Lowering energy costs might have bipartisan support but the approaches to achieve them don't.

Energy prices is a well-treaded political issue that comes out at most elections. Everyone wants cheaper electricity but conservatives lean anti-wind and anti-solar and liberals lean anti-nuclear and anti-fossil fuel so there's a bit of an impasse.

Saying "lower energy costs has bipartisan support" is like saying "improving education outcomes" or "fixing healthcare" has bipartisan support. The disagreements and intractability are in the details.

Do you have a more specific idea for how you would use $1M to lower energy costs in way that would have bipartisan support?

There are a lot of interesting global development and technology-related angles that could justify energy-related work. Reliable, affordable energy can spur economic growth and increase the quality of life for people in developing economies. I’m linking a very surface-level McKinsey report on the historic link between energy demand and GDP for basic context, but I’m happy to have a longer chat. 

Existing cause areas like South Asian Air Quality could benefit from low-hanging fruit in scalable alternatives to the country's current reliance on coal. For example, India is already a major importer of LPG (which it subsidizes for home kitchen use) and, more recently, LNG. IEA expects India’s gas imports to more than double by 2030 to support its predicted economic growth. This is in addition to the existing ~46% of domestically produced energy coming from renewable sources.

Diverting philanthropic resources to US energy policy doesn’t make much sense to me on the surface, but I’m open to being proven wrong if you have more information behind the argument.

Edit: My non-tech energy work is a ~neutral earning-to-give situation. The work is interesting, reliable, and I enjoy it. I wouldn't argue that it is has a similar impact to direct work.