October 25, 2021

Ep. 180: Ross Koningstein, Director Emeritus at Google

57 minutes

Today's guest is Ross Koningstein, Director Emeritus at Google.

Today's guest is Ross Koningstein. Ross is currently Director Emeritus at Google and works in the tech giant's Climate and Energy R&D group. He has led a number of efforts during his time at Google. Before joining Google in 2001 as its first Director of Engineering, he was a founder at Costa del Sol Systems and CriSys Ltd. He is co-author of the IEEE article "What would it really take to reverse climate change" and presented the talk "Why Incremental Advances are Inadequate to Solving Climate Change" at the 2015 MIT Low-Carbon Energy Workshop. Ross has contributed to Google's RE < C effort (Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal) and Google's breakthrough high-efficiency data center in The Dalles, Oregon. Ross holds a B.Eng. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Carleton in 1984 and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Robotics at Stanford University.

I was looking forward to sitting down with Ross because of his perch at Google and the climate sector. We cover so much in this episode, from nuclear energy as a climate solution to carbon offsets and the role of the oil & gas industry in the clean energy future to mobilizing folks to care about climate. We also explore Ross's role at Google and why he is a techno-optimist. Ross is a great guest, and this is a must-listen episode.

Enjoy the show!

You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at [email protected], where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Episode recorded September 28th, 2021

Ross's article: What It Would Really Take To Reverse Climate Change

For more information about this episode, visit: https://myclimatejourney.co/episodes/ross-koningstein