The Green Blueprint

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A macro view on the state of climate tech Jun 03, 2024

Show notes

We need to invest many trillions of dollars every year to build a climate-positive economy. We know what those technologies are – but they're all at very different levels of readiness.

So what would it take to scale critical climate technologies? That was the simple-but-complicated question recently posed by a group of energy, industry, and high-tech experts at McKinsey.

The research offers a clear account of the state of a dozen types of climate technologies, which could collectively slash emissions by 90%. We sat down with co-authors Anna Orthofer and Mark Patel to walk through the adoption pathways for everything from renewables to hydrogen to lab-grown meat.

What's ready to scale, and what's behind schedule?

Utility rates could make or break the energy transition – so how do we do it right? On June 13th, Latitude Media and GridX are hosting a Frontier Forum to examine the imperative of good rate design, and the consequences of getting it wrong. Register here.

And make sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Energy is now the ‘primary bottleneck’ for AI May 21, 2024

Show notes

Data centers are an impressive energy success story. Over the last 25 years, internet traffic has climbed more than 500x while data center electricity use has remained flat.

The servers and energy infrastructure have gotten wildly more efficient, and the biggest tech companies have focused on powering those warehouse-scale computers with renewables.

But a lot of people are suddenly alarmed about data centers again, as energy demand for AI surges.

Data centers are getting built so fast, many utilities are pushing for lots of new fossil gas plants to serve them. And while tech companies have made strong progress on building renewables to match data centers, grid constraints are making it harder. We have a very small window to fully decarbonize the grid – this may make it harder to squeeze through it.

So, are growing concerns over AI’s power demand justified? How are they contributing to America’s growing hunger for electricity? And what technologies and grid management techniques can address it?

This week, we’ve assembled a group of experts to answer those questions: Brian Janous, co-founder of Cloverleaf Infrastructure; Michelle Solomon, senior policy analyst at Energy Innovation; and John Belizaire, CEO of data center developer Soluna.

This conversation was part of Latitude Media’s Transition-AI series. Watch the full event here.

Tesla’s extremely hardcore pivot May 15, 2024

Show notes

The origin of Tesla was rooted in two goals: electrify transportation to drive down emissions that are warming the planet; and do it by driving down the cost of EVs to make them accessible to the masses.

Is Musk now walking away from both?

“He's decided I'm not a car company. I’m an AI and robotics company. It's astonishing what's happening with Tesla,” said Steve LeVine, editor of The Electric, a publication on batteries and EVs from The Information.

Tesla has always been a tumultuous company. But the last few months have been particularly chaotic – and possibly more transformative than any other moment in its history.

This week, we talk with LeVine about the whirlwind inside Tesla. We'll hear about a series of decisions by Musk that threw the car teams into turmoil, and could radically change the course of the company.

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." Shayle is also host of Latitude’s climate tech deep-dive podcast Catalyst.

Dr. Carley Anderson, principal at venture firm Prelude Ventures, and Matt Eggers, Prelude’s manager director, are team "Shayle Gassed."

Which team will come out on top?

Political Climate: Is the IRA under political threat? Apr 26, 2024

Show notes

This week, we have a drop-in episode from our new podcast at Latitude Media: Political Climate.

Since the Inflation Reduction Act became law in August 2022, we’ve asked ourselves a big question: could the government and the private sector actually get this sprawling set of climate programs up and running?

So far, many would answer “yes.” The IRA has already created over 170,000 jobs and supported $110 billion in new clean energy manufacturing – with a majority of that investment headed to conservative-leaning states.

Now, as we head toward November’s presidential election, many Americans are wondering whether a second Trump Administration could unravel much of the work that’s been done.

In the first episode of the new season of Political Climate, hosts Julia Pyper, Brandon Hurlbut and Emily Domenech take stock of the IRA: they discuss how it’s been received politically, the roadblocks facing implementation, and look toward the different scenarios that could unfold after the election.

The show wraps up with our brand-new segment, “The Mark-up.”

Subscribe to Latitude Media’s newsletter to get weekly updates on tech, markets, policy, and deals across clean energy and climate tech.

An influx of EVs. Surging peaks. Can AI help? Apr 17, 2024

Show notes

AI is suddenly in use everywhere – and it’s headed for the power sector.

New research from Latitude Intelligence and Indigo Advisory Group shows a coming wave of AI integration, inside and outside of utilities.

Distributed energy companies are increasingly integrating AI into their products, and many power companies are building teams to take advantage of automation for operational efficiency and grid monitoring.

But adoption will be uneven – and an autonomous superbrain for the electric grid may never fully materialize.

In this episode, we’ll break down the pathways for AI on the electric grid, and test the market knowledge of a few leaders in this space.

We’re joined by David Groarke, who led the research for Latitude Intelligence on AI adoption; Sadia Raveendran, VP of industry solutions at Uplight; and Apoorv Bhargava, CEO and co-founder of WeaveGrid.

We’ll look at the influx of EVs, the rise of virtual power plants, and the growth in peak demand and ask: where is artificial intelligence and machine learning helping?

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.

The rise of heat batteries Apr 09, 2024

Show notes

John O’Donnell co-founded and ran two solar thermal companies. He watched as the technology shifted from being the most promising utility-scale solar technology, to getting out-competed by photovoltaics everywhere.

But he stayed passionate about heat. Today, he’s CEO of Rondo Energy, which makes a “heat battery” for industrial applications using bricks, heating coils, and cheap, intermittent renewables.

And that cheap PV that made solar thermal so difficult is now a critical input for decarbonizing factories and processing plants.

John distills his decade and a half in the solar thermal business to a simple lesson: don't be too innovative.

In this episode, we talk with John O’Donnell about the different methods for decarbonizing industrial heat, the use cases for heat batteries, and lessons learned from his days in solar thermal.

Inside Apple’s failed car program Mar 28, 2024

Show notes

Mark Gurman has been covering Apple since 2009. His reporting career is full of scoops about new products or strategic decisions from inside the company.

His latest scoop in February: Apple is finally shutting down its efforts to build an autonomous electric car.

Apple first started exploring an electric car in 2014. At that point, cars had already become computers on wheels, Tesla was scaling mass-market production, and vehicle autonomy was the hottest thing in the tech industry.

“It made sense that Apple, which has a massive prowess in manufacturing, an incredible design ethos and a high standard for safety…would try to take a crack at that market,” said Gurman, a chief correspondent at Bloomberg.

But after a decade of internal disputes, redesigns, and leadership changes, Apple is officially moving on from cars.

“This was a clear admission of failure and admission of a need to disperse some of the resources from that program to other projects at the company,” explained Gurman.

In March, Gurman co-authored a piece detailing exactly what happened over the last 10 years of secretive work. This week, we talk with him about the vision, the technological challenges, and ask: what if Apple had just acquired Tesla from the start?

This episode is brought to you by The Big Switch. In a new 5-episode season, we’re digging into the ways batteries are made and asking: what gets mined, traded, and consumed on the road to decarbonization? Listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your shows.

The Latitude: Could government rules hinder green hydrogen? Mar 22, 2024

Show notes

The US green hydrogen industry is at a critical juncture.

After months of input and debate, the government put out draft rules for tax credits at the end of last year – setting strict requirements for matching new, local renewables to hydrogen production.

It was hailed by many as a really important step for ensuring that green hydrogen actually lives up to its name. But across the industry, the reaction has been mixed – even among those who want to make the industry as clean as possible.

Maeve Allsup, one of our reporters at Latitude Media, started asking around the industry: how are these rules impacting projects?

This week, we have a crossover episode with The Latitude, a podcast that brings you stories from our journalists and columnists reporting at the commercial edge of energy tech, markets, and deals. Editor Lisa Martine Jenkins presents two features from the pages of Latitude Media on how the US green hydrogen industry is responding to new rules and canceling some projects.

Like what you hear? For more of Latitude Media’s coverage of the frontiers of clean energy, sign up for our newsletter.

The achilles heel of AI in the power system: data Mar 14, 2024

Show notes

There are many forces that could hold back AI in the power system: computing infrastructure, power availability, regulation, and corporate inertia.

The biggest one? Good data.

Utilities and grid operators are awash in data. But getting access to it – or making sense of it – is very difficult.

For a better understanding of how to change that, we turn to someone who spends a lot of his time in the so-called data cloud: Tititaan Palazzi, the head of power and utilities at Snowflake.

“Data naturally ends up in different boxes, in different silos. And when you then want to ask questions of the data, it becomes really hard. You can't ask questions across the enterprise,” he explained.

In 2018, Palazzi co-founded Myst AI with Pieter Verhoeven, an engineer who built critical demand response applications for the Nest Thermostat. Myst was focused on AI-driven time-series forecasting for the grid.

“In the energy industry, there is a lot of time-series data coming from the grid. At the same time, using AI for forecasting is quite challenging because every time you need to create a new prediction, you need to have the latest data. And so from an engineering perspective, it was quite complicated to do,” said Palazzi.

Palazzi and Verhoeven arrived at Snowflake after Myst was acquired by the company last year.

This week, we feature a conversation with Snowflake's Titiaan Palazzi on busting data silos, some early wins for AI in the power sector, and what phase of the transition we're in.

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