Energy Gang
Wood Mackenzie
Covering breaking news in clean tech, going deep on global energy policy, and debating the levers that need to move to accelerate the energy transition. Energy Gang is the podcast covering clean energy technology, renewable energy, and the environment. The world of clean energy moves fast, and you need a reliable source to stay on top of the news that matters. You’ll find it on Wood Mackenzie’s Energy Gang.How will changes to the US government affect decarbonisation and energy security? When will hydrogen, nuclear and carbon capture deploy at scale? Where’s the money for the energy transition green finance coming from and how much more is needed? What’s the outlook for EVs? What are the energy predictions for solar energy? What's the latest on climate change?Get answers to questions like these, bi-weekly on Tuesdays at 7am ET. Plus, get special live episodes recorded at the biggest climate and energy events throughout the year, like COP30 and Climate Week NYC. Don’t worry if you can’t make it in person, Energy Gang brings you all the updates on energy policy, energy finance and energy innovation you need to hear.Energy Gang is presented by Wood Mackenzie and hosted by Ed Crooks, Vice-Chairman of Energy at Wood Mackenzie and a former Financial Times and BBC News journalist. Regular guests are Amy Myers-Jaffe (Director of NYU’s Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab), and Dr Melissa Lott (Partner at Microsoft) – plus a roster of industry leaders and policy influencers, like Jigar Shah (Industry figurehead and former director of the Loan Programs Office in the US Department of Energy), Caroline Golin (Head of North America, Global Energy Market Development and Policy at Google) and Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt (Former Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources).If you like The Energy Transition Show, Catalyst with Shayle Kann, The Big Switch from Columbia University, Open Circuit with Stephen Lacey or The Green Blueprint, you’ll enjoy Energy Gang.Want to get involved with the show? Reach out to podcasts@woodmac.com to:Bring Energy Gang to your eventBe a guest on the showSponsor an episodeAsk a question to Ed Crooks or one of our guestsCheck out another leading clean tech global podcast by Wood Mackenzie, Interchange Recharged: https://www.woodmac.com/podcasts/the-interchange-recharged/Wood Mackenzie is the leading global data and analytics solutions provider for renewables, energy and natural resources. Learn more about Wood Mackenzie on the official website: https://www.woodmac.com/
Episodes
Mentioned books
Dec 7, 2019 • 50min
Tesla's Cybertruck: Win or Fail?
Truck buyers are historically some of the most brand-loyal auto consumers But recent surveys suggest that loyalty is loosening.Into the picture steps Elon Musk, who dropped the Tesla Cybertruck last month. This space-age truck concept is truly putting the shift in consumer preferences to the test. It’s also tearing a lot of opinionated people apart.In this episode: what is the Cybertruck and where might it fit into the emerging electric truck market? And can it sway truck buyers who don't care about Tesla?Then, there’s a major tax bill in Congress right now that would be a boon to renewables — what are its chances?Finally, what would we do with a million dollars? We answer a listener question about how to invest with impact.Support for this podcast is brought to you by Sungrow. With the world’s most powerful 250-kilowatt, 1,500-volt string inverter, Sungrow is providing disruptive technology for utility-scale projects.Subscribe to GTM podcasts via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Nov 22, 2019 • 52min
New Candidates, 'Climategate' Redux, & Top Turkeys of 2019
This week: our pre-thanksgiving intellectual feast. It’s a four-course meal as usual.For the hors d’oeuvres, we’re serving up something new: a roundup of the new entrants into the presidential race, and how they stack up on environmental issues.For the side dishes, we’ll reheat some leftovers. We’ll look at the climategate debacle 10 years later.And for the main course. What people or companies will we choose as the top turkeys of the year?We’ll end with a little aperitif — our free electrons. Read along with us:POLITICO: The Left Smells a Rat in Bloomberg, Patrick BidsGreenwire: As Mass. Governor, Deval Patrick Promoted RGGI, Clean PowerBBC Documentary: Climategate 10 Years LaterColumbia Journalism Review: Michael Mann on Coverage Since ‘Climategate’Our top Turkeys: Andrew Wheeler's plan to dismantle EPA; Saudi Aramco's lagging IPO; and Elon Musk's lies about solar.Support for this podcast is brought to you by Sungrow. With the world’s most powerful 250-kilowatt, 1,500-volt string inverter, Sungrow is providing disruptive technology for utility-scale projects.Subscribe to GTM podcasts via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Nov 15, 2019 • 1h 3min
Is Big Tech Fueling the Climate Disinformation War?
As we reckon with the dark side of Silicon Valley’s tech giants, there’s more scrutiny into how these companies are assisting climate denial and obfuscation.We’ll look at a few different stories:Climate and clean energy are getting disadvantaged by Facebook and Twitter’s different policies on political ads: how do we define issue ads and political speech?Google, Facebook and others are getting called out for their support of groups that spread extreme climate denial: How much criticism do they deserve?And Amazon, Microsoft and Google are building the digital backbone of industries that are wrecking the planet. How should we think about their role and culpability?In the second half of the show, we’ll discuss America’s withdraws from the Paris climate treaty. With U.S. global leadership in shambles, who’s going to fill the gap? And how could elections change things?Finally, how California’s wildfire crisis is stoking the state’s distributed generation market. We’ll look at the business impacts.Recommended resources:Heated: Exxon Climate Ads Aren’t Political, According to TwitterVox: Watch AOC Ask Mark Zuckerberg if She Can Run Fake Green New Deal AdsGuardian: Google Made Large Contributions to Climate Deniers Guardian: Facebook Video Spreads Climate Denial to 5 Million UsersGTM: Power Shutoff Disruption ‘Resets’ California’s Residential MarketJigar Shah/Timothy Hade Op-Ed: It’s Time to Evolve California’s Electrical GridSupport for this podcast is brought to you by Sungrow. With the world’s most powerful 250-kilowatt, 1,500-volt string inverter, Sungrow is providing disruptive technology for utility-scale projects.Subscribe to GTM podcasts via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Nov 8, 2019 • 60min
Watt It Takes: A Tesla Veteran’s Mission to Build Long-Duration Batteries
This week on Watt It Takes: how a would-be priest made it his mission to spread the gospel of battery storage.In this episode, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch sits down with Mateo Jaramillo, the CEO and co-founder of Form Energy.Form is working on a new kind of long-duration battery. And Mateo has one of the longer-duration careers in the storage industry. In the early 2000s, he deployed the first behind-the-meter systems in New York for demand response — seeing the grid services potential well before anyone else.Mateo went on to start the stationary energy storage unit at Tesla, launching and building the powerwall business. He also helped launch the supercharger business.Today, he’s working on a new electrochemical battery that could provide storage services for days, not just hours. The idea is to unlock baseload renewables.The chemistry was spun out of work from MIT researchers. It’s being scaled by a group of engineers and entrepreneurs with deep technical experience — and like Mateo, the bumps and bruises that come from scaling an early market.In this interview, Mateo talks about what it took to power through the early days of battery storage, when everything sale and installation was a battle. And he’ll talk about what it will take to create Form’s new storage tech to unlock even more renewable energy.To learn more about future speakers and attending a live event, go to Powerhouse.fund and click on the events tab. Listen to all of the episodes of Watt It Takes here.Support for this podcast is brought to you by Sungrow. With the world’s most powerful 250-kilowatt, 1,500-volt string inverter, Sungrow is providing disruptive technology for utility-scale projects.Subscribe to GTM podcasts via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Oct 31, 2019 • 42min
The Scariest Stories of the Year
We recorded this episode on Halloween morning. We woke up and felt like celebrating the theme of the holiday.If you’re listening after Halloween, don’t fret. There’s still plenty of newsworthy stuff in here.First up, we’re choosing the story from 2019 that is most worthy of its own horror movie. As a bonus, we are also choosing the genre of horror.Then, we pick the zombie story or trend of the year that just won’t die.And finally, the company or person that deserves a treat.We’ll end with some bone-chilling Free Electrons.Could you do us a favor? Take our listener survey so we can give you more relevant content: bit.ly/gtmpodcastSupport for this podcast is brought to you by Sungrow. With the world’s most powerful 250-kilowatt, 1,500-volt string inverter, Sungrow is providing disruptive technology for utility-scale projects.Subscribe to GTM podcasts via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Oct 26, 2019 • 1h 3min
Who’s Trying to Re-Kill the Electric Car?
Could you do us a favor? Take our listener survey so we can give you more relevant content: bit.ly/gtmpodcastThis week: it’s the oil industry versus the world. We’re examining two legal battles for oil majors playing out in states. One involves electric cars and one involves responsibility for climate change.We’ll start first with a story from POLITICO’s Gavin Bade. Advocacy groups backed by oil companies are increasingly lobbying against utilities that are trying to support electric vehicles. Are we seeing a coming political clash between the oil industry and utility industry?We’re joined by Gavin, who’s been tracking these emerging challenges.Then, we are devoting our second half of the show to the legal challenges against fossil fuel companies. Exxon is on trial in New York and numerous other states and cities are bringing suit against oil majors. It’s got everyone paying attention to this very complicated yet riveting issue: as the science and legal arguments evolve, will big fossil fuel companies be held accountable for a warming planet?Support for this podcast is brought to you by Sungrow. With the world’s most powerful 250-kilowatt, 1,500-volt string inverter, Sungrow is providing disruptive technology for utility-scale projects.Subscribe to GTM podcasts via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Oct 19, 2019 • 51min
We Didn’t Start the Fire
Could you do us a favor? Take our listener survey so we can give you more relevant content: bit.ly/gtmpodcastThe world’s fifth-largest economy looked more like a developing country last week, as PG&E purposefully cut power to millions of people in Northern California for days.We knew this was coming. The growing safety and financial risk of wildfires in the state mean mass power outages will become more common. But in this case, PG&E was slammed for the way it handled things.We’ll dig into the scope, the fallout, and the solutions of California’s power shutoffs due to wildfire threats.Then: Dyson made a big business out of selling $400 hair dryers and $500 vacuum cleaners, but it couldn’t make a high-end electric car work. We’ll talk about why Dyson wrote off its EV plans.Finally, the Trump administration lifts a tariff exemption for bifacial solar panels. So why are these two-sided solar panels becoming so popular now?Additional resources:New York Times: Inside PG&E’s Control RoomBloomberg: What Happens When a Vacuum Company Tries to Make an Electric CarGTM Squared: Has Bifacial Solar Finally Moved From Theoretical to Practical?Support for this podcast is brought to you by Sungrow. With the world’s most powerful 250-kilowatt, 1,500-volt string inverter, Sungrow is providing disruptive technology for utility-scale projects.Subscribe to GTM podcasts via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Oct 15, 2019 • 30min
Are Ancient Bugs the Key to Storing Wind and Solar? [Special Content From NREL]
This is a branded podcast made in collaboration between the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and GTM Creative Strategies. As grids get saturated with wind and solar electricity, there’s pressure to find new ways to store that energy across daily, monthly or seasonal variations.Could the answer be a billion-year-old microbe?The National Renewable Energy Laboratory and SoCalGas are currently testing a new bioreactor that could turn renewable electrons into renewable methane -- allowing excess generation to be “stored” in existing natural gas pipelines.The system relies on an ancient microorganism that ferments hydrogen and carbon dioxide and turns it into methane. By feeding the bugs hydrogen from renewable resources and CO2 from industrial sources, companies like SoCalGas could harness a new supply of renewable natural gas.NREL has been testing the process in the lab for years. And it finally built a larger-scale version of the bioreactor. We sent producer Catherine Jaffee to NREL’s lab in Golden, Colorado to check it out. We’ll learn how it works in the first part of the episode.In the second half of the episode, we talk with NREL’s Kevin Harrison and SoCalGas’ Ron Kent about how the system is performing so far.Learn more about all the world-changing research on clean energy happening at NREL.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Oct 2, 2019 • 1h 4min
Watt It Takes: The Startup Making Solar-Storage Better Than the African Grid
Could you do us a favor? Take our listener survey so we can give you more relevant content: bit.ly/gtmpodcastThis week on Watt It Takes: how a computer nerd who loved assembling electronics became obsessed with designing a solar-storage system to light up Africa.In this episode, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch sits down with Xavier Helgesen, the co-founder and chief technology officer at ZOLA Electric.Zola is a provider of solar and storage systems in Africa. Since its founding in 2012, the company has served over a million people with clean power in five countries.Over the years, Zola has evolved from a small, scrappy startup that offered very basic energy packages into a hardware company that installs sleek, scalable power systems that function better than the grid. “[Our goal] was not to be worse than the grid, but available anywhere — but to just be better than the grid. For solar and batteries to fundamentally be cheaper and more reliable than the grid. And if we succeed in that in the developing world, then the market is almost limitless,” says Helgesen.In this interview, Helgesen talks about how he first got interested in energy access, the complexities of setting up a company as an outsider in Tanzania, and how Zola shifted into designing its own hybrid system.This conversation was recorded live at Powerhouse’s headquarters. To learn more about future speakers and attending a live event, go to Powerhouse.fund and click on the events tab. Support for this podcast is brought to you by Sungrow. With the world’s most powerful 250-kilowatt, 1,500-volt string inverter, Sungrow is providing disruptive technology for utility-scale projects.Subscribe to GTM podcasts via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Sep 29, 2019 • 20min
Clean Energy’s Ever-Changing Policy Risk [Special Content From CohnReznick]
This is a branded podcast made in collaboration between CohnReznick Capital and GTM Creative Strategies. Britta Von Oesen knows risk. As an intern in Lehman Brothers’ global energy unit in 2008, she watched the collapse of the investment bank in real time. Later, she watched European markets grind to a halt after feed-in-tariffs were reversed.And in the U.S., she’s monitored the ever-changing tax policies and regulations that impact wind, solar and storage.Today, Britta is a managing director at CohnReznick Capital. Her job is to help figure out how to get wind and solar deals done in the face of policy and financial risk. In this special episode, produced in collaboration with CohnReznick Capital, we sit down with Britta Von Oesen to unpack some of those policy uncertainties and what they mean for renewables.Go to CohnReznickCapital.com to learn more about how the company builds relationships, closes deals, and helps clean energy companies excel.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
