This is the first episode in a series about solar energy, and we're starting really small. In Germany, Gwen learned about these compact personal solar kits you can install yourself -- right out of the box. There, they call it balkonkraftwerk, or balcony solar. Of course she had to buy one when she got back from Europe and try it out on her roof in Fairbanks. 

But is the grid ready for this kind of DIY power generation? 

Closing the Gap is hosted by Gwen Holdmann and edited by Jennifer Pemberton. This episode was produced by Liz Smith. Music is from Blue Dot Sessions.

You don’t need super high temperatures to harness geothermal energy. Under the right circumstances, a much smaller thermal gradient can be used as well. If we start digging, we’re guaranteed to find heat. It’s getting that heat to the surface where we can use it without spending more energy than we can actually get out of it -- that's the tricky part. We visit South Africa, Denmark, and upstate New York to learn about the not-so-hot geothermal resource that's beneath our feet all over the world.

Closing the Gap is hosted by Gwen Holdmann and edited by Jennifer Pemberton. This episode was produced by Liz Smith. Music is from Blue Dot Sessions.

We cover the basics of geothermal energy before diving in to the more extreme versions of the technology in the next few episodes. And where better to kick off an episode on geothermal than with a mini-tour of Iceland — a country that has arguably made better use of geothermal than anywhere else on earth? In this episode, we’ll visit three sites in the southwest near the capital of Reykjavik before winding up in my own backyard in Alaska.

Closing the Gap is hosted by Gwen Holdmann and edited by Jennifer Pemberton. This episode was produced by Tony Williams. Music is from Blue Dot Sessions.

A look at the extreme edges of geothermal energy. We'll start with the super hot -- actual liquid magma -- chatting with a couple of visionary Icelanders that have some big ideas about the future of geothermal. 

Closing the Gap is hosted by Gwen Holdmann and edited by Jennifer Pemberton. This episode was produced by Tony Williams. Music is from Blue Dot Sessions.

Before our towns and homes were lit by electricity, we relied on something called town gas for everything from reading lights to cooking. Eventually, town gas in most places was replaced by natural gas, which burned cleaner. But the switch from town gas to natural gas was not a one to one replacement, and it was not trivial. Because town gas, unlike natural gas, is mostly hydrogen.

Closing the Gap is hosted by Gwen Holdmann and produced by Jennifer Pemberton. Music is from Blue Dot Sessions.

We explore two carbon capture technologies that are exploiting natural geologic processes. But the companies working on these solutions are taking those natural processes and speeding them up a bit -- giving mother nature a little extra push in order to try and slow down climate change.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and is the energy source powering our sun. The idea of a hydrogen economy has been promoted for decades. So what’s holding us back? 

Closing the Gap is hosted by Gwen Holdmann and produced by Jennifer Pemberton. Music is from Blue Dot Sessions.

Like much of rural Alaska, the town of Nome relies heavily on imported fuels for heating and power. The cost of heating oil here is well over $7/gallon. That’s what incentivizes a lot of Alaska communities to pursue new energy technologies, often well before they are part of the mainstream. 

Closing the Gap is hosted by Gwen Holdmann and produced by Jennifer Pemberton. Music is from Blue Dot Sessions.

Not every place has the right geologic settings for long-term carbon storage. But Alaska is one – in fact, Cook Inlet is the best tidewater location for storage on the entire west coast of North America. North Dakota is another. And for North Dakota this isn’t necessarily so much about mitigating climate change, it’s about building a new niche market to offer a service that others are willing to pay them for.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects to receive 25 licensing applications in the next five years for a new generation of advanced reactors. But getting any of these designs from the drawing board to reality is going to require overcoming a lot of hurdles and uncertainties. Getting any new technology to market is challenging, but that challenge is even more acute for nuclear because of the complexities and costs that it entails. 

In this episode we’ll look at how two U.S. nuclear projects are navigating a complicated government licensing process to develop  a first-of-its-kind technology that could make a pretty big difference in our ability to decarbonize our global energy supply.

Closing the Gap is hosted by Gwen Holdmann and produced by Jennifer Pemberton. Music is from Blue Dot Sessions.