By [email protected] At the beginning of the pandemic, energy prices crashed. We did an episode of this show trying to figure out how oil prices fell to negative $40 per barrel. Times have changed. Oil is up over $100/barrel. But far more acute is what’s happening with natural gas, particularly in Europe and Asia. In…
By [email protected] The U.S. Department of Energy is crucial for funding, researching, and testing emerging energy tech. Now, in the Biden era, the agency is orienting itself toward deployment. How difficult is that transition? Our former co-host Jigar Shah joins Stephen, Katherine, and Ed to discuss his experience running the Energy Department’s loan programs office….
By [email protected] Suddenly everyone is talking about green hydrogen. From South Africa to the United Arab Emirates. From China to Utah. Governments and developers are eyeing hydrogen as a decarbonization tool. But the rush is also raising lots of questions: Where will hydrogen be most useful? How do you create a supply chain to support…
By [email protected] EIA and IEA are out with projections for emissions and fossil fuel consumption. And they don’t look good. On our current policy trajectory, there is no peak in sight, according to EIA By 2050, we will likely see a 50% increase in energy consumption. And even though renewables will be the fastest-growing new…
By [email protected] Shayle has been brewing up an investment thesis around how decarbonization will create stratification in traditional commodity sectors, like chemicals and materials. If you can produce the same thing in the same cost range — but you can do so in a CO2-free or carbon-negative — you’ll reap the rewards. Lanzatech is a…
By i[email protected] In January 2020, Brad Smith, the President of Microsoft, announced that the company had set a target of becoming carbon negative by 2030. How does the company plan to do it? What does going carbon negative actually entail? Brandon Middaugh, the Director of Microsoft’s $1B Climate Innovation Fund, comes on the show to…
By [email protected] The road to solar glory has been littered with failed companies — the ones you may know (Solyndra) and hundreds you probably do not. Will the burgeoning hydrogen space follow a similar bumpy road? Hydrogen is at a similar phase of market and technological maturity, with similar levels of hype. In this episode,…
By [email protected] In the world of venture capital, climate tech is about as hot as it gets. In the first two quarters of 2021, climate tech companies raised $16B from VCs. New designated funds are announced regularly, startup valuations are sky high, and times are frothy. It’s never been a better time to be a…
By [email protected] There is no path to deep decarbonization that doesn’t involve a clean power sector. And there is no path to a clean power sector that doesn’t involve deploying massive amounts of wind, solar, and lithium-ion batteries. Those three technologies don’t solve the entire problem of climate change, but they are the workhorses that…
By [email protected] The Nobel prize in chemistry in 1918 was awarded to a German man named Fritz Haber for a process to fix nitrogen from the air. The technique, which later became known as the Haber-bosch process, is probably one of the four or five most important inventions of the last century. Because nitrogen feeds…
By [email protected] All around us, hidden inside our buildings, are a series of choices and tradeoffs — choices with direct impacts on our health, our money, and our energy use. Our buildings are wasteful and are filled with a lot of “embodied” carbon. As a result, buildings directly and indirectly account for 40 percent of…
By [email protected] Carbon capture has long been criticized as too nascent, too expensive, and too distracting. Is that changing? This month, the Swiss company Climeworks officially launched a direct-air capture plant in Iceland, called Orca. The company has already signed deals with SwissRe, Bill Gates, Stripe, and Shopify to sell them credits from the plant….
By [email protected] The electric grid is a central pillar of a zero-carbon economy. But in an era of unrelenting weather extremes, it’s also one of the most fragile. This week: what does power after carbon look like? Katherine and Stephen are joined by Dr. Peter Fox-Penner, author of a new book called, “Power After Carbon.”…
By [email protected] Carbon accounting and disclosure is getting attention at the highest levels. Gary Gensler, the chairman of the SEC, said in July: “I think updates to public company disclosures and to fund disclosures [on climate] could bring needed transparency to our capital markets. When it comes to disclosure, investors have told us what they…
By [email protected] We started the Covid pandemic at negative oil prices. Today, benchmark prices are above $70. And top oil companies are reporting billions of dollars in profits. And now there is more scrutiny than ever on how they’re going to spend that money. Activist shareholders are starting to get climate champions on oil major…