Most recent 10 articles: Green Tech Media
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What the Frack Is Happening With Natural Gas Prices? - Green Tech Media (Oct 23, 2021) |
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Oct 23, 2021 · At the beginning of the pandemic, energy prices crashed. We did an episode of this show trying to figure out how oil prices fell to negative $40 per barrel.Times have changed. Oil is up over $100/barrel. But far more acute is what’s happening with natural gas, particularly in Europe and Asia. In the US, natural gas prices have doubled in the last year. But in parts of Europe, the price has risen more than 5 times.
The disruptions are clear. We're seeing stories of power shortages in China, fertilizer plants being shut down in the UK, and fears about home heating costs in the Northeast US as winter approaches.
So what the heck is going on? How long might it last? ... Read more ...
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Where Will DOE's Loan Program Make the Next Climate Tech Investments? - Green Tech Media (Oct 21, 2021) |
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Oct 21, 2021 · The U.S. Department of Energy is crucial for funding, researching, and testing emerging energy tech.Now, in the Biden era, the agency is orienting itself toward deployment. How difficult is that transition?
Our former co-host Jigar Shah joins Stephen, Katherine, and Ed to discuss his experience running the Energy Department’s loan programs office.
In March, Jigar left his position at Generate Capital (and this podcast) to head into government service and run the loan programs office. Jigar has $40 billion in authority to back a wide range of climate technologies -- and he’s been working on the first round of investments with those dollars.
In the second ... Read more ...
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With an Energy Crisis Brewing, No Peak in Sight for Emissions - Green Tech Media (Oct 14, 2021) |
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Oct 14, 2021 · EIA and IEA are out with projections for emissions and fossil fuel consumption. And they don’t look good. On our current policy trajectory, there is no peak in sight, according to EIA By 2050, we will likely see a 50% increase in energy consumption. And even though renewables will be the fastest-growing new source of energy, hydrocarbon liquid fuels will meet the majority of demand.
That means emissions could rise through 2050, absent massive changes to policy.
In July, the International Energy Agency issued a similar analysis showing that carbon emissions will hit record levels in the coming years. And that spending packages around the world — even at ... Read more ...
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Where Green Hydrogen Is Headed - Green Tech Media (Oct 14, 2021) |
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Oct 14, 2021 · Suddenly everyone is talking about green hydrogen. From South Africa to the United Arab Emirates. From China to Utah. Governments and developers are eyeing hydrogen as a decarbonization tool.
But the rush is also raising lots of questions: Where will hydrogen be most useful? How do you create a supply chain to support it? And how can we ensure it has climate integrity?
For answers, we turned to two experts who are obsessing over the future of hydrogen: Janice Lin and Stephen Lamm.
Janice Lin is the founder and CEO of Strategen. And she’s president of the green hydrogen coalition.
Stephen Lamm is the director of sustainability at Bloom Energy, a company ... Read more ...
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Why TransitTech Is So Vital to Struggling Public Transportation Systems - Green Tech Media (Oct 10, 2021) |
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Oct 10, 2021 · Ride sharing has swept transportation systems over the last decade -- bringing convenience, but also congestion, inequities, and political fights.Now a new category of transportation networking is emerging: TransitTech.
It makes up a class of companies that are using tech to help maximize public transit systems. So what does TransitTech look like post-pandemic?
Tiffany Chu joins Katherine and Stephen this week to discuss the path forward for transit. Tiffany is the co-founder and CEO of Remix, which was recently acquired by Via for $100 million.
We’ll also dig into a new study from Carnegie Mellon University that shows Uber and Lyft are increasing external ... Read more ...
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Carbon Recycling: Microbes, Jet Fuel and Leggings - Green Tech Media (Sep 30, 2021) |
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Sep 30, 2021 · Shayle has been brewing up an investment thesis around how decarbonization will create stratification in traditional commodity sectors, like chemicals and materials.If you can produce the same thing in the same cost range -- but you can do so in a CO2-free or carbon-negative -- you'll reap the rewards.
Lanzatech is a great test case for that thesis, as well as a great story to tell about the history of this sector. It was founded in 2005 as a biofuels company. Now, it captures industrial waste gasses, such as CO2 and CO, and recycles them into the chemicals used to make everything from plastics to medical supplies to fabric for Lululemon. It has even spun out an entire company ... Read more ...
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The Hidden Science Behind Decarbonizing Buildings - Green Tech Media (Sep 30, 2021) |
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Sep 30, 2021 · All around us, hidden inside our buildings, are a series of choices and tradeoffs -- choices with direct impacts on our health, our money, and our energy use. Our buildings are wasteful and are filled with a lot of “embodied” carbon. As a result, buildings directly and indirectly account for 40 percent of global emissions.
How do we make those choices with better building science?
And how do we use that science to design carbon out of our buildings?
This week, Katherine and Stephen are joined by Christine Williamson, the creator of Building Science Fight Club. She is a building scientist who teaches architects how to think more intelligently about ... Read more ...
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Microsoft’s $1B Climate Innovation Fund - Green Tech Media (Sep 24, 2021) |
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Sep 24, 2021 · In January 2020, Brad Smith, the President of Microsoft, announced that the company had set a target of becoming carbon negative by 2030.
How does the company plan to do it? What does going carbon negative actually entail?
Brandon Middaugh, the Director of Microsoft’s $1B Climate Innovation Fund, comes on the show to explain. The fund invests in various climate technologies as a part of the company’s overall climate efforts. Investments in its portfolio cover carbon removal, carbon marketplace innovation and the circular economy, among others.
(The fund’s first investment was in Energy Impact Partners, where Shayle is a partner).
Shayle and ... Read more ...
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Will Direct-Air Carbon Capture Be Viable? - Green Tech Media (Sep 20, 2021) |
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Sep 20, 2021 · Carbon capture has long been criticized as too nascent, too expensive, and too distracting. Is that changing?This month, the Swiss company Climeworks officially launched a direct-air capture plant in Iceland, called Orca.
The company has already signed deals with SwissRe, Bill Gates, Stripe, and Shopify to sell them credits from the plant. But the tech is still pretty expensive and relatively small scale.
Climeworks wants to build megaton-scale plants by the end of the decade. Lots of other plants are in the works. So what does this commercial launch signal for the carbon-capture industry?
Plus, new research shows just how drastically we need to slash fossil fuels ... Read more ...
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Will Hydrogen Look Like Solar? - Green Tech Media (Sep 16, 2021) |
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Sep 16, 2021 · The road to solar glory has been littered with failed companies -- the ones you may know (Solyndra) and hundreds you probably do not.
Will the burgeoning hydrogen space follow a similar bumpy road? Hydrogen is at a similar phase of market and technological maturity, with similar levels of hype.
In this episode, Shayle talks to Raffi Garabedian, the former CTO of pioneering solar manufacturer First Solar and now the co-founder and CEO of Electric Hydrogen Co. (Disclosure: Shayle just led Energy Impact Partners’ investment in the company).
First Solar was one of the very few Western companies that survived the price pressure, commoditization and trade dynamics ... Read more ...
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