Catalyst with Shayle Kann

Latest Episodes:

Getting heat pumps right Nov 14, 2024

Show notes

Oh, the heat pump — a climate tech darling that still hasn’t hit the big time yet. One challenge for heat pumps is that the customer experience can be difficult, involving a complex installation process, poor installation jobs, and even technicians that don’t want to sell you one.

What’s it going to take to get heat pumps right?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Paul Lambert, founder and CEO of the heat-pump company Quilt. They talk through the nuts and bolts of the customer experience and how to improve it. (Shayle and Energy Impact Partners invest in Quilt). They cover topics like:

Why many technicians are ambivalent or resistant to selling heat pumps
The cost stack for heat pumps, including the surprising cost of materials
The complex labor involved that ratchets up the total price of installation
Lessons from other industries, such as solar and auto
Whether users actually save money on heat pump installations
The challenges of vertical integration of the value chain

Recommended resources

Latitude Media: We have more data on the energy benefits of heat pumps — and they’re big

Catalyst: Ramping up the pace of home electrification

Catalyst: Unleashing the magic of heat pumps

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On December 3 in Washington, DC, Latitude Media is bringing together a range of experts for Transition-AI 2024, a one-day, in-person event addressing both sides of the AI-energy nexus: the challenges AI poses to the grid, and the opportunities. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code LMPODS10. Register today here!

Fixing the refrigerant problem Nov 07, 2024

Show notes

The bad news: The refrigerants we use in air conditioners, fridges, and vehicles absorb hundreds to thousands of times more heat than carbon dioxide does. The good news: We’re in the middle of a global effort to replace them with lower impact alternatives.

Will we replace them fast enough to hit climate targets? And in the meantime, can we prevent them from leaking into the atmosphere?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Ian McGavisk, senior advisor at RMI for carbon-free buildings. An industry veteran, he recently co-authored a report on recovering residential AC refrigerants in the U.S., which have the carbon equivalent of 1.7 million cars. (Ian also works in business development at Transaera. Energy Impact Partners, where Shayle works, invests in Transaera.). Shayle and Ian cover topics like:

The sources of emissions in the refrigerant lifecycle
The economics of recovering and reclaiming refrigerants
Alternatives with low global warming potential and their tradeoffs, such as efficiency, flammability and concerns about forever chemicals

Recommended resources

RMI: Refrigerant Reclamation

Project Drawdown: Refrigerant Management

Project Drawdown: Alternative Refrigerants

EPA: Transitioning to Low-GWP Alternatives in Commercial Refrigeration

UN Environmental Programme: Montreal Protocol On Substances That Deplete The Ozone Layer, Report Of The Technology And Economic Assessment Panel, May 2024

Why climate tech startups get this one thing wrong Oct 31, 2024

Show notes

This might be our wonkiest topic yet: Techno-economic analysis, or TEA.

Before a startup proves its technology is commercially viable, it models how a technology would work. These TEAs include things like assumptions about inputs, prices, and market landscape. They help investors and entrepreneurs answer the question, will this technology compete?

TEAs are important to the success of an early-stage climate-tech company. And a lot of startups get them wrong. As an investor at Energy Impact Partners (EIP), Shayle and his team see a lot of TEAs—and have some pet peeves.

So what can startups do to improve their TEAs?

This episode is a re-run from October 2023. We’re making a new episode on TEAs soon – stay tuned. But to start, we’re running this episode as a way to set up our next one.

In this episode, Shayle talks to his colleagues Dr. Greg Thiel, EIP’s director of technology, and Dr. Melissa Ball, EIP’s associate director of technology. They cover topics like:

Bad assumptions about things like levelized cost of production
Focusing on a component instead of a system
Focusing on unhelpful metrics
Using false precision—something Shayle calls “modeling theater”

Recommended Resources:

Activate: Techonomics: Establishing best practices in early stage technology modeling
Department of Energy: Techno-economic, Energy, & Carbon Heuristic Tool for Early-Stage Technologies (TECHTEST) Tool
National Renewable Energy Laboratory: Techno-Economic Analysis

The unexplored frontier of methane removal Oct 24, 2024

Show notes

We capture concentrated methane emissions from point sources like dairy barns, landfills, and coal mines. Mitigating methane emissions is essential to hitting net-zero targets, but could we capture diluted gasses straight from the atmosphere, too?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Gabrielle Dreyfus, Chief Scientist at the Institute For Governance & Sustainable Development, about a National Academy of Sciences report on the unexplored area of methane removal. Gabrielle chaired the committee behind the report. Shayle and Gabrielle cover topics like:

Why methane removal may be critical to addressing methane from hard-to-abate sources, like enteric emissions and tropical wetlands
Key differences between methane removal and carbon dioxide removal
How reducing methane in the atmosphere may also reduce its atmospheric lifetime
Technological pathways, including reactors, concentrators, surface treatments, ecosystem uptake enhancement, and atmospheric oxidation enhancement
The potential for combining methane and carbon dioxide removal in direct air capture

Recommended resources

Catalyst: Why are we still flaring gas?

Catalyst: Mitigating enteric methane: tech solutions for solving the cow burp problem

Catalyst: Why methane matters

Latitude Media: A look under the hood of EDF’s methane detection satellite

Frontier Forum: An energy-first approach to data centers Oct 22, 2024

Show notes

AI is enabling a multitude of solutions across power, industry, and transportation. But AI energy demands are increasingly stressing the electric grid — creating a bottleneck for growth and new challenges for clean energy supply.

The mounting tension highlights the need for an energy-first approach to computing.

Developer Crusoe is building AI infrastructure that takes advantage of clean energy to power workloads for AI modeling. Likewise, Nvidia, Crusoe’s primary GPU supplier, has been consistently improving the energy efficiency of its GPUs. Both demonstrate the innovation that’s happening in the marketplace to create a 'climate-aligned cloud' for customers.

In the AI era, how do you build data centers with an energy-first approach?

In this Frontier Forum, Stephen Lacey explores all sides of the AI-energy nexus with talks with Chase Lochmiller, the co-founder and CEO. They discuss innovations in data center design, why the energy demands of AI could be higher than projected, and why that shouldn't scare us.

Chase Lochmiller will be speaking at Latitude Media’s Transition-AI conference on December 3rd in Washington, DC. Get your tickets here.

The complex path to market for low-carbon cement Oct 17, 2024

Show notes

Getting the construction industry to try a novel form of cement is like turning a giant ship. It’s hard to redirect the immense momentum behind existing ways of doing business, especially involving cement, the most energy-intensive ingredient in concrete. Industry insiders point to tight margins, concerns about messing with the ingredients that literally hold up buildings, and the long list of stakeholders will agree to try a new material.

So how do you get a risk-averse construction supply chain to try decarbonized cement?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Leah Ellis, CEO and co-founder of Sublime Systems, a company that recently landed its first commercial deployment of decarbonized cement. (Shayle is an investor in Sublime). Shayle and Leah cover topics like:

The long list of parties involved in a single pour of concrete
Why the green premium is a burden for margin-squeezed contractors but “budget dust” for the building buyer
How to align stakeholders, once there's buy-in from financers
How a book-and-claim system could work for decarbonized cement
How major concrete consumers, like governments, can create demand
Why the boom in data center construction creates a window of opportunity for decarbonized construction materials

Recommended resources

Catalyst: Pathways to decarbonizing steel

Catalyst: Fixing cement’s carbon problem

Latitude Media: With climate venture capital down, industrial investments had a ‘breakout year’ in 2023

Unpacking China’s cheap battery costs Oct 10, 2024

Show notes

Chinese battery companies are manufacturing the cheapest cells in the world right now, and it’s not just because of cheap labor and state subsidies. They’ve streamlined the process in a way that has industry experts wondering how international competitors can ever catch up.

In this episode, Shayle talks to James Frith, principal at the battery investment firm Volta Energy Technologies. He argues that there are multiple factors behind Chinese manufacturers’ efficiency and speed, like the know-how to operate plants with high yields, easy access to suppliers, and ability to squeeze margins to near zero. Shayle and James cover topics like:

The confluence of overcapacity, softening demand, and low commodity prices that could result in a “bloodbath” of market consolidation in China
Why the low cell prices on the spot market hit stationary storage harder than EVs
Cost drivers of cell manufacturing, like labor, power, and environmental regulations
What Western companies can learn from China’s cheap prices
Why James is bullish on partnerships between Chinese and Western companies

Recommended resources

Latitude Media: How Northvolt’s bet on lithium metal batteries fell apart

Latitude Media: A summer of ups and downs in the battery sector

Latitude Media: DOE designates $3 billion for the advanced battery supply chain

Giving tribes a stake in the critical minerals boom [partner content] Oct 08, 2024

Show notes

Tannice McCoy grew up in a mining family, but she never imagined herself in the mining business. Today she’s the president and general manager of NewRange Copper Nickel.

Jenna Lehti never imagined herself in the mining industry either. She’s a member of the Bois Forte band of the Ojibwe tribe in Northern Minnesota, and grew up on a reservation adjacent to the Iron Range, a collection of mining districts around Lake Superior. Today, she’s the tribal relations advisor for NewRange.

Together, they’re taking a proactive approach to harnessing tribal support for the critical minerals boom.

NewRange is a Minnesota company pursuing a new copper, nickel, and cobalt mine in the northeastern part of the state, called NorthMet. It would supply minerals for a wide range of clean energy technologies.

But under a previous owner, the project faced setbacks – in part because of a lack of engagement with local tribes.

“I think part of that came from a lack of understanding of the tribe's sovereignty and their water quality standards,” said McCoy.

In this episode, produced in collaboration with NewRange, Tannice McCoy and Jenna Lehti sit down with Stephen Lacey. They explain what has changed with the NorthMet project, the importance of working with tribes, and the future of critical minerals mining in America.

“It's really about how we are partnering with the tribes to move forward and progress,” said Lehti.

This episode was produced in collaboration with NewRange Copper Nickel.

DAC’s bumpy road to commercial scale Oct 03, 2024

Show notes

The world’s first large-scale, commercial direct-air capture (DAC) plants are coming online – or are about to. How soon will we see a boom in high-quality, durable DAC supply?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Andreas Aepli, chief financial officer of Climeworks, the world’s largest provider of DAC. They talk about Climeworks’ challenges with its two commercial plants – the kinds of challenges Andreas argues the industry needs to be transparent about in order to earn the trust of skeptical buyers. Shayle and Andreas also cover topics like:

The real-world challenges of building a DAC plant, like extreme weather, supply-chain quality issues, CO2 purity, and more
Why Andreas advocates a step-by-step scale-up of progressively larger deployments
How to set pricing and and structure a carbon removal contract
How to build a capital stack for a carbon removal plant
Why Andreas believes the market will become even more supply-constrained in the next few years

Recommended resources

Latitude Media: Google says it's the first to purchase direct air capture for $100 per ton

Latitude Media: Can a new generation of DAC companies overcome the tech’s big challenges?

Latitude Media: Climeworks begins to offer “PPAs” for carbon removal

Catalyst: Fixing the messy voluntary carbon market

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Ammonia: the beer of decarbonization Sep 26, 2024

Show notes

Editor’s note: There’s some big money flowing into low carbon ammonia right now. Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $1.56 billion conditional loan guarantee for Wabash Valley Resources, an Indiana low-carbon ammonia facility. In August, oil and gas producer Woodside Energy spent $2.35 billion on a low-carbon ammonia plant in Texas. Both of these facilities will produce low-carbon ammonia while using carbon capture and storage. We thought it would be a good time to revisit an episode with Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct. He explains how ammonia could be used as a low-carbon fuel in everything from ships to heavy industry.

The irony of ammonia is that it accounts for a whopping 2% of global emissions, but it could also become an important low-carbon fuel.

It’s the primary ingredient in agricultural fertilizer. But when combusted, it also emits no carbon, making it a promising low-carbon fuel, too — for ships, heavy industry, and even thermal power plants.

But making the stuff takes massive amounts of energy, and ammonia’s feedstocks – hydrogen and nitrogen – also require energy.

So what would it take to slash emissions from ammonia production? And how would we actually use ammonia as a low-carbon fuel?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct. Julio and a team of colleagues just co-authored a report on low-carbon ammonia for the Innovation for Cool Earth Forum.

They cover topics like:

Why some countries like Japan, Singapore, and Korea are especially interested in developing ammonia infrastructure
How ammonia compares to other low-carbon fuels like methanol and hydrogen
How we would need to retrofit coal and gas power plants to co-fire with ammonia
Addressing ammonia’s corrosion and toxicity issues
The areas that need more research, such as ammonia’s impact on air quality and radiative forcing
Key constraints like human capital and infrastructure

Recommended Resources:

Innovation for Cool Earth Forum: Low-Carbon Ammonia Roadmap
Canary: Watch this TED talk to get up to speed on green ammonia and shipping
Canary: The race is on to build the world’s first ammonia-powered ship
Chemical & Engineering News: Will Japan run on ammonia?

Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid. Visit kraken.tech.

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