The Wharton Current

In this episode, Professor Shelley Welton shares insights on U.S. electricity markets, transmission policy, and expanding the supply of clean energy.

In this episode, Alex speaks about what is needed to commercialize advanced energy technologies, the impact of shifting government policy, and lessons from his tenure at BCG.

What does non-concessionary climate investing actually look like in practice? Ben Huang of Builders Vision joins the Wharton Current to break down how the platform deploys capital from philanthropy to market-rate returns— and why he underwrites climate funds the same way he'd underwrite any other. We cover manager selection, undercapitalized opportunities, the family office landscape, and career advice for students breaking into impact investing.

For more on Builders Vision, check out their website and the FT article we reference in the conversation:

• BV Website: https://www.buildersvision.com/

• FT article: ft.com/content/f1a7549f-24e5-4591-aeb2-c6b8eea362c9

China just released its Five Year Plan in March 2026. How should clean energy investors, founders, and policymakers in the US respond? On April 2, we sat down with Ali Zaidi, former White House National Climate Advisor, to discuss what China’s clean energy priorities mean for the future of the sector globally and how we can adapt US industrial policy to gain an edge.

What does it actually take to pull carbon out of the air — and turn it into a scalable business? In this episode, we sit down with Shashank Samala, CEO & Founder of Heirloom Carbon, to unpack the reality of building one of the world’s most ambitious direct air capture companies. We dive into commercializing DAC at scale, raising climate infrastructure capital, navigating policy and 45Q, and partnering with buyers like Microsoft, Stripe, and Frontier to bring first-of-a-kind projects to life.

We sat down with Colby Hastings, Senior Director of Residential Energy at Tesla, to unpack how battery storage and distributed energy resources are reshaping the grid. Drawing on nearly a decade at Tesla, Colby walks us through the evolution of Tesla Energy—from the early days of Powerwall and grid-scale storage to today’s Megapack deployments and large-scale virtual power plants.

In this episode, Aroon shares insights on why data center flexibility is critical to protecting energy affordability, grid reliability and the broader economy amidst the AI boom.

We were thrilled to speak with Brandon Corts, Senior Director of Product at Newlab — a venture platform accelerating the commercialization of critical technologies.

Between early-stage VC funding and late-stage infrastructure capital, hard technology companies face a “valley of death” where many fail.

This challenge is not new but it is intensifying. According to Sightline Climate, in 2024, there was a 10% drop in Series B deals, and it took over two years on average for companies to advance from Series A to Series B, up from 20 months in 2023.

In the latest episode of the Wharton Current, Ian Miller and Lilly Chadwick sat down with Brandon to discuss Newlab’s venture platform and the creative pathways hard tech companies can follow to successfully overcome the valley of death.

Small Scale, Big Impact: Nuclear Microreactors -- James Walker, CEO of Nano Nuclear Energy by The Wharton Current

Energy Geopolitics in Transition — Dr. Benjamin Schmitt, Senior Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Kleinman Center for Energy Policy by The Wharton Current