Catalyst with Shayle Kann
Investor Shayle Kann explores big questions about decarbonizing the planet, such as how cheap clean energy can get, whether artificial intelligence can accelerate climate solutions, and where smart money is flowing into climate technologies. Each week, he discusses climate tech with prominent experts, investors, researchers, and executives. The podcast is produced by Latitude Media.
Episodes
Inside the most sophisticated plan for solar geoengineering
One of the biggest challenges with technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions is that they require mass adoption. Solar radiation management (SRM) has the opposite problem.
By Stardust Solutions’ estimate, dispersing three million tons of reflective particles into the stratosphere could cool the planet by 1.5 degrees Celsius for the relatively small price of $30 billion; that's less than t
How data centers are complicating transmission expansion
Electric transmission development is notoriously difficult, and these days, NIMBYism gets the brunt of the blame. But as data center loads surge and electricity prices climb, there’s a new roadblock – the messy world of multi-state cost allocation.
The Mid-Atlantic Resiliency Link (MARL) — a planned 100-mile, $960 million transmission line stretching across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland,
Enter the electric supercycle
While many energy insiders remain focused on the staggering demand coming from AI and data centers, a much larger and far-reaching shift is happening. We are entering what Energy Impact Partners’ head of research Andy Lubershane calls the "electric supercycle" — a series of interlocking technological flywheels that are accelerating the clean energy transition faster than many may realize.
In this
How China is reshaping the global auto market
In 2020, China exported about a million cars a year. Now, it’s tracking somewhere around twelve million — surpassing the historic peaks of giants like Japan and Germany.
Yet this massive global shift feels nearly invisible in the U.S. A 100% tariff on Chinese vehicles, combined with strict rules keeping Chinese hardware and software off American roads, has effectively built a regulatory wall aro
Surprising trends in global electricity generation
While global electricity demand is unquestionably rising, we may nonetheless be underestimating the scale of necessary future generation.
In this episode, Shayle speaks to Nic Fulghum, senior energy and climate data analyst at Ember. Nic is the co-author of Ember’s annual Global Electricity Review. This year’s installment, released in April, demonstrates that renewable sources – and solar in part
Building inference data centers on the high seas
Amidst the increasing urgency of powering data centers, a new solution has entered the mix: send them out to sea.
In this episode, Shayle speaks to Garth Sheldon-Coulson, co-founder and CEO of Panthalassa. The company is building 85-meter steel "nodes" – taller than Big Ben – that it deploys into the deep ocean. These untethered, self-propelled nodes harness wave energy to power AI clusters, then
A blueprint for scalable fusion power
For years, the prospect of commercial nuclear fusion felt a long way off. But recent breakthroughs—like Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s historic 2022 net energy gain—have marked a new chapter in the quest for fusion. Proving the physics in a lab, however, is a lot different than building a power plant that can compete on the open grid. Massive hurdles remain across physics, financing, and
Inside the global fertilizer crunch
While much of the world has been focused on the war in Iran’s impact on the energy sector, another arguably more impactful market has been largely overlooked: fertilizer.
The global fertilizer market is in a precarious spot. Roughly a third of the world's seaborne fertilizer trade goes through the Strait of Hormuz. Even before the war in Iran began, China, the world’s top phosphate producer, halt
Cracking the code on autonomous trucking
Even though autonomous passenger vehicles have entered the mainstream in cities across the country, autonomous trucks still lag behind. But Humble Robotics thinks it has cracked the code with a new design that completely does away with the tractor-trailer model we see on the highway every day.
In this episode, Shayle speaks to Eyal Cohen, founder and CEO of Humble. The company built its electric
How AI is modernizing EPCs
As the utility-scale solar market collides with an era defined by massive load growth, EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) firms are rethinking their strategy to meet the moment.
In this episode, Shayle speaks to George Hershman, CEO of SOLV Energy, one of the largest solar and storage construction firms in the US. George offers a unique perspective into the state of the market as we
Inside Google’s massive AI capex (live)
As the race to build out artificial intelligence accelerates, the infrastructure required to support it is undergoing a remarkable transformation. In February, Google announced a plan to spend $175 billion to $185 billion in CapEx for 2026— a figure roughly equivalent to the GDP of Hungary.
In this special live episode, recorded at Transition-AI 2026 in San Francisco, Shayle sits down with Amin V
How Base Power plans to use its fresh $1B [re-published]
[This episode is a re-run from October 2025. Look out for a new episode of Catalyst on Thursday, April 23.]
Yesterday, Base Power announced a $1 billion series C, giving the residential battery company an eye-popping $4 billion post-money valuation. Base manufactures, installs, owns, and operates residential batteries — a vertical integration strategy that CEO Zach Dell says is the “magic”
The rise of flexible data centers
As the buildout of data centers accelerates on a dramatic trajectory,its strain on the electric grid has increased in turn; forecasts suggest they could consume up to 17% of all US power by 2030. To avoid higher rates and slower AI growth, the industry has embraced a promising solution: data center flexibility.
In this episode, Shayle speaks with Varun Sivaram, the CEO of Emerald AI. Coming on th
Frontier Forum: Why clean energy capital boomed in a volatile year [partner content]
In 2025, the clean energy market navigated a mix of shifting tariffs, evolving FEOC compliance rules, and uncertainty around tax policy. On the surface, it looked like a year defined by instability.
And yet, capital continued to move.
Total capital expenditures across the clean economy reached roughly $120 billion, with total financing activity exceeding $200 billion across the full stack of pro
Building a domestic nuclear fuel supply chain
Even as momentum grows for U.S. nuclear, the fuel supply chain is often overlooked. This dynamic is shifting as the industry wakes up to critical choke points and a heavy reliance on countries like Russia for enrichment. As America aims to reduce geopolitical dependency in energy, fixing these domestic gaps has become a strategic priority.
In this episode — a companion to a separate episode of Ca
Battery booms and the rise of flexibility [partner content]
Battery markets have a pattern: They boom, capital floods in, prices collapse, and then the cycle starts again.
So as storage becomes more important than ever, how do we maximize revenue and deliver needed flexibility?
In this episode, Stephen Lacey speaks with Sean McEvoy, chief product officer and head of commercial at GridBeyond North America, about how that cycle is playing out across global
The state and future of nuclear waste
The nuclear power sector is gaining a lot of momentum. But even as SMRs continue to flourish, the Department of Energy’s reactor pilot program moves forward, and decommissioned plants come back online, the question of what to do with nuclear waste has largely stayed out of the spotlight. The U.S. currently houses 90,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel; as more plants come online, that number could rise
Scaling America's domestic solar supply chain
Despite the dark cloud of federal policy hanging over the solar industry, skyrocketing load growth is driving demand. The question is whether supply can keep up.
In this episode, Shayle talks to Scott Moskowitz — VP of market strategy and public affairs at Qcells and board chair of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) — about the challenges of reshoring solar in the U.S.
They cover top
AI scaling pathways: on grid, on edge, off grid, off planet
As demand for data center power skyrockets, available options to provide that power have dwindled. And cohesive frameworks for finding sustainable generation remain few and far between.
In this episode, Shayle speaks with Jake Elder, senior vice president of research and innovation at Energy Impact Partners. The two colleagues dig into the four main generation solutions — on grid, off grid, on ed
Frontier Forum: How VPPs earn grid-scale trust [partner content]
Can a grid operator tell the difference between a virtual power plant and a traditional one?
That’s the idea behind the Huels Test, a framework developed by EnergyHub to answer a simple but consequential question: when does a distributed fleet of customer devices become reliable enough to function like a power plant?
Passing the test means more than just aggregating thermostats or batteries. It
Digging deep for super hot geothermal
Despite its ability to deliver ample carbon-free energy, the potential of geothermal and EGS is limited by the number of drilling sites close enough to the earth’s surface.
But a few pioneering companies have landed on a potential solution: dig way deeper.
In this episode, Shayle speaks with Carlos Araque, the founder of Quaise Energy. The company has developed millimeter-wave drills to vaporize
Volts crossover: Six big energy questions
They’re at it again. Two years after they last teamed up for a Volts/Catalyst crossover episode, David Roberts joins Shayle for another far-ranging conversation exploring the future of energy. Their prompt was simple: Each host brought three critical questions they want to see answered in the next decade.
From “data center fever” to closed-loop critical mineral economics, Shayle and David take t
The rise of grid power electronics with Drew Baglino
For decades, the physical equipment underpinning the electric grid has remained largely unchanged: passive, "dumb" devices installed as far back as the 1970s that lack much real-time control. But today, in the face of skyrocketing energy demand, a new class of technologies has emerged.
In this episode, Drew Baglino, the founder and CEO of Heron Power, returns to the show to discuss his company’s
PJM and ERCOT navigate a capacity rollercoaster
Last year, the PJM capacity crunch became a focal point for an entire industry struggling to navigate the explosive growth of hyperscaler data centers. Yet even in the first two months of 2026, capacity prices have continued to skyrocket, and the economics of energy generation have only become more tenuous.
In this episode, Shayle Kann talks to Paul Segal, the CEO of LS Power. A major player in
The path to market for new nuclear reactors
Spurred by a suite of executive orders and investments from the federal government, new nuclear reactors are coming soon. Or the announcements are at least.
The advanced nuclear sector has found itself in the spotlight as companies race to acquire licenses and permits aimed at achieving "criticality.” But what do these milestones signify? And is hitting the deadlines even feasible?
In this epis
The rise of permissionless DERs
Distributed batteries are having a big moment. On one hand, companies like Base Power and Tesla have leaned into large residential batteries that export power back to the grid, but need permits and inspections to operate. At the same time, however, a new category has emerged: small, "plug-in" batteries that don’t require an electrician or complex installation, let alone a permit.
In this episode
More 2026 trends: Solar costs, oil oversupply, and the startup slump
We are back for Part 2 of Shayle’s double header conversation with the veteran energy analyst Nat Bullard, dissecting his annual presentation on the state of decarbonization.
If you missed it, we recommend you go back and listen to Part 1, which was released last week.
In this episode, Shayle and Nat shift their focus from data centers to exploring other intriguing trends found in the data that
A ‘rain delay’ for the energy transition [partner content]
In 2024, Tom Burton described the clean energy transition as entering its “third inning” — a phase defined by execution and scale. A year later, the game looks very different.
In this episode, produced in partnership with Mintz, Stephen Lacey sits down with Burton to revisit that framework and assess the state of play for U.S. energy infrastructure heading into 2026.
Burton, who chairs Mintz’s
2026 trends: Gas turbines, Texas’ load queue and China electrifies
It’s a new year, which means the veteran energy analyst Nat Bullard has dropped another annual, data-rich presentation on the state of energy and decarbonization.
And per what has become tradition, Nat is back on Catalyst – for the fourth time – to discuss some of Shayle’s favorite slides, cherry-picked from the 200-page deck.
In part one of their two-part conversation, they cover topics like:
The VC case for 'full stack deeptech'
For “deep tech” or industrial tech investors, a captivating idea on paper doesn’t always translate into a sustainable or viable business. Even a remarkable technological breakthrough isn’t guaranteed to survive the long sales cycles of the industrial world.
So which companies are worth the investment?
Ian Rountree, founder and partner at the venture firm Cantos, wrote a bare-bones thesis on X th
How AI is changing weather forecasting
Weather forecasting drives billions of economic decisions — from grid operations to evacuation planning. Better forecasting could improve supply chain planning, disaster warnings, and renewable integration. The industry has decades of satellite observations and ground measurements, making it ripe for AI-driven advancements.
And it’s already happening. But how exactly does AI get used in weather f
The gas turbine crunch
Demand for turbines is growing fast, but so are lead times — causing serious headaches for developers and even cancellations. In Texas, one of six cancelled projects cited “equipment procurement constraints” as the reasons for its withdrawal.
Lead times are stretching to four years and sometimes more. Costs are climbing. So what’s behind the bottleneck?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Anthony
Will inference move to the edge?
Today virtually all AI compute takes place in centralized data centers, driving the demand for massive power infrastructure.
But as workloads shift from training to inference, and AI applications become more latency-sensitive (autonomous vehicles, anyone?), there‘s another pathway: migrating a portion of inference from centralized computing to the edge. Instead of a gigawatt-scale data center in
Can AI revolutionize EPC?
Big construction projects in the U.S. are notoriously unpredictable, often finishing over budget and behind schedule. Part of the problem is the inherent complexity of these kinds of projects, like data centers and first-of-a-kind plants. But there’s another problem: the companies that actually build these projects — called EPC firms for engineering, procurement, and construction — often lack stro
Who benefits from the AI power bottleneck?
The bottleneck holding back AI is a scarcity of power, or so goes the story. That may be true — and plenty of reporting backs it up — but different actors in the space face varying incentives to play up or play down that narrative.
So what incentives are at play, and how do they shape each player's story?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Shanu Mathew, senior vice president and portfolio manager
Looking for a turnaround in transmission
After years of stalled transmission buildout, there are new signs of progress. Earlier this month, SPP approved $8.6 billion in transmission projects across 14 states. Major plans are emerging in MISO, PJM, and ERCOT. Despite the DOE canceling its loan guarantee, the Grain Belt Express is still moving forward. And regardless of court battles, so is the New England Clean Energy Connect.
Are these
New Mexico proves America can still build [partner content]
Across the country, people are asking the same question: why is it so hard to build in America?
From transmission lines to clean energy factories, projects are taking longer, costs are rising, and frustration is growing. But in New Mexico, two cabinet secretaries are trying to show that it doesn’t have to be this way.
Together, Economic Development Secretary Rob Black and Environment Secretary J
Driving down the cost of green hydrogen
A few years ago, industry and political leaders embraced hydrogen as a solution to a laundry list of hard-to-abate decarbonization challenges — steel production, ammonia production, and more. But hydrogen failed to come down in costs and policymakers pulled back support. Ultimately, the bubble burst.
So what does it take to drive down the costs of low-carbon hydrogen and rebuild momentum?
In th
Inside a $300 million bet on AI for physical R&D
A big problem with using artificial intelligence to discover new materials? It struggles to predict beyond its training data. That means AI might be better at optimizing known materials than discovering entirely new ones — like a room temperature superconductor or carbon-capture sorbents.
But since we last covered the topic in September 2024, a few things have changed. OpenAI released its powerf
Unpacking DOE's proposal to transform data center interconnection
Last Thursday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright directed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to consider rulemaking to fast-track interconnection for large loads — as long as they agree to be curtailable or colocate with dispatchable generation.
So what does this proposal actually mean for interconnection?
In this episode, Shayle talks with Allison Clements, former FERC commissioner and curre
Five big questions about the future of energy
We’ve covered AI’s massive power appetite in depth over the past year – with good reason. It’s the driving force behind much of the change and uncertainty in the energy world right now, from the error bars around our demand for electricity to the lineup of technologies vying to meet that demand.
In this episode Shayle talks to his colleague Andy Lubershane, head of research and partner at Energy
Frontier Forum: The new power map for AI infrastructure
As AI reshapes the industrial landscape, companies are questioning whether the grid can keep pace. Permitting delays, transmission constraints, and reliability risks are forcing developers to rethink where power comes from.
In this episode, KR Sridhar, CEO of Bloom Energy, lays out a radically different vision. He believes that many data centers will ultimately operate like refineries — powered b
Calibrating hype with Akshat Rathi
In the climate space, every idea sits somewhere along the hype continuum. Some command outsize attention. Others fly under the radar despite big potential. And a rare few hit the sweet spot, earning exactly the buzz they deserve.
But how do you tell which is which?
In this episode, Shayle teams up with Akshat Rathi, senior reporter for climate at Bloomberg News and host of the Zero podcast, to s
How insurance can narrow the valley of death [partner content]
Jamie Daggett started his career as a mechanical engineer working for cleantech startups in Silicon Valley. But after five startups and three buyouts, Daggett saw the same story repeat itself: good technologies that worked in the lab often died before reaching commercial scale.
And often they didn’t fail because the science was wrong; they failed because investors couldn’t trust that the perform
How Base Power plans to use its fresh $1B
Yesterday, Base Power announced a $1 billion series C, giving the residential battery company an eye-popping $4 billion post-money valuation. Base manufactures, installs, owns, and operates residential batteries — a vertical integration strategy that CEO Zach Dell says is the “magic” to beating utility-scale batteries on CapEx. The company also acts as an electricity retailer and sells generation
Frontier Forum: A new playbook for clean energy growth
After the failure of federal climate legislation in 2010, clean energy advocates realized they had to look elsewhere for momentum. The result was a shift toward states and regional markets — and the creation of Advanced Energy United, a trade group built to make policy progress outside of Washington.
Today, that strategy is more important than ever. With the federal government rolling out new reg
The new wave of DERs
Demand response was the original distributed energy resource. In its early days, it was surprisingly manual: a grid operator would call up a large load, like a factory, and request a few hours of reduced demand during peak times.
Fast forward to today and DERs look dramatically different. They’re automated, deployed frequently across the country, and include everything from EVs and thermostats to
Ag residue and carbon removal
Agricultural byproducts like corn stover, wood chips, and soybean husks typically get left to decompose and release carbon dioxide. Don’t call them “waste” though; some farmers use these byproducts as field cover to improve soil health. And industry uses a fraction of this biomass as feedstock for valuable products like ethanol, electricity, and heat. Theoretically, it’s a vastly underutilized res
Is now the time for DERs to scale?
A decade ago, DERs were hot. The hype was that things like batteries, smart devices, and other distributed energy technologies would offset the need for expanding traditional grid infrastructure.
But DERs never took off, at least not at the scale that many hoped for. They had high price tags and short track records compared to the existing substations, transmission lines, and generation options
When to colocate data centers with generation
The idea of colocating data centers with behind-the-meter generation is picking up steam, including large projects in Memphis, Texas, and Utah developing significant on-site capacity, mostly from combined-cycle gas plants. The main argument is speed to power. Building your own generation allows data centers to sidestep the challenges involved in grid upgrades, transmission, and permitting.
But w
AMA: Geoengineering, nuclear, power prices, and more
You sent in great questions, and today we’re answering them. In this episode, Shayle hands it over to Lara Pierpoint, the managing director of Trellis Climate at the Prime Coalition and host of The Green Blueprint. Together they cover topics like:
Whether solar radiation management will remain the “black sheep” of climate technologies
What technologies will excel in a world of rising power price
The mechanics of data center flexibility
Adding flexibility to data center loads could ease strain on the grid and reduce the need for costly new generation. And, according to one study, shaving off just a few megawatts during peak hours could also unlock unused capacity —as many as 98 gigawatts in the U.S — if those facilities reduced load by just 0.5% each year.
The problem: data centers promise near-perfect reliability, often “fiv
The Green Blueprint: Terrawatt Infrastructure’s billion-dollar strategy
Editor's note: With the Trump administration's efforts to roll back California's electric trucking rules, there's new attention on heavy duty transport right now. So we're bringing you a deep dive into the industry, an episode of The Green Blueprint on Terawatt Infrastructure's $1 billion strategy to build charging depots.
In 2021, Neha Palmer co-founced Terrawatt Infrastructure with a bold m
The case for sodium-ion
Our first episode covering sodium-ion batteries featured a cautious take on the chemistry: Back in February Adrian Yao, founder of Stanford’s STEER program, explained the challenges of reaching competitive energy density and costs, especially given the falling price of LFP. Still, sodium-ion chemistries are picking up steam, thanks largely to growing deployments in stationary storage and small-sca
Explaining the ‘Watt-Bit Spread’
Editor’s note: The uncertainties of data center construction — like when, where, and how much to build — are as pressing as ever. So we’re revisiting a conversation with Brian Janous, co-founder and chief commercial officer at data center developer Cloverleaf Infrastructure. In this episode, he explains his theory of the ‘Watt-Bit Spread’, which offers insightful heuristics for understanding how d
PJM and the capacity crunch
The PJM capacity auction this month broke records with sky-high wholesale power prices — and that was by design. Under PJM’s auction rules, tight supply raises prices, incentivizing the development of new generation and encouraging existing generation to stay online. The big driver of that tight supply? Data-center driven load growth. The independent system operator covers Virginia, one of the den
Repurposing EV batteries for grid storage
The job of an EV battery is unforgiving. If its performance slips too far — say, lost acceleration or range — it's probably off to the recycling heap. That’s even though it may have plenty of usable life, if only for something less demanding than powering a vehicle.
Grid storage is theoretically a gentler job, involving slower discharging and more careful management. Still, repurposing isn’t easy
Five big questions emerging from the OBBB
The One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) complicates things. Together with a related executive order, it dismantled key parts of the Inflation Reduction Act, while also injecting uncertainty into tax credit eligibility. The uncertainty in particular throws a wrench into project planning and leaves big questions about the impact across climate tech.
So what do we know about the complexities of the new p
Tumult in residential solar
Residential solar has had a rough couple of years. In 2024, the market contracted 31% and major companies like Sunpower and Titan went bankrupt. Now, only halfway through 2025, Sunnova and Mosaic have filed for bankruptcy, too. The market has suffered from low demand, high interest rates, and major policy changes like California’s cuts to net metering.
So now that the One Big Beautiful Bill phas
Fresh intel from state utility regulatory filings
You’ve probably heard about Nat Bullard’s massive decarbonization slide decks, filled with charts and insights into decarbonization drawn from climate and energy data.
This time he's waded through piles of utility regulatory filings — countless PDFs that hint at the inner workings of utilities and large customers — to find clues about everything from gas plant costs to new large-load tariffs.
GM's big new battery tech push
Lithium-manganese-rich (LMR) batteries could offer a rare combination in energy storage: high energy density at lower costs. They swap much of the expensive nickel for abundant, affordable manganese. But technical hurdles — like poor cycle life, voltage decay, and long formation time — kept them on the sidelines.
Now GM says it’s solved these challenges. In May, it announced plans to mass produce
The story of steam
Addison Stark thinks waste heat is a waste of time. The real opportunity, he argues, is decarbonizing industrial steam, which accounts for roughly 30% of industrial heat in the U.S. But doing that means deploying alternatives to the fossil fuel boilers industry currently relies on.
So how do you clean up steam? And why does Addison think waste heat is overhyped?
In this episode, Shayle talks wit
The state of play of data center development
The future of the grid increasingly hinges on where and how data centers get built. To forecast the kind of power infrastructure we need to meet AI’s growing appetite, we first need to understand a laundry list of variables: data center size, workload type, latency, reliability — even the variety of a data center’s coolant system.
So what’s the state of play in data center development today — an
The gas turbine crunch
Demand for turbines is growing fast, but so are lead times — causing serious headaches for developers. In Texas, one of six projects that pulled proposals from consideration for a valuable financing program cited “equipment procurement constraints” as the reasons for its withdrawal.
Lead times are stretching to four years and sometimes more. Costs are climbing. So what’s behind the bottleneck?
I
How geothermal gets built
Geothermal seems to be nearing an inflection point. With rising load growth, clean, firm power is more valuable than ever. Next-gen geothermal players like Fervo Energy and Sage Geosystems are signing PPAs with major tech firms. Even U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright — a known critic of renewables — has praised the potential of geothermal.
The size of the U.S. geothermal resource accessible
What to make of Trump's deep-sea minerals push
In April, the Trump administration issued an executive order to accelerate the development of deep-sea minerals — part of its broader push for “energy dominance.” The world’s oceans hold vast, untapped deposits of critical minerals like nickel, copper, manganese, and rare earth elements — all essential to batteries and clean energy technologies.
Despite decades of interest, no commercial deep-sea
A former race car engineer on battery safety and supply chains [partner content]
From his days as an IndyCar race engineer to his current role as chief product officer for a leading storage integrator, Tristan Doherty has always worked at the intersection of high performance and risk management.
Today, he's applying that expertise at LG Energy Solution Vertech to build more resilient, domestically manufactured energy storage systems for America's evolving grid.
LG Energy So
Terrawatt Infrastructure’s billion-dollar strategy
This week, we're bringing you a special episode of The Green Blueprint, a show about the stories behind first-of-a-kind climate projects. In this episode: Terawatt Power's first commercial electric truck charging depot, which opened in April near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. It was a significant milestone for the industry. So how’d Terawatt pull it off?
Host Lara Pierpoint talks to T
The U.S. nuclear groundswell
The nuclear renaissance of the 2000s turned out to be something of a mirage. Buoyed by rising fossil gas prices, growing climate awareness, and steady load growth, nuclear seemed poised for a breakout moment. But that momentum stalled. Electricity demand flatlined. The fracking boom sent gas prices plummeting. And Fukushima rattled public confidence in nuclear power. Ultimately, only two new react
Frontier Forum: Unlocking next-generation VPPs
In the mid-2000s, Ben Brown started his career designing demand response programs that relied on pagers and telephones. Today, as Renew Home's CEO, he's leveraging AI and tens of millions of connected smart devices to help households save energy and create an entirely new approach to grid management.
Renew Home is building a new kind of virtual power plant that moves beyond occasional emergency e
Catalyst Live at SF Climate Week
It’s a Catalyst first-of-a-kind: our very first live event! We hosted it last Wednesday at San Francisco Climate week. In this episode, Shayle talks to Mike Schroepfer, co-founder and partner at Gigascale Capital and former CTO of Meta, and Nick Chaset, CEO of Octopus Energy US. Together they cover:
Lessons on building products that consumers love
Over and under hyped trends, including
The geopolitics of rare earth elements
China’s new export controls on rare earth elements (REEs) are a problem for EVs, renewables, and other industries that rely on the minerals, especially the permanent magnets they’re used in. The vast majority of the global supply chain is in China. Plus, Chinese companies control supply chain operations around the world.
So is it possible to stand up a rare earth supply chain outside of China’s
What’s next for the battery storage boom? [partner content]
The U.S. storage market is experiencing hockey-stick growth, with multiple gigawatts being installed quarterly. But new policy uncertainties around tariffs and the Inflation Reduction Act are threatening this momentum.
But Jeff Waters, the CEO of Powin, remains optimistic.
"This industry will figure out a way to work with it," says Waters, who brings decades of experience from the semiconductor
Serving data center load with carbon capture
Big tech’s data center construction boom is fueling a flurry of natural gas development, despite the fuel’s challenges, and it’s complicating big tech’s climate goals. But carbon capture and storage (CCS) could mitigate emissions from those new plants, and hyperscalers could secure low-carbon power while meeting their needs for speed and reliability.
So how could natural gas with CCS serve dat
How climate disasters are shaping insurance markets
Premiums are rising. Insurers are leaving markets. But people keep building in risk-prone areas, and the climate disasters just keep coming.
Can insurance markets adapt?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Judd Boomhower, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California-San Diego and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He studies how insuran
Frontier Forum: Future-proofing data center power infrastructure
Data centers face a critical timing problem. They need massive amounts of power immediately, but grid upgrades can take more than seven years to complete. Microgrids could be a solution to this growing power gap.
"How do you future-proof your systems through adaptability of technologies? Microgrids are really a nice technology to address that," explains Adib Nasle, CEO of Xendee.
In this episode
Specialized AI brains for physical industry
Everyone wants a piece of general purpose models. Instacart has deployed ChatGPT for recipes and meal planning. The Mayo Clinic is using it to summarize patient records. Schneider Electric is using an OpenAI LLM to generate sustainability reports.
With such powerful models, what’s the need for specialized models built for specific industries, especially in climate tech?
In this episode, Shayle
The potential for flexible data centers
Tyler Norris says regulators have been getting two different stories. On one side, they’ve been hearing that data centers are largely inflexible loads. On the other, last year the U.S. Department of Energy recommended data center flexibility, and EPRI launched its DCFlex initiative to demonstrate the same.
So he and a few other researchers wanted to know, What’s the potential for data center fle
Frontier Forum: How tax credit transfers are reshaping energy finance
In 2023, the U.S. market for transferable clean energy tax credits was just getting started. One year later, that market has tripled in size, with credits diversifying beyond wind and solar into nuclear, manufacturing, and other technologies.
"The statistics on just how much it grew over that period are really impressive — indicating the transparency, efficiency, liquidity, and growing nature of
The coming robotics wave
Robots are becoming cheaper to make and more powerful because of AI. In the climate tech space, they’re already laying transmission lines, inspecting wind turbines, and installing solar panels.. And with labor productivity stagnating, immigration restrictions tightening, and the cost of labor rising, they’re looking even more appealing.
So where might robotics have the biggest impact on climate t
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