#275 Turning Idle Oil Wells into Gravity Batteries | Kemp Gregory (Renewell Energy)

What happens when an oil well dries up? Usually, it becomes a "zombie" liability—leaking methane and waiting to become a taxpayer burden. Kemp Gregory, CEO and Co-founder of Renewell Energy, joins the show to explain how he’s turning these multi-million dollar liabilities into clean energy assets.

Renewell converts idle wells into mechanical gravity batteries. By using existing deep wellbores to raise and lower heavy weights, they’ve created long-duration energy storage that is cheaper than lithium-ion and uses the infrastructure we already have.

Key Takeaways:

The Problem: Why the "Orphan Well Pocalypse" is a looming global crisis.

The Tech: How gravity storage works and why it doesn’t degrade like chemical batteries.

The Business: Convincing oil companies to hand over wells instead of plugging them.

The Grid: Why "stranded assets" are actually perfectly positioned for grid stability.

Building Deep-Tech: Why "agency" is the #1 trait Kemp looks for in early hires.

Timestamps:

01:40 – Kemp’s journey from Oil & Gas to CleanTech.

05:00 – The Scale: 900k active wells vs. 2 million idle wells.

14:15 – Gravity storage vs. Lithium-Ion: Cost and mechanics.

18:00 – Turning abandonment costs into revenue shares.

40:15 – Hiring for "Evidence of Agency."

Connect & Links:

Guest: Kemp Gregory | Renewell Energy

Host: Connect with Silas on LinkedIn

Community: Follow CleanTechies on LinkedIn

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