Catalyst with Shayle Kann Latitude Media

Automakers got ahead of their skis. EV sales are up globally and in the U.S., but growth has been slower than expected and uneven. After enjoying a wave of growth driven by early adopters, automakers overestimated demand of more cautious consumers and ended up producing more than buyers wanted. Now auto dealers are slashing prices to move cars off the lot.
So how did the market get here? And how can EVs appeal to the next wave of consumers?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Gene Berdichevsky, co-founder and CEO of anode material manufacturer Sila Nanotechnologies. Shayle and Gene cover topics like:

How high-performance cells can lead to lower-cost batteries

Why Gene says lithium-iron-phosphate may hit a ceiling in the market

The potential of sodium-ion batteries

Who can take advantage of production overcapacity

The limitations of the Inflation Reduction Act in the face of weak demand 

How manufacturing is competing with other major loads, like data centers, for electricity 

Solving the challenges of vehicle-to-grid

Recommended resources
Bloomberg: The Slowdown in US Electric Vehicle Sales Looks More Like a Blip
The Wall Street Journal: EVs Are Cheaper Than Ever. Can Car Buyers Be Won Over?
Catalyst: What’s really happening in the US EV market?

Catalyst is brought to you by Anza Renewables, a data, technology, and services platform for solar and storage buyers. Anza’s real-time market intel equips buyers with the essential data they need to get the best deals. Download Anza’s free Q2 Module Pricing Insights Report at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude 
Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid. Visit kraken.tech.
Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the global leader in integrated marketing, public relations, creative, and public affairs for energy and climate brands. If you're a startup, investor, or enterprise that's trying to make a name for yourself, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help tell your story and accelerate your growth engine. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

In March, Nvidia announced a new microchip designed for AI that is 25 times more energy efficient than its predecessor. Two months later, Google announced one with a 67% efficiency improvement. Today, the rest of the semiconductor industry is hyper focused on efficiency gains.
Will they save us from ballooning data center energy demands?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Christian Belady, former Microsoft vice president now focusing on data center advanced development. They unpack concerns about this new surge of demand and whether it’s different from the energy scare two decades ago. Back in 1999, researchers predicted that data centers could end up consuming half of U.S. electricity. But instead, demand remained largely flat at about 4% as cutting-edge hyperscale cloud computing displaced inefficient, on-premises servers.
And yet, driven by the AI boom, energy concerns are back. The Electric Power Research Institute predicts that data center loads could consume 9% of U.S. power generation by 2030. Demand is already rising fast, with emissions at both Google and Microsoft up significantly. 
Shayle and Christian examine the factors driving those trends and what we can do about it, covering topics like:

Whether chip efficiency improvements will lead to energy savings or just more powerful computing

The upper limits of Moore’s Law

Energy, labor, and other big constraints on AI growth

Changing computing architecture to find energy savings

Enlisting data centers in integrated, or compulsory, demand response

Using AI to improve chip design 

Recommended resources
Fierce Electronics: Power-hungry AI chips face a reckoning, as chipmakers promise ‘efficiency’
Latitude Media: The data center of the future looks like a massive virtual power plant
Latitude Media: Enchanted Rock is selling utilities on flexible data center connection
Latitude Media: Energy is now the ‘primary bottleneck’ for AI
Catalyst: Under the hood of data center power demand
Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid. Visit kraken.tech.
Catalyst is brought to you by Anza Renewables, a data, technology, and services platform for solar and storage buyers. Anza’s real-time market intel equips buyers with the essential data they need to get the best deals. Download Anza’s free Q2 Module Pricing Insights Report at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude.
Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the global leader in integrated marketing, public relations, creative, and public affairs for energy and climate brands. If you're a startup, investor, or enterprise that's trying to make a name for yourself, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help tell your story and accelerate your growth engine. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

While we were all at home during Covid desperately trying to get our hands on toilet paper, exercise equipment, and home furnishings, solar executives like Dan Shugar were trying to get steel and power electronics to massive PV farms under development.
As equipment and workforce disruptions spiraled due to lockdowns, the cost of installed solar started going up for the first time in nearly a decade.
“Costs just skyrocketed. And so at this point in my career. I wasn't going to proceed like that,” explained Shugar, the CEO of Nextracker, the world’s top solar tracking company.
It became very obvious that Nextracker had to build more US manufacturing to serve local markets, where utility-scale PV was still booming. And within a couple years, they built a large network of factories.
“We've catalyzed over 20 factories across the United States with over 30 gigawatts of major components being manufactured here and shipping finished goods today. That's just a huge retooling of the supply chain,” explained Shugar.
To date, Nextracker has shipped 100 gigawatts of trackers. More and more of them are being produced in key locations around the US.
In this episode, produced in collaboration with Nextracker, Stephen Lacey speaks with Dan Shugar about progress in onshoring, innovations in tracker technology, and where the solar industry is headed next.
Learn more about Nextracker’s efforts to bolster domestic content for solar power generation in the US.

While aviation may be converging on one main pathway to decarbonization — sustainable aviation fuel — maritime shipping may require a more diverse set of solutions: a portfolio of fuels, energy efficiency, and on-board carbon capture and storage.
But each technology has operational and capital challenges. So what will it take to scale them up?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Lynn Loo, CEO of the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation. Ocean-going shipping consumes about 300 million tons of fuel per year, accounting for 3% of global emissions. But with significant regulatory pressure from bodies like the International Maritime Organization, shipping companies are exploring a range of options. Shayle and Lynn cover topics like:

Conventional fuels, like heavy fuel oil and marine gas oil

The inadvertent climate impact of cutting sulfur emissions

The pros and cons of lower-carbon fuels, like LNG, biofuels, methanol, and ammonia

The challenges for infrastructure and operations, especially involving the low volumetric energy density of new fuels 

On-board carbon capture and storage

How energy efficiency reduces the impact of low volumetric energy density


Recommended resources
International Maritime Organization: Fourth Greenhouse Gas Study 2020
Catalyst: Heavy duty decarbonization
Catalyst: Putting a halt to geoengineering — by accident

Catalyst is brought to you by Anza Renewables, a data, technology, and services platform for solar and storage buyers. Anza’s real-time market intel equips buyers with the essential data they need to get the best deals. Download Anza’s free Q2 Module Pricing Insights Report at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude.
Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, learn how Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid at kraken.tech.
Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the global leader in integrated marketing, public relations, creative, and public affairs for energy and climate brands. If you're a startup, investor, or enterprise that's trying to make a name for yourself, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help tell your story and accelerate your growth engine. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Investment is on the rise in geothermal, where advances in drilling techniques are driving down the cost of generation right as the grid needs more clean, firm, dispatchable power to meet rising load growth. And enhanced-geothermal startup Fervo is leading the pack of entrants, signing agreements to provide power to Southern California Edison and Google. 
So how ready are these next-generation geothermal technologies to scale?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Roland Horne, professor of earth sciences at Stanford, where he leads the university’s geothermal program. Shayle and Roland cover topics like:

Geothermal’s historical challenges of limited geography and high up-front costs

Three pathways of next-generation geothermal: enhanced, closed-loop, and super-deep (also known as super-critical)

Knowledge transfer from the oil and gas industry

Advances in drilling technology that cut across multiple pathways 


Recommended resources
U.S. Department of Energy: Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Next-Generation Geothermal Power
Latitude Media: Fervo eyes project-level finance as it plans for geothermal at scale
Make sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Be sure to also check out Living Planet, a weekly show from Deutsche Welle that brings you the stories, facts, and debates on the key environmental issues affecting our planet. Tune in to Living Planet every Friday on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Want to win Catalyst merch? Tell your friends about the show. We’ll give you a unique link that you can share. For every friend who signs up with your link, you’ll get a chance to win. Sign up here.

New electric vehicles — including both battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles — make up nearly half of new car sales in China. Compared to slowing EV sales in Europe and the U.S. the Chinese market is booming. 
So what’s going on?
In this episode, Shayle talks to TP Huang, who writes a Substack about EVs, clean energy, and other tech focused on China. (Editor's note: TP Huang is a pseudonym, used for family reasons.) Shayle and TP cover topics like:

How EVs became extremely cost competitive with internal combustion engines in China where EV prices dip as low as $10,000 USD

Chinese consumer preferences for vehicles packed with features ranging from voice commands to fridges

The ubiquity and interoperability of fast charging, plus battery swapping

The rapid pace of electrification in heavy-duty trucking 

Chinese exports to Europe, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere (although not the U.S.)


Recommended Resources:
TP Huang: What's going in the Chinese automotive market
CNN: A brutal elimination round is reshaping the world’s biggest market for electric cars
Bloomberg: Why Europe Is Raising Tariffs on China’s Cheap EVs
Make sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Be sure to also check out Living Planet, a weekly show from Deutsche Welle that brings you the stories, facts, and debates on the key environmental issues affecting our planet. Tune in to Living Planet every Friday on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.