Episode 51: Fostering Collaborative Conversations on the Energy Transition with Mona Dajani
Energy Terminal
Today, we are thrilled to welcome the incredible Mona Dajani to the show. Mona serves as the Global Co-head of Energy, Infrastructure, Hydrogen, Mobility, Renewables, and Water at Baker Botts. She is also an ambassador for the US Department of Energy’s C3E initiative and a regular news correspondent on energy transition topics. Through her extensive career in clean energy, Mona has witnessed the evolution of global opinions on this issue. Mona believes that the way we engage in conversations about energy is pivotal to advancing the energy transition. These discussions can often be...
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SPARK Episode 22: Sam Beskind
Energy Terminal
Sam Beskind is an Investor and Chief of Staff at Floodgate, a VC firm backing Prime Movers across numerous different industries. Before this role, Sam completed his undergraduate and first masters degree at Stanford and followed this with a Masters in Advanced Energy Systems at the Colorado School of Mines. He also previously interned at VDE Americans, a renewable energy consultancy, and Incite.org, an organization supporting mission driven enterprises. In this episode, Sam talks to us about his decision making process for degrees and opportunities, why he started his podcast, Built for Earth,...
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Episode 50: Building Heavy Duty EV Infrastructure at Data Center Scale with Neha Palmer
Energy Terminal
50 episodes later… Thank you all for joining us on this journey. We are so pleased to celebrate this milestone by hosting , CEO and Co-Founder of ! Neha Palmer’s career in energy is extensive, with experience in utilities, finance and technology. In her role most prior to TeraWatt, as Head of Google’s Energy Strategy, she led Google to be the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world. In this episode we will dive into the electric heavy-duty vehicle space. This sector is notoriously hard to decarbonize, yet accounts for 23% of US transportation emissions....
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SPARK Episode 21: Matthew Koh
Energy Terminal
Matthew Koh, Co-founder of Sequestor, is combining his dual passions of finance and sustainability by building the copilot for carbon markets. Growing up in Singapore, Matthew quickly found a passion for finance. In high school, he founded an investment platform that equips Gen Z with the tools to learn and understand investing, a venture he credits with helping him build entrepreneurial skills and an interest in starting companies. After high school, he served in the Singapore Army before arriving at Duke University, where he currently studies economics. In the episode, we talk about...
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Episode 49: Nuclear to Scale with Joe Klecha
Energy Terminal
In the last 20 years, the United States has only successfully built one nuclear energy project. So how does startup The Nuclear Company plan to turn the industry on its head? In this episode, we are joined by Joe Klecha, Chief Nuclear Officer of The Nuclear Company, to discuss the startup’s ambitious plans to deploy 6 GW of new nuclear power in the next decade. Having played a key role in the development of Southern Company’s Vogtle project, Joe reflects on lessons learned and how the nuclear industry will look much different in the future. We cover must-know topics including why nuclear...
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SPARK Episode 20: Jacob Mansfield
Energy Terminal
Jacob Mansfield is the CEO & Co-Founder at Tierra Climate, a startup whose mission is to accelerate grid-scale battery deployment by unlocking and monetizing grid decarbonization services. Before pursuing his MBA and starting Tierra Climate, Jacob began his career as a rotational analyst at Citi in power trading. He tells us about the lessons from this experience and what drove him to then pursue an MBA. Jacob then explains the process of identifying the problem that Tierra Climate was founded to solve, and gives us the behind the scenes of what it was like to start and grow the company....
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48. FOAK: The Future of Cleantech
Energy Terminal
First time is a charm, right? For many climate technologies, building a first-of-a-kind (FOAK) project is a major barrier to widespread adoption and commercialization. The ecosystem of early-stage climate tech funding, such as venture capital and grants, is well-known and used to taking substantial risk for outsized impact. The pools of capital and expertise for turning those technologies into commercial-scale projects, however, is more challenging to navigate. Nevertheless, it is critical for companies to learn to navigate this gap to bring impactful technologies to scale. Deanna Zhang, CEO...
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SPARK Episode 19: Lamisa Chowdhury
Energy Terminal
Lamisa Chowdhury, University of Kansas grad and current Patagonia Program Officer, has dedicated the early years of her career to investigating energy justice. Lamisa walks us through her path to the energy transition, including why the built environment stands out to her, and why storytelling has become influential to her own understanding of energy systems. Lamisa’s roles have been across nonprofits, utilities, and now the private sector. Each of these experiences shaped Lamisa’s goals for the energy transition, and helped her understand all of its interwoven dimensions. She walks the...
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Episode 47: Issues with Interconnection
Energy Terminal
The US’s grid is expansive and complicated. To break it down we are featuring guest Tyler Norris, former VP of Development at Cypress Creek Renewables and current Duke PhD student in Energy Systems. He walks us through the nuances of the issues surrounding transmission and interconnection. Join us as we discuss how important transmission and interconnection is to the growth of renewables, and what sort of policy work needs to be done to fix the current problems facing our grid. Also, hear about Tyler’s own career path, and why diversity of experiences is so beneficial to the energy...
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SPARK Episode 18: Will Phelan
Energy Terminal
Today we spoke with Will Phelan, a graduate of Rice University working in Corporate Development at Electric Hydrogen Co. Will begins the episode by telling us how he got his start in energy, and more specifically, green hydrogen. He shares a useful exercise to help students pick their vertical, and gives advice on how to approach this process of finding your niche. Will then explains why he took an interest in green hydrogen and how he used cold-outreach to find experiences and opportunities in the space. We then discussed how students can use a similar strategy to find companies they want to...
info_outlineFirst time is a charm, right?
For many climate technologies, building a first-of-a-kind (FOAK) project is a major barrier to widespread adoption and commercialization. The ecosystem of early-stage climate tech funding, such as venture capital and grants, is well-known and used to taking substantial risk for outsized impact. The pools of capital and expertise for turning those technologies into commercial-scale projects, however, is more challenging to navigate. Nevertheless, it is critical for companies to learn to navigate this gap to bring impactful technologies to scale.
Deanna Zhang, CEO of V1 Climate Solutions, joins us on the show to talk all things FOAK. With a background in investment banking, she has built an expertise in helping companies navigate the pitfalls of FOAK projects and works with startups, investors, and corporates to help them define strategies to successful scale-up climate technologies. Tune in to learn more about how we can best bridge the gap between FOAK and Nth-of-a-kind projects and what developments are needed to make that possible.