My Climate Journey

Jason Jacobs, Cody Simms, Yin Lu
  • 4.9 (162)
  • BUSINESS
  • UPDATED DAILY
My Climate Journey Podcast

A growing body of knowledge about climate change and potential solutions. This series traverses disciplines, industries, and opinions with hundreds of deep-dive conversations with science, technology, and climate leaders. Hosted by Jason Jacobs, Yin Lu, and Cody Simms.

  1. Startup Series: Nuclear Micro-Reactors with Radiant

    3 DAYS AGO

    Startup Series: Nuclear Micro-Reactors with Radiant

    Doug Bernauer is the CEO and Co-founder of Radiant. Radiant is developing a portable nuclear micro-reactor to replace diesel generators. They raised a $40 million Series B in 2023 led by a16z, after previously raising capital from investors including USV, Founders Fund, and DCVC. They're targeting the development of a portable, mostly self-contained, one-megawatt nuclear reactor that is roughly the size of a shipping container. We've been focusing more on nuclear energy lately, exploring whether the US could reclaim its position as a global leader. With bipartisan support reflected in recent legislation like the ADVANCE Act signed into law by President Biden, there are signs of progress, but significant challenges remain. In this episode, Doug discusses these challenges and delves into Radiant’s technology, use cases, fuel, and more.

    38 min
  2. Startup Series: Designing the Future of Home Energy with Haven

    AUG 29

    Startup Series: Designing the Future of Home Energy with Haven

    Jeff Chapin is the Co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Haven Energy. Haven aims to make it easier for homeowners to install home battery systems, including choosing the right battery, permitting and installation, tax credits, and virtual power plant setup. Haven recently began offering bundled installation of solar and batteries. Jeff has seen scale before as he and his co-founder, Philip Krim, previously co-founded and grew the one-time darling, direct-to-consumer mattress company, Casper. Jeff has a long-time background in design at IDEO and credits this experience with training him for the context switching that's allowed him to move across very different industries, sectors, and technologies. In this episode, we talk about consumer demand for batteries, how Haven works, the wonky and esoteric net metering regulations in California where Haven is prioritizing their go-to-market, and why Haven added solar to their offering recently.

    48 min
  3. Startup Series: Battery-Electric Rail with Parallel Systems

    AUG 22

    Startup Series: Battery-Electric Rail with Parallel Systems

    Matt Soule is the CEO and Co-founder of Parallel Systems. Parallel Systems is re-imagining how goods can be transported via rail by building automated battery-electric freight rail vehicles. These vehicles resemble box cars that can drive independently and form on-the-fly connections with each other to create mini trains. According to Matt, the goal is not to upend existing rail freight use cases but to rethink what’s possible on current rail infrastructure to address use cases traditionally managed by trucking. Before founding Parallel Systems, Matt spent 13 years at SpaceX as an engineering leader in avionics. Parallel Systems has raised around $50 million from investors, including Anthos Capital and Congruent Capital. The conversation begins with a 101 primer on railways, a topic not previously covered on the show.

    47 min
  4. Startup Series: Electrifying Trucking with Flipturn

    AUG 15

    Startup Series: Electrifying Trucking with Flipturn

    Katie Siegel is CEO and Co-founder at Flipturn. Flipturn is an EV charging management platform for fleets and we're diving into the electrification of trucking. At the beginning of 2024, the Advanced Clean Fleets law came into effect in California creating a number of mandates for zero emissions vehicle adoption in the trucking space. And the law impacts any fleet doing business in California, so there are nationwide implications. Cody and Katie dig into this as well as the impacts on various types of trucks and routes. As fleet managers begin to anticipate compliance, they're realizing that understanding and managing charging will need to become a core competency for them. All of a sudden, things like power procurement and efficient energy usage will become a huge part of the equation for running a business that moves goods around. Flipturn raised a seed round in 2023 from Accel and Katie brings hands-on experience into the company after having previously grown her career through IPO at Samsara, a leader in telematics and Internet of Things, connectivity services for trucking and logistics.

    36 min

  5. AUG 12

    Big Tech Betting on Nature-Based Carbon Removals

    Julia Strong is the Executive Director of Symbiosis Coalition. Announced in early 2024, Symbiosis Coalition is an advanced market commitment from Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce to purchase up to 20 million tons of nature-based carbon removals. The forestry credit space has faced challenges over the last couple of years, prompting interest in how Julia and these large tech companies collaborated to stimulate activity in the sector. Conversations about forestry should be relatively straightforward, considering forests, along with oceans and soil, are natural carbon sinks. Preserving and restoring forests is crucial, yet the complexity surrounding forestry credits always brings new insights. We’re grateful to Julia for sharing more about the formation of Symbiosis Coalition, criteria for high-quality credits, barriers to bankability, and more.

    52 min

  6. AUG 5

    Decoding Coal Dispatch with RMI

    Joe Daniel is a Principal on the Carbon-Free Electricity Team at RMI. Our topic today is coal, specifically the "non-economic dispatch" of coal. This phenomenon occurs when coal-fired power plants deliver power to electricity grids even when their electricity is not the most cost-effective option, thereby disrupting the "merit order" of electricity dispatch. This complex topic is explored with Joe's help, as he provides insights into this intricate issue. The US electric grid is notoriously difficult to understand, and there may be moments when the conversation becomes challenging. However, Joe and Cody consistently strive to make the concepts clear and accessible. The complexity of the system contributes to the problems Joe highlights. Information asymmetry creates economic friction, which disadvantages renewables, despite their general economic superiority. Joe's work at RMI involves developing and deploying quantitative tools, such as RMI's Economic Dispatch Hub, which he will discuss. These tools aim to accelerate affordable and equitable utility de-carbonization pathways.

    51 min
  7. Startup Series: Distributed Hydrogen with Fourier

    JUL 31

    Startup Series: Distributed Hydrogen with Fourier

    Siva Yellamraju is the Co-founder and CEO at Fourier. Fourier's mission is to make hydrogen universally accessible with on-site and on-demand production. Fourier is not Siva's first startup, it's his fourth. He sold his last company to Apple the one before that to Google and the one before that to Polycom, so he knows a thing or two about entrepreneurship. Fourier is barely two years old and they raised a seed round in mid-April led by General Catalyst. They've largely operated in stealth. In fact, there's nothing on their website at fourier.earth other than their thesis statement for starting the company, so we were excited to learn from Siva about why he transitioned from a very successful entrepreneurial career in software to tackle a business in the energy sector. We were also eager to learn specifically about what Siva’'s building in distributed hydrogen and what he's learned from the process thus far.

    47 min

  8. JUL 22

    Japan's Energy Mix Post-Fukushima

    Japan is important to consider on the global energy stage. The country’s emissions footprint is considerably smaller than China and the U.S. While Japan's energy footprint isn't growing as rapidly as India's, it’s still the fifth-largest emitter of any country globally, with emissions representing roughly three to 4% of the global total. Japan's energy system is heavily fossil fuel-based, especially after it cut nuclear power generation from roughly one-third to zero in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima incident. Today we're diving into the Japanese energy economy and decarbonization efforts with Isshu Kikuma. Isshu has been with Bloomberg New Energy Finance since 2018, and up until last month his role there was Japan Energy Analyst. He just switched his focus to the energy storage world, but clearly brings a wealth of knowledge on Japan, energy, and decarbonization. We've been doing these geo tours on the pod for a while, covering countries like China, India, Brazil, and Kenya. Just check out our pod archives at the links below.

    45 min
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About

A growing body of knowledge about climate change and potential solutions. This series traverses disciplines, industries, and opinions with hundreds of deep-dive conversations with science, technology, and climate leaders. Hosted by Jason Jacobs, Yin Lu, and Cody Simms.

Information

  • Creator
    Jason Jacobs, Cody Simms, Yin Lu
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2024
  • Episodes
    517
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2023 MCJ Collective
  • Show Website
    My Climate Journey

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