Catalyst with Shayle Kann

Geothermal seems to be nearing an inflection point. With rising load growth, clean, firm power is more valuable than ever. Next-gen geothermal players like Fervo Energy and Sage Geosystems are signing PPAs with major tech firms. Even U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright — a known critic of renewables — has praised the potential of geothermal. 

The size of the U.S. geothermal resource accessible through next-gen geothermal technologies like enhanced-geothermal systems is enormous — potentially thousands of gigawatts. But tapping into it hinges on figuring out the economics.

So what does it actually take to develop a geothermal project — and how are new tools reshaping the process?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Carl Hoiland, co-founder and CEO of geothermal energy company Zanskar, which uses AI for enhanced geothermal exploration. Shayle and Carl cover topics like: 

Why geothermal stalled — and what’s changing now

The full step-by-step process of developing a project

How to avoid exploration risk, also known as dry hole risk

Methods for estimating resource size and managing depletion risk

The geothermal supply chain 

How permitting is speeding up

Carl’s outlook for when and where development is likely to happen

Resources:

Latitude Media: Geothermal could meet 64% of hyperscale data center power demand

Latitude Media: Why geothermal might benefit from Trump’s tariffs

The Green Blueprint: How a text message launched a geothermal revolution in Utah

Latitude Media: The geothermal industry has a potential ally in Chris Wright

Latitude Media: Why California lawmakers are warming to geothermal 

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a platform enabling solar and storage developers and buyers to save time, reduce risk, and increase profits in their equipment selection process. Anza gives clients access to pricing, technical, and risk data plus tools that they’ve never had access to before. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

In April, the Trump administration issued an executive order to accelerate the development of deep-sea minerals — part of its broader push for “energy dominance.” The world’s oceans hold vast, untapped deposits of critical minerals like nickel, copper, manganese, and rare earth elements — all essential to batteries and clean energy technologies.

Despite decades of interest, no commercial deep-sea mining project has begun production. The reasons? Regulatory uncertainty, environmental concerns, and the complexity of processing polymetallic nodules.

So what does this new executive order actually do?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Hans Smith, president and CEO of Ocean Minerals, a company participating in exploration of the Cook Islands. Shayle and Hans cover topics like:

What the Trump executive order mandates — and its legal limits

The bottleneck of U.S. deep-sea exploration 

The controversy about U.S. legal authority over international waters

The economics and geopolitics of deep-sea hotspots like the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, Japan, and the Cook Islands

The technical challenges of refining polymetallic nodules

CapEx, OpEx, and barriers to commercial deployment

Resources:

Catalyst: Mining the deep sea

World Resources Institute: What We Know About Deep-Sea Mining — and What We Don’t

Reuters: Trump signs executive order boosting deep-sea mining industry

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a platform enabling solar and storage developers and buyers to save time, reduce risk, and increase profits in their equipment selection process. Anza gives clients access to pricing, technical, and risk data plus tools that they’ve never had access to before. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

From his days as an IndyCar race engineer to his current role as chief product officer for a leading storage integrator, Tristan Doherty has always worked at the intersection of high performance and risk management. 

Today, he's applying that expertise at LG Energy Solution Vertech to build more resilient, domestically manufactured energy storage systems for America's evolving grid.

LG Energy Solution Vertech is the US energy storage division of LG Energy Solution, which has committed $1.4 billion to manufacture batteries in the U.S., creating a hub capable of producing 16.5 gigawatt-hours of energy storage cells annually. This investment is part of the company's long-term strategy to diversify supply chains.

"We're on schedule for early next year to be a hundred percent non-Chinese in terms of all of the components and sub-components going into those ESS cells,” says Doherty.

This manufacturing strategy is critical in a moment of trade uncertainty. While LG Energy Solution's substantial resources allow it to weather these challenges, smaller players in the supply chain face greater difficulties. "We're seeing projects that are being paused, that are being delayed. We're seeing suppliers that are rethinking their strategy...the goalposts are continually shifting."

Beyond manufacturing, LG Energy Solution has transformed its approach to system integration. Rather than simply connecting batteries to the grid, the company now designs comprehensive power solutions with grid needs as the starting point. Doherty describes this as "flipping the script" from an inside-out to an outside-in approach.

"The direction of design decisions and the direction of design intent has kind of flipped 180 degrees," he explains. "It's creating much more effective and much more powerful designs."

This evolution in design philosophy extends to safety considerations as well. Following incidents like the Moss Landing fire, the industry has increasingly shifted toward containerized solutions that compartmentalize risk. According to Doherty, this approach, combined with other innovations, has contributed to a 97% reduction in energy storage system failure rates.

As unprecedented demand growth from data centers, electrification, and manufacturing transforms the grid landscape, Doherty sees energy storage playing a central role. 

"We've made immense strides and we've figured out a whole lot of really interesting and fascinating ways of using batteries. But I think there's a whole bunch more to come."

This episode was produced in partnership with LG Energy Solution Vertech. LG Energy Solution Vertech is the U.S. energy storage division of LG Energy Solution, here to be your lifetime energy storage partner. Learn more about the company's approach to safety, performance, and its commitment to the U.S. market.

This week, we're bringing you a special episode of The Green Blueprint, a show about the stories behind first-of-a-kind climate projects. In this episode: Terawatt Power's first commercial electric truck charging depot, which opened in April near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. It was a significant milestone for the industry. So how’d Terawatt pull it off?

Host Lara Pierpoint talks to Terawatt’s founder Neha Palmer about the financing, offtakes, and market demand for electrified trucks. It’s the kind of deep-dive conversation we love to have here on Catalyst, so we think you’ll enjoy it.

In 2021, Neha Palmer co-founced Terrawatt Infrastructure with a bold mission: create the backbone for America's electric trucking revolution.

Within its first year, Terrawatt 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 questions about whether heavy-duty transport can truly be electrified.

In this episode, Lara talks with Neha about how Terrawatt aims to transform freight transport despite market skepticism. Neha explains Terawatt’s strategic approach to site selection, innovative charging designs for fully-loaded trucks, and the vision for a revolutionary California-to-Texas network.

Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a platform enabling solar and storage developers and buyers to save time, reduce risk, and increase profits in their equipment selection process. Anza gives clients access to pricing, technical, and risk data plus tools that they’ve never had access to before. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

The nuclear renaissance of the 2000s turned out to be something of a mirage. Buoyed by rising fossil gas prices, growing climate awareness, and steady load growth, nuclear seemed poised for a breakout moment. But that momentum stalled. Electricity demand flatlined. The fracking boom sent gas prices plummeting. And Fukushima rattled public confidence in nuclear power. Ultimately, only two new reactors, Vogtle units 3 and 4 in Georgia, reached completion over a decade later.

So is this latest wave of nuclear hype any different?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Chris Colbert, CEO of Elementl Power, which on Wednesday announced a deal with Google to develop three nuclear projects of at least 600-megawatts each. (Energy Impact Partners, where Shayle is a partner, is an investor in Elementl.) Chris, a former executive at NuScale Power, thinks last year may have marked the start of a nuclear revival: the recommissioning of Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island and Michigan’s Holtec Palisades; Big Tech deals to support small modular reactor development; and the start of construction on TerraPower’s Wyoming reactor, the Western Hemisphere’s first advanced nuclear facility.

But until new reactors move beyond one-off projects to serial deployment, nuclear won’t achieve the cost reductions needed for widespread adoption. Chris and Shayle discuss what it will take to turn this groundswell of activity into widespread deployment, covering topics like:

Current tailwinds, like load growth and interest from corporate buyers

Why corporate buyers may be better positioned than utilities to take on development risks

Elementl’s technology-agnostic approach

Different nuclear technologies — light water, non-light water, and advanced designs — and Chris’s predictions for when they’ll reach commercialization

Why iteration is essential to driving down costs (and why the Google deal involves three separate projects)

How regulatory timelines are speeding up

The steps of project development with a corporate buyer

Chris’s criteria for site selection — and why attracting skilled labor ranks surprisingly high

Resources:

Latitude Media: Was 2024 really the year of nuclear resurgence?

Latitude Media: Is large-scale nuclear poised for a comeback?

Catalyst: The cost of nuclear

Latitude Media: Trump’s DOE is reupping Biden-era funding for small modular nuclear reactors

Latitude Media: Utah bets on a new developer to revive its small modular reactor ambitions

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a platform enabling solar and storage developers and buyers to save time, reduce risk, and increase profits in their equipment selection process. Anza gives clients access to pricing, technical, and risk data plus tools that they’ve never had access to before. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

In the mid-2000s, Ben Brown started his career designing demand response programs that relied on pagers and telephones. Today, as Renew Home's CEO, he's leveraging AI and tens of millions of connected smart devices to help households save energy and create an entirely new approach to grid management.

Renew Home is building a new kind of virtual power plant that moves beyond occasional emergency events toward continuous, subtle energy shifts across millions of connected households.

"The biggest evolution is connected devices," explains Brown, who previously led energy product development at Google after its acquisition of Nest.

During his time at Google Labs working on large language models, Brown also witnessed firsthand the massive energy demands that AI would place on our grid.

This realization, combined with his work on smart home technology, led Brown to envision a new approach to virtual power plants – one built on subtle, personalized adjustments across millions of homes rather than occasional disruptive events.

“There's actually a lot more value continuously throughout the year, over hundreds of hours where customers can save more money by helping support the grid."

With DOE projections showing a 200 gigawatt peak on the US grid by 2030, Renew Home's approach offers a compelling alternative to building new power plants. By focusing on customer control and personalization, they've achieved 75% opt-in rates, while creating a resource that is far cheaper than gas peakers.

In this episode, recorded as part of a live Frontier Forum, Stephen Lacey talks with Ben Brown about the next generation of virtual power plants. 

How does Renew Home’s approach differ from demand response or battery-based VPPs? And what role can it play in addressing the grid’s urgent needs?

This is a partner episode, brought to you by Renew Home. It was recorded live as part of Latitude Media's Frontier Forum series. Watch the full video to hear more details about next-generation VPPs.

It’s a Catalyst first-of-a-kind: our very first live event! We hosted it last Wednesday at San Francisco Climate week. In this episode, Shayle talks to Mike Schroepfer, co-founder and partner at Gigascale Capital and former CTO of Meta, and Nick Chaset, CEO of Octopus Energy US. Together they cover:

Lessons on building products that consumers love

 Over and under hyped trends, including data center load growth, carbon removal, and fusion

What areas will benefit most from the current administration

The most important, least appreciated category of climate tech

The craziest idea that just might work

Recommended resources:

Catalyst: A skeptic’s take on AI electricity load growth

Catalyst: The geopolitics of rare earth elements

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.

This special Catalyst Live was sponsored by JP Morgan Chase and DLA Piper.

Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a platform enabling solar and storage developers and buyers to save time, reduce risk, & increase profits in their equipment selection process. Anza gives clients access to pricing, technical, and risk data and tools that they’ve never had access to before. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

China’s new export controls on rare earth elements (REEs) are a problem for EVs, renewables, and other industries that rely on the minerals, especially the permanent magnets they’re used in. The vast majority of the global supply chain is in China. Plus, Chinese companies control supply chain operations around the world. 

So is it possible to stand up a rare earth supply chain outside of China’s control?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Ahmad Ghahreman, co-founder and CEO of REE recycler Cyclic Materials. (Energy Impact Partners, where Shayle is a partner, invests in Cyclic.) They cover topics like:

Recommended resources:

The New York Times: The Mine Is American. The Minerals Are China’s.

The New York Times: How China Took Over the World’s Rare Earths Industry

Axios: China trade war risks stifling America's electric car movement

Heatmap:  China’s Minerals Pause All Pain, No Gain for U.S

Latitude Media: Building a supply chain for rare earth elements

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a platform enabling solar and storage developers and buyers to save time, reduce risk, & increase profits in their equipment selection process. Anza gives clients access to pricing, technical, and risk data and tools that they’ve never had access to before. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

The U.S. storage market is experiencing hockey-stick growth, with multiple gigawatts being installed quarterly. But new policy uncertainties around tariffs and the Inflation Reduction Act are threatening this momentum.

But Jeff Waters, the CEO of Powin, remains optimistic.

"This industry will figure out a way to work with it," says Waters, who brings decades of experience from the semiconductor and solar industries. "What we're doing is important."

Powin is a leading storage integrator that designs, commissions, and services some of the largest utility-scale batteries in the world. As Waters puts it, "If you are a utility or if you are an IPP, if you want to integrate storage and own and operate a storage asset, we are that one throat to choke."

In this episode, produced in partnership with Powin, Stephen Lacey talks with Jeff about why he's still optimistic about the market despite significant headwinds. Drawing from his experience in semiconductors, Waters makes a case for how America should approach domestic battery manufacturing.

"When I hear people talk about storage and say, 'We don't want Chinese companies investing or getting taxpayer money to build plants,' I think it's a ridiculous notion," Waters explains. "The only way we're going to get anywhere in the U.S. market with storage is by partnering with the Chinese."

They discuss the extraordinary scaling of project sizes, the surge in electricity demand from data centers, technology trends beyond lithium-iron phosphate batteries, diverse deployment models, regional market opportunities, and the remarkable resilience of an industry used to navigating policy volatility.

This is a partner episode, brought to you by Powin. Powin is pushing the frontiers of energy storage. To learn more about Powin's integrated energy storage systems and to read case studies of how the company is executing projects, go to powin.com.

Big tech’s data center construction boom is fueling a flurry of natural gas development, despite the fuel’s challenges, and it’s complicating big tech’s climate goals. But carbon capture and storage (CCS) could mitigate emissions from those new plants, and hyperscalers could secure low-carbon power while meeting their needs for speed and reliability. 

So how could natural gas with CCS serve data center loads?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct, who recently co-authored a couple pieces on the topic. Despite recent high profile cancellations of natural gas projects, Julio makes the case that gas-plus-CCS has attractive advantages, provided the carbon capture actually happens. Shayle and Julio cover topics like:

Recommended resources:

Carbon Direct: Carbon Capture for Natural Gas-Fired Power Generation

Carbon Direct: Carbon capture for natural gas-fired power generation: An opportunity for hyperscalers

Latitude Media: Where does gas fit in the puzzle of powering AI?

Latitude Media: High costs, delays prompt withdrawal of five more Texas gas plants

Latitude Media: Hydrogen-ready’ power plants aren’t actually ready for hydrogen

Latitude Media: Engie’s pulled project highlights the worsening economics of gas

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a platform enabling solar and storage developers and buyers to save time, reduce risk, & increase profits in their equipment selection process. Anza gives clients access to pricing, technical, and risk data and tools that they’ve never had access to before. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.