Colorado Energy Leaders Podcast

The Institute for Science and Policy is a project of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The institute recently released a podcast called 'Coal at Sunset'. I was fascinated by this podcast and appreciative of the work of the institute of bringing out the human elements, and potential impacts, of climate change policy. On this episode, Kristan Uhlenbrock the Institute's director, and Trent Knoss the managing editor, join me to discuss the coal at sunset podcast. Check out the institute and the podcast at the links below:

https://institute.dmns.org/about/the-team/

https://coalatsunset.org/episodes/

John Kellogg is a Senior Partner at the Moye White Law firm located in Denver, CO. He, and others at his firm, have worked on industry-based sustainability accounting standards. In this episode, John and I discuss what these are, why they are important, and where past efforts have fallen down on ESG standards more broadly. 

Moye White Law Firm Blog

https://www.moyewhite.com/news-insights/blog/november-2021/moye-white-leads-the-way-regarding-sustainability

https://www.thealliancecenter.org/blog/2021/11/05/moye-white-sustainability-analytics/ 

Australian Carbon Unit

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/auscon/pages/19412/attachments/original/1632186925/ACF-Aust-Institute_integrity-avoided_deforestation_report.pdf?1632186925 

Sustainability Accounting Standards Board

https://www.sasb.org

The former chair of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, Jeff Ackermann, and I, discuss the role of the PUC in energy and its potentially expanded role in decarbonization. Links from the episode include:

https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/CODORA/bulletins/21b7b35

https://www.fortnightly.com/fortnightly/2021/01/parting-thoughts-regulatory-leader

As a start of season 3 of the Colorado Energy Leaders podcast, I wanted to get climate change right. For 2021, I want climate change to be a reoccurring theme. In this episode Dr. Ted Scambos, an awarded global authority on the measurement of ice mass joins the podcast to help me understand some of the basics of this complex topic. Additionally, we discuss how to construct a more rigorous cost-benefit analysis of climate action and inaction without slipping into doomsday nihilism.

Links to the show include:

https://thwaitesglacier.org

https://nsidc.org

https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/climate-environment/climate-change-colorado-utah-hot-spot/

Representatives from the Sierra Club and NRDC join me to discuss the recently released Colorado Decarbonization Roadmap Draft. We discuss some of the details of the plan, how the Sierra Club and NRDC produced their own models of the Colorado economy, and the purpose of decarbonization plans.

The links to the decarbonization plan and twitter accounts from the episode are:

https://energyoffice.colorado.gov/climate-energy/ghg-pollution-reduction-roadmap

@AGonzalez_NRDC

https://twitter.com/AGonzalez_NRDC?s=20

@AnnaMcDevitt1

https://twitter.com/AnnaMcDevitt1?s=20

Maureen ‘Mo’ McCanna, the Director of Education and Safety, and Jack Todd, the Director of Communications for Bicycle Colorado join me to discuss bikes, education, and energy!

You can find more info about Bicycle Colorado at their website:

https://www.bicyclecolorado.org

The Denver Blueprint I referenced in the episode can be found here:

https://frontiergroup.org/blogs/blog/fg/denver-paved-over-paradise-and-put-parking-lot

Rich Powell of ClearPath joins me to discuss the conservative case for nuclear. For this episode, numbers I cite from the EIA can be found here: 

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf 

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/10/f67/Internal%20Revenue%20Code%20Tax%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf 

https://sequestration.mit.edu/pdf/David_and_Herzog.pdf

Suzy Hobbs Baker of the Fastest Path to Zero and the Good Energy Collective joins me in part 2 of this 3 part series to discuss why and how she hopes for nuclear energy to be a part of progressive policies. Polling data can be found at: 

https://news.gallup.com/poll/248048/years-three-mile-island-americans-split-nuclear-power.aspx 

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/23/18507297/nuclear-energy-renewables-voters-poll 

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/436003-americans-in-new-poll-equally-divided-on-nuclear-power

Solid Power is a Colorado born and based battery technology company. It is pioneering novel solid-state batteries to help power a clean energy future. In this episode with its CEO and co-founder, Doug Campbell, we talk about the company's technology, and some of the alternatives to battery technology that may get us to decarbonization faster.  

Solid Power website:

https://solidpowerbattery.com/

World Economic Forum Study on Electric Vehicles

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/battery-batteries-electric-cars-carbon-sustainable-power-energy/#:~:text=Battery%20production%20uses%20a%20lot%20of%20energy%2C%20from,power%20it%2C%20and%20consequently%20the%20more%20carbon%20produced.

An New York Times article on Car-Free Cities

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/opinion/sunday/ban-cars-manhattan-cities.html

Estimates of Space Occupied by Vehicles in Cities

https://www.vox.com/a/new-economy-future/cars-cities-technologies