Catalyst with Shayle Kann Post Script Media

Landfills, dairy farms and wastewater plants all emit methane, the potent greenhouse gas produced when organic material decomposes in the absence of oxygen. 
But instead of emitting that methane (often called biomethane or waste methane), it’s possible to capture and refine it, resulting in renewable natural gas, or RNG. Capturing methane that would have been emitted anyway (something that’s still up for debate) creates RNG that’s carbon neutral or carbon negative. And using that RNG to displace fossil-fuel derived natural gas can cut overall emissions.
Big players in energy are betting big on RNG. Last fall BP acquired RNG producer Archaea for $4.1 billion, Shell bought Nature Energy for $2 billion and NextEra purchased $1.1 billion in RNG assets from Energy Power Partners.
So what’s behind this recent flurry of activity? And to what extent could RNG actually offset carbon emissions? 
In this episode, Shayle talks to Brandon Moffatt, cofounder of Stormfisher, an RNG and hydrogen producer.
They cover topics like:

RNG feedstocks like dairy farms, wastewater treatment plants, and landfills

How much waste methane is available for RNG

How different feedstocks determine RNG’s carbon intensity

Government subsidies like the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs)


Recommended Resources: 


Environmental Research Letters: At scale, renewable natural gas systems could be climate intensive: the influence of methane feedstock and leakage rates


Bloomberg: The Gas Industry’s Survival Plan: Make Fuel From Cow Poop


Vox: The false promise of “renewable natural gas”


CBC: Renewable natural gas could help slow climate change, but by how much?


Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
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 supported by EnergyHub. The company’s platform lets consumers turn their smart thermostats, EVs, batteries, water heaters, and other products into virtual power plants that keep the grid stable and enable higher penetration of solar and wind power. And they are hiring! Learn more and see open roles at energyhub.com/catalyst
Catalyst is brought to you by Sealed: The experts in home weatherization and electrification upgrades. Sealed is leading the way, with over a decade of experience being accountable to homeowners because they only get paid based on actual energy reductions. Visit Sealed.com/measuredsavings to learn more.

Nitrous oxide or N2O is the third largest source of GHG emissions behind carbon dioxide and methane. Also known as laughing gas, it’s long-lived like carbon dioxide and incredibly potent like methane. And it accounts for about 6% of global warming. 
So where does it come from? And what do we do about it?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Eric Davidson, professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, and principal scientist at Spark Climate Solutions. Eric studies the surprising source of nitrous oxide: bacteria in the soil. Eric and Shayle talk about topics like: 

How the application of nitrogen fertilizer causes more emissions than the production of fertilizer itself

The challenging economics of agriculture that cause farmers to over-apply fertilizer

How precise and timely application of fertilizer could cut emissions

New livestock feed additives that could replace the N2O-intensive crops in animal feed

New crops that require less fertilizer


Recommended Resources:


Nature Climate Change: Improving the social cost of nitrous oxide


The Conversation: New research: nitrous oxide emissions 300 times more powerful than CO₂ are jeopardizing Earth’s future


Nature: A comprehensive quantification of global nitrous oxide sources and sinks


Come watch a live episode of The Carbon Copy! Canary Media and Post Script Media are hosting a live event at Greentown Labs in Somerville, Mass. on April 6. We’ll record a live episode of The Carbon Copy with some very special guests. Get your tickets today.
Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
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 supported by EnergyHub. The company’s platform lets consumers turn their smart thermostats, EVs, batteries, water heaters, and other products into virtual power plants that keep the grid stable and enable higher penetration of solar and wind power. And they are hiring! Learn more and see open roles at energyhub.com/catalyst
Catalyst is brought to you by Sealed: The experts in home weatherization and electrification upgrades. Sealed is leading the way, with over a decade of experience being accountable to homeowners because they only get paid based on actual energy reductions. Visit Sealed.com/measuredsavings to learn more.

Come watch a live episode of The Carbon Copy! Canary Media and Post Script Media are hosting a live event at Greentown Labs in Somerville, Ma. on April 6. record a live episode of The Carbon Copy with some very special guests. Get your tickets today.
We’re bringing you a special crossover episode this week from Catalyst’s sister podcast, The Carbon Copy. I host the show and we did an episode recently about this urgent climate tech problem: America’s shortage of electricians. 
To decarbonize the economy, we need to electrify everything. That means installing millions of heat pumps, EV chargers, electric water heaters and rooftop solar panels. 
But there’s one big problem: finding enough electricians to make it happen. Electricians across the country are flooded with work — and just as demand is skyrocketing, many in the field are nearing retirement age. 
This week, in a special collaboration with Grist, reporter Emily Pontecorvo discusses where to find all the electricians we need to electrify everything and how we can train enough new entrants to the field to meet our climate goals. Read Emily’s feature article.
Transcript available here.

Recommended Resources:


Canary: We need a lot more electricians if we’re going to electrify everything


Canary: How to get contractors on board with heat pumps and electrification


Canary: US climate law to spur thousands of new jobs in every state


Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
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 supported by EnergyHub. The company’s platform lets consumers turn their smart thermostats, EVs, batteries, water heaters, and other products into virtual power plants that keep the grid stable and enable higher penetration of solar and wind power. And they are hiring! Learn more and see open roles at energyhub.com/catalyst
Catalyst is brought to you by Sealed: The experts in home weatherization and electrification upgrades. Sealed is leading the way, with over a decade of experience being accountable to homeowners because they only get paid based on actual energy reductions. Visit Sealed.com/measuredsavings to learn more.

Last year’s surge in oil prices brought record windfall profits for oil majors, and a boon for investors. But historic trends don’t favor fossil fuels.
From 2010 to 2020, the oil & gas sector underperformed the broader S&P 500 index. The sector gained 6% over that period, while the benchmark S&P index grew 180%. Some called it a "lost decade" for fossil fuel investors.
“If anything, oil's been a drag,” says Zach Stein, the co-founder and CEO of Carbon Collective, a company building climate-focused portfolios for investors and employer 401(k) plans.
The recent surge for the oil and gas sector shows how fundamental fossil fuels are for today's economy. But looking forward, oil is facing the most significant competition it has ever seen, thanks to electrification and clean energy. 
That view of the long-term threat to fossil fuels drove Zach to co-found Carbon Collective – with a mission to build funds around industries that will deliver strong returns in a climate-constrained world.
In this episode, produced with Carbon Collective, Zach Stein talks with Stephen Lacey about trends in sustainable investing – how to define the category, identify good investments, and separate it from the confusing world of ESG.
If you want to invest sustainably – at work or individually – you can learn more at carboncollective.co. There, you can see how the portfolios are built and read more about the company's theory of change.

Come watch a live episode of The Carbon Copy! Canary Media and Post Script Media are hosting a live event at Greentown Labs in Somerville, Massachusetts on April 6 with some very special guests. Get your tickets today.
We had so much to cover in Nat Bullard’s monster climate trends deck that we’re back for another episode. Haven’t heard the first part yet? Listen here. 
Nat was the chief content officer at BloombergNEF until last year. He is now a senior contributor at BNEF and Bloomberg Green as well as a venture partner at Voyager Ventures. 
Shayle and Nat dig into topics like:

EVs. From 2017 to 2022, internal combustion engine car sales globally declined by nearly a third. Yet EV sales are on the rise. Will growth in EVs stave off the decline of passenger vehicle sales?

Onshoring of supply chains. Companies have announced plans to bring manufacturing facilities to the U.S. or nearby countries. In the EV value chain alone, there were $70 billion worth of announcements in 2022. Will this onshoring trend have lasting power? 

The three ages of decarbonization. First came renewable energy, then the energy transition, and starting in 2019, the net zero age. It builds on everything we did before, but now with a focus on molecules, calories, industry, and pressure on the boardroom.

Plus: What we can do with old coal sites and the types of projects that tend to have cost overruns.


For a full transcript, click here

Recommended resources:

Nathaniel Bullard: Decarbonization: The long view, trends and transience, net zero

Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
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 supported by EnergyHub. The company’s platform lets consumers turn their smart thermostats, EVs, batteries, water heaters, and other products into virtual power plants that keep the grid stable and enable higher penetration of solar and wind power. And they are hiring! Learn more and see open roles at energyhub.com/catalyst
Catalyst is brought to you by Sealed: The experts in home weatherization and electrification upgrades. Sealed is leading the way, with over a decade of experience being accountable to homeowners because they only get paid based on actual energy reductions. Visit Sealed.com/measuredsavings to learn more.

It’s the first year of what we hope is an annual event: Nat Bullard has released his first climate trends report. He was the chief content officer at BloombergNEF until last year, and now is a senior contributor at BNEF and Bloomberg Green. He’s also a venture partner at Voyager Ventures. 

There’s so much in this 141-slide deck that we’ve split the conversation into two episodes. In this first part, Shayle and Nat dig into topics like:


Land use. For example: we grow 40% of the U.S. corn to offset 10% of U.S. motor gas demand. Also, despite a growing world population, land used for agriculture globally has been shrinking. What do these trends mean for alternative proteins and sustainable aviation fuels?

ESG. In 2022, there were more anti-ESG than pro-ESG regulatory developments. And while ESG fund flows were positive last year, they’re still only a fraction of their peak in 2021. Where is ESG investment heading and should we even be putting environmental, social and governance criteria in the same bucket? 

Batteries. Battery costs rose in 2022, but battery system costs rose faster. And yet there’s still rising demand for utility-scale batteries. Meanwhile, the top ten battery manufacturers of 2022 were in Asia. What do these trends mean for the battery market and manufacturing supply chains?


For a full transcript, click here

Recommended resources:



Nathaniel Bullard: Decarbonization: The long view, trends and transience, net zero


Catalyst: Climatetech’s surprising bottleneck: Land access

Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.

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 supported by EnergyHub. The company’s platform lets consumers turn their smart thermostats, EVs, batteries, water heaters, and other products into virtual power plants that keep the grid stable and enable higher penetration of solar and wind power. And they are hiring! Learn more and see open roles at energyhub.com/catalyst

Catalyst is brought to you by Sealed: The experts in home weatherization and electrification upgrades. Sealed is leading the way, with over a decade of experience being accountable to homeowners because they only get paid based on actual energy reductions. Visit Sealed.com/measuredsavings to learn more.