Season three of Electric Futures, the USC energy transition podcast, takes listeners back to California’s Imperial Valley, a region explored throughout season one in connection with the county’s potential for lithium extraction. A lot has changed since then.

Plans for lithium extraction are stalled due to lawsuits and a new set of developers has come to town: hyperscalers. Host Charles Zukoski, the Robert E. Vivian Professor in Energy Resources and Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Biomedical Engineering, has been tracking the news since last summer, when word began to circulate that one of the largest data centers in the country might tap into the region’s rich geothermal resources.

Demand for data centers—the physical embodiment of AI —is growing so rapidly that their global electricity consumption will more than double by 2030. But pushback from communities is also growing. Concerned residents worry about rising electricity bills, environmental degradation, and AI itself. Does the benefit of data center development in places like Imperial Valley outweigh the costs?

It has been a year since the fires, and some of the impacts are only now starting to come into play. Despite efforts from the government and community groups to provide speedy disaster recovery, the road towards recovery appears to be long.

In our final episode, our USC professors catch us up with their lives a year after the disaster. They share with us what recovery has looked like for them and how they are finding ways to approach the rebuilding process as an opportunity.

You can follow us on Instagram at ⁠⁠@usc_electricfutures⁠⁠: https://www.instagram.com/usc_electricfutures

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Electric Futures is an original podcast from the University of Southern California. This special season is hosted and executive-produced by Allison Agsten, director of USC Annenberg’s Center for Climate Journalism and Communication.

USC Annenberg professor Mallory Carra is our supervising producer. Rhysea Agrawal and Spencer Cline are our associate producers. This episode was written and directed by Rhysea Agrawal and story edited by Mallory Carra. It was edited and sound designed by Spencer Cline. Additional interviews were conducted by Grace Galante and Yana Savitsky.

Victor Figueroa, Sebastian Grubaugh, Tom Norris, and S.R. Meredith provided technical supervision.

Our cover art is by Rhysea Agrawal with photography by Malcolm Caminero. All music and sound effects used with express permission under an unlimited blanket license authority from Epidemic Sound.

Climate-amplified extreme weather events are rising in frequency and intensity all over the world; yet the emotional impacts of these events, the loss and grief they bring, and the long-lasting impacts they cause for affected people are still understudied and underreported.

In the second episode of this special season, our five USC professors share their emotional journey months after their losses in the 2025 LA wildfires.

You can follow us on Instagram at ⁠⁠@usc_electricfutures⁠⁠: https://www.instagram.com/usc_electricfutures

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Electric Futures is an original podcast from the University of Southern California. This special season is hosted and executive-produced by Allison Agsten, director of USC Annenberg’s Center for Climate Journalism and Communication.

USC Annenberg professor Mallory Carra is our supervising producer. Rhysea Agrawal and Spencer Cline are our associate producers. This episode was written and directed by Rhysea Agrawal and story edited by Mallory Carra. It was edited and sound designed by Spencer Cline. Additional interviews were conducted by Grace Galante and Yana Savitsky.

Victor Figueroa, Sebastian Grubaugh, Tom Norris, and S.R. Meredith provided technical supervision.

Our cover art is by Rhysea Agrawal with photography by Malcolm Caminero. All music and sound effects used with express permission under an unlimited blanket license authority from Epidemic Sound.