64 episodes
Zero: The Climate Race Bloomberg
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- Business
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4.7 • 111 Ratings
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Zero is about the tactics and technologies taking us to a world of zero emissions. Each week Bloomberg’s award-winning reporter Akshat Rathi talks to the people tackling climate change – a venture capitalist hunting for the best cleantech investment, scientists starting companies, politicians who have successfully created climate laws, and CEOs who have completely transformed their businesses. The road to zero emissions has many paths and everyone’s got an opinion about the best route. Listen in.
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The godfather of solar predicts its future
Setting world records. Combing through warehouses of old electronics. Seeding the Chinese solar industry from afar. This is the life of Martin Green, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and the director of the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics. Green’s work on solar panel design made the modern solar industry possible: 90% of solar panels made last year were based on his designs. He’s still going strong, too, regularly breaking new records in the pursuit of the perfect solar panel. This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi sits down with the man many call “the godfather of solar” to hear firsthand how it happened, the next record he wants to break and whether solar panels are destined for space.
Read more:
Making Solar Panels Is 'Horrible' Business. The US Still Wants It. (Bloomberg)
Listen to Akshat’s conversation with Jenny Chase (Apple Podcasts)
Solar Power Investment Set to Surpass Oil Production Spending This Year (Bloomberg)
China Leaves Everyone Behind in Race for Renewable Energy (Bloomberg)
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Jill Namatsi, David Stringer, Jenny Chase and Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
Perfume? Yes. Potatoes? No. Vertical farming tries to grow up
Cleantech is hard. Farming is harder. This week, Akshat Rathi visits entrepreneurs doing both.
GroGrace in Singapore and Jungle in Paris are two vertical farming companies taking agriculture indoors, and trying to grow crops efficiently and profitably. While the technology to do this has been around since the 1990s, the business model has yet to be perfected, and several other vertical farms have closed down or laid off staff this year. As the world faces rising energy prices, water scarcity, and hotter temperatures, can the entrepreneurs in Paris and Singapore avoid the problems of their compatriots?
Read more:
Akshat Rathi’s reporting on Singapore’s cleantech scene: Singapore’s Building Technology It Needs for a New Climate Era - Bloomberg
From AppHarvest to AeroFarms, Funding Is Drying Up for AI-Run Vertical Farms - Bloomberg
Heat, War and Export Bans: Global Food Threats Are On the Rise
Another tale of the Dutch exporting their vertical farming know-how: Saudi City of Future Enlists Dutch Help to Grow Crops in Desert - Bloomberg
Listen to related episodes of Zero:
The world's food system needs a radical rethink - interview with George Monbiot
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Sheryl Tian Tong Lee, Natasha White and Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
How the world’s biggest green bank is electrifying Australia
Trillions of dollars are needed to fund the climate transition, with both the private sector and governments required to contribute. Australia’s answer is the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), the world’s largest green bank.
Established by the government in 2012 with an initial funding of A$10 billion ($6.5 billion), it was tasked with financing green projects and ambitious Australian climate startups at a time when large-scale investments in things like wind and solar were still seen as too risky for most private banks. Despite early efforts by opposition parties to abolish the bank, over the past 10 years it has made itself an essential part of Australia's energy transition and, in June, received an extra A$20.5 billion to help the country meet its target of 82% renewables by 2030.
This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi sits down with CEFC chief executive officer, Ian Learmonth, to learn how this huge amount of money will be spent, why the CEFC had so many enemies early on, and what kind of innovative startups and clean-tech projects the organization is looking to fund.
Listen to related episodes of Zero:
Our episode with Jigar Shah, a $9 Billion Deal to Supercharge US Cleantech
Our episode on Australia’s new climate politics
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Gilda Di Carli and Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
Your carbon footprint should bring you joy
The concept of a “carbon footprint” began as a distraction from Big Oil: get people to focus on their own actions rather than the impact of large emitters. Oil companies come up with PR campaigns all the time, but the carbon footprint took off because it taps into a question we keep coming back to, can our choices lower emissions? If so, how? And if they don’t, why bother? This week, Akshat is joined by Kira Bindrim, the editor of Bloomberg Greener Living, which focuses on consumer choices, to talk about what she’s noticed in a year of editing stories about products, misconceptions, and how much people just love to read about electric cars. Plus, we break down her carbon footprint.
Read the articles mentioned in this episode:
P&G Just Wants You to Use Your Dishwasher
Why So Many EV Chargers in America Don't Work
A Wool Recycling Tradition Offers Lessons for Fast Fashion
Canada's Wildfires Expose the Climate Change 'Spiral of Silence'
Listen to related episodes of Zero:
The climate case for flying cars - an interview with the man who will help cut Akshat’s carbon footprint.
The writer behind Love Actually wants to green your retirement fund - why you should look into where you store your retirement
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Gilda Di Carli and Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
Best of: How to build a battery that replaces a coal plant
This week, a visit to the energy startup trying to replace coal with a very cheap battery. Form Energy has attracted nearly $900 million in investments and is building its first manufacturing facility in the US. Its big innovation relies on rust. Really. The materials scientists at Form have taken the same process that’s a symbol of time slowly passing and turned it into electricity. It’s one of the first big bets that batteries could help push the grid closer to running without fossil fuels altogether.
You can read more about Form Energy and see what the battery looks like here.
Read a transcript of this episode, here.Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special Thanks to Kira Bindrim and Blake Maples. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
Methane leaks are the low-hanging fruit of the climate crisis
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, with 80 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 25-year period. However, it also degrades much more quickly than CO2, meaning cuts in emissions now can have a quick and significant effect on reducing global warming. On this bonus episode of Zero, producer Oscar Boyd talks with host Akshat Rathi about the methane problem and the ways to solve it.
Read more:
A Cheap Fix to Global Warming Is Finally Gaining Support
The $75 Billion Climate Solution That’s a Bargain
Turkmenistan in Talks With US to Tackle Giant Methane Leaks
Scientists Say They’ve Detected a Huge Methane Leak in Kazakhstan
A transcript of this episode
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to John Fraher, Meg Szabo and Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Customer Reviews
A Plus
Highly informative, in depth, every episode investigates a piece of the complex puzzle with high quality informants.
High quality journalism on climate solutions through business
As a long term climate solutions entrepreneur and investor, I appreciate the consistent fact and evidence-based reporting illuminating understanding of the human elements that are creating and solving the climate crisis.
Important content poorly delivered
I wanted to like this show. I am always craving some good climate content but this is so boring. Listen to Parched and take notes on story telling. They take a dry subject and make it very compelling. I’ll try a few more. Hope it finds its groove.