Inevitable

Today's guest on the My Climate Journey Startup Series is Jack Morrison, Co-founder and CEO at Scythe. 

Scythe recently announced a $42M Series B round of financing led by Energy Impact Partners to grow and scale their product line of autonomous electric commercial lawnmowers. When discussing the need to electrify everything, we tend to focus on electric vehicles and home efficiency. But over the next 5-10 years most of us will be surprised by just how many things in our daily lives will move from loud, smelly, gasoline-powered engines to quiet, odorless electric motors. This podcast has featured electric solutions for pleasure craft boating, motorcycles, passenger buses, semi trucks, and even cargo shipping. And in most cases, the business models of the electric versions of these things are innovative in some way or another too.

The Scythe team is pioneering a new usage-based model for their mowers and the company believes it offers a more sustainable way for landscaping companies to manage their cashflows and help their employees get the job done. 

In this episode, we cover: 

• [2:00] Jack's background in programming and robots 
• [4:00] His transition from 3D scanning to landscaping 
• [6:48] Climate impact of the landscaping business and Scythe's role in helping curb the emissions footprint
• [11:03] Scythe's M.52 mower product 
• [13:17] Why Scythe chose an electric and autonomous solution 
• [18:16] The safety side of the company's tech
• [22:36] Impacts on landscapers' day to day 
• [27:45] Technology barriers for incumbent mowing companies 
• [30:18] Scythe's early traction, progress to date, and market share

Get connected: 
Cody Simms Twitter / LinkedIn
Jack Morrison / Scythe
MCJ Podcast / Collective

*You can also reach us via email at [email protected], where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Episode recorded on March 7, 2023.

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Today's guest is Robert Piconi, CEO and co-founder at Energy Vault, which develops and deploys utility-scale energy storage solutions. 

The company's offerings include proprietary gravity, battery, and green hydrogen energy storage hardware technologies supported by a technology-agnostic energy management system software layer. They can deliver short- and long-duration energy storage with the goal of helping carbon-free energy be as cost-effective as possible at all times of the day and night. 

Robert and Cody have a great conversation about why energy storage matters, the different types of energy storage today, and some unique insights from Bill Gross at Idealab that led to the earliest version of Energy Vault. They talk about the rapid iterations Energy Vault has done on its gravity storage model, and how they've raised capital. Energy Vault went public via SPAC one year and one day before Rob and Cody had this conversation. It's incredible to see such an infrastructure-heavy company grow and iterate so quickly. Enjoy the show! 

In this episode, we cover: 

• [2:41] Robert's background and interest in the energy sector 
• [6:55] Challenges of energy storage
• [10:19] Energy Vault's history as a company and exponential growth 
• [15:16] The energy storage space broadly and its shortcomings 
• [19:09] How Energy Vault landed on its solution and a description of its tech
• [26:17] Feedback from customers and the evolution of the company's tech 
• [29:04] An overview of the company's EVX platform 
• [30:55] Differences between long vs short storage 
• [34:36] Energy Vault's latest project announcements 
• [42:25] Tailwinds from the Inflation Reduction Act 
• [45:45] The 24/7 carbon-free energy market 
• [49:40] Talent and partner opportunities with Energy Vault

Get connected: 
Cody Simms Twitter / LinkedIn
Robert Piconi / Energy Vault
MCJ Podcast / Collective

*You can also reach us via email at [email protected], where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Episode recorded on February 15, 2023

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Today's guest is Heidi Kujawa, founder and CEO at ByFusion. ByFusion is solving the global plastic waste crisis by turning unrecyclable plastics into building materials.

Plastics are lightweight, durable, strong, low-cost, and built to last. Those qualities are fantastic in reducing the cost and weight of shipping and packaging items. And those qualities are equally terrible when it comes to waste. Not to mention, virgin plastics come from fossil fuels and are providing an increasing amount of the value of a barrel of oil. ByFusion is looking to take advantage of plastic's positives while obviating its negatives by turning waste plastic into durable building blocks.

Heidi and Cody have a great conversation about her background, the different types of plastics, and what's recyclable and what's not (side note: we can all probably do better when it comes to recycling). They also talk about how ByFusion works with municipalities and waste management companies to source materials, what the company’s ByBlocks look like, who is building with ByFusion and what they are building, the evolution of plastic waste credits (which are similar to carbon credits) and how Heidi is financing the company and its product development. This is a jam-packed episode and we hope you enjoy it! 

In this episode, we cover: 

• [2:09] Heidi's background and how it fed her experience building ByFusion 
• [4:31] How she decided to focus on plastic waste
• [6:58] An overview of ByFusion and the company's ByBlock product 
• [9:44] Recyclable vs non-recyclable plastics 
• [13:34] Different use cases for ByFusion's construction materials 
• [17:14] ByFusion's municipalities customers, unit economics, and who's paying 
• [21:36] The company's business model 
• [23:51] The plastic diversion/credit market 
• [25:43] ByFusion's upcoming projects 
• [28:34] State and country-wide policies around plastic and their implications 
• [30:50] The company's financing to date 
• [34:37] Where ByFusion needs help today

Get connected: 
Cody Simms Twitter / LinkedIn
Heidi Kujawa / ByFusion
MCJ Podcast / Collective

*You can also reach us via email at [email protected], where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Episode recorded on January 18, 2023

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Today's guest is Martin Wainstein, Founder and Executive Director of OpenEarth Foundation, a California-based nonprofit that creates and supports the deployment of open-source software at the intergovernmental level to further climate understanding and action.

When we think of blockchain, our brains are mostly wired to think of cryptocurrencies and for-profit schemes. OpenEarth Foundation, however, is applying blockchain principles to United Nations-scale carbon accounting efforts to aid in the understanding of and deployment of software that can support an open and accountable data layer for critical carbon accounting. As carbon offsets are retired, as renewable energy credits are traded, and as compliance and voluntary carbon markets grow in prominence, how do we ensure that these systems can understand each other across borders, governments, and methodologies?

After all, a ton of CO2 should be a ton of CO2, and yet orchestrating agreement and dialogue across major stakeholders including governments, markets, and corporations, is never an easy task. Martin and Cody have a great conversation about his journey into the climate space and the origins of OpenEarth Foundation, which was inspired in part by his time at Yale Open Lab and his work on digital currencies at MIT Media Lab. We also cover the state of carbon accounting at the nation-state level today, the innovative ways that OpenEarth Foundation has raised money to date, and some of the big ideas that they're thinking about for the future. 

In this episode, we cover: 

• [3:01] Martin's climate journey 
• [9:38] An overview of the OpenEarth Foundation
• [14:25] Leveraging technology for the common good 
• [17:32] Carbon accounting and where the data comes from today 
• [24:10] Openclimate.network and other digital tools 
• [29:48] Transparency challenges on the national and subnational levels
• [34:25] How OpenEarth is helping large global entities with consensus building 
• [40:44] OpenEarth's initial funding via NFTs and plans moving forward 
• [49:38] Some of OpenEarth's current projects 
• [55:07] Where OpenEarth needs help

Get connected: 
Cody Simms Twitter / LinkedIn
Martin Wainstein / OpenEarth Foundation
MCJ Podcast / Collective

*You can also reach us via email at [email protected], where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Episode recorded on February 2, 2023.

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Today's guest is Megan O'Connor, CEO and Co-Founder of Nth Cycle. 

Nth Cycle uses a metals processing technology that allows battery manufacturers to convert lower-grade critical metals into EV-battery grade on-site. The company’s approach obviates large portions of cumbersome and dirty metal supply chains for crucial EV battery metals like nickel. Megan claims that Nth Cycle's technology can be applied to existing batteries just as it can be to newly mined ore, thus accelerating circularity for the lithium-ion battery and battery recycling.

One significant component of the Inflation Reduction Act is the formalization of US EV tax credits, and a qualification requirement that automakers must source at least 40% of their EV battery components - by value - in the United States or countries with which the US has a free trade agreement starting this year, with escalation to 100% by 2029.

With this change in the backdrop, Megan and Cody have a great conversation about the state of EV battery metal supply chains and battery recycling today, how Megan started working on this problem in the first place, how Nth Cycle works, and what her plans are for the company. We have focused quite a bit recently on EV batteries and the underlying metals that power them on the podcast. If you want to learn more about the topic, check out past episodes with Simon Moores, Jigar Shah and Ajay Kochhar, and Impossible Metals. 

Enjoy the show!

In this episode, we cover: 

• [2:18] How a molecule of metal turns into a battery 
• [7:18] The embodied carbon in an EV 
• [10:03] Different refining mechanisms, their limitations and environmental justice concerns
• [17:55] The origin of Nth Cycle 
• [23:21] How Megan gained the confidence to change her PhD and focus on battery metals
• [27:23] Megan's entrepreneurial journey as a grad student 
• [29:36] An overview of Nth Cycle's solution 
• [33:12] A description of the company's system 
• [35:20] How the Inflation Reduction Act is changing the supply chain for nickel and where Nth Cycle fits in 
• [37:35] How the technology can be applied to all critical metals 
• [41:56] The company's capital history 
• [43:40] Job opportunities with Nth Cycle 
• [46:14] Megan's predictions for the future

Get connected: 
Cody Simms Twitter / LinkedIn
Megan O’Connor / Nth Cycle
MCJ Podcast / Collective

*You can also reach us via email at [email protected], where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Episode recorded on January 23, 2023.

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

This episode is part of our Skilled Labor Series hosted by MCJ partner, Yin Lu. This series is focused on amplifying the voices of folks from the skilled labor workforce, including electricians, farmers, ranchers, HVAC installers, and others who are on the front lines of rewiring our infrastructure.

Today is Zach Gallant, Head of Maritime Operations at Fleetzero. 

Zach grew up in Maine and attended the Maine Maritime Academy after high school. He spent 15 years on board ships of all types and sizes. His career started on freighters carrying bulk cargo such as iron ore in the Great Lakes. Then Zach worked at Transocean, the world's largest offshore drilling contractor, for over a decade. He recently transitioned to Fleetzero, a startup building a fleet of electric ships to help address and reduce the carbon emissions from the shipping industry, which accounts for about 3% of total global emissions. 

As investors in Fleetzero via the MCJ Collective venture funds, we’ve also spoken to co-founders, Steven Hendersen and Mike Carter, in a previous Startup Series episode (listen here).  

In this episode, we cover: 

• [2:00] Zach's background and experience as a marine engineer
• [7:42] A career working on the deck side of ships vs the engineering side 
• [11:13] Different types of maritime ships and propulsion systems 
• [15:33] Zach's firsthand experience witnessing the impacts of climate change
• [18:41] The process of setting up an exploratory drill well 
• [24:33] Zach's decision to transition out of oil and gas into a climate tech maritime company 
• [27:51] Technological shifts in the maritime industry
• [30:05] Shortage of maritime workers and how to encourage more people to get involved
• [32:23] What keeps Zach optimistic 

Get connected: 
Yin Twitter / LinkedIn
MCJ Podcast / Collective

*You can also reach us via email at [email protected], where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Episode recorded on December 21, 2022. 

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].

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• Cody Simms on LinkedIn
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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Today's guest is Harry Tannenbaum, Co-founder and President at Mill. 

Mill developed a household bin that not only collects uneaten food but also shrinks and deodorizes it. The company’s solution aims to keep food in the system and prevent it from ending up in landfills or waste systems, which would otherwise generate significant emissions. 

Mill recently exited stealth and we're proud to be multi-time backers of the company through our MCJ Collective venture funds alongside other leading climate tech funds such as Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Lower Carbon Capital, Prelude Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, and John Doerr. 

In this episode, Cody and Harry delve into the issue of food waste and what inspired him to tackle it. They discuss the qualities of a successful consumer product and how Harry and his co-founder, Matt Rogers, applied the lessons they learned at Nest to their work at Mill. Additionally, they examine Mill's product and logistics framework, and the intersection between consumer behavior change and systems change. They also explore the network effect that Mill hopes to create between the two. Finally, the conversation covers the pros and cons of building a company in stealth, as Mill did during the product development process.

In this episode, we cover: 

• [2:42] An overview of the food waste problem
• [6:04] The life cycle of food waste and the role of city municipalities
• [11:15] Harry's journey and experience with Nest
• [14:13] How he met his co-founder and decided to focus on waste
• [20:00] The genesis for Mill's hardware solution and how it evolved
• [25:28] Critical team members and how the company's final produce came to be
• [29:47] Mill as a systems change company
• [30:35] An overview of the Mill bin and membership experience
• [37:07] Where chickens fit in
• [45:19] The theoretical debate of systems change vs. personal responsibility
• [54:00] The company's partnership with the city of Tacoma, Washington
• [57:27] Where the company is looking to hire talent
• [59:06] Pros and cons of building in stealth

Get connected: 
Cody Simms Twitter / LinkedIn
Harry Tannenbaum / Mill
MCJ Podcast / Collective

*You can also reach us via email at [email protected], where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Episode recorded on February 10, 2023.

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Today's topic is ERCOT (The Electric Reliability Council of Texas), and we have two guests. 

Eric Goff is President at Goff Policy, an infrastructure consulting firm focusing on ERCOT market energy transition issues. Eric serves as the sole representative for residential consumers in the ERCOT stakeholder process. 

Jaden Crawford is director of policy at David Energy, a modern energy retailer that operates in multiple markets, including Texas. David Energy is also an MCJ Collective portfolio company. 

From an electrons perspective, the Texas energy grid is unique because it's relatively isolated from the rest of North America. It's also a deregulated market, which means that energy retail or selling power to end consumers is separate from energy generation or the act of creating power. Therefore, there's a robust B2B market between retailers and generators in addition to a direct-to-consumer retailer market. All of this has created a vibrant entrepreneurial energy ecosystem in Texas.

Companies in Texas are relatively free to experiment with new models and technologies, and the open market rules the day. But when Texas suffered wide-scale energy outages after Winter Storm Uri in 2021, the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, declared that ERCOT reform would be an emergency priority for the state legislature. In late January of this year, news about some of the ERCOT reform proposals brought Eric and Jaden to our attention, and we’re so grateful for their time in shedding light on this topic. Enjoy! 

In this episode, we cover: 

• Eric's background in ERCOT
• Jaden's experience and transition to focusing on energy
• An overview of ERCOT and its members
• How it fits into the broader energy and electricity picture in the U.S.
• How Texas deregulated its energy market
• Deregulation's influence on driving the adoption of renewables, entrepreneurialism, and innovation
• Energy failures during Winter Storm Uri and changes that are being made
• Pricing caps and market dynamics
• An overview of the Performance Credit Mechanism (PCM) and ancillary services
• The role of gentailors
• Does Texas need more energy generation?
• How people living in Texas can get involved

Get connected:
Cody Simms Twitter / LinkedIn
Eric Goff
Jaden Crawford
MCJ Podcast / Collective

*You can also reach us via email at [email protected], where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Episode recorded on February  17, 2023. 

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].

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• Cody Simms on LinkedIn
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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Today, we have two guests, Sonia Kastner, Founder and CEO at Pano, and Bill Clerico, Founder and Managing Partner at Convective Capital. 

Both Sonia and Bill are keynotes in the emerging category of fire tech and in the subcategory of climate tech that's referred to as adaptation solutions, technologies that can help deliver resiliency in the face of an increasingly unstable planet. At Pano, Sonia is developing technology that creates actionable intelligence for wildfire management. They're deploying a network of high-definition cameras across our forests to help generate faster and more informed fire response.

At Convective Capital, Bill is investing in technology startups that are solving the problem of extreme wildfires, including Pano. Cody, Sonia, and Bill dive into the issue of wildfires, how and why they've grown in severity, the traditional response mechanisms that fire agencies have used and how that's changing, what types of technologies are being developed to support their efforts, and of course, some details about Pano's product offering. We also touch on the talent that's flowing into fire tech and how critical it is for us to continue to fund and develop new ways to adapt to a changing planet, try as we might in parallel to reign in the emissions and trapped heat that are causing climate change. 

In this episode, we cover: 

• [3:00] Sonia's background and catalyst for working in climate adaptation at Pano 
• [5:05] Bill's background in FinTech and inspiration to start Convective Capital 
• [7:33] The mega wildfire crisis today and trends over the last two decades 
• [11:54] Universal factors contributing to wildfires across different geographies 
• [14:28] Solutions to wildfires including Pano's technology
• [16:49] An overview of firefighting today, early detection, and rapid initial attack 
• [21:09] How suppression efforts could change based on fire characteristics and the need for collaboration 
• [24:58] Challenges of building a tech company in the wilderness
• [27:37] How Pano is leveraging Starlink to create solutions for their customers
• [29:14] An overview of the company's physical product and buyers 
• [31:52] How Convective Capital approaches companies like Pano who sell primarily to fire agencies 
• [34:27] How organizations like CAL FIRE are changing their approach to work with tech companies 
• [36:19] Skills needed and where talent is coming from 
• [38:40] What's next for Pano and Convective Capital

Get connected:
Cody Simms Twitter / LinkedIn
Sonia Kastner / Pano
Bill Clerico / Convective Capital
MCJ Podcast / Collective

*You can also reach us via email at [email protected], where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Episode recorded on January 12, 2023. 

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Today's guests are Ajay Kochhar, President, CEO, and co-founder at Li-Cycle, and Jigar Shah, Director of the Loan Programs Office at the United States Department of Energy. 

Jigar is a multi-time guest on the show and a friend of the pod, and he reached out to us to see if we'd want to record an episode discussing Li-Cycle's experience in applying for and receiving a conditional commitment from the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office for a loan of approximately $375 million to help Li-Cycle scale up their work with a production facility in Greece, New York near Rochester. 

We cover a lot of ground today. We reintroduce Jigar and the Loan Programs Office. For those of you who want to go deeper, you can visit the My Climate Journey pod archive for other episodes featuring Jigar, including one from a year ago with him and Rob Hansen of Monolith Materials. We also introduce Ajay and the business he's building with Li-Cycle to recover and recycle critical lithium-ion battery metals. Then we spend most of the conversation talking about how the Loan Programs Office works with prospective applicants as well as what Li-Cycle's experience was as an applicant. We learn how the LPO helps companies define and lay out their plans across a wide array of considerations, including, of course, financial and technical, but also their plans for community involvement, workforce development, environmental impact, permitting, and so much more. 

The LPO provides a unique role in the funding landscape for climate tech. Venture funding can help a company grow, and it can help a company navigate initial market risk. But for us to make a real dent in the climate problem, it's going to take moving atoms at scale. For infrastructure-heavy businesses, there's a need for sizable capital to put steel in the ground and build a production facility. It’s possible for a startup to leverage a small pilot facility to prove that its technology can work, but to provide a commercial solution at a fully deployed scale, it may need to invest tens or hundreds of millions of dollars into infrastructure and facilities, and oftentimes, the venture debt markets are reticent to fund large, first of its kind build-outs. This is where the LPO plays a key role. A major takeaway from Ajay and Jigar's discussion is the significant partnership between the LPO and a company during the application process as they collectively uncover and work through assumptions and hypotheses together. 

In this episode, we cover: 

• [4:43] Introduction to the Loan Programs Office 
• [9:20] An overview of Li-Cycle and the company's success
• [14:14] $375 million loan from LPO to help scale Li-Cycle's hub and spoke approach 
• [16:43] Importance of community engagement 
• [20:28] An inside look at Li-Cycle's processing facilities and attention to safety
• [25:52] How the DOE evaluates projects and determines where investments are needed 
• [29:12] Li-Cycle's first commercial facility in  Rochester
• [31:09] How and why Li-Cycle decided to partner with the LPO 
• [36:07] The application process for working with the LPO 
• [42:42] The government's role in the diligence side 
• [47:37] Ajay's thoughts on how the LPO terms may differ from future commercial loans 
• [50:51] How Jigar has streamlined the LPO's process 
• [54:23] Tips for companies seeking a loan from the U.S. DOE

Get connected: 
Cody Simms Twitter / LinkedIn
Ajay Kochhar Twitter / LinkedIn
Li-Cycle
Jigar Shah Twitter / LinkedIn
Loan Programs Office 
MCJ Podcast / Collective

*You can also reach us via email at [email protected], where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Episode recorded on February 15, 2023.

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].

Connect with MCJ:

• Cody Simms on LinkedIn
• Visit mcj.vc
• Subscribe to the MCJ Newsletter

*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant