Climate Cowboys

00:00 – Intro & Sponsors: Lehmann's Terms, Climate Finance Solutions, and EarthSearch.

03:19 – The Origin of Reservoir: Why target the water heater?

06:33 – The Data: Why heating water uses more energy than driving an EV.

16:06 – The Innovator's Dilemma: Why legacy appliance companies struggle to innovate beyond incremental updates.

20:20 – Pricing Strategy: How vertical integration allows Reservoir to stay cost-competitive while offering a premium product.

25:16 – Smart Features: Predictive recirculation (no-wait showers), freeze protection, and leak mitigation.

36:08 – "Party Mode": How an inline booster heater gives a 50-gallon tank the capacity of a 150-gallon tank.

40:58 – The Faucet Remote Control: Using an ultrasonic flow meter to operate your water heater by simply tapping your sink faucet.

44:24 – Building a Hardware Team: The Formlabs Mafia and why every startup employee needs the "take out the trash" mentality.

49:56 – Thermal Batteries & VPPs: How connecting 50,000 smart water heaters equals the capacity of a data center.

00:00 – Intro & Sponsors: Lehmann's Terms, Climate Finance Solutions, and EarthSearch.

03:48 – What is Dreamstar Lines?: Bringing overnight sleeper trains to the LA-SF route.

04:39 – The Strategy: Using existing Union Pacific tracks to bypass the nightmare of building new rail infrastructure.

08:03 – The Bottleneck: Why building new rail in the US is a million-variable problem.

14:38 – Making Trains Sexy: Why you must start with a premium product to change consumer behavior (The Tesla Model).

26:29 – Customer Discovery: Why they added an auto-ferry service and pet-friendly private accommodations.

31:28 – The Autonomous Future: How Robotaxi fleets will solve the last-mile problem for train travelers.

39:40 – Regulation vs. Innovation: Why the US needs a new generation of "builder" legislators.

46:52 – Zoning is Anti-American: The housing crisis and the case for creating special economic zones for experimentation.

55:09 – Sustainability: The carbon emissions of rail vs. flying, and the future of hybridized rail tech.

00:00 – Intro & Sponsors: Lehmann's Terms, Climate Finance Solutions, and EarthSearch.

03:09 – Welcome to Keep Cool: Nick van Osdol flips the script and interviews Silas.

04:07 – The Evolution of Climate Tech: Shedding the 1.0 vibes and returning to "CleanTech."

08:52 – Silas’s Origin Story: From rural Wisconsin to renewable energy recruiting in NYC.

13:33 – Disrupting Recruitment: Why Silas founded EarthSearch to offer executive-level search for early-stage startups without the massive fees.

18:30 – The End of ZIRP: Why the hiring market has shifted to slow, intentional, and skills-based recruiting.

30:24 – Building Culture: Why early-stage startups shouldn't be afraid to hire bored, senior talent.

37:19 – The Call to Adventure: How to position your startup to attract highly motivated individuals.

43:59 – Companies to Watch: Silas shouts out Helix Earth Technologies and OptiGrid.

51:35 – Flipping the Table: Silas asks Nick what keeps him motivated to write and podcast about climate.

53:56 – The Value of Writing: Why authentic, human storytelling matters more than ever in the age of AI.

00:00 – Intro: Coral's $7.5M Seed Round and mission.

02:46 – What is Coral?: The FinTech platform for energy-efficient building upgrades.

04:46 – The Pain Point: Why HVAC experts don't want to be "rebate experts."

06:15 – The Financing Mechanism: How Coral advances funds to make the rebate instant.

08:19 – Contractor Benefits: Saving time, avoiding bad reviews, and winning more deals.

11:44 – The Economics of Rebates: Why most incentives come from local utilities trying to lower grid demand.

15:43 – The Origin Story: Quitting jobs to solve the $8,000 savings bottleneck for homeowners.

21:00 – Mission Alignment: Balancing climate goals with helping small businesses grow.

24:17 – The "Chicken and Egg" Funding: Using early VC dollars to prove the rebate float model.

31:24 – Depoliticizing Clean Tech: Leading with comfort, safety, and pure energy savings.

36:09 – Co-Founder Dating: How Samir and Nizar built trust before building a company.

42:37 – Pragmatism and Empathy: Why climate founders must be chameleons to succeed.

46:27 – Raising Capital: Why they pitched FinTech VCs instead of traditional Climate funds.

00:00 – Intro: Andrew Beebe’s background in Cleantech since 2002.

03:34 – Obvious Ventures & Fund V: Deploying a new $360M fund.

04:59 – The Next Vintage: Why the tourists are gone and the real builders remain.

08:23 – The Branding Problem: Why "Climate Tech" mirrors the 1990s Internet boom.

16:30 – Global Markets vs. US Politics: The inevitability of the energy transition.

20:46 – The AI Energy Crisis: Utilities facing 50% demand growth from data centers.

25:53 – Generative Science: How AI is accelerating materials science and geothermal exploration.

28:20 – Local Politics: Why hyperscalers must win over local communities to build.

34:01 – Texas as a Mecca: Why low-regulation red states are building the most clean energy.

38:56 – Physical AI & Autonomy: From robotic shipping vessels to electric aviation.

47:01 – The Hardware Playbook: Why you want to be a buyer (not a seller) on a plummeting cost curve.

51:50 – The Ultimate Arbitrage: Making money when you know the transition is inevitable.

00:00 – Intro: Cody Finke returns to the podcast.

04:30 – The "Rock Refinery": Moving beyond cement to co-produce aluminum and critical minerals.

05:39 – The Physics of Scale: Why cost parity is impossible with small reactors.

08:12 – The History of Co-Production: From whale oil to Standard Oil's catalytic cracking.

12:39 – "Bad Geologic Luck": Why traditional limestone cement plants can't co-produce.

18:54 – De-Risking Deep Tech: How Brimstone uses off-the-shelf components to build a massive patent moat.

28:33 – Fundraising Strategy: Raising ~$90M and executing pilot plants.

33:44 – PR for Founders: When to stay in stealth and when to reveal your grand vision.

38:18 – The $189M DOE Grant: Winning the money under Biden, losing it under Trump, and why it wasn't a disaster.

45:54 – Geopolitics & Manufacturing: Why critical materials and heavy industry must return to democratic countries.

50:28 – The Ultimate Climate Strategy: Why capitalism only rewards lower costs, not moral outcomes.

00:00 – Intro: The $500M deal with Jupiter Power.

02:15 – Landon’s Background: Lessons from Tesla and Northvolt.

06:30 – The "Magnet Hire": How to attract A-Players by hiring one star first.

12:00 – Why Sodium-Ion?: The cost and supply chain advantage over Lithium.

18:45 – The Jupiter Power Deal: How they negotiated a massive off-take agreement.

24:10 – "Engineering Bankability": Selling the manufacturing roadmap, not just the cell.

32:00 – Supply Chain: Why Peak Energy avoids conflict minerals and China reliance.

41:00 – The Grid Challenge: Why batteries need to last 25 years in the desert.

48:00 – Scaling Speed: How to move faster than traditional industrial giants.

53:00 – Hiring: The specific traits Landon looks for in executives.

00:00 – Intro: Recording in-person at 9Zero in San Francisco.

02:45 – Antonio’s Background: From Stanford PhD to Flow Batteries.

06:00 – The History: What is the "Zebra Battery" and why did it fail in EVs?

10:15 – The Chemistry: How Sodium, Iron, and Salt work together.

12:30 – The Economics: Why $1/kWh material cost changes everything.

17:00 – Safety First: No thermal runaway and safer than Lithium-Ion.

22:00 – Manufacturing Strategy: Leveraging existing UK talent and factories.

28:00 – The "Bankability" Challenge: Proving a "new" old technology.

34:00 – Commercialization: Who buys these batteries? (Utilities vs Developers).

41:00 – The Grid Reality: Why "Non-Wires Alternatives" are the immediate market.

46:00 – Founder Advice: How to hire A-players for a hardware startup.

00:00 – Intro: Why energy regulation is the "unsexy" bottleneck of the transition.

03:11 – Hudson’s Background: From SEC Attorney to rewriting federal data laws.

05:55 – What HData Does: The platform for rate cases, compliance, and wildfire plans.

06:40 – The Natural Monopoly: Explaining the "Regulator vs. Regulated" conflict.

10:13 – The Rate Case Process: How utilities get paid (and why it takes so much paper).

14:00 – The ROI of AI: Moving from "Control-F" to vertical AI agents.

22:20 – The Urgency: Why grid modernization creates a compliance explosion.

35:00 – Hyperscalers & AI: How data center demand is changing the regulatory game.

46:18 – The Future of Work: Will AI replace regulatory lawyers?

48:00 – Founder Story: The 2022 cash crisis and the "Dark Night of the Soul."

53:00 – Hiring Framework: The 3 motivations Hudson looks for in talent.

What happens when an oil well dries up? Usually, it becomes a "zombie" liability—leaking methane and waiting to become a taxpayer burden. Kemp Gregory, CEO and Co-founder of Renewell Energy, joins the show to explain how he’s turning these multi-million dollar liabilities into clean energy assets.

Renewell converts idle wells into mechanical gravity batteries. By using existing deep wellbores to raise and lower heavy weights, they’ve created long-duration energy storage that is cheaper than lithium-ion and uses the infrastructure we already have.

Key Takeaways:

The Problem: Why the "Orphan Well Pocalypse" is a looming global crisis.

The Tech: How gravity storage works and why it doesn’t degrade like chemical batteries.

The Business: Convincing oil companies to hand over wells instead of plugging them.

The Grid: Why "stranded assets" are actually perfectly positioned for grid stability.

Building Deep-Tech: Why "agency" is the #1 trait Kemp looks for in early hires.

Timestamps:

01:40 – Kemp’s journey from Oil & Gas to CleanTech.

05:00 – The Scale: 900k active wells vs. 2 million idle wells.

14:15 – Gravity storage vs. Lithium-Ion: Cost and mechanics.

18:00 – Turning abandonment costs into revenue shares.

40:15 – Hiring for "Evidence of Agency."

Connect & Links:

Guest: Kemp Gregory | Renewell Energy

Host: Connect with Silas on LinkedIn

Community: Follow CleanTechies on LinkedIn

Watch: Subscribe on YouTube

Our Sponsors:

Climate Finance Solutions (CFS): Secure government grant funding with a 90% success rate. Learn more at ClimateFinanceSolutions.com.

ErthSearch: Specialized CleanTech recruiting. Fast, accurate, and guaranteed. Get started with Silas today.

Disclaimer: This podcast is NOT investment advice. Please do your own due diligence.