouting.
