Inevitable

Today’s guest Dr. Julio Friedmann, a Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. Dr. Friedmann recently served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy at the Department of Energy where he was responsible for DOE’s R&D program in advanced fossil energy systems, carbon capture, and storage (CCS), CO2 utilization, and clean coa...

Today's guest is Ilan Gur, the CEO of Activate and the Founder of Cyclotron Road. Cyclotron Road is an entrepreneurial fellowship program that pairs PhD fellows working on promising scientific breakthroughs with grants that pay their salaries. Access to a bunch of expensive equipment and showers them with mentorship to try to bridge the gap between early academic research that shows great promise...

Today’s guest is Lara Pierpoint, Director of Technical Strategy at Exelon. Exelon is America's leading competitive energy provider with one of the cleanest and lowest cost power generation fleets. Its utility serves millions of electric and gas customers. Lara's team is tasked with enhancing Exelon's ability to capitalize on new technology and respond to disruptive innovations. Her expertise is in...

Today’s guest is Shawn Murphy, Founder & CEO of Titan Advanced Energy Solutions. Titan is an advanced battery management system technology company, which is revolutionizing the renewable space by lowering the cost of lithium ion batteries by at least 30 to 40%, and doubling their expected life. Titan's technology uses ultrasound to measure and determine the state of health, and state of charge rea...

Today’s guest is David Burt, the CEO and Founder of DeltaTerra Capital and the lead Portfolio Manager for DeltaTerra funds. DeltaTerra provides proprietary financial models, customized portfolio analysis, and unique hedging strategies that enable highly informed climate risk management for asset owners and investors. Before founding DeltaTerra, David was a Partner and Portfolio Manager at Wellingt...

Today’s guest is Melinda Hanson, Head of Sustainability at Bird, a micromobility company based in Santa Monica, CA. Founded in September 2017, Bird operates shared electric scooters in over 100 cities in Europe, the Middle East, and North America, with 10 million rides in its first year of operation. Melinda joined Bird from the National Association of City Transportation Officials, where she serv...

Today’s guest is Ken Kimmell, President of Union of Concerned Scientists, a leading science-based nonprofit that combines the knowledge and influence of the scientific community with the passion of concerned citizens to build a healthy planet and a safer world. Ken has more than 30 years of experience in government, environmental policy, and advocacy. He is a national advocate for clean energy and...

Today’s guest is Paulina Jaramillo, Professor, Engineering and Public Policy, & Co-Director, Green Design Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Paulina Jaramillo has a bachelor’s in civil and environmental engineering from Florida International University (2003), as well as a master's and PhD in civil and environmental engineering with an emphasis in green design from Carnegie Mellon Univer...

Today’s guest is Justin Guay, Director of Global Climate Strategy at Sunrise Project, and organization that grows social movements to drive the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy as fast as possible. Justin  has a decade of experience in nonprofit advocacy and foundation strategy development, including managing grant making and strategy for global coal campaigns at ClimateWorks Found...

Today’s guest is Phil Giudice, Board Member at Ambri, FirstFuel, PRIME Coalition, Clean Air Task Force and NE Clean Energy Council. Most recently, Phil was the CEO of Ambri. Ambri, formerly Liquid Metal Battery Corporation, is a technology company creating cost effective, reliable, wide spread grid electricity storage solutions, enabling separation of power demand from power supply. Phil has more...

Today’s guest is Bill Nussey, CEO & Founder at the Freeing Energy Project. Bill Nussey is the founder of the Freeing Energy Project, whose mission is to accelerate the shift to cleaner, cheaper energy. Prior to Freeing Energy, Bill spent most of his career as a tech CEO. His first company, which he co-founded in high school, provided graphics software for early, text-based personal computers. His...

Today’s guest is Kelly Wanser, Executive Director of SilverLining, a mission organization driving research to ensure safe pathways for climate within a decade. Previously, Kelly was the director of the Marine Cloud Brightening Project, a program focused on research in reflecting sunlight to reduce heat in climate. Kelly is member of the National Academy of Sciences President’s Circle. She also ser...

Today’s guest is Albert Wenger, Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures, a NY-based venture capital firm. Before joining USV, Albert was the president of del.icio.us through the company’s sale to Yahoo and an angel investor (Etsy, Tumblr). He previously founded or co-founded several companies, including a management consulting firm and an early hosted data analytics company. Albert graduated fro...

Today’s guest is Ramya Swaminathan, CEO of Malta, Inc. Malta’s electro-thermal energy storage system is a new grid-scale technology that collects and stores energy for long durations. Energy can be stored from any power generation source in any location – be it wind, solar, or fossil fuels – enabling reliable and predictable operation of the grid. Ramya joined Malta from Rye Development, where she...

Today’s guest is Mark Reynolds, Executive Director at Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Executive Director Mark Reynolds’ tenure at Citizens’ Climate Lobby has been marked by exceptionally rapid growth, with the organization doubling or tripling in size every year. During his years as a private sector trainer and consultant, Citizens’ Climate Education Executive Director Mark Reynolds worked to maximize pe...

Today’s guest is Ted Nordhaus, Founder & Executive Director at the Breakthrough Institute. Ted Nordhaus is a leading global thinker on energy, environment, climate, human development, and politics. He is the founder and executive director of the Breakthrough Institute and a co-author of An Ecomodernist Manifesto. Over the last decade, he has helped lead a paradigm shift in climate, energy, and...

Today’s guest is Deepika Nagabhushan, Program Director, Decarbonized Fossil Energy at Clean Air Task Force, which develops policy and advocacy strategies aimed at making carbon capture, utilization & storage technologies widely available, globally by mid-century. Deepika has developed analysis and led advocacy efforts related to CCUS, including power sector modeling that studied CCS deployment...

Today’s guest is Emily Reichert, CEO of Greentown Labs. Dr. Emily Reichert serves as Chief Executive Officer of Greentown Labs, the largest clean technology startup incubator in the United States. As the company’s first employee, Emily has spearheaded the rapid growth of Greentown Labs into a global center for clean technology innovation, attracting visitors and partners from around the world. Emi...

Today’s guest is Josh Bushinsky, Co-Founder & Partner at Trajectory Energy Partners. Trajectory Energy Partners brings together landowners, electricity users, and communities to develop solar energy projects with strong local support. Josh was born in Illinois, and at seven moved with his family to Rochester, New York, where he grew up backpacking. He brings to Trajectory Energy Partners a com...

Today’s guest is Dan Lashof, Director of World Resources Institute, United States. He coordinates WRI’s work in the United States across climate, energy, food, forests, water and the sustainable cities programs. This includes overseeing the work of the U.S. climate team, which aims to catalyze and support climate action by states, cities, and businesses while laying the groundwork for federal acti...

Today’s guest is Todd Allen, Chair and Professor, Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at University of Michigan. An offer to skip history class in high school to listen to a Navy ROTC recruiter sent Todd Allen on a serendipitous journey that led to him becoming one of the top U.S. experts in nuclear energy, with focus on the material science of nuclear systems. Todd began his professiona...

Today’s guest is Josh Freed, SVP of the Clean Energy Program at Third Way. Third Way is a national think tank that champions modern center-left ideas.  Their work is grounded in the mainstream American values of opportunity, freedom, and security. As the founder and leader of Third Way’s Clean Energy Program, Josh promotes policies to use every tool possible to combat climate change—including scal...

Today’s guest is Joseph Majkut, Director of Climate Policy at Niskanen Center. Joseph is an expert in climate science, climate policy, and risk and uncertainty analysis for decision making. He is frequently cited by prominent media outlets; his writing has been featured in scientific journals, public media, and environmental trade press; and he has been invited to testify before Congress on climat...

Today’s guest is Steve Oldham, CEO of Carbon Engineering. Founded in 2009, CE is a Canadian-based clean energy company leading the commercialization of groundbreaking technology that captures CO₂ directly from the atmosphere, and a second technology that synthesizes it into clean, affordable transportation fuels. From a pilot plant in Squamish, B.C., CE has been removing CO₂ from the atmosphere si...

Today’s guest is John Larsen, a Director at Rhodium Group who leads the firm’s US power sector and energy systems research. John specializes in analysis of national and state clean energy policy and market trends. Previously, John worked for the US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis where he served as an electric power policy advisor. Prior to working in government...