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ClearPath Action Rundown 
July 25th, 2025

Happy Friday and congratulations to…

ClearPath Advisory Board member Jud Virden, Ph.D., on his appointment as Director of NREL and president of the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, which manages the DOE laboratory.

ClearPath alum, Taylor Childress, who joined the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council as chief of staff. 

Scott Hutchins, whose nomination to be Undersecretary of Agriculture for Research, Education and Economics, advanced out of the Senate Committee on Agriculture.

Aaron Szabo for his confirmation to lead the Environmental Protection Agency's Air Office.

John Jovanovic for receiving bipartisan Senate Banking Committee approval for his nomination to serve as Chairman of the Export-Import Bank.

1. NEW op-ed: Three Steps to Achieving American Energy Dominance

American energy dominance depends on unleashing innovation, reforming permitting and empowering U.S. companies to compete globally.

Doing this will ensure the:

• Growth of next-generation technologies like small modular reactors, enhanced geothermal and fusion energy; and
• Quicker build-out of needed clean additions to the grid.

What’s clear: Strategic policies that encourage innovation will help America adopt new technologies more quickly, improving our energy security and ability to compete globally. Creating durable, bipartisan energy policy that benefits everyone will help the U.S. achieve energy dominance.

Plug in: ClearPath’s Luke Bolar writes more about this in his latest op-ed, Three Steps to Achieving American Energy Dominance, featured in The National Interest.

2. ClearPath on the Hill: The latest in agriculture innovation

(L-R) Dr. Jake Byrnes, Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Barnwell Bio; Dr. Mitch Tuinstra, Professor of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Purdue University;  Dr. Rachel Melnick, Acting Associate Director for Programs at USDA NIFA; and Hillary O'Brien, Managing Director of Clean Power, Natural Resources & Research at ClearPath.

China has become the world's largest agricultural research and development funder, while U.S. investment in agriculture has declined by one-third over the past 20 years. 

ClearPath and the National Coalition for Food and Agricultural Research partnered to host a Capitol Hill briefing on scaling American agriculture innovation. Panelists from government, academia and industry provided Hill staff with insights and solutions on topics ranging from AI and regenerative tech to the role of research funding through programs like AgArda and ARPA-E.

The U.S. agricultural sector includes: 

• 1.9 million farms;
• $1.5 trillion in annual economic contributions; and 
• $174.9 billion in exports around the world.

What’s clear: Public and private stakeholders must prioritize scalable, on-farm solutions to meet global emissions reduction goals. Research and development, commercialization, and federal coordination are essential to compete with China and drive agricultural innovation.

3. The new realities of grid planning

U.S. electricity demand is skyrocketing as new manufacturing, electrification and data centers drive growth. U.S. power demand is expected to increase 78% by 2050, which marks a major change for grid planners used to relatively stable energy demands.

Dominion Energy, serving Virginia, the data center capital of the world, is at the center of this trend. Since 2020, Dominion’s Integrated Resource Plans (IRP) have forecasted a four time increase in annual demand growth, showing how quickly the sector has changed.  

What’s clear: Technologies such as nuclear energy, which can provide clean, firm power, will be critical to maintaining affordability and reliability while meeting demand.

Plug in: Read the full blog by Jake Kincer and Bryson Roberson on the solutions to ensure a more reliable, secure and affordable energy future.

4. CO2 battery tech brings clean energy to WI

Alliant Energy received final regulatory approval for its first long-duration energy storage system using Energy Dome's CO2 battery technology, marking its first commercial deployment in the U.S. 

This project:

• Is eligible for the 48E tax credit, a tech-neutral incentive for clean energy innovation extended in the One Big Beautiful Bill; 
• Will deliver enough electricity to power approximately 18,000 Wisconsin homes for 10 hours on a single charge; and
• Is expected to be placed in service by 2027.

The tech:

• Takes energy from the grid and converts CO2 gas into a compressed liquid form for long-term storage; and
• Converts the liquid CO2 back to a gas when power is needed, which powers a turbine to create electricity.

What’s clear: The use of the 48E tax credit [delete: is crucial for decarbonizing the U.S. power sector by providing a streamlined, long-term and tech-neutral incentive that] encourages private investment and innovation in energy technology needed to win the global AI race. Innovations like long-duration storage are key to providing clean, affordable power around the clock.

5. ​​Digging deeper: Quaise hits key drilling milestone

Quaise Energy, a TX-based grid-scale superhot geothermal energy developer, has successfully demonstrated its pioneering Millimeter Wave drilling technology, drilling to a depth of 100 meters. 

This milestone is a key step on the company’s pathway to commercial deployment. Quaise’s technology can unlock deeper, higher-temperature geothermal resources than currently available drilling techniques, increasing geothermal’s potential across the U.S.

What’s clear: Early-stage R&D is key to achieving energy innovation. Quaise is a past recipient of an Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) award that provided funding to pioneer the gyrotron for advanced geothermal drilling applications.

6. The Circuit

7. What we're hearing

Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA) during an this week’s E&C Energy Subcommittee hearing:“Building up our pipeline capacity is critical to delivering affordable energy to our constituents across the country and our allies. We’ve heard from the witnesses that pipelines are the safest way to deliver energy. As we are working on modernizing the role of Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration, it is critical we ensure it works to enhance our pipeline infrastructure.”

8. ICYMI

• The White House released "America's AI Action Plan," an executive order for near-term policy execution by the federal government in order to win the AI race.
• The White House Council of Economic Advisers' released its July 2025 "The Economic Benefits of Unleashing American Energy," which emphasizes the economic and strategic advantages of a streamlined regulatory and permitting framework for the U.S. energy sector.
• Venture Global signed deals with Italian energy company Eni and German energy company SEFE Energy to supply a combined total of 2.75 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas over the next 20 years. 
• Lawmakers turn to permitting reform post One Big Beautiful Bill.
• The Nuclear Energy Agency released its third edition of its small modular reactor dashboard report, which seeks to capture the global nuclear company landscape.
• Oak Ridge National Lab plans to partner with startup Atomic Canyon in an attempt to use AI to help streamline nuclear reactor licensing.
• JPMorgan, Microsoft, and startup Chestnut Carbon announced a landmark partnership to deploy nature-based carbon removal projects in states like Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana, under a 25-year offtake agreement. 
• The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved interconnection queue fast-track proposals from MISO and SPP that are designed to accelerate the addition of resources that directly address grid reliability needs.

ClearPath believes America must lead the world in innovation over regulation…markets over mandates…providing affordable, reliable, clean energy. 

That's all from us. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

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