Catalyst with Shayle Kann
Episodes
What climatetech can learn from the oceans
13 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
So you want to build an offshore wind farm. Are you prepared to manage the marine ecosystem impacts of construction? What about monitoring and protect...
How well does soil actually store carbon?
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Don’t miss our live episode of Climavores in New York City on October 20! Sign up here for a night of live audio and networking with top voices in c...
Is the Inflation Reduction Act a win for EVs and batteries?
29 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Don’t miss our live episode of Climavores in New York City on October 20! Sign up here for a night of live audio and networking with top voices in c...
Columbia Energy Exchange: Will Putin’s Energy Strategy Backfire?
22 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Don’t miss our live episode of Climavores in New York City on October 20! Sign up here for a night of live audio and networking with top voices in c...
Averting water wars as we decarbonize
15 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Don’t miss our live episode of Climavores in New York City on October 20! Sign up here for a night of live audio and networking with top voices in c...
Could geothermal become a major zero-emissions player?
09 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Drill down far enough anywhere in the world and you reach temperatures hot enough to generate firm, reliable zero-emission electricity. That’s the h...
The dirt on soil carbon credits
25 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Soil is a massive carbon sink that’s stored away emissions for centuries. But years of destructive farming practices have released much of this carb...
Booking your first zero-emissions flight
18 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In aviation, there’s a crowd of low-carbon technologies vying for a slice of the market. On one hand, the long-haul portion of the market will likel...
Will charging infrastructure be a bottleneck for electric vehicles?
11 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Electric vehicles (EVs) are moving quickly toward mass adoption. So how do we make sure that charging infrastructure keeps up? The people who own, ope...
What the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 would mean for climatetech
05 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The $369 billion climate and tax bill from Sen. Joe Manchin III and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer caught everyone by surprise. Democrats had ab...
Watt It Takes: TeraWatt Infrastructure CEO Neha Palmer
28 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We're bringing you something different today. It's an episode of one of our favorite podcasts, called Watt It Takes hosted by Emily Kirsch of Powerhou...
Seeking the holy grail of batteries
21 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
If there were a holy grail of electric vehicle batteries, it would be low-weight, long-range, and fast-charging. It would last a million miles and cos...
Crossing the valley of death
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In climatetech, the ‘valley of death’ describes the lack of capital for newer solutions, especially those that mainstream investors view as unprov...
The Carbon Copy: Get ready for the battery recycling boom
07 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On the Carbon Copy podcast this week: It’s been over three months since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent shockwaves into global oil markets, caus...
How to Save a Planet: Spark Tank! How Do We Solve the Energy Storage Problem?
01 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It’s shark week! Or ‘spark’ week? Today we’re bringing you an episode of How to Save a Planet, in which Shayle steps into the shoes of a Shark...
Which tech is overhyped, underhyped and just right?
23 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Within the climate tech world, technology hype is all over the map. In this episode, Lara Pierpoint, director of climate at Actuate, and Stephen Lacey...
Making sense of solar engineering
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In some climate circles, solar geoengineering is akin to a swear word. Also known as solar radiation modification (SRM), it means deliberately modifyi...
Introducing Climavores: a new show about food and climate
13 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We're presenting a trailer for a new show from Post Script Media, called Climavores. Climavores is a show for eaters who don’t want to cook the plan...
From biowaste to “biogold”
09 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Biomass. It's the organic matter in forests, agriculture and trash. You can turn it into electricity, fuel, plastic and more. And you can engineer it ...
Climate tech’s surprising bottleneck – land access
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a bottleneck in climate tech that we don’t talk about enough: land availability. It’s a physical resource you need to support biomass, r...
Tapping the goldmine of consumer energy data
26 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Consumer energy data is vital to the energy transition, especially distributed energy resources (DERs). For example, a rooftop solar company needs con...
How will the downturn affect climate tech?
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Stock markets are in decline. Inflation is on the rise. Interest rates are up. Private tech companies are laying off workers. Is this the long-await...
Shayle’s “ask me anything” episode
12 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We’re reversing roles today by taking listener questions for our host, Shayle Kann. He’s usually the one interviewing our guests, but he also has ...
Growing the Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) market
05 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) is having a moment. The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that the world cannot...
Hydrogen, meet salt cavern
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A massive green hydrogen project in Utah has won a $504.4 million conditional loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Offi...
The great rush for battery metals
21 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The metals used to make batteries are in hot demand. In 2021, the price of one form of lithium skyrocketed by over 400%. Automakers are racing to lock...
Alternative protein: it’s what’s for dinner
14 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Support strong climate journalism! Donate to Canary Media to celebrate its one-year anniversary. Conventional livestock agriculture, especially beef p...
Carbon capture and storage is making a comeback
07 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Support strong climate journalism! Donate to Canary Media to celebrate its one-year anniversary. After a string of relatively high profile failures an...
Can Europe quit Russian fossil fuel by next winter?
31 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Europe imports about 45% of its natural gas from Russia. As the conflict in Ukraine escalates, pressure is mounting for Europe to wean itself off Russ...
Will this carbon market boom be different?
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Carbon markets of all types – avoidance, removal, voluntary, compliance – are hot. Startups are sprouting up, looking to develop, broker and verif...
When will batteries take over the world?
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the 90s batteries powered your camcorder and boombox. Then your phone. Now they’re running your electric vehicle (EV), and in some cases, even yo...
What the grid can learn from the internet
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For nearly two decades, the terms "smart grid" and "grid edge" have been used to define the digital layer of the electricity system that can help inte...
Unlocking hyper-efficient cooling
03 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It may not get the same attention as higher-profile sectors, but cooling accounts for 4% of global greenhouse gasses emissions. That's more than even ...
Will advanced reactors solve nuclear's problems?
25 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Traditional nuclear power is bogged down by cost overruns and concerns about safety and waste. But does it have to be that way? Could we deploy scale...
A critical tool for scaling climate tech: insurance
17 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We buy insurance for everything – our cars, our houses, our health. But climate tech insurance? That’s a new one. When Jeff McAulay was workin...
The Carbon Copy: The lithium land grab in California
10 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we're featuring an episode of The Carbon Copy. Batteries are everywhere. In our electronics, our power tools, our electric grid, and in our...
The future of the home solar market
31 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There’s momentum building for electrification. But when will electrification take off as a mainstream movement? And what companies can provide elect...
The many pathways to decarbonizing chemicals
24 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Chemicals might be the most daunting industrial sector to decarbonize. Unlike concrete and steel, where the end products are largely uniform, refineri...
Microbes, meat and materials: biotech meets climatetech
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Biotech has enormous potential across a wide array of climate solutions. It can be used to create alternative proteins, remove carbon from the atmosph...
Inside the Energy Department's loan deal to back hydrogen
10 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
First-of-a-kind projects are, by definition, unproven. Despite the abundance of capital in climate tech these days, the valley of death for new techno...
Is nuclear fusion getting close?
23 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The common trope about fusion is that it has always been – and will always be – a decade away. So is something different happening now? Recently, ...
Quantum computing could be a critical climate solution
16 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What exactly counts as “climate tech”? Basically all human activity is responsible for emissions, directly or indirectly. So nearly every new tech...
The future of natural gas
09 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There are many pathways to decarbonize natural gas. Do we replace it, full stop? If so, with what? Or do we blend natural gas with alternatives, or ri...
A bumpy ride toward decarbonizing aviation
02 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Aviation represents 2-3% of global GHG emissions. If the aviation sector were a country, its emissions would rank around 6th in the world, somewhere b...
Kickstarting a $1 trillion market for carbon removal
18 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Stripe, a fintech startup worth $100 billion, is trying to kick-start a $1 trillion market for carbon removal. The company is being extremely transpar...
Can 'deeptech' venture capital solve climate change?
11 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Can investors win by betting on early-stage innovations in hard-to-decarbonize sectors such as energy, transportation, agriculture and heavy industry?...
Introducing: Catalyst w/ Shayle Kann
02 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Shayle Kann has been thinking about the technology and market fixes for climate change for almost two decades. On Catalyst, he brings on the smartest ...