As artificial intelligence drives unprecedented growth in electricity demand, data centers are rapidly becoming some of the largest—and most consequential—loads on the U.S. power grid. Utilities that haven’t seen meaningful load growth in decades now face mounting interconnection backlogs, rising costs, and growing concerns about reliability, emissions, and equity.

In this episode of People, Places, Planet, host Sebastian Duque Rios is joined by Dalia Patino-Echeverri of Duke University and Aroon Vijaykar of Emerald AI to explore whether load flexibility offers a way forward. They examine how data centers and AI stress today’s grid, how modest and carefully designed curtailment could unlock significant new capacity without overbuilding infrastructure, and what emerging technologies and policies—from flexible interconnection to software-driven demand response—could mean for electricity affordability, grid reliability, and the future of AI development in the United States.

• The Driving Forces Behind a New Wave of Electricity Demand (2:12)
• What's Constraining the Grid? (6:18)
• Rethinking Grid Limits through Load Flexibility (17:20)
• Inside a Flexible Data Center (40:13)
• What This Means for Policy, Costs, and Emissions (54:13)

Learn more by reading about Emerald AI's pilot in Phoenix and Duke's report on load growth and flexibility, Rethinking Load Growth: Assessing the Potential for Integration of Large Flexible Loads in US Power Systems.

From the food we eat to the parks, farms, and neighborhoods around us, pesticide policy quietly shapes everyday life in the United States.

In this installment of our Explained series on the nation’s foundational environmental laws, we turn to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, better known as FIFRA. Host Sebastian Duque Rios is joined by Dr. Jennifer Sass of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Keith Matthews of Matthews Law LLC to unpack how pesticides are regulated in the United States, why FIFRA was created, and how it has evolved from a consumer protection statute into a central health and environmental safeguard.

Together, they walk through how EPA evaluates pesticide risks and benefits, what “unreasonable adverse effects” really means in practice, and how FIFRA interacts with food safety law and state authority. The conversation also explores the role of labels and enforcement, the promise and limits of safer alternatives like biopesticides, and the pressures facing pesticide regulation today—from staffing shortages to faster approval timelines. Whether you work in environmental law or are just trying to understand how pesticides are regulated, this episode offers a clear understanding of how FIFRA affects what ends up on our food, in our environment, and in our bodies.

As 2025 comes to a close, People, Places, Planet takes stock of a year of profound change in environmental law—and looks ahead to the legal and policy questions that will shape 2026. Host Sebastian Duque Rios draws on insights from ELI convenings with leading scholars, practitioners, scientists, and policymakers to unpack how courts, agencies, and governments are redefining environmental authority and accountability.

The episode covers key U.S. Supreme Court decisions and previews cases to watch in the upcoming term, explores sweeping changes to NEPA and administrative law, and examines the growing treatment of climate change as a legal rights issue in both U.S. and international courts. It also looks at how these high-level legal debates are playing out on the ground—from data centers and AI infrastructure to clean water, cooperative federalism, and the shifting balance of state and federal power.

• Supreme Court environmental law review and preview (1:47)
• NEPA after Seven County and CEQ rescission (14:57)
• Climate change and rights in the courts (26:17)
• The future of the endangerment finding (32:36)
• On the ground: data centers, cooperative federalism, and WOTUS (36:42)

See ELI's resources for more information:

• Annual Supreme Court Review & Preview (2025)
• The Future of NEPA Review: Unpacking the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition Decision
• Held v. Montana: A 2025 Update
• Unpacking the ICJ's Recent Opinion on Climate Change
• Scientific Support for the Endangerment Finding
• National Environmental Impacts of Data Center Proliferation
• Data Centers and Water Usage
• Celebrating Collaboration: ECOS and the Future of State-Level Environmental Policy