2025 Concordia Annual Summit

Driving Industrial Competitiveness & Energy Abundance Through Competition

  • Energy, Environment, & Transition
Vijay Swarup, Brittany Kelm, Prof. Karthik Ramanna, Nicole Goodkind

Session Summary

Important
Quotations

"Policy has to have a line of sight to a market, because you cannot have policy forever. And technology has to have a line of sight to scale, because what people forget about this industry is just the scale, the enormity of this system."
Vijay Swarup
"I think it's important to have a known regulatory policy framework, clear and simple. Everyone in the private sector should know what we're working with, whether that means more regulation or less, it just needs to be predictable."
Brittany Kelm
"The United States has an advantage in manufacturing efficiency. We need to find a way to capitalize on that, to trade on that unpriced advantage. It's crazy that we're not building on it."
Prof. Karthik Ramanna
"In a world where demand for both affordable energy and credible climate solutions is rising, the path forward requires innovation, smart policy, and cooperation across sectors. We’re here to explore how businesses and countries with competitive advantages can lead the way, not only to meet this demand, but also to create a new global standard for energy efficiency and carbon accountability."
Nicole Goodkind

Key
Takeaways

  • Strategic Market-Based Solutions: The US has an unpriced advantage in manufacturing efficiency that should be monetized through global trading mechanisms. American companies lead in carbon capture technology, representing a trillion-dollar industry opportunity. Carbon border assessments offer policy opportunities, with US leadership potentially accelerating European adoption.

 

  • Regulatory Framework Priorities: Regulatory certainty is the most important tool for unlocking competition in energy markets. Policy must have “line of sight to a market” rather than relying on indefinite subsidies. Permitting challenges represent the biggest hurdle to timely project deployment.

 

  • Technology and Collaboration Insights: The energy sector requires multidisciplinary collaboration combining sciences, engineering, and economics. Successful partnerships follow a clear division, universities handle fundamentals, national labs manage first deployment, and corporations achieve scale. AI as a collaboration model shows promise, though concerns exist about potential market bubbles.

Action
Items

  • For Policymakers: Develop a comprehensive carbon border assessment framework that rewards energy-efficient manufacturers. Streamline permitting processes by creating unified federal-state coordination mechanisms. Establish clear regulatory frameworks with market formation pathways. Negotiate global harmonization of energy policies with European partners.

 

  • For Industry Leaders: Capitalize on carbon capture technologies by scaling direct air capture capabilities. Leverage existing workforce expertise from traditional energy sectors for emerging technologies like geothermal. Focus on scalable solutions that address enormous scale requirements. Advance breakthrough capabilities in materials, processes, and computing technologies including quantum computing.

 

  • For Academic and Research Institutions: Train critical thinking skills rather than tool-specific knowledge. Develop next-generation technologies by focusing on fundamental research.

 

  • For International Cooperation: Establish consistent international standards to prevent inefficiencies in global energy policies. Expand bilateral energy partnerships following successful models like US-Italy AI energy cooperation. Strengthen energy independence initiatives by leveraging domestic natural gas and LNG capabilities.

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