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Today's guest is Ilan Gur, the CEO of Activate and the Founder of Cyclotron Road. Cyclotron Road is an entrepreneurial fellowship program that pairs PhD fellows working on promising scientific breakthroughs with grants that pay their salaries. Access to a bunch of expensive equipment and showers them with mentorship to try to bridge the gap between early academic research that shows great promise and actually turning the corner to become a company. Prior to founding Cyclotron Road, Ilan launched two science-based startups including Seeo, an advanced battery company that was acquired by Bosch in 2015. He was also a program director at ARPA-E. He holds a PhD in material science and engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.
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 Lara Pierpoint, Director of Technical Strategy at Exelon.
Exelon is America's leading competitive energy provider with one of the cleanest and lowest cost power generation fleets. Its utility serves millions of electric and gas customers. Lara's team is tasked with enhancing Exelon's ability to capitalize on new technology and respond to disruptive innovations. Her expertise is in systems analysis, modeling and policy. And her knowledge is deep in nuclear, gas and electric interface and energy finance as well as widely across the electricity spectrum.
Prior to Exelon, Lara has had a number of different roles. She was Senior Advisor for energy policy and Systems analysis at Department of Energy. She was a AAAS fellow at the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. And she also has her PhD in Engineering Systems from MIT, as well as a Masters in Nuclear Engineering and in Technology and Policy also at MIT, and an undergrad in physics from UCLA. Suffice to say Lara's got a really interesting perspective to talk about everything energy and everything climate change.
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:
*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant
Today’s guest is Shawn Murphy, Founder & CEO of Titan Advanced Energy Solutions.
Titan is an advanced battery management system technology company, which is revolutionizing the renewable space by lowering the cost of lithium ion batteries by at least 30 to 40%, and doubling their expected life.
Titan's technology uses ultrasound to measure and determine the state of health, and state of charge real time and is about 100 times better than the current state of the art. This technology will eventually be implemented in electric vehicles, stationary storage and consumer electronics. Previously, Shawn was the founder and CEO of multiple successful startups, the former head of Space Science and Technology for Draper Labs, and was also the founder and former director of Shell's innovation center called Shell Tech Works.
We have a wide ranging discussion in this episode, including Titan, where it fits in the broader battery landscape, how the battery landscape fits in terms of the grid, and the rise of things like solar and wind, and also how to think about all this in the context of climate change. We then come back around to have a great discussion on the proper sources of capital for this type of innovation, the role of startups versus incumbents, and of course, the underlying motivators that make Shawn get out of bed every day and give him purpose in his work.
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:
*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant
Today’s guest is David Burt, the CEO and Founder of DeltaTerra Capital and the lead Portfolio Manager for DeltaTerra funds. DeltaTerra provides proprietary financial models, customized portfolio analysis, and unique hedging strategies that enable highly informed climate risk management for asset owners and investors.
Before founding DeltaTerra, David was a Partner and Portfolio Manager at Wellington Management Company. Prior to Wellington, he built investment processes at BlueMountain Capital, AlderTree Capital (a 2006 startup he founded to bet against the mortgage credit bubble), BlackRock Financial Management, and State Street Research and Management. He began his career as a Real Estate Economist at Property & Portfolio Research, Inc. David has spent 22 years applying his imagination, synthesis talents, and quantitative skills to help institutional investors get the most out of their real estate and structured finance investments. David has been a CFA charter holder since 2002 and received a BS in Mathematics, with a minor in Economics, from MIT in 1997.
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:
*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant
Today’s guest is Melinda Hanson, Head of Sustainability at Bird, a micromobility company based in Santa Monica, CA. Founded in September 2017, Bird operates shared electric scooters in over 100 cities in Europe, the Middle East, and North America, with 10 million rides in its first year of operation.
Melinda joined Bird from the National Association of City Transportation Officials, where she served as deputy director of NACTO's international programs. Before that, Melinda was a consultant for the Asian Development Bank, helping design and implement public transit projects in Pakistan and the Philippines. Earlier in her career, she was a founding staff member of the ClimateWorks Foundation where she managed the sustainable transport portfolio.
In today’s episode, we cover:
Links to topics discussed in this episode:
You can find me on twitter at @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:
*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant
Today’s guest is Ken Kimmell, President of Union of Concerned Scientists, a leading science-based nonprofit that combines the knowledge and influence of the scientific community with the passion of concerned citizens to build a healthy planet and a safer world.
Ken has more than 30 years of experience in government, environmental policy, and advocacy. He is a national advocate for clean energy and transportation policies and a driving force behind UCS’s “Power Ahead” campaign to build a large and diverse group of clean energy leadership states. Ken served on the Commission on the Future of Transportation in the Commonwealth, which advised Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker’s administration on future transportation needs and challenges. Ken was one of 18 members the governor appointed to the panel charged with looking at five areas anticipated to have a dramatic impact on transportation: climate and resiliency, transportation electrification, autonomous and connected vehicles, transit and mobility services, and land use and demographic trends.
Prior to joining UCS in May 2014, Ken was the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP), an agency with a $100 million budget and 800 employees, including a large staff of scientists and engineers. As commissioner, he also served as chairman of the board of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, helping to prod the nine member states to reduce power plant carbon emissions by almost 50 percent through 2020, reducing emissions in the region by some 90 million tons.
Ken has also served as general counsel at the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs in Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s administration, and spent 17 years as the director and senior attorney at a Boston-based law firm specializing in environmental, energy, and land-use issues.
Ken decided to focus his legal work on environmental issues after clerking for the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, where he assisted a judge in a case involving the health effects of Agent Orange. Originally from New York, he earned his bachelor’s degree at Wesleyan University and his law degree at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Ken has been quoted widely, including by the Associated Press, the Boston Globe, Bloomberg Business, the New York Times and the Washington Post, and has appeared numerous times on E&E TV and National Public Radio.
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:
*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant
Today’s guest is Paulina Jaramillo, Professor, Engineering and Public Policy, & Co-Director, Green Design Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.
Dr. Paulina Jaramillo has a bachelor’s in civil and environmental engineering from Florida International University (2003), as well as a master's and PhD in civil and environmental engineering with an emphasis in green design from Carnegie Mellon University (2004 and 2007, respectively). Her past research has focused on life cycle assessment of energy systems with an emphasis on climate change impacts and mitigation research. As a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, she is involved in key multi-disciplinary research projects to better understand the social, economic and environmental implications of energy consumption and the public policy tools that can be used to support sustainable energy development and consumption. She is now the Co-Director of the Green Design Institute and has started pursuing research about infrastructure systems for global development.
In today’s episode, we cover:
Links to topics discussed in this episode:
Dr. Jaramillo bio: https://www.cmu.edu/epp/people/faculty/paulina-jaramillo.html
CMU Africa: https://www.africa.engineering.cmu.edu/
National Science Foundation: https://www.nsf.gov
Mini-grids: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-grids
Diesel generator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_generator
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: https://www.ferc.gov/
Subsistence farming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture
1.5C IPCC report: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
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:
*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant
Today’s guest is Justin Guay, Director of Global Climate Strategy at Sunrise Project, and organization that grows social movements to drive the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy as fast as possible.
Justin has a decade of experience in nonprofit advocacy and foundation strategy development, including managing grant making and strategy for global coal campaigns at ClimateWorks Foundation and the Packard Foundation. At the Packard foundation he oversaw a $40 million grant making portfolio across all climate and energy priorities in India, China, the US, the EU and South East Asia. He has also run the Sierra Club’s International Coal Campaign as the Associate Director for the International Climate Program. The program focused on global efforts to transition energy systems beyond coal to clean energy with a special focus on international finance.
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:
*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant
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].
Connect with MCJ:
*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:
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:
*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant
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