Today’s guest is Phil Giudice, Board Member at Ambri, FirstFuel, PRIME Coalition, Clean Air Task Force and NE Clean Energy Council.

Most recently, Phil was the CEO of Ambri. Ambri, formerly Liquid Metal Battery Corporation, is a technology company creating cost effective, reliable, wide spread grid electricity storage solutions, enabling separation of power demand from power supply. Phil has more than 30 years' experience in the energy industry as a geologist, consultant, executive, and state official.Phil was appointed by US Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu to US DOE's Energy Efficiency and Renewables Advisory Committee as well as its State Energy Advisory Board. In addition, he is a board member for the energy business leadership trade group Advanced Energy Economy as well as the efficiency start up FirstFuel.

Prior to Ambri, Phil served the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as Undersecretary of Energy and as Commissioner of the Department of Energy Resources, the state agency with primary responsibility for fulfilling Governor Deval Patrick's vision for a clean energy future. Prior to his service in the Patrick-Murray Administration, Phil was senior vice president and board member at EnerNOC, a start-up providing electricity demand-management services to businesses, institutions, utilities, and grid operators that became a public company in 2007. He was previously a senior partner and leader of Mercer Management Consulting's global energy utilities practice for 20 years. He started his career as a metals exploration geologist with Freeport-McMoRan and with Chevron.

Phil is also active in the nonprofit realm, having help found the Center for Effective Philanthropy and serving as Board Chair for 8 years as well as currently serving on the President's Council of ACCION. In addition, he completed full terms on the boards of the City Year Boston, First Parish Church of Wayland, and Haitian Health Foundation. He was also the founding chair of Boston Cares. Phil is a geologist (B.S. from University of New Hampshire and M.S. in Economic Geology from the University of Arizona) and a management professional (M.B.A. from Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth).

In today’s episode, we cover:

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

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.

Enjoy the show!

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 Bill Nussey, CEO & Founder at the Freeing Energy Project.

Bill Nussey is the founder of the Freeing Energy Project, whose mission is to accelerate the shift to cleaner, cheaper energy. Prior to Freeing Energy, Bill spent most of his career as a tech CEO. His first company, which he co-founded in high school, provided graphics software for early, text-based personal computers. His second company, Da Vinci Systems, was started out of his college dorm room and grew to serve millions of users across 45 countries. Later, he spent several years as a venture capitalist with Greylock. In 1998, he left the firm to run a portfolio company, iXL, which went public and grew to almost $500 million in revenue. After iXL, he joined Silverpop as CEO. Silverpop grew to nearly $100 million and became a global leader in cloud-based marketing. In 2014, IBM acquired the company and made it the foundation of the IBM Marketing Cloud. Shortly after the acquisition, Bill was promoted to VP Corporate Strategy out of IBM’s world headquarters in New York. Bill’s companies have created thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in value.

For the last few years, Bill has been conducting research for a 2019 book called Freeing Energy. Supported by 200 interviews across the world, the book’s mission is to help non-industry readers understand how we can accelerate the shift to clean energy. The core ideas focus on decentralized (or local) energy, novel business models, and new approaches to ownership and finance. Much of his early research was shared at Bill’s October 2017 TED talk called Accelerating the Shift to Clean Energy.

In 2018, Bill co-founded Solar Inventions. Based at Georgia Tech’s ATDC incubator, the company’s mission is to commercialize a set of scientific breakthroughs for improving silicon photovoltaics.

Bill received a degree in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He holds several patents, has published two books and sits on several commercial and non-profit boards. Bill and his family are involved in a handful of projects providing off-grid, resilient electricity in places like East Africa and Puerto Rico.

In today’s episode, we cover:

• Bill’s history, and what led him to get excited about energy
• How Bill went about switching gears to transition into this new field (to him)
• Bill’s book, why he wrote it, and the process he followed to pull it together
• Digitization of energy opportunity
• Potential of energy innovation of appealing across both sides of the political aisle
• Role of venture capital in clean energy innovation
• Lessons from last cleantech bubble
• Solar and batteries, and implications when cost becomes less than purchasing electricity from the grid
• One policy change that would move the needle more than any other
• Bill’s thoughts on politics, GND, etc.
• Importance of looking at carbon equivalents as well, not just carbon
• Inevitability of putting a price on carbon
• Role of utilities and oil/gas companies
• Thoughts on upcoming election and the stakes
• Bill’s advice to others trying to find their lane in the climate fight

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

Freeing Energy: https://www.freeingenergy.com/

Bill Nussey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billnussey/

Bubba McDonald: http://www.psc.state.ga.us/pscinfo/bios/mcdonald.asp

Amory Lovins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amory_Lovins

Loren McDonald: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorenmcdonald/

Solar Inventions: https://www.solarinventions.com/

Henry McCance: https://skoll.org/contributor/henry-mccance/

Fullstory: https://www.fullstory.com/

Arcadia Power: https://www.arcadiapower.com/

Drift: https://www.joindrift.com/

Form Energy: https://www.formenergy.com/

Ethanol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_States

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.

Enjoy the show!

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

Today’s guest is Kelly Wanser, Executive Director of SilverLining, a mission organization driving research to ensure safe pathways for climate within a decade.

Previously, Kelly was the director of the Marine Cloud Brightening Project, a program focused on research in reflecting sunlight to reduce heat in climate. Kelly is member of the National Academy of Sciences President’s Circle. She also served as Senior Advisor to Ocean Conservancy on climate-ocean risk and to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on industry strategy for fusion energy. A technologist, executive and entrepreneur, she previously founded companies in IT infrastructure, analytics and security, and is the author of over 20 patents. She resides in San Francisco.

In today’s episode, we cover:

• Overview of geoengineering
• Challenge of predicting earth system’s response to heat stress and risk of hitting catastrophic tipping points
• 'The case for geoengineering
• SilverLining’s work, and how it came to be
• What the critics say about geoengineering, and Kelly’s responses
• 'Some example projects they have taken on at SilverLining'
• How the org is funded, and future goals in this regard
• What fossil fuel companies think of geoengineering
• Potential risks, side effects, and unintended consequences
• Research vs widescale deployment, the best ways to stage exploration in this area
• What else can be impactful in the climate fight
• Kelly’s advice to others trying to find their lane to help

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

Stephen Schneider: https://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/References/Biography.html

IPCC special report on oceans and cryosphere: https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/home/

The Royal Society: https://royalsociety.org/

Marine cloud brightening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_cloud_brightening

Strategic aerosol injection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection

Some links provided by Kelly to learn more about her work:

• TEDSummit 2019 Talk: Emergency Medicine for Our Climate Fever
• Report: for U.S. Policymakers:  Ensuring a Safe Climate: A National Imperative for Research in Climate Intervention and Earth System Prediction
• Testimony to the U.S. House Science, Space and Technology Committee, Subcommittee on Environment and Subcommittee on Energy Hearing — Geoengineering: Innovation, Research, and Technology, Nov 8, 2017

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.

Enjoy the show!

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

Today’s guest is Albert Wenger, Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures, a NY-based venture capital firm.

Before joining USV, Albert was the president of del.icio.us through the company’s sale to Yahoo and an angel investor (Etsy, Tumblr). He previously founded or co-founded several companies, including a management consulting firm and an early hosted data analytics company. Albert graduated from Harvard College in economics and computer science and holds a Ph.D. in Information Technology from MIT.

In today’s episode, we cover:

• Albert’s assessment of the problem of climate change and his concern level
• His views on what it will take to get the problem under control in the short term and long term
• The work they do at USV, their core expertise, and how that expertise can help
• The roles of innovation, policy, and collective action
• What types of innovation can be most impactful, and when
• The upcoming election and stakes
• Roles of China and India
• Roles of big oil and utilities
• How Albert would allocate $100B to maximize its impact in climate fight
• Albert’s advice for others looking to find their lane

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

USV: https://www.usv.com/

World After Capital: http://worldaftercapital.org/

Greta Thunberg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Thunberg

Extinction Rebellion: https://rebellion.earth/

Nori: https://nori.com/

John Maynard Keynes, Economics Policies for our Grandchildren: https://www.sloww.co/keynes-economic-possibilities/

Faye McNeill: https://cheme.columbia.edu/faculty/v-mcneill

Ecosia: https://www.ecosia.org/

Universal Basic Income: https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/universal-basic-income-UBI

How Much is Enough?: https://www.amazon.com/How-Much-Enough-Money-Good/dp/152267795X

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.

Enjoy the show!

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

Today’s guest is Ramya Swaminathan, CEO of Malta, Inc.

Malta’s electro-thermal energy storage system is a new grid-scale technology that collects and stores energy for long durations. Energy can be stored from any power generation source in any location – be it wind, solar, or fossil fuels – enabling reliable and predictable operation of the grid.

Ramya joined Malta from Rye Development, where she was CEO, co-founder, and Member of the Board of FFP New Hydro. Under her leadership, Rye Development grew to be the leading developer of new hydropower projects in the United States and its portfolio of development projects, held at its holdco affiliate, FFP New Hydro, advanced from concept through FERC licensing and late stage development financing. She was also responsible for the expansion of Rye’s platform into energy storage, with the addition of two sizable pumped hydro storage development projects in the Pacific Northwest. At Rye Development, Ms. Swaminathan led a multi-disciplinary team, with specialists in engineering and construction, regulatory and environmental aspects, and power marketing.  She also led the company through several financing rounds, both at the platform and the project levels. 

Prior to her work in the hydropower space, Ms. Swaminathan was a public finance banker, most recently as a Director at UBS, where she focused on public power clients and senior managed more than $10 billion in financings. Ms. Swaminathan holds a Master’s in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government and a BA in Anthropology from Amherst College.

In today’s episode, we cover:

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

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.

Enjoy the show!

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

Today’s guest is Mark Reynolds, Executive Director at Citizens’ Climate Lobby.

Executive Director Mark Reynolds’ tenure at Citizens’ Climate Lobby has been marked by exceptionally rapid growth, with the organization doubling or tripling in size every year.

During his years as a private sector trainer and consultant, Citizens’ Climate Education Executive Director Mark Reynolds worked to maximize personal and organizational effectiveness in a variety of fields. Today, he uses those skills to empower ordinary citizens to educate influential stakeholders about the benefits of national climate solutions. As a globally-recognized expert on helping disparate interests find common ground on energy, public policy, and the environment, Mark has appeared before the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, AREday, and Power Shift. He oversees a training curriculum that reaches tens of thousands of supporters every year, has been a frequent guest on TV and radio shows, and has written op-eds on climate solutions for 85 print journals, including the Houston Chronicle, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Des Moines Register, the Austin American-Statesman, and the Salt Lake Tribune. Mark also serves on multiple advisory boards including Climate Advocate Platform and Climate Cost Project.

In today’s episode, we cover:

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

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.

Enjoy the show!

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

Today’s guest is Ted Nordhaus, Founder & Executive Director at the Breakthrough Institute.

Ted Nordhaus is a leading global thinker on energy, environment, climate, human development, and politics. He is the founder and executive director of the Breakthrough Institute and a co-author of An Ecomodernist Manifesto.

Over the last decade, he has helped lead a paradigm shift in climate, energy, and environmental policy. He was among the first to emphasize the imperative to "make clean energy cheap" in The Harvard Law and Policy Review, explained why efforts to establish legally binding international limits on greenhouse gas emissions would fail in The Washington Post and Democracy Journal, made the case for nuclear energy as a critical global warming solution in The Wall Street Journal, has written on the limits to energy efficiency and the need to prepare for climate change in The New York Times, and has argued for the importance of intensifying agricultural production in order to spare land for forests and biodiversity in Scientific American and The Guardian.

His 2007 book Break Through, co-authored with Michael Shellenberger, was called "prescient" by Time and "the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring" by Wired. (An excerpt in The New Republic can be read here.) Their 2004 essay, "The Death of Environmentalism," was featured on the front page of the Sunday New York Times, sparked a national debate, and inspired a generation of young environmentalists.

Over the years, Nordhaus been profiled in The New York Times, Wired, the San Francisco Chronicle, the National Review, The New Republic, and on NPR. In 2007, he received the Green Book Award and Time magazine's 2008 "Heroes of the Environment" award.

Nordhaus is executive editor of the Breakthrough Journal, which The New Republic called "among the most complete efforts to provide a fresh answer" to the question of how to modernize liberal thought, and the National Review called "The most promising effort at self-criticism by our liberal cousins in a long time."

In today’s episode, we cover:

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

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.

Enjoy the show!

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

Today’s guest is Deepika Nagabhushan, Program Director, Decarbonized Fossil Energy at Clean Air Task Force, which develops policy and advocacy strategies aimed at making carbon capture, utilization & storage technologies widely available, globally by mid-century.

Deepika has developed analysis and led advocacy efforts related to CCUS, including power sector modeling that studied CCS deployment in the US under various federal policy scenarios, including 45Q tax credit that the Congress passed in 2018, an assessment of the role of zero carbon technology in developing countries, and securing a CCUS protocol under the California LCFS. She works across policy, regulatory and market-based areas related to CCS.

Prior to joining CATF, Deepika spent 5 years with Schneider Electric. She led the deployment of global marketing operations across Asia-Pacific countries and managed marketing communication projects for Schneider Electric’s energy management solutions in the United States. She also helped expand the reach of Schneider Electric Access to Energy initiative “BIPBoP” by identifying partner companies and frameworks for collaboration.

Deepika graduated in 2015 from The Earth Institute at Columbia University with a Master of Science in Sustainability Management. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business management from Bangalore University in Karnataka, India. She is currently based in San Francisco.

In today’s episode, we cover:

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

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.

Enjoy the show!

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

Today’s guest is Emily Reichert, CEO of Greentown Labs.

Dr. Emily Reichert serves as Chief Executive Officer of Greentown Labs, the largest clean technology startup incubator in the United States. As the company’s first employee, Emily has spearheaded the rapid growth of Greentown Labs into a global center for clean technology innovation, attracting visitors and partners from around the world.

Emily started her career at Arthur D. Little as a Ph.D. scientist and progressed into R&D, business development and general management roles. Prior to Greentown Labs, she was the Director of Business Operations at the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry where she helped grow the angel-funded startup into a sustainable contract R&D business with a mission to minimize environmental impact of chemical products. Emily also served as a MIT Sloan Fellow in Innovation and Global Leadership as well as a Venture Labs Fellow at Flagship Ventures, a Boston-based Venture Capital firm.

Emily has served as a board member or as a key advisor for a number of innovation and entrepreneurship-focused organizations including the Northeast Clean Energy Council, Cleantech Open Northeast, Cyclotron Road, the Incubatenergy Network and the MIT Enterprise Forum. She has been appointed to leadership positions on innovation, economic development, entrepreneurship and clean technology commercialization at both the state and federal level including Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker’s Economic Development Planning Council and the U.S. Secretary of Commerce’s National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Emily has earned international recognition for her leadership in cleantech innovation and has received invitations to speak at International Conferences such as Les Rencontres Economiques d’Aix-en-Provence, France, and the Fish Family Foundation’s Japanese Women’s Leadership Initiative in Tokyo, Japan.  

She holds a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and earned her MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management.

When Emily isn’t at Greentown Labs, you’ll likely find her traveling the world with her husband, Chris Nielsen. As an avid outdoorswoman, Emily has experienced adventures in many corners of the globe including, tree-climbing in the Amazon, swimming with sea turtles off the island of Fernando de Noronha, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, trekking the Andes of Ecuador, and cycling along the Danube River bend north of Budapest.

In today’s episode, we cover:

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

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.

Enjoy the show!

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

Today’s guest is Josh Bushinsky, Co-Founder & Partner at Trajectory Energy Partners.

Trajectory Energy Partners brings together landowners, electricity users, and communities to develop solar energy projects with strong local support.

Josh was born in Illinois, and at seven moved with his family to Rochester, New York, where he grew up backpacking. He brings to Trajectory Energy Partners a comprehensive appreciation and commitment to the environment, first working in energy as a visiting researcher at the University of Cape Town. An attorney by trade he has represented the renewable sector at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati, as well as worked with the Microgrid Investment Accelerator, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and the Natural Resources Defense Council in Beijing.

Josh is proud to develop community solar in Illinois and remains an avid hiker — now sharing that skill with his children and family.

In today’s episode, we cover:

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

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.

Enjoy the show!

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