Good Clean Energy

Cement accounts for 8 percent of global CO2 emissions. The production of one ton of Portland cement — the kind most commonly used — results in one ton of CO2 released into the atmosphere. And since cement is exceptionally cheap and the most massively produced man-made material in the world, those emissions are going to grow. “In a do-nothing scenario, emissions from cement are projected to increase 50 percent between now and 2050,”...

Anu Khan, Deputy Director of Science and Innovation at the nonprofit Carbon180, joins Good Clean Energy to discuss the ins and outs of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Throughout the industrial era, we’ve emitted roughly 2 trillion tons of carbon dioxide, 1 trillion of which is still in the atmosphere today and is going to continue to cause warming for an extended period of time. Most of that warming is caused by the bur...

What are the biggest challenges to widespread adoption of electric vehicles? Cost, range anxiety and charge time. Kedar Munipella, CEO of TAE Power Solutions,  joins the show to talk about how his company solves for all that. Working with a radical new approach to power distribution, battery performance is optimized and charge time is reduced. That, in turn, will make EVs less expensive.

For show notes and a full transcript, he...

Industrial heat accounts for 25% of global energy consumption to make products ranging from steel to cement to paper and so many other things you've probably never thought about. It’s a huge chunk of our climate problem — and it’s uniquely hard to decarbonize. That’s where John O’Donnell’s company, Rondo Energy, steps in. Rondo is using hot bricks to store energy as heat. And since industrial processes need energy in the form ...

Priya Donti, co-founder and executive director of Climate Change AI, joins Good Clean Energy to talk about the role AI and machine learning can play in transforming America's power grid to optimize clean power production and consumption.

For show notes and a full transcript, head to the episode page.

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Willy Shih, Professor of Management Practice in Business Administration at Harvard Business School, joins Good Clean Energy to talk about the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act on reshoring manufacturing and how it can help the U.S. reassert itself as a leader in innovation, particularly in the transition to clean energy.

For show notes and a full transcript, head to the episode page.

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 About 90 percent of the world's trade is transported by sea, on giant polluting cargo ships that burn particularly dirty oil. Last week, the International Maritime Organization, the UN body responsible for regulating  global shipping, set a new CO2 reduction target for the industry to get to net zero by 2050. To help us make sense of the transition that will need to happen, Maria Gallucci, a clean energy reporter at Canary Me...

Paul Eremenko, co-founder and CEO of Universal Hydrogen, believes that there is a relatively simple way to solve the aviation industry’s carbon emissions problem. Today’s sustainable fuels aren’t really all that sustainable, he says, and electric planes, while great in theory, don’t scale. That leaves one obvious choice for Eremenko: green hydrogen. “There is a very significant sort of low-hanging fruit opportunity with no signific...

As a former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission with both a law background as well as a PhD in applied physics, Richard "Dick" Meserve is uniquely qualified to speak on the future of both nuclear fission and fusion in the U.S. 

“We have a huge challenge in confronting climate change, and it's my view that we need to marshal all the resources we can to address it," says Meserve. "And that obvio...

Jamie Alexander is working to make capitalism compatible with a climate-safe world. Alexander is the director of Drawdown Labs, a branch of the nonprofit organization Project Drawdown that works directly with corporations to think beyond net zero and use their existing social, political, financial, and employee power to accelerate climate solutions at an unprecedented scale. "The more that companies can identify what their sup...

The U.S. power grid is old. On average, it’s 40 years old — a quarter of the grid is 50 years old and there are parts that are 100 years old. And as we strive for a net-zero future, that grid is going to play a massive role, says Christina Hayes, Executive Director of Americans for a Clean Energy Grid, a coalition focused on preparing the U.S. grid for new renewable and clean energy sources. For a full transcript, head to the episo...

Scientists at TAE and the National Institute for Fusion Science in Japan have demonstrated the first-ever hydrogen-boron fusion experiments in a magnetically confined fusion plasma. Rich Magee, Senior Director of Physics Research and Development at TAE, joins the show to break down this promising achievement in the development of fusion power with hydrogen-boron, the cleanest, most cost-competitive, and most sustainable fusion fuel...

Kaylee Cunningham is a PhD student at MIT in nuclear engineering and a popular TikTok influencer who’s focused on communicating about the potential for nuclear power. She joins the show to talk about small modular reactors, how NRC regulations affect the nuclear industry, and how she addresses people's worries about nuclear waste and meltdowns.

For a full transcript, head to the episode page 

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Rose Mutiso, research director for the D.C.-based think tank Energy for Growth Hub, joins the show to discuss the connection between access to affordable electricity and poverty and details a path forward for “energy poor” countries on the continent of Africa. 

Covered in this episode:

• The connection between access to electricity and poverty
• The reality of living in an energy poor country
• Why modeling is important for energy policy...