Behind The Switch

A major American city powered completely by renewable energy by 2030: sounds too good to be true? It's surprisingly achievable, and in this special episode, Behind the Switch host Spencer Fields fills us in on his recent trip out to L.A. where he explained to local utilities, political groups and community advocates just how this could be done.

Spencer co-authored a study by Synapse Energy Economics entitled "Clean Energy for Los Angeles", and we recently sat down to talk over the details.

The Charm City is taking their sustainability efforts to a whole new level with bills banning crude oil terminals and styrofoam containers. Climable's Jen Stevenson and Andrew Grandahl investigate in this week's Good News Minute!

A few weeks ago, members of the Climable team hosted a microgrid workshop in Providence, Rhode Island. Climable Director of Research and Operations Jen Stevenson and Behind the Switch co-host Andrew Grandahl sit down in this episode to reflect on the workshop, and discuss the benefits of microgrids and why they have the potential to reshape the energy landscape as we know it.

We've been noticing quite a lot of news recently pertaining to battery technology, and thought we'd catch you all up with this week's Good News Minute!

In a new report, Bloomberg has gathered experts from around the globe to comprehensively project how the face of electricity generation will continue to shift leading into 2040. We're happy to say, the future of energy is looking very bright indeed. Andrew and Spencer dig into the details in this week's Good News Minute.

In Part II of our look into Dr. Frank Ackerman's recent work from his new book "Worst-Case Economics", we're moving forwards from the topics covered in Part I. How can our predictive models change to better account for unpredictable events, and how can everyone stand to gain from more holistic ways of thinking? Andrew and Spencer explore these ideas, and much more, in this special edition of Behind the Switch.

Great news coming out of Chile! In collaboration with NGO Tompkins Conservation, the nation has just added a whopping ten million acres of wildlife sanctuary stretching down the beautiful southern half of the country. Climable.org's Director of Research and Operations Jen Stevenson joins Andrew Grandahl for this uplifting Good News Minute -

give it a listen!

Cargo shipping is one seriously dirty business. But that is starting to change. Spencer and Andrew explain in today's Good News Minute.

Why do humans seem to have such a poor understanding of risks? Why do we struggle to collectively quantify the chances of extreme scenarios? How have our economic methodologies caused us to downplay worst-case scenarios not just in finance, but in climate change and ecology as well?

Dr. Frank Ackerman is Principal Economist at Synapse Energy Economics, and has just released a fantastic book named "Worst-Case Economics" which examines these very questions. Frank goes in depth as to the origins of these biases in modeling that seem to come back to harm us time and time again. His work is insightful and provocative, and we were fortunate enough to sit in on a webinar Frank gave on his new book. We'll be bringing you some of our favorite excerpts in the coming weeks in two special editions of Behind the Switch. Hope you enjoy!

On January 10th, New York City mayor Bill DeBlasio announced the city was divesting its pension funds from fossil fuels, in addition to suing five major fossil fuel firms. New York is the first major U.S. city to divest from fossil fuels, and its actions may well be replicated by other cities. Hannah and Andrew give you the full story in this weeks Good News Minute!