Deep Dialogues and Expert Series

Over the next 25 years, New England’s electric grid capacity must grow to deliver about twice as much energy per year while nearly eliminating CO2 emissions. On June 23, 2025, experts from ISO New England, the regional electricity grid operator, presented a look at the mix of technologies that are likely to power the grid in 2050. Kerry Schlichting, Richard Kornitsky, & Ellie Ross discussed how ISO-NE models the grid to achieve state emissions goals, the roles of Offshore Wind, Small Modular Reactors, and 100-hour storage, and the impact of achieving decarbonization by 2040 instead of 2050. A lively Q&A followed the presentation.

The presentation is here.

The video is here …

Jennifer Delony, Offshore Wind Communications Director for the Environmental League of Massachusetts, presented the current state and outlook for offshore wind in Massachusetts.  Jennifer walked us through the challenges Massachusetts and other New England states face in light of policies enacted by the new administration.  We heard about potential delays in achieving our interim targets for offshore wind and the possibility of employing other sources of clean electricity to “fill in the gaps”.

Slides from the presentation are here.

Austin Dawson (above), the Deputy Director of Energy Supply and Rates in the Policy Division of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER), was this month’s Deep Dialog presenter. In his role, Austin manages DOER’s involvement in offshore wind and other clean energy procurements and oversees a team engaged in topics related to energy supply, data, resiliency, and ratemaking. He leads the development and implementation of DOER’s policies on rates and ratemaking and manages the Massachusetts Interagency Rates Working Group.

Energy affordability, and in particular the cost of electricity, is essential to incentivize electrification and decarbonization. Austin Dawson’s presentation focussed on the current status of electric rates in Massachusetts, including what is in electric rates charged to customers and how rates support generating and delivering power to homes and businesses, in addition to various programs that impact the grid and customers. He will also share how the Massachusetts Interagency Rates Working Group (IRWG), a collaborative between DOER, the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, and the Attorney General, addresses near- and long-term electric rate design and ratemaking to align with the Commonwealth’s decarbonization goals by prioritizing the reduction of energy burden while incentivizing electrification.

Here is the link to his presentation slides: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pSCwqo5lu2UDDo0A0NGIAJLJvlYy4JY2/view?usp=drive_link

Our members Paul Reisberg and Seth Evans shared their personal experiences on the delights and challenges of driving an EV on extended road trips. They spoke about their real EV experiences while traveling far afield and suggested solutions needed to help the mainstream adoption of EVs. 

This included making charging:

• Reliable
• Easy to Find
• Accessible
• Licensed/inspected

A very informative Q&A followed the presentations.

You can find Paul Reisberg’s presentation here.

And Seth Evans presentation here.

The recording of the Deep Dialog is below.

Dr. Ann-Christine Duhaime, author of Minding the Climate: How Neuroscience Can Help Solve Our Environmental Crisis (Harvard U Press Oct.22) and a neurosurgeon, with a career pivot to working on climate change, discussed how an understanding of brain evolution and reward functions can shed light on why climate change is such a challenging problem for us to recognize and solve.

Our planet and our species will face some major changes during the next century, with threats we have never before faced.

In particular, Ann-Christine Duhaime, MD, points to the evolution of the human brain during eons of resource scarcity. Understandably, the brain adapted to prioritize short-term survival over more uncertain long-term outcomes. But the resulting behavioral architecture is poorly suited to the present, when scarcity is a lesser concern and slow-moving, novel challenges like environmental issues present the greatest danger. Duhaime details how even our acknowledged best interests are thwarted by the brain’s reward system: if a behavior isn’t perceived as immediately beneficial, we probably won’t do it―never mind that we “know” we should. This is what happens when we lament climate change while indulging the short-term consumer satisfactions that ensure the disaster will continue.

Luckily, we can sway our brains, and those of others, to alter our behaviors. Duhaime described concrete, achievable interventions that have been shown to encourage our neurological circuits to embrace new rewards. Such small, incremental steps that individuals take, whether in their roles as consumers, in the workplace, or in leadership positions, are necessary to mitigate climate change. The more we understand how our tendencies can be overridden by our brain’s capacity to adapt, Duhaime argued, the more likely we are to have a future.

Here’s the video of this Deep Dialogue:

Learn about the new proposal that would create a Polluters Pay Climate Fund to help pay for clean energy and climate action. The Polluters Pay Climate Fund would require big polluters to pay a fee based on their share of historic carbon pollution that’s been admitted into the atmosphere. The money would then be used to deal with the impacts of climate change and the cost of transitioning to a clean energy future (see the national website). Aaron Regunberg of Public Citizen and Dan Zackin of the Better Future Project share reports from Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine regarding legislative work from Polluters Pay Ma .

Slides from the presentation can be found here.

And here’s the video of this Deep Dialogue:

With Eric Hines

As the U.S. offshore wind industry gathers momentum, the choices we make today will affect future outcomes for years to come. With the right frame of mind, we can move the U.S. offshore wind industry along a trajectory that prioritizes ocean health, lasting infrastructure, and high-quality jobs. We are standing in a historic moment, ripe with creative potential, and ready to make the most of our cutting edge of science, policies, and investments. Considering the scale of the global energy transition, this talk will share a long-term vision for practical engineering solutions and New England’s role as a global innovation hub.

Eric Hines, Ph.D., P.E. directs the offshore wind energy graduate program at Tufts University.  Dr. Hines has over 25 years of experience engineering innovative infrastructure. Major offshore wind related projects include: the Wind Technology Testing Center in Charlestown, MA; the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal; the Partnership for Offshore Wind Energy Research (POWER-US); Digital Twinning the Block Island Wind Farm; and Transmission Expansion Planning for U.S. Offshore Wind. He works at the technology/policy interface to develop systems-level design concepts and has received numerous awards for his work in industry-driven research.

The video of the presentation is here. The slides from the presentation are here.