Interchange Recharged

“Climatetech” is suddenly the hot new thing in venture capital. For years now, venture investors have stayed away from the cleantech category, a hangover from the Solyndra days that we have thoroughly documented on The Interchange.But we appear to be in a new phase of interest. Prominent investors are publicly declaring their push into the space. Influential voices in tech are calling on more investors to do the same -- including Kara Swisher, who wrote a persuasive piece in The New York Times last week. And now startups of all kinds are getting a second look. So. What’s going on? And have investors internalized the lessons from the previous investment wave?With us to weigh in on those questions is returning guest Abe Yokell. Abe is a managing partner at Congruent Ventures. Co-host Shayle Kann, a managing director at Energy Impact Partners, sets up the trend. Then Shayle and Abe dissect lessons from cleantech venture capital 1.0.The basis of this conversation came from Shayle’s tweet. Read the responses and add your thoughts.Want to share your opinion about the topic? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.This podcast is brought to you by Fronius. Now, Fronius gives you more control over your solar energy than ever before with its versatile hybrid inverter, the Primo GEN24 PLUS. Whether you’re storing solar power, integrating energy storage or looking for backup power, the Primo GEN24 PLUS has you covered. Find out more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Less than one percent of all hydrogen produced today comes from renewables. Is that about to change?The vice president of Siemens Middle East just called green hydrogen the “new oil” in the coming decades. A lot of big industrial companies and oil majors are taking another serious look at hydrogen. Why?In an era of extremely cheap renewables that are increasingly being curtailed, hydrogen production could finally be an attractive use. There are emerging regulatory pressures on existing hydrogen production.This week, we talk with Ben Gallagher, an expert on emerging tech at Wood Mackenzie. He’s the author of a new piece of research on the market. Ben will help us understand what’s different about today’s hydrogen hype. Want to share your opinion about the topic? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.This podcast is brought to you by Fronius. Now, Fronius gives you more control over your solar energy than ever before with its versatile hybrid inverter, the Primo GEN24 PLUS. Whether you’re storing solar power, integrating energy storage, or looking for back-up power, the Primo GEN24 PLUS has you covered. Find out more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We’re undergoing some great changes here on The Interchange! We’re bringing on a new producer and we’re going to be featuring new voices that will help us tackle the energy transition in new and compelling ways. So while we reorient ourselves, we are bringing you an episode from 2018 called “8 bets about the future.” We debated and bet on a bunch of different scenarios for the coming decades.This is one of our favorite shows. It’s a good one to bring up from the archives as we prepare ourselves for the decade ahead.The bets we discuss:Bet #1: Bug will control machines with her voice more than with her keyboard.Bet #2: Bug will never personally drive a car.Bet #3: By the time Bug buys her first home, especially if she’s in an urban environment, her surroundings will transformed. Bet #4: By the time Bug shops for her own groceries, >20% of her produce will be grown indoorsBet #5: In Bug’s first home of her own, more than half of her electricity load will dynamically respond to grid or price signalsBet #6: By the time Bug reaches 30 (in the year 2050), electricity’s market share of final energy consumption will more than double.Bet #7: More than 50% of Bug’s electricity, as represented by the national breakdown, will come from renewables by the time she’s a sophomore in high school.Bet #8 : Bug will live over 200 years, and for most of her life, electricity will be her only food.Want to share your opinion about these predictions? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.This podcast is brought to you by Fronius. Now, Fronius gives you more control over your solar energy than ever before with its versatile hybrid inverter, the Primo GEN24 PLUS. Whether you’re storing solar power, integrating energy storage, or looking for back-up power, the Primo GEN24 PLUS has you covered. Find out more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We’re now in the 2020s. Many of the tropes about this era from films and literature may not have come true, but there’s a lot happening around us that does feel futuristic.And this week, we are offering up proof that we are living in the energy future — right now. Shayle and Stephen are each going to pick a use of technology that once seemed futuristic, but is now a reality.We’re also going to choose a technology that we thought would arrive but now, but is still seemingly off into the future.What’s your pick? Let us know on Twitter. Follow @InterchangeShow, @shaylekann & @stphn_lacey and send comments about the show.This podcast is brought to you by Fronius. Now, Fronius gives you more control over your solar energy than ever before with its versatile hybrid inverter, the Primo GEN24 PLUS. Whether you’re storing solar power, integrating energy storage, or looking for back-up power, the Primo GEN24 PLUS has you covered. Find out more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This show has a very simple mission: break down the complexity of the global energy transition in a clear way.Whether that’s digging through reports, concepts, acronyms, business deals, or trends, we are constantly trying to make these topics accessible, yet wonky. Some of our most popular episodes of 2019 featured guests who were particularly good at delivering on that mission. So we’re going to serve up some snippets of those conversations.In this episode, we'll hear from:Dr. Leah Stokes from our July episode on the politics of the Green New Deal.Futurist Ramez Naam on the exponential trends disrupting energy.Analyst Adam James on the promise of aggregated distributed energy resources.Happy new year! Please rate and review us as a gesture of support to close out the year. It’s very helpful for other people who are just finding the show.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Countries, states, cities, utilities and corporations are all setting increasingly ambitious targets for clean energy. There are lots of variations on the theme: 100% renewable energy, 100% clean energy, 100% carbon-free energy. They all require ambition -- and lots of planning.In this episode, the first in a three-part series from Wartsila, we are exploring the causes and consequences of this 100% trend. How did we get to this point where utilities and states are all committing to 100% zero-carbon or 100% renewable energy goals? What are the limitations? What is the potential? And what’s the pathway to achieving them?Producer Lisa Barfai speaks with Emma Foehringer Merchant, a staff writer at Greentech Media, who describes the origin of the trend.Then we’ll talk with Jussi Heikkinen, director of growth and development for the Americas at Wartsila, who outlines the practical consequences for the electricity system.Wartsila creates smart, flexible power technologies to enable a cleaner grid and put the world on a path to 100% renewable energy. They’re helping clients worldwide meet their clean energy goals in an efficient and cost-effective way. Find out more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s our last episode of the decade! We’re looking back over the last 10 years and making our choices for:The most important statisticThe most impactful piece of researchThe top buzz phraseThe most unexpected twistThe most pivotal dealAnd the dark horse trend of the 2020sThanks to everyone who’s been listening to this show since 2014. We appreciate your feedback and support. Please continue to suggest topics via Twitter so that we can evolve over the next decade.Support for the Interchange comes from Schneider Electric, the leader of the digital transformation in energy management and automation. Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. 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.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

America’s physical infrastructure is in the dumps. The American Society of Civil Engineers regularly gives the country’s infrastructure a near-failing grade.We need to rebuild a lot of stuff. Hardening our roads, grids, buildings, transit systems has a climate context to it: we need to do it better and we need to do it cleaner.This week, we are exploring the cleantech opportunities in physical infrastructure. What are the most compelling trends shaping the way we optimize our electrical equipment, pipelines, streets, homes and buildings? This conversation is based on Shayle Kann’s piece, titled “The World Around Us.”We’re breaking the conversation into four parts:The geospatial revolution: how the combination of new sources of geospatial data (satellites, drones, sensors), combined with the data revolution, will allow us to gain a real-time operational picture of our infrastructure and ultimately optimize it.The culture of resilience: how increasing natural disasters will start to make investing in resilience (via anything from batteries to building retrofits) mainstream.The re-platforming of our streets: how the arrival of new modes of transport (autonomous, micromobility, package delivery) will force us to rethink the orientation of our streets, which are currently designed for a single master – the passenger vehicle.The impacts of 100% clean: how all the commitments to 100% will force us to confront the biggest challenge we’ll face in electricity for the next few decades: how to unlock grid flexibility, particularly behind the meter. Support for the Interchange comes from Schneider Electric, the leader of the digital transformation in energy management and automation. Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. 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.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we have a special addendum to our deep decarbonization draft. We’re talking with Dr. Katharine Wilkinson, the vice president of communication and engagement at Project Drawdown.Katharine is one of the minds behind the Project Drawdown solutions list that we used as the basis for our draft. We chose the list because it spans so many different areas of the global economy.Katharine is a renowned expert and self-proclaimed “climate solutionary.” She has a very popular TED Talk on gender equality and climate change, and she speaks regularly to the press about climate issues.She was the lead author on the Project Drawdown book, which goes deep on the top 100 decarbonization solutions.If you haven’t listened to our draft, go back and check it out. This conversation will make a lot more sense.We talk with Katharine about the biggest wins for decarbonization, the most surprising opportunities, and how do they break down along the lines of high-tech and low-tech. We’ll also get her opinion on who won the Deep Decarbonization Draft — Stephen or Shayle?Support for the Interchange comes from Schneider Electric, the leader of the digital transformation in energy management and automation. Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. 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.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we offer our second installment of the Deep Decarbonization Draft — our fantasy sports event for energy and climate nerds. Last year’s draft inspired similar versions at conferences and in the classroom. We’re bringing the game back by popular demand. The premise is simple: Shayle and Stephen choose their teams of decarbonization technologies and methods, and then pit them against each other to determine who’s best at saving the planet.This year’s list climate solutions comes from Project Drawdown. You can find their list and scores here. Producer Daniel Woldorff has anonymized the list. We need to choose seven draft picks from the 80+ solutions across seven sectors. After all the picks, one steal is allowed. Once the scores are locked in, we’ll tally up the total CO2 reductions and the total savings and determine a winner. Bonus points for the person who made the highest-scoring pick.Listen to last year’s decarbonization draft. Thanks to Matt Farley for the theme song. Support for the Interchange comes from Schneider Electric, the leader of the digital transformation in energy management and automation. Support for this podcast comes from PG&E. 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.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.