Open Circuit

Depending on where you sit, SpaceX is either the greatest industrial company of our time, or a CapEx bonfire that requires a lot of imagination to justify. But either way, the company’s public debut tells us something important about this investment moment: the next technology cycle is not asset-light. It is ambitiously physical. SpaceX is now much more than rockets and launchpads. With xAI inside the company, SpaceX is pitching itself as an AI company, an emerging hyperscaler, a satellite broadband network, and eventually a vertically integrated chip manufacturer, solar manufacturer, power developer, and operator of orbital data centers. In this episode, we tackle some of the energy storylines behind SpaceX’s public debut. We’ll ask what it means for Elon’s energy master plan, the pathway for powering terawatt-scale compute, and whether it presents an opening for other hard tech energy companies coming out of Elon’s orbit. Credits: Co-hosted by Stephen Lacey, Jigar Shah, and Caroline Golin. Produced and edited by Stephen Lacey, Sean Marquand, and Anne Bailey. This episode was mixed by Matthew Filler. Open Circuit is brought to you by FlexGen, a leader in integrated battery energy storage solutions and energy management software. FlexGen helps owners and operators gain greater visibility and control across complex energy systems to maximize performance. Learn more at www.flexgen.com.

2026 could be the year of the mega-IPO, with OpenAI, SpaceX, and Anthropic all rumored to be eyeing public markets. But for energy nerds and hot-rock lovers, there’s another IPO to watch: Fervo Energy. With Fervo preparing for a long-anticipated IPO, the geothermal sector is heading into a moment of price discovery. It’s a test of whether next-generation geothermal has finally crossed a new commercialization threshold and becoming bankable, repeatable infrastructure. Over the past few years, over a billion dollars has flowed into geothermal startups, including Sage Geosystems, Zanskar, Quaise Energy, Eavor, XGS Energy, and Dandelion Energy. These companies are taking very different approaches — from enhanced geothermal systems and pressure-based designs to AI-driven exploration and ultra-deep drilling — but they’re all chasing the same prize: firm, clean power at scale. Meanwhile, geothermal developers are signing contracts and partnerships with large tech companies looking to power future data centers. And the industry’s ties to oil and gas drilling have given it political durability under the Trump administration. With this rare moment of alignment, can geothermal unlock a much larger pool of infrastructure capital? Later in the show, we ask a different but related infrastructure question: what happens to the fossil fuel system as demand declines? We discuss new research looking at how unmanaged decline could lead to price shocks, reliability risks, and political backlash if replacement infrastructure isn’t ready in time. Join Latitude Media on April 13-14, in San Francisco for Transition-AI 2026, a two-day, in-person conference on the digital and energy infrastructure buildout needed to support AI load growth. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code PODS10. ⁠Register today here⁠! Explore the new era of AI innovation in the fifth season of Where the Internet Lives, an award-winning podcast from Google and Latitude Studios. Follow and listen to Where the Internet Lives on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It’s been nearly a year since a national energy emergency was declared, with big promises on prices and reliability. So we’re asking a simple question: how’s that going? In this live episode of Open Circuit, recorded at the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, we take stock of a power system under growing strain. Outages are up, prices are up, markets are stressed, and grid reliability experts are warning of a “five-alarm fire.” We’ll start with a look at how accelerating load growth, tighter reserve margins, delayed interconnection, and extreme weather are colliding — and what breaks first if current planning assumptions don’t change. Then, we’re joined on stage by Wilson Rickerson, president and co-founder of Converge Strategies, to explore grid resilience through a national security lens. As the military increasingly depends on the civilian grid, what happens when that system is under sustained stress? Wilson explains why thinking about the grid in a wartime context leads to familiar priorities: flexibility, transmission expansion, regional markets, and better coordination. And we talk about a report from Converge on lessons from the grid at war. Join Latitude Media, April 13-14, in San Francisco for Transition-AI 2026, our flagship event on the AI-energy infrastructure buildout. The two-day conference will bring together developers, utilities, regulators, and hyperscalers to align on what’s real, what’s possible, and what can get built to meet AI infrastructure demand. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code PODS10. ⁠Register today here⁠!

This is an episode with a lot of firsts: the first show of the year, the first full show on video, and the first with our new co-host, Caroline Golin. In 2026, we’re launching a new chapter for Open Circuit as we sharpen our focus on the physical constraints shaping the energy transition — exploding power demand, grids that can’t keep up, tech companies reshaping electricity markets in real time, and investors trying to figure it all out. This is no longer a conversation about whether clean energy can scale. It’s about whether the systems around it can move fast enough to support the next wave of industrial demand. To kick things off, we dig into some of the forces redefining the power sector: the fight over capacity, the rise of co-located and merchant power, the limits of data center flexibility, and what Alphabet’s acquisition of Intersect Power tells us about the race to buy power. We also officially introduce Caroline Golin as our new regular co-host. Caroline brings a unique perspective to Open Circuit: she spent the last seven years inside Google, where she served as global head of energy market development and innovation. Caroline helped shape how Google procures electricity, engages utilities, and navigates capacity constraints across global markets. That experience puts her at the center of many of today’s most urgent questions around energy. Welcome to the new Open Circuit, where we decode how clean energy actually gets built. If you want to watch the episode, subscribe to the show on YouTube! With resilience now a leading driver of grid investments, Latitude Media and The Ad Hoc Group are hosting the Power Resilience Forum in Houston, Texas on January 21-23, 2026. Utilities, regulators, innovators, and investors will all be in the room — talking about how to keep the grid running in this new era of heatwaves, wildfires, and storms. Register today here!