For those with eyes to see

Hi there,

Today’s piece will be a shorter one, so I’m jumping right in after a word from one of our wonderful partners below.

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OPINION

It’d be difficult to frame the overwhelming “vibe” of 2025, especially if you’re tapped into climate, energy, and sustainability conversations, as a pleasant experience on the whole. It’d probably be difficult to frame the overwhelming “vibe” of 2025 in general, especially if you’re tapped into mainstream media—or perhaps, even worse, social media—as positive. Perhaps some of you are having a different experience than that, in which case I a) celebrate that and b) will use it as a reminder to myself and all of us not to project our individual experience ad infinitum on anyone else, let alone everyone else.

Regardless, it occurs to me that there are likely plenty of you who, like me, continue to feel a bit, well, er… dispirited by many of the goings on, be they related to climate and energy or not (regardless, they’re all related to comprehensive sustainability, after all). Still, even as it grows more difficult, I find and relish my opportunities to marvel at all the veritably cool shit that’s either already out there or happening and being built around the world as we speak with respect to climate change mitigation and energy transition efforts.

In fact, for those with eyes to see, the greenshoots are everywhere. I was reminded of this fact as I recently drove between the Mojave Desert in California and the deserts of the Navajo Nation in Arizona, where I visited Monument Valley.

What are some things I saw along that drive?

Beyond the more basic things I could mention, like seeing lots of wind turbines near Palm Desert and certainly many more solar panels in general than I would have five years ago, there’s a level up in terms of degree of specificity I can offer here that’s ideally more stimulating. For example, I got to drive by the Kayenta Solar Plant, which is near Monument Valley in the Navajo Nation. This is a 52-MW solar facility which was the first tribally owned, large-scale / utility-scale solar farm in the entire U.S., marrying economic, emissions-reduction, and equity conversations in one otherwise unassuming array of solar photovoltaics (save, also, for the rather stunning backdrop).

I also saw another one of Nucor’s mills in Kingman, Arizona, after visiting one of Nucor’s mills in Sedalia, Missouri, last year. Perhaps even less assuming from the outside, Nucor and its various mills and manufacturing operations across the U.S. are notable because:

• Nucor is the largest domestic steel manufacturer

• Nucor does not operate a single blast furnace; it only uses electric arc furnaces

• As I wrote about last year, Nucor produces steel with a ~50-67% lower emissions footprint than the global average or its peers in China and India, which is an emissions reduction that’s roughly equivalent to swapping your gas car for an EV

Again, the story there isn’t just about emissions reductions on net. The story there is one that runs counter to typical refrains, such as that steel is a hard-to-abate industry. Would transitioning all global steel production to Nucor’s much lower emission model be “hard?” Sure, in some senses of the word, i.e., from a capital investment and political will perspective. But not from a technical sophistication perspective or human know-how perspective. We know how to do it. Nucor has been doing it for a long time.

For those with eyes to see

That’s the other thing worth spending two extra beats on here. People who spend all their time salivating over venture capital in Silicon Valley and the companies that it funds probably don’t spend as much time considering the fact that there are very smart, conscientious, and cool people working in states like Arizona and Missouri on equally (if not more) cool stuff. I’m here to tell you that there are. Not just because I have a deep, abiding faith in the goodness, intellectual curiosity, and intellectual capacity of the average human, but based on empirical evidence. Based on having met these people in my privileged position as a chronicler of cool climate and energy tech solutions in general.

Take, for example, when I visited Nucor’s steel mill in Sedalia, Missouri, last year. As visually stunning as being inside a steel mill is (see below), and as excited as someone like me can get about lower-emission steel production, what I was most struck by was how smart, enthusiastic, and downright cool the people working there were, too. I promise you they know more about advanced manufacturing than most venture capitalists (including myself), policymakers, and even new to the game advanced manufacturing startup founders. And certainly than the average curmudgeon posting comments on the internet.

Why? Well, because they’re the ones already experienced doing the thing, in the advanced manufacturing facilities that already exist in the U.S. Nor are we just talking about swinging hammers, welding, or stocking pallets. We’re talking about things like actively monitoring levels of CO and CO2 and SO2 and NOX all day long, among many other things. And if that means nothing to you, like it didn’t to me, then you can join me in being a lot slower to judge the extent to which good, cool, sophisticated things are or aren’t happening in places across the world into which we have no direct, daily insight.

If you haven’t yet divined where I’m going with some of all of this, Trump won 74% of the vote in Pettis County, Missouri, where Sedalia is located, to Harris’ 24%. I’m quite a liberal guy myself, and without revealing much of my politics, I can tell you that, based on sheer statistics alone, I likely disagree vehemently with many of the people I met out there on many issues. But that does not in the slightest prevent me from thinking highly of them, saying laudatory things about them here, and frankly, envying the work and the extent to which it has a direct, daily influence on advancing a cleaner energy future. I would practically leap out of my seat if offered the opportunity to go back, tour the mill again, and drink a beer with the people working there over a plate of Missouri BBQ.

With that in mind, and in light of other current events, the importance of all of that is not something I feel I need to spell out much further. Beyond helping you see the cool things happening everywhere, if I can impart another, even more important, way of seeing on any of you, it lives somewhere between the lines of all of the above.

Be well,

— Nick