Host Jason Michael Perry moderated a live panel for the World Trade Center Institute's AGILE Global Innovation Series, exploring the constraint quietly shaping Maryland's future: energy capacity.

As Maryland positions itself as a hub for emerging technologies, demand from data centers, electric vehicles, and an increasingly digital economy is rising faster than in-state power generation can keep up. This session explores what the state's future energy mix must look like to support growth, reliability, and competitiveness, examining the role of renewables, the current limits of the Maryland grid, PJM's regional challenges, and the power needs of next-generation infrastructure, including data centers and quantum computing.

Jason is joined by three leaders shaping how Maryland meets that challenge: Lindsay North, Director of Clean Energy Strategy at Exelon; Jason Stanek, Executive Director of Governmental Services at PJM Interconnection; and Adam Ortiz, Deputy Secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment.

They break down where Maryland's power actually comes from, why the state imports a significant share of its electricity from the regional grid, and what's driving the sharp rise in demand. The conversation covers the tension between clean energy goals and grid reliability, the real cost pressures showing up on ratepayers' bills, and what infrastructure, new generation, and new transmission need to get built — and how fast.

The result: a grounded look at one of the most consequential and least understood questions facing the state right now.

Podcast Notes & Links

• WTCI AGILE Global Innovation Series
• Lindsay North, Director of Clean Energy Strategy at Exelon
• Jason Stanek, Executive Director of Governmental Services at PJM Interconnection
• Adam Ortiz, Deputy Secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment

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Credits

Special thanks to the team at the World Trade Center Institute. Thanks to the team at WYPR, producer Sam Bermas-Dawes, and Myrna Martinez, Head of Operations and Marketing at PerryLabs.

Host Jason Michael Perry sits down with psychotherapist Jessica Daniel, founder of Peace in Perspective, to ask what happens when you're grieving something that never had a funeral.

Jess widens grief past death — a career, an identity, the life you were promised. Maryland has lost more than 31,000 federal jobs in about a year, and she describes what that grief looks like when it walks into her office. Then the harder part: why so many people hand their inner lives to something free, awake at 2am, and impossible to disappoint.

If You Need Support

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. 24/7.
• Maryland Department of Health — 988 in Maryland
• 211 Maryland — Maryland's Helpline — dial 211 or text your zip code to 898-211.

Subscribe & Contact

Subscribe to the Thoughts on Tech & Things newsletter: jasonmperry.com/newsletter
Send feedback, questions, or guest suggestions: jasonmperry.com/contact

Credits

Thanks to the team at WYPR, our producers Sam Bermas-Dawes and Shania Mapson, and Myrna Martinez, Head of Operations and Marketing at PerryLabs.