This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re rethinking how clothes, shoes—and even car interiors—get made without plastic. My guest is Maria Intscher-Owrang, CEO and co-founder of Simplifyber. Her innovation takes plant fibers + water, then forms finished 3D shapes in a single step—skipping spinning, weaving, cutting, and sewing. 

• What’s broken about fossil-based textiles (cost curves, subsidies, and why polyester took over)
• How Simplifyber’s cellulose slurry + compression molding works—and why it cuts waste dramatically
• Early results: an LCA showing up to 30× lower impact for shoe uppers vs. standard construction
• Performance and durability (including why these parts can survive sun/heat/humidity in car interiors)
• Unit economics: cost parity at scale via tooling (and why higher volumes matter)
• Beachhead products: GANNI “moon shoe” uppers and a Kia EV2 concept interior, now moving toward production
• What this could mean for labor, local supply chains, and using regional feedstocks (cellulose everywhere)

• Website Simplifyber: https://www.simplifyber.com/
• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-intscher-owrang-3278a07/
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/

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This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re talking about one of the biggest hurdles in the clean energy transition — how to make electric vehicles as fast and easy to refuel as gas cars.

Our guest is Will Fitzhugh, co-founder and CEO of Adden Energy, a Harvard spinout developing self-healing solid-state lithium metal batteries that could charge fully in under ten minutes. These next-generation batteries promise longer range, faster charging, and safer performance — all using existing manufacturing lines. It’s a fascinating look at the next leap in energy storage — and what it’ll take to make 10-minute charging a reality.

• What makes solid-state lithium metal batteries different from lithium-ion
• How Adden’s “self-healing” separator prevents the failures that have held this technology back
• Why faster charging could finally electrify drivers who can’t charge at home
• How the company plans to use existing gigafactory infrastructure to scale production
• What this breakthrough could mean for everything from EVs to robotics and aviation

• Adden Energy: https://www.addenenergy.com/
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re talking water — and the invisible pollutants hiding in it. Microfibers from textiles are one of the biggest sources of microplastics in our oceans, choking marine ecosystems and undermining the ocean’s role as the planet’s carbon sink.

Our guest is Adam Root, founder and CEO of Matter, who shares his insane founder story, from £250 and a shed to a budding Japanese street food empire to Matter, which is helping major textile manufacturers keep millions of liters of water cleaner every day. It’s an epic founder story with big implications for clean water and healthy oceans.

• How washing machines and textile factories shed microfibers at massive scale
• Why current filtration is wasteful — and how Matter’s regenerative filters solve it
• The founder story that went from Japanese street food stalls to the G7 stage
• What this means for oceans, sludge management (yes, really), and circular materials in the future

• Matter Industries Website: https://matter.industries/
• Adam Root LinkedIn
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re geeking out on money. Because even the best climate solutions won’t scale without serious capital behind them.

Our guest is Dawn Lippert, founder of Elemental (a nonprofit investor) and founding partner of Earthshot Ventures (a venture fund). She’s basically building an all-terrain vehicle for climate finance — covering philanthropic, project, and venture capital — to bridge the “valley of death” that stops too many good ideas from reaching the market.

We talk about:

• Why “first-of-a-kind” projects are so hard to fund
• The $150 billion capital gap that’s holding back climate solutions
• How philanthropic dollars can be recycled like sourdough starter
• The rise of AI in climate investments (and where it’s actually useful)
• Dawn’s own journey from sea turtle conservation to DOE policy to climate finance

• Elemental Impact: https://elementalimpact.com/
• Dawn Lippert LinkedIn
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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• Please subscribe and tell your friends about Everybody in the Pool!
• Send feedback or become a sponsor! [email protected]

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This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re heading to Napa Valley... sadly not literally. This time, anyway! David Pearson, president of Joseph Phelps Vineyards, has spent his career in wine, but he’s now leading a transformation that’s as much about climate solutions as it is about Cabernet. It’s a story about farming, philosophy, and, yes, some really good wine.

• What regenerative farming really means — and why it’s not just a buzzword
• How microbes, fungi, and “living soils” can make better grapes (and better wine)
• Why this approach is also climate adaptation in a warming world
• The surprising connection between soil health, nutrient density, and taste
• How big players like Moët Hennessy are backing the shift

• Joseph Phelps Website: http://www.josephphelps.com/
• David Pearson LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-pearson-6896a82/
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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• Please subscribe and tell your friends about Everybody in the Pool!
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Now for something fun — that can also be electricity generating infrastructure, if need be. My guest is Toby Kraus, co-founder and CEO of Lightship RV, the first American company to build all-electric RVs. The Lightship isn’t just a camper — it’s a battery on wheels, with solar on the roof, a pop-up design for aerodynamics, and its own motor to cancel out towing drag. That means you can take it off-grid for a week … or park it in your driveway and use it as backup power.

We talk about:

• Why RVs are a surprisingly big climate story (one in ten American families owns one!)
• The range problem with towing — and how Lightship solves it
• Turning an RV into an ADU or a home backup system
• How to make clean tech appeal beyond the early adopters

It’s the clean energy transition, with a side of camping.

👉 Next week, we’ll step away from the grid and hit the trails — stay tuned.

• Lightship RV: https://www.lightshiprv.com
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com
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We’ve been talking storage, reliability, and the grid … but what if we could just make more clean energy in more places? This week on Everybody in the Pool, we look at solar in a whole new way.

My guest is Anthony Letmon, co-founder and CEO of Kardinia Energy, which makes ultra-lightweight, recyclable printed solar. Imagine solar that looks more like a concert poster than a heavy panel. You can roll it up, ship it anywhere, and stick it where traditional solar could never go.

We talk about:

• Why weight keeps solar off millions of industrial roofs — and how printed solar solves that
• Why Kardinia builds panels to last just five years on purpose
• Coldplay’s global tour as a solar testbed
• How printing solar could power disaster relief, data centers, even stadiums

It’s the solar solution you didn’t know we needed — and it could open up whole new markets for clean energy.

👉 Last week, we looked at grid stability with Wärtsilä. Next week, we’re going camping — with the future of RVs.

• Kardinia Energy: https://www.kardiniaenergy.com
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com
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We’re wrapping up the Smart Grid Series with a rocket scientist who thinks the next big thing in batteries might actually be … zinc.

My guest is Mike Burz, co-founder and CEO of Enzinc, which is commercializing a zinc “sponge” anode developed with the U.S. Navy. The breakthrough: solving the dendrite problem that has historically killed rechargeable zinc batteries. The result? A safe, recyclable, low-cost chemistry that could power everything from scooters to data centers — and replace lead-acid or nickel-cadmium in millions of applications.

We cover:

• Why storage is the foundation of a renewable grid
• The Navy’s quest for a battery as safe as lead acid, but with the energy of lithium
• How a metal sponge structure prevents dendrites and enables true rechargeability
• Why zinc is abundant, cheap, and fully recyclable — unlike lithium
• The “Intel Inside” business model: supplying drop-in anodes to existing manufacturers
• First demos: e-bikes, golf carts, and telecom backup
• Longer-term possibilities: zinc-air chemistries for aviation and long-duration storage
• Why this is not about killing lithium but about giving the grid (and vehicles) safer, more appropriate options

• Enzinc — https://enzinc.com/
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Smart Grid Series recap:

• E101: Flow batteries with XL Batteries
• E102: Synthetic inertia & reliability with Wärtsilä
• E103 (this episode): Rechargeable zinc with Enzinc

Next week, we shift gears — from storage to deployment — with printed solar that could go just about anywhere. 🌞

Together, we can get this done.

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This special episode is brought to you by RE+—North America’s largest gathering of clean energy professionals, developed by the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

On Monday, Sept. 8, 2025, I gave the opening keynote at RE+ in Las Vegas about where the energy transition is headed—followed by a panel with two leaders building it at scale:

• Ray Henger, CEO of Copia Power (developing gigawatts of renewables and data-center infrastructure)
• Pedro Pizarro, President & CEO of Edison International (parent of Southern California Edison)

• Our full panel discussion on the future of the grid, the challenges of accomplishing skyrocketing demand and what that means for net zero goals
• Data centers, meet reality: AI-driven load growth and how to keep reliability while adding massive new demand.
• Utility POV: Transmission, interconnection queues, permitting, wildfire risk, and keeping customers whole.
• Developers at scale: Financing in a higher-rate world, siting tradeoffs, and building projects communities actually want.

This special drops in the middle of our Smart Grid mini-series:

• Episode 101: XL Batteries on long-duration, pH-neutral organic flow batteries for utility storage.
• Episode 102 (airs Sept. 11): Wärtsilä on synthetic inertia and batteries as an “airbag” for the grid.
• Episode 103 (airs next Thursday): Enzinc on zinc-based batteries that are safer, recyclable, and ready for mobility and stationary use.

Subscribe to the newsletter and find every episode at everybodyinthepool.com. Want an ad-free feed and to support the show directly? Tap the link in your podcast app. And send your thoughts—or a voice memo—to [email protected].

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Continuing our Smart Grid Series, we zoom in on reliability — because building more solar and wind doesn’t matter if the grid itself can’t stay stable. We’ve seen what happens when it fails: blackouts in Spain and Portugal earlier this year, near misses in Texas, rolling outages in California.

My guest is David Hebert, VP of Global Sales & Business Strategy at Wärtsilä Energy Storage. Wärtsilä is a 190-year-old company that now builds integrated storage systems combining hardware + software to keep grids reliable — even in moments of stress.

We dive into:

• Why grid operators need fast, flexible tools beyond just generation
• Synthetic inertia: batteries mimicking the stabilizing effect of spinning turbines
• How storage can act like an “airbag” — catching a wobble before it cascades into blackout
• Real-world deployments: from the UK’s Blackhillock project to island microgrids in Bonaire & Graciosa
• Reliability + resilience: sectionalizing grids after hurricanes, blackstart capability, and non-wires alternatives
• Enabling more renewables by smoothing intermittency and curtailment issues
• Why batteries are the “Swiss Army knife” of the grid: frequency regulation, voltage support, time-shifting, backup power
• Cost, customer adoption, and how utilities are (finally) moving past reflexive resistance

• Wärtsilä Energy Storage— https://www.wartsila.com/energy
• Everybody in the Pool: all episodes & newsletter — https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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• Send me your thoughts: [email protected] — have you lived through blackouts? Tried a microgrid?
• Share this episode with a friend who loves geeking out about grid reliability.

Smart Grid Series lineup:

• E101: Safe, long-duration flow batteries with XL Batteries
• E102 (this episode): Grid “airbags” & synthetic inertia with Wärtsilä
• E103 (next): A rechargeable zinc sponge anode that solves dendrites — Enzinc

Together, we can get this done.

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