Catalyst with Shayle Kann

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Catalyst with Shayle Kann episodes

December 22, 2022Why methane matters
Today we’re talking about two climate blind spots: methane and short-term warming. Most of us think of global warming as a long game. How do we reach net zero by 2050? And how should we curb carbon dioxide emissions to get there?
But the warming happening now and in the next few years is just as important.
Short-term warming exacerbates wildfires, hurricanes and other climate impacts now. And the short-term trajectory of warming can make things better or worse in the long run. At some point before we reach net zero emissions, it’s increasingly likely that we will overshoot our 1.5 degree target. Hopefully we will come back down, but the more we overshoot, the worse the effects of climate change will be. Which is why we should bend the curve of that trajectory by tackling the causes of short-term warming.
High up on that list is methane. It lives in the atmosphere for only 12 years, but in the 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere it causes about 84 times more warming than carbon dioxide. That means it’s also a powerful solution. Methane in the atmosphere right now causes about 30% of global warming to date, but cutting emissions now would actually have a cooling effect. Why? Because, unlike carbon dioxide which lasts for several hundred years, methane breaks down relatively quickly.
So how do we tackle the methane problem?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Erika Reinhardt, co-founder of Spark Climate Solutions, a non-profit focused on under-addressed climate solutions. Right now Spark is focusing on methane emissions from livestock, also known as enteric methane.

Shayle and Erika cover topics like:
Why we should consider different time-scale standards for measuring global warming impact, such as GWP100 and GWP20
How short-lived aerosols mask the full warming impact of greenhouse gasses
Methane removal, including the process of oxidation and methane sinks
Different sources of methane, such as wetlands, livestock and fossil fuel production
Ready-to-deploy solutions to fossil fuel methane emissions, such as flaring, detection, capture and storage
How flaring may be less effective than previously thought
Solutions under development for livestock methane, such as manure management, biogas digesters and feed additives like seaweed-derived bromoform
Recommended Resources:
Canary: Cutting methane emissions could make a big dent in climate change, major UN report says
Bloomberg: As Gas Prices Soar, Nobody Knows How Much Methane Is Leaking
Inside Climate News: Feeding Cows Seaweed Reduces Their Methane Emissions, but California Farms Are a Long Way From Scaling Up the Practice

Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Catalyst is supported by Scale Microgrid Solutions, your comprehensive source for all distributed energy financing. Distributed generation can be complex. Scale makes financing it easy. Visit scalecapitalsolutions.com to learn more.
Catalyst is supported by CohnReznick, a trusted partner for navigating the complex and evolving financial, tax and regulatory landscape of the renewable sector. Visit cohnreznick.com to learn more.
46 min
December 15, 2022Advance market commitments to decarbonize heavy industry
A coalition of companies organized by the U.S. government is promising to purchase low-carbon versions of commodities from “hard to abate” heavy industries. This sort of policy is called an advanced market commitment, which the U.S. has used in the past to accelerate the development of new technologies. With guaranteed revenue from the government, manufacturers are able to take risks to create products that they might not have otherwise.
In the leadup to COP26 last year, John Kerry, U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, announced the First Movers Coalition (FMC) in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. It now involves 65 companies—including Delta, Maersk, and Rio Tinto—that will buy or supply a percentage of low-carbon products by 2030. India, Norway and eight other countries have signed on, too. The coalition has also committed to purchase carbon removal, adding to the wave of similar pledges like the $1 billion Frontier Fund.
So how will the FMC work?
In this episode, Shayle talks to FMC’s brainchild, Varun Sivaram. Varun is managing director and senior advisor for clean energy and innovation in Kerry's office.
They cover topics like:
Why advanced market commitments are not silver bullets
The FMC’s ability to make companies keep their commitments
How the FMC is developing standards for low-carbon products
How much progress coalition members have made toward their targets
How the Inflation Reduction Act and the FMC support each other
The FMC’s ability to endure changes of administration
When we can stop calling these sectors “hard to abate”
Recommended Resources:
Bloomberg: Companies Commit to Buying Super-Green Cement in Corporate Climate Club
Columbia University: To Bring Emissions-Slashing Technologies to Market, the United States Needs Targeted Demand-Pull Innovation Policies
Harvard University: Using Advance Market Commitments for Public Purpose Technology Development
Catalyst: Growing the carbon dioxide removal market
Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Catalyst is supported by Scale Microgrid Solutions, your comprehensive source for all distributed energy financing. Distributed generation can be complex. Scale makes financing it easy. Visit scalecapitalsolutions.com to learn more.
Catalyst is supported by CohnReznick Capital, a trusted source for renewable energy investment banking servicing the US sustainability sector. Visit cohnreznickcapital.com to learn more.
53 min
December 13, 2022 The trends shaping the energy transition [partner content]
We are headed into an uncertain future for the climate – but the range of possible scenarios is getting clearer. We’ve likely avoided the worst-case scenarios, thanks to the progress made in clean energy.
And that has experts feeling conflicted.
“People who are deep in the industry of trying to address climate change flip flop from skepticism to the amazing opportunity we have,” says DNV Senior Vice President Nick Brod. “Every few weeks, we see new technologies that show us that there is endless potential to make things more and more efficient.”
“We definitely have a lot of the technologies in wind and solar and storage – and there continues to be breakthroughs,” says DNV Senior Vice President Marion Hill.
We have most of the tools available to slow climate change. So where are the opportunities? And what are the bottlenecks to growth?
In this special episode, produced in partnership with DNV, we feature a conversation between Stephen Lacey, Nick Brod, and Marion Hill about the trends reshaping supply and demand on the grid.
DNV provides advice and assurance to customers across the spectrum of the energy transition, from generation to end use – in solar, storage, wind, grid planning, hydrogen, carbon capture, and more. To learn more about how experts like Nick and Marion can help you accelerate the energy transition, go to dnv.com/catalyst
18 min
December 08, 2022Solving the conundrum of industrial heat
To make products like cement, cereal and even baby food, you need heat—and lots of it. Industrial heat consumes about one-fifth of all energy used in 2018, according to the International Energy Agency.
Factories often burn coal or natural gas to generate consistent temperatures up to 2200 degrees Celsius. And most run nearly 24/7 to maintain profitability in competitive commodity markets.
Other sectors like power and ground transportation have clear pathways to decarbonization, relying mainly on electrification and cheap intermittent renewables. But these solutions don’t deliver consistent temperatures and the 24/7 energy needed to make things like steel and petrochemicals. So industrial heat has been a far more stubborn problem to solve.
But there’s a crowded field of technologies lining up to try, including hydrogen, biogas, heat pumps, electric arc furnaces, and even heat batteries.
In this episode, Shayle talks to John O’Donnell, co-founder and CEO of Rondo Energy, a thermal storage startup. Shayle’s venture capital firm Energy Impact Partners has made investments in Rondo Energy. They break down the challenges of industrial heat and discuss the range of technologies that could help to generate it with low emissions.
John and Shayle cover topics like:
Which fuels do we currently rely on for specific industrial uses, and where could we use alternatives?
How thermal batteries can help to solve the intermittency challenges of wind and solar
Industrial grid defection, where large industrial facilities build behind-the-meter renewables to avoid the rising costs of delivered electricity
The potential for industrial growth in places with access to cheap renewables, like the American midwest
Recommended Resources:
McKinsey: Net-zero heat: Long-duration energy storage to accelerate energy system decarbonization
Canary: This startup’s energy storage tech is ‘essentially a giant toaster’
Canary: This startup wants to use cheap surplus clean energy to make high-temperature industrial heat
Catalyst: The many pathways to decarbonizing chemicals

Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Catalyst is supported by Scale Microgrid Solutions, your comprehensive source for all distributed energy financing. Distributed generation can be complex. Scale makes financing it easy. Visit scalecapitalsolutions.com to learn more.
Catalyst is supported by CohnReznick Capital, a trusted source for renewable energy investment banking servicing the US sustainability sector. Visit cohnreznickcapital.com to learn more.
47 min
December 01, 2022Unpopular solar opinions, 2022 edition
We want your feedback! Fill out our listener survey for a chance to win a $100 Patagonia gift card.
In a funny twist of fate, solar’s success has made it old news. It’s the fastest-growing source of electricity in the world and one of the cheapest. But it’s far from the hot topic it was a decade ago when utility-scale photovoltaics were still an emerging technology. Now that it’s a more mature tool in the climate fight, we take it for granted.
And yet there’s so much more we need to do. To reach net zero by 2050, we likely need to quadruple global solar capacity by 2030, according to projections by BloombergNEF (BNEF). But labor shortages, high material costs and interconnection bottlenecks stand in the way.
So how do we get there?
In this episode Shayle talks to Jenny Chase, who managed BloombergNEF’s solar insights team for 17 years before leaving the role this month. Every year she tweets a thread of 50 not-always-popular opinions on solar, covering the state of the industry and the challenges it needs to solve. For this episode, Shayle picked the opinions he found most interesting and unpacked them with Jenny.
They cover Jenny’s opinions on:
The biggest bottlenecks holding back solar deployment, like labor shortages, high polysilicon prices and grid interconnection backlogs
Why we don’t need new technology breakthroughs in solar
Perovskite and building-integrated photovoltaics
How residential solar and battery salespeople are making up their savings projections
How the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act could spur an unsustainable boom in solar and hydrogen equipment manufacturing
Why leading forecasts could be underestimating solar deployment
Recommended Resources:
Twitter: Jenny Chase’s 2022 opinions-on-solar thread
Canary Media: What’s behind solar’s polysilicon shortage — and why it’s not getting better anytime soon
Canary Media: Perovskites can make solar panels more efficient than silicon alone
Bloomberg: Solar Outshines Wind to Lead China’s Clean-Energy Transition
Bloomberg: Solar Growth Estimates for 2050 Are Aggressive, But Not Unrealistic
Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Catalyst is supported by Scale Microgrid Solutions, your comprehensive source for all distributed energy financing. Distributed generation can be complex. Scale makes financing it easy. Visit scalecapitalsolutions.com to learn more.
Catalyst is supported by CohnReznick Capital, a trusted source for renewable energy investment banking servicing the US sustainability sector. Visit cohnreznickcapital.com to learn more.
45 min
November 17, 2022Fixing cement’s carbon problem
We want your feedback! Fill out our listener survey for a chance to win a $100 Patagonia gift card.
Join us on November 30 for a live, virtual episode of Climavores. Come ask a question about food, nutrition, and eating for the climate.
Concrete is an incredible material. It’s essentially pourable rock, and we use it in almost every part of the built world. We also consume more of it than any other man-made material in the world—about three tons per person annually.
And the secret ingredient in all this concrete? Cement. Think of it as the glue that binds the crushed rocks in concrete together.
But here’s the problem. Making cement emits lots of carbon. The cement industry alone produces 8% of global emissions.
Why? First, the process happens at 1500 degrees Celsius, a temperature so hot that companies often burn coal to reach it. Second, the chemical reaction involved in creating cement releases carbon dioxide.
So what are the solutions?
In this episode, Shayle talks to Leah Ellis, co-founder and CEO of Sublime Systems, a startup that has developed a novel way to produce cement at room temperature without releasing carbon dioxide. Shayle’s venture capital firm Energy Impact Partners is an investor in Sublime.
Shayle and Leah discuss:
The important properties of cement and why we use so much of it
The chemistry of cement and why it releases carbon dioxide
Alternative chemistries to Portland cement, the most common and useful formulation
Things you can add to the mix, called supplementary cementitious materials, to offset some of the Portland cement required (like fly ash from coal-fired power plants)
Adopting performance-based standards that allow more flexibility in the materials used in cement
Replacing coal with electrification and alternative fuels in cement kilns
Post-combustion carbon capture for cement kilns
CarbonCure’s technique for injecting carbon dioxide into concrete to increase strength and reduce the amount of cement required
Sublime System’s electrochemical technique for manufacturing cement without carbon emissions
Recommended Resources:
The New York Times: Making the Concrete and Steel We Need Doesn’t Have to Bake the Planet
Canary Media: Major construction firms team up to get the carbon out of concrete
Bloomberg: Breakthroughs Are Helping Even Cement and Steel Go Electric
E&E News: Congress wagered on ‘low-carbon’ concrete. Will it pay off?
Canary Media: Cement is terrible for the climate. California just passed a law to fix that

Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Catalyst is supported by Scale Microgrid Solutions, your comprehensive source for all distributed energy financing. Distributed generation can be complex. Scale makes financing it easy. Visit scalecapitalsolutions.com to learn more.
Catalyst is supported by CohnReznick Capital, a trusted source for renewable energy investment banking servicing the US sustainability sector. Visit cohnreznickcapital.com to learn more.
44 min
November 10, 2022Unleashing the magic of heat pumps
What’s not to love about heat pumps? Well… a few things, actually.
Don’t take this the wrong way: Heat pumps are magic. They heat. They cool. They’re way more efficient than gas boilers. Switching to one can save a household hundreds of dollars in energy bills and lots of carbon emissions. It's why governments are incentivizing and requiring them.
But heat pump adoption has slowed nationally. It’s even declined in colder regions. What‘s holding it back?
In this episode, Shayle talks to his colleague Andy Lubershane, managing director for research and innovation at Energy Impact Partners, a climatetech venture capital firm.
Andy and Shayle talk about the state of heat pump technology and what we need to fix to speed up adoption. They cover topics like:
The relatively high upfront costs and messy customer journey to installation
What mass adoption would do to peak demand on the grid in cold climates
How heat pumps dramatically ramp up electrical load in a typical home and on the grid
Heat pumps powered by natural gas or hydrogen
Plus, why Andy would be a great early adopter for any company that wants to pitch Shayle on solving these problems.

Recommended Resources:
US Department of Energy: Residential Cold Climate Heat Pump Challenge
Canary Media: Heat pumps now required for new homes in Washington state
Canary Media: One weird trick to make heat pumps boom
Canary Media: Will tough standards for heat pump tax credits hurt adoption?
Canary Media: Window heat pumps will help electrify New York City’s apartments
Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Catalyst is supported by Scale Microgrid Solutions, your comprehensive source for all distributed energy financing. Distributed generation can be complex. Scale makes financing it easy. Visit scalecapitalsolutions.com to learn more.
Catalyst is supported by CohnReznick, a trusted partner for navigating the complex and evolving financial, tax and regulatory landscape of the renewable sector. Visit cohnreznick.com to learn more.
42 min
November 03, 2022Getting more energy on the wires
Want to build a power plant in the U.S.? Here are three things to know.

First, connecting a wind farm, utility-scale battery, or other big source of power to the grid means getting in line. A typical project’s wait time has increased from around two years in 2005 to four years in 2020, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Second, the interconnection queue is a crowded place. In 2020 there were 1.44 terawatts of projects in the queue. That’s more than the U.S.’s current fleet of generation.

Third, dropouts are the norm. Only 25% of projects make it to completion. Projects withdraw from the queue for lots of reasons, but wait times are a big factor. During long waits, negotiations can fall apart and rights can expire, reports Emma Penrod of Utility Dive.

Why the bottleneck and long queues? Lack of transmission is the single biggest factor. We need way more of it to bring power from rural areas with rich wind and solar potential to power-hungry population centers. But NIMBYism and a complex permitting process have slowed the construction of new transmission to a glacial pace. So while congress debates permitting reform, what technologies could help us get more energy on the wires?

In this episode, guest host Lara Pierpoint talks to Liza Reed, electricity transmission Research manager for climate policy at the Niskanen Center, a think tank in Washington D.C. She’s also a grid fellow at Prime Movers Lab.

Lara and Liza explore ways to expand transmission capacity:
Replacing steel-reinforced lines with composite-core lines to carry more energy, known in the industry as “reconductoring”
High-voltage direct current lines capable of sending lots of power long distances (a common solution in China but rare in the U.S.)
Running transmission lines underground, known as “undergrounding”
Building lines along existing rights of way, such as highways
High temperature superconductors, which involve cooling wires down to carry more power
Line monitoring technology that analyzes local weather, wind and other factors to detect which lines are cooler than expected, allowing grid operators to send extra power through them
Improving grid studies that determine what kinds of upgrades are needed for interconnection
Federal permitting reform, which might allow more new transmission to be built
Resources:
Utility Dive: Why the energy transition broke the U.S. interconnection system
Volts Podcast: Transmission month: everything in one place
Canary Media: Manchin’s permitting-reform bill splits Dems, pro-renewables groups
Canary Media: New software can find more room for clean energy on transmission grids
Canary Media: FERC has a new plan to connect clean energy to the grid more quickly

Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Catalyst is supported by Antenna Group. For 25 years, Antenna has partnered with leading clean-economy innovators to build their brands and accelerate business growth. If you're a startup, investor, enterprise, or innovation ecosystem that's creating positive change, Antenna is ready to power your impact. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.
Solar Power International and Energy Storage International are returning in-person this year as part of RE+. Come join everyone in Anaheim for the largest, B2B clean energy event in North America. Catalyst listeners can receive 15% off a full conference, non-member pass using promo code CANARY15. Register here.
59 min
October 27, 2022Climatetech for developing economies
Utilities in developing countries are juggling a complex set of problems: How to extend electricity to those who don’t have it; how to deploy large-scale power generation to power economic growth; and how to pursue these goals while decarbonizing.
In this episode, guest host Lara Pierpoint talks to Kate Steel, CEO of Nithio, a finance company focused on off-grid clean energy in Africa. Kate and Lara discuss the options for separating economic growth from fossil fuels. And she argues that we have the technology to develop low-carbon electrified economies in developing economies; we just need to deploy it.
Lara and Kate weigh in on:
The tension between expanding access to low-cost power and attracting investment in large-scale baseload generation
Why off-grid solar is often more economically viable than diesel generators for rural electrification
How canceled power purchase agreements have stymied the development of renewables and how to solve these financing challenges
“Reverse” tech transfer from developing countries to developed ones, such as hyper-efficient appliances
Options for off-grid power, such as lanterns, microgrids, microhydro, biogas and liquefied petroleum gas canisters.
How transportation may leapfrog fossil fuels in developing countries with electric motorbikes, buses and cars
Recommended Resources:
Canary Media: COP26 players pledge funding to shut down coal plants
Bloomberg: A New Era of Climate Disasters Revives Calls for Climate Reparations
Canary Media: Expanding solar access in Africa through artificial intelligence
Columbia University’s Center on Sustainable Investment: Roadmap to Zero-Carbon Electrification of Africa

Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
Catalyst is supported by Scale Microgrid Solutions, your comprehensive source for all distributed energy financing. Distributed generation can be complex. Scale makes financing it easy. Visit scalecapitalsolutions.com to learn more.
Catalyst is supported by CohnReznick, a trusted partner for navigating the complex and evolving financial, tax and regulatory landscape of the renewable sector. Visit cohnreznick.com to learn more.
49 min
October 24, 2022 How the US climate bill will finance the energy transition [partner content]
In this episode, produced in partnership with CohnReznick, we explore the market implications of the Inflation Reduction Act.
The Inflation Reduction Act is an incredibly important win for climate. It puts the U.S. back on the global stage as a serious climate negotiator. It puts the country within reach of a net-zero grid. And it will put hundreds of billions of dollars toward renewables, storage, carbon-capture, and hydrogen.
In reality, it’s a very practical – and very complicated – tax bill. We support clean energy in America through the tax code, and this legislation builds on that framework in a big way.
This episode was produced in partnership with CohnReznick and CohnReznick Capital.
CohnReznick’s Renewable Energy Industry Practice can help your business move forward by proactively addressing even your most complicated challenges and needs.
And CohnReznick Capital’s industry-leading investment banking team can help your company break through the dynamic and evolving sustainability sector by simplifying project finance, M&A, capital raising, and restructuring.
17 min

About Catalyst with Shayle Kann

From the publisher's feed

A weekly podcast featuring veteran investor Shayle Kann interviewing experts about the state of the energy sector and the technologies powering decarbonization.