Catalyst with Shayle Kann

Latest Episodes:

Could VPPs save rooftop solar? May 23, 2024

Show notes

The U.S. rooftop solar market has tanked. Residential applications in California, the largest market in the country, plunged 82% from May through November 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. Contractors are going bankrupt. The big culprits are high interest rates and California’s subsidy cuts. But there are some bright spots. Battery attachment rates in California have surged.

So what will it take to revive the U.S. rooftop solar market?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Jigar Shah, director of the Loans Programs Office at the U.S. Department of Energy. Jigar argues that the rooftop solar industry should reinvent itself, relying on batteries and virtual power plants (VPPs). He also argues that regulations should focus on system-level dispatchability.

Shayle and Jigar cover topics like:

The pros and cons of California’s latest regulations, new energy metering or NEM 3.0
Learning from the mistakes of California’s Self-Generation Incentive Program (S-GIP)
The role of VPPs and rooftop solar in meeting accelerating load growth
Incentivizing system-level dispatchability
How VPPs complicate the sales pitch for rooftop solar
How VPPs could help utilities increase the utilization of infrastructure
How to make VPPs more reliable

Recommended Resources:

U.S. Department of Energy: Virtual Power Plants Commercial Liftoff

Latitude Media: Defining the rules of DER aggregation

Latitude Media: Unpacking the software layer of VPP deployment

CalMatters: What’s happened since California cut home solar payments? Demand has plunged 80%

The Wall Street Journal: The Home-Solar Boom Gets a ‘Gut Punch’

Catalyst is supported by Origami Solar. Join Latitude Media’s Stephen Lacey and Origami’s CEO Gregg Patterson for a live Frontier Forum on May 30th at 1 pm Eastern to discuss Origami’s new research on how recycled steel can help reinvigorate the U.S. solar industry. Register for free on Latitude’s events page.

Understanding SAF buyers May 16, 2024

Show notes

Airlines are lining up to buy as much sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) as they can, despite it costing two to three times more than conventional jet fuel, according to BloombergNEF. United Airlines has secured 2.9 billion gallons of SAF over, and others like Delta, Air France-KLM, and Southwest have secured around 1 billion gallons each. And yet to meaningfully decarbonize aviation, the SAF market needs to grow thousands of times larger than it is today. BloombergNEF estimates that global production capacity will grow 10-fold by 2030, but by then supply will still only meet 5% of jet fuel demand.

So how are airlines thinking about scaling up their procurement of SAF?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Amelia DeLuca, chief sustainability officer at Delta. They cover topics like:

Who pays the green premium
Infrastructure considerations, like SAF hubs and blending
Technical pathways, like hydroprocessing, alcohol-to-jet, and power-to-liquids
The role of incentives and regulation, like ReFuelEU
Why airlines should procure SAF instead of buying carbon removal

Recommended Resources:

BloombergNEF: United Airlines Is Betting Big on a Pricey Green Aviation Fuel

The Verge: Delta Air Lines lays out its plan to leave fossil fuels behind

Canary Media: Can corn ethanol really help decarbonize US air travel?

Canary Media: How hydrogen ‘e-fuels’ can power big ships and planes

Catalyst: CO2 utilization

The news quiz episode! May 08, 2024

Show notes

This week, we have something a little different: a news quiz.

We recently took the stage with four investors at the Prelude Climate Summit — armed with a bell, a buzzer, and four different categories of questions. We tested two teams of venture investors on their knowledge of the most recent industry news.

Shayle Kann and Cassie Bowe, partners at venture firm Energy Impact Partners, are team High Voltage.

Dr. Carley Anderson, principal at venture firm Prelude Ventures, and Matt Eggers, Prelude’s manager director, are team Shayle Gassed. (Prelude led fundraising for Latitude Media.)

Stephen Lacey, executive editor of this show and host of The Carbon Copy, quizzes the teams on the latest in climate tech news.

Which team will come out on top?

CO2 utilization May 02, 2024

Show notes

The IPCC says that we likely need to capture hundreds of gigatons of CO2 if we want to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. So what are we going to do with all that carbon?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct. Julio says we will store the vast majority of that CO2. But the markets for using CO2 in things like concrete, fizzy water, and chemicals will play an important role in developing the carbon management economy. Shayle and Julio cover topics like:

The roughly 50 carbon capture facilities operating today and how much carbon they capture
Why we should recycle carbon at all when we could just store it
Current uses for CO2, like fizzy water, enhanced oil recovery, and concrete
Emerging chemical uses, like jet fuel, ethanol, urea, and methanol
Substituting glass and metal with products that use recycled carbon, like polycarbonate and carbon fiber
The “over the horizon” stuff, like making space elevators from graphene
Solving the challenge of local opposition to carbon infrastructure
Who will pay the green premium for products made with recycled carbon

Recommended Resources:

Center on Global Energy Policy: Opportunities and Limits of CO2 Recycling in a Circular Carbon Economy: Techno-economics, Critical Infrastructure Needs, and Policy Priorities

Canary Media: US Steel plant in Indiana to host a $150M carbon capture experiment

NBC: Biden admin seeks to jumpstart carbon recycling with $100 million in grants

Are growing concerns over AI’s power demand justified? Join us for our upcoming Transition-AI event featuring three experts with a range of views on how to address the energy needs of hyperscale computing, driven by artificial intelligence. Don’t miss this live, virtual event on May 8.

Building a supply chain for rare earth elements Apr 25, 2024

Show notes

Rare earth elements (REEs) are essential ingredients in electric vehicles, wind turbines, and many electronics. As with most critical minerals, China controls the vast majority of the REE supply chain. And so when it banned the export of REE processing technology last December, it raised concerns about supply.

So what will it take to secure the supply of REEs?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Ahmad Ghahreman, CEO and cofounder of Cyclic Materials, a rare earth elements recycling company. (Energy Impact Partners, where Shayle is a partner, invests in Cyclic.) They cover topics like:

The five high-value REEs used in the permanent magnets inside EVs, wind turbines, and other electronics
The many steps in the supply chain, from extraction to end-of-life
Building magnets without REEs
Increasing production outside of China
The role of recycling
Why Ahmad is optimistic about developing a supply chain in North America

Recommended Resources:

MIT Technology Review: The race to produce rare earth elements

IEEE Spectrum: Who Will Free EV Motors from the Rare Earth Monopoly?

How an obscure, 100-year old law is disrupting U.S. energy Apr 18, 2024

Show notes

A little-known U.S. law called the Jones Act shapes climate tech in weird ways — like hindering offshore wind deployment and pushing up energy prices.

The law, part of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, requires all cargo shipped between U.S. ports to be carried by ships that meet strict standards. Those ships must be built in American shipyards, owned by an American company, registered in the U.S., and crewed by a majority American crew. As a result, building cargo ships in the U.S., and operating them between U.S. ports, is way more expensive than building and operating ships in other countries — and relatively few U.S. ships get built.

So what are the impacts on climate tech?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Colin Grabow, research fellow at the Cato Institute's Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies. They cover topics like:

How the Jones Act increases the money and time required to deploy offshore wind turbines
Why it costs less to ship U.S. oil and gas abroad than to domestic markets
How it pushes domestic shipping to rely on trucks and trains instead of ships
The history of the act and potential ways it could change

Recommended Resources:

WIRED: The US Has Big Plans for Wind Energy—but an Obscure 1920s Law Is Getting in the Way
Cato Institute: Jones Act Leaves New England Vulnerable to Wintertime Calamity
Cato Institute: Environmental Costs of the Jones Act

The Big Switch: Are Batteries the New Oil? Apr 11, 2024

Show notes

This week we’re bringing you a deep dive into battery supply chains — the season premier of The Big Switch, a show that Latitude Media makes in partnership with Columbia University’s SIPA Center on Global Energy Policy.

Across this five-episode documentary series, hosted by the acclaimed energy scholar Dr. Melissa Lott, we examine every step of the sprawling global supply chains behind lithium-ion batteries.

In this first episode, we break apart one of the battery cells that was in the original Tesla Roadster. Then we explore how critical minerals, like copper, lithium, and nickel, are becoming a major force in global geopolitics, especially involving China, which dominates battery supply chains.

The supply chain behind all those batteries could be worth nearly half a trillion dollars by 2030. Whoever controls that supply chain has enormous power — figuratively and literally.

In this episode, we explore the stakes of the battery-based transition and ask whether critical minerals will look anything like oil.

To listen to the full five-part series, including episodes on mining, manufacturing and more, subscribe to The Big Switch on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The world of battery recycling Apr 04, 2024

Show notes

The lithium-ion battery business is taking off, and the battery recycling business is close behind. Financiers are pouring over a billion dollars into recycling companies like Redwood Materials, Ascend Elements, and Li-Cycle. But success depends on a steady supply of used batteries, and with batteries lasting longer than expected — and the battery market still in its infancy — there just aren’t enough dying batteries to go around.

As a result, a significant portion of recyclers’ feedstock is coming from manufacturer scrap, i.e. the waste that companies like SK On and Panasonic don’t turn into cells at the factory. But these battery makers are incentivized to minimize waste, which raises big questions about whether recyclers will be able to get enough used batteries to sustainably feed their operations.

So which technologies and business models will succeed in this chapter of the battery industry?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Dan Steingart, chair of the earth and environmental engineering department at Columbia University. (Steingart’s lab gets funding from battery manufacturer Northvolt.) Shayle and Dan cover topics like:

The steps in nickel-manganese-cobalt battery recycling and what Dan calls “zombie lithium”
The differences between pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy
Dan’s bet on solvent extraction as an under-appreciated technology
Redwood Materials’ focus on winning the feedstock battle
Ascend Elements’ hydro-to-cathode technology
Li-Cycle’s focus on making inputs for cathode manufacturers
How these recyclers want to compete downstream by producing cathode precursor and cathode material
Why Dan is surprisingly bearish on direct recycling for lithium-iron-phosphate

Recommended Resources:

Nature Sustainability: Examining different recycling processes for lithium-ion batteries

Latitude Media: What’s so hard about building a circular battery economy?

The electricity gauntlet has arrived Mar 28, 2024

Show notes

The electricity gauntlet we covered last year has been having a moment in the national spotlight, with coverage of rising load growth in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

On one side of the gauntlet, demand for electricity is rising, driven by new loads like EVs, data centers, and electrification. On the other side, electricity supply is slow to grow, bogged down by years-long interconnection queues, the immense challenges of building transmission, and other bottlenecks. And utilities are stuck in the middle, struggling to deliver enough power to meet that rising demand.

These challenges have been brewing for years, but the AI race is supercharging demand as big tech companies seek out power for their growing data center fleet.

So what does all this mean for emissions and prices? And what tools do we have to make it through this electricity gauntlet?

In this episode, Shayle talks to his colleague Andy Lubershane, partner and head of research at Energy Impact Partners. Shayle and Andy cover topics like:

Why utilities are building new natural gas plants and keeping coal plants open to meet load growth
How technologies like nuclear, grid-enhancing technologies, geothermal, and multi-day storage could meet load growth with fewer emissions
What utilities can do to prepare new gas plants for carbon-capture and storage
What the gauntlet might do to electricity prices and which customers might be willing to pay higher premiums (data centers, cough cough)
Whether the hype around rising power demand is overblown
Plus, what medieval Swedish spearmen have to do with electricity

Recommended Resources:

Andy Lubershane: The electricity gauntlet

S&P Global: NERC raises North American power system reliability flags as demand could outstrip supply

Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you’re a startup, investor, enterprise or innovation ecosystem that’s creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.

Catalyst is brought to you by Atmos Financial. Atmos is revolutionizing finance by leveraging your deposits to exclusively fund decarbonization solutions, like solar and electrification. Join in under 2 minutes at joinatmos.com/catalyst.

Digging into the SEC climate disclosure rules Mar 21, 2024

Show notes

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved new rules this month on what information companies must disclose about their greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks, but notably dropped more stringent requirements that the commission initially proposed.

Despite being halted by lawsuits, the rules are a significant win for climate transparency. But they’re not as strong as existing climate disclosure regulations in California and the European Union, where many multinational corporations do business anyway.

So how big of a deal are the new SEC rules?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Mallory Thomas, risk advisory partner at consulting and accounting firm Baker Tilly US. The two talk about the details of the new rules and cover topics like:

The rules’ requirements for disclosing greenhouse gasses and climate risks
How the rules compare to European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and California’s twin climate disclosure laws
Which companies are required to comply and under what conditions
How standardized reporting may help with comparability across companies

Recommended resources:

Baker Tilly: SEC announces final rules for climate-related disclosures

Deloitte: A landmark ruling for ESG disclosure requirements

Reuters: US climate rule will boost sustainable accounting industry

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