The nuclear industry is grappling with several issues: high interest rates, rising commodity prices, limited supply chains, fuel availability, and a regulatory environment that has been slow to adapt to new technologies. In the west, nuclear knowhow has faded over the decades. Even with a surge in policy support and public interest, development is stagnant and capacity has fallen. Momentum has moved over to Asia, mostly China. But that’s not nearly enough. While global renewables have tripled in...
Dec 12, 2023•56 min
It took 12 years to triple global renewables – and now we need to do it in eight years. As the latest UN climate summit begins, there’s a proposal on the table to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030. Countries may agree to it in theory, but can the market meet it in practice? This week, we’ll look at why this tripling is necessary, how it could be done, and what technologies will dominate. Then, we’ll address a confusing narrative that has emerged around electric cars. We’re seeing a histor...
Nov 29, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Weather forecasts for the grid depend on supercomputers to calculate the flow of heat, water, and radiation in the atmosphere, and then spit out predictions about what could happen next. These supercomputers are powerful. But they are also expensive and slow, relative to how quickly the weather changes. A new class of AI-based weather forecasts could change the game for grid operators and renewable energy developers. Will they take hold? This week, we explore a variety of emerging applications f...
Nov 16, 2023•1 hr 1 min
This is a partner podcast episode, brought to you by Intersect Power. The U.S. grid is in trouble. It's old; it's really hard to build new transmission lines; and that is limiting the amount of wind and solar we can add to the system. Sheldon Kimber, Founder and CEO of the clean energy developer Intersect Power, says the grid is “broken.” But he has a plan to get around those constraints. In this episode, produced in partnership with Intersect Power, Sheldon Kimber talks with Stephen Lacey about...
Nov 15, 2023•19 min
Microsoft was an early mover in integrating OpenAI’s LLM into its Azure cloud services. And now every part of Microsoft’s technology stack — from cloud infrastructure to data analytics to consumer apps — will be “reimagined” for the AI era, said Nadella. As a result, every industry will inevitably be impacted by AI. Utilities will also find themselves at the center of this shift, even if most aren’t yet actively investing in AI for grid management. Generative AI will increasingly start to influe...
Nov 07, 2023•36 min
Wind, solar and batteries have seen steady, fairly predictable cost drops over the last two decades. But a combination of pressures – supply chain turmoil, grid constraints, interest rates, labor costs – has raised costs for products and projects. And they’re challenging the commercial viability of emerging sectors like offshore wind and hydrogen. So how will the market work through this inflationary blip? And are there other policy interventions to ease pressures? This week: we’ll explore the i...
Nov 03, 2023•54 min
The industrial sector is set to overtake power generation and transportation as the biggest source of planet warming emissions in the US by 2035, according to The Rhodium Group. The sector’s impact is even greater on the global scale. Industry around the world accounts for more carbon dioxide emissions than all forms of transportation combined – largely driven by steel, cement, and chemicals. There are a lot of ways to decarbonize industry, but the pathways are much less clear than for electrici...
Oct 26, 2023•48 min
There are a lot of quarterly ups and downs in venture dollars deployed across climatetech. But the trend is generally up. Since 2021, more than 200 new climate investment funds have been created with $121 billion under management, according to CTVC . Earlier this month, Canary Media Editorial Director Eric Wesoff explored the evolved state of climate investing at Canary Media's live event in Berkeley . The panel included: Nancy Pfund, managing partner at DBL Investors; Mona EINaggar, a partner a...
Oct 16, 2023•56 min
California is at a crossroads. The state has already installed nearly 1.8 million rooftop solar systems, 5 gigawatts of batteries, and 1.6 million electric cars. But it is also facing some serious challenges. The list is long: controversial policy changes, extreme weather threats, and backlogs – lots and lots of backlogs. It is facing serious backlogs in interconnecting utility-scale solar and storage projects, keeping fossil gas-fired power plants open that were supposed to shut down years ago....
Oct 06, 2023•1 hr 6 min
Just as the auto industry resolves supply chain problems from the Covid pandemic, a new disruptive force has emerged: labor disputes. Nearly 20,000 American auto workers are on strike as they ask for higher pay. At the heart of their concerns: will the shift to electric cars make them worse off? We’ll look at a strike that is raising big questions about how to support the companies making electric vehicles for the masses – and support the workers who make them. Then: the push for green steel. Ar...
Sep 29, 2023•48 min
Renewables and electric vehicles are on a tear, and they’ll soon likely attract $2 trillion in yearly investment. But global emissions have not peaked. So what are the new frontiers of technology that will make renewables and storage more valuable – and draw down emissions at the speed needed? This week, we’re going to reflect on that question coming out of RE+, a major American conference where our editors were covering emerging tech. Then, the battery recycling boom is on. It’s attracting bill...
Sep 21, 2023•1 hr 5 min
In the last few months, three major projects in Europe and America have been delayed or canceled, thanks to rapidly rising costs. Those projects make up more than 10% of current offshore wind capacity in the EU and US, according to Bloomberg . Another 9.7 gigawatts are at risk in America, as developers look to renegotiate contracts. The complexity of offshore wind magnifies the technical and financial risks. And the financial picture for some projects has worsened over the last two years as infl...
Sep 07, 2023•21 min
As the carbon dioxide removal industry grows, engineered solutions like direct-air capture are getting more attention. According to the IPCC, novel methods for carbon dioxide removal are necessary to meet the Paris climate targets. But another UN body, the UNFCCC, recently sparked controversy by concluding in draft language that “engineering-based removal activities…pose unknown environmental and social risks.” That language could have ramifications for how carbon removal gets considered in upco...
Aug 23, 2023•26 min
This is a partner podcast episode, brought to you by South32. Pat Risner spent 25 years as an engineer, general manager, and executive at one of the largest mining companies in the world, BHP. Today, he's the president of the Hermosa Project, a mining development in Arizona run by the global mining firm, South32. That mine is the only advanced project in America that could produce manganese and zinc – two critical minerals that are essential to batteries and renewables. In this episode, produced...
Aug 23, 2023•20 min
A year after it was passed, the Inflation Reduction Act is already reshaping the energy and automotive industries in the U.S. New factories for a wide array of clean energy components are being planned. Old factories are being reopened, retooled, or expanded. According to a Canary Media analysis , that is amounting to over $70 billion in new investments in the manufacturing sector for electric cars, EV parts, batteries, battery recycling, and wind and solar assembly. Wind, solar, and battery dev...
Aug 15, 2023•56 min
In August, the US government is set to issue standards for hydrogen tax credits. Over the last year, a debate has been raging over how strict those standards should be for matching renewables with hydrogen production. With rules set to be released in the coming weeks, ad campaigns have popped up from industry trying to persuade the feds to adopt looser standards, and green groups pushing for Without clear standards for matching renewables to hydrogen production, emissions could double, says Adit...
Aug 03, 2023•23 min
For years, rooftop solar was overlooked as a reliability solution in New England. But in a very sudden reversal, the region's grid operator says it’s critical to keeping the lights on across the region. New England doesn't have its own fossil resources, so the region is dependent on oil and natural gas imported from other regions of the country. Over the last decade and a half, aging coal, nuclear, and oil-fired units have been retired there. Because of interconnection constraints and lots of NI...
Jul 26, 2023•31 min
For decades, we have wildly underestimated the growth of renewables. Now that cost curves and deployments have exceeded all expectations, what’s next for the clean energy industry? This week, we feature a conversation between journalist David Roberts and futurist Ramez Naam about what's ahead for tech trends – from renewables and batteries, to grid management, to space-based solar power and geoengineering. This conversation was recorded in Seattle at a recent Canary Media Live event . Be sure to...
Jul 20, 2023•53 min
Mateo Jaramillo is the co-founder and CEO of the long-duration storage company Form Energy. Mateo has spent the last two decades building battery storage companies, with home base being California. But he just moved from Silicon Valley to the Rust Belt, where Form is scaling production of its iron-air batteries at an old steel mill in West Virginia. The location sits at the intersection of major highways, rail lines, and waterways. And Form’s batteries sit at the intersection of the old energy e...
Jul 12, 2023•42 min
Putin’s assault on Ukraine triggered an energy crisis that sent Europe’s economies into a tailspin and put the European energy transition to the test. But how did the European Union, a leader in climate action, become so dependent on Russian oil and gas to begin with? This week, we're posting the first episode in a new five-part series for The Big Switch . The show is a collaboration between Post Script Media and the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy. The series looks at the energy systems...
Jul 06, 2023•36 min
Last week, we started the show with a simple question: what do we want from the artificial intelligence systems advancing so quickly? Inevitably, when we start grappling with that question, we have to talk about ethics and data quality. This week, we feature two conversations about the ethics and implementation of AI across the energy economy. We'll talk with Pamela Isom , an AI ethicist and former director of the DOE’s artificial intelligence and technology office, about the “happy path” of imp...
Jun 29, 2023•55 min
We are at the start of a commercial arms race in artificial intelligence that has thrilled some, and alarmed others. For many, it's both. There's no shortage of heady proclamations about where the technology is headed. Google CEO Sundar Pachai calls AI “more profound than fire or electricity.” We are in the middle of a period of exuberance in AI, which will inevitably lead to some kind of market correction. But the technology will be transformative. There are dozens of use cases for AI in energy...
Jun 22, 2023•1 hr 7 min
As we evaluate the Biden team's approach to building back domestic manufacturing and climate-positive infrastructure, we keep coming back to the question: what makes the current push different from the Obama era one? You can’t answer the question without exploring the factors behind the demise of some companies of the cleantech 1.0 era – in particular, the story of A123 Systems. This week, we’re talking with Gabrielle Coppola, a Bloomberg auto journalist, about her new magazine feature about Ame...
Jun 14, 2023•27 min
Republicans dominate every part of government in Texas. It's been that way for two decades. It also happens to be a state with the most wind and utility-scale solar development in the country. Over their 20 years of dominance, Republicans in the state have mostly supported renewables, often in a very warm way. But lately, they've turned against them. In a very short period of time, America's fastest-growing renewables state became the most hostile. What happened? This week, we'll look at the his...
Jun 01, 2023•29 min
We are at an inflection point for electric vehicles. The mass adoption phase is underway in many countries, including America. The US government is putting billions of dollars behind EV charging and battery production. And nearly every automaker is releasing or developing an EV model. But the race to electrify cars and trucks is about so much more than transportation. For an executive like Annette Clayton, CEO of Schneider Electric North America, it's about developing an economy-wide electrifica...
Jun 01, 2023•22 min
This week, we’re running a bonus episode from our friends at Environmental Defense Fund and their podcast Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers . Transportation is the largest single source of carbon emissions in the U.S. People who can electrify vehicle fleets are in demand — especially in school districts, where diesel emissions are causing skyrocketing rates of childhood asthma. In this episode, host Yesh Pavlik Slenk talks with the ebullient Gilbert Blue Feather Rosas, who raised mi...
May 30, 2023•33 min
In the nine months since the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law, $28 billion in new manufacturing investments have been unveiled. Credit Suisse expects the IRA to support $1.7 trillion in new US manufacturing in a decade. Shalini Ramanathan of Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners is watching the space, excited about that industrial growth. She’s also eager to see a whole new category of customers – because this green industrial strategy needs new green electrons and molecules to run it. Th...
May 22, 2023•24 min
Are you a utility or climate tech startup looking to understand how artificial intelligence will shape your company? Come to our one-day event, Transition-AI: Boston on June 15. Our listeners get a 20% discount with the code PSPODS20. Our show this week was recorded live at the Nuclear Energy Assembly in Washington, DC. It comes in three parts. First, we're asking: how do we prepare the US nuclear industry for liftoff? We'll dig into a new government strategy to bridge the gap to commercializati...
May 17, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Are you a utility or climate tech startup looking to understand how artificial intelligence will shape your company? Come to our one-day event, Transition-AI: Boston on June 15. Our listeners get a 20% discount with the code PSPODS20. We’re hard at work on a new season of The Big Switch podcast, which will go deep on the impact of the European energy crisis. And this week, we’re featuring an episode from last season. There’s been a pretty major shake-up in the world of transit decarbonization. L...
May 10, 2023•32 min
Over the last two years, we’ve created the foundation for a green industrial awakening in America — thanks to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. Collectively, they will leverage hundreds of billions of dollars to support domestic producers. The green industrial framework is not new, but the policy levers are more powerful than ever. So what makes America’s industrial strategy 2.0 different from the Obama years? What lessons hav...
May 01, 2023•57 min
