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
Apr 12, 2019 • 42min
Interpreting GOP Responses to the Green New Deal
This week, the Green New Deal ripples through Washington.A few leading Republicans are responding to the progressive climate plan with some ideas of their own: the New Manhattan Project and the Green Real Deal. They’ve gotten a mostly cold response from the left. But have we finally broken the ice for a legitimate cross-party policy discussion on climate? We’ll look at the GOP responses.Then, Trump’s latest verbal convulsion. Speaking at a fundraiser, the president said wind noise causes cancer and kills property values. We’ll take this opportunity to review what the literature says about the impact of wind.Finally, we’ll go to Virginia, where there’s been a ton of legislative activity on solar, efficiency, grid infrastructure and climate — some of which was blocked by the state’s mega-utility Dominion Energy. We’ll examine the politics.Recommended reading:Bloomberg: GOP Tiptoes Toward Climate Plans as Ocasio-Cortez Turns Up HeatMatt Gaetz: 'Green Real Deal' ProposalLamar Alexander: The New Manhattan ProjectThe Conversation: Wind Turbine Syndrome, a Classic ‘Communicated’ DiseaseVirginia Mercury: How the General Assembly Failed Virginia Again on Clean EnergySupport for this podcast comes from PG&E. Did you know that 20 percent of EV drivers in the U.S. are in PG&E’s service area in Northern California? PG&E is helping to electrify corporate fleet vehicles. Get in touch with PG&E’s EV specialists to find out how you can take your transportation fleet electric.Subscribe to The Energy Gang podcast 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.
Apr 7, 2019 • 46min
Live at MIT: The 2040 Grid
This past week, we recorded a live show at the MIT Energy Conference. The theme of the show: what the grid may look like by 2040.As a topical show, we usually don’t know what we’re going to be discussing until a day or two in advance. But the theme of the MIT conference was "tough tech and the 2040 grid" — so we decided to take it head on. To start, we’ll adjust our brains to the 2040 timeframe with some fantastical scenarios.Then, we create our own plans. We will each outline a possible future for the 2040 time frame — Katherine will look at policy and politics, Jigar will look at the business environment, and Stephen looks at technology make-up. Finally, a news circuit. We’ll provide some quick commentary on top stories of the day.And we’ll end with our Free Electrons. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Mar 28, 2019 • 1h 3min
What Does Lyft's IPO Signal for the Future of Mobility?
Lyft is set for an IPO on Friday; Uber is driving up to the IPO window soon. Investors seem enthusiastic, but skeptics see a lot of risks and a bumpy path to profitability.In 2018, transportation network companies — pretty much Lyft and Uber — gave 2.6 billion rides. Lyft gave a billion of those rides, doubling its revenue over 2017 to $2.2 billion.We know the consumer appetite is there. But as Lyft hits the public markets, many wonder if that volume can be turned into profits. Autonomous cars, competition from other shared mobility companies, and regulations are all a potential risk.So what does Lyft’s IPO — and soon Uber’s — tell us about where mobility is headed? We're discussing on this week's Energy Gang podcast.Then, one of America’s biggest utilities said recently it will offer only carbon-free energy by 2050. In the second half of the show, we’re going to dig into Xcel’s plan. How will they do it? And will it encourage other big power companies to do the same?Finally, Midwestern floods have caused $3 billion in damages and devastated rural communities. We’ll look at our poor infrastructure management, and where the floods fit into climate trends.Recommended reading:Seattle Times: As It Gets Set for IPO, Lyft Outlines All the Reasons Ride-Sharing Could FailNPR: Ride-Hailing Services Add To Traffic Congestion, Study SaysCityLab: If Your Car Is Stuck in Traffic, It's Not Uber and Lyft's FaultVox: For the First Time, a Major US Utility Has Committed to 100% Clean EnergyXcel Energy: Building a Carbon-Free FutureAtlantic: Midwestern Flooding Isn’t a Natural DisasterReport: Climate Change in the MidwestSupport for this podcast comes from Dandelion Energy, the leading home geothermal company. Dandelion is making it easier for homeowners to get geothermal. Customers who switch to geothermal heating save on average $2,250 per year. See if your home qualifies.We're also brought to you by Wunder Capital. Listen to our careers episode produced with Wunder Capital. We talked with Wunder CTO Dave Riess about the framework he used to completely change his career path into solar — eventually co-founding a successful company. Listen to that episode in The Interchange feed or find it here.Subscribe to The Energy Gang podcast 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.
Mar 24, 2019 • 54min
Replay: The Story Behind Greentech Media's Founding
We're on spring break this week. We'll be back on Thursday with our regular show.To get you through the next few days, we’re offering up an earlier episode of Watt It Takes about the origin story of Greentech Media.In this edition of Watt It Takes, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch interviews GTM Co-Founder Scott Clavenna about the beginning of the company, the challenges of being a startup in the cleantech world, and our recent acquisition by Wood Mackenzie. Watt It Takes is a live interview series produced by Powerhouse in partnership with GTM. The conversation was recorded live in Oakland, California.Don't forget to subscribe to our other GTM podcast, The Interchange.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Mar 14, 2019 • 56min
The Battery Storage Market Kicks Into High Gear
The latest numbers for U.S. energy storage activity are out. They show a surge of activity coming over the next five years, leading to 6x market growth.By 2024, the storage market will be worth $4.7 billion dollars, driven evenly by utility-scale and behind-the-meter battery projects.On this week's episode, we'll unpack the numbers in the latest Energy Storage Monitor from Wood Mackenzie and the Energy Storage Association. They show a doubling and then a tripling of storage to come — making batteries an important part of utility planning in every region of the country.Where’s growth happening, and what does it mean for grid planning?Then, with many farmers in crisis, more of them are putting solar on their land. That’s providing new sources of income, but many fear it could take prime croplands out of commission. How do we site solar on agricultural lands properly?And finally, what is going on over at Tesla? We’ll make try to make sense of the confusing series of decisions at the company.Recommended reading:GTM: US Energy Storage Broke Records in 2018, but the Best Is Yet to ComeGTM: APS Plans to Add Nearly 1GW of New Battery Storage and Solar Resources by 2025Washington Post: The Next Money Crop for FarmersInterchange podcast: What's Up With Tesla Energy?New York Times: Tesla Says Never Mind, It Raises Prices and Keeps Most StoresBloomberg: Musk Pledges Belt-Tightening as Tesla Cuts Prices, Warns of LossSupport for this podcast comes from Dandelion Energy, the leading home geothermal company. Dandelion is making it easier for homeowners to get geothermal. Customers who switch to geothermal heating save on average $2,250 per year. See if your home qualifies.We're also brought to you by Wunder Capital. Listen to our careers episode produced with Wunder Capital. We talked with Wunder CTO Dave Riess about the framework he used to completely change his career path into solar — eventually co-founding a successful company. Listen to that episode in The Interchange feed or find it here.Subscribe to The Energy Gang podcast 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.
Mar 6, 2019 • 50min
Watt It Takes: Terry Jester Brings 40 Years of Solar Experience to Startups
This week on Watt It Takes: Terry Jester has seen it all in her four-decade career in solar and electronics. As both an engineer and an executive, she’s learned that timing is everything in the energy business. “I think as I’ve gotten older, I understand when best to strike…a good idea can not make it for bad timing, and a bad idea can go too far.”In this episode, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch sits down with Terry, who is now chief executive of SolPad, maker of a modular home solar-storage system. Terry started her career at ARCO solar in 1979, where she worked on making products that could last decades. She’s since held operations or engineering positions at Shell, Siemens, SunPower, SolarWorld and Solaria — witnessing the initial evolution and eventual explosion of solar firsthand.Terry is now in the startup world, where she’s trying to help SolPad carve out a niche in the market for home solar-battery systems. So we’re going to hear about how she’s applying operations lessons from big corporations to a startup.This conversation was recorded live at the Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy forum in Denver, CO. Watt It Takes is a collaboration between Powerhouse and Greentech Media. The series is normally recorded in front of a live audience at Powerhouse headquarters in Oakland, California. Buy tickets for upcoming events.Support for this podcast comes from Dandelion Energy, the leading home geothermal company. Dandelion is making it easier for homeowners to get geothermal. Customers who switch to geothermal heating save on average $2,250 per year. See if your home qualifies.We're also brought to you by Wunder Capital. Wunder Capital is the leading commercial solar financing company in the United States. Click here to find out how Wunder Capital can help you finance your next commercial solar project.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Mar 5, 2019 • 25min
Risks and Rewards of Latin America's Solar Boom [Special Content From NEXTracker]
This week, we’ve got a bonus episode produced in collaboration with NEXTracker.It’s all about the risks and rewards of doing business in the roaring Latin American solar market.We are speaking with two of the most in-the-know people on the subject.We’re joined by Manan Parikh, Wood a solar analyst focused on the Americas for Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables. And we’ll hear from Alejo Lopez, a senior director at NEXTracker, who’s helped grow a 3-gigawatt pipeline of trackers in Latin America — resulting in some of the cheapest and grandest solar projects in the world. Auctions in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, and Brazil are unleashing extremely low prices — between 2 and 3 cents a kilowatt-hour. As a result, the region is actually the strongest for trackers compared to the rest of the world.It’s also a pretty crazy place to do business. Every country is very different. Political and economic volatility can make markets super hot one year, and then nonexistent the next. And ultra-low prices aren’t always healthy.Still, Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables projects exponential growth for Latin America — making it 10% of the global market within the next few years.So what does exponential growth look like? And what do solar markets based on unsubsidized, extremely low priced projects mean for businesses? Learn about how NEXTracker helped deliver 754 megawatts of trackers to the largest solar project in the Americas. Listen to our episode of Watt It Takes with NEXTracker CEO Dan Shugar, a solar pioneer.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Feb 28, 2019 • 43min
Is Climate Delayism the New Denialism?
We weren’t planning on making the Green New Deal a weekly item on the show. Then a video of Senator Dianne Feinstein dropped over the weekend, where she appears to lecture climate-protesting kids. It set off a chain reaction of outrage.The social media fervor has since died down, but some really interesting journalism was left in its wake. This whole affair highlighted the crazy upheaval in climate politics — we’re going to tackle some of the bigger questions raised. Are kids a legitimate constituency? What makes climate politics so different from other issues? Are climate delayers as bad as climate deniers? What’s the end game for Democrats?Then, another ethics conflict for Trump’s energy people. We’ll talk about an EPA official who worked with a secretive utility group that lobbies against air pollution regulations, just months before he took a role regulating air pollution. Zack Colman of Politico joins us to talk about the ties he uncovered. What do they tell us about the state of lobbying ethics and utility power in the nation’s capital?Don’t forget about our live show on April 4 at the MIT Energy Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Listeners get 10% off using the code “energygang” when they buy a ticket. Get tickets: bit.ly/mitenergygangRead along with us:The New Yorker: The Hard Lessons of Dianne Feinstein’s Encounter With the Young Green New Deal ActivistsAxios: Dianne Feinstein's Green New Deal Video Basically Explains the Debate on Fighting Climate ChangeAtlantic: Dianne Feinstein Doesn’t Need a Do-OverPolitico: Documents Detail Multimillion-Dollar ties Involving EPA Official, Secretive Industry GroupSupport for this podcast comes from Dandelion Energy, the leading home geothermal company. Dandelion is making it easier for homeowners to get geothermal. Customers who switch to geothermal heating save on average $2,250 per year. See if your home qualifies.We're also brought to you by Wunder Capital. Listen to our careers episode produced with Wunder Capital. We talked with Wunder CTO Dave Riess about the framework he used to completely change his career path into solar — eventually co-founding a successful company. Listen to that episode in The Interchange feed or find it here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Feb 21, 2019 • 55min
How Trump's Tariffs Hit US Solar, One Year On
It’s been one year since the Trump White House slapped 30 percent tariffs on solar cells and modules imported into the US. What happened since?The solar industry said tariffs would destroy tens of thousands of jobs and set the market back years. Turns out, the market is a lot more resilient than presumed. We now have the jobs numbers and installation data for 2018 — and yes, the tariffs definitely hurt solar, but not nearly as much as expected.We’ll take stock of how tariffs shaped America’s solar market over the last year, both bad and good.Then, Shell continues its distributed-energy acquisition spree. The oil giant just scooped up German battery services company sonnen — one month after buying EV charging firm Greenlots in January. What’s the end game?We’ll end with a Trump Administration plan to freeze lighting standards. Is this Trump’s vendetta against hipster bars using globe lights and Edison bulbs?We’re doing a live show at the MIT Energy Conference on April 4 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Follow this link and use the promo code “energygang,” and we’ll give you a 10% discount on your ticket. Come join us for a fun live show on the energy picture in 2040.Recommended reading:GTM: New Tariffs to Curb US Solar Installations by 11% Through 2022GTM: US Solar Job Numbers Decline for the Second Consecutive YearGTM: Oil Supermajor Shell Acquires Sonnen for Home Battery ExpansionACEEE: Rollback of Light Bulb Standards Would Cost Consumers BillionsSupport for this podcast comes from Dandelion Energy, the leading home geothermal company. Dandelion is making it easier for homeowners to get geothermal. Customers who switch to geothermal heating save on average $2,250 per year. See if your home qualifies.We're also brought to you by Wunder Capital. Wunder Capital is the leading commercial solar financing company in the United States. Listen to our special podcast episode on careers produced in partnership with Wunder.Subscribe to The Energy Gang podcast 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.
Feb 14, 2019 • 59min
Parsing the Green New Deal
The Green New Deal plan is out, and we’re suddenly having a national conversation about climate change again. It’s also injecting some early drama into the presidential primaries.This week, we’re digging into the plan. We’ll tell you what’s in it, assess the reactions, and look at whether it will amount to anything. Also: is the democratic-socialist agenda antithetical the “creating climate wealth” framing — or complimentary?Then, recycling is in crisis. You’re probably recycling wrong. China is cracking down. And your city is probably losing money. We’ll ask how to address it.Finally, lab-grown meat and meat alternatives are facing a backlash from the meat industry. Bills are getting introduced in states around the country to prevent companies from using the word "meat." Could it set the industry back just as these products are gaining traction?We’re doing a live show at the MIT Energy Conference on April 4 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Follow this link and use the promo code “energygang,” and we’ll give you a 10% discount on your ticket. Come join us for a fun live show on the energy picture in 2040.Recommended reading:Read the Green New Deal resolutionPolitico: The Impossible Green Dream of Alexandria Ocasio-CortezVox: The Green New Deal Is a 2020 Litmus TestFinancial Times: Why the World’s Recycling System Stopped WorkingNew York Times: You Call That Meat? Not So Fast, Cattle Ranchers SaySupport for this podcast comes from Dandelion Energy, the leading home geothermal company. Dandelion is making it easier for homeowners to get geothermal. Customers who switch to geothermal heating save on average $2,250 per year. See if your home qualifies.We're also brought to you by Wunder Capital. Wunder Capital is the leading commercial solar financing company in the United States. Click here to find out how Wunder Capital can help you finance your next commercial solar project.Subscribe to The Energy Gang podcast 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.
