Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change

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Extreme Electrochemistry for a Sustainable Future - Ep155: Prof Donald Sadoway Feb 21, 2024

Show notes

Michael returns to talk with legendary educator and inventor, Donald Sadoway, Professor Emeritus of Materials Chemistry at MIT. After earning his PhD in chemical metallurgy in 1977 at the University of Toronto, he joined the faculty at MIT where he spent 44 years. For 16 of those, he taught 3.091 (Introduction to Solid-State Chemistry)—and his animated lectures, peppered with references to music, art, and literature—doubtless contributed to the subject’s popularity. Among the many accolades bestowed on Professor Sadoway in his 44 years as a teacher and researcher at MIT was a compliment by Bill Gates: “best chemistry lessons anywhere. Unbelievable.” In 2012, for the invention of the liquid metal battery, he was named by Time magazine one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World.” He has founded several hard tech startups, including Ambri, Avanti Battery Company, Pure Lithium and Boston Metal.

Links

Review Donald's 2012 TED talk, "The Missing Link to Renewable Energy" here: https://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sadoway_the_missing_link_to_renewable_energy?language=en

Explore Avanti Battery Company's tech here: https://avanti.energy

Explore Ambri's tech here: https://ambri.com

Explore Pure Lithium's tech here: https://www.purelithium.io

Explore Boston Metal's tech here: https://www.bostonmetal.com

Explore Sadoway Labs' research here: https://sadowaylabs.org

Take Prof Sadoway's course, 3.091 - Introduction to Solid State Chemistry - here: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/3-091sc-introduction-to-solid-state-chemistry-fall-2010/

Related Episodes

Metals Refining - From Mining to Brining - Ep142: Alex Grant: https://www.cleaningup.live/metals-refining-from-mining-to-brining-ep-142-alex-grant/

Iron-Air Man - Ep144: Mateo Jaramillo: https://www.cleaningup.live/iron-air-man-ep144-mateo-jaramillo/

Green Heat (And Cooling) Under Our Feet - Ep154: Tamsin Lishman Feb 14, 2024

Show notes

Tamsin Lishman joins Bryony this week to talk heat pumps. Tamsin is CEO of Kensa Group, a Cornwall-based manufacturer and installer of ground source heat pumps. Kensa is the UK's only manufacturer of ground source heat pumps. Both air source and ground source heat pumps are rapidly growing technologies, and Tamsin believes that Kensa's heat pumps can - and will - be deployed to electrify domestic heating in the UK. On a recent episode of Cleaning Up, Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the IEA, argued that heat pumps are "the closest thing to a silver bullet" we have in the race to net-zero. In over two decades, Kensa has saved over 1 million tonnes of carbon through ground source heat pump installations. The Kensa Group is partly owned by Legal & General Capital, part of Legal & General PLC, and Octopus Energy.

Tamsin was appointed CEO of Kensa Group in July 2023. Previously, she had stints at EnergyNest and Centrica. She holds a Master of Engineering from Oxford University.

Links

See Kensa's website here: https://www.thekensagroup.com

Read the IEA's report on the future of heat pumps: https://www.iea.org/reports/the-future-of-heat-pumps (For UK viewers)

Check out the UK government's tool to see if a heat pump could be suitable for your home: https://www.gov.uk/check-heat-pump

Read this Guardian piece on heat pump installations in the UK: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/08/greener-cheaper-much-warmer-heat-pump-owners-laud-their-new-system

Read about Kensa's recent fundraise of £70m from Octopus and Legal&General, with the help of EcoPragma Capital, here: https://www.kensaheatpumps.com/news-blog/pump-it-up-octopus-energy-and-legal-general-make-britains-biggest-investment-in-ground-source-heat-pumps/

Shedding Light on Energy's Dirty Secrets - Ep153: Lauri Myllyvirta Feb 07, 2024

Show notes

Michael sits down this week with Lauri Myllyvirta, co-founder and lead analyst at CREA - the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. After working as a campaigner and then as an analyst at Greenpeace, Lauri helped set up CREA, an NGO that produces research reports on the trends, causes, health impacts, and solutions to air pollution. Importantly, CREA makes extensive reference to local-language evidence sources - helped by Lauri's impressive knowledge of European and Asian languages.

Lauri has degrees in economics from Helsinki University and in environmental science from University of Jyvaskyla.

Links

Read the BBC's recent articles highlighting CREA's research on the UK's Russian oil sanctions: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68018660

And read the original CREA report here: https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/evading-the-sanctions-uk-imports-oil-products-made-from-russian-crude/

Read CREA's report on the surge in coal power in China in 2023: https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/chinas-new-coal-power-spree-continues-as-more-provinces-jump-on-the-bandwagon/

Read CREA's report on the health impacts of delaying coal decommissioning in South Africa: https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/health-impacts-of-delaying-coal-power-plant-decommissioning-in-south-africa/

Read CREA's report on the recent spree of coal plant permitting in India: https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/india-enters-an-unnecessary-coal-plant-permitting-spree-in-2023/

Read CREA's report on the state of Indonesia's transition: https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/emerging-captive-coal-power-in-indonesia/

Explore all of CREA's reports here: https://energyandcleanair.org/publications/

Can We Have a Habitable Planet? - Ep152: David Wallace-Wells Jan 31, 2024

Show notes

This week, Bryony is back, this time to talk to David Wallace-Wells. David is an American journalist and author who often writes about climate change. His 2017 article "The Uninhabitable Earth" for New York Magazine was the publication's most-read article in history. David then turned the article into a book of the same name, which was chosen as Book of the Year, 2019, by The Sunday Times, The Spectator and New Statesman.

He has a BA in History from Brown University.

Links

Read David's original 2017 article here: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html

Read the 2020 Nature Article on RCP 8.5 here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00177-3

Read Jim Hansen's recent paper on climate sensitivity: https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889

View Bryony's favourite Sankey diagram showing US energy inputs and outputs: https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/

Redesigning Mining - Ep151: Mark Cutifani Jan 24, 2024

Show notes

This week, Michael's guest is Mark Cutifani, chairman of Vale Base Metals and formerly CEO of South African gold mining company, Ashanti, and British mining company, Anglo American.

He was born and grew up in Wollongong, Australia. After leaving high school in 1976, he joined Coal Cliff colliery and enrolled in the University of Wollongong to complete a degree in Mining Engineering. He graduated in 1982, top of his class. After working for Coal Cliff, he joined Kalgoorlie Gold Mines, the Western Mining Corporation, Normandy Mining and Sons of Gwalia. In 2007, Cutifani left Inco Limited, where he held the position of chief operating officer. On 17 September 2007, he joined Ashanti, as a director of the company and was appointed CEO on 1 October that year. Shortly after joining Ashanti, Cutifani introduced a campaign called "Safety is our first value". Research into the 2007 fatalities at the company had shown that 70% of the fatalities were caused by sub-standard operations or actions. Cutifani aimed to reduce the number of fatalities by changing the company's culture and improving communication, citing legacy issues from the past as a main cause for the fatalities. During his tenure, the fatality rate was reduced by 50%. He was one of the critics of the new Australian Mining Super Tax, which was announced in 2010, stating that it could delay or endanger the company's Tropicana Gold Mine project.

Links

Find out more about the Development Partner Institute here: https://www.dpimining.org

Find out more about the ICMM here: https://www.icmm.com

Read more about the Anglo American - Thungela de-merger here: https://www.worldcoal.com/coal/07062021/anglo-american-completes-demerger-of-thungela-thermal-coal-business/

Watch Anglo American's review of Mark's time with the company here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXaYCJOWg-4

Related Episodes

Material World - Ep149: Ed Conway: https://www.cleaningup.live/material-world-ep149-ed-conway/

650 Leagues of HVDC Under the Sea - Ep92: Simon Morrish: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep92-simon-morrish-650-leagues-of-hvdc-under-the-sea/

Selling Sustainability - Ep150: Solitaire Townsend Jan 17, 2024

Show notes

Bryony returns in Season 11 this week, sitting down with her longtime friend Solitaire Townsend. Solitaire is Co-founder & Chief Solutionist at Futerra, and Trustee of the Solutions Union. She is a renowned sustainability expert and solutionist. From Google to the United Nations, Ikea to WWF, Solitaire works with the worlds’ most influential organisations to activate social justice and environmental restoration. Over two decades she has led the movement towards solutions, hope and optimism with numerous publications and keynotes at the UN, MIT, Ted and many more. She was named “Ethical Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2008 and more recently chair of the UK Green Energy Scheme, trustee of Ashden, a founder member of the United Nations Sustainable Lifestyles Taskforce and a London Leader for Sustainability.

She holds master’s degrees in both Sustainable Development and Shakespeare.

Links

Solitaire's recent book, The Solutionists: How Businesses Can Fix the Future: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Solutionists-How-Businesses-Can-Future/dp/139860934X

Watch Solitaire's 2021 Ted talk - Are Ad Agencies, PR Firms and Lobbyists Destroying the Climate?: https://www.ted.com/talks/solitaire_townsend_are_ad_agencies_pr_firms_and_lobbyists_destroying_the_climate?language=en

The Game Changers Movie on Meat and Nutrition: https://gamechangersmovie.com

Buy Lovebug cat food here: https://www.lovebugpetfood.com

Related Episodes

Lifting the Curtain on Climate Change Denial - Ep 141: Prof Naomi Oreskes: https://www.cleaningup.live/lifting-the-curtain-on-climate-change-denial-ep-141-prof-naomi-oreskes/

Material World - Ep149: Ed Conway Jan 10, 2024

Show notes

Kicking-off 2024 and Season 11 is Ed Conway. Ed is the Economics editor at Sky News, covering major UK and international economics, business and political stories. He is also economics columnist for The Times, and has been one of the longest-running economics editors in UK journalism, having started covering the sector in 2003. He is the author of the book on Bretton Woods, The Summit: The Biggest Battle Of The Second World War – Fought Behind Closed Doors (Little, Brown, 2014) and an economics guidebook, 50 Economics Ideas You Really Need to Know (Quercus, 2009). Ed is a governor of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, and has lectured on the international monetary system at the London School of Economics, the US Treasury and many other forums.

His new book, Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future, explores the history, future and importance of six crucial substances: sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium.

Links

Check out Material World here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Material-World-Substantial-Story-Future/dp/0753559153

Check out Oliver Rackham's The History of the Countryside here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Countryside-Dr-Oliver-Rackham/dp/1842124404

Read Hans Eric Meilin's research on the real rates of lithium recycling: https://www.energimyndigheten.se/globalassets/forskning--innovation/overgripande/state-of-the-art-in-reuse-and-recycling-of-lithium-ion-batteries-2019.pdf

Related Episodes

Episode 16 - Dr Kandeh K. Yumkella: "Sustainable Energy for All": https://www.cleaningup.live/episode-16-kandeh-yumkella/

Episode 92 - Simon Morrish: "650 Leagues of HVDC Under the Sea": https://www.cleaningup.live/ep92-simon-morrish-650-leagues-of-hvdc-under-the-sea/

Episode 142 - Alex Grant: "Metals Refining - From Mining to Brining": https://www.cleaningup.live/metals-refining-from-mining-to-brining-ep-142-alex-grant/

The Second Coming of the Lord Turner - Ep148: Lord Adair Turner Dec 20, 2023

Show notes

For a second consecutive year-closer, Michael welcomes Lord Adair Turner of Ecchinswell back to Cleaning Up. Lord Turner has combined careers in business, public policy and academia. He chairs the Energy Transitions Commission, a global coalition of major power and industrial companies, investors, environmental NGOs and experts working out achievable pathways to limit global warming to well below 2˚C by 2040 while stimulating economic development and social progress. He was chairman of the Institute for New Economic Thinking until January 2019, where he remains a Senior Fellow. He is Chairman of Chubb Europe and on the Advisory Board of Envision Energy, a Shanghai-based group focussed on renewable energy, batteries and digital systems.

He became a cross bench member of the House of Lords in 2006.

Amongst his business roles, Lord Turner was at McKinsey&Co (1982-1995); was Vice-Chairman of Merrill Lynch Europe (2000-2006) and a Non-Executive Director of a number of companies, including Standard Chartered plc (2006-2008). He is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Financial Studies (Frankfurt) and a Visiting Fellow at the People’s Bank of China School of Finance, Tsinghua University (Beijing). He writes regularly for Project Syndicate, and has published “Between Debt and the Devil” (Princeton 2015), and Economics after the Crisis (MIT 2012).

He is a Trustee Emeritus of the British Museum, honorary fellow of The Royal Society, and received an Honorary Degree from Cambridge University in 2017.

Links

Michael’s BNEF piece - Clean Hydrogen’s Missing Trillions: https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-clean-hydrogens-missing-trillions/#:~:text=My%20estimate%20for%20the%20total,a%20shortfall%20of%20over%2090%25

Michael’s X thread on battery recycling: https://twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/1733376573875609629

An overview of the COP28 Global Stocktake: https://unfccc.int/news/cop28-agreement-signals-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-fossil-fuel-era

The Guardian’s piece on Aramco’s Oil Demand Sustainability Program: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/27/revealed-saudi-arabia-plan-poor-countries-oil

Related Episodes

Lord of the Net Zero Transition – Ep 110: Lord Adair Turner: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep110-adair-turner-lord-of-the-net-zero-transition/

Investing in Climate Leadership – Ep 2: Rachel Kyte: https://www.cleaningup.live/episode-2-rachel-kyte/

Lifting the Curtain on Climate Change Denial – Ep 141: Prof Naomi Oreske: https://www.cleaningup.live/lifting-the-curtain-on-climate-change-denial-ep-141-prof-naomi-oreskes/

Is Shipping the Easiest "Hard-to-Abate" Sector? - Ep143: Johannah Christensen: https://www.cleaningup.live/is-shipping-the-easiest-hard-to-abate-sector-ep143-johannah-christensen/

The Bridgetown Initiator – Ep 145: Prof Avinash Persaud: https://www.cleaningup.live/the-bridgetown-initiator-ep145-prof-avinash-persaud/

Not the End of the World - Ep147: Dr Hannah Ritchie Dec 13, 2023

Show notes

Dr Hannah Ritchie is a data scientist and science communicator. Her focus is on the largest problems that shape our world, and how to solve them. Most of her work focuses on environmental sustainability, including climate change, energy, food and agriculture, biodiversity, air pollution and deforestation. She is Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher at Our World in Data, where, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she built the Our World in Data COVID-19 information dashboard. She is also a researcher at the Oxford Martin Programme in Global Development.

Her new book, Not the End of the World, is out in January 2024.

Links

Hannah’s TED talk – “Are We the Last Generation — or the First Sustainable One?”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl3VVrggKz4

Hannah’s WIRED piece – “Stop Telling Kids They’ll Die From Climate Change”: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/climate-crisis-doom

Rupert Read - How I talk with children about climate breakdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Lt0jCDtYSY

Roger Hallam - Advice to Young People as they face Annihilation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au33QX9I-Mg

Roger Hallam at the Oxford Union: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQgBMSefgkM

Hannah’s new book – Not the End of the World: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453652/not-the-end-of-the-world-by-ritchie-hannah/9781784745004

Related Episodes

"The Inconvenient Truth about Climate Science" - Ep93 with Roger Pielke : https://www.cleaningup.live/ep93-prof-roger-pielke-jr-the-inconvenient-truth-about-climate-science/

“Pushing Planetary Boundaries” – Ep49 with Johan Rockström: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep49-johan-rockstrom-pushing-planetary-boundaries/

“Poet of the Low-Carbon Transition” – Ep13 with Morgan Bazilian: https://www.cleaningup.live/episode-13-morgan-bazilian/

"Lord of the Net Zero Transition" – Ep110 with Adair Turner: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep110-adair-turner-lord-of-the-net-zero-transition/

“From Moore's Law to Moo's Law” – Ep136 Jim Mellon: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep136-jim-mellon-from-moores-law-to-moos-law/

Tackling Super Pollutants - Ep146: Jason Anderson Dec 06, 2023

Show notes

This week, Bryony speaks with Jason Anderson, Senior Program Director at ClimateWorks, who oversees the Governance & Diplomacy and Super Pollutant programs. His work spans efforts ranging from implementing the Paris Agreement to cleaning up dirty shipping and preventing methane leakage.

Jason has over 25 years of experience in climate and clean energy, beginning in the solar energy conversion office at the U.S. Department of Energy, which led him to promote photovoltaics for rural electrification in Central America. Jason then worked in a range of climate organizations in Brussels for 15 years, ranging from Climate Action Network Europe to the Institute for European Environmental Policy to the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF). Jason was a lead author of the IPCC special reports on ozone and climate interactions, and on carbon capture and storage; in 2007 Jason was acknowledged for his contribution to the IPCC’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Jason holds a Masters in Public Policy degree and a Masters in Science in energy and resources from the University of California Berkeley, and a degree in biological anthropology from Harvard University.

Links

Climateworks Governance & Diplomacy Program which Jason oversees: https://www.climateworks.org/programs/governance-diplomacy/

COP 28 Website: https://www.cop28.com/en/

Read a summary of the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer: https://www.unep.org/ozonaction/who-we-are/about-montreal-protocol

Read the US EPA’s summary of 2016 Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol: https://www.epa.gov/ozone-layer-protection/recent-international-developments-under-montreal-protocol

Explore the Climate and Clean Air Coalition’s work on short-lived climate pollutants: https://www.ccacoalition.org/content/short-lived-climate-pollutants

Read about the Environmental Defense Fund’s new MethaneSAT: https://business.edf.org/insights/methane-satellites-usher-in-new-era-of-emissions-visibility-and-transparency/

Explore the Global Methane Pledge: https://www.globalmethanepledge.org/

Related Episodes

Episode 143: Johannah Christensen – Is Shipping the Easiest “Hard-to-Abate” Sector? - https://www.cleaningup.live/is-shipping-the-easiest-hard-to-abate-sector-ep143-johannah-christensen/

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