The Decarbonization Race

Nuclear energy is facing a marked uptick in private investment over the next five years, spurred by the escalating demand for clean energy and energy security. Both governments' and the private sector's net-zero ambitions are driving significant interest in high-growth energy areas like nuclear energy. Further, according to the International Energy Agency, existing nuclear plants make up a large p...

Following a riveting conversation with Killian Daly of EnergyTag about hourly matching in carbon accounting, this Energy Minute looks at the work of the Emissions First partnership - a group of companies including Akamai, Meta, General Motors and Salesforce - and its collective focus on carbon matching in clean energy procurement.  Cleartrace's Steven Goldman delves into the difference between hou...

Decarbonization has diversified from simply vanilla to 31 flavors, where a range of goals and strategies are being adopted as companies work to reduce carbon emissions and other environmental impacts. One key strategy that's emerged has been time-matched procurement of electricity, ensuring that the electricity that's sourced corresponds to when and how much electricity is used onsite. Granular en...

Investing in infrastructure is different and more complex than many other investment classes, often involving significantly longer timeframes and larger capital expenditures. Investing in sustainable infrastructure — like renewable energy, energy storage, or electric vehicle fleets — can be attractive to investors but adds complexity and often requires delivering with newer technologies. Generate...

On this Energy Minute mini-sode, Steven Goldman explores the world of "green tariffs," voluntary utility programs that enable eligible customers to buy the "bundled" energy and associated Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) from renewable energy projects. These programs are typically offered by local electric utilities and approved by state public utility commissions (PUCs). He explains the main...

Most people think of jet fuel the same way they think of filling up their car with gasoline: go to the pump, fill the tank, pay the price per gallon. But decarbonizing business travel and air freight is a much more complex task, where sellers, buyers and users are all part of the transaction, and standards for what makes aviation fuel "sustainable" are still being set. On this episode of The Decar...

Corporate demand for clean energy continues to grow across the globe, particularly in the United States. Apex Clean Energy, a developer of commercial-scale wind, solar and battery storage projects, is a key player in this growth. With a diversified portfolio of 60 gigawatts and more than $2B in assets under management across the United States, Apex has a range of corporate offtakers including Goog...

Nuclear energy is a low-carbon source of electricity that has been playing a vital role in the global energy mix for decades. Today, there are about 440 nuclear power reactors operating in 33 countries, providing about 10% of the world's electricity. While the nuclear energy industry has faced an array of challenges over the last few decades - including plant closures due to competition from cheap...

Clean energy doesn't have to cost more. California electricity supplier Peninsula Clean Energy (PCE) is charting a path to supply 24/7 renewable electricity in northern California that is competitive today and less expensive in the long run compared to typical utility electricity offerings. How is the company getting there? On this episode of The Decarbonization Race, renewable energy pioneer and...

In this Energy Minute episode, Dana Dohse and Steven Goldman jump into the European Union's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Direction (or CS3D for short) recently passed by the European Parliament. While the CS3D is not a regulation -- meaning member states will have several years to develop their own respective national laws on implementing the directive -- it still holds significant weigh...

On this episode of the Decarbonization Race, Lincoln Payton dives deep into the world of sustainable architecture with architect Lori Ferriss , who's worked across her career to square sustainability, historic preservation and aesthetic concerns in cities swimming in history, like Boston.  As Director of Sustainability and Climate Action at Boston architectural firm Goody Clancy , Lori leads resea...

On this Energy Minute episode, Dana Dohse and Steven Goldman take a deep dive into the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) legislation that will be taking effect in the European Union in 2024. Under the new legislation, aligning with Paris climate goals or ensuring ethical supply chains will move from voluntary practices or proactive risk management to regulatory requirements with...

Iron Mountain Data Centers are in the vanguard of the clean energy transition: they not only run their facilities on 100% renewable energy, they are working towards a more ambitious goal, powering them with carbon-free energy 24/7. In this episode, host Lincoln Payton dives deep into decarbonization with Chris Pennington , Director of Energy and Sustainability at Iron Mountain Data Centers, to und...

Hydrogen is used as a heat source, a fuel or a feedstock in a range of industries… but depending on how it's made, it can be a boon or hazard to our climate. Shifting to zero-carbon "green hydrogen" - produced using renewable energy sources like solar and wind - is critical for using hydrogen as a decarbonization resource, so much so that both the United States and European Union have passed legis...

Investing in infrastructure is different and more complex than many other investment classes, often involving significantly longer timeframes and larger capital expenditures. Investing in sustainable infrastructure — like renewable energy, energy storage, or electric vehicle fleets — can be attractive to investors but adds complexity and often requires delivering with newer technologies. Generate...

In time for Earth Day, Dana Dohse and Steven Goldman are joined by a special guest to talk about how to begin your journey into the ESG or sustainability career field. Over the past year, we've seen a "green wave" of skilled workers looking to shift to roles focused on sustainability or ESG issue areas, either at their current company or at a new one, or taking their talents from Big Tech to Clima...

When it comes to decarbonization, local governments have a twofold role to play: reducing the impacts of their own operations, which can be broader than one thinks depending on the footprint of county services; then in supporting the ecosystem of public, private and stakeholder groups like NGOs in growing impacts within the region. In this episode, Lincoln is joined by Lisa Lin, who currently serv...

In this Energy Minute, Dana Dohse and Steven Goldman discuss the importance of examining the marginal impact of different energy sources - using principles like additionality and emissionality - and why businesses may want to consider them in during clean energy procurement processes. Some of the world's biggest tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and others are looking hard...

To decarbonize the world, ensuring all homeowners and communities can play a role in adopting clean energy is critical. Under the Biden Administration's Justice40 initiative, the U.S. federal government is directing 40 percent of certain funds and programs at helping low-income and historically excluded communities scale up renewables and energy storage locally. Why those communities? Because low-...

Today, discussions on decarbonization are focused about what we need to build - more clean energy assets, more electric vehicles, more hydrogen and EV-charging infrastructure, more new efficient buildings or software and equipment to make older building more efficient. But a soon-to-be-huge issue that's emerging is waste - retired solar panels, wind turbines and blades, batteries from electric veh...

Electrification is a critical part of decarbonization - but ensuring emissions come down in the process means ensuring the processes that get us there don't create their own excessive impacts. The global appetite for electric vehicles and battery-based energy storage has grown considerably, and with it, the need for more raw materials to produce them. But as the first generations of electric vehic...

As more and more industries are pushing to decarbonize their processes - and in the process, help curb emissions for companies' supply chains - green steel is trending. Automakers, builders and companies in a range of other sectors are under pressure to reduce the embodied carbon in their products. But delivering "green steel" means both changing processes that have been in place for decades, and...

To create the products and grow the food we eat, the industrial sector requires a lot of thermal energy—heating and cooling—which today represents approximately 13% of total U.S. emissions. However, tackling this "forgotten wedge" of the emissions mix to slow climate change requires a range of approaches and policies beyond electrification. Tackling this difficult challenge is Blaine Collison , Ex...

The Inflation Regulation Act, the United States' most ambitious climate legislation to date, was passed in August of 2022, delivering a range of grants, loan programs, tax incentives and a greenhouse gas reduction fund, all targeted to accelerate clean energy and technologies to mitigate climate change, including energy storage, hydrogen production and direct air capture to name a few. In this Ene...

"What we need is a bunch of courageous people right now. People who are willing to advocate and fight in their business life and to fight for what we need at the civic and government and arguably global level." In this episode, Susan Hunt Stevens, CEO of WeSpire, shares with host Lincoln Payton ways in which businesses can energize employees by actively including them in ESG initiatives, develop E...