Interchange Recharged

Greed is good. At least, it’s good for decarbonization. This week on The Interchange podcast, we have a new edition of the fantasy decarbonization draft -- this one focused on acquiring and restructuring public companies.  We’re joining the ranks of corporate raiders like Carl Icahn, T. Boone Pickens and Gordon Gekko by taking over public companies and bending their strategies to our will. (F...

This week, we’re talking about the new wave of carbon offsets. Will startups and corporates be able to solve accountability problems? Right up until the global economy stopped working in March, the carbon offset market was surging. In 2019, offset sellers saw a 5-fold increase in purchases, after years of low demand in the wake of the financial crisis. Flight-shamed consumers were demanding them....

This week: where does the COVID detour take us as we map the energy transition? We’re once again thinking through the practical and theoretical consequences of the pandemic, in the near-term and well into the future.  Shayle and Stephen talk with Ramez Naam , a futurist, science-fiction author and energy expert. Ramez joined us last August to talk about some future scenarios for energy. The w...

Electricity grids can handle a lot of wind, solar and water resources. But what will help us get from 80% renewable energy to 100% renewable energy? The missing piece may be renewable synthetic fuels. “When we really want to decarbonize the whole electricity system, absolutely synthetic fuels will play a key role,” says Matti Rautkivi, the director of Business Development and Strategy at Wärtsilä....

Destruction. Dislocation. Collapse. A permanent reset. Read any news about oil markets, and these are the vivid descriptions you’ll encounter. We are now deep into an historic pause for oil demand across the globe -- shutting down oil fields, causing negative pricing, overwhelming our storage abilities, and forcing up to a million job losses this year. "We are looking at a major demand destruction...

Famed software pioneer and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen is out with a new piece, called “ It’s time to build ,” that is making the rounds among the thinkfluencer crowd. It’s part call-to-arms and part flogging over America’s inability to build. “Every step of the way, to everyone around us, we should be asking the question, what are you building? What are you building directly, or helping ot...

This week, we bring you a joint episode of  The Interchange and The Energy Gang recorded in front of a live audience from our quarantine quarters around the country.  When we started making our podcasts seven years ago, it was clear that the energy transition would be a difficult one.  Both shows were designed as a forum to grapple with tough issues in an accessible, candid way. The...

We have a live show coming up on Wednesday, April 22. It's free! Sign up here . And submit questions here . What will be the “new normal” in the energy economy when coronavirus starts to dissipate? The longer this goes on, the more dramatically it will alter how we make things, where we make them, what kind of companies grow or fail, and who suffers and who benefits This week, Shayle and Stephen s...

This week: coronavirus is rewriting the cleantech startup survival guide. The implosion for early-stage companies has been swift. According to a New York Times analysis , 6,000 people at 50 startups have lost their jobs since the middle of March.  Once fast-growing companies are losing their revenue overnight, laying off or furloughing up to 50 percent of their staff. Companies in travel, con...

We were feeling a little stir crazy this week, so we hopped behind the microphone with Chris Nelder, host of The Energy Transition Show for some wonkery while in quarantine. In this episode we are exploring two simple questions: What was an unknown about the energy transition five years ago that we now know? And what is a question that has emerged in 2020 that is still unanswered? And as expected,...

This week, we're coming to you from our home isolation, partially frozen in time. We're wondering how long things will be this way. How we will work? How he will keep healthy? How we will run our companies? How will we move forward?  It can feel like each day those answers are only further away. This week on The interchange , Shayle Kann and Stephen Lacey get real on how the pandemic has chan...

This week: What does the load curve look like in a time of pandemic?  We are in the middle of a sudden, jarring economic shift. Store fronts, arenas and office buildings are dark in many cities. Homes are becoming the center of our activity -- and for many of us, our work. That is causing sudden shifts in the way we consume energy. We’ve seen it play out in China, France and Italy. So what is...

This week: What can meal kits tell us about the energy intensity of the food system? When you get meal-kits delivered to your home -- are they a net benefit to the environment? Or are these time savers carbon-heavy? Since 2012, there’s been a surge in meal-kit delivery options. Online buying and delivery is now the norm. There’s a surge in interest in healthy eating. And we’re all insanely busy. A...

This week: what one entrepreneur's story tells us about the migration of talent from tech to climate. Jason Jacobs is the founder of My Climate Journey , a podcast, newsletter, and slack room that brings together a high-level group of people who are dedicating their careers to addressing climate change. Co-host Shayle Kann talks with Jason about his own journey -- and about what his story tells us...

The 100% renewable energy future doesn’t start with a country, state or region. It starts with a city. One power plant in a city, in fact. In Glendale, California. Glendale is a city of 200,000 people just north of Los Angeles. And in 2014, the was in a tricky spot. The city’s natural gas plant was old. The City Council faced a decision that would impact the city for decades to come: revamp the 25...

This week, we are talking about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and many ways they can decarbonize the economy. From optimizing buildings to modeling new industrial processes to better managing the grid, AI and machine learning are core to many technology strategies for addressing climate change. So how, exactly, will they be implemented? And what problems can they solve? With us is Pri...

This week: predictions for the future of home solar and batteries. Big rooftop solar installers are competing with the largest utility-scale plants in terms of yearly deployed capacity. Batteries are making their way onto more installations, opening up new advancements in software and power electronics. Tesla finally says it’s making progress on the solar roof. Meanwhile, extreme weather, wildfire...

A lot of companies and governments are committing to 100% renewable energy. But a target of that scope without considering time of use isn’t technically or economically optimal. So how do we get 24/7 renewables for offices, data centers, municipal buildings, cities, and eventually countries? Calculating renewables consumption on an annual basis isn’t sufficient. If we really want to make them an e...

“Climatetech” is suddenly the hot new thing in venture capital.  For years now, venture investors have stayed away from the cleantech category, a hangover from the Solyndra days that we have thoroughly documented on The Interchange . But we appear to be in a new phase of interest. Prominent investors are publicly declaring their push into the space. Influential voices in tech are calling on m...

Less than one percent of all hydrogen produced today comes from renewables. Is that about to change? The vice president of Siemens Middle East just called green hydrogen the “new oil” in the coming decades. A lot of big industrial companies and oil majors are taking another serious look at hydrogen. Why? In an era of extremely cheap renewables that are increasingly being curtailed, hydrogen produc...

We’re undergoing some great changes here on The Interchange ! We’re bringing on a new producer and we’re going to be featuring new voices that will help us tackle the energy transition in new and compelling ways.  So while we reorient ourselves, we are bringing you an episode from 2018 called “8 bets about the future.” We debated and bet on a bunch of different scenarios for the coming decade...

We’re now in the 2020s. Many of the tropes about this era from films and literature may not have come true, but there’s a lot happening around us that does feel futuristic. And this week, we are offering up proof that we are living in the energy future — right now.  Shayle and Stephen are each going to pick a use of technology that once seemed futuristic, but is now a reality. We’re also goin...

This show has a very simple mission: break down the complexity of the global energy transition in a clear way. Whether that’s digging through reports, concepts, acronyms, business deals, or trends, we are constantly trying to make these topics accessible, yet wonky.  Some of our most popular episodes of 2019 featured guests who were particularly good at delivering on that mission. So we’re go...

Countries, states, cities, utilities and corporations are all setting increasingly ambitious targets for clean energy.  There are lots of variations on the theme: 100% renewable energy, 100% clean energy, 100% carbon-free energy. They all require ambition -- and lots of planning. In this episode, the first in a three-part series from Wartsila, we are exploring the causes and consequences of t...

It’s our last episode of the decade! We’re looking back over the last 10 years and making our choices for: The most important statistic The most impactful piece of research The top buzz phrase The most unexpected twist The most pivotal deal And the dark horse trend of the 2020s Thanks to everyone who’s been listening to this show since 2014. We appreciate your feedback and support. Please continue...