Climate Tech Cocktails

Fellow Climate Warriors, welcome to another episode of Climate Tech Cocktails.In this episode, we’re grabbing a drink with Steve Bennett, co-founder, and chief climate officer of the Demex Group - the first company to offer comprehensive solutions for assessing and transferring climate risks at scale.Demex uses modeling to evaluate weather risk and helps clients transfer that risk to maintain their resilience. Steve’s background as a weather person at The Weather Channel and then Scripps Institution of Oceanography led to founding his first software firm, EarthRisk Technologies.Continuing his mission to bridge the gap between weather volatility and business operations, Steve joined founder Ed Byrns in creating the Demex Group to meet the ever-increasing need of businesses to understand and guard against catastrophic and damaging weather events.📻 Listen to the episode onSpotify,Apple Podcasts,Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Audacy and Substack👉We’re grateful to have you with us, fighting the good fight with a cool beverage in hand.⚡️ New to CTC? Sign up here!👉📲 Follow us on Twitter 👉📝Show Notes Below👇 🎧 New podcast episode:Steve Bennett, co-founder, and chief climate officer of the Demex Group“We link the weather in an area to the economic impact. The core of our technology is really about pricing the risk using a climate appraisal; we look at what parts of a client’s business are affected by weather by working with first-party data, determining the relevant weather characteristics, running a baseline scenario and a climate scenario, and comparing cost. This allows us to price the risk, producing a premium for an insurance policy that will protect the customer.”     - Steve Bennett on the special sauce that Demex offers its clientsFind Steve on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephendbennettAnd his company’s site: https://thedemexgroup.com🥃 What we drank during the episode: SeaFall Chardonnay, 2017 Sonoma (me) and a Midnight Manhattan (Steve).Enjoy the show!📻 Listen to the episode on Spotify,Apple Podcasts,Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Audacy, and Substack👉Interested in sponsoring? Please reach out to m@climatetechcocktails.com Companies/Startups mentioned during the show: 🌪️Demex 🌪️Scripps 🌪️Castello Di Amorosa 🌪️EarthRisk Technologies 🌪️NOAA’s Billion Dollar Weather Event Research 🌪️NRON 🌪️Citadel 🌪️WORAM New York 🌪️DHL 🌪️Everstream Analytics 🌪️San Diego Gas and Electric 🌪️Ten Percent Happier 🌪️Basecamp 🌪️Verisk Analytics 🌪️Branch Insurance 🌪️ StormPulse 🌪️RiskPulse People/places/things mentioned during the show: 🧠Sonoma 🧠Midnight Manhattan 🧠Climate Change’s Effect on Wine 🧠Duke University Energy Center 🧠Yellowstone’s Weather Event 🧠Insurance Weather Limitations and State Interventions 🧠National Flood Insurance Program 🧠Colorado River Deadpool Possibility 🧠Hoover Dam 🧠Lake Mead 🧠Lake Powel 🧠MegaDrought 🧠Las Vegas and Los Angeles Water Supply Vulnerabilities 🧠Alfalfa Crop in California Valley 🧠Yangtze River Drought in China 🧠Europe’s Drought 🧠Climate Migration 🧠Wet Bulb 🧠Corn Sweat in Illinois 🧠Hurricane Bob 🧠Jeff Skilling 🧠Tom Skilling 🧠Ken Griffin 🧠Bermuda 🧠Ed Byrns 🧠The Cold Event in Texas 🧠Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath 🧠You Play to Win the Game by Herm Edwards 🧠Ten Percent Happier by Dan Harris 🧠Steve Lekas from Verisk Analytics 🧠Out of Beta Podcast 🧠Matt Wensing -TIMESTAMPS- [0:00] Intro [1:01] Drink of the Show [6:12] A Little about Wine and A Little about Raleigh [8:30] Catastrophic and Costly Weather [14:14] Home Insurance and Climate [18:49] The Colorado River [24:54] My Paris Heat Wave Story [28:14] What is Climate Migration [36:08] Climate Pioneers, Let’s Head to Vermont  [37:28] Steve’s Weather Expertise and Career [53:03] The Entrepreneurial Evolution [61:50] How Demex Meets a Growing Need [65:51] How Weather Models Work [72:44] Demex’s Special Sauce [74:32] 3 Books [80:40] 3 Start-ups [84:23] Final Thoughts and Conclusion

👩‍✈️Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech on the premise of LanzaTech:“What we need to come to is a world where there is no such thing as waste.  Where waste is feedstock or the way you make everything else.”Jennifer has over 20 years of experience in the energy sector including a proven track record in the development and commercialization of fuels and chemicals technologies. Prior to LanzaTech, Jennifer was VP and General Manager of the Renewable Energy and Chemicals business unit at UOP LLC, a Honeywell Company. Under her management, UOP technology became instrumental in producing nearly all of the initial fuels used by commercial airlines and the military for testing and certification of alternative aviation fuel. Today, under Jennifer’s guidance, LanzaTech is working towards deploying carbon capture and reuse facilities globally to make fuels and chemicals from waste carbon.🥃 What we drank during the episode: scotch and whiskey, what else?Enjoy the show!

Inna Braverman, co-founder and CEO of Eco Wave Power:“Offshore, the waves don’t move in one direction. Your equipment can get hit by waves that are 20 meters in height. Near the shore, there’s a phenomenon called wave run-up where they actually build near the shore, and they’re all heading in one direction. The sector should start where it’s simple, and move from there.”  - Inna Braverman, explaining why shore waves are the simpler clean energy solution.🇺🇦 Born in Ukraine, Inna was given a second chance at life after the Chernobyl explosion nearly cost her everything. Her family moved to Israel when she was young, and she was raised in a small town called Akko. She studied political science and English literature at Haifa University and soon began working as an interpreter at an energy firm. She began to research the viability of wave energy as a clean energy solution and met her co-founder David Leb. They launched Eco Wave Power in 2011.Eco Wave Power installed its first grid-connected wave energy array in Gibraltar, then secured a project’s pipeline of 254 megawatts. It’s now growing and going strong.Find Inna on LinkedIn On Twitter: @InnaBravermanAnd her company on Twitter: @EcoWavePower🥃  What we drank during the episode: white wine (Inna) and a 9 a.m. Mojito (me).Enjoy the show!

Episode NotesGreg Constantine, Co-founder and CEO of Air Company on the importance of reaching hearts and minds to combat the climate crisis:“Imagination is everything.  It’s what moves the world forward.”  -Greg Constantine, Co-founder and CEO of Air Company@Greg Constantine, Co-founder and CEO of @Air Company, Air company’s priority is to utilize as much CO2 as possible to slow the momentum of climate change, using consumer goods in the near term as an educational tool to show the world what is possible.Since launching Air Company, Constantine and his team have won awards from NASA, The United Nations and XPRIZE. Air Company was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Products (2019) and Most Innovative Companies (2020), and was named one of TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2020. Constantine’s patent product design has won the highest design awards from Dieline and the Pentawards, and in 2019, Constantine was personally named The Spirits Business’ Young Achiever of the Year.  He brings expertise in the arts with an undergraduate degree from The University of Sydney and a wealth of business acumen from the Executive program at Harvard Business School.

🎧 New podcast episode:Trevor Best, co-founder and CEO of Syzygy:“Not only eliminating emissions but making energy low-cost is very important. So, the fact that we can use low-cost, renewable electricity, the fact that we can build our reactor out of aluminum, the fact that the hyper efficient lights result in a hyper-efficient reactor - all those are important factors so that we can make products at price parity with what’s out there today without producing emissions. And ultimately that’s the goal of the company.”  - Trevor Best explaining why Syzygy Plasmonics works.Trevor was born and raised in Midland, Texas and attended Texas Tech, where he and his cofounder, Suman Khatiwada, would meet with professors after hours about photocatalysts and reactors. He then traveled to China to teach English, and headed back to work for Baker Hughes in Oklahoma. Trevor landed back in Midland (where oil was discovered in 1923) and got to work on a chemical reactor that uses a photocatalyst built using nanotechnology that was invented at Rice University. His startup is lowering cost and carbon emissions simultaneously, which puts him on the forefront of solving a major part of the energy crisis.Find Trevor on LinkedInAnd on TwitterView Syzygy’s Carbon Model here: https://carbonmodel.com🥃 What we drank during the episode: Kaiyo “The Kuri” Whiskey Enjoy the show! 

Mateo Jaramillo, co-founder and CEO of Form Energy, on the importance of long-term energy storage:“Lithium Ion will continue to have a very important role to play, but there remains a key function which needs to be replaced on the grid, and that is a function that is currently being provided by coal and natural gas. That is the energy demand when you don’t have wind or solar. So, that’s the kind of moment we have to solve for from an energy storage perspective.”  - Mateo Jaramillo on Scalable Multi-Day Storage SolutionsMateo Jaramillo earned his AB in Economics from Harvard, and then earned a Master’s in Theology from Yale Divinity School.Realizing he was more into solving scientific problems than vocational ministry, Mateo became COO and part of the founding team at Gaia Power Technologies, an energy storage firm.In 2009, Mateo joined Telsa and oversaw product lines, business model definition, global policy and business development.Mateo then co-founded Form Energy, whose mission is grid decarbonization through multi-day storage.I’m happy to say that Mateo also serves on the board for the American Clean Power Association, the leading federation of renewable energy companies, where they spend their time expediting the advancement of clean energy as the dominant power source in America.🔎 Find Mateo here on LinkedIn 🔎 And find Form Energy on Twitter: @FormEnergyIncWhat we drank during the episode: 🥃  Macurichos Mezcal (Mateo)and 🥃 Yuu Baal Mezcal Anejo (Matt) Enjoy the show!

Brett Thompson, co-founder and CEO of Mzansi Meat, on effective solutions in food systems:“I think there needs to be a bouquet of solutions. I don’t think plant-based is the only solution; I don’t think unprocessed, regenerative farming, any of those things alone are solutions  - rather I think you need to add a hell of a lot of things to it. And I think cultivated meat adds to that, because there’s not one silver bullet. People want to eat meat, and this provides an opportunity… It’s about how we innovate and improve that process.”Brett and co-founder Tasneem Karodia started the cultivated meat industry in Africa by establishing the first company of its kind on the continent. They introduce a more efficient, sustainable and ethical means of creating animal protein products, and have started with beef. Their methods contribute to long-term food security for many, and their harm-free, biology-driven approach is already inspiring other companies to venture into production in the region, sparking a needed industry, and a climate-friendly change. Find Brett on Twitter and Instagram: @BrettVThompson Find Mzansi on twitter: @MzansiMeatCo … and on LinkedIn 🥃 What we drank during the episode: Diemersdal Estate Red Pinotage (Brett), and Kahlua with Coffee (Matt)Enjoy the show!

Raymond Weitekamp, Founder and CEO of polySpectra, on moving towards massless:“PolySpectra A.R. is our new augmented reality tool to give massless prototypes to people in product development. The massless mission is to leverage distributed digital manufacturing to reduce global energy usage by 25% by 2050.”Using the world’s most rugged photopolymer resins, Raymond’s company is also helping engineers print end-use components that actually hold up, reducing waste by lasting longer and being more viable for actual use. Raymond received an AB in chemistry from Princeton and continued his education at CalTech where he worked in labs with Professor Bob Grubbs and Professor Harry Atwater. He invented a component for a polymer that can be light-activated and creates tough 3D-printed materials, and has been recognized in Forbes’ 30 under 30. 🥃 What we drank during the episode: Madre MezcalEnjoy the show!

Manik Suri, Founder and CEO of Therma, on Smart Refrigeration:“As we move into a world where we have more electrification and move off fossil fuels, we’re going to need a lot more utility infrastructure, so utilities are looking for ways to create extra capacity…We’re starting to think of refrigeration as a battery; we’ve kept that battery at one hundred percent charge for the last hundred years - now we’re starting to explore temporarily discharging that battery, and creating a network of distributed batteries.”Therma’s mission is to help protect our food, health, and planet. They build sustainability tools to improve refrigeration efficiency, which eliminates food waste and reduces emissions. Their technology is used by McDonald’s, Starbucks, Wyndham hotels and many others. Their smart refrigeration monitoring protects food inventory and saves energy, and it’s overhauling the “refrigeration cold chain” by altering the way refrigerators operate around the world.

Stephane Germain, Founder and President of GHGSat, on the need to address methane emissions:“95% of what (methane) we detect isn’t acted upon today, and that drives me bonkers.”GHGSat developed the first sensor for small satellites that can detect methane (CH4) emissions and locate individual sources of CH4 from around 500km above the Earth's surface - a huge leap forward in global emissions monitoring technology innovation.Interested in sponsoring Climate Tech Cocktails (CTC)?  Please reach out to m@climatetechcocktails.comFor show notes and past guests, please visit the CTC Substack.Follow CTC:TwitterInstagramFacebook