Watt It Takes Emily Kirsch

According to the World Economic Forum, emerging markets are the key to reaching a carbon-neutral future as most GHG emission growth will come from developing economies.. And yet, these markets only capture one fifth of clean energy investments. Emily McAteer is the Co-founder and CEO of Odyssey Energy Solutions. Their platform connects financiers, equipment providers, and project developers to accelerate the flow of capital to distributed renewable energy projects in emerging markets.

Residential energy use accounts for about 20% of greenhouse emissions in the U.S., making it one of the most important sectors to decarbonize. As the world electrifies and consumers become more climate-conscious, energy will become one of the next consumer engagement frontiers.

The WattBuy platform connects clean energy providers with residential customers, helps consumers save money on their energy bills, and helps companies engage customers with insights and provide enhanced offerings and services.

In this episode, Emily Kirsch sits down with WattBuy Co-Founder & CEO Naman Trivedi to learn more about founding the company, WattBuy’s mission to decarbonize the grid, and building a platform that has generated 20 gigawatt hours of renewable energy for homeowners and renters, and helped them save upwards of $4M on their energy bills.

Some experts are calling 2024 the “make or break year” for the voluntary and compliance carbon markets, which were rocked by a shaky 2023. To usher in a new era of effective and impactful carbon markets, the verification process needs a major tech update and a serious credibility boost. Marion Verles founded SustainCERT to be the first fully digital carbon project verification platform and Scope 3 emissions verification solution.

On November 17th, 2023 the average global temperature was temporarily 2 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrialization, an event with ominous climate implications. To slow global climate change, we need to find ways to supercharge natural carbon removal processes like ocean alkalization, and do it in a way that is good for the planet.

That’s exactly what this month’s Watt It Takes Guest, Ben Tarbell, Co-Founder and CEO of Ebb Carbon, is doing. The team at Ebb is approaching carbon removal in a way that is both novel and as ancient as the ocean itself; integrating with existing facilities that process seawater, they use electrochemistry to remove acidity, and return the alkaline seawater to the ocean where it can then absorb more carbon.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we need to return Earth’s atmosphere to 280 parts per million of CO2 for the health of human existence and that of the planet. To achieve that goal, industry experts believe we’ll need to be removing 10-20 billion tons of carbon per year by 2050.

Removing carbon is exactly what this month’s Watt It Takes guest, Peter Reinhardt, Co-Founder and CEO of Charm Industrial, is doing. The team at Charm has developed a novel process for removing carbon using biomass that is converted to bio-oil via pyrolysis, and then injected into wells deep underground, where it is permanently stored for thousands of years if not millennia. Charm is also developing a process for fossil-free ironmaking.

Fusion could be a nearly waste-free, carbon-free, and all-geography answer to creating enough dispatchable power to get us through the energy transition. To achieve this, all components of a fusion power plant need to be built so that when fusion energy becomes a reality, we have the industry, infrastructure, and processes in place to distribute the power, and it has to be cost competitive. This is exactly what Bob Mumgaard, Co-Founder and CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), is building. Today, CFS has more than 600 employees, has raised $2B, and is executing on their plan to make the “holy grail” of fusion energy possible.