Energy poverty will be addressed with your bold action instead.
Just a couple years ago, I stopped talking about energy poverty with the oil and gas industry.
Today, you’ll find out why I’ve changed my mind. And why I don’t want you to talk about energy poverty—I want you to do something about it.
The plan is: no plan
In 2015, when I started my company, Adamantine Energy, after running the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, I did not have a plan. I had a vague sense that I was no longer fit to work for other humans, and I was bursting with ideas and good intentions. Now, how to make a living and support my family?
Since 2005, when my oldest was 2 years old, I had been the sole breadwinner for my family. My husband, Brian, and I made this choice together, and it was wonderful for our family. The decision allowed us to stay in our wood-heated cabin in the woods, send our boys to a two-room mountain schoolhouse, and let them play hockey—first on iced-over mountain rinks, then at our local Y, a 45-minute commute away. None of this would have been possible without Brian’s making it so.
And I did my part. I commuted far to big-city jobs, filled the college coffers, and paid the hockey dues. At times I traveled a ton, I worked incredibly long hours, and I suffered everything from toddler tears to middle-school tantrums at my absences.
So when I started Adamantine, my work was going to be all about family: Provide first. Be available and present next. Pursue my interests and dreams within those two priorities. Even then, one dream niggled at me: I wanted to work on increasing global energy for development. Ever since I had come to understand the transformative role that energy plays in moving economies out of poverty, the topic had been a growing obsession. (I tell how that insight changed my career trajectory in Accidentally Adamant.)
I set up Adamantine Energy and grew it slowly: One employee. Two employees. Six employees. I flirted with energy-for-development projects. I got an international oil and gas major to pay me for a couple of years to help it develop its strategy (later a victim of internal budget cuts). I pitched, organized, and ran the Reducing Energy Poverty with Natural Gas symposium at Stanford University in 2017.
But there just wasn’t enough work on the topic to pay the bills. So I made a decision: When I got my kids through college and had filled the retirement coffers, I would dedicate the last chapter of my career to energy for development.
Since then, that plan has been coming along nicely! I did an emotional backflip when Todd Moss asked me to be on the founding board of the Energy for Growth Hub. I’ve traveled with the Hub to Ghana, Nigeria, and Morocco over the years. The Hub has given me exposure to people, research, and projects for my future dream job. I even published a couple of pieces in Scientific American.
And then a cool thing happened, as often does with dreams we are working toward slowly and systematically: Everything accelerated.
Energy Corps: Challenge accepted
A lot of you resonated with my recent reflection The Question at Dawn. It’s hard to know if we are doing enough with our time and talent to leave the world better than we found it. My conclusion in that piece was that I should be more intentional about how I make my contributions.
Intention came to me.
Last year my company was hired to set up Energy Corps, a nonprofit founded by Toby Rice and Scott Tinker. Energy Corps is focused on moving communities around the world from energy poverty to energy prosperity. In this capacity, I get to work very closely with Toby and Aileen Rice, who do not shy away from putting their time, talent, and treasure behind the things they care about most. I adore working with them. They are passionate, engaging forces of nature who—if anything—scare me a little bit: Can I deliver on the promise of their vision and the power of their investment?
(Spoiler alert: Yes, I can.)
In the past year, we have moved quietly and methodically. Energy for development is a crowded space, with thousands of organizations and tens of thousands of subject matter experts who have dedicated lifetimes to advancing progress. There will naturally be a great deal of skepticism aimed at an oil-and-gas-founded nonprofit if it starts stomping around in the space; we wouldn’t be the first to do so clumsily.
We’ve taken conservative steps with humility. One of our first grants last fall was for a research project with EED Advisory to understand the paths that countries have taken to move up the economic ladder. We continue to unpack what we can learn to inform our endeavors. (More on that soon!) We partnered with The Bettering Human Lives Foundation, matching a low-interest loan to learn about the opportunities and limitations of using such a tool in our portfolio. We interviewed global development experts to gather feedback on our vision and inform our initial approach to contributing to catalytic change.
We are listening, testing, and learning. We are being intentional. I get to be intentional.
I’m not moving away from Adamantine to do this, but I can no longer ignore the call of this global problem—and of helping to solve it.
The Myth and The Moment
As we were getting Energy Corps set up, I published my latest book, The Myth and The Moment. Nowhere was The Myth of an Easy Energy Transition more in conflict with on-the-ground reality than in energy for development. For at least a decade, the dominant narrative among well-meaning Western countries and philanthropy has been facile: Countries could leapfrog fossil fuels. Communities would go from no modern energy to a solar-paneled light bulb and then straight to … Well, it got a little vague from there. But generally, the vision was a modern economy built on phone charging, microenterprise, and service industries.
Meanwhile, on the ground, communities and governments were advocating for energy that would allow their economies to modernize. Of course they were! People will choose progress over poverty every time. Climate and the environment come into the equation only after a population reaches the middle class.
Modernizing an economy requires modern energy—at scale. Industrialization requires reliable power. And feedstocks. And thermal heat. Hardening against climate events requires cement and steel. Hotter temperatures require cooling. Food systems require cold chains. Hospitals require uninterrupted electricity. And political stability requires—at minimum—that lights stay on, factories run, and cities function.
Energy for development is a place where The Myth has real consequences. That’s what The Moment is all about. When The Myth of an Easy Energy Transition clashes with on-the-ground reality, the space opens up for conversations that address the Three Ts of Energy Realism: timeframe, trade-offs, and truth. Just as it’s happening in developed economies focused on energy system reliability and affordability, that conversation is happening in energy for development.
And Energy Corps is ready to meet The Moment.
In a world where billions do not have access to basic clean cooking and reliable electricity, there’s a veritable mountain of work to be done. Existing, devoted organizations have important work ahead. And they need more hands on deck.
Who is better positioned than we—the oil and gas industry—are to step into The Moment with our time, talent, and treasure to address the world’s most pressing, motivating opportunity? We have played a central role in the modernizing of rich economies. Now it’s time to give back, to pay it forward, to invest in modernizing the rest of the world.
That’s what Energy Corps is set up to do: act, not talk, to build the modern energy that powers prosperity.
And that’s what you should start doing as well.
The world doesn’t need your talking points on energy poverty. It needs your capabilities and your resources—deployed with discipline and humility.
I’ve spent my career living at collision points: speaking climate fluently while insisting on the physical system; translating between activists, policymakers, financiers, and engineers; and telling the truth about trade-offs while remaining committed to climate ambition.
I’ve watched what happens when the industry shows up as a problem—and what becomes possible when it shows up as a partner.
Energy Corps is stepping into the arena. I’m stepping into the arena, as a passionate contributor to its cause. I’d like you to step into this arena with me, to bring the power and purpose and promise of this industry to the biggest job ahead: helping societies build the energy systems that make human flourishing possible—on their terms. And in their urgent timeframes.
Making the most of The Moment
If you’ve ever wondered where your leadership can matter most—this is one place. Help me turn intention into impact.
- Forward this email to three colleagues who are ready to move from “We care” to “We’re in.”
- Watch the Energy Corps’ explainer video—and share it with one person.
- Hit that heart button to signal your intention to be part of the doing.
With intention—and a to-do list,
Tisha
