To make products like cement, cereal and even baby food, you need heat—and lots of it. Industrial heat consumes about one-fifth of all energy used in 2018, according to the International Energy Agency. 

Factories often burn coal or natural gas to generate consistent temperatures up to 2200 degrees Celsius. And most run nearly 24/7 to maintain profitability in competitive commodity markets.  

Other sectors like power and ground transportation have clear pathways to decarbonization, relying mainly on electrification and cheap intermittent renewables. But these solutions don’t deliver consistent temperatures and the 24/7 energy needed to make things like steel and petrochemicals. So industrial heat has been a far more stubborn problem to solve.

But there’s a crowded field of technologies lining up to try, including hydrogen, biogas, heat pumps, electric arc furnaces, and even heat batteries.

In this episode, Shayle talks to John O’Donnell, co-founder and CEO of Rondo Energy, a thermal storage startup. Shayle’s venture capital firm Energy Impact Partners has made investments in Rondo Energy. They break down the challenges of industrial heat and discuss the range of technologies that could help to generate it with low emissions.

John and Shayle cover topics like:

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