Flanigan's Eco-Logic

Dr. Jon Creyts is the CEO of Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and joins Ted from RMI's Innovation Center in Basalt, Colorado... high in the Rocky Mountains. The Center "sails on the sun" Jon explains, a net positive building that produces more energy than it consumes... demonstrating off-the-shelf, cost-effective technologies. He calls is an emblem of what we can do... even in the cold of high mount...

Tom Szaky's journey is fascinating, one of extreme innovation. His firm, TerraCycle, recycles ~400 different products and materials. Ted asks right off the bat, "Do you really recycle soiled diapers, cigarette butts, shoes, juice pouches, and chewing gum?" Tom quickly makes clear that everything can be recycled... at a cost. He has clearly used his ingenuity to develop revenue streams, for instanc...

Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) produces less than 1% of all food in America, and consumes more energy than all open-field agriculture in the country. According to Ted's guest Dr. Evan Mills, CEA could increase and consume some 7% of national energy use... more than data centers, all enclosed malls, air travel, cement making, or chemical production. These findings are the highlight's of E...

Chance Claxton is a serial entrepreneur, a brand builder. Her most recent works involves  axial flux motors, known as pancake motors. They are lighter weight, lower cost, and highly efficient electric motors. Her company, Orbis Elecric, has been working with the VW Group and other automotive OEMs to put these motors inside wheels. They can be positioned in two rear wheels or in all four wheels for...

Having completed "The Impossible House" project, Robert Fortunato changed his career and switched from the corporate world of mergers and acquisitions to helping others tap into the green movement. He is now a green building advocate, an experienced practitioner, consultant, and educator.  This episode is a follow-on interview. Episode #230 documented his inspiring green home construction project....

Georges Dyer is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Intentional Endowments Network (IEN), a non-profit, peer-learning network that helps endowed institutions make their endowments socially responsible. Of the 3,500 - 4,000 colleges and universities in America, some 2,000 have endowments that are valued at ~$900 billion in aggregate. These academic institutions -- as well as asset manageme...

Dr. Jason Huang is the co-founder and CEO of TS Conductors, a firm that manufacturers advanced conductors for electric utilities. The TS conductors, or transmission lines, carry up to three times as much power as conventional transmission lines (wires). They also cut power line losses by up to one half, often at a negative marginal cost... meaning they cost less than conventional lines and boost c...

Joyce Coffee heads up Climate Resilience Consulting, advising cities and states and others on resilience to climate change. She explains to Ted that she learned early on in Chicago, that the impacts of climate change can be unpredictable and fierce. After 750 souls there lost their lives there in a heat wave, mostly black and brown citizens, she knew that she was going to focus on adaptation, and...

Henk van Alphen was born and raised in Holland. After serving in the army, he sought adventure and travelled to Canada where he and his girlfriend took a float plane into the wilderness, built a cabin, hunted and fished, and lived off the land for a year. It took them seven days to walk back into civilization. Henk then went to college in Canada and began to work part time for a mining operation....

Ted Flanigan first met Gene Rodrigues in 1998. Ted was Director of Efficiency Solutions at LADWP; Gene the Director of Energy Efficiency at Southern California Edison. For years, Gene was the voice and the face of energy efficiency, his sincere and happy demeanor on local television in the evenings. Ted and Gene begin with a reflection that Ted recounted of Gene's mother making sure that Gene knew...

​Rebecca Tickell is an actor, singer, writer, producer, and environmental activist. Born in Ohio in a farming community, her roots are deep in agriculture. After moving to Vermont with her mother, at nine years old she became a movie star, playing a leading role in the Christmas-classic Prancer. She was instantly famous, appearing on the Today show and the Tonight show, among others. From that ear...

Clean Power Alliance is in its eighth year serving cities and unincorporated areas in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, providing power to over one million electric meters in 35 cities and county areas with a generating capacity of 3,400 MW. This episode of Flanigan's Eco-Logic features Ted Bardacke who has been its CEO throughout this tenure... creating the nation's largest community choice aggre...

Rinaldo Brutoco has been at the helm of the World Business Academy for over 38 years. He founded it to focus on the role that businesses should play in solving humanity's greatest challenges. The Academy promotes the responsibility of business in relation to the moral, environmental, and social concerns of the day. To spur change, and where markets are not acting fast enough, Brutoco and his non-p...

Robert Fortunato and his wife needed to expand their home in Hermosa Beach, California to welcome a child and incorporate two home offices, and they wanted it to be healthy and sustainable. After traveling the world, Robert wanted to incorporate best practices.. like the clever and complete use of materials in island countries demonstrated with coconuts in Sri Lanka, to passive solar design akin t...

Bob Freling has been the Executive Director of the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) since 1997. Its mission is to design, fund, and implement solar energy solutions to benefit those in poor communities without access to the electricity grid, helping others to overcome energy poverty. SELF provides energy access in the developing world and has an impressive track record of providing more than 750 s...

Geoff Stapleton is considered "a force" in the solar industry, particularly in Australia and the Pacific Islands. So far, he has worked in 39 countries supporting solar... introducing standards and training to validate and shore up the solar industry. His work has been widely recognized, culminating recently in his recognition and award of the "Order of Australia" title. Geoff Stapleton began his...

In this episode of Flanigan's Eco-Logic, Ted interviews Julia Kintsch, the Principal and Senior Ecologist at Eco-Resolutions. Julia grew up in Boulder, Colorado where she was ingrained with a deep love of nature. She went to University of Colorado at Boulder and earned a degree in Environmental Conservation. Then, after serving in the Peace Corps in Africa, she enrolled at Duke University and earn...

John Belizaire heads up a company called Soluna. It's business model is to tap curtailed renewable capacity -- wind and solar -- and to use this previously wasted energy to power data centers. John explains that 30 - 40% of all wind and solar farms is curtailed... essentially "stranded " capacity. By utilizing this renewable energy is it monetized... boosting the economics of the renewables while...

In this Crash Course, hosted by Sierra Flanigan, she and her father, Ted Flanigan, dig into the key issue related to the combustion of green hydrogen in peaker power plants. Ted learned of the adverse impact of burning hydrgoen last year from his friend and colleague, Jonathan Parfrey, Executive Director of Climate Resolve. Together they wrote a white paper to clarify the issue... the basis of thi...

Cecily DeAngelo read an article in the New York Times about wildlife crossings, and ever since, she has been laser-focused on developing wildlife crossings in the Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado. She grew up there and has witnessed first hand the carnage along Pitkin County's roadways... dead bears, deer, elk, rabbits, and more and more moose. These vehicle wildlife accidents decimate wildlife in...

In this episode of Flanigan's Eco-Logic, Ted welcomes Catherine Sands, Director of Fertile Ground, to the podcast. After years of working in development and promoting special fund-raising concerts for Natural Resources Defense Council, Catherine moved north from New York City to the Berkshires of Massachusetts to raise a family and live closer to the land. There, she became involved with schools a...

​Grant Gunnison is the founder and CEO of Zero Homes, a Denver-based firm that specializes in electrification of homes in Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, and California. Grant gave up his post-MIT work at NASA and returned to Colorado to run his family's construction business, shifting its focus to tackle climate change. He recognized the need to decarbonize some 60 million American homes, with 4 -...

​In this episode of Flanigan's Eco-Logic, Ted interviews Susan Gladwin. She's just finished a 2.5 year role in the U.S. Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office (LPO). The office, under the leadership of Jigar Shah, had an amplified mandate to foster innovative companies launching energy innovations. The Inflation Reduction Act boosted the LPO's budget from $40 billion to $400 billion making it...

​In this episode of Flanigan's Eco-Logic, Ted interviews Stephan Crawford, the founder and executive producer of ClimateMusic. Stephan is a San Francisco-based fine artist who in 2014 developed ClimateMusic. Frustrated by the lack of action to combat the very real threat of the climate emergency, Stephan brought together musicians with science experts to develop musical messages to educate and ins...

Harvey Michaels is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan Business School lecturer. He teaches a popular course on Energy Management and Artificial Intelligence. He is also the Director of MIT's Clean Heat Transition Project. In this episode of Flanigan's Eco-Logic Ted and Harvey reflect on his career in energy management, for years at the forefront of energy efficiency and energy managemen...