Today’s guest is Paulina Jaramillo, Professor, Engineering and Public Policy, & Co-Director, Green Design Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Paulina Jaramillo has a bachelor’s in civil and environmental engineering from Florida International University (2003), as well as a master's and PhD in civil and environmental engineering with an emphasis in green design from Carnegie Mellon University (2004 and 2007, respectively). Her past research has focused on life cycle assessment of en...
Nov 14, 2019•52 min
Today’s guest is Justin Guay, Director of Global Climate Strategy at Sunrise Project, and organization that grows social movements to drive the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy as fast as possible. Justin has a decade of experience in nonprofit advocacy and foundation strategy development, including managing grant making and strategy for global coal campaigns at ClimateWorks Foundation and the Packard Foundation. At the Packard foundation he oversaw a $40 million grant making por...
Nov 11, 2019•59 min
Today’s guest is Phil Giudice, Board Member at Ambri, FirstFuel, PRIME Coalition, Clean Air Task Force and NE Clean Energy Council. Most recently, Phil was the CEO of Ambri. Ambri, formerly Liquid Metal Battery Corporation, is a technology company creating cost effective, reliable, wide spread grid electricity storage solutions, enabling separation of power demand from power supply. Phil has more than 30 years' experience in the energy industry as a geologist, consultant, executive, and state of...
Nov 07, 2019•1 hr 8 min
Today’s guest is Bill Nussey, CEO & Founder at the Freeing Energy Project. Bill Nussey is the founder of the Freeing Energy Project, whose mission is to accelerate the shift to cleaner, cheaper energy. Prior to Freeing Energy, Bill spent most of his career as a tech CEO. His first company, which he co-founded in high school, provided graphics software for early, text-based personal computers. His second company, Da Vinci Systems, was started out of his college dorm room and grew to serve mil...
Nov 04, 2019•1 hr 20 min
Today’s guest is Kelly Wanser, Executive Director of SilverLining, a mission organization driving research to ensure safe pathways for climate within a decade. Previously, Kelly was the director of the Marine Cloud Brightening Project, a program focused on research in reflecting sunlight to reduce heat in climate. Kelly is member of the National Academy of Sciences President’s Circle. She also served as Senior Advisor to Ocean Conservancy on climate-ocean risk and to Lawrence Livermore National ...
Oct 31, 2019•1 hr 18 min
Today’s guest is Albert Wenger, Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures, a NY-based venture capital firm. Before joining USV, Albert was the president of del.icio.us through the company’s sale to Yahoo and an angel investor (Etsy, Tumblr). He previously founded or co-founded several companies, including a management consulting firm and an early hosted data analytics company. Albert graduated from Harvard College in economics and computer science and holds a Ph.D. in Information Technology from...
Oct 28, 2019•1 hr 1 min
Today’s guest is Ramya Swaminathan, CEO of Malta, Inc. Malta’s electro-thermal energy storage system is a new grid-scale technology that collects and stores energy for long durations. Energy can be stored from any power generation source in any location – be it wind, solar, or fossil fuels – enabling reliable and predictable operation of the grid. Ramya joined Malta from Rye Development, where she was CEO, co-founder, and Member of the Board of FFP New Hydro. Under her leadership, Rye Developmen...
Oct 24, 2019•59 min
Today’s guest is Mark Reynolds, Executive Director at Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Executive Director Mark Reynolds’ tenure at Citizens’ Climate Lobby has been marked by exceptionally rapid growth, with the organization doubling or tripling in size every year. During his years as a private sector trainer and consultant, Citizens’ Climate Education Executive Director Mark Reynolds worked to maximize personal and organizational effectiveness in a variety of fields. Today, he uses those skills to empow...
Oct 21, 2019•55 min
Today’s guest is Ted Nordhaus, Founder & Executive Director at the Breakthrough Institute. Ted Nordhaus is a leading global thinker on energy, environment, climate, human development, and politics. He is the founder and executive director of the Breakthrough Institute and a co-author of An Ecomodernist Manifesto. Over the last decade, he has helped lead a paradigm shift in climate, energy, and environmental policy. He was among the first to emphasize the imperative to "make clean energy chea...
Oct 17, 2019•1 hr 12 min
Today’s guest is Deepika Nagabhushan, Program Director, Decarbonized Fossil Energy at Clean Air Task Force, which develops policy and advocacy strategies aimed at making carbon capture, utilization & storage technologies widely available, globally by mid-century. Deepika has developed analysis and led advocacy efforts related to CCUS, including power sector modeling that studied CCS deployment in the US under various federal policy scenarios, including 45Q tax credit that the Congress passed...
Oct 14, 2019•53 min
Today’s guest is Emily Reichert, CEO of Greentown Labs. Dr. Emily Reichert serves as Chief Executive Officer of Greentown Labs, the largest clean technology startup incubator in the United States. As the company’s first employee, Emily has spearheaded the rapid growth of Greentown Labs into a global center for clean technology innovation, attracting visitors and partners from around the world. Emily started her career at Arthur D. Little as a Ph.D. scientist and progressed into R&D, business...
Oct 10, 2019•52 min
Today’s guest is Josh Bushinsky, Co-Founder & Partner at Trajectory Energy Partners. Trajectory Energy Partners brings together landowners, electricity users, and communities to develop solar energy projects with strong local support. Josh was born in Illinois, and at seven moved with his family to Rochester, New York, where he grew up backpacking. He brings to Trajectory Energy Partners a comprehensive appreciation and commitment to the environment, first working in energy as a visiting res...
Oct 07, 2019•56 min
Today’s guest is Dan Lashof, Director of World Resources Institute, United States. He coordinates WRI’s work in the United States across climate, energy, food, forests, water and the sustainable cities programs. This includes overseeing the work of the U.S. climate team, which aims to catalyze and support climate action by states, cities, and businesses while laying the groundwork for federal action in the coming years. Dan has been working to promote solutions to climate change for more than tw...
Oct 03, 2019•56 min
Today’s guest is Todd Allen, Chair and Professor, Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at University of Michigan. An offer to skip history class in high school to listen to a Navy ROTC recruiter sent Todd Allen on a serendipitous journey that led to him becoming one of the top U.S. experts in nuclear energy, with focus on the material science of nuclear systems. Todd began his professional career as a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy where he learned the practical applications of oper...
Sep 30, 2019•1 hr 3 min
Today’s guest is Josh Freed, SVP of the Clean Energy Program at Third Way. Third Way is a national think tank that champions modern center-left ideas. Their work is grounded in the mainstream American values of opportunity, freedom, and security. As the founder and leader of Third Way’s Clean Energy Program, Josh promotes policies to use every tool possible to combat climate change—including scaled-up innovation, advanced nuclear, and carbon capture technologies in addition to the increased use ...
Sep 26, 2019•53 min
Today’s guest is Joseph Majkut, Director of Climate Policy at Niskanen Center. Joseph is an expert in climate science, climate policy, and risk and uncertainty analysis for decision making. He is frequently cited by prominent media outlets; his writing has been featured in scientific journals, public media, and environmental trade press; and he has been invited to testify before Congress on climate and scientific research. Before joining the Niskanen Center, he worked on climate change policy in...
Sep 23, 2019•1 hr 2 min
Today’s guest is Steve Oldham, CEO of Carbon Engineering. Founded in 2009, CE is a Canadian-based clean energy company leading the commercialization of groundbreaking technology that captures CO₂ directly from the atmosphere, and a second technology that synthesizes it into clean, affordable transportation fuels. From a pilot plant in Squamish, B.C., CE has been removing CO₂ from the atmosphere since 2015 and converting it into fuels since 2017. Steve brings more than 20 years of executive exper...
Sep 19, 2019•53 min
Today’s guest is John Larsen, a Director at Rhodium Group who leads the firm’s US power sector and energy systems research. John specializes in analysis of national and state clean energy policy and market trends. Previously, John worked for the US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis where he served as an electric power policy advisor. Prior to working in government, John led federal and congressional policy analysis in the World Resources Institute’s Climate and ...
Sep 16, 2019•50 min
Today’s guest is Nat Keohane, Senior Vice President of Climate at Environmental Defense Fund, where he leads EDF’s Climate program and helps to shape the organizations advocacy for environmentally effective and economically sound climate policy. EDF is one of the world's largest environmental organizations, with more than two million members and a staff of 700 scientists, economists, policy experts, and other professionals around the world. Guided by science and economics, they tackle urgent thr...
Sep 12, 2019•1 hr 6 min
Today’s guest is Kathy Hannun, the co-founder & CEO of Dandelion. Originally conceived at X, Alphabet’s innovation lab, Dandelion is now an independent company offering geothermal heating and cooling systems to homeowners, starting in the Northeastern US. Previously, Kathy was a product manager and Rapid Evaluator at Alphabet's X. Prior to Dandelion, Kathy led a team that created technology to extract carbon dioxide from seawater to create carbon-neutral fuel. Kathy has been recognized as on...
Sep 09, 2019•55 min
Today’s guest is Jessica Lovering, Director of Energy at The Breakthrough Institute. Jessica is the director of Breakthough’s Energy program and has worked on nuclear energy policy since 2012. Jessica’s research has focused on how innovation in nuclear energy can bring down costs and accelerate deployment to help mitigate climate change, as laid out in the reports How to Make Nuclear Cheap and How to Make Nuclear Innovative. Jessica was the lead author on the peer-reviewed paper, Historical cons...
Sep 05, 2019•47 min
Today’s guest is Jim McDermott, Managing Director of Rusheen Capital Management, LLC. Rusheen Capital Management is a Santa Monica, CA-based private equity firm that invests in growth-stage companies in the carbon capture and utilization, low-carbon energy and water sustainability sectors. Prior to co-founding RCM, Jim has started, invested in and run numerous companies. These include: US Renewables Group (Founder & Managing Partner), Stamps.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:STMP – Founder), Spoke Software,...
Sep 02, 2019•48 min
Today’s guest is David Buzby. David has been starting, building and investing in “impact” businesses for the last 27 years with an emphasis on renewable energy generation, energy storage/grid services, wastewater treatment and e-commerce. He currently sits on the Board of Cambrian Innovation, Leading Edge Crystal Technologies, Paragon Power and Stem, as well as being a member of the Investment Committee at the PRIME Coalition. He has in the past been a founding investor and director of SunRun (N...
Aug 29, 2019•1 hr
Today’s guest is Gregg Dixon, the CEO . of Voltus, Inc. Gregg connects customers, investors, teammates, and the world with Voltus value, ensuring that the vision for the company, and its culture, is meeting their expectations. Gregg is a world-renowned expert in commercial and industrial energy management and has pioneered many of today’s innovations that unlock the economic and environmental benefits of “intelligent energy.” Prior to co-founding Voltus, Gregg was the Senior Vice President of Ma...
Aug 26, 2019•46 min
Today’s guest is Andrew Beebe, Managing Director at Obvious Ventures. Andrew brings to Obvious Ventures a lifelong passion for building companies around sustainable systems and people power. For over a decade, Andrew has focused on clean technology and clean energy solutions. He started down the clean tech path with Energy Innovations in 2003, which he grew from a business plan to a major solar developer serving customers like Google, Disney, Sony Pictures, and British Telecom. After selling the...
Aug 22, 2019•38 min
Today’s guest is Bill Weihl. Bill was the Director of Sustainability at Facebook where he focused on energy efficiency initiatives. Prior to joining Facebook in early 2012, he spent 6 years as the Green Energy Czar at Google, where he led efforts in energy efficiency and renewable energy, spearheading Google's drive to become carbon neutral, founding the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, and leading the Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Sha...
Aug 19, 2019•50 min
Today’s guest is Austin Whitman, Executive Director of Climate Neutral. Climate Neutral is an independent non-profit organization working to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon world by putting a price on carbon emissions. They are enlisting brands in the fight against climate change by showing them that measuring and paying for their carbon emissions is cheaper and easier than they think. Climate Neutral believes that brands, together with their consumers, can lead the transition to a low...
Aug 15, 2019•47 min
Marshall is the co-founder and Managing Director at Upstream Tech, a public benefit corporation that partners with nonprofit and for-profit organizations working towards ecological restoration, supply chain sustainability, and energy efficiency improvements goals, among others. Upstream Tech’s goal is to help translate data into better, faster resource use decisions. They use satellite data, sophisticated data processing, and easy-to-use applications to supercharge their customer’s conservation ...
Aug 12, 2019•41 min
Today’s guest is Armond Cohen, co-founder and Executive Director at Clean Air Task Force, an organization whose task is to reduce climate change by applying an overwhelming amount of force to some of the biggest levers to reduce carbon and other climate warming emissions. Armond has led CATF since its formation in 1996. In addition to leading CATF, Armond is directly involved in CATF research and advocacy on the topic of requirements to deeply decarbonize global energy systems. Prior to his work...
Aug 08, 2019•56 min
Today’s guest is Rob Day, General Partner at Spring Lane Capital. Spring Lane Capital partners with strong management teams who are selling or using distributed assets with compelling customer economics in the energy, water, food and waste sectors. In these sectors, they focus on solutions that have significantly positive impacts on the sustainability of our natural resources, which they believe offer advantaged long-term benefits economically and socially. They’ve found that in practice, most s...
Aug 05, 2019•44 min
