Catalyst with Shayle Kann

Oil producers waste a lot of natural gas. Last year they flared 150 billion cubic meters of associated gas into the atmosphere, equivalent to about half the global carbon emissions of aviation over a 30-year period. So why are oil producers burning a valuable commodity like gas? In this episode, Shayle talks to Tomás de Oliveira Bredariol, an energy and environmental policy analyst focused on methane at the IEA. So far, multiple major global initiatives haven’t made a dent in flare volumes, which have remained largely flat since 2010. Shayle and Tomás talk about the reasons why and the potential solutions, covering topics like: The nine countries responsible for about three quarters of flare volumes Why we don’t just build more pipelines Why oil wells may choose expensive diesel instead of powering their equipment with associated gas Converting gas into more valuable forms, like compressed natural gas, liquid natural gas, or methanol The potential for regulation and financial incentives to push producers to cut flare volumes Recommended resources International Energy Agency: Curtailing Methane Emissions from Fossil Fuel Operations National Renewable Energy Laboratory: Stranded Natural Gas Roadmap World Bank: Global Gas Flaring Data Catalyst is brought to you by Anza Renewables, a data, technology, and services platform for solar and storage buyers. Anza’s real-time market intel equips buyers with the essential data they need to get the best deals. Download Anza’s free Q2 Module Pricing Insights Report at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude  Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid. Visit kraken.tech. Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the global leader in integrated marketing, public relations, creative, and public affairs for energy and climate brands. If you're a startup, investor, or enterprise that's trying to make a name for yourself, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help tell your story and accelerate your growth engine. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Hydrogen has two big problems: cost and supply. As a low-carbon feedstock, it could decarbonize planes, industry, and power plants. It could even replace the oil in plastics and chemicals. But the leading contenders for low-carbon hydrogen production — like using zero-carbon power for electrolysis and methane pyrolysis — just haven’t cut it yet. So far, the price points are too high and the scale of production is too low to spur a hydrogen revolution. But instead of synthesizing hydrogen, what if we pumped naturally-occurring hydrogen reservoirs out of the ground, just like we drill for oil and natural gas? In this episode, Shayle talks about geologic hydrogen with Pete Johnson, CEO of Koloma. Early estimates suggest vast quantities of the gas could be tapped for far cheaper than other production methods. That is, if some major challenges are solved, like finding economically viable reserves, managing leakage, and building infrastructure. In these early days, those are all big ifs.  A handful of startups are exploring geologic hydrogen, and Koloma, which has raised $300 million, is the most prominent in the space. (Shayle invests in Koloma and serves on its board. Prelude Ventures, which led Latitude Media’s fundraising round, also invests in Koloma.) Shayle and Pete cover topics like: The key factors that lead to reservoirs of geologic hydrogen, like water, iron-rich rock, traps, and seals Why geologic hydrogen could become the cheapest form of hydrogen, if found in large, economically viable reservoirs The greenhouse gas impact of hydrogen, which interferes with the breakdown of methane in the atmosphere Why Pete thinks that economically viable wells will attract new infrastructure, like clean ammonia plants, the way Houston attracted oil infrastructure Stimulating geologic hydrogen production by injecting water into rock What sort of watershed moment would prove the viability of geologic hydrogen Recommended resources Latitude Media: Should we be paying more attention to geologic hydrogen? US Geological Survey: The Potential for Geologic Hydrogen for Next Generation Energy Catalyst is brought to you by Anza Renewables, a data, technology, and services platform for solar and storage buyers. Anza’s real-time market intel equips buyers with the essential data they need to get the best deals. Download Anza’s free Q2 Module Pricing Insights Report at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude  Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid. Visit kraken.tech. Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the global leader in integrated marketing, public relations, creative, and public affairs for energy and climate brands. If you're a startup, investor, or enterprise that's trying to make a name for yourself, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help tell your story and accelerate your growth engine. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Editor’s note: There’s new interest in nuclear power from electric utilities, the White House, and the public. While NuScale’s deal to build a small modular reactor failed last year, TerraPower is currently building the U.S.’s first advanced non-light water reactor in Wyoming. So we’re revisiting an episode from last November with The Good Energy Collective’s Dr. Jessica Lovering unpacking one of nuclear’s biggest challenges: cost. Nuclear construction costs in the U.S. are some of the highest in the world. Recent estimates put the cost of building conventional nuclear reactors at more than $6,000 per kilowatt, as measured by overnight capital cost. But high costs are a problem for new small modular reactors (SMRs) too, killing what was going to be the country’s first SMR before it got built. Meanwhile, South Korea has some of the lowest costs in the world. Estimated overnight capital costs for reactors in South Korea are closer to $2,200 per kilowatt.And then there are countries like China, France, and the United Arab Emirates that fall between those extremes. So why the wide range in costs?  In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Jessica Lovering, co-founder and executive director at the Good Energy Collective, a non-profit that researches and promotes policies that support nuclear power. A former director of energy at the Breakthrough Institute, she also authored a comprehensive study of nuclear construction costs in 2016.  Shayle and Jessica talk about things like: What goes into the cost of construction and South Korea’s secret sauce for low-cost nuclear reactors Why Jessica thinks we should manufacture and regulate reactors like large aircraft Driving down costs with modularity, small reactors, passive safety features, and more construction  Why changing regulations might be necessary, but not a silver bullet  Why the pro- and anti-nuclear camps talk past each other — and why Jessica says she’s somewhere in between  Recommended Resources: Latitude Media: Is large-scale nuclear poised for a comeback? 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 Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a revolutionary platform enabling solar and energy storage equipment buyers and developers to save time, increase profits, and reduce risk. Instantly see pricing, product, and counterparty data and comparison tools. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude. Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid. Visit kraken.tech. Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the global leader in integrated marketing, public relations, creative, and public affairs for energy and climate brands. If you're a startup, investor, or enterprise that's trying to make a name for yourself, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help tell your story and accelerate your growth engine. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

America’s green bank – officially known as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund – is ramping up. Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, the federal government is sending $27 billion to a network of non-profit organizations, state green banks, and local private lenders to fund distributed energy projects.  The pressure is on to invest those dollars quickly and efficiently. The GGRF won’t be considered successful if it only deploys that $27 billion – it will be successful if it catalyzes 5x more in capital deployment.  That means building a transparent market with uniform lending standards for CDFIs and local banks – lenders that may be touching solar, storage or other distributed energy deals for the very first time.  The money is headed out the door. Are lenders ready to deploy it?  This week, we're featuring a conversation with Amanda Li of Banyan Infrastructure and Billy Briscoe of the Clean Energy Fund of Texas. It was recorded live as part of Latitude Media's Frontier Forum series.  We'll unpack the details, the urgency, any potential gaps, and the stakes for building a market. This episode was produced in collaboration with Banyan Infrastructure. Read more of Banyan’s insights into the GGRF here.

Editor’s note: There’s momentum behind permitting reform in the U.S. Congress right now. It could mean unstopping a serious bottleneck in climate tech — transmission. So we’re revisiting an episode from last May with Grid Strategies’ Rob Gramlich to understand how we got here, the impacts on climate tech, and the potential fixes.  The U.S. power grid is clogged, and it’s holding back the energy transition.  Solar and wind farms are waiting four or more years to connect to the grid. Rising congestion costs are driving up retail electricity prices while hurting generator revenues. And the process of approving projects for interconnection is so complicated and expensive that it’s forcing developers to abandon the projects they were planning to build.  We need much more transmission capacity and a better process for connecting projects. And we need it now more than ever. Demand for power will skyrocket as we connect EVs, heat pumps and other new loads to the grid. But Rob Gramlich, our guest today, comes with good news: We did it before. We can do it again.  Rob is the founder and president of Grid Strategies. In this episode, Shayle and Rob talk through the three major challenges of transmission – congestion, interconnection, and buildout. And Rob explains how we’ve built out transmission in the past with efforts like ERCOT’s Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) and MISO’s Multi-Value Projects (MVPs). They also cover topics like: The history of transmission buildout in the U.S. The three P’s of transmission challenges: planning, permitting, and paying How congestion costs might shoot up over the next few years as grid capacity lags behind generation, causing new generation to slow and retail electricity prices to go up Reforming the slow, complex, and expensive approval process for interconnection at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission How the backed up interconnection queue leads developers to submit speculative projects, hoping for one project, but filing six to see what they get Where local opposition fits into transmission’s larger problems Recommended Resources: Grid Strategies: Transmission Congestion Costs in the U.S. RTOs Grid Strategies: Fewer New Miles: The U.S. Transmission Grid in the 2010s E&E News: Senators line up to support permitting package Recommended resources Catalyst is brought to you by Anza Renewables, a data, technology, and services platform for solar and storage buyers. Anza’s real-time market intel equips buyers with the essential data they need to get the best deals. Download Anza’s free Q2 Module Pricing Insights Report at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude  Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid. Visit kraken.tech. Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the global leader in integrated marketing, public relations, creative, and public affairs for energy and climate brands. If you're a startup, investor, or enterprise that's trying to make a name for yourself, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help tell your story and accelerate your growth engine. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Little-known fact: The primary product of steel mills is CO2. A conventional blast furnace produces almost two tons of carbon dioxide for every ton of steel. And with almost two billion tons of steel produced annually — roughly 500 pounds for every human, every year — that’s a lot of carbon: about 8% of global energy system emissions. And yet, steel is vital for vast parts of the economy, including the energy transition itself.  So why does steel production emit so much CO2? And what are the pathways to fixing it? In this episode, Shayle talks to Rebecca Dell, senior director of the industry program at the Climateworks Foundation. They cover topics like: How steelmaking generates emissions from both heat and the production process itself Why coal is so useful for blast furnaces, and why natural gas can’t fully replace it Why recycling cuts emissions but hits a ceiling Direct reduced iron, which uses methane or hydrogen and requires high-quality ore Less-developed but promising alternatives: molten oxide electrolysis and aqueous electrolysis, which can use low-quality ore The limits of carbon capture and storage and material substitution The major players building DRI facilities, like SSAB, ThyssenKrupp, and Salzgitter Recommended resources Canary Media: US pledges up to $1B for two pioneering ​‘green steel’ projects Latitude Media: H2's $5B fundraise is a 'test case' for financing green steel Catalyst is brought to you by Anza Renewables, a data, technology, and services platform for solar and storage buyers. Anza’s real-time market intel equips buyers with the essential data they need to get the best deals. Download Anza’s free Q2 Module Pricing Insights Report at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude  Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid. Visit kraken.tech. Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the global leader in integrated marketing, public relations, creative, and public affairs for energy and climate brands. If you're a startup, investor, or enterprise that's trying to make a name for yourself, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help tell your story and accelerate your growth engine. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Automakers got ahead of their skis. EV sales are up globally and in the U.S., but growth has been slower than expected and uneven. After enjoying a wave of growth driven by early adopters, automakers overestimated demand of more cautious consumers and ended up producing more than buyers wanted. Now auto dealers are slashing prices to move cars off the lot. So how did the market get here? And how can EVs appeal to the next wave of consumers? In this episode, Shayle talks to Gene Berdichevsky, co-founder and CEO of anode material manufacturer Sila Nanotechnologies. Shayle and Gene cover topics like: How high-performance cells can lead to lower-cost batteries Why Gene says lithium-iron-phosphate may hit a ceiling in the market The potential of sodium-ion batteries Who can take advantage of production overcapacity The limitations of the Inflation Reduction Act in the face of weak demand  How manufacturing is competing with other major loads, like data centers, for electricity  Solving the challenges of vehicle-to-grid Recommended resources Bloomberg: The Slowdown in US Electric Vehicle Sales Looks More Like a Blip The Wall Street Journal: EVs Are Cheaper Than Ever. Can Car Buyers Be Won Over? Catalyst: What’s really happening in the US EV market? Catalyst is brought to you by Anza Renewables, a data, technology, and services platform for solar and storage buyers. Anza’s real-time market intel equips buyers with the essential data they need to get the best deals. Download Anza’s free Q2 Module Pricing Insights Report at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude  Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid. Visit kraken.tech. Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the global leader in integrated marketing, public relations, creative, and public affairs for energy and climate brands. If you're a startup, investor, or enterprise that's trying to make a name for yourself, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help tell your story and accelerate your growth engine. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

In March, Nvidia announced a new microchip designed for AI that is 25 times more energy efficient than its predecessor. Two months later, Google announced one with a 67% efficiency improvement. Today, the rest of the semiconductor industry is hyper focused on efficiency gains. Will they save us from ballooning data center energy demands? In this episode, Shayle talks to Christian Belady, former Microsoft vice president now focusing on data center advanced development. They unpack concerns about this new surge of demand and whether it’s different from the energy scare two decades ago. Back in 1999, researchers predicted that data centers could end up consuming half of U.S. electricity. But instead, demand remained largely flat at about 4% as cutting-edge hyperscale cloud computing displaced inefficient, on-premises servers. And yet, driven by the AI boom, energy concerns are back. The Electric Power Research Institute predicts that data center loads could consume 9% of U.S. power generation by 2030. Demand is already rising fast, with emissions at both Google and Microsoft up significantly.  Shayle and Christian examine the factors driving those trends and what we can do about it, covering topics like: Whether chip efficiency improvements will lead to energy savings or just more powerful computing The upper limits of Moore’s Law Energy, labor, and other big constraints on AI growth Changing computing architecture to find energy savings Enlisting data centers in integrated, or compulsory, demand response Using AI to improve chip design  Recommended resources Fierce Electronics: Power-hungry AI chips face a reckoning, as chipmakers promise ‘efficiency’ Latitude Media: The data center of the future looks like a massive virtual power plant Latitude Media: Enchanted Rock is selling utilities on flexible data center connection Latitude Media: Energy is now the ‘primary bottleneck’ for AI Catalyst: Under the hood of data center power demand Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid. Visit kraken.tech. Catalyst is brought to you by Anza Renewables, a data, technology, and services platform for solar and storage buyers. Anza’s real-time market intel equips buyers with the essential data they need to get the best deals. Download Anza’s free Q2 Module Pricing Insights Report at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude. Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the global leader in integrated marketing, public relations, creative, and public affairs for energy and climate brands. If you're a startup, investor, or enterprise that's trying to make a name for yourself, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help tell your story and accelerate your growth engine. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

While we were all at home during Covid desperately trying to get our hands on toilet paper, exercise equipment, and home furnishings, solar executives like Dan Shugar were trying to get steel and power electronics to massive PV farms under development. As equipment and workforce disruptions spiraled due to lockdowns, the cost of installed solar started going up for the first time in nearly a decade. “Costs just skyrocketed. And so at this point in my career. I wasn't going to proceed like that,” explained Shugar, the CEO of Nextracker, the world’s top solar tracking company. It became very obvious that Nextracker had to build more US manufacturing to serve local markets, where utility-scale PV was still booming. And within a couple years, they built a large network of factories. “We've catalyzed over 20 factories across the United States with over 30 gigawatts of major components being manufactured here and shipping finished goods today. That's just a huge retooling of the supply chain,” explained Shugar. To date, Nextracker has shipped 100 gigawatts of trackers. More and more of them are being produced in key locations around the US. In this episode, produced in collaboration with Nextracker, Stephen Lacey speaks with Dan Shugar about progress in onshoring, innovations in tracker technology, and where the solar industry is headed next. Learn more about Nextracker’s efforts to bolster domestic content for solar power generation in the US.

While aviation may be converging on one main pathway to decarbonization — sustainable aviation fuel — maritime shipping may require a more diverse set of solutions: a portfolio of fuels, energy efficiency, and on-board carbon capture and storage. But each technology has operational and capital challenges. So what will it take to scale them up? In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Lynn Loo, CEO of the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation. Ocean-going shipping consumes about 300 million tons of fuel per year, accounting for 3% of global emissions. But with significant regulatory pressure from bodies like the International Maritime Organization, shipping companies are exploring a range of options. Shayle and Lynn cover topics like: Conventional fuels, like heavy fuel oil and marine gas oil The inadvertent climate impact of cutting sulfur emissions The pros and cons of lower-carbon fuels, like LNG, biofuels, methanol, and ammonia The challenges for infrastructure and operations, especially involving the low volumetric energy density of new fuels  On-board carbon capture and storage How energy efficiency reduces the impact of low volumetric energy density Recommended resources International Maritime Organization: Fourth Greenhouse Gas Study 2020 Catalyst: Heavy duty decarbonization Catalyst: Putting a halt to geoengineering — by accident Catalyst is brought to you by Anza Renewables, a data, technology, and services platform for solar and storage buyers. Anza’s real-time market intel equips buyers with the essential data they need to get the best deals. Download Anza’s free Q2 Module Pricing Insights Report at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude. Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, learn how Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid at kraken.tech. Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the global leader in integrated marketing, public relations, creative, and public affairs for energy and climate brands. If you're a startup, investor, or enterprise that's trying to make a name for yourself, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help tell your story and accelerate your growth engine. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Investment is on the rise in geothermal, where advances in drilling techniques are driving down the cost of generation right as the grid needs more clean, firm, dispatchable power to meet rising load growth. And enhanced-geothermal startup Fervo is leading the pack of entrants, signing agreements to provide power to Southern California Edison and Google.  So how ready are these next-generation geothermal technologies to scale? In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Roland Horne, professor of earth sciences at Stanford, where he leads the university’s geothermal program. Shayle and Roland cover topics like: Geothermal’s historical challenges of limited geography and high up-front costs Three pathways of next-generation geothermal: enhanced, closed-loop, and super-deep (also known as super-critical) Knowledge transfer from the oil and gas industry Advances in drilling technology that cut across multiple pathways  Recommended resources U.S. Department of Energy: Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Next-Generation Geothermal Power Latitude Media: Fervo eyes project-level finance as it plans for geothermal at scale Make sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to also check out Living Planet, a weekly show from Deutsche Welle that brings you the stories, facts, and debates on the key environmental issues affecting our planet. Tune in to Living Planet every Friday on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Want to win Catalyst merch? Tell your friends about the show. We’ll give you a unique link that you can share. For every friend who signs up with your link, you’ll get a chance to win. Sign up here.

New electric vehicles — including both battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles — make up nearly half of new car sales in China. Compared to slowing EV sales in Europe and the U.S. the Chinese market is booming.  So what’s going on? In this episode, Shayle talks to TP Huang, who writes a Substack about EVs, clean energy, and other tech focused on China. (Editor's note: TP Huang is a pseudonym, used for family reasons.) Shayle and TP cover topics like: How EVs became extremely cost competitive with internal combustion engines in China where EV prices dip as low as $10,000 USD Chinese consumer preferences for vehicles packed with features ranging from voice commands to fridges The ubiquity and interoperability of fast charging, plus battery swapping The rapid pace of electrification in heavy-duty trucking  Chinese exports to Europe, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere (although not the U.S.) Recommended Resources: TP Huang: What's going in the Chinese automotive market CNN: A brutal elimination round is reshaping the world’s biggest market for electric cars Bloomberg: Why Europe Is Raising Tariffs on China’s Cheap EVs Make sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to also check out Living Planet, a weekly show from Deutsche Welle that brings you the stories, facts, and debates on the key environmental issues affecting our planet. Tune in to Living Planet every Friday on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Driven by the AI boom, data centers’ energy demand could account for 9% of U.S. power generation by 2030, according to the Electric Power Research Institute. That's more than double current usage. So how do we meet that demand? And what impacts will it have on the grid and decarbonization? In this episode, Shayle talks to Brian Janous, former vice president of energy at Microsoft and current co-founder of Cloverleaf Infrastructure. Brian talks through the options for meeting data center demand, including shaping computational loads to avoid system peaks and deploying grid-enhancing technologies. He and Shayle also cover topics like: Why AI-driven demand will be big, even with “zombie requests” in the interconnection queue How hyperscalers are “coming to grips” with the reality that they may not hit decarbonization targets as quickly as planned Why Brian thinks efficiency improvement alone “isn’t going to save us” from rising load growth Why Brian argues that taking data centers off-grid is not a solution  Options for shaping data center load, such as load shifting, microgrids, and behind-the-meter generation How hyperscalers could speed up interconnection by shaping computational loads Recommended Resources: Electric Power Research Institute: Powering Intelligence: Analyzing Artificial Intelligence and Data Center Energy Consumption The Carbon Copy: New demand is straining the grid. Here’s how to tackle it. Federal Regulatory Energy Commission: Report | 2024 Summer Energy Market and Electric Reliability Assessment Make sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to also check out Living Planet, a weekly show from Deutsche Welle that brings you the stories, facts, and debates on the key environmental issues affecting our planet. Tune in to Living Planet every Friday on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Tesla’s Master Plan Part 3 lays out the company’s model for a decarbonized economy — and makes the case for why it's economically viable. It outlines a vision for extensive electrification and a reliance on wind and solar power.  In this episode, Shayle talks to one of the executives behind the plan, Drew Baglino, who was senior vice president for powertrain and energy at Tesla until April when he resigned. In his 18 years at Tesla he worked on batteries, cars, and even Tesla’s lithium refinery. Shayle and Drew cover topics like: Why Drew isn't sure that AI-driven load growth “is going to be as dramatic as people think” Drew’s optimism about the U.S.’ ability to build out enough transmission for decarbonization How to deal with the high rates of curtailment and what to do with that excess power Meeting the material requirements of decarbonization and Drew’s experience with permitting Tesla facilities  Recommended Resources: Tesla: Master Plan Part 3 CNBC: Tesla execs Drew Baglino and Rohan Patel depart as company announces steep layoffs The Carbon Copy: AI's main constraint: Energy, not chips Catalyst: Understanding the transmission bottleneck Utility rates could make or break the energy transition – so how do we do it right? On June 13, Latitude Media and GridX are hosting a Frontier Forum to examine the importance of good rate design and the consequences of getting it wrong. Register here. And make sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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: The 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 buyers Utility 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.

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!

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: The 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.

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: Who 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 utilization 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.

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.

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: The 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 grants 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. 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.