More 2025 trends: DeepSeek, plug-in hybrids, and curtailment

Didn’t catch last week’s episode on Nat Bullard’s mega slide deck on energy transition? Start there. 

This is the second half of our extended conversation with Nat, the former chief content officer at BloombergNEF and current co-founder at data insights company Halcyon. 

In this episode, Shayle and Nat dig into topics like:

• Rising solar installations and stagnating wind
• Why we’re wasting so much renewable power amid skyrocketing load growth
• The rise of Chinese plug-in hybrids and exports
• Whether DeepSeek’s efficiency will temper or turbocharge load growth
• The woeful state of transmission buildout, despite demand for it
• Why one quarter of Virginia’s power demand comes from data centers

Recommended resources

• Latitude Media: Does DeepSeek call the data center boom into question?
• Latitude Media: To get data centers online, one Virginia co-op is proposing a new business model
• Latitude Media: A dizzying year at the AI energy nexus
• Catalyst: Demystifying the Chinese EV market
• Reuters: Exclusive: Global solar capacity hits 2 TW on path to climate goal, data shows

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.

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