Eat More Electrons
Eat More Electrons is a newsletter and blog dedicated to the idea that a better, fairer, safer world rests on delivering reliable cheap energy to all people, no matter where they live. Modern lifestyles, well-paying jobs, and pretty much everything about our world all depend on energy. In America where I live, we take energy for granted. If the power goes out for 5 minutes? Total panic and everything grinds to halt. But too often the West seems to think less is better – and otherwise get it wrong when we try to help meet the energy needs of the rest of the world. So here you’ll get my takes on global energy poverty, economic development, and climate policy, with a heavy focus on Africa and what the US government could (and should) do so much better.
Why do I care so much about energy?
As a kid, I always liked big infrastructure. As an American diplomat, I was struck that, no matter what we asked of our allies in Africa, the return request was almost always for more investment in energy. So when I returned to the Center for Global Development (CGD), I started a research program on energy poverty. One weekend, after perusing electricity consumption data, I went shopping for a new family fridge. I had never really noticed before the yellow Energy Star tag on all appliances, but that day was different. The 459 kilowatt-hours eaten by my new fridge each year was more than most people were using across Africa. I wrote a blog about it, it went viral (thanks to Bill Gates and Ezra Klein), and in 2018 I launched the nonprofit Energy for Growth Hub to close the crazy gap of global energy inequality and ensure that policies to fight climate change also benefit people in lower-income countries.
At heart, the Hub (and this Substack) is about reframing the solution to energy poverty not as just getting lights to the poor or convincing people to consume less, but of enabling energy abundance for everyone. The future is not about a diet of energy austerity. It’s about eating more electrons.
About me
My career has been working on economic development in the seams between government policy, academic research, and nonprofit advocacy. My day job is running the Energy for Growth Hub, plus affiliations at the Baker Institute at Rice University, the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines, CGD, the Institute for Economic Affairs in Ghana, and the Institute for Progress. I spent 15 formative years at CGD, with a State Department stint serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs. I’ve also worked at the World Bank and EIU, taught at LSE and Georgetown, a local NGO in Zimbabwe, and drove an ambulance in Boston. The thread of my career has been trying to build more constructive, respectful alliances between the United States and our African allies. We get this wrong so often. But the potential is so enormous, I can’t stop trying.
