The Decarbonization Race

Electrification is a critical part of decarbonization - but ensuring emissions come down in the process means ensuring the processes that get us there don't create their own excessive impacts. The global appetite for electric vehicles and battery-based energy storage has grown considerably, and with it, the need for more raw materials to produce them. But as the first generations of electric vehicles and battery storage start to retire and replace batteries, processes for recycling them at end-of-life are still being refined and facilities scaling up.

Coming in with a fresh solution is Megan O'Connor, CEO and Co-Founder of Nth Cycle, a metal processing technology company that works with both lithium battery recyclers and miners to increase the supply of critical minerals for the clean energy transition. Nth Cycle's electro-extraction technology, the OYSTER, provides more efficient harvesting of these materials from batteries during recycling as well as mining, from both low-grade ores and waste streams.

On this episode, Megan shares with host Lincoln Payton the story of Nth Cycle's beginnings in a Yale laboratory, how she and her team took the technology to scale, and its potential to make meeting global needs for battery materials more localized and more efficient.

Key Takeaways:

• Nth Cycle's mission is to change the perception of the mining industry by creating a much cleaner way to process these materials to try and get as much of these metals back in circulation, and enabling manufacturers to source those materials in other ways.
• Electro-extraction only uses electricity and water - meaning no high temperatures, high pressures, or solvents. As a technology, it not only helps increase the efficiency of battery recycling but also reduces the carbon footprint by over 40%.
• Nth Cycle developed the OYSTER unit to be mobile and each has a 1200-ton processing capacity, and its initial use has been focused on the nickel scrap sector. The heaviest concentrations of nickel production are in Indonesia, so Nth Cycle's technology offers an opportunity for companies looking to localize or diversify supply. Another area of opportunity is other types of heavy industrial nickel scrap sources such as catalysts from oils and gas.

As more and more industries are pushing to decarbonize their processes - and in the process, help curb emissions for companies' supply chains - green steel is trending. Automakers, builders and companies in a range of other sectors are under pressure to reduce the embodied carbon in their products. But delivering "green steel" means both changing processes that have been in place for decades, and agreeing on what constitutes zero-carbon or near-zero carbon steel.

In this Energy Minute, co-hosts Dana Dohse and Steven Goldman delve into the push for green steel - what's driving it, where early demand is coming from, what process changes are making significant cuts in steel's embodied carbon emissions possible, and the big challenges ahead in taking green steel to sufficient scale.

Key Takeaways:

1. Emissions from steel making are representing, depending on estimates, between 6-8% of global emissions - a big slice of the planet's global carbon footprint. The manufacturing of iron and steel is on track to consume 50% of the total remaining carbon budget to meet a 1.5 degree target by 2050.
2. Using hydrogen instead of coal as a reagent to reduce iron ore to pig iron - the key feedstock in refined steel - is one pathway to create green steel, reducing the CO2 emissions compared to the equivalent process in a traditional blast furnace.
3. Sweden's H2 Green Steel is looking to cut emissions from its production of green steel by 95% through the use of green hydrogen as a reagent, compared to coal in traditional steel making. They plan to source the electricity required for hydrogen production (via electrolysis) and plant operations from nearby renewable sources, including hydropower from the Lule river and wind farms in the region.

Resources:

• Startups mentioned in this segment: Boston Metal, Electra, Hybrit, H2 Green Steel
• Background on the First Movers Coalition and its sectoral approach to decarbonization: https://www.weforum.org/impact/first-movers-coalition-is-tackling-the-climate-crisis/
• China Baowu and Rio Tinto's decarbonization alliance: https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/china-baowu-joins-decarbonization-alliance-rio-tinto-invests-in-battery-startup-67679175
• Rocky Mountain Institute blog post, "Forging a Clean Steel Economy in the U.S.": https://rmi.org/forging-a-clean-steel-economy-in-the-united-states/

To create the products and grow the food we eat, the industrial sector requires a lot of thermal energy—heating and cooling—which today represents approximately 13% of total U.S. emissions. However, tackling this "forgotten wedge" of the emissions mix to slow climate change requires a range of approaches and policies beyond electrification.

Tackling this difficult challenge is Blaine Collison, Executive Director at the Renewable Thermal Collaborative (RTC) and a renewable energy & sustainability professional looking for ways to decarbonize our industrial sectors. In this episode, Blaine discusses with Lincoln the technology roadmaps, policy initiatives and convening work the RTC has been leading to help large industrial companies start reducing their thermal emissions across the globe.

Key Takeaways:

• Last year, the RTC collaborated with the Boston Consulting Group to develop the Renewable Thermal Vision Report: charting five pathways to decarbonizing U.S. industrial emissions by 2050 focusing on specific sectors, geographies, and technologies.
• Critical to the RTC's work is bringing together companies, solution providers and outside experts to connect and combine perspectives. By getting sustainability and operational teams out of their respective siloes, companies can share new ideas, best practices and fresh approaches to decarbonization in their respective sectors.
• Green hydrogen is gaining a lot of attention for its potential to curb emissions in a range of industrial sectors, from steel production to shipping and heavy-haul freight transportation.

The Inflation Regulation Act, the United States' most ambitious climate legislation to date, was passed in August of 2022, delivering a range of grants, loan programs, tax incentives and a greenhouse gas reduction fund, all targeted to accelerate clean energy and technologies to mitigate climate change, including energy storage, hydrogen production and direct air capture to name a few.

In this Energy Minute, co-hosts Dana Dohse and Steven Goldman are joined by Michael Panfil, Senior Director & Lead Counsel for Climate Risk & Clean Energy at Environmental Defense Fund, to unpack the legislation and its potential to accelerate clean energy and transform our energy infrastructure, with huge potential impacts for communities and corporations alike.

Listen in for:

1. The IRA is a big opportunity for any company in the United States with climate commitments and clean energy adoption targets, because it's designed to accelerate clean energy and energy storage deployments, and lower energy costs in the process.
2. If you are a company that has clean energy commitments, the new standalone energy storage tax credit creates new opportunities for energy storage – as a resource for firming solar or wind output to meet corporate energy procurement needs, or as standalone flexibility assets to support the overall decarbonization of electric grids businesses draw power from.
3. The IRA implementation is a golden opportunity for states to supercharge progress and clean economic growth on lower energy costs, on reductions in harmful air and climate pollution, and for significant clean energy investment for local organizations and local governments.

References

• The Inflation Reduction Act Tracker, a joint project of EDF and Columbia Law School's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, compiling information about the climate change-related provisions of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA): https://iratracker.org/
• EDF blog post on how the IRA's $369 billion in funding for clean energy breaks down: "The Inflation Reduction Act: A breakthrough for lower energy costs and climate progress"
• EDF+Business blog post: "3 big wins for businesses in the Inflation Reduction Act"

"What we need is a bunch of courageous people right now. People who are willing to advocate and fight in their business life and to fight for what we need at the civic and government and arguably global level."

In this episode, Susan Hunt Stevens, CEO of WeSpire, shares with host Lincoln Payton ways in which businesses can energize employees by actively including them in ESG initiatives, develop ESG maturity models, and inspire workers to find the courage to combat the climate crisis.

Susan Hunt Stevens is an experienced business executive and sustainability advocate. She has held positions at The New York Times, WeSpire, and the Sustainable Brands Advisory Board, and is an expert on using digital game mechanics and social mechanics to drive behavior change.

Listen in for:

• People really internalize and change their points of view when they experience something. This is why companies need to get executives and teams across companies engaged on sustainability in ways that they can see, feel and quantify the results.
• If you have or are starting to embrace ESG initiatives in your workplace, you need to make it a priority to make programs easier, clearer, and less susceptible to fraud or greenwashing.
• Tip for companies who need or want employees to engage more in sustainability: Engage them in your ESG practices. They want to help and know that they are making a difference in the world.

In 2016, Peninsula Clean Energy made an ambitious move to supply its customers with 100% renewable energy. As of 2021, it met its goal with a mix of renewable and carbon-free energy, including large hydropower and nuclear power at a lower price than customers were paying for power through Pacific Gas & Electric.

In this Energy Minute, Dana and Steven jump into how Peninsula Clean Energy then decided to reach for a more ambitious strategy - to provide 100% renewable energy matched every hour, the first U.S. energy supplier to do so - how that strategy is progressing towards its 2025 goal, and how it plans to continue to advance the strategy further in years to come.

Listen in for:

1. PCE has already procured enough solar, wind, geothermal and hydropower resources to cover 75% of its 24/7 strategy by 2025, and will procure additional capacity to reach 99% by the end of 2025. This is providing a blueprint for other utilities to decarbonize, evaluate their modeling, and dispatch storage.
2. California has been increasing targets to add energy storage to their mix, which are typically arriving in the form of battery-based storage systems designed to run for as much as four hours at a time, helping fill in some energy gaps.
3. PCE is envisioning eventually adding a broader range of technologies to its strategy, including offshore wind and seasonal energy storage.

Resources

Peninsula Clean Energy's Strategic Plan: https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/strategy/

PCE's original white paper sharing its approach to 100% carbon-free energy: http://peninsulacleanenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Whitepaper-OUR-PATH-TO-247-RENEWABLE-ENERGY-BY-2025.pdf

PCE's 2023 white paper sharing how its approach was updated to a 24/7 model: https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/24-7-white-paper-2023.pdf

The Decarbonization Race is back!

On our season premiere, Michael Daschle, SVP of Sustainability at Brookfield Properties, joins Lincoln to share how the company's push to decarbonize its commercial real estate portfolio led to powering Brookfield's flagship New York City property, One Manhattan West, with 24/7 carbon-free energy. Michael dives into Brookfield's vision and approach to ESG, how to get the tenants on board with Brookfield's investments in sustainability, sourcing 100% renewable electricity, and Brookfield's plans for the future.

Key Takeaways:

• As an organization that has invested in ESG, it's the managers' responsibility to make sure it's an investment that tenants want to be a part of—listen in for what they are looking for.
• With the right procurement approach, you can have a large impact on your building's carbon emissions footprint and make a sizable difference in a short amount of time.
• As a real estate company, it is important to not only say what you're going to do to tackle ESG-related issues, but to be authentic, transparent, and show that you're committed to your word.

Resources:

https://www.propmodo.com/anti-greenwashing-tech-helps-brookfield-back-up-esg-claims-at-one-manhattan-west/

Energy storage is playing a critical role in managing and reducing corporations' and communities' carbon footprint. And no one knows this better than Fluence, the technology company whose team pioneered the use of grid-scale batteries as energy storage 15 years ago.

Kiran Kumaraswamy, VP of Growth & Head of Commercial at Fluence, joins our host Lincoln to share the history and importance of energy storage in transforming how countries and companies source, store and deliver electricity. They cover questions such as: How has public perception of energy storage evolved? And what roles are digitalization, companies' pursuit of 24/7 carbon-free energy, and materials sourcing playing in progress towards net zero?

One key publication that was highlighted during the UN COP27 summit was the International Energy Agency's (IEA) report on advancing decarbonization through corporate clean energy procurement. In this Energy Minute, Dana and Steven dive into the report and its key takeaways—in particular looking at the options available to corporations for sourcing clean energy, some differences in how decarbonization efforts would likely differ in the example countries of India and Indonesia, and how even setting lower targets than 100% on time-matched carbon-free energy can yield better carbon reductions than those obtained through a simple solar or wind power purchase agreement by itself.

The IEA is a Paris-based organization that provides policy recommendations, analysis, and data on the energy sector. They have 31 member countries and 11 associated countries. Their contribution to COP27 helps steer energy policy and practice, so tune in to hear their recommendations for achieving decarbonization goals.

IEA Advancing Decarbonization Through Clean Energy Procurement report: https://www.iea.org/reports/advancing-decarbonisation-through-clean-electricity-procurement

Turning the microphone around for an episode, our host Lincoln Payton joined Dr. Chris Wedding on his podcast, Entrepreneurs for Impact. Dr. Wedding interviews CEOs and investors on his podcast who are tackling climate change—an initiative we at The Decarbonization Race can certainly get behind. Listen in to hear the interview, including Lincoln's "origin story," - his career in investment banking prior to joining Cleartrace - the energy transition that led him to join the climate tech sector as Cleartrace's CEO, as well as delving into the company's mission and growth.

If you'd like to hear more from Dr. Wedding, check out his podcast here: https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com/