Catalyst with Shayle Kann
Episodes
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 ...