Years back, a major municipal utility in the U.S. rolled out a new time-of-use rate for commercial customers. At first, everything seemed fine. Then, customers in one category suddenly began seeing a huge spike in their bills: churches. “They were getting hit with a demand charge and their bills were four, five times what they” had previously been, explains GridX CEO Chris Black. The price of electricity used to be static. Today, rates are a real-time tool to manage demand on a grid that is bein...
Sep 14, 2022•12 min
Over Labor Day weekend, California was blanketed by a record-breaking heatwave. Fresno reached 113 degrees Fahrenheit, Sacramento, 114 degrees Fahrenheit. The state asked residents to cut their power use, and only narrowly avoided blackouts. Heatwaves are the deadliest weather event in the United States every year. Extreme heat is an environmental justice issue, as it affects low-income and communities of color disproportionately. This week on the show, producer Alexandria Herr took a deep dive ...
Sep 07, 2022•29 min
This week, we’re presenting an episode of The Big Switch , a narrative show from Columbia University about how to decarbonize the economy. Steel goes into pretty much everything around us – from buildings and bridges to the furniture in our homes. And decarbonizing the steel industry is essential because we need steel to decarbonize the world. Think about it. Solar panels, electric vehicles, even our power grid; steel goes into everything we need to fight climate change. But there’s a problem. S...
Aug 31, 2022•28 min
Western states are experiencing a megadrought. Water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell are falling hundreds of feet, and shortages on the Colorado River mean that Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico are facing cuts to their water use. But these aren't the only reserves that are under threat – hundreds of feet underground, the drought is impacting our water security in ways we can't even see. The Ogallala Aquifer is the biggest aquifer in America, and one of the largest in the world. In addition to ...
Aug 24, 2022•24 min
Just a few weeks ago, the Biden administration’s historic climate package looked like it was on the brink of ruin after Senator Joe Manchin walked away from negotiations for a second time. But behind the scenes, backdoor negotiations were underway. At the end of last month, Manchin and Schumer announced they had made a deal – and on Sunday, the Senate passed major climate legislation for the first time in American history. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 has over $360 billion for energy and ...
Aug 10, 2022•22 min
This week, we feature an interview from our friends at Columbia Energy Exchange. Europe’s gas crisis has entered a scary new phase. Last week, the biggest pipeline carrying Russian gas into Germany was closed for maintenance. And many in Europe fear the Russians will keep Nord Stream 1 closed indefinitely – putting further pressure on gas supply in the colder months. Europeans are burning more coal, scrambling for new sources of gas, and committing to lots of renewable energy in a frantic attemp...
Aug 03, 2022•50 min
Last Tuesday, the thermometer at London's Heathrow airport clocked in at 104 degrees Fahrenheit, or 40.2 degrees Celsius. The airport runway melted. More than a dozen wildfires broke out across London, while tens of thousands evacuated from wildfires in Spain, France, and Portugal. And a lot of meteorologists didn't quite believe it – including Axios' Andrew Freedman. “A high of 104 degrees has always been this limit that no meteorologist ever thought would be crossed in their lifetime in the UK...
Jul 27, 2022•28 min
On the Carbon Copy podcast this week: The hits to President Biden's climate ambitions keep on coming. Two years ago, Biden put forward a $2 trillion climate plan. After Democrats failed to move a bill forward last year, that package was whittled down to $300 billion. This spring was supposed to be the moment that package passed. And then spring turned into summer. Now, as lawmakers prepare to clear out and head off for their August break, it looks like the passage of a climate bill of any size i...
Jul 19, 2022•24 min
In the global north, 15% of the earth’s surface is covered in permafrost. Permafrost is a frozen layer of rocks, soil, ice and partially decomposed plants – and it's a massive carbon sink. Permafrost contains 1.5 trillion tons of carbon. That's twice the amount currently in our atmosphere. And, no surprise, climate change is melting it at an accelerated rate. The decline of permafrost is bad for the atmosphere and for Arctic communities. And because it’s historically been so difficult to predict...
Jul 13, 2022•21 min
The term of art for climate goals in the utility business is "net-zero." It's an accounting term. It means on balance, an electric utility is removing as much carbon from the atmosphere as it's adding. But how do you get to actual zero emissions? To eliminate them from the grid entirely? That is what the Sacramento Municipal Utility District – known as SMUD – is trying to do by 2030. But it can’t hit that target without the help of customers. So what would the customer-empowered energy transitio...
Jul 12, 2022•22 min
This week, we’re offering up an episode of Post Script Media's new podcast, Hot Buttons . Your Instagram and TikTok feed are probably littered with feel-good ads for clothes and shoes made from recycled bottles. But they aren’t the solution you think. In this episode, co-hosts Christina Binkley, Rachel Kibbe and Shilla Kim-Parker dig into the greenwashing behind clothes made from plastic. If you like what you hear, subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Hot Buttons is a production of Post Scr...
Jul 05, 2022•37 min
It was a particularly busy – and consequential – June for the Supreme Court. In a 6-3 ruling, the Court decided that the Environmental Protection Agency has overstepped its authority in regulating heat trapping gasses from power plants. This is an odd case involving an interpretation of a 1970s law that set the foundation for a climate regulation that doesn't even exist. In this episode, we’ll look at what led to the Supreme Court to take up the case. Now that the high court has restricted how A...
Jul 01, 2022•19 min
Heat pumps are the hot new thing in climate tech right now. The fastest way we can slash emissions out of the economy is to electrify as much as possible. And the fastest way to electrify is to deploy heat pumps. If we want to decarbonize our homes quickly, we need to start replacing existing HVAC systems. A good place to start: installing heat pumps instead of conventional central air conditioners. Turns out, the cost of making a two-way heat pump instead of an air conditioning unit is only a f...
Jun 29, 2022•21 min
A version of this episode originally ran on Catalyst w/ Shayle Kann . Stock markets are in decline . Inflation is on the rise. Interest rates are up. Private tech companies are laying off workers. Is this the long-awaited market correction that never quite materialized during the bull market of the last 13 years? And what does it mean for climate tech? In this episode, Shayle talks to Saloni Multani , a partner at Galvanize Climate Solutions and former chief financial officer for Joe Biden’s 202...
Jun 22, 2022•49 min
We’re more than three months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and you don’t have to look far beyond your local gas station to see the global impact – the average price of a gallon of gasoline topped $5 this week. The conflict has complicated the flow of energy at a time when supply chains were already jumbled up because of COVID. But it’s not just oil. The war is leaving its mark on all kinds of commodities – including the global supplies of minerals and metals. Geopolitical shifts are causing ...
Jun 15, 2022•20 min
We're presenting a trailer for our newest show from Post Script Media, called Hot Buttons . The demand for sustainability has come for the fashion industry. Christina Binkley, Rachel Kibbe, and Shilla Kim-Parker are here to talk about it. Hot Buttons features weekly observations and lively debate about the future of the fashion industry as it reckons with its impact on the climate, natural resources, and worker rights. It's about the culture of fashion, the high-stakes decisions inside the indus...
Jun 14, 2022•6 min
Five years ago, Puerto Rico's grid was decimated by Hurricane Maria. Out of the destruction, many hoped that Puerto Rico's new grid could be built around solar and batteries – replacing centralized gas, coal, and oil plants connected with remote transmission lines. That’s not how the recovery played out. Today, Puerto Rico still relies heavily on centralized fossil fuels. And the island’s utility is still facing long blackouts and accusations of mismanagement. But a bottom-up movement has emerge...
Jun 08, 2022•27 min
In December 2021, Senator Joe Manchin appeared on Fox News to announce that he would not vote for Joe Biden’s signature climate plan, Build Back Better. The reason he cited? A score given by the Congressional Budget Office. The Congressional Budget Office – or CBO for short – is the most important government agency you’ve never heard of. It acts as a budget referee, giving legislation a score on how it will impact the economy and the federal budget. Senator Chuck Grassley once called the CBO “Go...
Jun 01, 2022•23 min
In early May, a leaked draft opinion showed that the Supreme Court could soon overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. So what does abortion access have to do with climate change? This week, we explore the link between heat, pollution, and reproductive justice. In recent years, a strong and growing body of research shows that exposure to pollution and extreme heat increases the risk of stillbirth and preterm birth, particularly among Black parents. And restricted abortion access in a post-Roe Ame...
May 25, 2022•23 min
We have a bonus episode from our friends at Drilled . The sixth season of Drilled is all about the natural gas industry. In the last decade, the climate movement has begun to reject the idea of natural gas as a "bridge fuel.” As that story has become tougher to sell, the gas industry has shifted from greenwashing to all-out war with environmentalists. The latest season of Drilled traces that shift, starting with the first gas ban proposed in Southern California and ending with the industry lever...
May 24, 2022•23 min
Across California, oil wells pepper residential neighborhoods – often directly next to homes, schools, and businesses. These residential wells have been linked to a host of health problems, from asthma to cancer. And these problems disproportionately affect California’s communities of color. This week, producer Alexandria Herr goes on a crusade to prove that California is not the green state that everybody thinks it is. We’ll explore hidden oil wells, the history of redlining, and the oil boom d...
May 11, 2022•27 min
A couple of weeks ago, Elon Musk offered around $44 billion to buy Twitter. A few days later, the CEO of the world’s biggest electric car company became the owner of one of the world’s biggest social media platforms. When news of the deal hit, investors got a little spooked. The share price of Tesla dropped by nearly 20% over the following week. Many industry observers began to wonder whether this was going to pose a major problem for the company. Among them was climate reporter David Ferris. Al...
May 04, 2022•21 min
A couple weeks ago, Canary Media’s Eric Wesoff found himself in the parking lot of a company called Auxin Solar. Auxin is a small American solar panel maker based in California. It manufacturers 150 megawatts of solar panels a year – 100 times less than the biggest solar manufacturers. Despite its size, Auxin Solar just filed a petition with the U.S. government that could shake up the solar industry in a big way. Auxin claims China is dodging U.S. tariffs by funneling products through other Asia...
Apr 27, 2022•23 min
Bitcoin mining today uses a half percent of the world's electricity. Every year, as more shipping containers and warehouses full of high-powered computers are deployed to unlock more bitcoin, energy use grows by double digits. As bitcoin mining operations scramble to find new power sources, they’re often turning to aging coal or fossil gas plants that offer cheap electricity. This week, we’ll take you to Seneca Lake, upstate New York, where a group of unlikely activists is fighting back against ...
Apr 20, 2022•25 min
In 1973, when Arab countries cut off petroleum exports to the US, the price of oil quadrupled. People couldn't get access to gasoline. The economy shrunk. The Arab oil embargo was framed almost entirely as a supply problem. But a few years later, a 28-year-old physicist named Amory Lovins published an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that completely shifted how we framed the issue. Nearly a half century later, we revisit Amory’s writing in the face of another global energy security crisis. Fo...
Apr 13, 2022•28 min
Support strong climate journalism! Donate to Canary Media to celebrate its one-year anniversary. Public companies have a legal obligation to report a wide range of information on financial performance and competitive risks. One risk they are not required to mention in corporate America: climate risk. But that changed last week when America’s top financial regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, released a new proposal requiring companies to disclose their financial vulnerabilities to ...
Apr 06, 2022•25 min
We want to hear from you! Take our quick survey for a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift card. This will help us bring you more relevant content. In January, fire tore through a major affordable housing development in the Bronx, killing 19 people. Officials were quick to blame the Twin Parks North West fire on a space heater and broken fire door. But the root cause of the fire runs much deeper. America has an energy insecurity crisis. A third of U.S. households have trouble paying their energy bil...
Mar 30, 2022•20 min
This is a branded episode, produced in collaboration with Intersect Power. Sheldon Kimber has spent the last 20 years developing energy projects. He’s overseen the build-out of billions of dollars worth of large-scale solar plants. Getting those solar projects in the ground wasn't easy. Abrupt national policy shifts, international trade wars, and local regulatory hurdles made every megawatt a fight. The stunning price drops in wind and solar weren't inevitable. But they were predictable – partly...
Mar 29, 2022•16 min
Climate researchers are increasingly using the term “maladaptation” to describe adaptation measures that bring unforeseen negative consequences to local communities. From building levees that inadvertently increased flood risk in Bangladesh to a hydroelectric dam that cut off land access in Vietnam, examples of maladaptation are popping up all over the world. In the U.S., Miami has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in stormwater pumps and elevated roads to combat flooding from rising seas...
Mar 22, 2022•20 min
President Biden entered the White House promising to use climate solutions as his main tool for raising wages, revitalizing infrastructure, and tackling inequality. But almost overnight, that framing changed from transforming the American economy to protecting consumers. Gasoline prices are at their highest levels in US history because of supply disruptions caused by Russia's attack on Ukraine. And Biden’s latest decision to ban Russian oil reflects the shifting mood in Washington. A geopolitica...
Mar 11, 2022•16 min
