The Green Blueprint

In 2009, John Woolard’s team flipped the switch on a first-of-a-kind concentrated solar power project. The pilot paved the way for BrightSource Energy, where John was CEO, to build its first commercial CSP plant, a 440-megawatt project in the Mojave Desert called Ivanpah. 

John and his team believed they were far ahead of the competition, including photovoltaics. And they were on the verge of building several large, concentrated solar plants.

That was the plan. But in the middle of building the first commercial plant, the BrightSource team faced a series of unexpected challenges that forced them to ask: “if we stay the course, will we survive?”

In the first episode of The Green Blueprint, host Lara Pierpoint talks to John Woolard, former CEO of BrightSource Energy and current CEO at Meridian Clean Energy, on lessons from the concentrated solar boom and bust. 

They dig into how John salvaged a financial deal that collapsed in the middle of a global financial crisis, the unexpected challenges of permitting and environmental regulations, the competitive threat of solar PV, and knowing when to pivot.

The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media’s newsletter.

On December 3 in Washington, DC, Latitude Media is bringing together a range of experts for Transition-AI 2024, a one-day, in-person event addressing both sides of the AI-energy nexus: the challenges AI poses to the grid, and the opportunities. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code LMPODS10. Register today here!

We’ve already invented many of the solutions needed to decarbonize the global economy. But a big chunk of emission reductions will come from technologies that are not yet commercial.

We don’t have decades to get these commercialized – we have years.

So what can we learn from the people who are bringing new technologies from the lab to the market, constructing first-of-a-kind projects, building companies, challenging and transforming incumbents, and finding the right kind of investment to support their scaling?

The Green Blueprint is a new show from Latitude Media and Trellis Climate about the architects of the clean energy economy. 

Hosted by Lara Pierpoint, managing director at Trellis, the show profiles the people who are doing the hero’s work of scaling clean technologies: founders, investors, engineers, policymakers, and organizational leaders who are solving a complex set of challenges in the quest to scale quickly.

Every other week, we’ll hear stories about the complexity of building gigafactories, the mind-boggling logistics of mega-clean energy projects, and the risky choices on how fast to scale – plus boardroom disagreements, financial hardships, and moments of failure and redemption.

The Green Blueprint is dropping this fall. You can find it on Latitude Media, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

Since we stopped The Carbon Copy, some listeners had questions about what’s next.

Here's a preview of our new podcast, the Transition-AI event in December, and a new newsletter called the AI-Energy Nexus.

Stay tuned to the feed for our new show, dropping later this fall!

Dynamic pricing is everywhere – and impacts all of us.

Whether it's the time of day, your location, or the amount of demand, so many of our decisions are driven by real-time pricing changes.

But it's still a relatively new concept in electricity.

This week, we're featuring a conversation with Scott Engstrom of GridX and Economist Ahmad Faruqui on the imperative for good rate design – and the consequences of getting it wrong.

How do we create dynamic rates that are fair, transparent, and effective at valuing distributed resources?

And how do we use technology to design and implement those rates – and perhaps eventually automate them on a real-time basis, as many hope?

This episode was recorded live as part of our Frontier Forum series. Watch the full video here.

Some news: this will be our final installment of The Carbon Copy. But don’t go anywhere!

Later this fall, the feed will be transformed into a new show that will profile the people architecting the clean energy economy. We promise it will be a valuable part of your media diet.

For our last episode, we brought back some old friends: Jigar Shah, director of the DOE’s loan programs office, and Katherine Hamilton, chair of 38 North. 

Jigar, Katherine, and Stephen dissect some of the biggest storylines of the year in clean energy business and policy. They’ll tackle AI energy demand, grid constraints, geothermal, nuclear, the demise of California's rooftop solar industry, and America’s green bank.

Which trends are overrated, which ones are underrated, and what does it all mean for mass deployment? 

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund will provide $27 billion for clean energy projects nationwide, potentially mobilizing up to $150 billion in public and private capital. Join Latitude Media and Banyan Infrastructure on July 18th for an in-depth discussion on how we can deploy these billions with the highest impact. Register for free here. 

Make sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

When millions of smart meters rolled out across the country at the turn of the last decade, many people hoped it would create the backbone of a digital grid.

Today, you’ll find few who think meters lived up to expectations. One survey found only 3% of advanced meters supported by the 2009 stimulus bill brought customer savings.

Mike Phillips, the CEO of Sense, is still bullish on the role of advanced meters for grid intelligence and bill savings. But as utilities start a new wave of rollouts to replace old technology, he worries they aren’t investing in the right architecture.

“Most people think of meters just as data collection devices. You have to start to change that mindset, and once you start to think of this as a distributed platform – not just a data collection device – this entire world of making use of machine learning at the edge starts to get opened up,” said Philips.

This week: a conversation with Mike Phillips on what AMI 2.0 should look like. Past deployments of smart meters didn't bring the intelligence promised. How do we avoid the same outcome?

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund will provide $27 billion for clean energy projects nationwide, potentially mobilizing up to $150 billion in public and private capital. Join Latitude Media and Banyan Infrastructure on July 18th for an in-depth discussion on how we can deploy these billions with the highest impact. Register for free here. 

Make sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Solar is the fastest growing electricity-generating technology in history. That rapid scaling was a result of squeezing cost reductions out of every step of production. But there's one critical piece that hasn't changed much: frames.

Aluminum frames now make up one-quarter of the cost of a PV module. And that metal mostly comes from China, a country that controls nearly 60% of the world’s smelting.

Since passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, companies have built or planned 155 gigawatts of production capacity for modules, cells, wafers, and power electronics in the US. But up until now, frames have been overlooked.

So what would it take to replace foreign-sourced aluminum with US-made recycled steel – and why does it matter?

This week, we feature a conversation with Gregg Patterson, the CEO of Origami Solar, and MJ Shiao, the VP of supply chain and manufacturing at the American Clean Power Association.

This conversation isn’t just about frames – it's a story about geopolitics, trade, the complexities of manufacturing, and the urgency of improving the reliability of solar. 

This event was recorded live as part of Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum series, in partnership with Origami Solar. You can watch the full conversation here.

A lot of climate tech investors are still trying to figure out how to invest in artificial intelligence. Will it become a unique investment category? Or just a natural enhancement of what many startups are already building?

There’s an emerging class of startups with AI at the center of their business. Citrine Informatics is using generative AI to speed up discovery of new materials; Koloma is using AI to identify potential sources of geologic hydrogen; and Zanskar is using AI to accelerate and derisk geothermal exploration.

Andrew Beebe, managing director at Obvious Ventures, thinks that AI is pushing the “edge of the possible” in climate tech. He recently led a $30 million Series B round in Zanskar, calling it “generative science at work.”

“I think generative science is the next phase…it is going to shorten the distance to some of these massive solutions,” in batteries, solar, nuclear, and geothermal, said Beebe, speaking on The Carbon Copy.

“Zanskar doesn't have special drilling technology. They don't have new fluids or new Rankin cycle systems on the top. They literally just have a better way to look for geothermal because in America.”

This week, Beebe joins the show to riff on AI-driven climate solutions, the need for more clean, firm power to meet rising power demand, and a variety of other tech trends that are shaping what he calls “the climate decade.”

Utility rates could make or break the energy transition – so how do we do it right? On June 13th, Latitude Media and GridX are hosting a Frontier Forum to examine the imperative of good rate design, and the consequences of getting it wrong. Register here.

And make sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

We need to invest many trillions of dollars every year to build a climate-positive economy. We know what those technologies are – but they're all at very different levels of readiness.

So what would it take to scale critical climate technologies? That was the simple-but-complicated question recently posed by a group of energy, industry, and high-tech experts at McKinsey.

The research offers a clear account of the state of a dozen types of climate technologies, which could collectively slash emissions by 90%. We sat down with co-authors Anna Orthofer and Mark Patel to walk through the adoption pathways for everything from renewables to hydrogen to lab-grown meat.

What's ready to scale, and what's behind schedule?

Utility rates could make or break the energy transition – so how do we do it right? On June 13th, Latitude Media and GridX are hosting a Frontier Forum to examine the imperative of good rate design, and the consequences of getting it wrong. Register here.

And make sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Data centers are an impressive energy success story. Over the last 25 years, internet traffic has climbed more than 500x while data center electricity use has remained flat. 

The servers and energy infrastructure have gotten wildly more efficient, and the biggest tech companies have focused on powering those warehouse-scale computers with renewables.

But a lot of people are suddenly alarmed about data centers again, as energy demand for AI surges.

Data centers are getting built so fast, many utilities are pushing for lots of new fossil gas plants to serve them. And while tech companies have made strong progress on building renewables to match data centers, grid constraints are making it harder. We have a very small window to fully decarbonize the grid – this may make it harder to squeeze through it.

So, are growing concerns over AI’s power demand justified? How are they contributing to America’s growing hunger for electricity? And what technologies and grid management techniques can address it? 

This week, we’ve assembled a group of experts to answer those questions: Brian Janous, co-founder of Cloverleaf Infrastructure; Michelle Solomon, senior policy analyst at Energy Innovation; and John Belizaire, CEO of data center developer Soluna.

This conversation was part of Latitude Media’s Transition-AI series. Watch the full event here.

Utility rates could make or break the energy transition – so how do we do it right? On June 13th, Latitude Media and GridX are hosting a Frontier Forum to examine the imperative of good rate design, and the consequences of getting it wrong. Register here.

And make sure to listen to our new podcast, Political Climate – an insider’s view on the most pressing policy questions in energy and climate. Tune in every other Friday for the latest takes from hosts Julia Pyper, Emily Domenech, and Brandon Hurlbut. Available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.