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The coming robotics wave
20 maart 2025 · 44 min
Robots are becoming cheaper to make and more powerful because of AI. In the climate tech space, they’re already laying transmission lines, inspecting wind turbines, and installing solar panels.. And with labor productivity stagnating, immigration restrictions tightening, and the cost of labor rising, they’re looking even more appealing.
So where might robotics have the biggest impact on climate tech?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Andy Lubershane, a partner and head of research at Energy Impact Partners (where he’s a colleague of Shayle). Andy also recently wrote a blog post on the effects of autonomy across climate tech. They cover topics like: Lees meerHow more affordable parts and better foundation models are making robotics cheaper
The high CapEx and low OpEx that make automation expensive to start, but valuable with high utilization
Robotics-as-a-service companies that help to overcome these initial CapEx challenges
The most promising applications, like manufacturing, construction, and maintenance
The hopes for more humanoid general-purpose robots — and the challenges in making them
Recommended resources
Steel for Fuel: Autonomy is real now
SemiAnalysis: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1
Steel for Fuel: From SaaS to Robots
F-Prime Capital: State of RoboticsCredits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.
Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.
Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate and energy leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or glob…
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An ode to electrochemistry
13 maart 2025 · 36 min
Batteries were electrochemistry’s breakout hit. For years it was a field that kept a low profile, outshined by flashier cousins like biotech and computer science. That is until lithium-ion batteries became big business, showing that studying the relationship between chemicals and energy could unlock technical pathways that other disciplines could not. Now the field is making breakthroughs in critical areas like cement, metallurgy, and new battery chemistries. Lees meer
So what else can electrochemistry do? Which problems is it especially good at solving?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Yet-Ming Chiang, a professor of materials science and engineering at MIT. He’s also the co-founder of at least six electrochemistry companies, including Form Energy and Sublime Systems, which are both portfolio companies of Energy Impact Partners where Shayle is an investor. They cover topics like:
Promising applications like mining, SAFs, and other industrial processes that require a high concentration of energy
The strengths of electrochemistry and where it fits best in larger system
The weak spots of electrochemistry, like solid-solid transformations and the limitation to 2-dimensional surfaces
How electrochemical processes work with intermittent power and the role of embedded chemical storage
AI’s potential to shape the field — and its limits
Recommended resources
Catalyst: What do you do with a 100-hour battery?
Catalyst: Fixing cement’s carbon problem
Catalyst: Seeking the holy grail of batteries
Catalyst: The promise and perils of sodium-ion batteriesCredits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.
Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cro…
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How AI is solving real utility challenges [partner content]
11 maart 2025 · 18 min
Laurent Boinot, a power and utilities leader at Microsoft, remembers the moment he discovered the power of artificial intelligence. Years ago, as a student using a basic AI model to assess World Bank project risks, he was amazed to discover the technology outperformed human experts. Lees meer
"With a very basic AI tool, we were able to replicate that risk analysis and do a better job than the human graders did," says Boinot.
Today, Boinot works with utilities to implement AI solutions — an industry traditionally resistant to new technologies. "Our customers want to be fast followers, and in order to be fast followers, you need to follow someone, so someone has to go first. That's definitely an issue in this sector in particular," explains Boinot.
Despite this hesitation, Boinot sees AI transforming everything from regulatory processes to grid management. In this episode, produced in partnership with Microsoft, Laurent Boinot talks with Stephen Lacey about where AI can have the biggest impact on utilities.
They discuss how AI is supporting field workers, enabling scientific breakthroughs in battery technology, and helping companies like Constellation provide "24/7 matching" of green electricity — moving from "net zero to actual zero emission."
This is a partner episode, brought to you by Microsoft. Learn more about how Microsoft is working with utilities and other energy companies to deploy AI to accelerate the energy transition.
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A skeptic’s take on AI electricity load growth
6 maart 2025 · 54 min
The predictions are coming in hot. Data centers could grow to consume more than 9% of U.S. electricity generation by 2030, according to EPRI. That’s more than double its current estimated data center load. AI will increase global data center power demand 165% by 2030, says Goldman Sachs. And billions of dollars are at stake. Utilities, megasite developers, and data center operators are all basing major decisions on predictions like these.
But they’re also the kinds of predictions we’ve seen before. In 1999, when the internet was growing fast, a couple researchers claimed it would grow to consume half of all U.S. power generation within a decade — until a team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory debunked it.
Jonathan Koomey was one of those researchers. Although today’s predictions about energy usage are tamer than those in 1999, Jonathan still has questions about the current hype around AI power demand. He's is now the founder and president of Koomey Analytics, which has published multiple papers on the topic, including a recent report for the Bipartisan Policy Center: Electricity Demand Growth and Data Centers: A Guide for the Perplexed.
So what are the assumptions that go into these new predictions? And how do they hold up to scrutiny?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Jonathan about why he questions the hype around AI load growth predictions and why he believes energy constraints will incentivize the AI industry to focus on efficiency. Shayle and Jonathan cover topics like: Lees meerThe time lags and proprietary data that hinders precise data center load estimates, both in historical analyses and future predictions
The difficulty of reproducing the predictions of even prominent institutions like the IEA
The two basic assumptions that go into predictions: AI demand and AI power requirements
Why Jonathan believes conventional wisdom relies on questionable sources, like Nvidia’s business plan
The unexplored areas of AI energy efficiency, like computer architecture,…
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Cultivated meat’s “trough of disillusionment”
27 februari 2025 · 42 min
Between 2013 and 2023, cultivated meat companies raised a total of nearly $3 billion. In 2020, Singapore approved the world’s first cultivated meat products, with the U.S. and Israel following close behind.
But head to the meat department of any American grocery store today, and you won’t find cultivated meat for sale. After short-lived restaurant tasting menus in the U.S., it’s no longer available. Distribution in Singapore is growing but small, and no products have launched in Israel yet.
So what happened to the high hopes for cultivated meat? And what comes next for the industry?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Isha Datar, executive director of New Harvest, a non-profit focused on developing research in the industry. She has written blog posts arguing that the industry is in the start-up hype cycle’s “trough of disillusionment.” She calls for focusing on basic research, targeting high-value products, and even adopting a different name — cellular agriculture — to signal a shift toward a broader set of biotech products and techniques. Shayle and Isha cover topics like: Lees meerWhat went wrong with the first-generation startups focused on low-value, whole-meat products like beef and chicken
Persistent challenges in the industry, like the siloing of expertise, scarcity of research funding, and lack of standardization
Why she’s hopeful about a more diverse second generation that’s focused on high-value products like sashimi and foie gras and biotech ingredients like fetal bovine serum and cell culture media
The cellular agriculture cost stack and the $30,000 batch of cookies
Basic research, shared resources, and the standardization needed to bring down costs
Recommended resources
New Harvest: Where Are We On the Hype Cycle? Part I and Part II
The Counter: Lab-grown meat is supposed to be inevitable. The science tells a different story.
Biotechnology and Bioengineering: Scale-Up Economics for Cultured Meat
Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Dani…
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The promise and perils of sodium-ion batteries
20 februari 2025 · 45 min
Sodium-ion could be the next big thing. Last August, Natron announced a $1.4B factory in North Carolina. Other U.S. companies like Peak Energy, Bedrock Materials, and Acculon Energy are jockeying for position in the market. Meanwhile, almost all of the world’s sodium-ion manufacturing capacity, current and planned, is in China. CATL’s CEO Robin Zeng suggested that sodium-ion could ultimately take up to half of LFP’s market share.
The potential advantages are exciting: Sodium-based chemistries could be cheaper and safer. They could also use domestically sourced materials, avoiding the geopolitical headaches of minerals critical to the lithium-ion supply chain, like nickel, cobalt, and copper.
So, amid all the sodium-ion hype, what's credible and what’s not?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Adrian Yao, founder of Stanford’s STEER program, a battery research group specializing in techno-economic analysis. He’s also a board member of lithium-ion manufacturer EnPower, where he was once a co-founder and CTO. Shayle and Adrian talk about the findings from a recent Nature paper Adrian co-authored exploring a techno-economic analysis of sodium-ion batteries. They cover topics like: Lees meerThe differences between sodium-ion and lithium-ion, as illustrated by the battery sandwich
Misconceptions about sodium-ion, for example, that it’s necessarily safer
The biggest challenges: energy density and cost competitiveness
How players in the lithium-ion supply chain could pivot to sodium-ion
Why the technology’s success may hinge on the price of nickel, copper, and other lithium-ion materials
Recommended resources
Nature Energy: Critically assessing sodium-ion technology roadmaps and scenarios for techno-economic competitiveness against lithium-ion batteries
Latitude Media: Peak Energy’s quest to build US sodium-ion battery dominance
Heatmap: Is Sodium-Ion the Next Big Battery?
WSJ: U.S. Battery Rush Spurs $1.4 Billion Sodium-Ion Factory in North Carolina
Credits: Hosted by Shayl…
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The case for colocating data centers and generation
13 februari 2025 · 45 min
Sheldon Kimber says the grid is broken — at least for new data centers and other large, industrial loads that need lots of clean power, fast.
But the founder and CEO of Intersect Power believes there’s a workaround that enables larger data centers and speeds up time to power: colocating behind-the-meter generation and storage on megasites rich with renewable resources.
In short, instead of bringing clean generation to load, bring load to clean generation. Major partners are on board with the strategy. Last December Intersect announced $800M in investment from Google and private equity firm TPG, along with a goal of catalyzing $20B in projects by 2030.
So how does colocation work? And how far does it go?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Sheldon about how colocation can help sidestep the challenges associated with grid upgrades, transmission, and permitting. They dig into topics like: Lees meerMajor forces shaping the market, like AI demand, the IRA, and tariffs
Optimal PPA prices and tenures
The right mix of grid-connected and behind-the-meter power
The extreme version of colocation: off-grid data centers
Megasite developers for hydrogen and crypto and how they took advantage of the AI boom
Whether DeepSeek will cause energy demand to temper or accelerate
Recommended resources
Latitude Media: Google’s new data center model signals a massive market shift
Latitude Media: Load growth is changing how Silicon Ranch develops solar projects
Latitude Media: Amazon’s data center strategy: ‘Get back to being grid-tied’
Catalyst: The US power demand surge: The electricity gauntlet has arrived
Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.
Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at sc… -
More 2025 trends: DeepSeek, plug-in hybrids, and curtailment
6 februari 2025 · 48 min
Didn’t catch last week’s episode on Nat Bullard’s mega slide deck on energy transition? Start there.
This is the second half of our extended conversation with Nat, the former chief content officer at BloombergNEF and current co-founder at data insights company Halcyon.
In this episode, Shayle and Nat dig into topics like: Lees meerRising solar installations and stagnating wind
Why we’re wasting so much renewable power amid skyrocketing load growth
The rise of Chinese plug-in hybrids and exports
Whether DeepSeek’s efficiency will temper or turbocharge load growth
The woeful state of transmission buildout, despite demand for it
Why one quarter of Virginia’s power demand comes from data centers
Recommended resources
Latitude Media: Does DeepSeek call the data center boom into question?
Latitude Media: To get data centers online, one Virginia co-op is proposing a new business model
Latitude Media: A dizzying year at the AI energy nexus
Catalyst: Demystifying the Chinese EV market
Reuters: Exclusive: Global solar capacity hits 2 TW on path to climate goal, data shows
Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.
Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.
Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate and energy leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com. -
Are utilities ready to fully harness demand flexibility? [partner content]
4 februari 2025 · 31 min
When it comes to decarbonization planning, utilities tend to focus heavily on the supply side. But they may be overlooking one of their most powerful tools for managing a cleaner grid — demand flexibility.
Demand response and time-varying rates have been in use for decades. But many utilities still haven't fully embraced demand flexibility in their planning. As utilities push toward higher penetrations of renewable energy, the ability to shift demand becomes increasingly vital for maintaining grid stability.
The challenge? It requires a fundamental shift in mindset: from controlling power plants with knobs and dials to empowering customers through smart rate design.
"For years and years and decades and decades, the utilities' incentive has been to sell customers more of their product," says Scott Engstrom, chief customer officer at GridX. "But this idea of much more targeted demand flexibility as a requirement to manage a grid dominated by intermittent renewable resources is quite new."
In this episode, produced in partnership with GridX, Scott Engstrom talks with Stephen Lacey about why demand flexibility deserves more attention — and how utilities can better harness it as they transition to cleaner energy.
Learn more about how GridX delivers detailed analytics for time-of-use rates, helping utilities harness grid flexibility as part of their decarbonization efforts. Lees meer -
2025 trends: aerosols, oil demand, and carbon removal
30 januari 2025 · 34 min
Out today: Nat Bullard’s 200-page slide deck with data from across the energy transition. Nat is the former chief content officer at BloombergNEF and current co-founder at data insights company Halcyon.
In part one of their two-part conversation, Shayle cherry-picked the most interesting slides and sat down with Nat to unpack them. They cover topics like: Lees meerAccidental solar geoengineering and the state of aerosols
The United States’ record-setting fossil fuels exports
Whether Chinese oil demand is peaking
Conflicting indicators for the state of ESG investing
Whether you can have too many carbon removal startups
Recommended resources
Catalyst: Putting a halt to geoengineering — by accident
Catalyst: 2024 trends: batteries, transferable tax credits, and the cost of capital
Catalyst: 2023 trends: biomass, ESG, batteries and more
Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.
Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate and energy leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com. -
The climate-ag grab bag
23 januari 2025 · 39 min
Here’s a three-part puzzle for global agriculture: How do you increase calories for a growing population, while zeroing out emissions and minimizing land usage?
The stakes are enormous. According to the UN, the world has to feed an estimated 9.8 billion people by 2050. But agriculture currently accounts for about a third of global carbon emissions and is driving the conversion of important ecosystems – like rainforest and grasslands – into farmland. Converting land is especially problematic because it releases additional carbon into the atmosphere.
So what do we do about it?
In this episode, Shayle talks to journalist Mike Grunwald, who recently penned a defense of industrial agriculture in The New York Times. He’s also the author of the upcoming book “We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate.” Shayle and Mike cover topics like: Lees meerThe drawbacks of industrial agriculture, like the overapplication of fertilizer and the mistreatment of animals and employees
Why calories per acre need to grow substantially to feed a growing global population
Why minimizing land usage through industrial agriculture may cut more emissions than alternative methods of farming like regenerative agriculture
Why feed additives are not as important as the land efficiency of beef production
Potential solutions, like biofertilizers, cultivated meat, and addressing food waste
Why vertical farming requires too much electricity to be viable
Recommended resources
Simon & Schuster: We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate
The New York Times: Sorry, but This Is the Future of Food
Canary Media: Why vertical farming just doesn’t work
Reuters: Fertiliser ban decimates Sri Lankan crops as government popularity ebbs
Catalyst: Mitigating enteric methane: tech solutions for solving the cow burp problem
Catalyst: From biowaste to ‘biogold’
Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virt… -
FOAK tales
16 januari 2025 · 56 min
First-of-a-kind projects need infrastructure investment, the kind of money that costs less than venture capital and usually comes in the form of deals worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. But infrastructure investors are notoriously conservative and convincing them to bite can be challenging.
So what do infrastructure investors really want?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Mario Fernandez, head of Breakthrough Energy’s FOAK finance program. It has worked with companies like Rondo, Form Energy, and Lanzajet to overcome challenges on the path to infrastructure investment. Coincidentally, the program is also called Catalyst (no relation to our show). Mario and Shayle talk about the journey from lab-proven technology to a fully de-risked infrastructure investment, covering topics like: Lees meerWhy investors want to see a path to multiple, repeatable projects
Mario’s prescription for a scale-up path: pilot, demo, and FOAK project
The difficulty of following that path on a limited financial runway
The commercial construct and the tension between negotiating a flexible offtake and securing a customer
Developing the right capital stack and accurately estimating capital needs
Recommended resources
The Green Blueprint: Rondo Energy’s complicated path to building heat batteries
CTVC: Venture to Project Finance Duolingo
Catalyst: Financing first-of-a-kind climate assets
Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.
Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate and energy leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impa… -
Making DERs work for load growth
9 januari 2025 · 38 min
To meet AI-driven load growth utilities and big tech companies have been building — or reopening — big power plants. Georgia Power, for example, is planning to expand its fleet of natural gas plants. And Microsoft signed a deal last September to re-open Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant
But could we meet a portion of that load growth with distributed energy resources? Pier LaFarge thinks so.
In this episode, Shayle talks to Pier, co-founder and CEO of Sparkfund. (Energy Impact Partners, where Shayle is a partner, invests in Sparkfund). DERs can come online much faster than large, centralized generation, Pier argues. He makes the case that utilities are especially well-positioned to lead what he calls “distributed capacity procurement” (DCP) of customer-sited solar, storage, and other assets. Shayle and Pier cover topics like: Lees meerHow host agreements work, using utility-owned assets sited at customer locations
How the effective load carrying capability (ELCC) of DERs compares to large, centralized power plants
The relationship between DCP and VPPs
The key tradeoff of DCP: DERs are faster to build, but cost more and have lower ELCC than large, centralized plants
Who should pay for those higher costs?
Why vertically-integrated utilities are best-positioned to take advantage of the value DCP creates for capacity, distribution, and transmission
The limitations of DCP at a systems level
Recommended resources
Latitude Media: Can distributed energy answer AI’s power problem?
Latitude Media: Jigar Shah: It’s time for VPPs to get simpler
Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.
Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and stra… -
Lithium’s wild ride
2 januari 2025 · 36 min
If you’ve followed global lithium prices over the past few years, you know what a wild ride it’s been. Chinese spot prices shot to record highs in 2022 and then came crashing back down by 2024 — with big consequences for batteries and EVs that depend on the mineral.
So what happened? And what could happen next, especially as EV sales have been slower than expected?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Ernest Scheyder, author of “The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives” and senior correspondent at Reuters. They walk through the basics of lithium production and the recent timeline of key events affecting the industry, covering topics like: Lees meerWhy more of the world’s lithium comes from hard rock spodumene than salt brines
How lithium is not one commodity at one price, but actually a variety of forms of the mineral at different prices
Lithium’s shift from a niche industry serving nuclear and pharmaceutical supply chains to a global force supplying the battery transition
The current oversupply, driven by Chinese producers that operate at a loss, and the western companies that are trying to challenge them
Chile’s efforts to nationalize its lithium industry and shift to direct lithium extraction, which has not worked at commercial scale
Recommended resources
Simon & Schuster: The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives
Latitude Media: Are things about to turn around for the U.S. battery sector?
Catalyst: The EV market’s awkward teenage years
Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.
Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate and en… -
Drew Baglino on Tesla’s Master Plan
26 december 2024 · 1 uur 3 min
Editor’s note: For the holiday break, we’re bringing you one of our most popular episodes of the year — a conversation about Tesla’s Master Plan 3 with Drew Baglino, who stepped down as the company’s senior vice president for powertrain and energy in April.
Tesla’s Master Plan Part 3 lays out the company’s model for a decarbonized economy — and makes the case for why it's economically viable. It outlines a vision for extensive electrification and a reliance on wind and solar power.
In this episode, Shayle talks to one of the executives behind the plan, Drew Baglino, who was senior vice president for powertrain and energy at Tesla until April when he resigned. In his 18 years at Tesla he worked on batteries, cars, and even Tesla’s lithium refinery. Shayle and Drew cover topics like: Lees meerWhy Drew isn't sure that AI-driven load growth “is going to be as dramatic as people think”
Drew’s optimism about the U.S.’ ability to build out enough transmission for decarbonization
How to deal with the high rates of curtailment and what to do with that excess power
Meeting the material requirements of decarbonization and Drew’s experience with permitting Tesla facilities
Recommended Resources:
Tesla: Master Plan Part 3
CNBC: Tesla execs Drew Baglino and Rohan Patel depart as company announces steep layoffs
The Carbon Copy: AI's main constraint: Energy, not chips
Catalyst: Understanding the transmission bottleneck
Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub is working with more than 70 utilities across North America to help scale VPP programs to manage load growth, maximize the value of renewables, and deliver flexibility at every level of the grid. To learn more about their Edge DERMS platform and services, go to energyhub.com. -
Scaling low-carbon products with book and claim systems
19 december 2024 · 36 min
A mismatch between suppliers and buyers is making it hard to grow the supply of low-carbon products like cement, steel, and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
If you want to produce a product like SAF, you want to find the cheapest place to do it — someplace where there’s cheap, low-carbon hydrogen, for example. But the buyers who have the incentive and money to pay for those products might be halfway across the world.
Or say you’re a supplier of a low-carbon building material. Risk-averse contractors with tight margins may hesitate to pay a green premium — even if the final buyer of the building might be willing to pay extra to cut emissions.
So how do you bridge the gap between the buyers and sellers of low-carbon products?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Adam Klauber, vice president of sustainability and digital supply chain at World Energy, a low-carbon fuels company. They talk about book and claim, a system to separate the environmental attribute (avoided emissions) from the physical good (e.g. fuel). It’s a system that developed in the power sector as renewable energy credits (RECs) and is now spreading to SAFs and other industries. Shayle and Adam cover topics like: Lees meerBook and claim versus other systems of tracking environmental attributes, such as mass-balance and physical chain-of-custody
Lessons from the most mature book and claim systems, like RECs and SAF
Key challenges like double counting the interoperability of digital registries and certification
Other industries where book and claim may develop like maritime, trucking, steel, cement, and chemicals
Recommended resources
Roundtable On Sustainable Biomaterials: RSB Book & Claim Manual
World Economic Forum: The Clean Skies for Tomorrow Sustainable Aviation Fuel Certificate (SAFc) Framework
Sustainable Supply Chain Lab: Decarbonizing the Air Transportation Sector: New greenhousegas accounting and insetting guidelines for sustainable aviation fuel
Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping… -
What went wrong at Northvolt?
12 december 2024 · 37 min
Northvolt’s ambition was to become a European batterymaker to rival Chinese battery behemoths like CATL and BYD. They wanted to offer a homegrown supply chain to western automakers. But in November, the company announced its bankruptcy.
So what went wrong?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Sam Jaffe, principal at 1019 Technologies. They walk through Northvolt’s timeline from founding to bankruptcy, including the loss of a $2B deal with BMW. They discuss lessons learned and cover topics like: Lees meerWhat went well — from fundraising billions of dollars to securing major off-takers
What didn’t go well — like trying to build multiple types of batteries, in multiple factories, on multiple continents
How venture capital investors may have pushed the company to be too ambitious
The tradeoffs of choosing NMC over LFP
Challenges with their equipment supplier Wuxi LEAD
The upside: Sam’s belief that Northvolt’s factory will ultimately make batteries
Recommended resources
Latitude Media: What Northvolt's bankruptcy means for Europe's battery ambitions
Intercalation: Battery production is genuinely difficult
Bloomberg: Northvolt Has Major Obstacles Ahead Even With Bailout In Reach
Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub is working with more than 70 utilities across North America to help scale VPP programs to manage load growth, maximize the value of renewables, and deliver flexibility at every level of the grid. To learn more about their Edge DERMS platform and services, go to energyhub.com. -
How cyber attacks could threaten the energy transition [partner content]
10 december 2024 · 24 min
Security experts often say there are two kinds of companies.
“There are those companies that have been hacked, and those that don't know that they are being hacked – especially when we look at the energy industry,” says Bilal Khursheed executive director of Microsoft's global power & utilities business.
Khursheed works with companies to deploy digital technologies to speed up the clean energy transition. And he also focuses heavily on a threat that could derail the transition – cyber attacks.
There are two reasons for this. One is the rise of internet-connected devices. There are now 15 billion IOT devices connected around the world, with a huge number of them on power grids. The other reason is sophistication. More attacks are now coming from organized groups, many of them with political motivations.
“These aren't just your random hackers. These are highly sophisticated James Bond villain types that are targeting our energy systems,” explains Khursheed.
In this episode, produced in partnership with Microsoft, Bilal Khursheed talks with Stephen Lacey about the evolution of cybersecurity threats in energy. They discuss how the threats are changing, their consequences for critical infrastructure, and how solutions are improving in the age of AI.
This episode was produced in partnership with Microsoft. After listening to the podcast, you can read about how to navigate NERC CIP compliance in the cloud, learn how energy firms around the world partner with Microsoft on security, and dig into the 2024 Microsoft Digital Defense Report. Lees meer -
Explaining the 'Watt-Bit Spread'
5 december 2024 · 41 min
Every data center company is after one thing right now: power. Electricity used to be an afterthought in data center construction, but in the AI arms race access to power has become critical because more electrons means more powerful AI models.
But how and when these companies will get those electrons is unclear. Utilities have been inundated with new load requests, and it takes time to build new capacity.
Given these uncertainties, how do data center companies make the high-stakes decisions about how much to build? How sustainable is the rate of construction? And how much will these data center companies pay for electricity?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Brian Janous, co-founder and chief commercial officer at data center developer Cloverleaf Infrastructure. Brian recently explained how he thinks about these questions in a LinkedIn post titled “The Watt-Bit Spread,” which argues that the value of watts is incredibly high right now, and the cost of those watts is too low. Shayle and Brian cover topics like: Lees meerThe unclear data center demand and high costs that are making data center companies hesitant to build
How the skills required for data center development have shifted from real estate and fiber to energy
Why higher power prices are needed to incentivize new generation
Potential solutions for better pricing electricity and speeding up the construction of new generation
Recommended resources
Latitude Media: AES exec on data center load: 'It's like nothing we’ve ever seen'
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Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub is working with more than 70 utilities across North America to help scale VPP programs to manage load growth, maximize the v…
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Frontier Forum: Why utilities should go big on VPPs
2 december 2024 · 28 min
In the next five years, Arizona Public Service estimates peak demand will grow by 40%. In order to meet that peak, the utility is increasingly turning to demand-side flexibility.
A few years ago, APS started working with EnergyHub to experiment with smart thermostats as a resource to manage peak demand. The initial resource was modest – a few megawatts, and then 20 megawatts.
That program eventually turned into a 190-megawatt virtual power plant made up of smart thermostats, behavioral demand response, commercial and industrial demand response, and some batteries. And the APS operations team now treats the VPP as a valuable resource.
“We had to really build trust in this as a real resource. As it got bigger and you could see a noticeable difference when we called on these devices, that trust really began to build,” explained Kerri Carnes, director of customer-to-grid solutions at APS.
This week, we’re featuring a conversation about the value of VPPs with APS’ Kerri Carnes and Seth Frader-Thompson, co-founder and president of EnergyHub. It was recorded as part of Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum series.
What does APS’ experience tell us about what is working in VPP program design? How do we convince utilities that VPPs are reliable? And what is their role as load growth rises?
“A VPP is actually more capable in some ways than a traditional power plant,” explained Frader-Thompson. “My guess is that over the next few years we'll probably come up with some more nuanced things to call VPPs.”
This is a partner episode, produced in partnership with EnergyHub. This is an edited version of the conversation. You can watch the full video here that includes audience questions about VPP design and implementation. Lees meer -
From biowaste to “biogold”
28 november 2024 · 40 min
Editor’s note: In honor of all the frying oil used this Thanksgiving, we’re revisiting an episode with Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct, on the possibilities and perils of using biowaste for biofuels. Since it was published in June 2022, there has been increasing investment in biofuels from oil majors, especially for sustainable aviation fuel.
Biomass. It's the organic matter in forests, agriculture and trash. You can turn it into electricity, fuel, plastic and more. And you can engineer it to capture extra carbon dioxide and sequester it underground or at the bottom of the ocean.
The catch: The world has a finite capacity for biomass production, so every end use competes with another. If done improperly, these end uses could also compete with food production for arable land already in tight supply.
So which decarbonization solutions will get a slice of the biomass pie? Which ones should?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct. They cover biomass sources from municipal solid waste to kelp.
They also survey the potential end-uses, such as incineration to generate power, gasification to make hydrogen, and pyrolyzation to make biochar, as well as fuel production in a Fischer-Tropsch process.
In a report from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Julio and his co-authors propose a new term called biomass carbon removal and storage, or ‘BiCRS’, as a way to describe capturing carbon in biomass and then sequestering it. Startups Charm Industrial and Running Tide are pursuing this approach. Julio and his co-authors think of BiCRS as an alternative pathway to bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS).
They then zoom in on a promising source of biomass: waste. Example projects include a ski hill built on an incinerator in Copenhagen and a planned waste-to-hydrogen plant in Lancaster, California.
Shayle and Julio also dig into questions like: Lees meerHow to procure and transport biomass, especially biowaste, at scale?…
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TEA breakdown: green ammonia and synthetic methane
21 november 2024 · 40 min
Shayle and his team at Energy Impact Partners (EIP) review a lot of climate-tech pitches. The best kind of pitch uses a solid techno-economic analysis (TEA) to model how a technology would compete in the real world. In a previous episode, we covered some of the ways startups get TEAs wrong — bad assumptions, false precision, focusing on parts instead of the system, etc.
So what does a good TEA look like?
In this episode, Shayle talks to his colleagues, Dr. Melissa Ball, EIP’s associate director of technology, and Dr. Greg Thiel, director of technology. They apply their TEA chops to two technology pathways — green ammonia and synthetic methane. EIP hasn’t invested in either area yet because both struggle with challenging economics. Shayle, Greg, and Melissa talk about what would have to change to make those economics work, covering topics like: Lees meerThe basics of ammonia and methane production
The cost stack of ammonia production and the surprisingly large role transportation plays
The challenges of integrating ammonia production with renewables, like buffering hydrogen
Novel approaches to ammonia synthesis, including scaling down the existing process, lower temperature, and pressure
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U.S. Department of Energy: Clean Hydrogen Commercial Liftoff
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Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub is working with more than 70 utilities across North America to help scale VPP programs to manage load growth, maximize the value of renewables, and deliver flexibility at every level of the grid. To learn more about their Edge DERMS platform and services, go to energyhub.com.
On December 3 in Washington, DC, Latitude Media is bringing together a range of experts for Transition-AI 2024, a one-day, in-person event addressing both sides of the AI-energy nexus: the challenges AI poses to the grid, and the opportunities. Our podcast listeners get… -
Getting heat pumps right
14 november 2024 · 41 min
Oh, the heat pump — a climate tech darling that still hasn’t hit the big time yet. One challenge for heat pumps is that the customer experience can be difficult, involving a complex installation process, poor installation jobs, and even technicians that don’t want to sell you one.
What’s it going to take to get heat pumps right?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Paul Lambert, founder and CEO of the heat-pump company Quilt. They talk through the nuts and bolts of the customer experience and how to improve it. (Shayle and Energy Impact Partners invest in Quilt). They cover topics like: Lees meerWhy many technicians are ambivalent or resistant to selling heat pumps
The cost stack for heat pumps, including the surprising cost of materials
The complex labor involved that ratchets up the total price of installation
Lessons from other industries, such as solar and auto
Whether users actually save money on heat pump installations
The challenges of vertical integration of the value chain
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Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub is working with more than 70 utilities across North America to help scale VPP programs to manage load growth, maximize the value of renewables, and deliver flexibility at every level of the grid. To learn more about their Edge DERMS platform and services, go to energyhub.com.=
On December 3 in Washington, DC, Latitude Media is bringing together a range of experts for Transition-AI 2024, a one-day, in-person event addressing both sides of the AI-energy nexus: the challenges AI poses to the grid, and the opportunities. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code LMPODS10. Register today here! -
Fixing the refrigerant problem
7 november 2024 · 28 min
The bad news: The refrigerants we use in air conditioners, fridges, and vehicles absorb hundreds to thousands of times more heat than carbon dioxide does. The good news: We’re in the middle of a global effort to replace them with lower impact alternatives.
Will we replace them fast enough to hit climate targets? And in the meantime, can we prevent them from leaking into the atmosphere?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Ian McGavisk, senior advisor at RMI for carbon-free buildings. An industry veteran, he recently co-authored a report on recovering residential AC refrigerants in the U.S., which have the carbon equivalent of 1.7 million cars. (Ian also works in business development at Transaera. Energy Impact Partners, where Shayle works, invests in Transaera.). Shayle and Ian cover topics like: Lees meerThe sources of emissions in the refrigerant lifecycle
The economics of recovering and reclaiming refrigerants
Alternatives with low global warming potential and their tradeoffs, such as efficiency, flammability and concerns about forever chemicals
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RMI: Refrigerant Reclamation
Project Drawdown: Refrigerant Management
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EPA: Transitioning to Low-GWP Alternatives in Commercial Refrigeration
UN Environmental Programme: Montreal Protocol On Substances That Deplete The Ozone Layer, Report Of The Technology And Economic Assessment Panel, May 2024
Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub is working with more than 70 utilities across North America to help scale VPP programs to manage load growth, maximize the value of renewables, and deliver flexibility at every level of the grid. To learn more about their Edge DERMS platform and services, go to energyhub.com.
On December 3 in Washington, DC, Latitude Media is bringing together a range of experts for Transition-AI 2024, a one-day, in-person event addressing both sides of the AI-energy nexus: the challenges AI poses to the grid, and the opportunities. Our podca… -
Why climate tech startups get this one thing wrong
31 oktober 2024 · 50 min
This might be our wonkiest topic yet: Techno-economic analysis, or TEA.
Before a startup proves its technology is commercially viable, it models how a technology would work. These TEAs include things like assumptions about inputs, prices, and market landscape. They help investors and entrepreneurs answer the question, will this technology compete?
TEAs are important to the success of an early-stage climate-tech company. And a lot of startups get them wrong. As an investor at Energy Impact Partners (EIP), Shayle and his team see a lot of TEAs—and have some pet peeves.
So what can startups do to improve their TEAs?
This episode is a re-run from October 2023. We’re making a new episode on TEAs soon – stay tuned. But to start, we’re running this episode as a way to set up our next one.
In this episode, Shayle talks to his colleagues Dr. Greg Thiel, EIP’s director of technology, and Dr. Melissa Ball, EIP’s associate director of technology. They cover topics like: Lees meerBad assumptions about things like levelized cost of production
Focusing on a component instead of a system
Focusing on unhelpful metrics
Using false precision—something Shayle calls “modeling theater”
Recommended Resources:
Activate: Techonomics: Establishing best practices in early stage technology modeling
Department of Energy: Techno-economic, Energy, & Carbon Heuristic Tool for Early-Stage Technologies (TECHTEST) Tool
National Renewable Energy Laboratory: Techno-Economic Analysis
Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub is working with more than 70 utilities across North America to help scale VPP programs to manage load growth, maximize the value of renewables, and deliver flexibility at every level of the grid. To learn more about their Edge DERMS platform and services, go to energyhub.com.
On December 3 in Washington, DC, Latitude Media is bringing together a range of experts for Transition-AI 2024, a one-day, in-person event addressing both sides of the AI-energy nexus: the challenges … -
The unexplored frontier of methane removal
24 oktober 2024 · 41 min
We capture concentrated methane emissions from point sources like dairy barns, landfills, and coal mines. Mitigating methane emissions is essential to hitting net-zero targets, but could we capture diluted gasses straight from the atmosphere, too?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Gabrielle Dreyfus, Chief Scientist at the Institute For Governance & Sustainable Development, about a National Academy of Sciences report on the unexplored area of methane removal. Gabrielle chaired the committee behind the report. Shayle and Gabrielle cover topics like: Lees meerWhy methane removal may be critical to addressing methane from hard-to-abate sources, like enteric emissions and tropical wetlands
Key differences between methane removal and carbon dioxide removal
How reducing methane in the atmosphere may also reduce its atmospheric lifetime
Technological pathways, including reactors, concentrators, surface treatments, ecosystem uptake enhancement, and atmospheric oxidation enhancement
The potential for combining methane and carbon dioxide removal in direct air capture
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Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub is working with more than 70 utilities across North America to help scale VPP programs to manage load growth, maximize the value of renewables, and deliver flexibility at every level of the grid. To learn more about their Edge DERMS platform and services, go to energyhub.com.
On December 3 in Washington, DC, Latitude Media is bringing together a range of experts for Transition-AI 2024, a one-day, in-person event addressing both sides of the AI-energy nexus: the challenges AI poses to the grid, and the opportunities. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code LMPODS10. Register… -
Frontier Forum: An energy-first approach to data centers
22 oktober 2024 · 27 min
AI is enabling a multitude of solutions across power, industry, and transportation. But AI energy demands are increasingly stressing the electric grid — creating a bottleneck for growth and new challenges for clean energy supply.
The mounting tension highlights the need for an energy-first approach to computing.
Developer Crusoe is building AI infrastructure that takes advantage of clean energy to power workloads for AI modeling. Likewise, Nvidia, Crusoe’s primary GPU supplier, has been consistently improving the energy efficiency of its GPUs. Both demonstrate the innovation that’s happening in the marketplace to create a 'climate-aligned cloud' for customers.
In the AI era, how do you build data centers with an energy-first approach?
In this Frontier Forum, Stephen Lacey explores all sides of the AI-energy nexus with talks with Chase Lochmiller, the co-founder and CEO. They discuss innovations in data center design, why the energy demands of AI could be higher than projected, and why that shouldn't scare us.
Chase Lochmiller will be speaking at Latitude Media’s Transition-AI conference on December 3rd in Washington, DC. Get your tickets here. Lees meer -
The complex path to market for low-carbon cement
17 oktober 2024 · 38 min
Getting the construction industry to try a novel form of cement is like turning a giant ship. It’s hard to redirect the immense momentum behind existing ways of doing business, especially involving cement, the most energy-intensive ingredient in concrete. Industry insiders point to tight margins, concerns about messing with the ingredients that literally hold up buildings, and the long list of stakeholders will agree to try a new material.
So how do you get a risk-averse construction supply chain to try decarbonized cement?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Leah Ellis, CEO and co-founder of Sublime Systems, a company that recently landed its first commercial deployment of decarbonized cement. (Shayle is an investor in Sublime). Shayle and Leah cover topics like: Lees meerThe long list of parties involved in a single pour of concrete
Why the green premium is a burden for margin-squeezed contractors but “budget dust” for the building buyer
How to align stakeholders, once there's buy-in from financers
How a book-and-claim system could work for decarbonized cement
How major concrete consumers, like governments, can create demand
Why the boom in data center construction creates a window of opportunity for decarbonized construction materials
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Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub is working with more than 70 utilities across North America to help scale VPP programs to manage load growth, maximize the value of renewables, and deliver flexibility at every level of the grid. To learn more about their Edge DERMS platform and services, go to energyhub.com.
On December 3 in Washington, DC, Latitude Media is bringing together a range of experts for Transition-AI 2024, a one-day, in-person event addressing both sides of the AI-energy nexus: the challenges AI poses … -
Unpacking China’s cheap battery costs
10 oktober 2024 · 45 min
Chinese battery companies are manufacturing the cheapest cells in the world right now, and it’s not just because of cheap labor and state subsidies. They’ve streamlined the process in a way that has industry experts wondering how international competitors can ever catch up.
In this episode, Shayle talks to James Frith, principal at the battery investment firm Volta Energy Technologies. He argues that there are multiple factors behind Chinese manufacturers’ efficiency and speed, like the know-how to operate plants with high yields, easy access to suppliers, and ability to squeeze margins to near zero. Shayle and James cover topics like: Lees meerThe confluence of overcapacity, softening demand, and low commodity prices that could result in a “bloodbath” of market consolidation in China
Why the low cell prices on the spot market hit stationary storage harder than EVs
Cost drivers of cell manufacturing, like labor, power, and environmental regulations
What Western companies can learn from China’s cheap prices
Why James is bullish on partnerships between Chinese and Western companies
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Latitude Media: DOE designates $3 billion for the advanced battery supply chainCatalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub is working with more than 70 utilities across North America to help scale VPP programs to manage load growth, maximize the value of renewables, and deliver flexibility at every level of the grid. To learn more about their Edge DERMS platform and services, go to energyhub.com.
On December 3 in Washington, DC, Latitude Media is bringing together a range of experts for Transition-AI 2024, a one-day, in-person event addressing both sides of the AI-energy nexus: the challenges AI poses to the grid, and the opportunities. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code LMPODS10.… -
Giving tribes a stake in the critical minerals boom [partner content]
8 oktober 2024 · 18 min
Tannice McCoy grew up in a mining family, but she never imagined herself in the mining business. Today she’s the president and general manager of NewRange Copper Nickel.
Jenna Lehti never imagined herself in the mining industry either. She’s a member of the Bois Forte band of the Ojibwe tribe in Northern Minnesota, and grew up on a reservation adjacent to the Iron Range, a collection of mining districts around Lake Superior. Today, she’s the tribal relations advisor for NewRange.
Together, they’re taking a proactive approach to harnessing tribal support for the critical minerals boom.
NewRange is a Minnesota company pursuing a new copper, nickel, and cobalt mine in the northeastern part of the state, called NorthMet. It would supply minerals for a wide range of clean energy technologies.
But under a previous owner, the project faced setbacks – in part because of a lack of engagement with local tribes.
“I think part of that came from a lack of understanding of the tribe's sovereignty and their water quality standards,” said McCoy.
In this episode, produced in collaboration with NewRange, Tannice McCoy and Jenna Lehti sit down with Stephen Lacey. They explain what has changed with the NorthMet project, the importance of working with tribes, and the future of critical minerals mining in America.
“It's really about how we are partnering with the tribes to move forward and progress,” said Lehti.
This episode was produced in collaboration with NewRange Copper Nickel. Lees meer -
DAC’s bumpy road to commercial scale
3 oktober 2024 · 41 min
The world’s first large-scale, commercial direct-air capture (DAC) plants are coming online – or are about to. How soon will we see a boom in high-quality, durable DAC supply?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Andreas Aepli, chief financial officer of Climeworks, the world’s largest provider of DAC. They talk about Climeworks’ challenges with its two commercial plants – the kinds of challenges Andreas argues the industry needs to be transparent about in order to earn the trust of skeptical buyers. Shayle and Andreas also cover topics like: Lees meerThe real-world challenges of building a DAC plant, like extreme weather, supply-chain quality issues, CO2 purity, and more
Why Andreas advocates a step-by-step scale-up of progressively larger deployments
How to set pricing and and structure a carbon removal contract
How to build a capital stack for a carbon removal plant
Why Andreas believes the market will become even more supply-constrained in the next few years
Recommended resources
Latitude Media: Google says it's the first to purchase direct air capture for $100 per ton
Latitude Media: Can a new generation of DAC companies overcome the tech’s big challenges?
Latitude Media: Climeworks begins to offer “PPAs” for carbon removal
Catalyst: Fixing the messy voluntary carbon marketCatalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub is working with more than 70 utilities across North America to help scale VPP programs to manage load growth, maximize the value of renewables, and deliver flexibility at every level of the grid. To learn more about their Edge DERMS platform and services, go to energyhub.com.
Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, learn how Kraken can help you c… -
Ammonia: the beer of decarbonization
26 september 2024 · 53 min
Editor’s note: There’s some big money flowing into low carbon ammonia right now. Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $1.56 billion conditional loan guarantee for Wabash Valley Resources, an Indiana low-carbon ammonia facility. In August, oil and gas producer Woodside Energy spent $2.35 billion on a low-carbon ammonia plant in Texas. Both of these facilities will produce low-carbon ammonia while using carbon capture and storage. We thought it would be a good time to revisit an episode with Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct. He explains how ammonia could be used as a low-carbon fuel in everything from ships to heavy industry.
The irony of ammonia is that it accounts for a whopping 2% of global emissions, but it could also become an important low-carbon fuel.
It’s the primary ingredient in agricultural fertilizer. But when combusted, it also emits no carbon, making it a promising low-carbon fuel, too — for ships, heavy industry, and even thermal power plants.
But making the stuff takes massive amounts of energy, and ammonia’s feedstocks – hydrogen and nitrogen – also require energy.
So what would it take to slash emissions from ammonia production? And how would we actually use ammonia as a low-carbon fuel?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct. Julio and a team of colleagues just co-authored a report on low-carbon ammonia for the Innovation for Cool Earth Forum.
They cover topics like: Lees meerWhy some countries like Japan, Singapore, and Korea are especially interested in developing ammonia infrastructure
How ammonia compares to other low-carbon fuels like methanol and hydrogen
How we would need to retrofit coal and gas power plants to co-fire with ammonia
Addressing ammonia’s corrosion and toxicity issues
The areas that need more research, such as ammonia’s impact on air quality and radiative forcing
Key constraints like human capital and infrastructure
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The state of connected DERs [partner content]
24 september 2024 · 20 min
The U.S. and U.K. could see 500 gigawatts of distributed resources hitting the power system in the next few years.
But after years of watching DERs grow quickly, utilities and grid operators are still figuring out how to utilize them. Are we finally reaching an inflection point?
“When you move to a world where you have millions and millions of generators, that whole system falls apart. And that's where you need not only digitalization, but also automation. They're the two things that we can't do the energy transition without,” says Charlotte Johnson, global director of markets at Kraken, which has 40 GW of DERs under management.
In this episode, Charlotte Johnson sits down with Stephen Lacey to talk about the state of connected distributed energy resources – and why Kraken is so focused on expanding into the U.S. market.
This episode was produced in partnership with Kraken. Kraken's end-to-end platform offers full network intelligence, DER controls, asset health, and reporting for power providers around the world. To learn more about Kraken's capabilities, go to kraken.tech. Lees meer -
Can AI revolutionize materials discovery?
19 september 2024 · 37 min
AI is working its way across climate tech, helping companies discover giant lodes of ore, catch battery defects, and monitor energy infrastructure. Could it help us find revolutionary new materials, too?
Turns out, it’s complicated.
In this episode, Shayle talks to Ekin Dogus Cubuk, or Dogus, a researcher focused on materials at Google DeepMind. DeepMind is one of several players, including Microsoft, trying to discover new materials that could be used in things like better battery chemistries, powerful carbon-capture sorbents, and room-temperature superconductors. But so far, Dogus says AI-powered approaches haven’t actually yielded any commercially-deployable materials.
Shayle and Dogus cover topics like: Lees meerExisting approaches to materials discovery, like experimentation and density functional theory, and how AI could complement those techniques
Why AI may actually require a lot more lab work – and larger datasets – before it becomes useful for material discovery
The types of material properties that AI may be especially useful for, such as optical or electric qualities
Recommended resources
Latitude Media: Armed with AI, Microsoft found a new battery material in just two weeks
Google DeepMind: Millions of new materials discovered with deep learning
Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid. Visit kraken.tech.
Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a revolutionary platform enabling solar and energy storage equipment buyers and developers to save time, increase profits, and reduce risk. Instantly see pricing, product, and counterparty data and comparison tools. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude.
Catalyst i… -
The better mousetrap fallacy
12 september 2024 · 45 min
Deploy or innovate? Scale up an existing technology or develop a breakthrough? Build, build, build, or invent a better mousetrap?
The question isn’t which strategy to follow; it’s which strategy to use in which sector. Virtually no one thinks that solar needs brand new tech breakthroughs to scale. Crystalline silicone took the lion’s share of the market years ago from cadmium telluride, amorphous silicon, CIGS and other early solar technologies.
But in carbon removal, batteries, nuclear, and other industries — should we develop new technologies, or scale up a promising few?
In this episode, Shayle talks to his colleague Andy Lubershane about the better mousetrap fallacy in climate tech. Andy is the head of research and a partner at Energy Impact Partners. He argues that, in certain industries, investing in building a better mousetrap is a bad use of capital, and that too many options causes analysis paralysis for would-be customers.
Shayle and Andy cover topics like: Lees meerHow scaling up technologies – as Chinese manufacturers have scaled up solar and batteries – drives down cost
Why new technologies that aren’t five or 10 times better than an incumbent may fail to beat the cost curve
Whether batteries need breakthroughs, and how Andy thinks about lithium-iron-phosphate, sodium-ion, thermal, and iron-air
Why Andy thinks that the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions should license more new projects than new technologies
The challenge of having more direct air capture technologies than buyers
Recommended resources
Catalyst: The cost of nuclear
Latitude Media: Is large-scale nuclear poised for a comeback?
Catalyst: Seeking the holy grail of batteries
Catalyst: Growing the carbon dioxide removal market
Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed b…
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The rise of climate adaptation tech
5 september 2024 · 38 min
Cutting emissions is essential to avoiding the worst of climate change, but we also have to deal with the impacts of climate change happening now. Fortunately, there’s a growing list of technologies that could help us adapt — and potentially turn a profit for investors, too. Will these emerging adaptation and resilience (A&R) technologies take off as an investment category?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Katie MacDonald, co-founder and managing partner at Tailwind. They talk about the areas of application – like wildfire prevention, air filtration, health monitoring, and more – that are attracting the attention of governments, corporations, and investors. But the space is young and still needs metrics and definitions, which is why Tailwind developed a taxonomy of A&R themes and sectors and plans to release an “innovation playbook” with market insights in the fall.
Shayle and Katie cover topics like: Lees meerDefining the scope of A&R
Attracting resilience-curious investors to the space
The co-benefits with mitigation
How to measure the success of A&R
Growing demand signals from governments, such as California’s climate risk disclosure requirements
Recommended resources
Tailwind: Taxonomy for Climate Adaptation and Resilience Activities
S&P Global: Risky Business: Companies' Progress On Adapting To Climate Change
Bloomberg Law: States Forge Ahead on Climate Disclosures as SEC’s Plan Drags onCatalyst is brought to you by Anza Renewables, a data, technology, and services platform for solar and storage buyers. Anza’s real-time market intel equips buyers with the essential data they need to get the best deals. Download Anza’s free Q2 Module Pricing Insights Report at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude
Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by ma… -
Why are we still flaring gas?
29 augustus 2024 · 32 min
Oil producers waste a lot of natural gas. Last year they flared 150 billion cubic meters of associated gas into the atmosphere, equivalent to about half the global carbon emissions of aviation over a 30-year period.
So why are oil producers burning a valuable commodity like gas?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Tomás de Oliveira Bredariol, an energy and environmental policy analyst focused on methane at the IEA. So far, multiple major global initiatives haven’t made a dent in flare volumes, which have remained largely flat since 2010. Shayle and Tomás talk about the reasons why and the potential solutions, covering topics like: Lees meerThe nine countries responsible for about three quarters of flare volumes
Why we don’t just build more pipelines
Why oil wells may choose expensive diesel instead of powering their equipment with associated gas
Converting gas into more valuable forms, like compressed natural gas, liquid natural gas, or methanol
The potential for regulation and financial incentives to push producers to cut flare volumes
Recommended resources
International Energy Agency: Curtailing Methane Emissions from Fossil Fuel Operations
National Renewable Energy Laboratory: Stranded Natural Gas Roadmap
World Bank: Global Gas Flaring Data
Catalyst is brought to you by Anza Renewables, a data, technology, and services platform for solar and storage buyers. Anza’s real-time market intel equips buyers with the essential data they need to get the best deals. Download Anza’s free Q2 Module Pricing Insights Report at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude
Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid. Visit kraken.tech.
Catalyst is bro… -
Hunting for geologic hydrogen
23 augustus 2024 · 48 min
Hydrogen has two big problems: cost and supply. As a low-carbon feedstock, it could decarbonize planes, industry, and power plants. It could even replace the oil in plastics and chemicals.
But the leading contenders for low-carbon hydrogen production — like using zero-carbon power for electrolysis and methane pyrolysis — just haven’t cut it yet. So far, the price points are too high and the scale of production is too low to spur a hydrogen revolution.
But instead of synthesizing hydrogen, what if we pumped naturally-occurring hydrogen reservoirs out of the ground, just like we drill for oil and natural gas?
In this episode, Shayle talks about geologic hydrogen with Pete Johnson, CEO of Koloma. Early estimates suggest vast quantities of the gas could be tapped for far cheaper than other production methods. That is, if some major challenges are solved, like finding economically viable reserves, managing leakage, and building infrastructure. In these early days, those are all big ifs.
A handful of startups are exploring geologic hydrogen, and Koloma, which has raised $300 million, is the most prominent in the space. (Shayle invests in Koloma and serves on its board. Prelude Ventures, which led Latitude Media’s fundraising round, also invests in Koloma.) Shayle and Pete cover topics like: Lees meerThe key factors that lead to reservoirs of geologic hydrogen, like water, iron-rich rock, traps, and seals
Why geologic hydrogen could become the cheapest form of hydrogen, if found in large, economically viable reservoirs
The greenhouse gas impact of hydrogen, which interferes with the breakdown of methane in the atmosphere
Why Pete thinks that economically viable wells will attract new infrastructure, like clean ammonia plants, the way Houston attracted oil infrastructure
Stimulating geologic hydrogen production by injecting water into rock
What sort of watershed moment would prove the viability of geologic hydrogen
Recommended resources
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The cost of nuclear
15 augustus 2024 · 44 min
Editor’s note: There’s new interest in nuclear power from electric utilities, the White House, and the public. While NuScale’s deal to build a small modular reactor failed last year, TerraPower is currently building the U.S.’s first advanced non-light water reactor in Wyoming. So we’re revisiting an episode from last November with The Good Energy Collective’s Dr. Jessica Lovering unpacking one of nuclear’s biggest challenges: cost. Lees meer
Nuclear construction costs in the U.S. are some of the highest in the world. Recent estimates put the cost of building conventional nuclear reactors at more than $6,000 per kilowatt, as measured by overnight capital cost. But high costs are a problem for new small modular reactors (SMRs) too, killing what was going to be the country’s first SMR before it got built.
Meanwhile, South Korea has some of the lowest costs in the world. Estimated overnight capital costs for reactors in South Korea are closer to $2,200 per kilowatt.And then there are countries like China, France, and the United Arab Emirates that fall between those extremes.
So why the wide range in costs?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Jessica Lovering, co-founder and executive director at the Good Energy Collective, a non-profit that researches and promotes policies that support nuclear power. A former director of energy at the Breakthrough Institute, she also authored a comprehensive study of nuclear construction costs in 2016.
Shayle and Jessica talk about things like:What goes into the cost of construction and South Korea’s secret sauce for low-cost nuclear reactors
Why Jessica thinks we should manufacture and regulate reactors like large aircraft
Driving down costs with modularity, small reactors, passive safety features, and more construction
Why changing regulations might be necessary, but not a silver bullet
Why the pro- and anti-nuclear camps talk past each other — and why Jessica says she’s somewhere in between
Recommended Resources:
Latitude Media: Is l… -
Frontier Forum: Is America’s green bank ready?
13 augustus 2024 · 33 min
America’s green bank – officially known as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund – is ramping up.
Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, the federal government is sending $27 billion to a network of non-profit organizations, state green banks, and local private lenders to fund distributed energy projects.
The pressure is on to invest those dollars quickly and efficiently. The GGRF won’t be considered successful if it only deploys that $27 billion – it will be successful if it catalyzes 5x more in capital deployment.
That means building a transparent market with uniform lending standards for CDFIs and local banks – lenders that may be touching solar, storage or other distributed energy deals for the very first time.
The money is headed out the door. Are lenders ready to deploy it?
This week, we're featuring a conversation with Amanda Li of Banyan Infrastructure and Billy Briscoe of the Clean Energy Fund of Texas. It was recorded live as part of Latitude Media's Frontier Forum series.
We'll unpack the details, the urgency, any potential gaps, and the stakes for building a market.
This episode was produced in collaboration with Banyan Infrastructure. Read more of Banyan’s insights into the GGRF here. Lees meer -
Understanding the transmission bottleneck
8 augustus 2024 · 42 min
Editor’s note: There’s momentum behind permitting reform in the U.S. Congress right now. It could mean unstopping a serious bottleneck in climate tech — transmission. So we’re revisiting an episode from last May with Grid Strategies’ Rob Gramlich to understand how we got here, the impacts on climate tech, and the potential fixes. Lees meer
The U.S. power grid is clogged, and it’s holding back the energy transition.
Solar and wind farms are waiting four or more years to connect to the grid. Rising congestion costs are driving up retail electricity prices while hurting generator revenues. And the process of approving projects for interconnection is so complicated and expensive that it’s forcing developers to abandon the projects they were planning to build.
We need much more transmission capacity and a better process for connecting projects. And we need it now more than ever. Demand for power will skyrocket as we connect EVs, heat pumps and other new loads to the grid. But Rob Gramlich, our guest today, comes with good news: We did it before. We can do it again.
Rob is the founder and president of Grid Strategies. In this episode, Shayle and Rob talk through the three major challenges of transmission – congestion, interconnection, and buildout. And Rob explains how we’ve built out transmission in the past with efforts like ERCOT’s Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) and MISO’s Multi-Value Projects (MVPs).
They also cover topics like:The history of transmission buildout in the U.S.
The three P’s of transmission challenges: planning, permitting, and paying
How congestion costs might shoot up over the next few years as grid capacity lags behind generation, causing new generation to slow and retail electricity prices to go up
Reforming the slow, complex, and expensive approval process for interconnection at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
How the backed up interconnection queue leads developers to submit speculative projects, hoping for one project, but filin…
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Pathways to decarbonizing steel
2 augustus 2024 · 46 min
Little-known fact: The primary product of steel mills is CO2.
A conventional blast furnace produces almost two tons of carbon dioxide for every ton of steel. And with almost two billion tons of steel produced annually — roughly 500 pounds for every human, every year — that’s a lot of carbon: about 8% of global energy system emissions. And yet, steel is vital for vast parts of the economy, including the energy transition itself.
So why does steel production emit so much CO2? And what are the pathways to fixing it?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Rebecca Dell, senior director of the industry program at the Climateworks Foundation. They cover topics like: Lees meerHow steelmaking generates emissions from both heat and the production process itself
Why coal is so useful for blast furnaces, and why natural gas can’t fully replace it
Why recycling cuts emissions but hits a ceiling
Direct reduced iron, which uses methane or hydrogen and requires high-quality ore
Less-developed but promising alternatives: molten oxide electrolysis and aqueous electrolysis, which can use low-quality ore
The limits of carbon capture and storage and material substitution
The major players building DRI facilities, like SSAB, ThyssenKrupp, and Salzgitter
Recommended resources
Canary Media: US pledges up to $1B for two pioneering ‘green steel’ projects
Latitude Media: H2's $5B fundraise is a 'test case' for financing green steelCatalyst is brought to you by Anza Renewables, a data, technology, and services platform for solar and storage buyers. Anza’s real-time market intel equips buyers with the essential data they need to get the best deals. Download Anza’s free Q2 Module Pricing Insights Report at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude
Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already lice… -
The EV market’s awkward teenage years
25 juli 2024 · 43 min
Automakers got ahead of their skis. EV sales are up globally and in the U.S., but growth has been slower than expected and uneven. After enjoying a wave of growth driven by early adopters, automakers overestimated demand of more cautious consumers and ended up producing more than buyers wanted. Now auto dealers are slashing prices to move cars off the lot.
So how did the market get here? And how can EVs appeal to the next wave of consumers?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Gene Berdichevsky, co-founder and CEO of anode material manufacturer Sila Nanotechnologies. Shayle and Gene cover topics like: Lees meerHow high-performance cells can lead to lower-cost batteries
Why Gene says lithium-iron-phosphate may hit a ceiling in the market
The potential of sodium-ion batteries
Who can take advantage of production overcapacity
The limitations of the Inflation Reduction Act in the face of weak demand
How manufacturing is competing with other major loads, like data centers, for electricity
Solving the challenges of vehicle-to-grid
Recommended resources
Bloomberg: The Slowdown in US Electric Vehicle Sales Looks More Like a Blip
The Wall Street Journal: EVs Are Cheaper Than Ever. Can Car Buyers Be Won Over?
Catalyst: What’s really happening in the US EV market?Catalyst is brought to you by Anza Renewables, a data, technology, and services platform for solar and storage buyers. Anza’s real-time market intel equips buyers with the essential data they need to get the best deals. Download Anza’s free Q2 Module Pricing Insights Report at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude
Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid. Visit kraken.tech.
Cat… -
Can chip efficiency slow AI's energy demand?
18 juli 2024 · 44 min
In March, Nvidia announced a new microchip designed for AI that is 25 times more energy efficient than its predecessor. Two months later, Google announced one with a 67% efficiency improvement. Today, the rest of the semiconductor industry is hyper focused on efficiency gains.
Will they save us from ballooning data center energy demands?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Christian Belady, former Microsoft vice president now focusing on data center advanced development. They unpack concerns about this new surge of demand and whether it’s different from the energy scare two decades ago. Back in 1999, researchers predicted that data centers could end up consuming half of U.S. electricity. But instead, demand remained largely flat at about 4% as cutting-edge hyperscale cloud computing displaced inefficient, on-premises servers.
And yet, driven by the AI boom, energy concerns are back. The Electric Power Research Institute predicts that data center loads could consume 9% of U.S. power generation by 2030. Demand is already rising fast, with emissions at both Google and Microsoft up significantly.
Shayle and Christian examine the factors driving those trends and what we can do about it, covering topics like: Lees meerWhether chip efficiency improvements will lead to energy savings or just more powerful computing
The upper limits of Moore’s Law
Energy, labor, and other big constraints on AI growth
Changing computing architecture to find energy savings
Enlisting data centers in integrated, or compulsory, demand response
Using AI to improve chip design
Recommended resources
Fierce Electronics: Power-hungry AI chips face a reckoning, as chipmakers promise ‘efficiency’
Latitude Media: The data center of the future looks like a massive virtual power plant
Latitude Media: Enchanted Rock is selling utilities on flexible data center connection
Latitude Media: Energy is now the ‘primary bottleneck’ for AI
Catalyst: Under the hood of data center power demand
Catalyst is brought to you … -
The reshoring of American solar trackers [partner content]
17 juli 2024 · 20 min
While we were all at home during Covid desperately trying to get our hands on toilet paper, exercise equipment, and home furnishings, solar executives like Dan Shugar were trying to get steel and power electronics to massive PV farms under development.
As equipment and workforce disruptions spiraled due to lockdowns, the cost of installed solar started going up for the first time in nearly a decade.
“Costs just skyrocketed. And so at this point in my career. I wasn't going to proceed like that,” explained Shugar, the CEO of Nextracker, the world’s top solar tracking company.
It became very obvious that Nextracker had to build more US manufacturing to serve local markets, where utility-scale PV was still booming. And within a couple years, they built a large network of factories.
“We've catalyzed over 20 factories across the United States with over 30 gigawatts of major components being manufactured here and shipping finished goods today. That's just a huge retooling of the supply chain,” explained Shugar.
To date, Nextracker has shipped 100 gigawatts of trackers. More and more of them are being produced in key locations around the US.
In this episode, produced in collaboration with Nextracker, Stephen Lacey speaks with Dan Shugar about progress in onshoring, innovations in tracker technology, and where the solar industry is headed next.
Learn more about Nextracker’s efforts to bolster domestic content for solar power generation in the US. Lees meer -
Decarbonizing the high seas
12 juli 2024 · 43 min
While aviation may be converging on one main pathway to decarbonization — sustainable aviation fuel — maritime shipping may require a more diverse set of solutions: a portfolio of fuels, energy efficiency, and on-board carbon capture and storage.
But each technology has operational and capital challenges. So what will it take to scale them up?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Lynn Loo, CEO of the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation. Ocean-going shipping consumes about 300 million tons of fuel per year, accounting for 3% of global emissions. But with significant regulatory pressure from bodies like the International Maritime Organization, shipping companies are exploring a range of options. Shayle and Lynn cover topics like: Lees meerConventional fuels, like heavy fuel oil and marine gas oil
The inadvertent climate impact of cutting sulfur emissions
The pros and cons of lower-carbon fuels, like LNG, biofuels, methanol, and ammonia
The challenges for infrastructure and operations, especially involving the low volumetric energy density of new fuels
On-board carbon capture and storage
How energy efficiency reduces the impact of low volumetric energy density
Recommended resources
International Maritime Organization: Fourth Greenhouse Gas Study 2020
Catalyst: Heavy duty decarbonization
Catalyst: Putting a halt to geoengineering — by accidentCatalyst is brought to you by Anza Renewables, a data, technology, and services platform for solar and storage buyers. Anza’s real-time market intel equips buyers with the essential data they need to get the best deals. Download Anza’s free Q2 Module Pricing Insights Report at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude.
Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origi… -
Going deep on next-gen geothermal
27 juni 2024 · 36 min
Investment is on the rise in geothermal, where advances in drilling techniques are driving down the cost of generation right as the grid needs more clean, firm, dispatchable power to meet rising load growth. And enhanced-geothermal startup Fervo is leading the pack of entrants, signing agreements to provide power to Southern California Edison and Google.
So how ready are these next-generation geothermal technologies to scale?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Roland Horne, professor of earth sciences at Stanford, where he leads the university’s geothermal program. Shayle and Roland cover topics like: Lees meerGeothermal’s historical challenges of limited geography and high up-front costs
Three pathways of next-generation geothermal: enhanced, closed-loop, and super-deep (also known as super-critical)
Knowledge transfer from the oil and gas industry
Advances in drilling technology that cut across multiple pathways
Recommended resources
U.S. Department of Energy: Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Next-Generation Geothermal Power
Latitude Media: Fervo eyes project-level finance as it plans for geothermal at scale
Make sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Be sure to also check out Living Planet, a weekly show from Deutsche Welle that brings you the stories, facts, and debates on the key environmental issues affecting our planet. Tune in to Living Planet every Friday on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Want to win Catalyst merch? Tell your friends about the show. We’ll give you a unique link that you can share. For every friend who signs up with your link, you’ll get a chance to win. Sign up here. -
Demystifying the Chinese EV market
20 juni 2024 · 37 min
New electric vehicles — including both battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles — make up nearly half of new car sales in China. Compared to slowing EV sales in Europe and the U.S. the Chinese market is booming.
So what’s going on?
In this episode, Shayle talks to TP Huang, who writes a Substack about EVs, clean energy, and other tech focused on China. (Editor's note: TP Huang is a pseudonym, used for family reasons.) Shayle and TP cover topics like: Lees meerHow EVs became extremely cost competitive with internal combustion engines in China where EV prices dip as low as $10,000 USD
Chinese consumer preferences for vehicles packed with features ranging from voice commands to fridges
The ubiquity and interoperability of fast charging, plus battery swapping
The rapid pace of electrification in heavy-duty trucking
Chinese exports to Europe, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere (although not the U.S.)
Recommended Resources:
TP Huang: What's going in the Chinese automotive market
CNN: A brutal elimination round is reshaping the world’s biggest market for electric cars
Bloomberg: Why Europe Is Raising Tariffs on China’s Cheap EVs
Make sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Be sure to also check out Living Planet, a weekly show from Deutsche Welle that brings you the stories, facts, and debates on the key environmental issues affecting our planet. Tune in to Living Planet every Friday on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. -
Under the hood of data center power demand
13 juni 2024 · 43 min
Driven by the AI boom, data centers’ energy demand could account for 9% of U.S. power generation by 2030, according to the Electric Power Research Institute. That's more than double current usage.
So how do we meet that demand? And what impacts will it have on the grid and decarbonization?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Brian Janous, former vice president of energy at Microsoft and current co-founder of Cloverleaf Infrastructure. Brian talks through the options for meeting data center demand, including shaping computational loads to avoid system peaks and deploying grid-enhancing technologies. He and Shayle also cover topics like: Lees meerWhy AI-driven demand will be big, even with “zombie requests” in the interconnection queue
How hyperscalers are “coming to grips” with the reality that they may not hit decarbonization targets as quickly as planned
Why Brian thinks efficiency improvement alone “isn’t going to save us” from rising load growth
Why Brian argues that taking data centers off-grid is not a solution
Options for shaping data center load, such as load shifting, microgrids, and behind-the-meter generation
How hyperscalers could speed up interconnection by shaping computational loads
Recommended Resources:
Electric Power Research Institute: Powering Intelligence: Analyzing Artificial Intelligence and Data Center Energy Consumption
The Carbon Copy: New demand is straining the grid. Here’s how to tackle it.
Federal Regulatory Energy Commission: Report | 2024 Summer Energy Market and Electric Reliability AssessmentMake sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Be sure to also check out Living Planet, a weekly show from Deutsche Welle that brings you the stories, facts, and debates on the key envir… -
Drew Baglino on Tesla’s Master Plan
6 juni 2024 · 1 uur 3 min
Tesla’s Master Plan Part 3 lays out the company’s model for a decarbonized economy — and makes the case for why it's economically viable. It outlines a vision for extensive electrification and a reliance on wind and solar power.
In this episode, Shayle talks to one of the executives behind the plan, Drew Baglino, who was senior vice president for powertrain and energy at Tesla until April when he resigned. In his 18 years at Tesla he worked on batteries, cars, and even Tesla’s lithium refinery. Shayle and Drew cover topics like: Lees meerWhy Drew isn't sure that AI-driven load growth “is going to be as dramatic as people think”
Drew’s optimism about the U.S.’ ability to build out enough transmission for decarbonization
How to deal with the high rates of curtailment and what to do with that excess power
Meeting the material requirements of decarbonization and Drew’s experience with permitting Tesla facilities
Recommended Resources:
Tesla: Master Plan Part 3
CNBC: Tesla execs Drew Baglino and Rohan Patel depart as company announces steep layoffs
The Carbon Copy: AI's main constraint: Energy, not chips
Catalyst: Understanding the transmission bottleneckUtility rates could make or break the energy transition – so how do we do it right? On June 13, Latitude Media and GridX are hosting a Frontier Forum to examine the importance of good rate design and the consequences of getting it wrong. Register here.
And make sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.