Atomic Show #326 – Jigar Shah, former director of DOE Loan Programs Office

Jigar Shah has had a lengthy career as an energy industry entrepreneur and strategic thinker. He founded Sun Edison and helped to create a new model for deploying solar power systems. He was part of the Carbon War Room and then founded Generate Capital to provide loans to proven technologies that had not yet achieved commercial scale. He was a member of the Energy Gang during its formative years as a podcast with a formidable listener base.

Following his success in the commercial sector, Jigar was appointed to be the Director of the Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office (LPO). He started at LPO in March of 2021, soon after the start of the Biden Administration, and served until January of 2025. During those years, the loan granting capacity of the LPO grew from $40 B to $400 B, primarily as a result of provisions included in the Inflation Reduction Act.

During our conversation, we focused on the efforts that the LPO made to improve the nuclear industry’s capability to develop and complete large, complex projects involving both public and private financing. We discussed how America seemed to have lost its ability to build big things and what could be done to regain that ability.

We talked about the DOE liftoff reports and other efforts to guide the nuclear industry towards a more sustainable and successful development model. We discussed the various sizes of reactors being developed and the ways that a variety of sizes can open new markets and also provide vital practice in building successful nuclear projects.

You’ll want to listen to the whole show if you are curious about Jigar’s next endeavors. An early reveal is that he has returned to podcasting at Open Circuit, joining Katherine Hamilton and Stephen Lacey, his former colleagues on The Energy Gang.