The Wharton Current

The Wharton Current welcomes Christine Harada, Wharton alum and Executive Director of the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, to discuss the implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill and the IRA. Along the way we get political and even a bit philosophical, discussing her career, the value of working in the public sector, and her perspective on the importance of being engage...

For our final episode of 2022, we welcome Sarah Jewett, Director of Strategy at Fervo Energy, a startup working on next-generation geothermal. Fervo brings drilling innovations from oil and gas to make geothermal a real option for 24-7 zero-carbon power. Sarah walks us through the oil & gas drilling technologies that Fervo is leveraging, and the opportunities for geothermal to bring the oil and ga...

This week, the Current teams up with the Wharton Sustainable Business Club to talk with Alex LaPlaza, partner at major cleantech VC Lowercarbon Capital. He talks with hosts Ned Downie and Nehali Jain about how standing on the rim of an active volcano helped convince him to work on climate; why Lowercarbon is investing big-time in carbon removal; and why he thinks adaptation is a overlooked and und...

The Current welcomes Sophie Lu, Principal, Carbon Management (Scope 3) at BHP, one of the world's biggest mining companies. Sophie breaks down for us how a major company like BHP thinks about emissions management across their value chain. She shares insights on the future of steel decarbonization. And she tells us why cutting emissions isn't just about moonshot technologies -- it's also about chan...

In this episode of the Wharton Current, host Ellie McDonald sits down with Derek Warnick, the co-founder and CFO of Electric Hydrogen. Join us as we talk about the booming hydrogen space in the United States, Electric Hydrogen's unique business model, and the implications of the Inflation Reduction Act on climatetech.

"High temperature superconductors have been proposed as a holy grail for transmission for at least three decades," says VEIR CTO Tim Heidel. In this episode, Edmund Downie and Adriel Barrett-Johnson sit down with Tim to discuss VEIR, a startup developing a new generation of transmission lines that promise to carry up to 5x as much power as their conventional counterparts. We talk about the grid's...

How to approach the energy transition when 65% of your national budget comes from oil profits? In this episode, host Adriel Barrett-Johnson sits down with Adam Sieminski, the outgoing President of KAPSARC, the advisory body to the Saudi authorities on energy and climate. Saudi authorities on energy and climate. They discuss the role of a thinktank in advising policy makers on climate, how the ener...

The technology of battery recycling hasn't changed in a century - until now. In this episode, host Adriel Barrett-Johnson sits down with Megan O'Connor, Founder and CEO of Nth Cycle, a battery recycling and metals processing company. They discuss the battery materials supply chain, the need for critical mineral processing capacity in the US, and the innovation in electro-extraction for battery rec...

Last year the IEA put out a report that said that if we actually start tracking toward net zero by 2050, we will need 42x the lithium that we currently produce annually. Battery recycling will be one of the pillars of meeting that intense demand and enabling us to sustainably and ethically source the critical minerals needed to power the energy transition. On this episode of the Wharton Current, h...

Weaning ourselves off of carbon for energy purposes is front and center in climate work. Less discussed but arguably equally important to decarbonization is the move away from petroleum-based materials to produce the goods we consume. On this episode of the Wharton Current, host Adriel Barrett-Johnson sits down with Wharton grad Rich Riley, CEO of Origin Materials, a carbon negative materials comp...

Despite contributing approximately 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions today, little progress has been made in decarbonizing cement production. In this episode, co-hosts Ellie McDonald and Thomas Obermeier sit down with Cody Finke, Ph. D., CEO and co-founder of Brimstone, which is seeking to introduce carbon-negative cement to the market. We discuss Cody's path to finding the most relevant pro...

On this episode, co-hosts Nick Van Hollen and Thomas Obermeier sit down with Meghan O’Sullivan, the Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs and the Director of the Geopolitics of Energy Project at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. They discuss how the geopolitics of energy will evolve during the transition to cleaner energy sources, focusing on...

On this episode of The Wharton Current, host Ellie McDonald sits down with Luke Mairo, the co-founder and COO of Voltpost. Join us as we talk about trends in the electric vehicle space, Voltpost's business model, and what policy initiatives are set to catalyze EV infrastructure build out. To learn more about Voltpost, visit their website at https://www.voltpost.com/ or check out their LinkedIn pag...

In this episode, host Thomas Obermeier sits down with Silicon Ranch co-founders Reagan Farr, CEO and President, and Matt Kisber, Chairman of the Board. Since starting the company together with former Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen in 2011 in Nashville, TN, they have grown the utility-scale solar owner and operator into one of the largest independent power producers in the United States. In this...

According to the IEA, heat is the world’s largest energy end use, accounting for almost half of global final energy consumption in 2021, significantly more than electricity (20%) and transport (30%). Of that, industrial processes are responsible for 51% of the energy consumed. In this episode, co-hosts Thomas Obermeier and Ellie McDonald sit down with John O'Donnell, founder and CEO of Rondo Energ...

On this episode of The Wharton Current, host Ellie McDonald sits down with Peter McHale, the Co-Founder and CEO of Gaia AI. Join us as we talk about Gaia AI's business model, trends in the carbon credit space, specifically surrounding forest carbon credits, and what climate tech startups are looking for from early stage investors. To learn more about Gaia AI, visit their website at www.gaia-ai.eco...

In this episode, co-host Adriel Barrett-Johnson sits down with Teague Egan, Founder and CEO of EnergyX, a lithium extraction startup. They discuss how Teague founded the company, the role of lithium in the energy transition, and how EnergyX is working with the government of Bolivia to run pilots of their technology. They get into why there aren't more greentech companies in Bolivia, and what might...

In this episode of The Wharton Current, co-hosts Ellie McDonald and Thomas Obermeier sit down with Ed Ballard, the bureau chief for Wall Street Journal Pro Sustainable Business Unit. Join us as we talk about the implications of COP26, what sustainability KPIs are gaining traction in public and private sectors, and how companies are planning to meet seemingly impossible carbon pledges. Find the Pro...

There's never been a better time to be a climate tech entrepreneur. Over the course of 2021, more than 70 new climate-dedicated investment funds were set up to deploy $35B+ to climate tech solutions. In this episode, co-hosts Thomas Obermeier and Nick Van Hollen sit down with Wharton grad Amy Duffuor, Managing Director at Prime Impact Fund and General Partner at Azolla Ventures, to learn about Pri...

In this episode, co-hosts Thomas Obermeier and Nick Van Hollen sit down with Kiran Bhatraju, founder and CEO of Arcadia, a tech company whose platform enables users to access cleaner and more affordable electricity through products like community solar and offers valuable data and payment capabilities for energy service providers. They discuss the benefits of community solar and why the Department...

In this episode, co-hosts Thomas Obermeier and Nick Van Hollen sit down with Jesse Jenkins, assistant professor at Princeton University with a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment, to discuss how models can be used to understand complex energy systems and why solely relying on variable energy sources such as...

In this episode, host Thomas Obermeier sits down with PJ Deschenes, Managing Director at Nomura Greentech, to discuss the current state of SPACs, provide a primer on what they actually are, and explain how the continued growth in climate tech SPACs can be tied back to a 'Green Swan' event in 2020.

In this episode, co-hosts Thomas Obermeier and Charles Lachapelle sit down with the authors of the Climate Tech VC newsletter, Sophie Purdom, early stage climate tech investor, and Kim Zou, investor at Energy Impact Partners. They discuss the state of climate tech, how it's different from cleantech 1.0, and which areas within the space are currently particularly attractive to venture capital inves...

In this episode, co-hosts Thomas Obermeier and Hamza Zafar interview Mark Tercek, author of The Instigator newsletter and former Goldman Sachs partner and CEO of The Nature Conservancy to discuss his work advising private sector leaders on ambitious environmental strategies that make business sense and how having a climate focus maximizes shareholder value.

In this episode, co-hosts Charles Lachapelle, Hamza Zafar interview Zach Gross, Executive Director at JP Morgan in their Power & Utilities Investment Banking team to discuss the trends in US offshore wind.