S15 EP137: Hour 2 - We Lack the Power to Power the Future

Erick makes the case that the United States simply does not have the electrical capacity to repatriate manufacturing or feed the AI boom, walking through Scott Lincicum's Cato piece on the 1886 Hall-Heroult aluminum cell and why a single smelter needs a permanent, enormous block of base-load power that nuclear, coal, and natural gas provide and solar and wind cannot. He then turns to Ross Douthat's interview with Yale Law professor Samuel Moyn, who floats overweighting young voters and handing children's proxy votes to random 20-somethings instead of their own parents, and builds it into a sweeping monologue on college-educated white progressives, the 1619 Project, and universities as "progressive madrasas." Plus the Max Miller "permission structure" play and a caller on the coming generational wealth transfer.

• The power crisis: Scott Lincicum (Cato Institute), the 1886 Hall-Heroult smelting cell, why aluminum smelters can never power down, and Erick's call for nuclear, coal, and natural gas base load plus small modular reactors.
• How Trump's aluminum tariffs backfired by raising the cost of homes, cars, and electronics, and the case for ally-shoring to Javier Milei's Argentina and to Vietnam instead of China.
• The natural gas pipeline in Erick's own backyard, Sierra Club opposition, and degrowth activists using blue-state regulators to sabotage pipelines and power plants.
• Ross Douthat interviews Yale Law's Samuel Moyn on stripping parents of proxy votes for their children, answered with the Phil Gramm "what are my kids' names" story.
• The college monologue: Nikole Hannah-Jones and the 1619 Project, self-loathing white progressives, and the four schools a prominent theologian recommends (Samford, Auburn, Texas A&M, Clemson) versus Erick's alma mater, Mercer.