Our phones have been blowing up the last 36 hours with countless versions of the same question: Were the midterms good for Lowercarbon?
Politically speaking, Texas turning 17 out of 17 statewide races blue on the same night that Kansas chose a governor with a (D) next to her name and Mississippi elected a Democratic senator was simultaneously a flood, a tsunami, and a rainstorm, all compounded by multi-decade sea-level rise. But asking if it was good for “climate tech” misses the point.
People forget that we founded Lowercarbon during the first Trump administration. Because, back then, while pundits were running their mouths about tofu hot dogs and paper straws, we knew Texas’s green little secret: it was already home to more solar, wind, and battery jobs than oil and gas. PV panel deployment has only accelerated since, and, as plenty of defense funds will gladly point out to you this week as they fumble for a cleantech angle, batteries have gotten so cheap they put them in one-way drones.
A decade later, Lowercarbon backs 150 companies that create abundant power, shore up domestic manufacturing, bring jobs home, and ensure everyone’s safety and prosperity amid increasing chaos. They operate in Red, Blue, and Purple districts, employing thousands of people across more than 25 US states. More of them have contracts with the DOD (can we call it that again?) than with the DOE. Every drone strike on an oil pipeline and double embargo on a strait makes domestically produced energy, machines, and chemicals more popular across the political spectrum.
Are our companies climate solutions? No doubt. But are they also solutions to national security, economic opportunity, and energy affordability? Absolutely. Go ahead and strip the word “climate” from the description of every company on our website. Hell, call them whatever you want. Ultimately, it still reads like a laundry list of businesses providing solutions the world desperately needs. That was as true Monday as it is today.
The gap between culture war denialism and head-in-the-sand obstructionist activism remains America’s opening. Our portfolio is full of pragmatists who know how to make progress no matter which way the political winds blow. For every policy step backward over the years, private markets always found a way to take two forward by offering solutions that win because they’re better, faster, cheaper, more reliable, and have shorter supply chains. That relentless march forward happens because money, jobs, and resilience matter more than hot air.
So, instead of wondering if Tuesday night was good for climate tech, everyone would do well to remember that electrons remain unaffiliated with any party. No congressional resolution can alter the laws of thermodynamics. Executive orders can’t reverse a drought. Even a Supreme Court injunction is powerless against a wildfire. The people who will be rewarded politically going forward are the ones who recognize that none of this should have been political in the first place.
This week, voters rejected their high electricity bills and the staggering cost of diesel. They told their leaders that they were fed up with money and lives being wasted on wars in the name of oil. They chose candidates who prioritized cleaning up their air and protecting their water. They showed they were frustrated with jobs being shipped overseas and the industrial base being ripped from America’s heartland.
Plenty of the winning candidates seem to get all this. Now it’s time to deliver. If they can use their newfound power to help grow America’s baseload electricity, bring down energy costs for households, improve resilience of our critical infrastructure, create dependable jobs here at home, and cut our reliance on foreign energy and the forever wars that come with it, then we all win. Literally all of us.
So, yeah, it was a good week for Lowercarbon.