ClimateTech Talks: Exploring the pathways to net zero

David Contreras

Hosted by David Contreras and Daniel Arraiz, ClimateTech Talks: exploring the pathways to net zero is a series AND platform where we connect and deep dive in the journeys of #Founders, #CEOs, #VCs, #Angels and Industry leaders that are paving the way towards a #net-zero economy and the decarbonisation of our society. Our guests will share the latest in #ClimateTech #CleanTech #Renewables, on the recent advances on policy and green financial instruments, and finally we will also aim to understand how the incumbent energy players are adapting their strategies for the energy transition.

  1. 11/11/2021

    17 - Anirudh Gupta - Founder of the Sustainability Mafia

    Our guest this week is Anirudh, and he defines himself as an idealist, a dreamer who wants to build a better, safer, wealthier planet for all of us. Anirudh was born in South India, moved to New Delhi, lived in a boarding school at the foothills of the Himalayas, moved to the US to study economics and political science at Berkeley, moved to Spain to work with Airbus and then went back to India. It was when he returned to India that, led by curiosity, he tried to adopt sustainable practices like zero waste, water efficiency and solar systems at home. He managed to install solar panels at his place and he realized the power of sustainable solutions. Anirudh transformed his house into an off-grid solar powered place and that triggered a domino effect among his neighbors. Anirudh’s own sustainable curiosity allowed him to build a database of sustainable solutions providers across India. “A map of sustainable solutions across India” Our Substack - Explorationists: https://explorationists.substack.com/ Art by: Maria Alexandra Monteverde / Instagram: @mariale.ilustra.asi Editing, mixing and mastering by: Julio Cesar Fernandez. Disclaimer: This podcast was prepared by myself in my personal capacity and the views and opinions expressed in the podcast are my own. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of TGS and TGS does not guarantee the accuracy or reliability of the information provided herein.

    46 min
  2. 09/02/2021

    15 - Katerina Garyfalou - Commercial and business development director at Clean Planet Energy - Mastering Oil and Gas transferable skills to land clean jobs with impact

    Our guest this week is going to tell us a lot about what her company, Clean Planet Energy is doing, but perhaps most importantly, she will share insights on her career pivot from the O&G industry into a role that has given her the opportunity to align her values of protecting the environment and maximizing impact. Katerina Garyfalou, is the commercial and business development director at Clean Planet Energy. We are very excited about this conversation because, for full disclosure, Katerina’s own energy transition from O&G to a clean energy role is quite an inspiration for the program we are building with our partners at Terra.do. We want to help fellow upstream O&G workers to trace their own road map to pivot their careers to clean energy jobs. And to do so, we can’t stress enough the importance of roles models like Katerina. We are delighted that she has kindly agreed to be one of our guest lecturers in the program and as you will read next, we can all learn a lot from her journey Katerina's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-katerina-garyfalou-mba-42893612/ David's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidcontrerasdiaz/ Our Substack - Explorationists: https://explorationists.substack.com/ Art by: Maria Alexandra Monteverde / Instagram: @mariale.ilustra.asi Editing, mixing and mastering by: Julio Cesar Fernandez. Disclaimer: This podcast was prepared by myself in my personal capacity and the views and opinions expressed in the podcast are my own. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of TGS and TGS does not guarantee the accuracy or reliability of the information provided herein.

    37 min
  3. 08/04/2021

    14 - Eric Chaves - Founder of Terrament - Bringing Gravity to the Storage Game

    Although people often think of energy storage as a battery that uses a chemical reaction to release energy in the form of electricity. Chemical storage is just one class of a bigger spectrum. There are many other ways to store energy for later use, fossil fuel is a form of long term energy storage, hydroelectric dams and pumped-hydro are also forms of storing potential energy in water reservoirs and releasing it by dropping it and passing it through turbines. Over the last decade, chemical energy storage has had great improvements in efficiency and capacity, lithium-ion batteries are currently in the spotlight of energy storage technology, accounting for 80% of energy storage VC funding, but the energy storage landscape is bigger than the teslas and the NIOs. Chemical batteries are a form of short-term storage and so far they are applicable at the household level. We need a form of longer term and larger scale energy storage that can leverage the surplus of renewable energy created at peak times. There are a lot of startups working in the energy storage space, this map from our friends at Contrarian Ventures shows a comprehensive market map of it. The spectrum in gravity energy storage is small. Some notable examples are: Energy Vault that is storing energy by using an automated group of cranes that lift and drop heavy blocks; Gravitricity is building a system with cables that lift weights from mine shafts and; New Energy Let’s Go, who acquired the patent of Heindl Energy GmbH (recently bankrupted) that uses hydraulic power to lift masses of rock. However a new crop of players is coming to the scene. Terrament is a startup that is tweaking existing technologies to develop an innovative approach using potential energy stored at height, taking advantage of gravity, wind turbines and mining tech. We had the pleasure to interview Eric Chaves, Terrament’s CEO in our ClimateTech Talks podcast to discuss his upcoming techno-commercial plans, and the future of energy storage. Enjoy the conversation. Terrament website: https://www.terramenthq.com/ Eric's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erchaves/ Daniel's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielarraiz/ Our Substack - Explorationists: https://explorationists.substack.com/ Art by: Maria Alexandra Monteverde / Instagram: @mariale.ilustra.asi Editing, mixing and mastering by: Julio Cesar Fernandez Disclaimer: This podcast was prepared by myself in my personal capacity and the views and opinions expressed in the podcast are my own. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of TGS and TGS does not guarantee the accuracy or reliability of the information provided herein.

    24 min
  4. 07/19/2021

    13 - Rokas Peciulaitis - Managing Partner at Contrarian Ventures - Power of Giving, Community and Venture Firm Building

    Welcome back! Today we have a very special guest, Rokas Peciulaitis, managing partner at Contrarian Ventures, an innovative venture capital firm set up to disrupt the energy landscape. We explored the inspiration, the meandering pathways, the role models that Rokas has followed to start the firm with a core climate focused component before it became hype. We explored questions like: How and why he created the energy Tech Summit or the Climate 50 VC benchmark ? It was a fascinating discussion on innovation, on excelling at being a David surrounded by Goliaths coming from the VC world and represented by the multiple incumbents in the energy space. At the end, we geeked out on hydrogen, the expected decline in production technology costs and it will open up multiple industrial applications; i.e. cement, steel manufacturing, among others. Enjoy! Contrarian Ventures website Rokas' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpeciulaitis/ David's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidcontrerasdiaz/ Our Substack - Explorationists: https://explorationists.substack.com/ Art by: Maria Alexandra Monteverde / Instagram: @mariale.ilustra.asi Editing, mixing and mastering by: Daniel Arráiz. Disclaimer: This podcast was prepared by myself in my personal capacity and the views and opinions expressed in the podcast are my own. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of TGS and TGS does not guarantee the accuracy or reliability of the information provided herein.

    48 min

About

Hosted by David Contreras and Daniel Arraiz, ClimateTech Talks: exploring the pathways to net zero is a series AND platform where we connect and deep dive in the journeys of #Founders, #CEOs, #VCs, #Angels and Industry leaders that are paving the way towards a #net-zero economy and the decarbonisation of our society. Our guests will share the latest in #ClimateTech #CleanTech #Renewables, on the recent advances on policy and green financial instruments, and finally we will also aim to understand how the incumbent energy players are adapting their strategies for the energy transition.