Electric Futures

Today is the day before the mid-term elections in the United States, and it’s also the day that USC Annenberg's Center for Climate Journalism and Communication releases findings from its survey of 3000 Americans who told us last month not only about their skepticism of AI and data centers, but how little they  trust  big tech companies to act in the interest of society.

The rest of season 4 will roll out after the election. In a departure from our typical storytelling format, we will unpack the issues through the lens of  the survey data --  which blew our mi...

¿Alguna vez te has preguntado qué sucedería si cruzaras una comunidad agrícola con la forma más avanzada de tecnología humana?

¡Fuimos al Valle Imperial para averiguarlo! En este episodio especial de Electric Futures, describimos cómo la demanda de centros de datos y de la inteligencia artificial está alterando el tejido no solo del Valle Imperial de California, sino también el de comunidades en todo el país.

Puedes seguirnos en Instagram en ⁠⁠⁠@usc_electricfutures⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Recursos adicionales del Centro Annenberg de Periodismo y Comunicación Climática de la USC:

Recorded live in USC’s Wallis Annenberg Hall in April 2026, this special episode focuses on the key issues surrounding data centers, the focus of Season 3. What exactly are data centers? Who benefits from their development? What are the drawbacks? Experts will answer those questions – and yours – alongside host Chip Zukoski, USC’s Robert E. Vivian Professor in Energy Resources and Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Biomedical Engineering. 

Featured panelists include:

Shaolei Ren, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Riverside

Kelly Twomley Sanders, Professor...

In our Season 3 finale, we explore what it is about data centers that has been creating animosity across the country. Is it the pushback against what powers artificial intelligence…or is it something else?

You can follow us on Instagram at⁠ ⁠⁠⁠@usc_electricfutures⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Additional resources from USC’s Annenberg Center for Climate Journalism and Communication:

The Data Center Next Door, Key Considerations for Communities Navigating Data Center Development

How to Create a Climate Podcast

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Electric Futures is an original podcast from the Uni...

In this episode, we explore how communities think about jobs when a data center comes knocking. When a data center comes to town, will it bring high paying jobs to a community? Could this be the main benefit of hosting a data center in your community? 

You can follow us on Instagram at⁠ ⁠⁠⁠@usc_electricfutures⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Additional resources from USC’s Annenberg Center for Climate Journalism and Communication:

The Data Center Next Door, Key Considerations for Communities Navigating Data Center Development

How to Create a Climate Podcast

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When a hyperscale data center comes to a place like Imperial Valley, communities have questions and concerns. Billions of dollars of investment — and profit – are at stake. Community members have questions. But rather than excitement, there’s community pushback. Why? We dive into the resistance in Imperial Valley and beyond.

You can follow us on Instagram at⁠ ⁠⁠⁠@usc_electricfutures⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Additional resources from USC’s Annenberg Center for Climate Journalism and Communication:

The Data Center Next Door, Key Considerations for Communities Navigating Data Center Development

How to Create a Climate Podcast

In this episode, we look how the proposed data center in the Imperial Valley would use water, then explore similarities and differences with data centers around the nation. How much water is really needed for a data center — and why?

You can follow us on Instagram at⁠ ⁠⁠⁠@usc_electricfutures⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Additional resources from USC’s Annenberg Center for Climate Journalism and Communication:

The Data Center Next Door, Key Considerations for Communities Navigating Data Center Development

How to Create a Climate Podcast

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Electr...

We take a deep dive into the AI data center planned for California’s Imperial Valley and talk to the developers themselves about how the project came about. Then, we explore the mathematics of AI and how exactly a data center works.

You can follow us on Instagram at⁠ ⁠⁠⁠@usc_electricfutures⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Additional resources from USC’s Annenberg Center for Climate Journalism and Communication:

The Data Center Next Door, Key Considerations for Communities Navigating Data Center Development

How to Create a Climate Podcast

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Electric Future...

Have you ever wondered what might happen if you crossed an agricultural community with the highest form of human technology?

We went to the Valley to find out! In this season of Electric Futures, we describe how the demand for AI is altering the fabric of not only California’s Imperial Valley but of communities across the country.

In this first episode, we catch you up on what’s happening in the Valley and discover the most amazing coincidence that sharpens our interest and brings this season closer to home…

This is Season 3 of Ele...

Season three of Electric Futures, the USC energy transition podcast, takes listeners back to California’s Imperial Valley, a region explored throughout season one in connection with the county’s potential for lithium extraction. A lot has changed since then. 

Plans for lithium extraction are stalled due to lawsuits and a new set of developers has come to town: hyperscalers. Host Charles Zukoski, the Robert E. Vivian Professor in Energy Resources and Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Biomedical Engineering, has been tracking the news since last summer, when word began to circulate that one of th...

This special three-episode season takes an intimate look at the impact of the 2025 Los Angeles Wildfires on the USC community. We’ll get to know five USC professors who were displaced as a result of the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires over the course of nine months. 

In this first episode, we go back to the first few nights, when the fires raged all across Pacific Palisades and Altadena. 

You can follow us on Instagram at ⁠⁠@usc_electricfutures⁠⁠: https://www.instagram.com/usc_electricfutures

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Electric Futures is an original podcast from the University o...

Climate-amplified extreme weather events are rising in frequency and intensity all over the world; yet the emotional impacts of these events, the loss and grief they bring, and the long-lasting impacts they cause for affected people are still understudied and underreported.

In the second episode of this special season, our five USC professors share their emotional journey months after their losses in the 2025 LA wildfires.

You can follow us on Instagram at ⁠⁠@usc_electricfutures⁠⁠: https://www.instagram.com/usc_electricfutures

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Electric Futures is an original podcast from the University of Southern...

It has been a year since the fires, and some of the impacts are only now starting to come into play. Despite efforts from the government and community groups to provide speedy disaster recovery, the road towards recovery appears to be long.

In our final episode, our USC professors catch us up with their lives a year after the disaster. They share with us what recovery has looked like for them and how they are finding ways to approach the rebuilding process as an opportunity.

You can follow us on Instagram at ⁠⁠@usc_electricfutures⁠⁠: https://www.inst...

We’ll take you to the Shadow Mountain housing development in Menifee, California. It’s an experimental community outside of Los Angeles where 200 all-electric homes produce and store their own energy, and contribute to a community microgrid. Is this the future of new homes in California and beyond? Could this community demonstrate a better solution to fire protection?  With climate change driving more frequent incidence of extreme fire conditions, can these technologies enable safer communities?

What’s life like, electrified? We hit the road to find out.

You can follow us on Instagram at ⁠⁠@usc_electricfut...

We take you through the science of microgrids with UCLA’s Rajit Gadh, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and founding director of Smart Grid Energy Research Center. How does it work exactly? And is it really the technology we’ve been waiting for all along? 

We’ll find out.

You can follow us on Instagram at ⁠⁠@usc_electricfutures⁠⁠: https://www.instagram.com/usc_electricfutures

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Electric Futures is an original podcast from the University of Southern California, hosted by me, Charles Zukoski, the Vivian Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and the...

It’s January 20th, 2025. Donald Trump’s second term as president. He signs a slew of executive orders, including one called “Unleashing American Energy.”

This order rolled back about a dozen climate change initiatives enacted by Joe Biden’s administration in 2021. Clean energy funding and programs set by 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act…were now halted.

Also hanging in the balance is the Department of Energy’s projects. That includes the one we visited in Menifee during a previous episode, and two other programs we’ll explore in this episode.

How do they work? Why...

We talk to two expert journalists about what’s next for the U.S. Department of Energy programs and green energy during the second Trump administration. 

In the first half of the episode, you’ll hear the rest of my conversation with Ivan Penn from the New York Times. Then in the second, I’ll be joined by USC Journalism Professor of Professional Practice Christina Bellantoni to contextualize the politics and policies that could impact the electric future. 

Lastly, we’ll get an update from Kristi and Jerry in Shadow Mountain.

You can follow us...

Brief description: 

Before fires scorched Los Angeles in January of 2025, the Electric Futures team began exploring a new neighborhood in Southern California that was built with climate disasters in mind. This community and other building projects like it generate and store their own energy, bypassing the electric grid – and blackouts. What happens now that federal support for these initiatives is starting to dry up? Can America still electrify? Our host, Chip Zukowski, finds out in Your Community, Electrified, season two of Electric Futures. 

Long description:

The USC Annenberg Center for Climate Journalism and Comm...

The Electric Futures team recently collaborated with the independent media outlet "Feet in Two Worlds" to highlight stories around the nexus of immigration and climate change. Here's an episode from our friends at the "Home Interrupted" podcast.

Este episodio fue hecho especialmente en Español para explicar en resumen la investigacíon hecha por el ex-rector y profesor de ingeniería química y ciencias materiales, Charles Zukoski. En esta temporada hemos explorado el potencial de la industria de litio para la transición energética en el Valle Imperial, California.

¡Queremos escuchar de tí! ⁠Por favor responda esta breve encuesta⁠⁠.

Las transcripciones de los episodios en inglés y español están disponibles aquí.

Si desea leer más sobre los temas tratados en este podcast, consulte nuestro documento de recurs...

Host Chares Zukoski wants to thank you for listening to the show and let you know about an exciting paid survey opportunity. We want to hear from you! (The survey is now over)

Thanks again for listening. We hope you enjoyed Season 1.

We’ll get to know Imperial Valley, an area that is home to nearly 180,000 people located in Southeastern California, 200 miles from USC. This community is located at the heart of the Lithium boom. Some have referred to this as a white gold rush because of the enormous demand for lithium as a major component in the batteries that power electric vehicles and so much else in our everyday lives.

Change is coming to Imperial Valley and its communities. But given this industrialization, can the Valley continue as the massive producer for the agricultural products that feeds the wo...

There’s a big demand for the batteries but it’s a challenge in how to gain access to all the lithium needed for the electric vehicles that are flooding the streets of the world. There's a new way to access the lithium in the brines — but don’t call it mining. In this episode we will explore this chemistry and more…

We want to hear from our listeners! Please take this short survey.

Episode transcripts in English and in Spanish are ⁠available here⁠.

If you’d like to read more about the topics covered i...

We will look at how Lithium extraction is expected to boost  the local economy and the trade-offs associated with the growth of this industry. The community is preparing - with cautious optimism. In the face of diminished flows in the Colorado River, memories are haunted by past hype.

We want to hear from our listeners! ⁠Please take this short survey⁠.

Episode transcripts in English and in Spanish are ⁠available here⁠.

If you’d like to read more about the topics covered in this podcast, please check out our ⁠additional resources document⁠.

You can follow u...

We’ll look at how Lithium extraction in the Imperial Valley may potentially impact the environment and health issues in the area. What health and ecological changes can the community expect? What  bargain does the community accept as they venture into this natural resource extraction industry?

We want to hear from our listeners! ⁠Please take this short survey⁠.

Episode transcripts in English and in Spanish are ⁠available here⁠.

If you’d like to read more about the topics covered in this podcast, please check out our ⁠additional resources document⁠.

You can follow us on Inst...

We explore concepts of land use and value systems that play out in the Imperial Valley as it is increasingly industrialized and how traditions and cultures are at play as members of the community make decisions about their futures.

We want to hear from our listeners! ⁠Please take this short survey⁠.

Episode transcripts in English and in Spanish are available here.

If you’d like to read more about the topics covered in this podcast, please check out our ⁠additional resources document⁠.

You can follow us on Instagram at ⁠@usc_electricfutures⁠.

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In our final episode of the season, we discuss how efforts to slow global climate change are impacting the Imperial Valley, bringing anxiety and opportunity to those who live there.

We want to hear from our listeners! ⁠Please take this short survey⁠.

Episode transcripts in English and in Spanish are ⁠available here⁠.

If you’d like to read more about the topics covered in this podcast, please check out our ⁠additional resources document⁠.

You can follow us on Instagram at ⁠@usc_electricfutures⁠.

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Electric Futures is an original podcast f...

Electric Futures is a new podcast series from the University of Southern California exploring lesser-known stories of the energy transition, from the perspectives of the people most impacted by the changes that transition will bring. Season 1 invites listeners on a journey to California's Imperial Valley with former USC provost and Vivian Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Charles Zukoski.

The Imperial Valley is an agricultural area east of San Diego and bordering Mexico. It's suddenly in the spotlight thanks to its vast deposits of lithium, a chemical element necessary for the production of batteries needed for...