Climate Positive – Details, episodes & analysis

For the world to meet its growing need for low-cost clean energy and achieve ambitious decarbonization targets, land-based onshore wind energy must be an increasingly large part of the electricity generation mix—potentially as much as 20-41% by 2050, according to BloombergNEF and the International Energy Agency (IEA). But there is a challenge: the most efficient and cost-effective wind turbines, currently applied only in offshore wind farms, have enormous blades—some longer than a football field. That makes them extremely difficult, if not impossible, to deliver and deploy, as bridges, tunnels, and road curves literally get in the way. To explore how the onshore wind industry can overcome these obstacles and drive further growth for the sector, Gil Jenkins spoke with Mark Lundstrom, Founder and CEO of Radia. Mark is a serial cross-industry entrepreneur and MIT aerospace engineer who has co-founded companies over the course of his career that seek to bring aerospace solutions to new sectors, including biotech, telecommunications, and materials science. With Radia, Mark is focused on applying these technologies to the low-carbon energy transition. Radia is in the process of building the world’s largest aircraft, which will enable the deployment of the industry's biggest and best wind turbines to locations they could never reach before—creating more clean power at a lower cost.

Links:

• Radia Website
• Mark Lundstrom on LinkedIn
• Radia on LinkedIn
• Press Release:Radia to Provide Low-Cost Clean Energy with the World’s Biggest Wind Turbines Enabled by the World’s Largest Aircraft (March 17, 2024)
• Press Release: Aerospace Leaders Aernnova, Leonardo and AFuzion Will Partner With Radia to Build WindRunner™, World’s Largest Aircraft (July 16, 2024)
• Whitepaper: DeSolve Study: GigaWind has enormous economic and environmental impact (Princeton University researchers Dr. Jesse Jenkins and Dr. Nestor Sepulveda - September 1, 2023)

Episode recorded August 22, 2024 

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected] or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod. 

The maritime industry transports over 80% of goods worldwide and is essential to the deployment of climate technologies.  At present, the industry contributes approximately 2 to 3% of global emissions, but this figure is projected to grow without major changes to the industry and its ancillary services. However, decarbonizing the maritime industry is unusually challenging.  As the president of Marine and executive vice president at Wärtsilä, Roger Holm’s team helps power one out of every three ships worldwide. In light of new EU regulations and the International Maritime Organization’s goal of net neutral carbon emissions by 2050, Wärtsilä is now focused on solving the decarbonization riddle for clients that operate ships that can last for decades and need to be able to adapt to a wide range of infrastructure and fuels in ports. 

In this episode, Roger Holm chats with Hilary Langer and shares why Wärtsilä approaches maritime decarbonization at the systems level, why clients are increasingly focused on sustainability, and where he sees the greatest potential for carbon and cost savings. 

Links:

Wärtsilä Marine Solutions

European Commission - Reducing emissions from the shipping sector

World Resources Institute - Decarbonizing International Shipping

NYTimes Gift Link – Shipping Contributes Heavily to Climate Change. Are Green Ships the Solution?

Bloomberg - How the Shipping Industry Aims to Reach Net Zero by 2050

Episode recorded August 14, 2024

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected] or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod. 

Disclosure. Disclosure. Disclosure. In early March, the SEC issued final climate-related disclosure rules for U.S. public companies. Designed to enhance standardization and in response to increasing investor demand, the new rules mandate companies disclose material climate risks they face and greenhouse gas emissions they generate as well as other material climate-related information. While not as comprehensive as existing mandatory climate disclosure regimes in the European Union or California, the rules represent a groundbreaking step forward in climate disclosure across the United States. 

In this episode, Chad Reed discusses the new rules, their implications and their detractors with Steven Rothstein, managing director at the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets. Steven and his colleagues at Ceres over two decades have been instrumental in building a large and powerful investor coalition in support of greater climate disclosure and provide crucial insights on this complex and significant public policy issue. 

Links:

SEC Adopts Rules to Enhance and Standardize Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors

Letter from Jeffrey W. Eckel (then CEO and now Executive Chair of HASI) to U.S. SEC (June 15, 2021)

Ceres: Get ready for standardized climate disclosure

Episode recorded March 29, 2024

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected] or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod. 

In this episode, Gil Jenkins sits down with Akshat Rathi, a senior climate reporter at Bloomberg News and the host of Bloomberg Green's Zero podcast, to discuss his new book, "Climate Capitalism: Winning the Global Race to Zero Emissions and Solving the Crisis of our Age," which was released on March 12 in the U.S. 

"Climate Capitalism" takes readers across five continents, tracking the unlikely heroes driving the fight against climate change. The stories within the book reveal how people, policy, and technology are converging to create a green economy that is not only possible but profitable. 

Akshat and Gil explore key chapters from the book, touching on stories like that of Wan Gang, a Chinese bureaucrat who played a pivotal role in the rapid expansion of electric vehicles in China. They also discuss India's significant progress toward solar power since 2015, the transformative influence of the International Energy Agency, and the UK's legally binding decarbonization commitments, among other topics.

Links: 

• About the Book
• Akshat on X
• Akshat on LinkedIn
• Zero Podcast

Episode recorded March 8, 2024

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected] or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod. 

The Sustainable Energy in America Factbook serves as a key reference for the state of renewables in the United States. To mark the release of the 12th edition, Gil Jenkins and Hilary Langer talked to the people behind the annual report: Lisa Jacobson, President of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and Tom Rowlands-Rees, Head of Research for North America at BloombergNEF. Despite significant headwinds in 2023, including high interest rates and supply chain challenges, the factbook is full of record-shattering figures that reveal momentum toward a more sustainable energy future. Lisa and Tom discuss the importance of stable federal policies, the optimism they find in reduced emissions, and how America will need to accelerate sustainable energy development to meet carbon reduction targets.

Links: 

• The 2024 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook | BloombergNEF (bnef.com)
• The Business Council for Sustainable Energy (bcse.org)
• Lisa Jacobson | LinkedIn
• Tom Rowlands-Rees | LinkedIn
• BloombergNEF (bnef.com)

Episode recorded February 26, 2024

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected] or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod. 

As the energy density of batteries continues to increase even as costs keep declining, the stationary energy storage market is booming, with investment growing by over 7x over the last few years – from $5 billion in 2020 to over $35 billion in 2023 – and with battery installations tripling just last year alone. 

While an influx of storage is certainly needed to integrate the vast amount of renewables we need to fully decarbonize the grid, the storage we are adding to the grid is not always or even usually reducing overall carbon emissions. In fact, too often new batteries are resulting in positive net new emissions – an outcome almost no one wants. 

In this episode, Chad Reed chats with Jacob Mansfield and Emma Konet of Tierra Climate and Adam Reeve of REsurety to learn more about the efforts of the Energy Storage Solutions Consortium (ESSC), which seeks to align the economic incentives of the storage market with truly accelerating grid decarbonization.

Links:

Energy Storage Solutions Consortium (ESSC)

Charging Towards Zero: Harnessing Batteries and Carbon Contracts to Accelerate Grid Decarbonization

Decarbonization: Stocks and flows, abundance and scarcity, net zero

Episode recorded February 14, 2024

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected] or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod. 

In this week's episode, Gil Jenkins sits down with Steve Raeder, the founder and CEO of Summit Ridge Energy. As a leading player in the community solar market, Summit Ridge Energy (SRE) has made significant strides since its inception in 2017, deploying over $1.6 billion into clean energy assets. With a robust development pipeline of more than 2 GW, SRE will have more than 400 MW of solar PV online by the end of 2024, powering 50,000 homes and businesses. During the conversation, Steve opens up about his journey from SunEdison to founding Summit SRE. He breaks down the incredible value proposition for community solar, which offers guaranteed savings to both residential and small commercial customers while underscoring its pivotal role in the broader energy transition. Steve also discusses SRE’s growth strategy. Giving his outlook on the future of the community solar market, he details how the company is positioning itself to capitalize on this sector's continued growth. Additionally, Steve talks about the company’s solar panel supply partnership with Qcells, which was announced last year and is the largest domestic community solar purchase ever. He also shares insights into their innovative sustainability apprenticeship program in Chicago. Note: Summit Ridge Energy is a client of HASI. 

Links: 

• Summit Ridge Energy Website
• Summit Ridge Energy on LinkedIn
• Summit Ridge Energy on X
• Steve Raeder on LinkedIn
• Press Release: Summit Ridge Energy and Qcells Announce Largest Community Solar Partnership in the U.S (April 6, 2023)
• Article: Clean energy job training has started at Chicago’s Sustainability Hub (Solar Power World, May 2, 2023)
• Summit Ridge Energy’s “Bomber” Project - Nation's Largest Rooftop Community Solar Array
• Press Release: HASI and Summit Ridge Energy Expand Partnership with New 250 MW Community Solar Portfolio in Illinois and Maryland (August 29, 2023)
• Article: How to run your house on clean electricity, no solar panels required (Washington Post, February 8, 2023)
• Steve’s Book Recommendation: A Sense of Urgency, by Dr. John Kotter

Episode recorded January 24, 2024

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected] or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod. 

At the end of 2022, 200 countries signed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework – what some have called the “Paris Agreement for Nature”. It calls on signatories to work together to enhance the resilience of natural ecosystems and to turn the tide on species extinction rates through the setting of national targets, the establishment of disclosure regimes and the creation of innovative financing mechanisms – such as biodiversity credits. While there has been some subsequent positive international progress on this front driven by the UK and others, most biodiversity credit markets remain in very nascent stages.

In this episode, HASI’s investment team lead for nature-based solutions Tim Mooradd speaks with Tim Male and Ryan Sarsfield of the Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC). They discuss the imperative of protecting and valuing biodiversity, the existing and potential buyers for biodiversity credits, lessons learned from other environmental markets and much more. 

Note also that the HASI Foundation recently provided a grant to EPIC for its work at the intersection of climate action and social justice. 

Links:

Environmental Policy Innovation Center

Biodiversity Credits Gain Traction but Questions Persist

Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West by William Cronon

Episode recorded January 10, 2024

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected] or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod.

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected] or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod. 

America’s dramatic shift towards renewable energy generation in remote areas will require a substantial transmission build-out in the years ahead, potentially doubling or tripling the current grid. In other words, there is no transition without transmission. While it's crucial that we expedite the construction of large power lines at a much faster clip, there's another technology solution that demands equal attention. This parallel approach involves the use of Grid-Enhancing Technologies (GETs). GETs offer a modular, cost-effective path to enhancing our existing infrastructure while also significantly amplifying the efficacy of new transmission investments. To gain deeper insights into how GETs can help us meet the needs of the 21st-century electric grid, accelerate the clean energy transition, and lower energy costs, Gil Jenkins and Manish Chaturvedi spoke with Julia Selker, Executive Director of WATT Coalition.

Links:

WATT Coalition 

• WATT Coalition Website
• What are Grid Enhancing Technologies?
• Whitepaper: Building a Better Grid: How Grid Enhancing Technologies Complement Transmission Buildouts (WATT Coalition & Brattle Group, April 20, 2023)
• WATT Coalition LinkedIn
• WATT Coalition X

More on Julia: 

Julia Selker is Executive Director of the WATT Coalition and Director of Policy and Strategy and Chief Operating Officer for Grid Strategies. She previously worked for the Business Council on Sustainable Energy, the technology startup Faraday Grid, and interned with Congressman Peter DeFazio focused on energy and climate policy. Prior to coming to Washington, DC, Julia worked on the launch of Monterey Bay Community Power through the public relations agency Miller Maxfield, Inc., in Santa Cruz, California. Julia previously worked for the Bulleit Group, a San Francisco public relations agency. She has a bachelor’s degree in physics from Reed College. 

• Julia Selker LinkedIn
• Julia Selker X
• LinkedIn Post: The grid fairy godmothers of the energy transition (Julia Selker, August 3, 2023)

Episode recorded December 8, 2023

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected] or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod.

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected] or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod. 

In our final episode of 2023, we sit down with Dan Shugar, founder and CEO of Nextracker, Inc. (NASDAQ: NXT), a leading provider of intelligent, integrated solar tracker and software solutions used in utility-scale and distributed generation solar projects globally. With over 30 years of experience in the field, Dan has been a driving force in advancing climate tech solutions in the U.S. and around the world.

In the conversation with Gil, Dan reflects on Nextracker's incredible success over the past ten years, including its successful IPO earlier this year; they talked at length about the company's steadfast customer-focused mindset and how that has driven so many industry-first solar tracker innovations in their mission to transition the world to affordable, renewable power. Dan also talked about Nextracker's remarkable initiatives with U.S. manufacturing expansions over the past three years and the importance of public policy engagement for our industry. He also touched on a few non-U.S. markets that are key to his optimism for the future of solar power. We even found time at the end to have fun talking about great guitar music and his new musical products venture, AmpMojo.

Links:

More on Dan 

• Dan Shugar Bio
• Shug Speaks Blog
• Press Release: Nextracker CEO Dan Shugar Named S&P Global’s ‘Chief Trailblazer of the Year’ at the 25th Annual Platts Global Energy Awards (December 12, 2023)
• Dan Shugar on LinkedIn
• Video: Dinner with Dan - Intro - 'Solar Myths Debunked"
• Website: AmpMojo - Dan’s new musical products company
• Video: Introducing AmpMojo

Nextracker, Inc. 

• Website
• Nextracker American Manufacturing Microsite
• Nextracker on LinkedIn
• Nextracker on X
• Press Release: Nextracker Opens New U.S. Factory with Dedicated Capacity in Las Vegas with Unimacts (September 11, 2023)
• Video: NX Horizon Hail Pro - The Gold Standard for Hail Risk Mitigation

Episode recorded December 8, 2023.

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected] or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod.

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected] or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod.