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Welcome to Zero. I am Akshatrati.

This week, entering the mid-transition.

Thank you. We're constantly told that clean energy is now cheaper.

And yet, the transition away from fossil fuels is proceeding at a glacial pace.

Why is that?

One answer might be that we are living through what some experts call the mid-transition.

Everywhere you look, you see the coexistence of two types of technologies.

One that runs on fossil fuels, the other that runs on electricity from clean sources. Now both these systems have advantages and disadvantages,

and there is an ongoing struggle between the two,

a tug of war between two very different futures.

But having these two systems run in parallel comes with costs, which makes this mid-transition more expensive and more politically fraught.

This is all true before you add the uncertainties that come from geopolitical events such as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

My guest today is Emily Grubert, a civil engineer and an environmental sociologist,

currently at the University of Notre Dame in the US.

...