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283 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Heavy duty decarbonization
30 mei 2024 · 40 min
Batteries are making their way into more passenger cars and commercial vehicles than ever before, but the limits of electrification mean that we’ll likely need alternative fuels to decarbonize heavy transport like ships, planes, and trucks.
So what are those fuels and what modes of transport do they suit best?
In this episode, Shayle talks to his colleague Andy Lubershane, partner and head of research at Energy Impact Partners. They talk through the limits of electrification and the alternatives for decarbonizing trucks, ships, and planes, drawing on Andy’s recent blog post, “How will we move the big, heavy things?”. They cover topics like: Lees meerThe main limitations of batteries: density and infrastructure
Volumetric and gravimetric density, and why they matter for different types of vehicles
How fossil fuels would beat out even a theoretical “uber-battery” multiple times denser than current batteries
Why upgrading “always-on” grid infrastructure can be lengthy, expensive, and disruptive
The alternatives to electrification: biofuels, hydrogen, and e-fuels
The advantages and limitations of each for different modes of transport
Recommended Resources:
Port of Long Beach: Our Zero Emissions Future
Enterprise Mobility: Electrifying Airport Ecosystems by 2050 Could Require Nearly Five Times the Electric Power Currently Used
Catalyst: Understanding SAF buyersUtility rates could make or break the energy transition – so how do we do it right? On June 13th, Latitude Media and GridX are hosting a Frontier Forum to examine the imperative 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. -
With Great Power: Why dynamic rates are gaining momentum
28 mei 2024 · 24 min
This week, we’re featuring a crossover episode of With Great Power, a show produced by Latitude Studios in partnership with GridX. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.
Ahmad Faruqui has been researching electricity pricing since the mid 1970’s, when the cost of a kilowatt-hour was flat. But in the 80’s and 90’s, he started working on dynamic pricing – pioneering the concept of time-of-use rates.
The big breakthrough for time-of-use rates came during the fallout from the California energy crisis. Later, thanks to the rollout of smart meters, more power providers started experimenting with dynamic rates.
Now, new technology is making time-of-use rate design more transparent. This week, Ahmad talks with Brad about why dynamic pricing is gaining momentum among electric utilities – and what makes for good rate design.
On June 13th, Latitude Media and GridX will host a Frontier Forum to examine the imperative of good rate design – and the consequences of getting it wrong. Register at the link in the show notes, or go to latitudemdia.com/events. See you there! Lees meer -
Could VPPs save rooftop solar?
23 mei 2024 · 42 min
The U.S. rooftop solar market has tanked. Residential applications in California, the largest market in the country, plunged 82% from May through November 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. Contractors are going bankrupt. The big culprits are high interest rates and California’s subsidy cuts. But there are some bright spots. Battery attachment rates in California have surged.
So what will it take to revive the U.S. rooftop solar market?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Jigar Shah, director of the Loans Programs Office at the U.S. Department of Energy. Jigar argues that the rooftop solar industry should reinvent itself, relying on batteries and virtual power plants (VPPs). He also argues that regulations should focus on system-level dispatchability.
Shayle and Jigar cover topics like: Lees meerThe pros and cons of California’s latest regulations, new energy metering or NEM 3.0
Learning from the mistakes of California’s Self-Generation Incentive Program (S-GIP)
The role of VPPs and rooftop solar in meeting accelerating load growth
Incentivizing system-level dispatchability
How VPPs complicate the sales pitch for rooftop solar
How VPPs could help utilities increase the utilization of infrastructure
How to make VPPs more reliable
Recommended Resources:
U.S. Department of Energy: Virtual Power Plants Commercial Liftoff
Latitude Media: Defining the rules of DER aggregation
Latitude Media: Unpacking the software layer of VPP deployment
CalMatters: What’s happened since California cut home solar payments? Demand has plunged 80%
The Wall Street Journal: The Home-Solar Boom Gets a ‘Gut Punch’Catalyst is supported by Origami Solar. Join Latitude Media’s Stephen Lacey and Origami’s CEO Gregg Patterson for a live Frontier Forum on May 30th at 1 pm Eastern to discuss Origami’s new research on how recycled steel can help reinvigorate the U.S. solar industry. Register for free on Latitude’s events page.
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Understanding SAF buyers
16 mei 2024 · 29 min
Airlines are lining up to buy as much sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) as they can, despite it costing two to three times more than conventional jet fuel, according to BloombergNEF. United Airlines has secured 2.9 billion gallons of SAF over, and others like Delta, Air France-KLM, and Southwest have secured around 1 billion gallons each. And yet to meaningfully decarbonize aviation, the SAF market needs to grow thousands of times larger than it is today. BloombergNEF estimates that global production capacity will grow 10-fold by 2030, but by then supply will still only meet 5% of jet fuel demand.
So how are airlines thinking about scaling up their procurement of SAF?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Amelia DeLuca, chief sustainability officer at Delta. They cover topics like: Lees meerWho pays the green premium
Infrastructure considerations, like SAF hubs and blending
Technical pathways, like hydroprocessing, alcohol-to-jet, and power-to-liquids
The role of incentives and regulation, like ReFuelEU
Why airlines should procure SAF instead of buying carbon removal
Recommended Resources:
BloombergNEF: United Airlines Is Betting Big on a Pricey Green Aviation Fuel
The Verge: Delta Air Lines lays out its plan to leave fossil fuels behind
Canary Media: Can corn ethanol really help decarbonize US air travel?
Canary Media: How hydrogen ‘e-fuels’ can power big ships and planes
Catalyst: CO2 utilizationCatalyst is supported by Origami Solar. Join Latitude Media’s Stephen Lacey and Origami’s CEO Gregg Patterson for a live Frontier Forum on May 30th at 1 pm Eastern to discuss Origami’s new research on how recycled steel can help reinvigorate the U.S. solar industry. Register for free on Latitude’s events page.
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The news quiz episode!
8 mei 2024 · 46 min
This week, we have something a little different: a news quiz.
We recently took the stage with four investors at the Prelude Climate Summit — armed with a bell, a buzzer, and four different categories of questions. We tested two teams of venture investors on their knowledge of the most recent industry news.
Shayle Kann and Cassie Bowe, partners at venture firm Energy Impact Partners, are team High Voltage.
Dr. Carley Anderson, principal at venture firm Prelude Ventures, and Matt Eggers, Prelude’s manager director, are team Shayle Gassed. (Prelude led fundraising for Latitude Media.)
Stephen Lacey, executive editor of this show and host of The Carbon Copy, quizzes the teams on the latest in climate tech news.
Which team will come out on top?
Catalyst is supported by Origami Solar. Join Latitude Media’s Stephen Lacey and Origami’s CEO Gregg Patterson for a live Frontier Forum on May 30th at 1 pm Eastern to discuss Origami’s new research on how recycled steel can help reinvigorate the U.S. solar industry. Register for free on Latitude’s events page. Lees meer -
CO2 utilization
2 mei 2024 · 47 min
The IPCC says that we likely need to capture hundreds of gigatons of CO2 if we want to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. So what are we going to do with all that carbon?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct. Julio says we will store the vast majority of that CO2. But the markets for using CO2 in things like concrete, fizzy water, and chemicals will play an important role in developing the carbon management economy. Shayle and Julio cover topics like: Lees meerThe roughly 50 carbon capture facilities operating today and how much carbon they capture
Why we should recycle carbon at all when we could just store it
Current uses for CO2, like fizzy water, enhanced oil recovery, and concrete
Emerging chemical uses, like jet fuel, ethanol, urea, and methanol
Substituting glass and metal with products that use recycled carbon, like polycarbonate and carbon fiber
The “over the horizon” stuff, like making space elevators from graphene
Solving the challenge of local opposition to carbon infrastructure
Who will pay the green premium for products made with recycled carbon
Recommended Resources:
Center on Global Energy Policy: Opportunities and Limits of CO2 Recycling in a Circular Carbon Economy: Techno-economics, Critical Infrastructure Needs, and Policy Priorities
Canary Media: US Steel plant in Indiana to host a $150M carbon capture experiment
NBC: Biden admin seeks to jumpstart carbon recycling with $100 million in grantsAre growing concerns over AI’s power demand justified? Join us for our upcoming Transition-AI event featuring three experts with a range of views on how to address the energy needs of hyperscale computing, driven by artificial intelligence. Don’t miss this live, virtual event on May 8.
Catalyst is supported by Origami Solar. Join Latitude Media’s Stephen Lacey and Origami’s CEO Gregg Patterson for a live Frontier Forum on May 30th at 1 pm Eastern to discuss Origami’s new research on how recycled stee… -
Building a supply chain for rare earth elements
25 april 2024 · 39 min
Rare earth elements (REEs) are essential ingredients in electric vehicles, wind turbines, and many electronics. As with most critical minerals, China controls the vast majority of the REE supply chain. And so when it banned the export of REE processing technology last December, it raised concerns about supply.
So what will it take to secure the supply of REEs?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Ahmad Ghahreman, CEO and cofounder of Cyclic Materials, a rare earth elements recycling company. (Energy Impact Partners, where Shayle is a partner, invests in Cyclic.) They cover topics like: Lees meerThe five high-value REEs used in the permanent magnets inside EVs, wind turbines, and other electronics
The many steps in the supply chain, from extraction to end-of-life
Building magnets without REEs
Increasing production outside of China
The role of recycling
Why Ahmad is optimistic about developing a supply chain in North America
Recommended Resources:
MIT Technology Review: The race to produce rare earth elements
IEEE Spectrum: Who Will Free EV Motors from the Rare Earth Monopoly?
Are growing concerns over AI’s power demand justified? Join us for our upcoming Transition-AI event featuring three experts with a range of views on how to address the energy needs of hyperscale computing, driven by artificial intelligence. Don’t miss this live, virtual event on May 8. -
How an obscure, 100-year old law is disrupting U.S. energy
18 april 2024 · 41 min
A little-known U.S. law called the Jones Act shapes climate tech in weird ways — like hindering offshore wind deployment and pushing up energy prices.
The law, part of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, requires all cargo shipped between U.S. ports to be carried by ships that meet strict standards. Those ships must be built in American shipyards, owned by an American company, registered in the U.S., and crewed by a majority American crew. As a result, building cargo ships in the U.S., and operating them between U.S. ports, is way more expensive than building and operating ships in other countries — and relatively few U.S. ships get built.
So what are the impacts on climate tech?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Colin Grabow, research fellow at the Cato Institute's Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies. They cover topics like: Lees meerHow the Jones Act increases the money and time required to deploy offshore wind turbines
Why it costs less to ship U.S. oil and gas abroad than to domestic markets
How it pushes domestic shipping to rely on trucks and trains instead of ships
The history of the act and potential ways it could change
Recommended Resources:
WIRED: The US Has Big Plans for Wind Energy—but an Obscure 1920s Law Is Getting in the Way
Cato Institute: Jones Act Leaves New England Vulnerable to Wintertime Calamity
Cato Institute: Environmental Costs of the Jones Act
Are growing concerns over AI’s power demand justified? Join us for our upcoming Transition-AI event featuring three experts with a range of views on how to address the energy needs of hyperscale computing, driven by artificial intelligence. Don’t miss this live, virtual event on May 8.
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The Big Switch: Are Batteries the New Oil?
11 april 2024 · 46 min
This week we’re bringing you a deep dive into battery supply chains — the season premier of The Big Switch, a show that Latitude Media makes in partnership with Columbia University’s SIPA Center on Global Energy Policy.
Across this five-episode documentary series, hosted by the acclaimed energy scholar Dr. Melissa Lott, we examine every step of the sprawling global supply chains behind lithium-ion batteries.
In this first episode, we break apart one of the battery cells that was in the original Tesla Roadster. Then we explore how critical minerals, like copper, lithium, and nickel, are becoming a major force in global geopolitics, especially involving China, which dominates battery supply chains.
The supply chain behind all those batteries could be worth nearly half a trillion dollars by 2030. Whoever controls that supply chain has enormous power — figuratively and literally.
In this episode, we explore the stakes of the battery-based transition and ask whether critical minerals will look anything like oil.
To listen to the full five-part series, including episodes on mining, manufacturing and more, subscribe to The Big Switch on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lees meer -
The world of battery recycling
4 april 2024 · 37 min
The lithium-ion battery business is taking off, and the battery recycling business is close behind. Financiers are pouring over a billion dollars into recycling companies like Redwood Materials, Ascend Elements, and Li-Cycle. But success depends on a steady supply of used batteries, and with batteries lasting longer than expected — and the battery market still in its infancy — there just aren’t enough dying batteries to go around.
As a result, a significant portion of recyclers’ feedstock is coming from manufacturer scrap, i.e. the waste that companies like SK On and Panasonic don’t turn into cells at the factory. But these battery makers are incentivized to minimize waste, which raises big questions about whether recyclers will be able to get enough used batteries to sustainably feed their operations.
So which technologies and business models will succeed in this chapter of the battery industry?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Dan Steingart, chair of the earth and environmental engineering department at Columbia University. (Steingart’s lab gets funding from battery manufacturer Northvolt.) Shayle and Dan cover topics like: Lees meerThe steps in nickel-manganese-cobalt battery recycling and what Dan calls “zombie lithium”
The differences between pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy
Dan’s bet on solvent extraction as an under-appreciated technology
Redwood Materials’ focus on winning the feedstock battle
Ascend Elements’ hydro-to-cathode technology
Li-Cycle’s focus on making inputs for cathode manufacturers
How these recyclers want to compete downstream by producing cathode precursor and cathode material
Why Dan is surprisingly bearish on direct recycling for lithium-iron-phosphate
Recommended Resources:
Nature Sustainability: Examining different recycling processes for lithium-ion batteries
Latitude Media: What’s so hard about building a circular battery economy?
Are growing concerns over AI’s power demand justified? Join us for our upcoming Transition-AI event fea… -
The electricity gauntlet has arrived
28 maart 2024 · 48 min
The electricity gauntlet we covered last year has been having a moment in the national spotlight, with coverage of rising load growth in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.
On one side of the gauntlet, demand for electricity is rising, driven by new loads like EVs, data centers, and electrification. On the other side, electricity supply is slow to grow, bogged down by years-long interconnection queues, the immense challenges of building transmission, and other bottlenecks. And utilities are stuck in the middle, struggling to deliver enough power to meet that rising demand.
These challenges have been brewing for years, but the AI race is supercharging demand as big tech companies seek out power for their growing data center fleet.
So what does all this mean for emissions and prices? And what tools do we have to make it through this electricity gauntlet?
In this episode, Shayle talks to his colleague Andy Lubershane, partner and head of research at Energy Impact Partners. Shayle and Andy cover topics like: Lees meerWhy utilities are building new natural gas plants and keeping coal plants open to meet load growth
How technologies like nuclear, grid-enhancing technologies, geothermal, and multi-day storage could meet load growth with fewer emissions
What utilities can do to prepare new gas plants for carbon-capture and storage
What the gauntlet might do to electricity prices and which customers might be willing to pay higher premiums (data centers, cough cough)
Whether the hype around rising power demand is overblown
Plus, what medieval Swedish spearmen have to do with electricity
Recommended Resources:
Andy Lubershane: The electricity gauntlet
S&P Global: NERC raises North American power system reliability flags as demand could outstrip supplyCatalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you’re a startup, invest…
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Digging into the SEC climate disclosure rules
21 maart 2024 · 32 min
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved new rules this month on what information companies must disclose about their greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks, but notably dropped more stringent requirements that the commission initially proposed.
Despite being halted by lawsuits, the rules are a significant win for climate transparency. But they’re not as strong as existing climate disclosure regulations in California and the European Union, where many multinational corporations do business anyway.
So how big of a deal are the new SEC rules?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Mallory Thomas, risk advisory partner at consulting and accounting firm Baker Tilly US. The two talk about the details of the new rules and cover topics like: Lees meerThe rules’ requirements for disclosing greenhouse gasses and climate risks
How the rules compare to European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and California’s twin climate disclosure laws
Which companies are required to comply and under what conditions
How standardized reporting may help with comparability across companies
Recommended resources:
Baker Tilly: SEC announces final rules for climate-related disclosures
Deloitte: A landmark ruling for ESG disclosure requirements
Reuters: US climate rule will boost sustainable accounting industry
Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you’re a startup, investor, enterprise or innovation ecosystem that’s creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.
Catalyst is brought to you by Atmos Financial. Atmos is revolutionizing finance by leveraging your deposits to exclusively fund decarbonization solutions, like solar and electrification. Join in under 2 minutes at joinatmos.com/catalyst. -
Climate tech’s tough year in the public markets
14 maart 2024 · 41 min
Two major indicators of climate tech stocks – the S&P Clean Energy Index and the MAC Global Solar Index – are significantly trailing the overall market. They’ve been declining for months, down from their mid-pandemic highs when they performed far better than the rest of the economy.
So what happened to climate tech investments in the public markets? And what do these investments tell us about the coming year for climate tech?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Shanu Mathew, portfolio manager and research analyst at Lazard. They cover topics like: Lees meerThe macroeconomic factors behind this underperforming sector, like higher interest rates, election uncertainty, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Trends in specific industries, like EVs, solar, and lithium
Investors moving funds into (and paying more for) climate tech stocks with consistently higher performance
Analysts’ expectations for climate tech stocks in the the near- and long-term
Recommended Resources:
Shanu Mathew: Cleantech FY23 Recap And FY24 Outlook
Catalyst: How has US industrial policy impacted climatetech investment?Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you’re a startup, investor, enterprise or innovation ecosystem that’s creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.
Catalyst is brought to you by Atmos Financial. Atmos is revolutionizing finance by leveraging your deposits to exclusively fund decarbonization solutions, like solar and electrification. Join in under 2 minutes at joinatmos.com/catalyst. -
The early days of AI on the grid
8 maart 2024 · 38 min
The first wave of digital grid infrastructure in the U.S. didn’t quite deliver on its promises. More than 100 million smart meters have rolled out across the country, buoyed initially by billions in federal funding. But instead of using them for exciting things like time-of-use pricing and automated demand response, utilities used them for more mundane things like automated billing, according to a whitepaper from Guidehouse.
Could the new wave of AI-based grid tech be different?
In this episode, Shayle talks to David Groarke, managing director at the energy consultancy Indigo Advisory Group, who co-authored a forthcoming Latitude Intelligence report on utilities and AI.
David says that AI is showing promise so far. Unlike the first wave of hardware-focused advanced-metering infrastructure, AI leans heavily on relatively cheap software and data. He also says that AI’s capabilities are advancing quickly (“doing pressups” as the Irish say) by improving algorithms, handling more tasks, and improving efficiency.
David and Shayle cover use-cases and other topics like: Lees meerWildfire management, using data from cameras, lidar, and satellites
Customer propensity modeling, including detecting EVs to aid with infrastructure planning
Automated and personalized communication with customers
Predictive maintenance of substations and other grid infrastructure, using data from, for example, computer vision to detect corrosion and reduce downtime
Optimizing transmission capacity by moving from static ratings of transmission lines to real-time ratings
Whether incumbents or startups are leading the development of these AI-based solutions
David’s take on whether AI’s impact on utilities will be revolutionary or incremental
Recommended Resources:
Latitude: Welcome to the smart meter’s second act
Latitude: AI is simplifying complex decisions for utilities
Latitude: Seven ways utilities are exploring AI for the grid
Latitude: Could AI-fueled weather forecasts boost renewable energy pro… -
The challenges of building a carbon removal portfolio
29 februari 2024 · 44 min
The carbon removal market could reach $400 billion to $1.6 trillion by 2050, according to McKinsey. But it’s got a long way to go. Right now the market is wild, unexplored territory filled with unproven technologies, murky cost curves, and a motley mix of price points and standards. The hope is that one day it becomes a standardized commodity market of high-quality, durable removals.
But for now, brave buyers have to wade into the wilds and see what works. So what does that look like – and what have they learned so far?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Stacy Kauk, head of sustainability at Shopify, which paid $55 million for 85,000 tons of removal in 2023. Kauk says that very few of those credits have been delivered yet, but the company, along with a few other early entrants like Stripe, H&M, and Microsoft, are investing in a varied field of technologies to develop the market.
Stacy thinks of Shopify’s approach like a venture capitalist’s portfolio, with some companies succeeding and others failing. Stacy and Shayle walk through the practical realities of building that portfolio, covering topics like: Lees meerUsing forward purchases, flexible contracts, and Shopify’s internal credit standards
The challenges that slow down ambitious startups, like permitting delays and the complicated work of measuring, reporting, and verifying credits
Which technologies are hot and which are not, ranging from biomass burial and wastewater treatment to enhanced weathering and ocean alkalinity enhancement
Comparing the lower energy requirements of enhancing natural systems with the potentially clearer cost curves of engineered systems
Building a diverse portfolio across technologies and maturities
What determines the prices Shopify pays for different credits
Recommended Resources:
Bloomberg: Stripe, Alphabet and Others to Spend Nearly $1 Billion on Carbon Removal
Carbon Dioxide Removal Primer
Latitude: Fixing the messy voluntary carbon marketsCatalyst is supported by Antenna Group. …
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The electric transformer shortage
22 februari 2024 · 34 min
The list of things that depend on transformers is long: new housing, EV chargers, renewable projects, and more. That’s why skyrocketing lead times and prices for grid equipment that raises or lowers voltage is a real problem.
The wait for a new transformer has jumped to over two years, according to WoodMackenzie. Back in 2020 it took just a few months, according to Tim Mills, CEO at transformer manufacturer ERMCO. WoodMackenzie found that prices, meanwhile, have risen over 60% since 2020.
So what’s causing the shortage?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Tim about how rising demand for transformers has pushed manufacturers to capacity – and why it’s been so hard for manufacturers to expand that capacity.
They also cover topics like: Lees meerThe state of the shortage, including prices, lead times and types of transformers that are in especially short supply.
The major drivers of demand growth, including renewables, storms, federal investment, and EV chargers.
How the housing boom and bust of the 2000s left transformer manufacturers wary of bubbles in demand.
Why the tight labor market makes it hard to expand manufacturing capacity.
How new rules proposed by the Department of Energy are throwing uncertainty into what type of equipment manufacturers should invest in.
Recommended resources:
WoodMackenzie: Supply shortages and an inflexible market give rise to high power transformer lead times
T&D World: No Easy Answers: Transformer Supply Crisis Deepens
Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you’re a startup, investor, enterprise or innovation ecosystem that’s creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.
Catalyst is brought to you by Atmos Financial. Atmos is revolutionizing finance by leveraging your deposits to exclusively fund decarbonization solutions, like residential solar and … -
Frontier Forum: Diving into the booming transferable tax credit market
20 februari 2024 · 27 min
It's been a year and a half since the Inflation Reduction Act was passed. In that time, we've seen $110 billion in planned investments for factories that are pumping out electric cars, batteries, solar modules, and wind towers.
The upper end of 2030 forecasts show nearly twice as much zero-carbon generation getting built compared with scenarios without the law in place.
Much of this activity is the result of a new shift in the US tax code that allows wind, solar, storage, hydrogen, carbon capture, and manufacturing tax incentives to be sold for cash. It’s creating a lot more deal volume as many more companies can now buy those credits to support new development.
“This very rarely happens that a new market forms basically overnight. The private estimates on how big the market gets get it to something like $80 or $100 billion dollars by the back half of the decade,” said Alfred Johnson, co-founder and CEO of Crux, speaking at Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum.
In January, Crux closed an $18 million Series A round led by Andreesen Horowitz – bringing the company’s total funding to $27 million to scale its sustainable finance platform.
It’s been about a year since credits started trading, with activity really picking up in the last six months. Much of our understanding of how the market is performing comes from new research from Crux, which recently surveyed 150 buyers, sellers, and intermediaries – and found a mix of eagerness, hesitance, surprises, and lots and lots of questions.
Stephen Lacey spoke with Alfred Johnson live during Latitude's Frontier Forum to address many of those questions – and riff on how this new market is taking shape. You can watch the full conversation, including questions from the audience, here. Lees meer -
More 2024 trends: ESG, carbon certifications, curtailment, and AI
15 februari 2024 · 43 min
There was so much to talk about in Nat Bullard’s 200-page slide deck on 2024’s biggest decarbonization trends that we broke the conversation into two parts. For the first half of our conversation with Nat, listen here.
Nat has worked as an analyst and writer in climate tech for two decades and was BloombergNEF’s chief content officer until 2022.
In this second part of the conversation, Shayle and Nat cover topics like: Lees meerHow ESG has become the new third rail of finance, falling out of the spotlight of corporate reports and the annual Larry letter
The vexing problem of what to do with curtailed power and why we need to design around the intermittency
Whether you can have too many carbon certification standards
How biodiesel is eating up Europe’s biofuel supply
First Solar’s underappreciated success in surviving the decline of U.S. solar manufacturing
Plus: Declining hydropower, slowing coal growth, and the rising hype around AI
Recommended resources:
Nathaniel Bullard: Decarbonization: Stocks and flows, abundance and scarcity, net zero
Washington Post: ‘Greenhushing’: Why some companies quietly hide their climate pledges
World Economic Forum: Hydropower: How droughts are affecting the world's biggest renewable energy source
Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you’re a startup, investor, enterprise or innovation ecosystem that’s creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.
Catalyst is brought to you by Atmos Financial. Atmos is revolutionizing finance by leveraging your deposits to exclusively fund decarbonization solutions, like residential solar and electrification. FDIC-insured with market-leading savings rates, cash-back checking, and zero fees. Get an account in minutes at joinatmos.com. -
2024 trends: batteries, transferable tax credits, and the cost of capital
8 februari 2024 · 52 min
We’re back for round two, with even more slides than last year. This year’s annual slide deck from Nat Bullard has 200 pages on the key trends shaping decarbonization in 2024. Nat has worked as an analyst and writer in climate tech for two decades and was BloombergNEF’s chief content officer until 2022.
We’ve split the conversation into two parts. In this first part, Shayle and Nat cover topics like: Lees meerThe state of batteries, including the rapid growth of LFP chemistries, the concentration of manufacturing capacity, and the wild ride of lithium prices.
The rapid growth of transferable tax credits and how that unlocks capital for renewables.
How the rising cost of capital has reshaped climate tech.
Recommended resources:
Nathaniel Bullard: Decarbonization: Stocks and flows, abundance and scarcity, net zero
Latitude Media: Clean energy capital is getting pricier
WSJ: Companies Are Snapping Up New Clean-Energy Tax CreditsCatalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you’re a startup, investor, enterprise or innovation ecosystem that’s creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.
Catalyst is brought to you by Atmos Financial. Atmos is revolutionizing finance by leveraging your deposits to exclusively fund decarbonization solutions, like solar and electrification. Join in under 2 minutes at joinatmos.com/catalyst. -
What’s really happening in the U.S. EV market?
1 februari 2024 · 36 min
A recent slew negative headlines about U.S. EVs makes it feel like the sky is falling on the market. Yet the data show robust growth. Combined battery electric and plug-in hybrid sales in 2023 were up 50% from 2022. Meanwhile, EV market share reached 9.5% in 2023, up from 7.5% in 2022, according to BloombergNEF.
Still, there have been real signs of changing expectations. GM and Ford have downsized their EV ambitions. Hertz sold off 20,000 Teslas. And Elon Musk tried to temper expectations in last week’s disappointing Tesla earnings call.
So why all the conflicting indicators?
In this episode, Shayle talks to BloombergNEF analyst Corey Cantor. They talk about the changing outlook on the speed of EV adoption as the focus shifts from early adopters to the mass market. They talk through the persistent challenges EVs face, like slow charger rollout and lack of affordable price points. They also cover topics like: Lees meerWhether sales challenges are more of an overall market problem or a legacy automaker problem
Tesla’s dominant but falling share of the market and what was behind the Hertz sell-off
Momentum behind insurgent Korean automakers Kia and Hyundai
Whether the Chinese EV giant BYD will enter the U.S. market
Recommended Resources:
Inside EVs: Hyundai's Electric Vehicle Push Is Absolutely Working
Bloomberg: EV-Charging Firms to Struggle With Finances, Investment in 2024Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you’re a startup, investor, enterprise or innovation ecosystem that’s creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.
Catalyst is brought to you by Atmos Financial. Atmos is revolutionizing finance by leveraging your deposits to exclusively fund decarbonization solutions, like solar and electrification. Join in under 2 minutes at joinatmos.com/catalyst.
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Solving the cow burp problem
26 januari 2024 · 42 min
Agriculture in the U.S. produces more methane than the American oil and gas industry, and the biggest share of that agricultural methane is from enteric fermentation – essentially cow burps. Cows and other ruminant animals release methane because of the way they digest food. And as animal protein consumption rises, so will enteric emissions.
It’s a problem for climate change, but also for farmers. Methane is wasted energy that could have been used for beef or dairy production – and so enteric methane production is a challenge that researchers have been trying to solve for years. Some promising solutions are starting to make it into practice.
In this episode, Shayle talks to Charles Brooke, program manager for enteric methane at Spark Climate Solutions. Shayle and Charles cover topics like: Lees meerWhy most enteric methane comes from small-holder pasture-raised animals, instead of feed-lot-raised animals.
The different solutions in the pipeline, such as better livestock management, feed additives, vaccines, and breeding.
The challenges with feed additives that animals must eat everyday, like bromoform, Bovaer, and 3-NOP.
How vaccines and breeding could shift global populations more permanently.
The barriers to adoption, such as regulatory hurdles and public skepticism.
Recommended Resources:
Federation of American Scientists: Climate-Smart Cattle: US Research and Development Will Improve Animal Productivity, Address Greenhouse Gases, and Hasten Additional Market Solutions
USAID: Endline Methane Assessment of KCDMS Dairy and Fodder Value Chain Activities in Kenya
Food Climate Research Network: Grazed and Confused
American Society for Microbiology: The Role of microbes in Mediating Climate Change
Environmental Defense Fund: Tackling Enteric Methane
Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you’re a startup, investor, enterprise or innovation e… -
Sourcing biomass for carbon removal
19 januari 2024 · 48 min
Plants capture hundreds of gigatons of carbon every year in timber, crops, and other forms of biomass. Much of that carbon gets released back into the atmosphere through natural processes and human intervention. But there are a few ways that we can lock it away for good, like biochar, bio-oil, and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS — all processes that fall under the umbrella of biomass carbon removal.
The International Panel on Climate Change calls carbon removal “unavoidable” — and biomass is a leading carbon removal contender. But everyone wants a slice of the biomass pie. Airlines want it for jet fuel. Midwestern legislators want it for ethanol. Homebuilders want it for construction. Oh, and humans want it for food. By 2050 potential demand for biomass could far outstrip supply.
So what kinds of biomass should we use for carbon removal — and where should we get that biomass from?
In this episode, Shayle talks with Dr. Bodie Cabiyo, senior forest scientist at climate science consultancy Carbon Direct and lead author of A Buyer’s Guide to Sustainable Biomass Sourcing for Carbon Dioxide Removal.
They talk about topics like: Lees meerHow carbon removal is already competing with other uses for biomass.
The complicated question of what counts as “waste,” which some BECCS companies are using to claim carbon reductions.
Principles for sustainably sourcing biomass for carbon removal, like tracing chain of custody and avoiding market distortions.
The environmental and carbon math tradeoffs involved in different sources of biomass.
What Shayle would do with biomass if he were an omnipotent global leader.
Recommended Resources:
Carbon Direct: A Buyer’s Guide to Sustainable Biomass Sourcing for Carbon Dioxide Removal
Catalyst: From biowaste to ‘biogold’
Energy Transitions Commission: Bioresources within a Net-Zero Emissions Economy: Making a Sustainable Approach Possible
Sign up for Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum on January 31, featuring Crux CEO Alfred …
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2023 climate tech venture investment trends
11 januari 2024 · 44 min
Venture and early-stage investment in climate tech in 2023 was down 30% from 2022, according to market intelligence firm Sightline Climate. But is that a bad thing?
In this episode, Shayle unpacks the findings of Sightline’s 2023 Climate Tech Investment Trends report with Kim Zou, co-founder and CEO of the firm, which also produces the popular CTVC newsletter. (Shayle is an adviser to Sightline, and Kim was also previously a partner at Energy Impact Partners where Shayle works.) Kim argues that smaller deal sizes suggest that the climate tech space is actually maturing.
The data focus on venture and early-stage capital, rather than non-equity financing, which actually expanded in 2023, another sign that climate tech finance is becoming more sophisticated.
Shayle and Kim also cover topics like: Lees meerWhy food and land use fell out of the top three verticals (and why heavy industry took its place).
Major funding rounds, acquisitions, and bankruptcies in 2023.
The role of generalist investors moving into climate tech.
Zou’s predictions for investment trends in 2024.
Recommended Resources:
Latitude: Exclusive: Non-equity funding for climate tech is taking off
Latitude: Clean energy capital is getting pricier
Catalyst: Financing first-of-a-kind climate assets
Sign up for Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum on January 31, featuring Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, who will break down the budding market for clean energy tax credits. We’ll dissect current transactions and pricing, compare buyer and seller expectations, and look at where the market is headed in 2024.
Sign up for Latitude Media’s newsletter to get updates on the tech and business frontiers of the climate tech industry.
Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you’re a startup, investor, enterprise or innovation ecosystem that’s creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impac… -
Fixing the messy voluntary carbon market
4 januari 2024 · 48 min
The voluntary carbon market is a mess. Oil majors, big tech, and many other industries purchase voluntary credits hoping to offset their carbon emissions. But years of reporting have revealed major problems in the industry, from worthless credits to outright fraud. Amid allegations that many of its credits might actually worsen global warming, the CEO of the largest issuer of credits, Verra, resigned last year.
And so perhaps it’s no surprise that the market for traditional offsets like renewable energy credits and avoidance credits shrank in recent years. Yet the market for a newer type of credit, carbon removal, is actually growing.
So what’s behind this bifurcation in the market? And are the voluntary carbon markets fixable?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Ryan Orbuch, partner at Lowercarbon Capital. He leads the firm’s carbon removal work. Ryan argues the market is fixable with major reforms, like overhauling incentives and ditching the idea that the voluntary carbon market can offset buyers’ emissions with as many cheap credits as needed.
Shayle and Ryan cover topics like: Lees meerThe bad incentives underlying the problems with the current market.
The role of credit-rating agencies in the market.
Ryan’s ideas for designing a better market from scratch, including ex-post payments, modular protocols, and a feedback loop for improving supplier methods.
The potential challenges with these approaches, like financing prior to payment and uncertainty in credit delivery as protocols change.
Companies that are pioneering some of these approaches, like Isometric’s new protocol for the bio-oil geological storage technique used by Charm Industrial.
Recommended Resources:
The New Yorker: The Great Cash-for-Carbon Hustle
UC Berkeley: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) Carbon Crediting
CDR.fyi
Isometric: Aligning incentives
Sign up for Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum on January 31, featuring Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, who will break down t…
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Financing first-of-a-kind climate assets
21 december 2023 · 46 min
There’s a hole in the finance world. Fighting climate change means scaling up lots of new technologies, but financing those first-of-a-kind (FOAK) projects is incredibly difficult. New technologies involving things like sustainable aviation fuel, geothermal, and direct air capture can take a decade or more to scale up. But venture capital is too expensive for FOAK projects, while infrastructure finance is too risk-averse.
So what solutions could solve the FOAK financing problem?
In this episode, Shayle talks to longtime climatetech investor David Yeh. David has spent over 20 years in climatetech, including in roles at the Obama White House, Generation Investment Management, and the World Bank.
They cover topics like: Lees meerDifferent approaches to FOAK, like off-balance sheet, structured finance, catalytic capital, and government programs.
Examples of companies that solved the FOAK problem
Code switching between venture capitalists and infrastructure financiers. (Try using the word “innovative” with traditional bankers).
David’s checklist for FOAK entrepreneurs.
Recommended Resources:
Bloomberg: Grant From Bill Gates-led Fund Will Make Green Jet Fuel As Cheap As Fossil Fuels
CTVC: What the FOAK?
If you want more news and analysis like this in your inbox, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter and Canary Media's newsletter.
Catalyst is a co-production of Latitude Media and Canary Media.
Catalyst is brought to you by BayWa r.e., a leading global renewable energy developer, service supplier, and distributor. With over 22GW in their project pipeline, BayWa r.e. is rethinking energy every day and at every level. Committed to being a solid partner for the long run, BayWa r.e. wants to work with you to help shape the future of energy. Learn more at bay.wa-re.com.
Catalyst is brought to you by Sungrow. Now in more than 150 countries, Sungrow’s solutions include inverters for utility-scale, commercial, and industrial solar, plus energy storage systems. Learn more at us.s… -
What do you do with a 100-hour battery?
14 december 2023 · 49 min
It’s time to get specific. In the power industry “long-duration energy storage” could mean anything from 4 to 10 to 100 hours of energy. But Form Energy’s Mateo Jaramillo argues that batteries in the ballpark of 100 hours hit a sweet spot, and that sweet spot deserves its own term: multi-day storage.
In the 15 minute to 12 hour range, lithium-ion batteries shine, effectively displacing natural gas peaker plants that run less than 5% of the year. But they don’t displace higher-capacity generation. Nor do they meet the needs of the grid during significant weather events, like heat domes, Nor'easters and freak Texas winter storms that can last upwards of 75 hours. And for that, Mateo says we need multi-day storage.
Form Energy’s iron-air batteries made headlines back in 2021 for promising to deliver tens of hours of storage at a low cost per kilowatt hour. (Energy Impact Partners, where Shayle is a partner, invests in Form Energy.) So what role could multi-day storage play on the grid?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Mateo about real-world examples from Form’s experience with utilities like Xcel and Georgia Power. They also cover topics like: Lees meerThe strengths and limitations of lithium-ion batteries on the grid today, and why Mateo thinks lithium-ion is here to stay.
The competitive landscape for mulit-day storage, including iron-air, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, and transmission.
What role multi-day storage plays for utilities beyond balancing renewables, such as meeting load growth and resilience goals.
Plus: Shayle’s idea for bitcoin mining on a barge.
Recommended Resources:
Canary Media: Form Energy closes its biggest deal yet for long-duration energy storage
Carbon Copy: A groundbreaking long-duration battery nears industrial scale
Wall Street Journal: Old West Virginia Steel Mill Becomes a Green-Energy Powerhouse
If you want more news and analysis like this in your inbox, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter and Canary Media's newsletter.
Cat… -
Update: What the new Treasury rules mean for EV supply chains
7 december 2023 · 47 min
The U.S. Treasury proposed guidance last Friday that would significantly restrict what battery parts and materials can qualify for incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act. The rules label China and several other countries as “foreign entities of concern.” These rules will prevent materials and parts sourced from those countries, starting in the next few years, from counting toward the IRA’s electric vehicle tax credits.
The new rules are meant to push battery companies to develop supply chains outside the control of Chinese officials and companies, which control much of the world’s battery industry. They come following a first batch of guidance released this year by the Treasury, which the IRA tasked with developing specific rules for implementing the law.
So what does the new guidance mean for battery supply chains?
This episode features two conversations with Sam Jaffe, senior director of business development at Addionics. The first is a short update on last week’s proposed rules. The second is a longer conversation Shayle had with Sam in April about the first batch of rules, which focused on which battery ingredients count as “constituent materials” under the IRA. Both discussions are relevant to understanding what’s happening now.
In this update they cover topics like: Lees meerDefining what counts as a material controlled by a foreign entity of concern, such as percentage ownership in a joint venture
Key loopholes in law, such as licensing arrangements and small percentages of low-value materials, like cathode binder and electrolyte salts
The parts of the supply chain most significantly affected by the rule, such as Chinese graphite, Indonesian nickel, and Congolese cobalt
Upcoming deadlines in 2025 and 2026, and whether onshored or friend-shored facilities can begin supplying materials before then
Recommended Resources:
Canary: The US EV industry now faces a choice: Tax credits or Chinese batteries
Heatmap: It’s Suddenly a Mystery Which EVs Will Qualify for a…
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EV charging on both sides of the pond
30 november 2023 · 39 min
For those of us in the U.S., Europe's strong electric vehicle market might offer a glimpse into the future of EV charging. In 2022 the electrification haven of Norway had a whopping 166 plugin-in electric vehicles per 1,000 residents. Germany had 20 per 1,000 residents and Europe’s largest fleet, based on reporting by Euronews. That’s far ahead of the U.S., which averaged 8.6 in 2022, according to Argonne National Laboratory.
So, it stands to reason that these countries must have insights into how to get all these vehicles charged. And Europe does indeed have a lot to teach the U.S. — but it turns out the lessons might actually go both ways.
In this episode, Shayle talks to Nick Woolley, CEO and co-founder of charging management company ev.energy, which operates in both the U.S. and Europe. (Shayle’s firm Energy Impact Partners is also an investor in ev.energy.)
They discuss topics like: Lees meerEV adoption rates and charging patterns by region
The fragmented European charging networks and Europe’s unique roaming programs that facilitate interoperability
The difference between customers who have off-street parking and their own charging infrastructure, and those who instead have to scavenge for charging
The pros and cons of Europe’s unbundled electricity markets, as compared with vertically integrated markets in the U.S.
Carrots, sticks, and compliance for managed charging, also known as V1G
The challenges of implementing vehicle-to-grid charging, or V2G
Recommended Resources:
Catalyst: Can the V2X dream become reality?
Catalyst: The journey to monetizing distributed energy resources
Sign up for Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum on January 29, featuring Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, who will break down the budding market for clean energy tax credits. We’ll dissect current transactions and pricing, compare buyer and seller expectations, and look at where the market is headed in 2024.
Catalyst is brought to you by BayWa r.e., a leading global renewable energy developer, s… -
The cost of nuclear
16 november 2023 · 47 min
Nuclear construction costs in the U.S. are some of the highest in the world. Recent estimates put it 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 small modular reactor before it got built.
On the other hand, 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: Lees meerWhat 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:
Energy Policy: Historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors
National Academy of Engineering: Chasing Cheap Nuclear: Economic Trade-Offs for Small Modular Reactors
Joule: Evaluating the Role of Unit Size in Learning-by-Doing of Energy Technologies
Science: Granular technologies to accelerate decarbonization
Canary: Future of small reactors at stake as NuScale deal flops
If you want more news and analysis like this in your inbox, subscribe to Latitude …
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Mailbag episode! Interest rates, carbon dioxide removal, load growth, and more
9 november 2023 · 53 min
It’s about that time again. You sent in great questions for Shayle, and in this episode we’re tackling them with the help of Sarah Golden, vice president of energy at GreenBiz. Together Shayle and Sarah cover topics like: Lees meer
Load growth and whether data-center demand is good or bad for decarbonization.
The crash in photovoltaic module prices and what it means for the solar industry.
The impact of interest rates on climatetech.
The challenges of siting carbon dioxide pipelines.
Why there’s no clear winning technology for carbon dioxide removal.
European energy companies acquiring U.S. companies.
Why Shayle is bullish on the macro grid, despite the slow pace of interconnection and transmission buildout.
Plus: volcanoes, Frankenstein, and Shayle’s childhood with geodes.
Recommended Resources:
Catalyst: Navigating the electrification gauntlet
Canary: The US offshore wind industry faces a moment of reckoning
S&P Global: Cancellation of Navigator CO2 pipeline raises critical issues for several industries
Catalyst: Growing the carbon dioxide removal market
Sign up for Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum on January 29, featuring Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, who will break down the budding market for clean energy tax credits. We’ll dissect current transactions and pricing, compare buyer and seller expectations, and look at where the market is headed in 2024.
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The Volts crossover episode
3 november 2023 · 1 uur 8 min
Some technologies grab the spotlight even beyond #energytwitter, and some fly under the radar. Which ones are getting more attention than they deserve, and which aren’t getting enough?
This is the episode you never knew you needed: Shayle talks to Volts host David Roberts about the most underhyped and overhyped trends in climatetech right now. David has written about clean technology for the past two decades, first at Grist and then at Vox. He now writes a newsletter and hosts a podcast of the same.
Together, Shayle and David cover topics like: Lees meerWhy this new wave of thermal storage technology is different.
Small modular reactors and why David and Shayle disagree on how much hype they deserve
Why rising interest rates are starting to become a big problem for climatetech.
The Inflation Reduction Act and how people still don’t grasp how big of a deal it is.
Plus: electric stovetops, mineral bottlenecks, and networked geothermal.
We want your climatetech questions for Shayle’s Ask Me Anything episode! Email questions to us at catalyst@latitudemedia.com. You can also tag us on Twitter or LinkedIn with the hashtag #AskCatalyst. Or you can leave us a voicemail at 919-808-5832.
Recommended Resources:
Volts: What's the deal with district energy?
Volts: Fine, we're doing gas stoves
Catalyst: Solving the conundrum of industrial heat
Catalyst: Strong opinions on small modular reactors
Subscribe to our newsletters:
Canary Media
The Latitude
Sign up for Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum on January 29, featuring Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, who will break down the budding market for clean energy tax credits. We’ll dissect current transactions and pricing, compare buyer and seller expectations, and look at where the market is headed in 2024.
Catalyst is brought to you by BayWa r.e., a leading global renewable energy developer, service supplier, and distributor. With over 22GW in their project pipeline, BayWa r.e. is rethinking energy every day and at every level. Committed… -
The market for microgrids
26 oktober 2023 · 45 min
We want your climatetech questions for Shayle’s Ask Me Anything episode! Email questions to us at catalyst@latitudemedia.com. You can also tag us on Twitter or LinkedIn with the hashtag #AskCatalyst. Or you can leave us a voicemail at 919-808-5832.
The electrification gauntlet is this: The more we electrify, the more we ask of the grid. New demands on the grid are coming right as it’s facing some of its biggest challenges, like interconnection delays, transmission congestion, and extreme weather.
But there’s a way to take some of the strain off the grid when it doesn’t deliver what you need – Build your own! Microgrids, as they’re called, are electrical networks that can function independent of the larger grid.
So how do they scale? And what counts as a microgrid, anyway?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Tim Hade, co-founder and chief development officer at Scale Microgrids. (Scale was a launch sponsor of Latitude Media, which co-produces this show. This interview is independent of that sponsorship and was scheduled prior to Scale becoming a sponsor).
Tim and Shayle talk about the state of the microgrid market. They discuss topics like: Lees meerWhy microgrid switchgear is a major bottleneck right now
Whether the Chinese supply chain for microgrid parts will bounce back, or new manufacturing will spring up in Europe and the U.S. to replace it
The effort to standardize microgrids to increase adoption
Recommended Resources:
Canary: Puerto Rico’s first community-led microgrid is ready to launch
Canary: A giant solar microgrid is coming to New York City’s JFK airport
Sign up for Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum on January 29, featuring Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, who will break down the budding market for clean energy tax credits. We’ll dissect current transactions and pricing, compare buyer and seller expectations, and look at where the market is headed in 2024.
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The pace of home electrification
19 oktober 2023 · 36 min
Heat pumps in 140 million U.S. homes by 2050 — that’s the goal laid out in Rewiring America’s recent report on the pace of home electrification. It’s a daunting target for a country that had heat pumps in only 17 million homes in 2020.
But we’re not that far off. According to Rewiring America, the U.S. is currently on track to install about five million heat pumps by 2025, only about two and a half million short of the pace we need to reach 140 million homes by midcentury.
So what can we do to close the gap? What about other major categories of home electrification like water heaters and induction stoves — are we on pace to reach net-zero targets there?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Stephen Pantano, head of market transformation at Rewiring America, about the organization’s Pace of Progress report. They cover topics like: Lees meerThe adoption targets for water heaters, induction stoves, and other efficient home appliances
The roughly $9 billion in incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act that could accelerate adoption
The need for more data to get a better understanding of where and how to speed up adoption
Why heat pumps are a growing share of a shrinking heating and cooling market, and how that’s impacting slumping heat pump sales
Recommended Resources:
Rewiring America: Pace of Progress
Canary: New plan aims to quadruple heat-pump adoption in 25 states
Canary: Heat pumps outperform boilers and furnaces — even in the cold
Catalyst: How has US industrial policy impacted climatetech investment?
Sign up for Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum on January 29, featuring Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, who will break down the budding market for clean energy tax credits. We’ll dissect current transactions and pricing, compare buyer and seller expectations, and look at where the market is headed in 2024.
Catalyst is brought to you by BayWa r.e., a leading global renewable energy developer, service supplier, and distributor. With over 22GW in their project pipeline, BayWa r.e. … -
How is U.S. industrial policy affecting actual climatetech investment?
12 oktober 2023 · 51 min
In climatetech circles, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was a big deal. The expectation was that, combined with other parts of U.S. industrial policy like the CHIPS and Science Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the IRA would transform the American economy and ultimately slash U.S. carbon emissions.
We can’t see the impact on carbon emissions yet, but we can measure the initial effects on the economy. So how’s it going so far?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Trevor Houser, partner at the Rhodium Group, about the organization’s new Clean Investment Monitor, a database of climatetech investments developed with the MIT Center on Energy and Environmental Policy Research. Trevor highlights three different categories of policy impacts: Lees meerSectors where policy accelerated existing trends, like solar deployment and EV sales.
Sectors where policy catalyzed new growth that probably would not have happened otherwise, like in manufacturing, hydrogen, carbon management, and sustainable aviation fuels.
Sectors that are declining despite policy incentives, like the deployment of wind and heat pumps.
They discuss the drivers behind these trends and cover topics like:
The regional clustering of manufacturing investment and new geographic hubs, like the Southwest.
The surprising growth in hydrogen made from steam methane reforming, also known as blue hydrogen.
Recommended Resources:
Rhodium Group: Clean Investment Monitor
Canary: Made in the USA: Ramping up clean energy manufacturing
Canary: US offshore wind pushes ahead despite industry turmoil
Sign up for Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum on January 29, featuring Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, who will break down the budding market for clean energy tax credits. We’ll dissect current transactions and pricing, compare buyer and seller expectations, and look at where the market is headed in 2024.
Catalyst is brought to you by Sungrow. Now in more than 150 countries, Sungrow’s solutions include inverters for utility-scale, comm… -
What electric forklifts teach us about creative policy [partner content]
11 oktober 2023 · 15 min
This is a partner podcast episode, brought to you by DNV.
Wes Whited and Angie Ziech-Malek work for DNV designing efficiency, electrification, and decarbonization programs for utilities. And lately, they’ve been paying attention to electric forklifts.
There are 1.5 million forklifts sold in the U.S. every year. And converting that vast fleet to run on lithium-ion batteries could be a cost-effective way to boost electrification – and add a helpful resource for demand management to the grid.
Speeding up adoption means getting the utility involved in the education and promotion process. The forklift example is one of many creative approaches to program design that are emerging in the wake of the Inflation Reduction Act, which expanded incentives for a wide range of clean energy technologies.
In this episode, Wes and Angie talk with Stephen Lacey about how technology progress, creative thinking, and the Inflation Reduction Act are all aligning in transformative ways.
After you listen to the episode, make sure to read DNV’s Energy Transition Outlook North America. Lees meer -
Climate tech startups need strong techno-economic analysis (TEA)
5 oktober 2023 · 49 min
We have a flash sale for Transition-AI: New York through October 9th. Use the code FLASH30 to get 30% off your ticket price to our event on AI + energy. Spots are limited, so don't miss out!
This might be our wonkiest topic yet: Techno-economic analysis, or TEA.
Before a startup has proven that its technology is commercially viable, it models how its 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.
What can startups do to improve their TEAs?
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
Sign up for Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum on January 29, featuring Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, who will break down the budding market for clean energy tax credits. We’ll dissect current transactions and pricing, compare buyer and seller expectations, and look at where the market is headed in 2024.
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Reviving the stagnant plant based meat market
28 september 2023 · 40 min
It was 2020 and plant-based meats were hot. Sales were up 45% that year and expectations were high. The industry set its sights on performing as well as plant-based beverages, which had reached about a 15% dollar share of the U.S. cow-based milk market at the time. In the $300 billion U.S. meat market, a 15% share would be a massive $45 billion prize.
But then, starting in 2021, plant-based meats hit a wall. U.S. sales began three consecutive years of declines. Headlines described plant-based meats as “bleeding” and “just another fad”.
So what happened?
In this episode, Shayle talks to John Baumgartner, managing director of equity research for food and healthy living at Mizuho Securities. He explains the major factors that led to the decline—and why he’s still bullish on the long-term growth of the industry. They cover topics like: Lees meerWhy the plant-based beverage category is so different from plant-based meats
Major factors in sales, including the Covid-19 bounce, flatlining household penetration, and inflation
The under-no-circumstances crowd that will not consider plant-based meats
Positive indicators for growth potential from other markets, such as Taiwan and western Europe
Improvements in taste, mouthfeel, health, and price that could reinvigorate the industry
Recommended Resources:
Mizuho Securities: Plant-Based Food Market Overview & Outlook
Good Food Institute: 2023 outlook: The state of the plant-based meat category
Deloitte: Plant-based meat gets a reality check
Sign up for Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum on January 29, featuring Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, who will break down the budding market for clean energy tax credits. We’ll dissect current transactions and pricing, compare buyer and seller expectations, and look at where the market is headed in 2024.
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Fixing interconnection
21 september 2023 · 42 min
Everything's bigger in Texas—the hats, the boots, the convenience stores. But its interconnection times? They’re surprisingly short.
In the U.S. it takes power generators four years on average to get approval to connect to the grid, and in some places, it takes far longer. In the Texas electricity market, it takes only about 1.5 years between interconnection request and agreement. And it costs way less to interconnect, too.
The results are telling. The Texas grid, operated by the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, has installed more wind power than any other state—40+ gigawatts worth. It’s also installed 19 gigawatts of solar power, second only to California. ERCOT has interconnected two times more generation than PJM, an electricity market in the Mid-Atlantic, even though PJM is two times larger than ERCOT in terms of peak load.
So what does Texas know about interconnection that the rest of the U.S. doesn’t? And how could other states learn from Texas?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Tyler Norris, PhD student at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and former vice president of development at Cypress Creek Renewables. Tyler recently published a policy brief on how the U.S. could reform its interconnection process, applying lessons from ERCOT.
They cover topics like: Lees meerWhy FERC’s system impact studies lead to long delays and high costs
ERCOT’s shorter and lower-cost process, called “connect-and-manage”
Recommended Resources:
Duke Nicholas Institute: Beyond FERC Order 2023: Considerations on Deep Interconnection Reform
Catalyst: Understanding the transmission bottleneck
FERC: E-1: Commissioner Clements Concurrence on Order No. 2023: Improvements to Generator Interconnection Procedures and Agreements
Brattle Group: Generation Interconnection and Transmission Planning
Sign up for Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum on January 29, featuring Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, who will break down the budding market for clean energy tax credits. W…
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Stopping geoengineering, by accident
14 september 2023 · 45 min
Solar geoengineering is a hot (er, cool?) topic these days. One method involves injecting a form of sulfur into the atmosphere to reflect solar radiation and help reduce global temperatures. But it could also cause unpredictable changes to ozone, rainfall, and ecosystems. So when a rogue startup began sending balloons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere earlier this year, it sparked outrage.
But here’s the thing: We’ve been geoengineering our atmosphere for decades, just not intentionally. Scientists have long known that sulfur dioxide emissions from maritime shipping have a cooling effect on the atmosphere. They brighten clouds and reflect more solar radiation. We’ve also known that sulfur dioxide is a toxic air pollutant that causes tens of thousands of premature deaths per year.
So in 2020 when the International Maritime Organization, which regulates shipping, required ships to drastically cut their sulfur dioxide emissions, it reduced air pollution. But it also accidentally warmed the surface of the oceans.
So how big of a deal is this?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Dan Visioni, climate scientist and assistant professor at Cornell University’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. They cover topics like: Lees meerThe mechanism behind marine cloud brightening and how it differs from stratospheric sulfate injection
Why the warming effect was so strong in the North Atlantic in particular
What we still don’t understand about the impact on global mean temperatures and regional weather, like heat waves and hurricanes
What this accidental experiment tells us about how someone could conduct a deliberate geoengineering experiment
Recommended Resources:
Analysis: How low-sulphur shipping rules are affecting global warming
Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics: Climate and air quality trade-offs in altering ship fuel sulfur content
Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Are you looking to understand how artificial intelligence will sh… -
The food-energy nexus
8 september 2023 · 38 min
Last time we talked to Dr. Michael Webber, we dug into the nexus between water and energy. This episode we’re diving into food. The connections are myriad.
Food itself is just a means of energy storage, and a particularly good one at that. While photosynthesis is remarkably inefficient—averaging only 0.3% globally, compared to 90% or more in an electric motor—it stores energy for weeks to years.
In the U.S. we use around 12% of our energy to produce food, in the form of inputs like diesel, fertilizer, and electricity. Meanwhile, the food system itself provides fuel to the rest of the energy system, through ethanol and other forms of bioenergy.
So how do all these things fit together?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Webber, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas–Austin, and chief technology officer at Energy Impact Partners, where Shayle is a partner. They cover topics like: Lees meerThe Green revolution, which added more energy to food production, improving yields while reducing the amount of people required
The categories of energy consumption, such as fertilizers, on-site fuel, transportation, the cold chain and cooking
Food waste, which in the U.S. reaches about 30 - 50% of edible food
Why buying local is not necessarily good for the environment
Why we should not use food for fuel, unless it’s waste by-products from food production
How climate change affects the food system, for example by reducing the efficiency of photosynthesis and requiring more refrigeration to reduce spoilage
The viability of indoor agriculture
Recommended Resources:
Climavores: Bursting the ‘eat local’ bubble
Catalyst: The 3 pathways to alternative proteins
Catalyst: From biowaste to ‘biogold’
Catalyst: How well does soil actually store carbon?
Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
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Can the V2X dream become reality?
31 augustus 2023 · 38 min
Here’s the dream: Millions of EVs plugged into their charging docks, working in concert to relieve stress on the world’s power grids. They reduce charging load or even inject energy back onto the grid. They back up renewables when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine.
That’s the vision for managed charging, or V1G, and vehicle-to-grid, or V2G. There’s also a third technology called vehicle-to-home that allows an EV battery to power a building, just like a home battery. Collectively these technologies are called V2X.
There’s reason to think this V2X dream could become a reality. They’re already happening at small scales. And when they reach larger scales, the cumulative impact could be big. A recent Nature study found that by 2030 the total battery capacity across the world’s mobile batteries could be more than two terawatt hours, climbing to more than 30 terawatt hours by 2050.
But first, these technologies need to overcome some big barriers—costly grid upgrades, degrading batteries, drivers worried about being left without a charge—just to name a few.
So what will V2X actually look like?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Ty Jagerson, leader of V2X at GM. They cover topics like: Lees meerThe contracts GM is signing with customers to manage their charging
Reassuring EV owners that managed charging is not going to leave them without a charge
What kind of compensation EV owners could get for V2G and whether the value to companies will be worth the costs
The carrots and sticks of V2G: compensation and time-of-use charges
Whether V2G will be more valuable for capacity or energy markets
Whether V2G will degrade batteries and violate manufacturer warranties
Recommended Resources:
Canary Media: Is ‘vehicle-to-everything’ charging ready for prime time?
Union of Concerned Scientists: EVs Can Support Power Grid Reliability and Reduce Costs. Here’s How.
Catalyst: Will charging infrastructure be a bottleneck for electric vehicles?
Catalyst is a co-production of Post…
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Seeking the holy grail of batteries (Rerun)
24 augustus 2023 · 55 min
If there were a holy grail of electric vehicle batteries, it would be low-weight, long-range, and fast-charging. It would last a million miles and cost less than anything produced today.
So in the booming EV battery market, what kind of battery will check all those boxes? Who will invent it? And do we really need all those features in one battery in the first place?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Sam Jaffe, vice president of battery solutions at E-Source. They trace the history of the two major competing lithium-ion chemistries: Lithium Iron (or ferrous) Phosphate (LFP) and Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC).
Sam and Shayle also discuss the factors that shaped this competition, like China, Tesla, and access to capital. They discuss new partnerships between battery manufacturers and automakers, including LG and GM, Samsung SDI and Stellantis, ACC and Mercedes Lees meerAnd they cover questions like:
Who decides which chemistries to develop — automakers or battery part manufacturers?
Will a small number of chemistries dominate or will there be a rapid diversification of battery chemistries to meet different needs?
Is fast charging a nice-to-have or need-to-have?
Will the rising costs of battery materials, especially lithium, slow the adoption of EVs?
Plus, Sam explains why he is no longer bearish on vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging.
Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Are you looking to understand how artificial intelligence will shape the business of energy? Come network with utilities, top energy firms, startups, and AI experts at Transition-AI: New York on October 19. Our listeners get a 10% discount with the code pspods10.
Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you're a startup, investor, enterprise, or innovation ecosystem that's creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagrou… -
Navigating the electricity gauntlet
17 augustus 2023 · 50 min
Electrification should be a field day for utilities. As we electrify the economy, adding gigafactories, charging stations, and green hydrogen hubs to the grid, the demand for power is growing for the first time in decades. For savvy utilities, there’s a lot of money to be made. But only if they can keep up.
Utilities face massive challenges to deliver the power needed for electrification – years-long interconnection queues, a shortage of transformers, an uncertain regulatory environment—the list goes on. It’s the electrification gauntlet.
Can utilities make it through?
In this episode, Shayle talks to his colleague Andy Lubershane, partner and head of research at Energy Impact Partners.
They cover topics like: Lees meerWhy power demand flatlined over the past twenty years—and what’s changing now
Big industrial loads like data centers that face delays because utilities aren’t able to deliver enough power
The differences between big industrial load growth, like green hydrogen hubs, and distributed load growth, like heat pumps.
The current EPA’s proposed power plant regulations, which might require carbon capture and storage
The shortage of electrical transformers
Why microgrids might become even more valuable as utilities struggle to deliver power
Recommended Resources:
Reuters: Global power demand growth to rebound in 2024 after slowdown, IEA says
Utility Dive: Full industrial electrification could more than double US power demand. Here’s how renewables can meet it.
Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Are you looking to understand how artificial intelligence will shape the business of energy? Come network with utilities, top energy firms, startups, and AI experts at Transition-AI: New York on October 19. Our listeners get a 10% discount with the code pspods10.
Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you're… -
Beaming 24/7 solar… from space
10 augustus 2023 · 48 min
It’s the highest-intensity solar power you can get. It’s available 24/7. And you can send it anywhere on earth.
All you need to do is launch a ten-by-ten kilometer array of solar panels into geosynchronous orbit, capture solar energy, and beam it to earth using a massive antenna array. Then set up a receiver a few kilometers in diameter on earth to collect that power and send it to the grid.
Sound like science fiction? You wouldn’t be far off (looking at you, Isaac Asimov). But the reality is that Caltech, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, and the Japanese Space Agency are all working on the idea.
Recent developments in space tech warrant some cautious optimism about space-based solar. Space X has pioneered reusable rockets that have dramatically reduced the cost of launches. And mass production of satellites has brought down the cost of hardware, too.
So how would space-based solar actually work? And what would it take to commercialize it?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Sanjay Vijendran, lead for the SOLARIS initiative on space-based solar power at the European Space Agency. He argues that space-based solar is much closer to commercialization than nuclear fusion, which garners a lot more attention and funding.
They cover topics like: Lees meerThe four main components: the launch, the solar panels, the antenna, and the receiver on earth
Where we need additional research, including beaming power at greater distance and scale, plus power beaming safety
What it might feel like if you stood under the beam
The target launch costs the industry would need to reach for viability
Pilot projects happening right now
Recommended Resources:
The Verge: Space-based solar power is having its moment in the sun
Science: Space-based solar power is getting serious—can it solve Earth’s energy woes?
Canary: Is space-based solar ready for liftoff?
Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has part… -
With Great Power: What other industries can teach utilities about innovation
4 augustus 2023 · 28 min
This week we’re bringing you a special crossover episode from With Great Power. It’s a show about one of the most complex machines ever built – the power grid. It’s a machine that’s changing faster than ever. With Great Power is about the people driving that change:
A third of the world's largest companies now have net-zero targets in place for carbon emissions. Google was ahead of the curve. Back in 2007, it had already achieved its goal of going carbon neutral across all of its offices and data centers around the globe.
But as demand for Google's services expanded, it knew that it had to overhaul its energy goals. At the time, Raiford Smith served as Google's global head of energy and location strategy. And part of his job was jump-starting this massive effort.
In 2021, Google launched one of the most ambitious corporate energy strategies ever. And Raiford and his team made it possible.
After a career spanning more than 30 years at utilities like Duke Energy, CPS, Entergy, and Southern company, and two years at Google, Raiford knows firsthand that change is possible at power companies.
This week, Brad talked with Raiford, now the chief innovation officer at AES, about what's needed to spur tech innovation at utilities, and the technologies that will be integral to the energy transition. Lees meerThis podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.
Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you're a startup, investor, enterprise, or innovation ecosystem that's creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.
Catalyst is supported by RE+. RE+ is more than just the largest clean energy event, it’s a catalyst for industry innovation designed to … -
Mining the deep sea
27 juli 2023 · 49 min
The good news: The Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) contains more nickel and cobalt than the rest of the world’s land-based reserves combined. It also has significant resources of high-grade lithium, copper and rare earth metals—all of which are critical for the batteries the world needs to meet Paris Agreement targets.
The bad news: The CCZ lies at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and contains biodiverse ecosystems we know very little about—and that we could profoundly harm if we mine them.
The CCZ lies between Hawaii and Mexico and is about half the size of the continental United States. And it’s just one of many potential deep-sea sources of critical minerals.
So should we mine the deep sea to fight climate change? And if we do, how do we also protect seafloor ecosystems?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Renee Grogan, an expert in deep-sea mining. She is a co-founder and board director at Impossible Metals.
Together they cover topics like: Lees meerThe different types of seafloor resources, including polymetallic nodules, cobalt ferro-manganese crusts, and massive sulfides
Better understanding seafloor ecosystems and incorporating science into mining practices and regulations, including selective harvesting, protected areas, and offsets
The challenges of enforcing regulations three to five kilometers below the surface
Ongoing negotiations at the International Seabed Authority, which was planning to finalize regulations for deep-sea mining last week, but announced that it needed more time.
Recommended Resources:
NYT: Pacific Seabed Mining Delayed as International Agency Finalizes Rules
Forbes: Deep Sea Mining: The Biggest Climate Issue You’ve Never Heard Of
British Geological Survey: Deep-sea mining evidence review – MineralsUK
Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you'r… -
The good and bad of carbon capture
20 juli 2023 · 42 min
Carbon capture and storage. It’s a controversial tool in the energy transition that we don’t want to use, but probably have to. Most of the scenarios in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report include capturing and storing hundreds of gigatons of carbon dioxide between now and 2100.
When people say carbon capture and storage, or CCS, they often mean different things. It’s a term that covers multiple technologies used to capture CO2—such as point-source and direct-air capture— and different approaches to using that CO2.
With the CCS industry is in its infancy, tackling some big questions now could save us headaches down the road. Questions about CCS infrastructure use, where we’ll build it, and who will control it.
In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Emily Grubert, associate professor of sustainable energy policy at the University of Notre Dame. She posted a Twitter thread recently about how the same CCS infrastructure actually has four different use cases: Lees meerAvoiding emissions to extend the life of fossil-fuel infrastructure
Avoiding emissions where we don’t have zero-carbon alternatives yet, like cement production
Removing carbon to compensate for other emissions, i.e. offsets
Removing carbon to draw down legacy emissions and avoid overshooting 1.5 degrees Celsius targets
They walk through each categories and cover topics like:
Which categories to prioritize over others
Avoiding the double-counting problem
Where we should use CCS vs. zero-carbon alternatives
The resource constraints on CCS, including water, land and energy
Whether we have the luxury to prioritize when we need to deploy CCS so quickly
Whether CCS customers or regulatory bodies should determine the type of CCS infrastructure we have and where we build it
Recommended Resources:
Catalyst: Carbon capture and storage is making a comeback
Bloomberg: Big Money Rushes Into Carbon Capture. Can It Deliver This Time?
US DOE: Strategic Vision: The Role of FECM in Achieving Net-Zero Greenhouse Gas Emis…
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The early days of transoceanic hydrogen transport
13 juli 2023 · 43 min
Before hydrogen makes it big, we have to overcome a massive, ocean-sized challenge: Transporting the fuel between continents.
The places that will be best suited to produce hydrogen via renewables-powered electrolysis, like Australia and Egypt, will have to ship that hydrogen to demand centers in Japan, Europe, and elsewhere.
And it turns out that shipping hydrogen is way harder than shipping oil or natural gas. Hydrogen has a very low volumetric energy density. Compared to one barrel of oil, the equivalent amount of gaseous hydrogen takes up way more space to transport.
Fortunately, a range of technologies could solve this problem. Will one become the dominant means of transporting hydrogen across the oceans?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s SIPA Center on Global Energy Policy. Anne-Sophie recently wrote about hydrogen transport for Cipher News.
They cover the five leading contenders for transoceanic transport: Lees meerLiquified hydrogen
E-methane, also known as synthetic methane or carbon neutral gas
Liquid organic hydrogen carriers(LOHCs)
Methanol
Ammonia
They also discuss topics like:
Why good old fashioned pipelines might be a viable option for transport, even between continents
The challenges of converting natural gas infrastructure into hydrogen infrastructure
Why hydrogen exporters might be better off producing products made with hydrogen, such as steel, rather than the hydrogen itself
Recommended Resources:
Cipher News: Global hydrogen trade may be just a pipe dream
IRENA: Global Hydrogen Trade to Meet the 1.5°C Climate Goal: Technology Review of Hydrogen Carriers
IEA: Global Hydrogen Review 2022
Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you're a startup, investor, enterprise, or innovat… -
The fungus among us
29 juni 2023 · 35 min
More than a third of the world’s current greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels go through underground networks of fungi, according to a new peer-reviewed study in Current Biology.
That’s a whopping 13 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year.
Mycorrhizal fungi act as a symbiotic partner of plants, seeking out nutrients and bringing them back to the plants’ roots. In return, they accept carbon in the form of carbohydrates—which they then lock away in the structure of the fungi. This symbiotic relationship is nothing new to scientists; what’s surprising is the magnitude of carbon stored.
But how permanent is this sink? And what can we do to support fungi as a nature-based climate solution?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Heidi-Jayne Hawkins, lead author of the new paper and research director at Conservation South Africa.
They cover topics like: Lees meerThe evolutionary history of mycorrhizal fungi
The mechanics of fungal carbon storage, which boosts carbon storage by 5-20% more than plants alone
What we can do to support conditions for fungi to absorb carbon
Open questions about the permanence of the storage
Recommended Resources:
Current Biology: Mycorrhizal mycelium as a global carbon pool
Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Support for Catalyst comes from Climate Positive, a podcast by HASI, that features candid conversations with the leaders, innovators, and changemakers who are at the forefront of the transition to a sustainable economy. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Catalyst is supported by Scale Microgrids, the distributed energy company dedicated to transforming the way modern energy infrastructure is designed, constructed, and financed. Distributed generation can be complex. Scale makes it easy. Learn more: scalemicrogrids.com. -
Building out a U.S. solar supply chain
22 juni 2023 · 44 min
Everything, everywhere, all at once—that’s the state of the U.S. solar industry right now.
Suppliers are rushing to take advantage of the Inflation Reduction Act’s generous domestic-manufacturing incentives. Major manufacturers like First Solar and Enel have announced billion dollar investments in places like Tulsa, Oklahoma and Lawrence County, Alabama.
But tariffs on the import of some Chinese-made parts may resume at the end of 2024; and the industry still faces supply chain shortages and permitting backlogs.
Meanwhile, the stakes are high. To reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the U.S. needs to install 100 gigawatts of solar per year by 2030, according to a report from the REPEAT Project of Princeton’s ZERO Lab, up from about 30 gigawatts this year.
Is that achievable in this chaotic environment?
In this episode, Shayle talks about the state of the U.S. solar industry with Ethan Zindler, head of Americas at BloombergNEF. They cover topics like: Lees meerGenerous manufacturing incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act
Conditions to qualify for the incentives, such as meeting prevailing wages, building in “energy communities,” and sourcing domestic content
The saga of solar tariffs
Looming competition from manufacturers in Southeast Asia
How supply chain bottlenecks have eased up
Recommended Resources:
Canary: Can the US manufacture enough solar panels to meet its surging demand?
Canary: In Biden solar tariff compromise, installers win
Princeton ZERO Lab’s REPEAT Project: Preliminary Report: The Climate and Energy Impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022
Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Support for Catalyst comes from Climate Positive, a podcast by HASI, that features candid conversations with the leaders, innovators, and changemakers who are at the forefront of the transition to a sustainable economy. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Catalyst is supported by Scale Microgrids, the distributed ener…