A bitter dispute. A clash. A battle royale. Those are just a few descriptions of a new study countering Mark Jacobson's 2015 report showing that we can source 100 percent of America's energy from wind, solar and water. Jacobson's study is controversial. Celebrities like Mark Ruffalo and Bernie Sanders have lauded his work. Other experts have long questioned his assumptions. Jacobson himself has called it the "only moral choice." This week, Twitter erupted with debate over Jacobson's assumptions ...
Jun 22, 2017•52 min
Utility executives poured into Boston from across the country this week for the Edison Electric Institute’s annual conference. They talked about everything from crazy national politics to rate design to artificial intelligence and the future of workers. We brought our recording gear and tracked down some top names in the industry. In this episode, we hear what's on the minds of utility executives. Here are some highlights from the interviews: Tom Fanning, CEO of Southern Company, on why decarbon...
Jun 16, 2017•1 hr 1 min
We’ve had a week to let the media digest Trump’s climate trolling. EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has been all over the airwaves defending the decision to withdraw from Paris, and journalists have been all over the administration for its loose relationship with the facts. We’ll look at how Paris has played out in the press. Then, after killing net metering, Nevada is suddenly back on the table as one of the most important solar markets –- and now one of the most important storage markets. We'll ...
Jun 08, 2017•48 min
We all just became actors in Donald Trump’s reality TV show. After an elaborate tease over the Paris climate deal in recent weeks, the president finally revealed that he’s walking away from the historic agreement. Soon after Trump’s speech, world leaders issued bold statements: It’s not going to happen. There is no renegotiation process. The deal is the deal. Then local officials spoke up. It didn’t take long for dozens of U.S. mayors and governors to adopt the targets set by the climate accord....
Jun 02, 2017•27 min
California released a white paper last week documenting the stunning decline of the customer base for investor-owned utilities in the state. Meanwhile, the state is facing more and more curtailments, negative electricity pricing, and, on top of it all, a looming solar eclipse. What can we learn about market design from the nation’s solar leader? Then, getting to terawatt-scale PV. Researchers and policymakers are getting serious about thousands and thousands of gigawatts of solar in the coming d...
May 25, 2017•58 min
Now that Tesla has unveiled pricing details for its solar roof, everyone is trying to figure out if it's a good deal. Depending on what your assumptions are -- what kind of roof you're replacing, what kind of market you live in, how much in subsidies you're earning, and what kind of solar system you're competing with -- the value can vary wildly. Some say it's a surprisingly good deal. Others say it's far more expensive than Tesla claims. In this week's podcast, we'll discuss the economic viabil...
May 11, 2017•42 min
In this show, sponsored by Itron, we discuss the emergence of the smart city. Itron has been at the forefront of developing smart city infrastructure. We speak with Sharelynn Moore, the VP of Marketing at Itron, about how the company is using sensors and software to make the smart city come alive. Learn more about Itron's smart cities work: http://www.itron.com/na/industries/smart-cities See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do...
May 08, 2017•24 min
Since the day Tesla was founded, executives saw stationary storage as a compliment to the electric car business. That was Martin Eberhard's plan when he co-founded the company and envisioned the Tesla Energy Group. Years later, after launching the Powerwall, CEO Elon Musk said the storage business could soon eclipse automobiles. Today, storage is an integral part of Tesla's package of offerings for consumers, and its development plans for utilities. In 2009, Mateo Jaramillo was hired to execute ...
May 04, 2017•1 hr 2 min
To many, France’s ongoing elections are the latest showdown between the liberal world order and a new brand of right-wing populism. That narrative follows a similar path in energy. France’s elections are pitting nuclear versus renewables, closed markets versus open, and disruption versus protectionism. France is going through a quite radical revaluation of its electricity mix. It gets about 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear. However, in 2015, President François Holland set a policy that...
Apr 27, 2017•47 min
We've heard a lot about record low prices in utility-scale solar. Get ready for more records in offshore wind. In the last two months, we've seen offshore project developers in Europe bidding for pennies per kilowatt-hour -- easily beating 2020 price estimates. Now the Europeans want to export that learning to America. In this week's episode, we'll look at how the two markets compare -- and why some of the market and policy conditions that favor offshore wind in Europe don't exist in the U.S. Th...
Apr 20, 2017•50 min
What will it take to slash carbon emissions in the electric sector by 100 percent? We're already making immense progress. And we could use wind, solar and storage to cost-effectively cut grid emissions in half. But to go from 50 percent reductions to 100 percent will take a much more diverse range of technologies. That is the conclusion of a new literature review of 30 studies, written by Jesse Jenkins and Samuel Thernstrom. Jesse Jenkins joins us on the podcast. He’s an energy thinker, writer a...
Apr 14, 2017•50 min
Westinghouse, of the most important players in nuclear, filed for bankruptcy protection last week. It's a potential blow to the global industry. After all, half of the world's nuclear reactors use Westinghouse technology. The company has been working on two major nuclear power plants in Georgia and South Carolina -- both of which are now behind schedule and over budget. Will the reactors get built by the 2019 deadline? We'll talk about what happened to the company, and consider what it means for...
Apr 06, 2017•43 min
Sungevity was founded in 2007 with a promise of revolutionize solar sales through software. It sparked a move toward the "platform" approach to customer acquisition and sales. Sungevity eventually built up its sales, procurement and financing in-house -- peaking as the number-three residential solar company in 2014. Over the years, the company's cash-burn rate increased and Sungevity started outsourcing more of its operations. This month, after failing to close bridge financing, the company decl...
Mar 31, 2017•55 min
The headwinds for coal are coming from every direction. Since 2010, More than 250 coal plants in America have been shuttered, or are set to close. Meanwhile, in the most energy-hungry regions of the world, thousands of megawatts of new coal plants have been halted. This week, we’re covering the struggles of coal from a few different angles. First, the steady drumbeat of plant closures in the U.S. What has caused them, and what comes next? We’ll talk about the just-announced closure of the Navajo...
Mar 23, 2017•54 min
America's electric car market is entering an uncertain period. States are rolling back their support for EVs, the federal government is revisiting fuel standards designed to support EVs, and consumers are still not electric in the numbers that many people assumed. At the same time, however, many automakers are moving ahead with new models, giving consumers more choices. Will drivers increasingly choose electric? Or will lagging policy hurt the market? We'll discuss on this week's podcast. In the...
Mar 16, 2017•48 min
We’re on week seven of the Trump Presidency. In the months since the election, we've been stalwart in our view that things are not as bad as they seem -- despite the contradictions and confrontations, clean energy will emerge largely unscathed. That may be true. But it’s also impossible to ignore how quickly Trump’s team has worked to unwind the country’s environmental policy. As more details emerge, it’s becoming clear that the White House is not interested in a traditional conservative approac...
Mar 09, 2017•55 min
There are now more than 100,000 people working in the clean energy sector across Massachusetts. What is the state doing right? This week, we're talking about workforce development in cleantech. In recent months, we've seen a sharp increase in requests from listeners asking for advice on job opportunities in cleantech. There are also many educators or economic development experts trying to stay head of the curve. If this industry becomes as big as everyone says it will be, how can local economies...
Mar 02, 2017•43 min
As if California's electric grid isn't already changing fast enough, the state's leading regulator says it's probably time to change even faster. In an interview on this week's Interchange podcast, Michael Picker, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, said that he believes the state should consider liberalizing its retail electricity market in order to broaden customer choice. While listening, make sure to sign up for GTM's event, California's Distributed Energy Future. Commis...
Mar 01, 2017•25 min
The scope of the Environmental Protection Agency expanded dramatically under President Obama. Now under President Trump and new administrator Scott Pruitt, the agency is likely to be scaled way back. How far back? No one knows. But there are a lot of clues – including 7,500 pages of Pruitt’s emails. This week, while Pruitt started his job as America’s top environmental cop, his past emails as Oklahoma Attorney General were released on court order. And they provide a window into how he’ll manage ...
Feb 23, 2017•49 min
Last week, a group of highly respected Republicans released a plan for a $40-per-ton carbon tax on point-of-source emissions from coal, oil and gas. Why now? With a Republican White House and Congress, they argued, now is the perfect time to show America that conservatives have better ideas than the command-and-control Democrats who are only interested in more regulation as a solution to climate change. A steadily-rising carbon tax is the most economically efficient way of dealing with carbon po...
Feb 16, 2017•42 min
By 2020, one-third of new fleet bus purchases will be electric. By 2025, electric buses will make up half of new sales to transit agencies. By 2030, every single transit bus sold will run on electricity. That's what Ryan Popple, the CEO of electric bus manufacturer Proterra, believes will happen. And there's plenty of evidence that the shift is underway, even if the current fleet is mostly diesel and compressed natural gas. In this week's podcast, we'll talk with Popple about his plan to kick co...
Feb 10, 2017•59 min
This week, we’re live from Columbia University’s Energy Symposium in New York City. The Gang was joined by former NRG CEO David Crane for a lively conversation about Trumpland. We start the conversation off with a look at the turbulent first weeks of the Trump Administration. We’ve had nominations, executive orders, blackouts, bans, proposed budget cuts, resignations, rogue twitter accounts and growing protests. We’re just 14 days into the Trump Administration – what can we expect for the next 1...
Feb 04, 2017•1 hr 13 min
America’s first power plant was built in Manhattan. The first transmission of electricity occurred between Niagara Falls and Buffalo. And the first public power organization was founded in New York State. Today, that power provider, the New York Power Authority -- or NYPA -- is working to digitize the state’s grid end-to-end. We’ll talk with NYPA CEO Gil Quiniones about his push to create a "digital foundry" where the next generation of electricity inventors and innovators can re-imagine the gri...
Jan 20, 2017•42 min
For years, researchers have been working behind the scenes to improve autonomous vehicles. And all of a sudden that work is playing out in a very public way. Top tech companies and automakers are testing new models on the streets, talking bullishly about fleets of self-driving cars, and thinking about how to combine electrification with automation. Meanwhile, regulators and city planners are trying to keep up with the pace of technological change. This year will likely mark the beginning of the ...
Jan 13, 2017•1 hr 3 min
There are just two weeks left of 2016. And you know what? We're tapping out early. This is the last podcast of the year. It’s been such a crazy 12 months for news that we’re packing it up and saving our energy for 2017. Throughout the year, we've discussed every big story impacting the industry -- bankruptcies, acquisitions, legal challenges, the bloodbath in the public markets, new products, and, yes, the election of Donald Trump. Before we call it a year, we are strapping on our seat belts one...
Dec 14, 2016•47 min
It's often said that electric vehicles are the key to bringing back load growth for utilities in the U.S. But maybe there’s another way: Marijuana. After the November election, seven states and the district of Columbia have now legalized marijuana for recreational use. In the early states that legalized, energy use is already growing. In Washington State and Colorado, where marijuana has been legalized for years, utilities are seeing a spike in electricity consumption. In Denver, for example, ca...
Nov 30, 2016•1 hr 2 min
Two weeks after the election, we have more clues about how president-elect Donald Trump may form a domestic energy policy and position America against the rest of the world on climate. But mostly we're dealing with speculation -- bits of insider information from the transition team, some new hires, and some deeper portraits of the people guiding Trump’s early energy policy. There are way more unknowns than knowns. That doesn’t mean there’s a lack of things to talk about. There's been a lot of co...
Nov 22, 2016•39 min
This week, we're coming to you live from General Motors' world headquarters, where we'll talk about how corporate renewable energy deals are structured, and what's motivating companies to keep investing. GTM's Stephen Lacey and Shayle Kann are joined by Hervé Touati, managing director of the Rocky Mountain Institute and co-manager of the Business Renewables Center. They're also joined by Rob Threlkeld, the general manager of renewable energy at General Motors. Thanks to Mission Solar for sponsor...
Nov 18, 2016•46 min
Whether or not you agreed with the top-down, government-centric, executive-level strategy of the Obama Administration -- it was, arguably, America's only federal political path forward on decarbonization. President-Elect Donald Trump plans to rip up that path as soon as he enters the White House. So how and where will he create a new one? This week, we’re trying to figure out what Trump's win means for the energy industry broadly – and what it means for the business of clean energy specifically....
Nov 10, 2016•45 min
This is a free version of the Interchange. For more on how to access all our premium content, visit GTM Squared: https://www.greentechmedia.com/squared Back in August, Elon Musk broke into SolarCity's earnings call to make a surprise announcement: Tesla and SolarCity were designing a building-integrated solar product. "It's a solar roof as opposed to a module on a roof," said Musk. Just a few weeks earlier, Tesla went public with its intentions to acquire SolarCity. The solar roof was seen as an...
Nov 01, 2016•29 min
