Inevitable

Joe Daniel is a Principal on the Carbon-Free Electricity Team at RMI . Our topic today is coal, specifically the "non-economic dispatch" of coal. This phenomenon occurs when coal-fired power plants deliver power to electricity grids even when their electricity is not the most cost-effective option, thereby disrupting the "merit order" of electricity dispatch. This complex topic is explored with Jo...

Siva Yellamraju is the Co-founder and CEO at Fourier .  Fourier's mission is to make hydrogen universally accessible with on-site and on-demand production. Fourier is not Siva's first startup, it's his fourth. He sold his last company to Apple the one before that to Google and the one before that to Polycom, so he knows a thing or two about entrepreneurship. Fourier is barely two years old and the...

Japan is important to consider on the global energy stage. The country’s emissions footprint is considerably smaller than China and the U.S. While Japan's energy footprint isn't growing as rapidly as India's, it’s still the fifth-largest emitter of any country globally, with emissions representing roughly three to 4% of the global total. Japan's energy system is heavily fossil fuel-based, especial...

Max Jamilly , CEO and Co-founder at Hoxton Farms . And today, we're talking about fat.  Hoxton Farms, a London-based startup, grows and sells animal fats without animals. They aspire to be an ingredients provider; cultivating fats via bioreactors and selling cruelty-free and sustainable fats to other food brands, starting with meat alternatives.  It's been a challenging time for the alt-meat space...

Julia Reichelstein is the CEO and Co-founder at Vaulted Deep , a carbon removal company that injects carbon-rich waste slurries deep underground into permanent geologic storage. They've come onto the scene quite fast recently securing just north of a $58 million order from Frontier to sequester over 152,000 tons of carbon between now and 2027, which is Frontier's largest commitment yet. They're on...

Mish Thadani is the CEO and Co-founder of Rhizome . Rhizome helps utilities plan for resilience. It's an AI-powered software platform that helps electric utilities identify vulnerabilities from climate threats to quantify risk and to measure the economic and social benefits of grid enhancing investments.  In our discussion, we delve into how utilities address vulnerabilities arising from extreme w...

Today's conversation is all about how the US is trying to onshore manufacturing of key clean energy supply chains, things like EV, battery metals, and the like.  Giulia Siccardo is the Director of the US Department of Energy's Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains or MESC.  We start out with a bit of a history lesson on why manufacturing somewhat intentionally moved offshore from the 19...

Dr. John Wagner is the President of Battelle Energy Alliance and Director of the Idaho National Laboratory or INL.  INL is one of 17 national labs in the United States and leads the nation in work on advanced nuclear research. INL boasts a rich legacy in the narrative of nuclear energy, marked by its pivotal role in producing the inaugural usable electricity from nuclear sources on its premises. D...

Christina Yagjian leads global renewable energy strategy and origination at Cargill . According to Forbes, Cargill is the largest private company in the USA by revenue with $177 billion in the fiscal year ending in May, 2023. Before Cargill, Christina managed the renewable energy footprint at Meta, the parent company to Facebook and Instagram and one of the world's largest corporate clean power pu...

Cyrus Wadia is the CEO of Activate , a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that empowers scientists to bring their research to market. Having supported nearly 200 scientists in founding around 150 companies, including notable names like Fervo, Twelve, Sublime Systems, and Antora Energy, Activate offers selected fellows a unique blend of financial support, business capital, and access to a vast mentor...

Dr. Seonghoon Woo is CEO and co-founder at Amogy . Amogy is building technology to unlock ammonia's potential as a clean energy fuel source for transportation and beyond. About a year ago, they raised a Series B of funding led by SK Innovations, with backers including Temasek, Aramco Ventures, Mitsubishi, DCVC, Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, Mitsui OSK Lines, and others. Ammonia is a workhorse chemic...

Adam Stein is the Director of Nuclear Energy Innovation at the Breakthrough Institute , where he focuses on the technology, policy, risk and economics of nuclear energy. The Breakthrough Institute is a global research center that identifies and promotes technological solutions to environmental and human development challenges. Among its many projects, the Breakthrough Institute recently launched B...

In today's episode, recorded live during San Francisco Climate Week, we delve into the critical intersection of climate policy and carbon removal. Joining us are two distinguished guests:   California Senator Scott Wiener , the author of the recent landmark climate legislation known as California's SB 253 or the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act, and Shashank Samala , the CEO and Co-founde...

Dr. Sarah Kapnick serves as the Chief Scientist at NOAA , the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which plays a critical role in understanding and predicting changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts. Bringing a unique mix of science and finance to NOAA, Dr. Kapnick's background includes a stint as a senior climate scientist at JP Morgan Chase, a leadership role at NOAA's Geophy...

Ning Mosberger-Tang is the founder and president at 1.5 Climate Strategies Group , alongside a host of other climate and civic organizations.  As one of the pioneering female engineers at Google, Ning played a crucial role in the development of Google's initial advertising platform. Transitioning from Google in 2006, her focus shifted towards combating climate change. Presently, she spearheads mul...

Dr. Peter Fiske is the Executive Director at the National Alliance for Water Innovation or NAWI . NAWI is a collection of 19 universities, four national labs and 190 plus US water companies committed to developing new technologies to enable distributed desalination and water reuse. They're a five-year, $110 million research program supported by the US Department of Energy in partnership with the C...

Eric Law is the CEO and co-founder of Urban Machine .  Urban Machine develops robotics and AI to reclaim lumber from construction and demolition for re-use. They claim that 37 million tons of wood goes into landfills annually, and much of that wood could be reused. Their robotic machines specialize in the necessary steps to prep wood for reconditioning.  In 2022, Urban Machine successfully secured...

Brandon Hurlbut , our guest on this episode, wears multiple hats. He's co-founder at Boundary Stone Partners, a climate change focused government affairs firm created in 2013 that operates at the intersection of technology, finance, and policy. He's also co-founder of Overture, an early stage climate tech venture capital firm that recently announced a $60 million debut fund, and he is an operating...

Kim Stanley Robinson, renowned science fiction author, is our guest on this episode of MCJ. He is the author of the Ministry for the Future , a novel which outlines humanity's attempts to navigate climate change in the coming decades. Former President Barack Obama named the Ministry for the Future as one of his favorite books of 2020 . The work has been cited by numerous entrepreneurs and builders...

Subodh Kulkarni is CEO and President at Rigetti Computing , and our topic in this episode is quantum computing and its implications for our changing planet. Rigetti Computing, a publicly listed company, builds quantum computers and superconducting quantum processors. It also provides cloud-based access to quantum computing for both commercial and research purposes.  Quantum computing, a field root...

This episode is part of our Skilled Labor Series hosted by MCJ partner, Yin Lu . This series is focused on amplifying the voices of folks from the skilled labor workforce, including electricians, farmers, ranchers, HVAC installers, and others who are on the front lines of rewiring our infrastructure. Eric Letvin serves as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s deputy assistant administra...

Dr. Britt Wray is a science communicator and the author of two books. Her latest is Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Anxiety , which is a national bestseller. Dr. Wray is also the director of CIRCLE (Community-minded Interventions for Resilience, Climate Leadership, and Emotional wellbeing) at Stanford Psychiatry, a research and action initiative in the Stanford School of Med...

On this episode of My Climate Journey, we have two guests: Susan Schofer and Po Bronson . Susan is partner at SOSV and Chief Science Officer at Hax , which is SOSV's initiative around hard tech. She has a PhD in chemistry from Caltech, and most recently spent eight years at Modern Meadow, a growth stage startup in the bio leather space. Po is general partner at SOSV, and managing director of Indie...

Dan Yates is the CEO and Chairman of Dandelion Energy , a Series B Stage startup deploying solutions for residential geothermal energy.  As Dan explains it, residential geothermal distinguishes itself from utility-scale geothermal by not aiming to exploit a scarce, underground heat source for electricity generation through turbines. Instead, the process involves circulating an aqueous solution thr...

Today’s guests are Dr. Melissa Burt and Dr. Emily Fischer , who are part of a group called the Science Moms . The Science Moms are a consortium of climate scientists who are also mothers and who are, in their words, working to give our children the planet they deserve. They aim to demystify climate science and motivate everyday moms to demand climate change plans and solutions. Dr. Burt is an assi...