~ cueing up the show ~
~ pulling every episode ~
The Green Blueprint — Every episode — OmList
om
list
Swipe
Tournament
Lists
Friends
All
Movies
TV
Books
Games
Music
Podcasts
People
▾
Sign in
Every episode
The Green Blueprint
30 episodes
Did someone just figure out how to project finance nuclear?
Aug 12, 2026 · 49 min
For decades, the promise of new nuclear power in the West has been stifled not by the technology itself, but by the “construction problem.” Massive, multi-billion dollar mega-projects plagued by schedule creep and labor shortages have made nuclear a financial non-starter for commercial project finance. To build nuclear at scale, we need a paradigm shift. Jake Jurewicz, CEO of Blue Energy, believes the solution lies in treating nuclear plants less like bespoke civil engineering projects and…
The missing capital for climate startups: more debt
Jul 29, 2026 · 44 min
Climate tech companies are often forced to rely on expensive equity to bridge the gap between government grant awards and the cash needed to get projects off the ground. But for founders building the physical infrastructure of the clean energy transition, dilutive capital isn't always the right tool. For many, it’s not even an option. Dimitry Gershenson, CEO and co-founder of Enduring Planet, is proving that a specialized approach to debt can fix that. By underwriting government grants and…
The ‘brutal reality’ of scaling low-carbon fertilizer
Jul 15, 2026 · 43 min
Nitrogen fertilizer is essential for global food security, yet its production is a hyper-centralized, fossil-fuel-intensive process that accounts for 5 to 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. As geopolitical instability threatens traditional supply chains, the vulnerability of this industry has never been clearer. Nico Pinkowski, CEO and co-founder of Nitricity, initially set out to decentralize fertilizer production with compact devices that farmers could use right on their fields. But market…
Form Energy's manufacturing breakthrough
Jul 1, 2026 · 45 min
Lithium-ion batteries have revolutionized energy storage, but inexpensive, truly long-duration batteries may still have a significant role to play in backing renewables and decarbonizing the grid. Form Energy is tackling that challenge with a new class of iron-air batteries. By oxidizing and reducing iron — essentially rusting and unrusting the earth's most abundant metal — Form is creating low-cost, multi-day storage that competes directly with natural gas peaker plants. Mateo Jaramillo, CEO an…
Why the climate tech ‘missing middle’ is a massive opportunity
Jun 17, 2026 · 46 min
If you’re building a consumer software startup, your investors may expect you to project hockey stick-style growth. But if you’re building the physical infrastructure of the clean energy transition, you’re likely in a very different position. Frank O’Sullivan, Managing Director at S2G Investments, argues that the climate finance ecosystem is suffering from a structural mismatch. While there is plenty of capital for early-stage innovation and mature infrastructure projects, there is a "missing mi…
The perovskite bet that could transform solar
Jun 3, 2026 · 39 min
Silicon solar panels have led the market for decades but will soon hit a ceiling around 25% efficiency. Perovskite, a frontier material once dismissed for degrading too fast, is now being called the holy grail of solar. Saritha Peruri, VP of Commercialization at Tandem PV, is bringing it to market. The company stacks its proprietary perovskite on top of silicon, capturing a wider spectrum of light and pushing efficiency past 30%, a major jump over conventional solar. And because it builds on the…
How Supercool Earth's microbes could ease the water crisis
May 20, 2026 · 44 min
California recorded its second-lowest Sierra Nevada snowpack on record this spring. That's not just a bad ski season, it's a water supply crisis. Snowpack is where California's water comes from. And when it doesn't materialize, agriculture, hydropower, and fire suppression all feel the strain. Dacia Leon, CEO and co-founder of Supercool Earth, is building a company around a deceptively simple idea: use biology to make it rain and snow where it's needed most, on demand. Her company's core technol…
The $6 trillion threat to climate tech finance
May 6, 2026 · 45 min
The global financial system is undergoing a structural shift into a "volatile new world order," where unpredictability is the norm, and climate tech is uniquely exposed. Venture investor Susan Su says the war in Iran is complicating the landscape. That's because about 40% of the world's capital comes from just four Gulf states, and those states are exploring whether the war allows them to invoke force majeure to legally exit binding financial commitments to fund billion-dollar projects – includi…
The Green Blueprint is back for a second season!
Apr 23, 2026 · 3 min
We already have the blueprint for decarbonizing the global economy. We've invented many of the solutions, but much of that tech is still sitting on the sidelines waiting to get financed and built at scale. But over the last year, we've seen a wave of change that complicates and – in some cases – helps that mission. In the first season of the Green Blueprint, we heard stories from the entrepreneurs, investors, and experts at the front lines of scaling climate technologies. This season, we're brin…
Sage Geosystems' bet on underground energy storage
Dec 17, 2025 · 38 min
About 90% of global energy storage is pumped storage hydropower – which requires a mountain, a lake, and a whole lot of permitting. While lithium batteries have gotten drastically cheaper over the last decade, they’re still expensive for longer durations. But Cindy Taff and her team at Sage Geosystems are developing geothermal technology that could revolutionize energy storage. Instead of pumping water up a mountain, they pump it deep into the earth, providing cost-effective, long-term storage f…
Inside Microsoft’s plan to remove 50 years of carbon emissions
Dec 12, 2025 · 36 min
In 2020, Microsoft announced a major goal: by 2050 the company aims to remove from the atmosphere all the carbon emissions it has produced since its founding in 1975. When Phil Goodman joined the company in 2022, he quickly found that the market for Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) was just getting off the ground. That meant that in order to meet its climate pledge, Microsoft needed to help foster the carbon removal market. In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks with Phil Goodman, director of Microso…
Captura's high-stakes gamble
Nov 19, 2025 · 30 min
Back in January, Captura CEO Steve Oldham was sitting in a conference room in Hawaii, entertaining reps from the company’s first potential customer. What the customer didn’t know was that Captura’s ocean-based carbon removal pilot –the whole reason for the visit – still wasn’t working. The stakes were high. Steve’s team needed to prove they could pull off a major pilot under intense time crunch — amid broader pressure on the carbon removal sector to show it can scale reliably and fast. So what d…
Boston Metal’s path to carbon-free steel
Nov 7, 2025 · 38 min
This year in the U.S., steel manufacturers will produce more than 71 million tons of steel – enough to build nearly 200 Empire State buildings. It's a stunning statistic, but not surprising. The steel industry has fueled economic growth and innovation in America since the early 1800s. But for every ton of conventional steel produced, two tons of CO2 are emitted, making the coal industry responsible for about 7% of global emissions. Steel is widely known as one of those "hard to decarbonize" indu…
The thermal battery transforming cold storage for India’s dairy farmers
Oct 22, 2025 · 41 min
In 2007 Sam White, co-founder of Promethean Power Systems, was traveling through India looking for a rural electrification problem to solve. He and his team had just won a $10,000 grant in an MIT competition, and they wanted to find an industry in India that needed their help. After looking at the sugar industry and the grape industry, they finally settled on dairy. India is the largest producer and consumer of milk in the world, but poor infrastructure makes getting chilled milk from farmer to…
This VC wants climate tech to play hardball in Washington
Oct 8, 2025 · 49 min
Clean energy founders love to talk about technology, capital, and scale. But few are prepared for the fourth pillar of success: government. Shomik Dutta, a co-founder and managing partner at Overture VC, learned that lesson firsthand after a career that spanned Obama’s White House, private equity, and venture capital. His takeaway: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” Shomik thinks the next generation of climate startups must treat policy as a core competency, not an afterthought. T…
Shortening the nuclear development cycle from decades to years
Sep 24, 2025 · 48 min
For decades, nuclear has struggled with cost overruns and delays — Georgia’s Vogtle plant being the latest example. Kairos Power co-founder and CEO Mike Laufer thinks the solution is to flip the script: focus first on non-nuclear demonstrations and then iterate quickly. It’s a counterintuitive and potentially risky strategy . Rapid iteration isn’t the way engineers or funders like the DOE have traditionally developed nuclear plants. Kairos also combined two technologies — TRISO fuel and molten s…
The sunk cost dilemma
Sep 10, 2025 · 33 min
Deep into engineering studies for Project Cormorant, 8 Rivers' massive low-carbon ammonia facility, the team discovered new efficiencies that would create a safer, more advanced version of their hydrogen technology. But there was one problem: they'd already invested heavily in the current design. CEO Damian Beauchamp faced a classic dilemma. Should 8 Rivers stick with their existing approach and avoid the sunk cost fallacy? Or risk everything on a better design, knowing it meant more time, more…
John Hickenlooper’s optimism in the face of opposition
Aug 27, 2025 · 34 min
Three years ago this month, the Inflation Reduction Act passed, marking the largest investment in climate policy in U.S. history. It included over $300 billion to address global warming and was expected to unlock nearly $3 trillion in private investment by 2032. But then came Donald Trump. Over the last eight months, the Trump administration has worked to dismantle much of that progress, including withholding funds, canceling loans and grants, and working with Congress to roll back tax credits.…
The rogue idea that saved a hydrogen startup
Aug 13, 2025 · 38 min
In 2022, Zach Jones learned that his technical team at Graphitic Energy was secretly working nights and weekends on an unsanctioned approach to producing clean hydrogen from natural gas. It was an approach that abandoned the technology Zach and the company had spent years developing. And Zach wasn’t happy. With investors to answer to and a pilot plant ready for construction, Zach couldn't switch gears completely to pursue an untested concept. But his team disagreed. And the months-long mutiny th…
The tape that led to a fusion breakthrough
Jun 18, 2025 · 51 min
In 2021, Commonwealth Fusion Systems proved it had built the most powerful magnet in the world. The breakthrough was based on a specific material - a tape - that conducts massive amounts of current with very little loss. Rick Needham, Chief Commercial Officer for CFS, says the breakthrough led to a $1.8 billion Series B fundraising round. Since then, the company has turned its attention to turning this scientific breakthrough into a commercial technology. And in late 2024, the company announced…
Frontier Forum: Fixing distributed energy's finance gap
Jun 12, 2025 · 42 min
Clean energy attracts nearly $3 trillion in investment annually, but most of that capital flows to massive utility-scale projects through the world's biggest banks and large-scale asset managers. Meanwhile, smaller distributed projects — rooftop solar, batteries, microgrids — face a structural financing challenge that Amanda Li calls "death by a thousand cuts." As co-founder and COO of Banyan Infrastructure, Li sees this dynamic constantly. Distributed infrastructure developers are trying to sec…
FOAK tales
Jun 4, 2025 · 53 min
This week, we're bringing you a special episode of Catalyst with Shayle Kann, a show about how to decarbonize the planet. In this episode: what it takes to secure investments for first-of-a-kind infrastructure projects. First-of-a-kind projects need infrastructure investment, the kind of money that costs less than venture capital and usually comes in the form of deals worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. But infrastructure investors are notoriously conservative and convincing them to b…
Building Fervo's geothermal giant
May 21, 2025 · 43 min
In 2023, Sarah Jewett was on her honeymoon in France when she received a life-changing text: steam was flowing from Fervo Energy's first commercial geothermal project in Nevada. That moment confirmed their revolutionary approach—applying horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing from the oil and gas industry to tap heat resources previously considered inaccessible. Unlike traditional geothermal that requires rare, steam-laden sites, Fervo's technology can access hot rock that exists almost ev…
Terawatt Infrastructure’s billion-dollar strategy
May 7, 2025 · 34 min
In 2021, Neha Palmer co-founced Terawatt Infrastructure with a bold mission: create the backbone for America's electric trucking revolution. Within its first year, Terawatt secured a billion-dollar investment. But as the company developed plans for a nationwide charging network, it confronted the daunting challenge of building infrastructure for an electric truck market that barely existed. High-profile bankruptcies like Nikola Motors cast long shadows over the sector's viability, raising questi…
The scrappy beginning of Tesla’s energy business
Apr 23, 2025 · 36 min
In 2014, Drew Baglino was helping build Tesla's energy division with a passionate, scrappy team. Using parts from Tesla's vehicles, they created the first Powerwall home battery. But as demand grew, they hit a critical bottleneck: cell shortages. Customers across multiple markets were already excited about the new product, but Drew’s team struggled to keep up with demand. With Powerwall 2 already announced, pressure mounted while the supply chain faltered. And with Tesla prioritizing vehicles,,…
LineVision's quest to win over utilities
Apr 9, 2025 · 29 min
In 2018, LineVision was a young company with revolutionary technology for electric transmission lines. Its dynamic line rating sensors and software could increase the capacity of existing power lines by up to 40% without building new infrastructure — a critical solution for integrating renewables and meeting growing electricity demand. But to prove its tech, it needed to win over notoriously cautious utilities. When a crucial project worth $750,000 went to a competitor, LineVision's leadership m…
Nextracker's blueprint for 100 gigawatts of solar trackers
Mar 26, 2025 · 32 min
Dan Shugar has been trying to move solar panels around since the 1980s. What started with a few experiments as a young engineer has turned into one of the biggest solar tracker companies in the world. In 2012 he founded Nextracker with a single product. Since then, Nextracker has revolutionized tracking technology through an array of innovative products. This week, host Lara Pierpoint talks with Nextracker CEO and founder Dan Shugar about product innovation and customer relationships, and how Ne…
Electric Hydrogen’s bet on supersized electrolyzers
Mar 12, 2025 · 36 min
When Raffi Garabedian co-founded Electric Hydrogen in 2020, he saw existing electrolyzers as too small and expensive to make green hydrogen economically viable. Instead of building standard sub-megawatt units, his team aimed for 100-megawatt systems at half the industry cost. Initial market enthusiasm brought millions in capacity reservations, fueling construction of a Massachusetts manufacturing plant. Then came the "trough of disillusionment" – a global cooling on hydrogen as projects faltered…
How supply chain chaos sank Sunfolding
Feb 26, 2025 · 43 min
Leila Madrone founded Sunfolding in 2012 with an innovative idea – build a solar tracker using pneumatic "airbags" instead of motors and torque tubes. By 2015, the company was deploying the technology in a field test in Davis, California. Over the next six years, Sunfolding iterated on the technology’s design, built out the supply chain, and tried to prove bankability. Then, in 2021, the company found themselves faced with a major decision: take on a utility scale solar project during a global p…
Open Circuit: Jigar, Katherine, and Stephen are back
Feb 19, 2025 · 52 min
This week, we’re featuring an episode of Open Circuit, a new show from Latitude Media that reunites Jigar Shah, Katherine Hamilton, and Stephen Lacey. Many listeners may remember them from The Energy Gang, a show they co-hosted for eight years. They are back together, co-hosting a weekly roundtable that will cover the latest news – to explain what's really accelerating the energy transition, from technological leaps and supply chain shifts, to market upheavals and policy uncertainty. If you like…
← Back to the show
