Taking the “Training Wheels” Off Clean Energy: Experts Call for Level Playing Field

Renewable power sources have attracted unprecedented investment recently. However, with political uncertainties casting a shadow on the future of green energy subsidies, these technologies must now compete with fossil fuels on a fair basis. This was the consensus among participants at the 2025 MIT Energy Conference.

“What these technologies need less is training wheels, and more of a level playing field,” stated Brian Deese, an MIT Institute Innovation Fellow, during his keynote panel at the conference’s opening.

The two-day conference, organized annually by MIT students, centered on the theme: “Breakthrough to deployment: Driving climate innovation to market.” Speakers expressed overall optimism regarding advancements in green technology but also voiced concerns about the rapidly evolving regulatory and political landscape.

Deese highlighted “the good, the bad, and the ugly” aspects of the current energy landscape. The good news: Clean energy investment in the U.S. reached an all-time high of $272 billion in 2024. The bad: Future investment announcements have decreased. And the ugly: Macroeconomic conditions are hindering utilities and private enterprises from building the necessary clean energy infrastructure to meet growing energy demands.

“We need to build massive amounts of energy capacity in the United States,” Deese emphasized. “And the three things that are the most allergic to building are high uncertainty, high-interest rates, and high tariff rates. So that’s kind of ugly. But the question … is how, and in what ways, that underlying commercial momentum can drive through this period of uncertainty.”

A Shifting Clean Energy Landscape

During a panel discussion on artificial intelligence and the surge in electricity demand, speakers suggested that AI could potentially catalyze green energy breakthroughs while simultaneously straining existing infrastructure. Lucia Tian, head of clean energy and decarbonization technologies at Google, stated, “Google is committed to building digital infrastructure responsibly, and part of that means catalyzing the development of clean energy infrastructure that is not only meeting the AI need but also benefiting the grid as a whole.”

Throughout the conference, speakers emphasized that the cost-per-unit and scalability of clean energy technologies would ultimately determine their success. They also acknowledged the crucial role of public policy and the necessity of government investment to address large-scale issues like grid modernization.

Vanessa Chan, former U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) official and current vice dean of innovation and entrepreneurship at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, cautioned against the “knock-on” effects of cutting National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for indirect research costs, stating, “In reality, what you’re doing is undercutting every single academic institution that does research across the nation.”

During a panel entitled “No clean energy transition without transmission,” Maria Robinson, former director of the DoE’s Grid Deployment Office, noted that ratepayers alone are unlikely to be able to finance the grid upgrades required to meet increasing power demand. “The amount of investment we’re going to need over the next couple of years is going to be significant,” she said. “That’s where the federal government is going to have to play a role.”

David Cohen-Tanugi, a clean energy venture builder at MIT, highlighted that extreme weather events have reshaped the climate change conversation in recent years. “There was a narrative 10 years ago that said … if we start talking about resilience and adaptation to climate change, we’re kind of throwing in the towel or giving up,” he said. “I’ve noticed a very big shift in the investor narrative, the startup narrative, and more generally, the public consciousness. There’s a realization that the effects of climate change are already upon us.”

“Everything on the Table”

The conference featured panels and keynote addresses focusing on various emerging clean energy technologies, including hydrogen power, geothermal energy, and nuclear fusion, as well as a session on carbon capture.

Alex Creely, a chief engineer at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, explained that fusion (the combining of small atoms into larger atoms, which is the same process that fuels stars) is safer and potentially more economical than traditional nuclear power. Fusion facilities, he said, can be powered down instantaneously, and companies like his are developing new, less-expensive magnet technology to contain the extreme heat produced by fusion reactors.

By the early 2030s, Creely said, his company hopes to be operating 400-megawatt power plants that use only 50 kilograms of fuel per year. “If you can get fusion working, it turns energy into a manufacturing product, not a natural resource,” he said.

Quinn Woodard Jr., senior director of power generation and surface facilities at geothermal energy supplier Fervo Energy, said his company is making geothermal energy more economical through standardization, innovation, and economies of scale. Traditionally, he said, drilling is the largest cost in producing geothermal power. Fervo has “completely flipped the cost structure” with advances in drilling, Woodard said, and now the company is focused on bringing down its power plant costs.

“We have to continuously be focused on cost, and achieving that is paramount for the success of the geothermal industry,” he said.

A recurring theme throughout the conference was that multiple approaches are making rapid progress, but experts remain uncertain about when—or even if—each specific technology will reach a tipping point capable of transforming energy markets.

“I don’t want to get caught in a place where we often descend in this climate solution situation, where it’s either-or,” said Peter Ellis, global director of nature climate solutions at The Nature Conservancy. “We’re talking about the greatest challenge civilization has ever faced. We need everything on the table.”

The Road Ahead

Several speakers emphasized the need for collaboration among academia, industry, and government in pursuit of climate and energy goals. Amy Luers, senior global director of sustainability for Microsoft, likened the challenge to the Apollo spaceflight program, urging academic institutions to focus more on scaling and spurring investments in green energy.

“The challenge is that academic institutions are not currently set up to be able to learn the how, in driving both bottom-up and top-down shifts over time,” Luers explained. “If the world is going to succeed on our road to net zero, the mindset of academia needs to shift. And fortunately, it’s starting to.”

During a panel called “From lab to grid: Scaling first-of-a-kind energy technologies,” Hannan Happi, CEO of renewable energy company Exowatt, stressed that electricity is ultimately a commodity. “Electrons are all the same,” he said. “The only thing [customers] care about with regards to electrons is that they are available when they need them, and that they’re very cheap.”

Melissa Zhang, principal at Azimuth Capital Management, pointed out that energy infrastructure development cycles typically span at least five to 10 years—longer than a U.S. political cycle. She cautioned that green energy technologies are unlikely to receive substantial support at the federal level in the near future. “If you’re in something that’s a little too dependent on subsidies … there is reason to be concerned over this administration,” she said.

World Energy CEO Gene Gebolys, who moderated the lab-to-grid panel, highlighted numerous companies founded at MIT. “They all have one thing in common,” he said. “They all went from somebody’s idea, to a lab, to proof-of-concept, to scale. It’s not like any of this stuff ever ends. It’s an ongoing process.”