The Essential Podcast, Episode 23 : The Coast is Burning - Wildfires and the Electrical Grid in the American West

About this Episode

S&P Global Market Intelligence senior climate and energy reporter Esther Whieldon, co-host of the ESG Insider podcast, joins the Essential Podcast to talk about the fires out West, the electrical grid, and the challenges of climate change.

The Essential Podcast from S&P Global is dedicated to sharing essential intelligence with those working in and affected by financial markets. Host Nathan Hunt focuses on those issues of immediate importance to global financial markets – macroeconomic trends, the credit cycle, climate risk, energy transition, and global trade – in interviews with subject matter experts from around the world.

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Show Notes

• Widespread power outages rolled across the western United States in early September as another unprecedented heatwave scorched California, hurricane-strength winds scoured the Mountain West and catastrophic wildfires raged up and down the West Coast. Read Esther Whieldon's latest article on how the U.S. West is confronting a new era of climate-driven disasters and grid instability.

• As the warming climate continues to wreak havoc on conventional power systems that rely heavily on long-distance transmission lines and large-scale power plants in remote places, the reliability of the 21st century electric grid may rely upon a distributed network of smaller, localized assets — just as the internet depends on a web of decentralized resources to keep running when a big data center goes down. Learn how distributed energy can offer a brighter future for the U.S. West.

• Esther is the co-host of ESG Insider, an S&P Global Market Intelligence podcast that takes you inside the environmental, social, and governance issues shaping the business world today. Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.