Jon Powers (00:00.115)
Ella, thanks so much for joining me at Experts Only.

Ella Nilsen (00:15.618)
Thanks so much for having me.

Jon Powers (00:17.245)
You have a really fascinating background, both clearly in clim climate, but also journalism. But I wanna step back to growing up in New Hampshire. You know, what were the things that sort of drove you to be interested in in climate and the environment? And then I’m gonna get into journalism. Like what what got you interested in journalism?

Ella Nilsen (00:33.912)
Sure, yeah, a lot there.

Jon Powers (00:36.775)
Yeah.

Ella Nilsen (00:37.09)
So yeah, so I grew up in rural New Hampshire. my parents still live in rural New Hampshire. And, you know, I grew up and you know, still this is continued to this day. I just love New England so much. I love northern New England. I will tell anyone who listens that New Hampshire has incredible mountains. It’s they’re not as tall as you know the mountains out west, but but we also don’t have switchbacks, so they are difficult to to climb. but

Jon Powers (01:04.637)
Ha ha ha.

Ella Nilsen (01:07.024)
Yeah, we just have incredible, incredible land, incredible like opportunities for outdoor recreation. And I grew up hiking and skiing, and you know, I I kind of wrote about this in in my first newsletter, but I, you know, went to DC you know, in in my early 20s, you know, just for for my career. and loved DC, but just it just was never quite, you know, like you always have the pull back home, and especially thinking about all of

Jon Powers (01:33.715)
Yeah, of course.

Ella Nilsen (01:36.916)
the different ways that I could spend my time outdoors in in New England. And so yeah, so growing up in in Northern New Hampshire was great. I got into journalism actually because I went to the University of New Hampshire and initially thought that maybe I would want to be like, I don’t know, get into politics or be a poly sci major. But I had two things happen. I I took an incredible history class my freshman year.

So majored in history and then at the same time just started writing for a college student magazine that was just kind of like the, you know, the on-campus kind of alternative magazine and just loved it so much.

Jon Powers (02:13.649)
Right.

Jon Powers (02:21.062)
Had you been doing that in high school too, or just sort of got into it in college?

Ella Nilsen (02:23.877)
No, no, just got into it in college and you know, just it was just I think the freedom to kind of just like pursue whatever you wanted. and reach out to I think it started with sort of like music journalism in college. but that’s so that was kind of the the bug. and then I just, you know, kind of fell into working for newspapers in New Hampshire, really loved it. you know, it’s just like no no day is the same, everything, every day is different. You’re always

Jon Powers (02:32.369)
Yeah.

Ella Nilsen (02:53.771)
covering different stuff. And then, you know, again, another benefit of being in New Hampshire is the presidential primary rolls through there. And so in 2016 I was working at the Concord Monitor newspaper and I covered both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump’s first, you know, inaugural campaigns at the same time, which was like an incredible education for me as a young reporter, just to watch that.

Jon Powers (03:02.834)
Right. Yeah.

Jon Powers (03:15.302)
Wow. Yeah.

Ella Nilsen (03:23.631)
And I think, you know, it led to a career in political journalism for a number of years before I sort of moved on to climate policy and clean energy, but it really just kind of like informed, you know, my thinking about politics, just getting to watch that unfold in person was fascinating.

Jon Powers (03:44.72)
Is that when he’s first started gonna going on the the camera side of it, or was it always sort of written then?

Ella Nilsen (03:49.6)
It was always written. I mean, I would, you know, in in the primary, like y you would make appearances on various you know, news news shows just to sort of talk to people about what was going on. Been on C SPAN a few times, which I I love. But yeah, I mean it i even at CNN I primarily was a digital reporter, so you know, I wrote stories for our website. I would appear sometimes on on screen and on digital videos, but yeah, I’ve always been I’ve always been a

Jon Powers (04:02.567)
Yeah.

Ella Nilsen (04:19.513)
fan of the written word.

Jon Powers (04:21.299)
How’d you end up at CNN?

Ella Nilsen (04:23.605)
So I was working at Vox beforehand. And, you know, at Vox I did a lot of stuff, you know, ranging from campaign coverage to covering Congress. and sort of at the tail end of being a reporter at Vox, I was there for about four years, I started working on climate initially because this was sort of when the sunrise movement was starting to gain more prominence. You know, they were starting to occupy offices on Capitol Hill.

Jon Powers (04:48.285)
Right.

Ella Nilsen (04:53.519)
And there was really, you know, this big movement around youth climate voters and climate change sort of emerging as a political issue ahead of the 2020 election. And I really, you know, I covered sunrise, I covered climate in the 2020 election, and then how that ended up shaping the Biden administration’s climate and clean energy policy. And so had been doing that for Vox and CNN at that point was, you know, really.

really beefing up its climate team because they saw that it was such an emerging issue.

Jon Powers (05:27.953)
Yeah, absolutely. Well it’s f it’s fascinating how those two issues, politics and climate, have just ebbed and flowed together for such a long time and continue to do you see that movement sort of coming back around at all, leading up not I wouldn’t say the midterms, but leading up to the next presidential. And you know, I want to get into energy energy costs as part of that for a second, but just on as climate as a whole.

Ella Nilsen (05:49.76)
Yeah, I mean there’s obviously a big sort of debate right now, within the Democratic Party and you know, just about sort of

How there is a lack of climate being discussed now, certainly compared to 2020. And now obviously the issue is energy and energy affordability and just general affordability issues. And so, you know, I I like to think I think that it is there, but maybe not as prominent. And Democrats are actively sort of trying to figure out how do we talk about this? how do we talk about this in a way that resonates with with voters? and I, you know, that is an ongoing conversation.

Jon Powers (06:10.022)
Right.

Ella Nilsen (06:29.435)
I think for me, it there is a direct, I think, tie-in for climate and affordability because, you know, we can get more into this, but like it was really hot in June this year. Like there was a a a really early heat wave and you know, your air conditioner has to run more. And so like I just, you know, my bills went up pretty, pretty extensively in in June and July. there’s a direct affordability component, you know, in a state like California.

Jon Powers (06:36.539)
Absolutely.

Jon Powers (06:52.498)
Yeah.

Ella Nilsen (06:59.225)
where wildfires have destroyed a lot of the electrical infrastructure. And it’s really costly to rebuild that. That is showing up on people’s bills. So there is definitely, I think, still a way to talk about climate as an affordability issue, but I think that you need to understand the different regions of the country that are being affected by it.

Jon Powers (07:07.867)
Absolutely.

Ella Nilsen (07:20.705)
Obviously, you know, the Southwest has a lot of issues with, you know, water scarcity and climate change has a direct link to that. And so figuring out a way to talk about it in different regions where it’s really resonating with people, I think is a challenge.

Jon Powers (07:37.021)
Yeah, I mean part of the conversation we we were just talking about Climate Week offline, but in climate week I was in a in a dialogue around whether or not you talk about climate at all publicly, whether or not you just talk about the solutions and use other frameworks like affordability to push them forward. It’s a you know it w it’s not the first time this has happened. You know, we were when when Waxman Markey, which was a sort of climate bill that President Obama was trying to move forward, failed. You know, climate change was again just not talked about for a couple of years, right? But we still move some of those things forward.

Before we get into the affordability discussion, for a second, I want you to talk about echo communication advisors, which you sort of moved to from CNN. Just for a second for folks know, like what do you do there?

Ella Nilsen (08:15.327)
Yeah, so we are a strategic communications firm focused exclusively on on clean energy and climate policy and also you know conservation work. so I focus, you know, on the first two mostly, but we you know we work with companies and coalitions to you know really sort of help advise them on how to talk about this stuff proactively, how to get out there and you know shape the message, especially at a at a time.

Where we have an opportunity to talk about it because everyone in the country is feeling this energy affordability crunch. It’s a moment where voters are really thinking about it and it’s resonating. And I think that the other thing too is that we have a skill set, the intersection, I would say, of politics and policy. A few of my colleagues have worked in Senate leadership. My colleague Chris Moyer has.

Jon Powers (09:08.637)
Right.

Ella Nilsen (09:15.151)
worked on presidential campaigns. And so we think about this, you know, we are always thinking about it from a political lens. And it’s also hard for me to not think about it through a political lens, just given my, you know, background covering campaigns and Capitol Hill.

Jon Powers (09:29.575)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean it’s it’s it is unfortunately where the conversation is, right? if we’re gonna see real activity. So, you know I originally reached out after I read one of your recent articles and I wanna I wanna tell you sort of what happened right before that that made me reach out to you. I actually was taking a a journalist on a tour of one of our sites here in Buffalo, which is on a really cool old brown field. It’s a fantastic story of solar on a place that at one point was one of the most polluted places in all of America.

and I was sitting at the gate, the security gate, and the guy who was sitting there with me, it happens to be next to a semi-truck training facility. And he was just waiting for his colleagues and we were just chatting and he said, you work at the solar project. And he pulls up his phone and opened his electricity bill. And he said, I can’t believe what’s happening to my electricity bill. And he started talking to me about the pieces of his the generation and the distribution part.

And clearly this is not something he had ever done ever before in his life. And it was just a really enlightening moment for me of how many Americans are doing that today, right? As our electricity bills are are skyrocketing. And you wrote a really incredible piece about sort of your experience, both being in DC but later in Massachusetts that had you really thinking about it. Can you talk a little bit about that experience?

Ella Nilsen (10:49.547)
Yeah, so I lived in DC for a little under ten years and I was very I will say at the top, like I was incredibly lucky to not have to think about my energy bill for a really long time because you know it it like always sort of followed the predictable your electricity bill goes up in the summertime because you’re using your AC more, your gas bill usually goes up in the wintertime because you’re using it to heat. but you know, DC I think A has like milder

Winters definitely does not have mild summers, but but it, you know, it it it was pretty my bills were pretty low and I just didn’t think about it. I didn’t really look at my bills ever. and I remember this distinctly because we were leaving, we were getting ready to move to New England last summer and I remember

Jon Powers (11:22.618)
No.

Ella Nilsen (11:41.9)
you know, I was probably as you get older, you tend to like, you know, you’re budgeting and you’re you you tend to like look at things a little bit more than you did maybe in your twenties. and but I remember opening my very last Pepco bill and my bill was double. This is for electricity. and and I was just like what what’s going on here? Like what’s happening? And I I realized because I had been doing a lot of reporting and you know been reporting more on

Jon Powers (11:47.442)
Yeah.

Jon Powers (12:00.657)
Right.

Ella Nilsen (12:11.823)
and rising energy costs that like this might be related to

you know, PJM and you know the the rising energy prices in the PJM market, which you know, DC is in as well as Virginia and Maryland and other states like that, and have been hearing about, you know, energy affordability was driving political races in the the two governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey last year. But that was sort of the first time that I was like, okay, this is like I can see this on my bill. and then moving to Massachusetts, you know.

So Massachusetts is a state that has higher energy costs. And it’s partially because you know, New England as a whole, we are geographically the furthest, you know, northeast in the nation. And when you think about how energy gets transported, a lot of it, you know, a lot of different regions in the country rely on natural gas, both for heating and for electricity generation. New England is no exception, and we just have fewer natural gas.

Pipelines. We are the last stop on the nation’s you know vast network of natural gas pipelines. And so it it

Jon Powers (13:16.797)
Right.

Jon Powers (13:23.303)
Hence a lot of people in upstate in in places like New Hampshire and Massachusetts. My brother lives in just outside of Boston. He has, you know, oil tanks behind his house at the store because he can’t get natural gas in his own.

Ella Nilsen (13:33.406)
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. and so you know, when there is a crunch, like energy prices, like gas prices go up because there’s more demand. And so you just see that reflected on your electricity bill. and then the big sort of change for me as as a consumer of energy, as we all are, you know, I had always heated with gas in DC, just I’ve I’ve all I’ve only ever rented apartments. I’m not a homeowner yet. but

In my new apartment in Massachusetts, we heat with oil, like like you just mentioned. we do not have gas, that a gas line that goes into our building. And so we have our, you know, this old oil tanker that sits in our basement. And you know, we have to have a truck come and fill it up. and then throughout the winter, you know, it it goes into our boiler, we burn oil for heat. last year, you know, oil’s not cheap. it was not cheap.

Jon Powers (14:07.282)
Right.

Ella Nilsen (14:32.469)
last year, but this year because of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, I checked I’ve I mean I just checked the the latest prices and it’s close to six dollars a gallon. and that is gonna be I think at least double what I paid last year.

Jon Powers (14:54.77)
Yeah.

Ella Nilsen (14:55.153)
and I haven’t I like I still have not this has become like a running joke among my colleagues at Echo, but I still haven’t bought oil because I’m I’m like kind of waiting to see if things go down. Like I’m literally like, is there going to be like a resolution in the war? And and is that gonna change the price of my of my oil bill? And like, should I wait? How long should I wait? And so yeah, that but that gives you.

Jon Powers (15:09.843)
It won’t.

Yeah, right.

Jon Powers (15:21.789)
What’s interesting by the way, as you’re thinking about that, like you are pretty actively sophisticated in terms of what’s going on in the market today, whether it be the war, the backlog of of oil, like but for an everyday American that’s not thinking about these things, right? Just sort of opening up that bill and being, my god, it’s twice what it was last year and isn’t gonna change right in the near future.

Ella Nilsen (15:24.62)
Yeah.

Ella Nilsen (15:43.116)
Yeah, absolutely. So it but it it it really sort of like is able to crystallize and help you draw a line of like what is going on thousands and thousands of miles away from me in the Middle East is directly impacting my my monthly costs. and I think so many Americans are are feeling that right now.

Jon Powers (15:54.588)
Right.

Jon Powers (16:03.345)
Yeah, and I don’t I don’t think people separate the difference between their electricity bill and what they’re paying at the pump. They just think about it as energy. And you’re now we have this almost like supernova of situations where you have the war in Iran driving up oil prices, you have the data center growth driving up s demand for electricity when we’re not, you know, I think people get very confused around the concept of electricity and what’s all the different pieces to it, but truly it’s a supply and demand question.

Right. And we have the greatest growth in demand we’ve had since World War Two for electricity. And our supply is is growing slower than ever because of some of the slowdowns in permitting and some of the challenges, I think, pushing back on what could be quick quicker projects like solar and storage projects, for instance.

But you know, there is a an overall effort in Washington and in some places to slow down those projects. And as a result, we’re not getting the supply catch-up. So people are getting on both sides, your electricity bill. And if you’re paying for using electricity for gas or gas for electricity or oil for electricity, it’s even worse. how do you think this is gonna affect? Obviously, this will probably come up around the midterms, but just the overall conversation next year politically, as people come back to Washington and more importantly to state capitals where

They’re gonna be pressured for action.

Ella Nilsen (17:21.441)
Yeah, I mean already like I’m sure that you saw last week, you know, there is this permitting bill, this bipartisan permitting deal that was announced.

Jon Powers (17:28.68)
Yeah.

Ella Nilsen (17:29.667)
and I think that there is I you know the biggest question for me is what happens with the White House and the president around this. I think he’s always, you know, the biggest X factor in in in bipartisan you know, lawmaking. But I I think that like the signals at least that I’ve been getting is that like people politicians in Washington like understand that they have to do something because I think that the the anger among the electorate electorate, excuse me,

Jon Powers (17:38.834)
Yeah.

Jon Powers (17:54.045)
Yeah.

Ella Nilsen (17:59.344)
is is so high right now in the frustration over just you know years and years and years of compounding price increases. And so, you know, I think that certainly it’ll be interesting to see what happens with permitting. It will be interesting to see you know, I I think that there is a lot of thinking about what is next in terms of

Do Democrats try to bring back, you know, tax credits? Do Democrats try to do something, you know, or is is there another bipartisan deal that could be had on you know other ways to help lower people’s energy bills? and then as far as this the state capitals, I mean, there’s a lot of really interesting stuff happening. last week, I don’t know if you saw, but Governor Abigail Spanberger in Virginia released her energy plan, which is you know something that has to happen.

Jon Powers (18:49.714)
Yeah.

Ella Nilsen (18:51.359)
I believe every four years. And she basically looked, she compared five different scenarios. Yeah.

Jon Powers (18:56.755)
Can we pause for a second? I think it’s I’m gonna go back to what you said earlier in the conversation for people just to connect the dots. Both Spanberger and the election in New Jersey were heavily driven by both electricity affordability, and in Virginia specifically, data centers, and what it’s doing for electricity. So just

Ella Nilsen (19:10.667)
Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

So one of the things that we you know that we’re tracking and looking at, and one of the things that was really emphasized in Spanberger’s plan was putting an emphasis on distributed energy, which is basically more people with rooftop solar and home batteries, grid flexibility, how can you sort of, you know, instead of just putting all of your eggs in the basket of building another massive power plant, how do you get more utility out of the grid that we currently have?

How do you link thousands of houses that have batteries and solar panels to reduce their load on the grid and free up more capacity for larger users? And so there’s a lot of this thinking, I think, right now, among lawmakers and policymakers in the states of how can we get creative with this? And how can we get away from just like building more like massive assets to produce power?

Jon Powers (20:06.855)
Yeah.

Jon Powers (20:14.299)
And what do you think of the I mean the challenges a little bit and I I by the way I completely agree with you. I feel like the one of the challenges we face, and you now that you’re o off the journalism side and working with companies, you know, the

One flip side of the argument we’re hearing is that renewables are the reasons for these costs. Right. We we’ll get blamed, right? There was a great Wall Street Journal op-ed a few weeks ago. Not great, it was a terrible op-ed, but it was basically the data center guys blaming renewables for the rising cost of power. You know, and it’s gonna turn into this bitter fight, I think, in many levels at state capitals. And I would argue right now that industry is not prepared.

to make the case on why we are actually the fastest, cheapest, you know, most effective way to move forward. Like what should companies or activists or NGOs be doing to start to prepare for that debate that’s gonna really take off in January?

Ella Nilsen (21:05.909)
Yeah, I mean I think that first of all, like they need to get their facts ready. as you know. and and really just, you know, make the argument to people I I think too too though,

Jon Powers (21:09.595)
Right. Yeah.

Jon Powers (21:18.695)
By the way, am I right on that or i I could be wrong, but I have a feeling like we’re not prepared for that right now as an industry.

Ella Nilsen (21:25.409)
I think that there are a lot of discussions about getting prepared. I think that a lot of people are aware that this is a problem and are seeing the need to address it. I think that the there is a big question of like how fast can you move? Because that is like the ground is shifting under our feet, especially with you know data centers and hyperscalers in the picture. And so how do you move quickly? And also when it comes to things like distributed energy, how

Jon Powers (21:30.61)
Yeah.

Jon Powers (21:44.391)
Yeah.

Ella Nilsen (21:55.346)
do you show people that this is a real thing? and not not just like lawmakers but like everyday people it is it is not just about convincing the policymakers I think it is about getting through to everyday Americans on you know how can you sort of like take control of your energy destiny? How can you get more more power over like reducing your bill? And so those are things that I think about you know and and you know as

Jon Powers (21:58.344)
Right.

Ella Nilsen (22:25.3)
as I’m thinking about the next few few months and years.

Jon Powers (22:27.251)
Yeah, I mean the debate has changed where when we started Clean Capital 10 years ago, you know, clean energy was solar was just the right thing to do, right? People were worried about climate, they’re worried about the solutions. Now, you know, we face pushback at a su at a hyperlocal level with simple things like lawn signs that are saying no industrial solar, or the or more importantly, they are replicating on Facebook the message they’re hearing from some of these anti-renewable influencers, right? That are online.

And you know, while I think the state capital and Washington stuff is incredibly important, like how do we go back to winning back those hearts and minds, right? And I think the affordability angle is so critical here and how we start to message things to not only the folks that are willing to support us, but the folks that are sort of pushing back on us, right? So that we can make and make make them understand or help them understand that this is actually can empower them.

in a way that they I I don’t think they connect with right now.

Ella Nilsen (23:28.661)
Yeah, and John, I’m I’m sorry to do this was like the the reporter in me, but I’m curious sort of how you you mentioned that like, you know, decades ago like solar was the right thing to do. I’m curious sort of how you see like solar’s brand changing you know, among like the public or other sort of constituencies and how it’s viewed now.

Jon Powers (23:32.924)
Yeah.

Jon Powers (23:39.613)
Yeah.

Jon Powers (23:50.44)
Yeah, I mean, think it’s it’s it’s unfortunately the brand is getting beat up from well, first of all, obviously from the White House, right? You have a president who actually truly is more anti wind than anti solar. but he, you know, he th he says crazy stuff about projects which are just not true. You have a, you know, if you look at the growth of the industry over the last few years, it’s

It’s really been pretty dramatic, right? Seventy percent of new projects last year were wind and storage projects. And so you you look at that, that that growth, and you also then have a I think a focused misinformation effort by the Cossel Fuel Industry to bring down our brand. Right. So, you know, you they’re they’re empowering influencers who say that we’re anti-American, anti-human, anti-environment. Like that’s that trifecta of points is popping up everywhere.

It’s really driven by like two or three influencers, right? And then they are then being backed, you know, fossil fuel out spends is twenty-six to one politically. Like they’re taking that message and and and populating it into these hyperlocal communities. So, you know, I think where we as an industry need to move is almost rebranding ourselves in a way that really hits on this affordability, hits on costs, you know, like for instance, we

I think the next frontier of fight right now is solar on farmlands. You know, the pr Trump administration hired John Rich from Big and Rich, the country music. Are we tracking this at all? Yeah, it’s wild. Like that he’s going into the Department of Agriculture or wherever he is to really try to shut down solar projects. And I held a an event at a rural music festival two weeks ago where we had on s on stage at this festival, I interviewed a solar farmer who talked about

Ella Nilsen (25:21.377)
Yeah, yeah.

Jon Powers (25:41.46)
How his farm can stay intergenerational now because of the solar. They’re growing pumpkins and other things under the solar, which they’re selling. And then we had so many people come up to us after the event and ask questions and were just really completely blown away by the dialogue because they had been hearing everything the opposite, right? And so, yeah, we really need to frame how we’re going back to that hearts and minds conversation.

Ella Nilsen (26:02.358)
Hm, interesting.

Jon Powers (26:09.029)
In a way that, you know, climate, I think, unfortunately probably needs to take a backseat in the conversation just because of the politics of today, and really connect with where people are today in terms of affordability costs, controlling your own power. You know, and I think big picture, while we are outspent 26 to 1 politically, you know, we were talking about this earlier, like we could not have created this political moment we’re in it with t as much money as we’ve spent politically. We’re there is going to be dramatic action in the coming months.

On our issues, and we need to be positioned to propose solutions that move our things forward and also provide the narrative to give the leadership the space to do it. Right. So we need to be, you know, hitting campaigns on multiple levels, including, you know, literally walking into state capitals with playbooks of hey, this is how we can really speed up getting projects in the ground, you know, etc. I don’t think a top-down

solution is gonna be acceptable right now to to everyday Americans. We’re seeing this in data centers, right? So if we can pass like the permitting bill is going important, but the people in you know the town of Hamburg, New York are still gonna stand up when a project’s being built down the road from them if they don’t understand it’s actually good for

Ella Nilsen (27:23.457)
Yeah. And I totally agree with you. And I think that like I’m I’m from a rural area. And so I’ve always, you know, as a reporter, like and and throughout my career, like I have always thought it’s just so important to do that on the ground communication, you know, in in, you know, state capitals and in in places where you know, like you you might not think you need to be. Like you you have to you have to be everywhere and and yeah.

Jon Powers (27:38.835)
Yeah.

Jon Powers (27:50.088)
And I would say we as an industry of not empowering our champions. Like if you if you’re anti-solar today, you can go on and literally find a website to buy an anti-solar lawn sign to put in your yard, right? Whoever is funding that, I will not make who I think is funding, but I’m not gonna say it publicly. but you can do that. The tools are there. If you’re pro these things, we don’t even people like the ability to like my mother-in-law reached out to me recently about a Facebook post in her hometown.

where they’re building a solar project in Pennsylvania and that it said anti-human, anti-American, anti-environment. And she said to me, How do I how do I respond to this? And I’m in the industry and I’m digging for facts and figures to give it right. Like we need to have this toolkit available that says, here, you know, here’s how you post back, or have videos of local, you know, farmers talking about it that we can share. And there are groups doing this for sure. There’s an amazing group called Good Power. SEAS starting to focus solar energy industries, but we need to really ramp up

that investment in that hyperlocal fight so that we can, you know, start to win back at least win back some of the hearts and minds and more importantly, sort of try to neutralize, you know, for instance, two influencers are shutting the whole entire state of New York down right now. Right. It’s crazy. And we have no counterpunch to them. So awesome. Well first of all, Ella, thank you so much for for writing about this and for focusing on it. you know, I would love it for for a much longer conversation around like

what the the experience has been going from, you know, the the journalism side to the communication side. But, you know, we really need str strong champions that understand how to help us communicate to move our industry forward. So thank you for for all you’re doing. If fol folks want to learn more about Echo, where can they find you guys?

Ella Nilsen (29:34.125)
So we have a website. We also have a newsletter that comes out pretty regularly. And folks can can find us there. They can get more of my musings and my colleagues’ musings if they sign up for a newsletter.

Jon Powers (29:50.897)
That’s how I found it the article actually. So awesome. And then I’m gonna go back. I always ask the same question at the end. If you can go back to University of New Hampshire and you’re graduating and take yourself out for a beer and sit down, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

Ella Nilsen (30:05.929)
Yeah, I thought about this. I think that just like don’t take don’t take things so seriously. I remember I remember you know, graduating

Jon Powers (30:12.411)
Yeah. I love it.

I gotta tell myself that now.

Ella Nilsen (30:18.023)
I know, I know. I honestly same. yeah, I just remember like, you know, just like feeling like such pressure to have everything figured out and you know, I think, you know, certainly like, you know, getting your first job is always like kind of the scariest, scariest thing to do. But, you know, you need to remind yourself, like, you’re young, you have so many years left to to figure figure your your stuff out and you know, just just like take a deep breath and

Jon Powers (30:47.335)
Yeah.

Ella Nilsen (30:47.967)
Enjoy life for a little bit. Yeah.

Jon Powers (30:49.937)
That’s great. That’s great. Well, thank you so much for for the conversation. I really look forward to continuing.

Ella Nilsen (30:56.769)
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

Jon Powers (30:59.139)
but I think Colleen Young, our producer. And you know, you can always find more episodes at cleancapital.com. We’re gonna be out at RE Plus in November and I hope to see folks out there. And I think, you know, I remember Ari Plus last year after the big beautiful bill passed. And it was for me a moment where I got rejuvenated about our industry because it was there’s such amazing things happening when we sort of come together and realize the the strength we have. So well thank you, Ella.

Ella Nilsen (31:24.621)
Thank you.