Molly Wood talks to Raghu Belur, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Enphase Energy, about the company's pioneering work in decentralized solar power and their vision for a distributed, software-driven energy system that puts renewable power and storage in the hands of homes and businesses. They discuss Enphase's origins back in Clean Tech 1.0, the importance of microinverters, the role of batteries, and the policy challenges (ahem, California) that are shaping the adoption of distributed energy resources.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Enphase Energy: https://enphase.com/
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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This week, we’re talking about sustainable food production—both an adaptation and a mitigation opportunity. Molly Wood talks with Alexander Olesen, co-founder and CEO of Babylon Micro-farms, who shares the journey from a student project aimed at feeding people in refugee camps to developing small-scale, remotely managed vertical farming systems. This startup is focused on installing beautiful micro-farms in stores, campuses, senior centers, educational spaces, and other facilities that can benefit from growing food onsite. But we also tackle the bigger picture about traditional farming, such as soil degradation and high greenhouse gas emissions, and explore how controlled environment agriculture and hydroponics present a resource-efficient solution.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Babylon Micro-Farms: https://babylonmicrofarms.com/
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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In this episode of Everybody in the Pool, Molly Wood speaks with Tiya Gordon, co-founder of It’s Electric, a company focused on overcoming the challenges of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure in urban areas. They delve into the barriers to EV adoption, emphasizing the lack of accessible charging options for city dwellers without private parking. It’s Electric proposes a novel solution by installing small, bollard-style chargers powered by adjacent buildings, avoiding the need for extensive infrastructure and utility coordination. This approach not only promises to expand EV charging access in densely populated areas but also offers building owners a revenue-sharing model, turning every participating building into a potential charging station. The goal: make it easy to transition to electric vehicles no matter where you live.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• It’s Electric: https://www.itselectric.us/
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
• Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
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This episode of Everybody in the Pool dives into the pressing issue of food waste and its significant impact on the climate crisis. Molly talks with Jordan Schenck, the Chief Customer Officer at Flashfood, exploring the staggering fact that 30-40% of the US food supply is wasted at various stages from production to household disposal. This results in a colossal loss of approximately $161 billion annually and contributes massively to greenhouse gas emissions, notably methane, due to food decomposition in landfills. Also it’s just dumb, because it’s food, people. Flashfood is an app that lets grocery stores sell surplus or near-expiry items at half the price, reducing waste and providing consumers with affordable food options, and letting margin-strapped grocery stores make a little extra, too.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Flashfood: https://www.flashfood.com/
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
• Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
• Become a member and get an ad-free version of the podcast: https://plus.acast.com/s/everybody-in-the-pool

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This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re sticking with renewable energy! Wind and solar often steal the renewable spotlight, but geothermal energy—derived from the Earth's constant underground heat—offers a clean, infinite source of power for heating and cooling. This week, we’re joined by retired NHL great Mike Richter, who has an amazing career pivot story into climate finance and resource deployment. He’s currently the CEO of Brightcore Energy, which does all kinds of sustainable energy retrofitting for the built environment, and which, lately, is specifically focused on ground source heat pumps, using geothermal energy to heat and cool buildings even in dense urban areas, like Manhattan.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Brightcore Energy: https://brightcoreenergy.com/
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
• Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
• Become a member and get an ad-free version of the podcast: https://plus.acast.com/s/everybody-in-the-pool

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This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re talking utilities. We know that one of the big keys to dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions and slowing global warming to manageable levels is to transition as quickly as possible to renewable energy and electrify everything. And at the absolute heart of that challenge are utilities—the ones responsible for generating and distributing electricity. Addressing the challenge takes commitment, to start with, and not all utilities are created equal in this regard. The ones who are quickly realized it also takes investment and innovation. Molly talks with Steve Smith, the CEO of National Grid Partners, which is the corporate venture arm of National Grid Group, about the tech needed to modernize the grid ASAP.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• National Grid Partners: https://www.ngpartners.com/
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
• Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
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This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re getting a little high-tech. In the climate solutions conversation, people often talk about the need for game-changing innovation. That doesn’t mean giving up on policy and business and energy transition, obviously. But if we’re building a better future for everyone, it’s good to think of the breakthroughs that could not only solve our current crisis, but lay the foundation for all kinds of other breakthroughs, as well. One of those is quantum computing: computing powerful enough to revolutionize materials discovery, battery chemistry breakthroughs, fertilizer production, and who knows what else. Molly talks with Pete Shadbolt, co-founder of PsiQuantum, about the company’s attempts to commercialize quantum computing as soon as possible.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• PsiQuantum: https://www.psiquantum.com/
• Quantum computing, explained: https://www.explainthatstuff.com/quantum-computing.html
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
• Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
• Become a member and get an ad-free version of the podcast: https://plus.acast.com/s/everybody-in-the-pool

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This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re featuring a panel discussion moderated by Molly at the GreenBiz conference, held in Phoenix, AZ, in February. The conversation blends tech and climate and three amazing professionals talking about how AI (the other hottest topic on the planet, if you’ll pardon the very scary pun) can help with efforts to heal nature and restore biodiversity. Molly spoke with Elizabeth Hunter, co-founder and COO of a robotics and AI biodiversity startup called TreeSwift; Melanie Nakagawa, chief sustainability officer at Microsoft; and Millie Chapman, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and Climate Change AI.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Video version: https://www.greenbiz.com/events/greenbiz/sessions/ai-nature-climate-and-beyond-how-new-tech-transforming-sustainability
• TreeSwift: https://www.treeswift.com/
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
• Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
• Become a member and get an ad-free version of the podcast: https://plus.acast.com/s/everybody-in-the-pool

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This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re going a little sci-fi with a startup that spun out of Google and is trying to reinvent urban mobility. And by that I mean they’re developing modular electric tram systems that would take passengers around dense urban areas, hospital or college campuses, or maybe, you know, Google, on a series of cables suspended above buildings and streets. This means reducing the number of cars on the road, sure, but it also means we can build new cities, housing developments, and urban centers that have density without resource-hogging skyscrapers, and which don’t need a ton of extra land for parking and multi-lane highways and such. Wild? Sure. Doable? We’ll see. Interesting? Absolutely. With Swyft Cities founder and CEO Jeral Poskey.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Swyft Cities: https://swyftcities.com/
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
• Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
• Become a member and get an ad-free version of the podcast: https://plus.acast.com/s/everybody-in-the-pool

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This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re back to buildings! Buildings and the built environment are responsible for as much as 40 percent of carbon emissions and energy demand. In fact, a UN report from 2022 found that although the buildings and construction industry has done some investing in energy efficiency and more sustainable processes, its emissions hit an all-time high that year, after a brief dip during the pandemic. Solutions lie in more sustainable building practices, denser housing, and better building materials, and this week’s guest is doing all three. Plant Prefab sustainably builds multi-unit housing in super high-tech automated factories. This week’s guest is founder and former CEO Steve Glenn.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Plant Prefab: https://www.plantprefab.com/
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
• Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
• Become a member and get an ad-free version of the podcast: https://plus.acast.com/s/everybody-in-the-pool

Please subscribe and tell your friends about EITP! Send feedback or become a sponsor at [email protected]!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.