We already have many of the climate solutions we need. But scaling them is hard. The Green Blueprint is a show about the people who are architecting the clean economy. Every other week, host Lara Pierpoint profiles the founders, investors, and organizational leaders who are solving complex challenges in the quest to build climate technologies fast.
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California recorded its second-lowest Sierra Nevada snowpack on record this spring. That's not just a bad ski season, it's a water supply crisis. Snowpack is where California's water comes from. And when it doesn't materialize, agriculture, hydropower, and fire suppression all feel the strain. Dacia Leon, CEO and co-founder of Supercool Earth, is building a company around a deceptively simple idea: use biology to make it rain and snow where it's needed most, on demand. Her company's core technol...
The global financial system is undergoing a structural shift into a "volatile new world order," where unpredictability is the norm, and climate tech is uniquely exposed. Venture investor Susan Su says the war in Iran is complicating the landscape . That's because about 40% of the world's capital comes from just four Gulf states, and those states are exploring whether the war allows them to invoke force majeure to legally exit binding financial commitments to fund billion-dollar projects – includ...
We already have the blueprint for decarbonizing the global economy. We've invented many of the solutions, but much of that tech is still sitting on the sidelines waiting to get financed and built at scale. But over the last year, we've seen a wave of change that complicates and – in some cases – helps that mission. In the first season of the Green Blueprint, we heard stories from the entrepreneurs, investors, and experts at the front lines of scaling climate technologies. This season, we're brin...
About 90% of global energy storage is pumped storage hydropower – which requires a mountain, a lake, and a whole lot of permitting. While lithium batteries have gotten drastically cheaper over the last decade, they’re still expensive for longer durations. But Cindy Taff and her team at Sage Geosystems are developing geothermal technology that could revolutionize energy storage. Instead of pumping water up a mountain, they pump it deep into the earth, providing cost-effective, long-term storage f...
Phil Goodman, Director of Carbon Removal Portfolio at Microsoft, details the company's ambitious plan to remove all its historical carbon emissions by 2050, building towards a carbon-negative status by 2030. He explains how Microsoft is overcoming a nascent market by structuring long-term off-take agreements and partnering with innovative companies. The discussion also covers the nuances of contract durability, verification processes, project financing, and the future role of government procurement in scaling carbon removal technologies.
This episode delves into Captura's arduous path to commercializing ocean-based carbon removal technology, including a dramatic last-minute fix of their Hawaii pilot before a crucial customer demonstration. CEO Steve Oldham explains the science behind their method, its environmental benefits, and the challenges of scaling from prototypes to a 1,000-ton operation. He also discusses navigating strategic partnerships, an unexpected site relocation, and the complexities of financing and building a new industry within the fluctuating carbon market.
Tadeu Carneiro, CEO of Boston Metal, discusses the company's groundbreaking carbon-free steel technology, which uses electricity to extract iron from ore without CO2 emissions. He details the scaling journey from lab experiments to an industrial demonstrator in Woburn and their first commercial facility in Brazil, which recovers critical metals from waste slags. The episode highlights Boston Metal's strategic investor partnerships and its approach to financing, emphasizing the high demand for its green materials and its commitment to efficiency and circularity in the metals industry.
Promethean Power Systems, co-founded by Sam White, tackled India's challenging rural milk chilling problem with a highly efficient thermal battery. After numerous design iterations and pivots, including moving away from solar, the company perfected a system that chills milk instantly at the village level, tripling farmer incomes and reducing pollution. Evolving from equipment sales to a vertically integrated milk distributor, Promethean demonstrates slow, steady growth and deep customer engagement, leveraging diverse funding to uplift communities and expand its climate impact.
Shomik Dutta of Overture VC discusses the critical need for climate tech startups to embrace government strategy, learning from industries like crypto to influence policy. The conversation covers how industrial policy is reshaping venture capital, the Department of Energy's role, and the balance between profit and impact. He emphasizes strategic messaging, proactive engagement, and the long-term opportunities driven by AI, decentralization, and extreme weather costs.
Kairos Power is disrupting traditional nuclear development by focusing on rapid iteration, non-nuclear demonstrations, and combining TRISO fuel with molten salt for enhanced safety and faster regulatory approval. Their vertically integrated approach and strategic multi-site operations have allowed them to overcome engineering challenges and secure a landmark partnership with TVA and Google to deliver nuclear power to data centers. This innovative strategy aims to shorten development cycles and significantly reduce the cost of new nuclear reactors.
This episode explores Eight Rivers' journey in industrial decarbonization, from facing a sunk cost fallacy during Project Cormorant's development to dealing with unexpected political shifts that disrupted a major offtake agreement. CEO Damian Beauchamp discusses the company's contrarian approach to clean tech, its pioneering Alumfet-Vet cycle, and the extensive efforts to secure partnerships with manufacturers like Siemens Energy for critical turbine technology. The conversation highlights Eight Rivers' persistence in building first-of-a-kind projects and their vision for a decarbonized future.
U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper discusses his instrumental role in passing the Inflation Reduction Act and the subsequent efforts by the Trump administration to dismantle its climate policies, often against the economic interests of red states. Despite these setbacks, he remains optimistic about future policy wins by focusing on bipartisan collaboration for critical areas like permitting reform and clean energy development. The conversation also highlights the challenges of aligning traditional environmental advocacy with modern development needs.
This episode explores Graphitic Energy's journey through an internal crisis sparked by an unsanctioned technical innovation. CEO Zach Jones recounts how his team's rogue idea for producing clean hydrogen and valuable graphite from natural gas ultimately led to a successful pivot, securing investment and validating a technology that eliminates the "green premium" for clean alternatives. The discussion covers navigating investor relations, designing a flexible pilot plant, and strategizing for commercial scale-up.
This episode features Rick Needham, Chief Commercial Officer at Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), discussing their ambitious journey to bring fusion energy to commercial viability. CFS aims to deliver net energy gain with their Spark reactor by the late 2020s, followed by the world's first commercial fusion power plant, ARC, in Virginia by the early 2030s. The discussion covers critical advancements in high-temperature superconducting magnets, the unique regulatory path for fusion, key partnerships like Dominion Energy, and the broader implications for energy security and powering future AI demands.
Small distributed energy projects struggle to secure financing due to high transaction costs and fragmented counterparties, facing a "death by a thousand cuts." Amanda Li and Rachel Halfacre discuss how standardization can overcome these hurdles, moving beyond past failures by fostering coordination and leveraging technology. This approach is crucial for simplifying blended capital stacks, enabling securitization, and empowering communities with better financial options.
Shayle Kann and Mario Fernandez from Breakthrough Energy Catalyst delve into the "valley of death" faced by first-of-a-kind (FOAK) climate tech projects, where proven technologies struggle to secure infrastructure investment due to investor risk aversion. They outline a three-stage de-risking path from pilot to demonstration to FOAK, emphasizing modular design, extensive operational data, and parallel development to meet aggressive timelines. The discussion also covers the nuances of commercial contracts, flexible off-take pricing, CapEx estimation, and innovative capital stack solutions, including a "missing middle" asset class to blend project-level equity with TopCo upside for scalable success.
This episode explores Fervo Energy's revolutionary approach to geothermal power, adapting horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing from the oil and gas industry to access heat resources globally. Sarah Jewett discusses the journey from their successful Project Red demonstration in Nevada to the ambitious 500-megawatt Cape Station in Utah, navigating first-of-a-kind financing, forging key partnerships, and the strategic decisions behind scaling a climate-forward solution. The discussion also covers the role of geothermal in meeting future energy demands, particularly for AI data centers.
Neha Palmer, CEO of Terawatt Infrastructure, discusses their ambitious mission to build the electric backbone for America's trucking industry, starting with a billion-dollar investment. She explains how the company tackles challenges like site selection, navigating complex permitting processes, and designing innovative charging solutions like pull-through stalls for fully loaded trucks. Terawatt aims to create a reliable network, like the planned California-to-Texas I-10 corridor, to accelerate the electrification of heavy-duty transport, leveraging customer partnerships and optimizing energy use.
Former SVP Drew Baglino recounts the challenging journey of building Tesla's energy business, from its entrepreneurial beginnings and leveraging car parts to address home energy needs, to navigating cell supply crises and internal resource competition. He shares how a small, dedicated team bootstrapped the Powerwall into a market-defining product, highlighting key strategies like technology reuse, fostering strong supplier relationships, and Elon Musk's "go big or go home" vision.
This episode details LineVision's challenges and triumphs in bringing its dynamic line rating (DLR) technology to the electric utility sector. Karthik Rao explains how the company navigated a crucial early project, evolved its sensor and software solutions, and addressed stringent cybersecurity requirements to operationalize its system. The discussion also covers strategies for moving beyond pilot projects, engaging key utility stakeholders, and adapting to diverse operational environments, highlighting DLR's critical role in modernizing the grid.
This episode features Nextracker CEO Dan Shugar, who recounts his career from early solar innovations to founding Nextracker, a global leader in solar tracking technology. He emphasizes the company's commitment to customer feedback, detailing the development of solutions like Hail Pro to mitigate storm damage and their adaptive tracking software. Shugar also shares insights on building a resilient global supply chain, navigating the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, and his optimistic outlook on the future growth of solar energy and storage.
Raffi Garabedian of Electric Hydrogen discusses their ambitious bet on 100-megawatt electrolyzers to drive down green hydrogen costs, contrasting with smaller, expensive existing units. The company navigates the “hype cycle” and subsequent “trough of disillusionment” by applying lessons from the solar industry regarding manufacturing scale and efficiency. They are focused on building a gigafactory and finding “balance sheet buyers” for their unbankable, yet essential, technology, aiming for economic parity with fossil fuels through bold innovation.
Leila Madrone, founder of Sunfolding, shares the intricate story of her solar tracker company, from its promising pneumatic technology to its eventual shutdown. The episode explores critical decisions, the struggles with rapidly declining solar costs, supply chain chaos during the pandemic, and the challenges of securing venture capital for capital-intensive climate hardware. Madrone offers profound lessons for founders navigating innovation, manufacturing, and funding within the complex clean energy economy.
This week, we’re featuring an episode of Open Circuit , a new show from Latitude Media that reunites Jigar Shah, Katherine Hamilton, and Stephen Lacey. Many listeners may remember them from The Energy Gang , a show they co-hosted for eight years. They are back together, co-hosting a weekly roundtable that will cover the latest news – to explain what's really accelerating the energy transition, from technological leaps and supply chain shifts, to market upheavals and policy uncertainty. If you li...
This episode delves into WS Development's groundbreaking decision to use Sublime Systems' low-carbon cement in Boston's largest net-zero office building. Yanni Tsipis discusses navigating the conservative construction industry, securing crucial buy-in from internal teams and subcontractors, and the strategic partnership with Boston Sand and Gravel. The discussion covers the economics of green premiums, managing project timelines and risks, and the successful execution of the first commercial pours, highlighting the path for wider adoption and the critical role of innovative company culture in decarbonizing the global economy.
When Chris Taylor and his team at GridStor were building Santa Barbara county's largest battery storage project in Goleta, CA they saw an opportunity: become one of the first companies to transfer tax credits under the newly passed Inflation Reduction Act. But there was no playbook to follow. Instead of working with smaller, specialized investors, GridStor took an unconventional approach. They went straight to JP Morgan, one of the largest tax credit investors in the country, to prove that batte...
This episode features Doug Chan, COO of Climeworks, detailing the journey to commission Mammoth, the world's largest direct air capture plant in Iceland. He shares insights into scaling DAC technology, from overcoming manufacturing and design challenges with filter elements to navigating Iceland's harsh winters. The discussion also covers strategic financing for first-of-a-kind plants, the crucial role of modularity for future megaton-scale projects like Cyprus in Louisiana, and the industry's biggest hurdle: stimulating sufficient market demand for carbon dioxide removal.
This episode delves into Rondo Energy's path to building commercial-scale heat batteries for industrial decarbonization. Co-founder John O'Donnell shares insights from early garage experiments to overcoming complex manufacturing and construction hurdles for their 2-megawatt-hour project at Calgren Renewable Fuels. The discussion covers the "storage as a service" model, scaling brick production, site implementation challenges, and validating their technology, offering valuable lessons for climate tech startups.
In the aftermath of the presidential election, the clean energy industry is scrambling to figure out what a second Trump administration would mean for their companies and projects. But Tom Burton isn't just looking at the next four years. After 25 years serving the industry with the law firm Mintz, he's thinking about the growth of the industry over another couple of decades. “Back in 2000, many pundits said the internet was dead – and that was around the time Google started their business. Thes...
This episode explores Via Separations' ambitious first commercial project: replacing energy-intensive industrial evaporation with a graphene dioxide membrane at a paper mill. CEO Shreya Dave details the strategic, high-risk choice to scale 100x, navigating significant engineering, financial, and logistical complexities, including severe winter weather and local labor market challenges. She also reflects on the difficulties of securing project finance for 'first-of-a-kind' climate tech installations and shares crucial lessons learned for future large-scale deployments, highlighting the need for new financial models.
