The Wharton Current

Geothermal energy may be the biggest dark horse in the clean energy transition. And it's bipartisan.

At Deploy24, Former U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm gave a strong endorsement of geothermal, calling it her "personal favorite" power source. Recently confirmed Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said he is “optimistic about advancing geothermal technology deployment."

Sage Geosystems is helping turn that vision into a reality. By adapting advanced drilling techniques from oil and gas, Sage is unlocking hot dry rock (HDR) geothermal -- a breakthrough that could dramatically expand geothermal's reach well beyond traditional hotspots.

In the latest episode of The Wharton Current, Ian Miller and Siddharth Challani sat down with Jason Peart, General Manager of Strategy & Development at Sage Geosystems, to discuss:

- Scaling Geothermal Beyond Current Limits: Geothermal has always been constrained to a few specific regions -- until now. Learn how HDR technology could capture geothermal potential across the U.S. and increase its power capacity by orders of magnitude by 2050.

- Serving Critical Customer Needs: Sage is working with major utilities, the Department of Defense and top tech leaders to make geothermal a go-to solution for clean baseload and long-duration energy storage. Explore how Sage's customers are integrating HDR geothermal into their energy strategies.

- Building an Impactful Career in Energy: Hear how Jason's focus on community, adaptability, and lifelong learning has shaped his dynamic career and opened doors in the fast-evolving energy sector.

If you have any feedback, please reach out to [email protected]

What’s next for clean energy under a Trump administration?

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Jen Wilcox. Now a Penn professor, Dr. Wilcox led the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management under the Biden Administration. Named one of the Time 100 in Climate in 2023, she had a front row seat as Biden’s pro-clean energy policies spurred growth in the industry, and she provides unique insight on what lies ahead under Trump.

In the episode, Dr. Wilcox joined hosts Ian Miller and Lilly Chadwick to discuss:

- Clean Energy Winners and Losers: Which technologies will have the most and the fewest roadblocks under Trump, and how Elon Musk may affect the outcome

- Agencies and Policies at Risk: How the conservative majority in the Supreme Court and the Senate will facilitate Trump’s ability to advance his agenda, and which environmental agencies and policies are most at risk

- Reasons for Optimism: Despite foreseeable challenges, why to feel hopeful about the future of clean energy over the next four years

If you have any feedback, please reach out to [email protected]

What if aging wind parks could produce 5x more green energy?

Lars Meyer, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of NeXtWind, is focused on making that vision a reality. In 2023, NeXtWind raised $750M to "repower" aging wind farms across Germany, upgrading inefficient turbines and increasing power output by 4-5x.

In this episode, Lars joined host Ian Miller to discuss:

- Enabling Net Zero: How Lars and his co-founders identified critical gaps in Europe's energy transition and designed NeXtWind's business model to rapidly scale renewable capacity

- Adapting to New Frontiers: How NeXtWind is preparing to evolve as markets rely more heavily on variable renewable electricity

- Lars' Life Lessons: How conviction, courage and even a fortuitous soccer match can make all the difference in an entrepreneur's career

https://www.nextwind.de/

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Over the past decade, climate tech venture capital has expanded rapidly. Total funding increased by 12.5x and new venture firms like Clean Energy Ventures emerged, filling critical gaps in the capital stack and helping founders reimagine a more sustainable future.

Our guest, Matt Cohen, Principal at Clean Energy Ventures, has dedicated his career to helping climate tech entrepreneurs scale their businesses. He and his colleagues are focused on maximizing impact, investing only in companies that can mitigate 2.5 gigatons of CO2 by 2050.

In this episode, Matt returned to Penn, his alma mater, and joined host Ian Miller to discuss Clean Energy Venture’s mission and share his insight on:

- Finding your unique strengths as a climate tech investor or operator

- Identifying pockets of opportunity across climate technology verticals

- Communicating a compelling vision and generating investor excitement as a founder

Any feedback? Please reach out

Rising electric vehicle demand is creating new challenges for both EV owners and utilities.

Concentrated charging times are driving up electricity prices, making it more expensive to charge EVs. This "peaky" electricity demand is pushing utilities to rely on fossil fuel plants, impacting the energy transition.

Apoorv Bhargava, CEO of WeaveGrid, is focused on addressing these problems by making the grid more intelligent and resilient.

In this episode, Apoorv and co-hosts Emily Goldfield and Ian Miller dive into WeaveGrid's world and discuss:

- The Evolution of the Electric Grid: Explore the essential grid improvements needed to enable wide-spread electrification across industries.

- Innovations in EV Charging: Learn how WeaveGrid is using software to optimize EV charging and to transform EVs into distributed energy storage assets.

- Insights from a Climate Tech Founder: Hear about Apoorv's journey as a Stanford GSB graduate, successful founder and Forbes 30-Under-30 recipient, and his perspectives on building a meaningful career in climate tech.

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Any feedback? Please reach out [email protected].

You hear it every day -- artificial intelligence is the future.

But artificial intelligence data centers require an extraordinary amount of electricity. How are utilities going to meet this growing demand all while transitioning to a greener energy mix?

Nelson Abramson, CEO of Verrus, is revolutionizing the data center industry by developing a more sustainable and energy efficient data center design.

In this episode, Nelson and co-hosts Siddharth Challani and Ian Miller dive into Verrus' vision and discuss:

1. The Explosive Growth in AI and Data Centers

2. The Impact on Energy Demand and Climate Change

3. Innovative Data Center Designs for the Future

If you'd like to connect with Nelson or share your thoughts on this episode, please write to [email protected].

https://www.verrusdata.com/

For investors, taking sustainability seriously requires high-quality company-level data. That, in turn, requires standards that ensure companies across industries and economies are providing this kind of investor-useful data. We need accounting standards for sustainability reporting, just like what we have for financial reporting.

Our guest this week is from the international body that's tackling this task. Elizabeth Seeger is a Wharton MBA alum and board member at the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), a 14-member body within the world's standards-setter for accounting, the IFRS Foundation. The ISSB released this summer a pair of global baseline standards for sustainability and climate reporting. They're working with countries and international organizations around the world (G7, G20, central bank governors, and more) to drive global adoption.

Listen to learn:

-- How the ISSB is unifying the global maze of sustainability accounting standards

-- How the board draws on financial reporting concepts in underpinning its sustainability reporting standards

-- How sustainability reporting standards in public markets affect private markets.

Bio: Elizabeth Seeger has over 20 years’ experience of standard-setting, investment and working on sustainability topics. She joined the ISSB from global investment firm KKR, where she served as Managing Director, Sustainable Investing, responsible for helping oversee the firm's consideration of sustainability matters throughout KKR’s investment process and part of KKR's Global Impact team. She also oversaw KKR’s public sustainability reporting efforts, including the development of SASB and TCFD-aligned reporting. Before joining KKR in 2009, she served as a project manager in the corporate partnerships programme (now known as EDF+Business) of Environmental Defence Fund.

Elizabeth's comments represent her views and opinions and not those of the ISSB or the IFRS Foundation.

What technologies can get us to net-zero steel? Dr. Christina Chang knows this space as well as anyone in venture capital. She's a PhD chemist and inventor in fields from solar PV to advanced manufacturing, a former steel startup CEO, and now a partner at Lowercarbon Capital. Join us to learn:

-- Which technologies can help cut steel emissions -- and why near-commercial options like CCUS and hydrogen can't get us to net-zero

-- How modularity can help electrochemical iron-making drive down the green premium

-- What the Inflation Reduction Act means (and doesn't mean!) for green steel production costs

Christina's full background: A chemist, climate tech founder and CEO, Dr. Christina Chang has invented technologies across nanomaterials, catalysis for mining waste remediation, thin-film solar panels, solar water-splitting for H2 production, and sustainable steel.

She is a Partner at Lowercarbon Capital, the multi-billion dollar VC firm backing kickass companies that fix the planet profitably. Previously, Dr. Chang led federal funding for sustainable manufacturing research ARPA-E, including steel, chemicals, cement, rare earths, and carbon-negative building materials.

Dr. Chang earned her PhD in Physical Chemistry from Harvard. On the Marshall Scholarship, Dr. Chang earned an MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures from Imperial College London and an MPhil in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge. She graduated summa cum laude from Princeton with a Bachelor's in Chemistry, with Certificates in Engineering Biology, Applications of Computing, and Materials Science and Engineering. She is a United States Presidential Scholar, a Goldwater Scholar, a Draper Laboratory Fellow, and an alumna of the Research Science Institute.

Adding renewables and batteries to our power grid cuts emissions and can lower costs. But it also makes grid stability a more complex affair. That's in part because these systems tend to have less "inertia" -- a byproduct of turbine rotation that helps insulate grids against fluctuations in supply and demand. The old models and heuristics for inertia management no longer apply, and grid operators compensate by running their systems more conservatively -- higher cost, and higher emissions.

What's the alternative? Frederico Rauter is chief revenue officer at Reactive Technologies, a Series C startup with a pioneering new technology for precise inertia measurement. Frederico tells us:

-- What inertia is, and how their technology improves upon the current tools for monitoring it

-- Why utilities can be slow to adopt new technologies, and how they've developed their product with those obstacles in mind

-- How he built a career before Reactive tackling innovation in large corporates (SNCF, Siemens)

If you'd like to connect with Frederico or share your thoughts on this episode, please write to [email protected].

Rising climate risk has corporates around the world announcing targets to cut their emissions. But how can investors know whether a company’s targets are ambitious enough to support our world’s climate goals -- to help mitigate global climate risk?

Ned Downie & Adriel Barrett-Johnson talk in this episode with Luiz Amaral, the CEO of the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), a UN-backed initiative to define and promote best practices in science-based corporate target-setting. Luiz shares:

-- How SBTi fits into the growing ecosystem of standards-setters in corporate climate action

-- Why ambition in target-setting matters for corporate climate performance

-- How SBTi is revamping its governance structure and expanding into accountability around climate targets as part of its next stage