Catalyst with Shayle Kann

The podcast discusses the V2X dream of EVs helping power grids, the barriers V2X technology faces, and the potential compensation for EV owners. They also cover the impact of EVs on the grid, the potential of using EV batteries as grid resources, and the integration of EVs into the energy grid.

Sam Jaffe, VP of Battery Solutions at E-Source, joins Shayle to discuss the competition between lithium-ion chemistries, new partnerships in battery manufacturing, the dominance of a few chemistries vs. diversification, the importance of fast charging and lithium prices, the future of battery chemistries, and the evolving landscape of EV battery manufacturers.

The podcast discusses the challenges faced by utilities in delivering power for electrification, including interconnection queues, transformer shortage, and regulatory uncertainty. It explores the differences between big industrial load growth and distributed load growth. The proposed power plant regulations requiring carbon capture and storage are also covered. The potential value of microgrids in overcoming power delivery challenges is highlighted.

It’s the highest-intensity solar power you can get. It’s available 24/7. And you can send it anywhere on earth.All you need to do is launch a ten-by-ten kilometer array of solar panels into geosynchronous orbit, capture solar energy, and beam it to earth using a massive antenna array. Then set up a receiver a few kilometers in diameter on earth to collect that power and send it to the grid. Sound like science fiction? You wouldn’t be far off (looking at you, Isaac Asimov). But the reality is that Caltech, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, and the Japanese Space Agency are all working on the idea.Recent developments in space tech warrant some cautious optimism about space-based solar. Space X has pioneered reusable rockets that have dramatically reduced the cost of launches. And mass production of satellites has brought down the cost of hardware, too.So how would space-based solar actually work? And what would it take to commercialize it?In this episode, Shayle talks to Sanjay Vijendran, lead for the SOLARIS initiative on space-based solar power at the European Space Agency. He argues that space-based solar is much closer to commercialization than nuclear fusion, which garners a lot more attention and funding.They cover topics like: The four main components: the launch, the solar panels, the antenna, and the receiver on earth Where we need additional research, including beaming power at greater distance and scale, plus power beaming safety What it might feel like if you stood under the beam The target launch costs the industry would need to reach for viability Pilot projects happening right now Recommended Resources: The Verge: Space-based solar power is having its moment in the sun Science: Space-based solar power is getting serious—can it solve Earth’s energy woes? Canary: Is space-based solar ready for liftoff? Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you're a startup, investor, enterprise, or innovation ecosystem that's creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.Catalyst is supported by RE+. RE+ is more than just the largest clean energy event, it’s a catalyst for industry innovation designed to supercharge business growth in the clean energy economy. Learn more: re-plus.com.

This week we’re bringing you a special crossover episode from With Great Power. It’s a show about one of the most complex machines ever built – the power grid. It’s a machine that’s changing faster than ever. With Great Power is about the people driving that change:A third of the world's largest companies now have net-zero targets in place for carbon emissions. Google was ahead of the curve. Back in 2007, it had already achieved its goal of going carbon neutral across all of its offices and data centers around the globe.But as demand for Google's services expanded, it knew that it had to overhaul its energy goals. At the time, Raiford Smith served as Google's global head of energy and location strategy. And part of his job was jump-starting this massive effort.In 2021, Google launched one of the most ambitious corporate energy strategies ever. And Raiford and his team made it possible.After a career spanning more than 30 years at utilities like Duke Energy, CPS, Entergy, and Southern company, and two years at Google, Raiford knows firsthand that change is possible at power companies.This week, Brad talked with Raiford, now the chief innovation officer at AES, about what's needed to spur tech innovation at utilities, and the technologies that will be integral to the energy transition.This podcast is produced by GridX. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you're a startup, investor, enterprise, or innovation ecosystem that's creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.Catalyst is supported by RE+. RE+ is more than just the largest clean energy event, it’s a catalyst for industry innovation designed to supercharge business growth in the clean energy economy. Learn more: re-plus.com. 

The good news: The Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) contains more nickel and cobalt than the rest of the world’s land-based reserves combined. It also has significant resources of high-grade lithium, copper and rare earth metals—all of which are critical for the batteries the world needs to meet Paris Agreement targets.The bad news: The CCZ lies at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and contains biodiverse ecosystems we know very little about—and that we could profoundly harm if we mine them.The CCZ lies between Hawaii and Mexico and is about half the size of the continental United States. And it’s just one of many potential deep-sea sources of critical minerals.So should we mine the deep sea to fight climate change? And if we do, how do we also protect seafloor ecosystems?In this episode, Shayle talks to Renee Grogan, an expert in deep-sea mining. She is a co-founder and board director at Impossible Metals. Together they cover topics like: The different types of seafloor resources, including polymetallic nodules, cobalt ferro-manganese crusts, and massive sulfides Better understanding seafloor ecosystems and incorporating science into mining practices and regulations, including selective harvesting, protected areas, and offsets The challenges of enforcing regulations three to five kilometers below the surface Ongoing negotiations at the International Seabed Authority, which was planning to finalize regulations for deep-sea mining last week, but announced that it needed more time. Recommended Resources: NYT: Pacific Seabed Mining Delayed as International Agency Finalizes Rules Forbes: Deep Sea Mining: The Biggest Climate Issue You’ve Never Heard Of British Geological Survey: Deep-sea mining evidence review – MineralsUK Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you're a startup, investor, enterprise, or innovation ecosystem that's creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.Catalyst is supported by RE+. RE+ is more than just the largest clean energy event, it’s a catalyst for industry innovation designed to supercharge business growth in the clean energy economy. Learn more: re-plus.com.

Carbon capture and storage. It’s a controversial tool in the energy transition that we don’t want to use, but probably have to. Most of the scenarios in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report include capturing and storing hundreds of gigatons of carbon dioxide between now and 2100. When people say carbon capture and storage, or CCS, they often mean different things. It’s a term that covers multiple technologies used to capture CO2—such as point-source and direct-air capture— and different approaches to using that CO2. With the CCS industry is in its infancy, tackling some big questions now could save us headaches down the road. Questions about CCS infrastructure use, where we’ll build it, and who will control it.In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Emily Grubert, associate professor of sustainable energy policy at the University of Notre Dame. She posted a Twitter thread recently about how the same CCS infrastructure actually has four different use cases: Avoiding emissions to extend the life of fossil-fuel infrastructure Avoiding emissions where we don’t have zero-carbon alternatives yet, like cement production Removing carbon to compensate for other emissions, i.e. offsets Removing carbon to draw down legacy emissions and avoid overshooting 1.5 degrees Celsius targets They walk through each categories and cover topics like: Which categories to prioritize over others Avoiding the double-counting problem Where we should use CCS vs. zero-carbon alternatives The resource constraints on CCS, including water, land and energy Whether we have the luxury to prioritize when we need to deploy CCS so quickly Whether CCS customers or regulatory bodies should determine the type of CCS infrastructure we have and where we build it Recommended Resources: Catalyst: Carbon capture and storage is making a comeback Bloomberg: Big Money Rushes Into Carbon Capture. Can It Deliver This Time? US DOE: Strategic Vision: The Role of FECM in Achieving Net-Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you're a startup, investor, enterprise, or innovation ecosystem that's creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.Catalyst is supported by RE+. RE+ is more than just the largest clean energy event, it’s a catalyst for industry innovation designed to supercharge business growth in the clean energy economy. Learn more: re-plus.com.

Before hydrogen makes it big, we have to overcome a massive, ocean-sized challenge: Transporting the fuel between continents. The places that will be best suited to produce hydrogen via renewables-powered electrolysis, like Australia and Egypt, will have to ship that hydrogen to demand centers in Japan, Europe, and elsewhere.And it turns out that shipping hydrogen is way harder than shipping oil or natural gas. Hydrogen has a very low volumetric energy density. Compared to one barrel of oil, the equivalent amount of gaseous hydrogen takes up way more space to transport.Fortunately, a range of technologies could solve this problem. Will one become the dominant means of transporting hydrogen across the oceans?In this episode, Shayle talks to Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s SIPA Center on Global Energy Policy. Anne-Sophie recently wrote about hydrogen transport for Cipher News. They cover the five leading contenders for transoceanic transport: Liquified hydrogen E-methane, also known as synthetic methane or carbon neutral gas Liquid organic hydrogen carriers(LOHCs) Methanol Ammonia They also discuss topics like: Why good old fashioned pipelines might be a viable option for transport, even between continents The challenges of converting natural gas infrastructure into hydrogen infrastructure Why hydrogen exporters might be better off producing products made with hydrogen, such as steel, rather than the hydrogen itself Recommended Resources: Cipher News: Global hydrogen trade may be just a pipe dream IRENA: Global Hydrogen Trade to Meet the 1.5°C Climate Goal: Technology Review of Hydrogen Carriers IEA: Global Hydrogen Review 2022 Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you're a startup, investor, enterprise, or innovation ecosystem that's creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.Catalyst is supported by RE+. RE+ is more than just the largest clean energy event, it’s a catalyst for industry innovation designed to supercharge business growth in the clean energy economy. Learn more: re-plus.com.

More than a third of the world’s current greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels go through underground networks of fungi, according to a new peer-reviewed study in Current Biology.That’s a whopping 13 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year.Mycorrhizal fungi act as a symbiotic partner of plants, seeking out nutrients and bringing them back to the plants’ roots. In return, they accept carbon in the form of carbohydrates—which they then lock away in the structure of the fungi. This symbiotic relationship is nothing new to scientists; what’s surprising is the magnitude of carbon stored.But how permanent is this sink? And what can we do to support fungi as a nature-based climate solution?In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Heidi-Jayne Hawkins, lead author of the new paper and research director at Conservation South Africa. They cover topics like: The evolutionary history of mycorrhizal fungi  The mechanics of fungal carbon storage, which boosts carbon storage by 5-20% more than plants alone What we can do to support conditions for fungi to absorb carbon Open questions about the permanence of the storage Recommended Resources: Current Biology: Mycorrhizal mycelium as a global carbon poolCatalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.Support for Catalyst comes from Climate Positive, a podcast by HASI, that features candid conversations with the leaders, innovators, and changemakers who are at the forefront of the transition to a sustainable economy. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.Catalyst is supported by Scale Microgrids, the distributed energy company dedicated to transforming the way modern energy infrastructure is designed, constructed, and financed. Distributed generation can be complex. Scale makes it easy. Learn more: scalemicrogrids.com.

Everything, everywhere, all at once—that’s the state of the U.S. solar industry right now.Suppliers are rushing to take advantage of the Inflation Reduction Act’s generous domestic-manufacturing incentives. Major manufacturers like First Solar and Enel have announced billion dollar investments in places like Tulsa, Oklahoma and Lawrence County, Alabama.But tariffs on the import of some Chinese-made parts may resume at the end of 2024; and the industry still faces supply chain shortages and permitting backlogs.Meanwhile, the stakes are high. To reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the U.S. needs to install 100 gigawatts of solar per year by 2030, according to a report from the REPEAT Project of Princeton’s ZERO Lab, up from about 30 gigawatts this year. Is that achievable in this chaotic environment? In this episode, Shayle talks about the state of the U.S. solar industry with Ethan Zindler, head of Americas at BloombergNEF. They cover topics like: Generous manufacturing incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act  Conditions to qualify for the incentives, such as meeting prevailing wages, building in “energy communities,” and sourcing domestic content The saga of solar tariffs Looming competition from manufacturers in Southeast Asia How supply chain bottlenecks have eased up Recommended Resources: Canary: Can the US manufacture enough solar panels to meet its surging demand? Canary: In Biden solar tariff compromise, installers win Princeton ZERO Lab’s REPEAT Project: Preliminary Report: The Climate and Energy Impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.Support for Catalyst comes from Climate Positive, a podcast by HASI, that features candid conversations with the leaders, innovators, and changemakers who are at the forefront of the transition to a sustainable economy. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.Catalyst is supported by Scale Microgrids, the distributed energy company dedicated to transforming the way modern energy infrastructure is designed, constructed, and financed. Distributed generation can be complex. Scale makes it easy. Learn more: scalemicrogrids.com.