His house was wiped out, his cars crushed. Windows popped out, there was smashed glass everywhere, ceilings ripped away... all in the matter of seconds. Huddled over his daughter, and hanging on for dear life, Jon thought is was all over. But as fast as it came, soon it was silent, eerie quiet. It took two hours for a nearby cousin to get there, picking his way through the destruction and rubble and downed power lines to rescue Jon and his family. But they were spared... and the event changed his life.

Why had he been spared? What did others do wrong to be killed? And... what should others do to prepare for future tornadoes? This last question set Jon on a mission: To educate residents about how to prepare and to equip them with emergency kits. Within months of the tornado, Jon formed Edlin Tornado Solution. He wrote a guide that is available on Amazon, developed a backpack with essentials, and began to lecture on preparedness. He has become an important messenger of the realities of tornadic activity in Tornado Alley and in Dixie Alley where his home had been.

Jon describes that horrific night, from early TV reports of tornadoes in the area, to taking heed and sheltering, to the actual tornado and how it sounded like five jet engines roaring directly over him, and its aftermath. Jon dispels myths... like "it could never happen to me." He makes clear that tornadoes are not predictable and now spread across a wide number of mid-western states... not just Kansas. 

Jon and Ted discuss that the United States is considered "the global epicenter of tornadoes," as dry air from the Southwest mixes with warm air east of the Rockies, loaded with Gulf moisture. Over 1,000 tornadoes are recorded each year, from EF-1 with 65 mph winds, to EF-5 with wind speeds over 200 mph. While the number may not be changing or increasing due to climate change, they are now occurring in more locations, further north earlier in the year, and in outbreaks of many tornadoes in the day-long or two-day periods.

So what is in the kits? Forget food; forget shovels states Jon. His kits are sturdy backpacks that have lights, first aid, extra gauze, and whistles. They have dedicated pockets for car keys, cell phones, laptops, and other essentials critical to rebuilding after the storm. They come shipped with a hook to encourage their buyers to a) identify the safe spots in their homes, and b) to hang their kits so they are at the ready. While basements are best, and essential for EF-5 events, Jon and his family survived huddled in the central hallway of their home... away from windows and exterior doors through which they could be sucked out. A brick wall landed squarely on their bed... their kids' rooms' ceilings were completely gone, their cars crushed. But they were safe.

The conversation ends with a discussion of emergency preparedness... from tornadic activity in the mid-west to wildfire and earthquakes to the west. While human nature reinforces myths and results in inaction, Jon is clear that we all need to be prepared... that we need to be smart to survive and to protect our families. He cautions listeners not to be become desensitized, to override that part of your brain, and instead to really think about it, to visualize it happening to you, to take preparedness seriously.

But she makes clear that there are serious issues to address: We still have some of the worst air quality in country. We are still battling water pollution issues. We are facing big impacts of climate change...  heat waves, droughts, flooding, wildfires, and more havoc. That said, she notes that California is a leader in solving problems. The public is engaged and aware. There is lot of support for solutions... things like investing in clean energy and electric vehicles. She underscores her strong conviction that California is a leading state, at the vanguard of tackling big environmental problems.

The conversation then focuses on Environment California's advocacy of coastal protection. She's just led a delegation in Sacramento celebrating the 21st Ocean Day, where surfers, divers, community activists and others, "brought the ocean" to the State's capitol! The delegation of lobbyists was also celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Coastal Act of 1976. She noted that, "it stopped crazy development ideas along the coast"... from numerous nuclear plants, lots more oil and gas drilling, and rampant development shoreline hotels. Thanks to the Act, and the will of the people, instead we have public access of our beaches and no private ownership of beaches and our precious coastline.

Also part of the agenda for Ocean Day's lobbying was standing up against new Trump administration proposals for expanding offshore oil drilling, albeit wildly unpopular in California. State legislative actions are strategically being developed to restrict bringing any new drilling's oil onshore. 

On a positive note, her coalition is supporting expansion of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Just like parks, MPAs have basic rules: Enjoy but don't take. MPAs were established by the Marine Life Protection Act of 1999 and there are now 124 MPAs off the California coast. They were created as an interconnected network to preserve and restore marine ecosystems. Laura stresses that there is so much more to be done given the threats facing ocean life. There has been a loss of 90% of large fish globally to due overfishing and the impacts of marine heat waves. In the last decade, California has lost almost 90% of its kelp forest habitat... with cascading impacts. Laura points out that kelp forests absorb 20 times more carbon dioxide than terrestrial forests.

The conversation then digs into offshore wind. Environment California has been pushing for 100% renewable power in the State. Laura explains that when sun sets, utilities have typically fired up gas plants to meet consumer demand as solar power drops off. But that's exactly when the winds pick up, especially 25 miles offshore. California has an enviable offshore wind resource. Offshore wind alone could meet all of the State's energy needs. Environment California is part of coalition called Offshore Wind Now which passed AB 525, a bill that helped set goals for offshore wind deployment... 25 GW by 2045. The Coalition supports lease sales and investments in port upgrades to bring this power ashore. 

Ted asks who is opposing offshore wind and Laura makes clear that oil interests are working to discourage offshore wind. The fossil fuel interests are actively undermining support in communities, bolstered by President Trump's dislike of wind. In fact, just last week, Laura laments that Golden State Wind took the buyout option that Trump offered to abandon its offshore wind lease. Taxpayer money is being used to reverse progress. In fact, the wind developers who take the buyouts have promised to spend same amount of money in fossil development. But Laura remains optimistic: Fully 80% of Californians want offshore wind. There is lots of enthusiasm for this clean energy resource.

At the end of discussion, and in response to Ted's question on how Environment California prioritizes its advocacy and community organizing, Laura focuses on the things that we all agree on: She finds it interesting that even in such a polarized moment, we all want clean air, we want water that is safe to drink, and we want livable communities for our children. So Environment California is particularly focused on areas that have widespread support, as well as areas where it can activate Californians to effectively take a stand and to engage the will of the people who choose to make the Golden State their home.

In graduate school at the Scripps Institution for Oceanography in La Jolla, California, Amber and Emily were scuba diving off oil rigs in the Santa Barbara Channel and witnessed remarkable sights... abundant sea life clinging on to the oil rigs supporting scaffolds. The operating rigs were creating vibrant marine ecosystems, starting with invertebrates like barnacles and sea anemones... then scallops and more, providing nurseries for schools of fish. The rigs' subsea infrastructure preserves and produces marine life, provides refuge, and has even proven to support biodiversity and reverse extinction, notably of sea stars in California. After presenting their thesis research at a conference, they were approached by an oil company that was keen on exploring the rigs to reefs option for defunct undersea infrastructures. 

While oil companies are responsible for removing their rigs, and returning their leased sites to their pre-existing conditions, Amber and Emily explain that their research on the undersea life revealed an alternative approach... something they now describe as "reefing." This is taking advantage of massive subsea infrastructures, scaffoldings of beams and cross-bars, that provide habitat for marine life. At the end of the rigs' oil extraction, why not maintain these new-found ecological zones below an 80-foot draft for safe passage of ships, and remove the "topsides?" Supporting this approach is exactly what Blue Latitudes does, starting in California where there are 27 offshore oil rigs, their work is now spreading around the world. 

Blue Latitudes studies fisheries in high-tech ways, for instance it used underwater remote operating vehicles (ROVs) that plunge to depths way beyond the reach of scuba to measure sea life and to take samples, as well as hydroacoustics to measure marine life. They raise awareness and advocate for rigs to reefs. So far, they have worked in coastal waters off the United States, Africa, South America, and Malaysia. They provide decommissioning studies, paying attention to eliminating spills prior to capping and sealing wells. The common theme of their work is applying scientific research to develop custom solutions to address complex problems at the nexus of industry and our oceans.

Emily notes that there are ~1,400 rigs in the U.S. coastal waters, and some 5,000 - 7,000 rigs worldwide, all of which will reach the end of their useful lives. This is Blue Latitudes' "market." The company -- and its foundation -- has lots of work to do as these rigs -- which can be steel structures in as much as 800 feet of water -- can be repurposed for mutual benefit: The oil companies save money -- even after providing cash to local rigs to reef programs -- and the marine environment is enriched providing great benefit to local fishing industries.

The conversation ends with Blue Latitudes' most recent project, a broad study of alternative uses for offshore oil rigs.. specifically their "topsides." They are exploring green hydrogen production, harvesting critical minerals from seawater, aquaculture, and establishing a network of monitoring stations for ocean data. As the world shifts from hydrocarbon extraction... finding clever solutions, like rigs to reefs, is a "silver lining" to industry and fundamental to the the Blue Latitude mission and contribution.

The discussion then focuses on how he de-risked the concept. Instead of an owner -- "an amateur in the car rental space" -- taking on the challenges of rentals to strangers, why not have a platform to manage a network and to remove the risk and hassle for car owners? For renters, why not create a new car rental model that makes renting easy, really easy? Forget rental locations and lines and consumer frustration. 

Eon boasts that its network now is the easiest way to rent a car. The company only rents privately-owned electric vehicles, primarily Teslas, Rivians, and Lucids. There are no keys involved at all. More and more, its business partners -- the car owners -- are developing fleets of EVs for program participation that they post on the company's website. Then renters get instructions on how to access the vehicles and use their phones to unlock and turn on the cars. Renters can even pre-warm or pre-cool the cars. They get explicit instructions on where and how to charge the vehicles too.

Owners put their cars on the platform and specify the terms they want... like car pick-up and drop-off location, the daily price, etc.  Eon screens renters to assure a positive experience for the owners, and similarly stipulates a set of terms for owners... like vehicle cleanliness. Now, after eight years developing and scaling the model, Rei and his colleagues have over 3,000 cars in their network, with business activity in 50 cities across the nation. And the business model is popular, Rei notes that 45% of his renters are return renters. Check it out at Eonrides.com.

The conversation begins with a clear definition of coral: They are living organisms with exoskeletons of carbonaceous material. The coral form colonies that grow and grow, notable in size... like the 2,300 kilometer long Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Remarkably, reefs that cover 1% of the ocean floor provide for 25% of all marine life. The reefs provide habitat and thus food for fisheries. The reefs also play an important role in protecting beaches. 

Sam explains that there are about 6,000 types of coral, mostly located in tropical waters between the 30th latitude north and the 30th latitude south. To thrive, corals need suitable temperatures, plus appropriate salinity and light. The death of corals is attributable to several factors, but primary among them is climate change which has driven up water temperatures. Pollution and sedimentation also harm reefs, as does some forms of fishing and development.

Sam recounts the genesis of Coral Vita, how he and Gator drew upon extensive research and development of restoration techniques. Then they developed a business plan that aligned the interests of myriad stakeholders in reef restoration and ecological regeneration. They began their operations in The Bahamas where resorts and other industries have had to displace reefs. Coral Vita has been effective in relocating these wildlife assets to comply with regulations and to support the local economy and tourism. 

Soon thereafter they were awarded a prize from Prince William and his Earth Shot Prize. In fact, William and Kate came to The Bahamas to witness Cora Vita's operations. Sam and Gator were also recognized by Forbes Magazine for their entrepreneurship. And the business has grown, now including operations in countries including The Bahamas, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. The firm now employs 40 staff.

Sam described the process of growing coral in aquacultures which dramatically shortens the growth periods of coral. At what he calls "the coral factory," Coral Vita is intently studying corals to determine which grow fastest and which are most resilient to changes in water temperatures. Today, Coral Vita licenses some of its inventions and software to other organizations with the same mission of protecting corals and the fragile ecosystems that they develop. Fully one billion people rely on reefs in one way or another.

Ted asks Sam at the end about optimism. Sam makes clear that he is pragmatic and that unfortunately, things will get worse. He notes that it may be generations from now that realize the benefits of today's work to reverse the course of coral reef destruction... until reefs survive and thrive. He notes that clearly the best thing would be for our global society to stop killing the reefs, much like ending deforestation. Until then raising awareness about the importance of corals is key, so is coral reef restoration. To get involved check out https://coralvita.co.

The conversation begins with a primer on rare earth minerals -- of which there are 160 -- and rare earth elements which number 17. These have been largely sourced from China which currently mines 90% of rare earth minerals and processes over 99% of them, importing minerals from Myanmar and other countries to do so. Aclara is not only developing an alternate supply chain for rare earths, but as Hugh explains, is doing so in a sustainable manner, in line with consumers' expectations. 

Hugh joined the podcast from Brazil where Aclara is developing a rare earth mining operation, tapping into ionized clays that can be surface mined, stripped of their valuable elements, before the clays are redeposited on the sites without harmful pollution and disruptive effects. Aclara, a Canadian company, is working in Brazil and Chile on mining operations, while collaborating with Virginia Tech on a separation technique. At the tail end of the company's vertical integration, Aclara is selling refined rare earth element powders, metals, and alloys to manufacturers.

Hugh begins by presenting the value of rare earth mineral for electric vehicles. Their motors depend on high intensity magnets to support their dramatic acceleration. Many magnets lose their magnetism when their temperatures exceed 100 degrees Celsius and EV motors reach temperatures of 150 degrees Celsius (300 degrees Fahrenheit) and thus need special rare earth elements to maintain their magnetism. Two of the 17 rare earth elements are critical for this function: terbium and dysprosium. They are blended into the magnets' formulation at a rate of 2 - 3%. While the cost of these materials for a typical EV is less than $50, Hugh notes that without them, the EV would not function. 

Hugh was born and raised in South Africa. His parents were academics and he jokes that his engineering is a genetic disorder he got from his parents, his father an electrical engineer and mother a mathematician. After studying in South Africa, he came to America for graduate school in chemical engineering, before focusing his career on specialty minerals, for semiconductors, for agriculture, lithium for batteries, and at Aclara for magnets. 

Rare earths enable the renewable energy revolution he explains. At Aclara, he and his colleagues are proud of doing the right thing in their mining and manufacturers, to meet environmental and ESG standards that people have come to expect. "It's not just what were doing but how we do it."

Invinity now has 190 MWh of installed systems and in construction all over the world. Matt details 96 installations in 17 countries, including Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Hungary. In fact, right after the podcast recording, Matt is flying off to India, a country that is in great need for clean energy resources... and long duration energy storage will play a pivotal role there. Ted asks about Hungary why Matt has called it a "hotbed" for flow batteries. Matt describes the country's impressive view of grid infrastructure and how the government stepped in there to stabilize and optimize its power grid. Matt also describes Invinity's work in Australia, home to one of Invinity's largest projects. He also provided an update on an intriguing Scottish project where Invinity batteries are buffering between tidal power and electrolyzing hydrogen 24*7, a project where tidal power is harvesting the ebb and flow of the tides. Matt calls this a "punishing duty cycle," well suited to flow batteries.

The conversations shifts to the United States where Invinity is currently starting 3 - 4 projects that rely on long-term storage. The batteries are supported by the California Energy Commission. Invinity provides products for grid-scale storage and directly to the commercial and industrial sector for behind the meter installations. Flow batteries are a nice fit for microgids and energy resilience... with projects at Harrah's Casino and at Pacific Northwest Labs. Another project that Matt describes is at a casino and resort outside of San Diego. There, tribal ownership seeks to achieve full energy sovereignty for its large load including one of the world/'s largest EV charging stations. This creates "an incredibly challenging duty cycle," again, quite perfect for flow batteries. 

Invinity is exploring expanding manufacturing in the U.S. to meet Production Tax Credits that accrue to manufacturers of energy storage, as well as tax credits for end-users when domestic content is higher. Matt notes that there are good sources of vanadium in the United States. And due to new regulations limiting emissions in maritime shipping, Invinity is exploring the use of waste stockpiles caused by stripping sulfur out of crude oil, laced with vanadium and other metals, potentially a new and attractive source of vanadium without additional mining and extraction.

Matt and Ted conclude with a discussion of Invinity's future role. The next step is greater scale. Matt also points out that the utility grid policy conversation has moved from "net zero" to "zero zero," a time where there will be no offsets... only clean power stored and discharged to meet onsite consumption patterns or grid capacity and reliability. Clearly Invinity's role in this vision and transition is important and on the rise.

Since her last Eco-Logic episode, Chéri had a whole department writing grants and structuring projects. In 2024 that team wrote $800 million worth of applications for clean energy. Fully $490 million was awarded to 49 tribes. "But within four days after the inauguration.. money clawed out bank accounts, literally clawed out." She explains that there were no letters, only a "giant sucking sound." Programs were abruptly cancelled such as EPA's Solar for All program that was helping tribes put modest solar systems on homes, in cases providing power for the first time. Tax credits that provided up to 70% of the cost of solar installations, were eliminated.

There are 575 recognized tribes in America and another 100+ that are not recognized. Fully 229 tribes are Alaskan native villages. Chéri is of My'kyma descent, a tribe from Northern Maine and the Canadian Maritimes. She makes clear how profound the political changes have been to the tribes. They had begun to develop projects spurred by government funds and backed by third-party finance despite tribes generally being "allergic to debt." 

The cancellation of many projects, and the loss of tax credits and other support programs, has eroded trust that had been building... the trust necessary to develop large-scale projects that can boost economic development on tribal lands. Chéri explains the impact to the Hopi after the closure of the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station. It had provided lease fees to the Hopi, creating a huge hole of lost revenues and lost jobs. A billion-dollar, utility-scale, 400 MW solar project to serve wholesale markets, was going to fill this gap and provide a pathway to prosperity going forward.

The conversation shifts to how the Alliance has adapted. The Alliance created the Indigenous Power and Light Fund in 2024 with a $100 million goal. So far it has raised $38 million from three primary philanthropists, money that is now being used for grants and loans to spur renewable energy projects, providing just-in-time capital, filling funding gaps, forming capital stacks where private markets won't. The Alliance is prioritizing clean energy projects that provide energy access, build climate resilience, lessen reliance on fossil fuels, and provide resources for climate and fire disasters.

Drawing inspiration from the tribes it serves, Chéri reports that the Alliance has grown despite discouraging federal policies. In the past two years, the Alliance staff has nearly tripled and the Alliance has added highly experienced professionals to its team and capabilities to better serve ~180 tribes. The Alliance has also formed the Tribal Energy Leadership Fellowship... an initiative to train tribal leaders in partnership with Haskell Indian Nations University, Harvard, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Born in Australia, Ben spent his youth in England before his family migrated to America. His career led him to specialize in material science -- physics and chemistry -- working for big corporations on electronics, semiconductors, printed circuit boards, and solar cell fabrication. At the age of 48 he decided to form his own business. Undaunted by statistics that show that nine out of ten startups fail, Ben dug into solar, determined to succeed. He's still paranoid, and sites an author who wrote that "only the paranoid survive." The key is to always be on the look-out for what can go wrong and to plan for it.

Ted asks Ben about "the solar-coaster"... a term that Ben dismisses strongly: "I hate that term. It suggests that one has no control." Ted digs in given the recent and major blow to residential installations: "What about the loss of the residential investment tax credit?" Ben points to two factors: Fifteen years ago, when he started Xero, it cost twice as much to install as it does today, and that value in avoided utility costs then was half or less than it is today. His view is clear that we don't need tax credits, that solar is still a good deal without tax credits and utility incentives.

Ben discusses his business philosophy and operations. He believes in fair prices for suppliers, employees, and for customers. Too often customers are focused on the first cost of solar, rather than its long-term savings. Ben notes that choosing the lowest cost solar company may be the most expensive decision one ever makes. Charging a fair price gives Xero the ability to provide strong levels of customer service and support for the lifetime of the systems installed. Xero spends little on marketing its services. The best advocates are customers pleased with the services they receive, says Ben.

Ben wants Xero to have a potent impact... "to help people we touch." This starts with employees. His staff are grateful of his priorities... nurturing marriages, strong families, celebrating babies and home-buying. Leading his staff, Ben volunteers and teaches them about the fulfillment attained by giving. His mother taught him that this world is made up of takers and givers. The takers will never be satisfied, they always want more. "Those that give are blessed with so much more... givers have full hearts." 

The conversation includes a discussion of the future integration of our cars with our homes. Ben has been tracking VGI, vehicle grid integration, for years. "It's a great idea as our cars sit idle 95% of the time." While not sure of its timing -- "it seems like it's been the technology of tomorrow for a long time" -- his passion for efficient utilization of resources - in this case batteries -- causes him to be excited about VGI, flattening utility load profiles and the duck curve, and optimizing the grid to drive down power costs for us all.  Xero is future proofing its solar projects for the VGI future.

Imagine waking in the morning and having your coffee made to perfectly suit your taste. Imagine a humanoid robot playing chess with grandpa, or teaching the kids algebra, or folding the laundry or mowing the lawn or blending margaritas! The applications for robots are widespread... from household functions to nursing homes to factories, schools, medicine, and more. They can deliver vaccines in quarantine zones... and can readily access all the world's information. David highlights the future of open-sourced robots... whereby a robot in Japan learns to make sushi rolls, and this skill is uploaded to the cloud and then available for robots on the same platform worldwide. We may all have robots serving us, loaded up with apps for various tasks!

David's company, Strategic Transformation Advisors helps industries tap the great potentials for automation. He is currently working on a major facility in Oregon, where three kinds of robots will be at work... none requiring any space conditioning at all. Robots can work 24*7; they need no breaks or benefits. They are tireless and can do heavy lifting, and can boost productivity, proficiency, and safety. And as more and more automation is developed, costs will fall... only begetting more automation with greater functionality.

There will be adjustments in the transition toward greater and greater automation. Job losses are top of mind, notes David. Goldman Sachs reports that 6 - 7% of the American workforce has already been displaced by AI. Amazon laid off 14,000 workers last year and expects to lay off 30,000 by the end of this year. The implications for jobs are huge... with automation replacing not just manual tasks... but all manner of technical services such as coding, paralegal reviews, and engineering. 

The conversation shifts into income tax losses as workers are replaced with machines. David imagines that mechanisms will be needed to address this loss. Should AI be taxed? Should robot leases be taxed? While David offers no solutions, he suggests that clever new means of developing revenues to support government functions may well be needed. He points to Norway's sovereign wealth fund that provides public benefit from oil and gas resources as a model mechanism. How can the abundance that will be created by AI and humanoid robotics be shared for the benefit of all?

The conversation ends with David's bold predictions: AI-power robotics will be prevalent in industry this decade, and will likely be ubiquitous in homes in the 2030s. The pace of automation, and highly intelligent automation, is nothing short of fantastic.

River States is one of six states in Nigeria. Formed by the Niger River delta, "it is warm there, like Florida," explains Ebenezar. The 11,100-square mile state is home to nine million people. Less than 40% have access to electricity. Right now, given major national grid problems, less than 20% of the population has power and their are routine power disruptions to hospitals, hotels, and the entire community. Many schools have no power at all. 

Ebenezar explains how he formed Policy Shapers and how he coalesced and facilitated diverse interest groups. Led by youth, Policy Shapers is inclusive of all ages, of women, and sensitive to the needs of people with disabilities. Participants and topical experts were brought together with WhatsApp, Zoom, and other social media platforms. They raised awareness and have used "hack-a-thons" to delve deeply into specific issues. Ebenezar and his colleagues brought thousands of voices together, surveying them on the most pressing problems facing the state and nation and the African continent. They suggested solutions. Together they began to craft River States' long-term sustainability plan... called Rivers 2050 Vision.

In the discussion, Ebenezar focuses on five factors that will profoundly affect River States' future. The first is energy and the need to make power ubiquitous and to transform the hydrocarbon energy to renewables. The region has rich oil and gas reserves, that are sold off and that have polluted rivers there to the point where people cannot fish. Rivers State is rich in wind coming off the Atlantic Ocean, hydropower, and solar. Tapping into these resources and making structural changes, like not taxing solar panels, will help to spur this transition.

Second is global climate change, that he reports is quite well known given the internet and widespread use of cell phones. Its impacts are certainly being felt in River States... events such as extreme heat waves and flooding. What can his generation do to shift from hydrocarbons to renewables? Can they promote agriculture and the development of renewables to shore up the economy as oil and gas revenues recede?

Third is population, expected to rise 400,000 people per year. Ebenezar notes that River States is a religious community but that family planning is important there. To accommodate increased population and the fourth major planning element -- sea level rise -- River States needs housing. Policy Shapers promotes creative architectural solutions such as getting back to building on water using floating homes and businesses, now using more advanced building materials and sanitation. 

The fifth factor that Ebenezar highlights is AI and the workforce that kids like his own son will have to adapt to when they reach the workforce. Ebenezar notes the pace of AI's penetration and how many jobs have already been lost, and how many more will be lost in the planning timeframe. Clearly, Rivers State will have to adapt. He makes strong statements about teaching youth critical thinking, creativity, and emotional intelligence. For schools, he suggests that there is a need for new curriculum, based on what AI can do and what it cannot do.

The conversation begins with a discussion of the fall-off of the Internal Revenue Service 25D investment tax credit for solar... an issue for residential solar companies nationwide. Ben makes the case that there are solutions such as prepaid leases that allow for commercial ownership of solar systems on homes, and that the commercial tax credit is still in place. To get this 48E tax credit, the issue is ownership. Commercially owned systems can be on residential or commercial properties. In fact, given the bonus credits possible for commercial installations, homeowners might even see a better than 30% value through this pathway.

Ted brings the discussion back to California and to Net Billing, California's regulatory policy. While a blow to the solar industry in California, Ben suggests that it may well be a good thing in the long run as it has caused consumers to add batteries to their systems. This allows consumers to self-consume solar power and to realize each solar kilowatt-hour's retail energy cost value.

Ted asks about which states provide the most value to homeowners interested in solar: Ben notes that California is the top of the list given its high power prices. The Illinois Shines program has an enhanced value stack for solar, providing homeowners there with the upfront value of Renewable Energy Credits that solar will generate. Maine is a small market but one with attractive consumer economics. Puerto Rico is also a leader for residential solar and storage given hurricanes and the great value of resilience for homeowners there. Texas's deregulated electricity market allows for virtual power plants, another revenue stream and effective means of amortizing the upfront cost of solar. Texas has also enabled third-party permitting and inspections, addressing these bottlenecks in residential installations and shortening installation times.

Ted then asks about the 20 states that Freedom Forever does not serve: In some cases, Ben explains that these are nascent markets that have prematurely adopted California's net billing as a precedent, well before any form of solar saturation and without adequately priming the solar market. States such as Idaho assigned fixed fees that destroyed the economics of consumer-owned solar.

Building on the discussion of virtual power plants and their promise for the future, the discussion shifts to the potential for vehicle-to-grid programs and the integration of e-mobility with our electric utilities. Ben notes that this, like solar and storage, has been inhibited by the One Big Beautiful Bill, but is still promising. He states the need for effective rates and tariffs to make these strategies viable for utilities as well as consumers.

The conversation ends with a discussion of what utilities call "the cost shift" related to distributed generation, and in this case residential solar. Ben discusses the unusually large amount of consumer investments in solar, a public resource that has helped to build the utility infrastructure. While the utility position is this has hurt other consumers with no solar, Ben calls it a mind set. The problem is not technical -- which can be overcome -- but instead a mind set that overlooks the great value of consumer investments that utilities do not have to make. The key is to find win-win solutions that benefit both consumers and utilities charged with providing reliable and affordable power.

Air quality is an issue that drives Bonnie. She grew up in an industrial community in Northern New Jersey and knows painfully well the devastating impacts of bad air on human health. The San Pedro port complex receives 40% of all goods entering the United States. Bonnie explains that ports have five major sources of emissions: ships, short and long-haul drayage trucks, cargo-handling equipment, locomotives, and tugs. The result is that the communities surrounding LBCT have suffered from some of the worst air quality in the country. 

LBCT has addressed this head on. When ships come to its wharf, they receive shore power and turn off their engines which run with dirty bunker fuel. The Port's 93 cranes work without emissions as do the 102 automated electric transport vehicles that are guided by sensors embedded in the concrete that move containers on site. The Port is home to the largest battery exchange buildings in the world that automatically exchange batteries in 5 - 8 minutes.

In 2030 Bonnie completed a net zero strategy for LBCT with a $250 million price tag. So far, she has raised $130 million of this to drive down Scope 1 (onsite combustion) and Scope 2 (purchased electricity) emissions. The Port has reduced Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 85 - 90%. Thanks to monetizing Low Carbon Fuel Standard credits, LBCT has been able to purchase offsets for Scope 3 emissions related to ships, trucks, and trains run by its vendors. 

Bonnie is now working to clean up the Port's 270 rolling stock vehicles -- tractors, forklifts, trucks, buses, sweepers, etc. She is working with shipping lines to promote e-methanol to power the ships that come to and from Long Beach to achieve net zero status at the Port in time for the Los Angeles Olympics. She is also focused on resiliency strategies. Her quest is to demonstrate that even massive industrial complexes like LBCT can fully decarbonize their operations.

Ted asks Nigel about moving the herd to Bali, a 1,700-kilometer voyage over land and sea. Nigel explains that yes, it was very challenging, particularly getting enough food and water to sustain the elephants for the five-day trip. Elephants consumer 250 kilos of food a day... plus lots of water, the latter made hugely challenging during one trip during an intense drought in Java. But the transport was successful, and the elephants that would have lived only 3 - 7 years in captivity in Sumatra, now had a special park in Bali with all the food and drink and care that they needed to live for 50 - 60 years. Today there are less than 1,000 Sumatran Elephants in the wild.

Nigel describes the care that his herd of elephants get. Elephants tend to succumb to death in many cases due to problems with their feet. Nigel devised a special material for the paths that they walk that is cooler than concrete yet with enough grit to properly scale back the elephants' nails and to maintain the health of their feet. Each elephant has a "mahout," a "carer," who looks after the elephant from morning to night... bathing it, feeding it, and giving it the interaction with which they thrive. Since opening the park in 1997, six babies have been born and raised there too. The park is proud of having met the strict, 200+ standards of the Asian Captive Elephants Standards, being certified for over ten years.

Despite Nigel's good rescue deed, for the past few months the park has been embroiled in a major controversy with animal rights groups that claimed that elephants in Indonesia have been subject to cruel behavior. The groups took particular exception to the practice of riding elephants. While Nigel made clear the need for elephants to get sufficient exercise -- they normally walk 20 kilometers a day, versus 7 - 8 km in the park -- and the relative light weight of the riders, the animal rights groups would hear nothing of it. Then the Indonesian government suddenly banned riding elephants outright causing the number of visitors to the park to plummet from 400 to 40 a day. Nigel and his family have had to subsidize the park -- which employs nearly 200 locals -- to care for and feed the elephant herd.

The park continues to be supported by Nigel and his family with only the fees paid by park visitors. The park gets no government funding. Now the challenge continues... finding new ways to bring in visitors without the popular riding. Visitors now walk the elephants, and wash them, and swim with them. Visitors also enjoy the lush habitat and the park's restaurant. Nigel, his wife, and two sons remain dedicated to the park. Nigel makes clear that they will carry on and will find new ways to care for the elephants and to welcome visitors to this unique experience. If and when you're in Bali, please make sure to visit the Mason Elephant Park.

Richard was born and raised in New Hampshire. After studying at Northeastern University in Boston, Richard and his wife moved to Australia where he worked for a number of years in medical device engineering. Then Richard flexed his entrepreneurial side... ultimately cofounding Adiona Tech with a partner who specializes in optimization and computer science. They saw massive inefficiencies in the delivery supply chain and built software address this. Their first client was CocaCola. 

Today Adiona Tech has clients throughout Australia, New Zealand, in parts of Southeast Asia, and pilot programs in the United States. He notes that Australia Post... one of the world's largest postal distributors... is a key client that Adiona Tech helped to greatly increase the efficiency of its operations. In fact, Adiona Tech helped it to cut its fleet size, increase its delivery services, while providing a 100x return on the cost of the delivery optimization.

The conversation hits on several facets of the supply chain, notably the last mile. Traditionally and on average, trucks serving the last mile have been only 60% full. Using Adiona Tech's services, delivery trucks can be 80-90% full, fleets can be smaller, and tremendous financial and environmental gains can be realized. 

Adiona Tech starts with its focus on both the supply side -- where products originate -- and the demand side, where they are delivered to businesses and consumers. Factors and optimization parameters considered include cargo size, weight, and volume; whether the products are palletized or not, the types of fleet vehicles used and more. Routes vary based on demands and on actual traffic patterns through what Richard calls "dynamic routing."

The conversation shifts to the rise and potential for electric vehicles, noting range considerations that alter routes, but also the efficiency of EVs and their promise to further increase the efficiency and decarbonization of logistics. Autonomous vehicles are discussed, with Richard explaining the necessary orchestration of three technologies: AI, autonomous vehicles, and robotics. We are not there yet, but Richard anticipates the effective convergence of these in the next ten years... further enhancing the efficiency of delivery services. These advances will continue to boost Adiona Tech's outsized beneficial environmental impact.

Farhad Abasov is the Chairman, Director and Co-Founder of Millennial Potash. It's his 8th company. His past works have also been mining ventures, extracting lithium, uranium, and other minerals. Millennial is based in Saskatchewan, but Farhad is based in Dubai and beams in from the the United Arab Emirates for the podcast conversation. He explains that Dubai is strategically located as Millennial's big new venture is developing a potash mine in Gabon, Africa. The mine, known as the Banio project, is 1,238 square kilometers in size, about half the State of Rhode Island.

Potash is naturally occurring in soils, and is also found in rich deposits that formed from ancient seas that evaporated over time. Farhad explains that there is a huge amount of potash on the planet... enough for centuries and centuries of production at today's use rates. The challenge, he explains, is that potash reserves are not where potash is used. The biggest users of potash are the United States, China, Brazil, and India, while the largest potash reserves are in Canada, Russia, and Belarus. The Gabon location is strategically located in a politically stable country and along the coast. Millennial is building an export port in the Atlantic to move its material to key global markets.

Ted asks about the environmental impacts of potash mining. Is it strip-mined like coal? No, explains Farhad. Instead solution mining used, a process in which water (in this case sea water) is injected into the Earth forcing the mineral to the surface where it is dried and the loaded onto cargo ships for export. There is very little impact on the surface, no underground work, no subsidence or sink holes, the mine appearing more like a natural gas facility than mineral mine. As for the impact of drying the material in a jungle-like environment, Millennial is building a 25 MW natural gas power plant for this function, a relatively small facility given the enormity of the mine that will be Gabon's largest industry and largest employer... and the billions of tons of potash that will be extracted there to feed the world.

Ted met Sammy ten years ago when he was the Desert Sun's energy reporter, covering California's Coachella Valley, based in Palm Springs. There he reported on the conflicts and controversies surrounding desert solar and wind projects, raising awareness of the tradeoffs between development of renewables and wildlife habitat and conservation. He also researched and wrote extensively about water issues in the West. Then he moved back to his home town of Los Angeles where he worked for the LA Times, writing 1 -2 articles a week in addition to producing a blog and podcast called The Boiling Point.

Sammy clearly has a reputation as a hard-hitting environmental reporter. Ted asks him about how he has been able to balance the interests of his readers and whether he has had to walk a fine line. No, he replied, he has always been able to tell it like he sees it, noting the unwavering support of his colleagues, editors, and readers. His guiding principle has been to dig in and find the story, reveal what's accurate, and to report on what's going to make the world work better. It's all about advancing solutions and fixing problems, he states.

When asked about the results of his reporting, he bifurcates results: First is raising awareness which he explains is really hard to measure. Second is creating impact. He discusses raising awareness about how oil companies sponsor sports... like Union 76 being a major sponsor of his beloved LA Dodgers. Then he shifts to Disneyland and discusses his reporting about a ride at Tomorrowland... where he raised awareness about polluting engines powering cars in Autopia. His articles caused Disneyland to pledge to switch to electric vehicles... much more in line with current times. Clearly Sammy has melded his interests with his journalism, something he wants to amplify in his new pursuit, his independent work with Climate-Colored Goggles.

The conversation shifts to his reporting on the Ivanpah solar concentrating power plant that millions of motorists see each year on their way to Las Vegas. The pronounced three towers surrounded by fields or mirrors was a potent symbol of the future of solar. But Sammy supported the plant's closure, as its largest off-taker, Pacific Gas and Electric, wanted. But despite bird deaths, operational deficiencies, and the rise of more cost-effective, utility-scale photovoltaic plants, California regulators insisted on keeping Ivanpah operational despite its operating deficiencies... resulting in Sammy's article that he titled "The Solar Stupidity is Blinding."

The conversation shifts to water, its shortage in the West and its overlap with energy. Drought not only crimps water supply in the Colorado River basin, but affects hydroelectric production. Agrivoltaics is another nexus between energy and water, the potential to reduce evaporation and the amount of water needed for crop yields, while generating electricity. And while nearly every part of California is out of drought conditions thanks to good rainfall and a robust snowpack, the snowpack in the Rockies which supplies the Colorado River is below average. No, he noted, we are not out of the woods. Ted asks about the solution. Sammy makes clear that everyone in the seven-state watershed (30 million people and 5 million acres of farmland) needs to use less water, a challenging scenario indeed.

Sammy left the LA Times towards the end of 2025 after seven years in what he called a great niche, to do his own thing, namely writing a blog called Climate-Colored Goggles, a subscription-based venture. In his eyes, everything is a climate issue. It's not just relegated to policy and politics. Climate change is ubiquitous... intertwined with entertainment, media, sports, music, etc. He explains that he was ready for a change and ready for even greater independence as a journalist... stretching his creativity, reporting in new formats and new frequencies. While he misses his colleagues at the LA Times, Climate-Colored Goggles is where he is focused now. Check him out at ClimateColoredGoggles.com.

The conversation begins with a discussion of his most recent book, Here Comes the Sun. Without question, emphasizes Bill, the time has come for solar to power our global society. Despite recent setbacks by the current United States presidential administration, Bill cites the remarkable rise of solar worldwide. China, for instance, has been adding solar at a rate of 3 GW a day. In 2023, solar became the cheapest and fastest-growing source of power. But in that same year, our climate was heated to record levels. We have reached 430 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere, well above the 350 limit  that climate scientists warned us about. But there is more good news, even in California, despite its political leaders attempts to limit solar, natural gas use is down 40% just in the past few years.

Bill co-founded 350.org nearly 20 years ago to raise awareness about climate. Since then 350.org has organized over 20,000 rallies, protests, and other events in every country except North Korea. It continues to engage and raise alarms about catastrophic environmental degradation. He talks about SunDay and its 500 events in 2025. Recently, Bill founded Third Act, an organization group led by "elders" such as he in their Third Acts that promotes clear energy solutions and defends democracy. Just like the third act in a theater production, this is the time and chance for resolution of a number of subplots. He insists that there is still time to fully utilize the giant solar reactor in the sky, some 93 million miles away. And he notes that solar provides a great opportunity for our global civilization to unify around a mission, much like we did in the United States with the moonshot in the 1960s.

LEBEC's mission is to democratize access to capital, opportunity and knowledge. The women-led team has grown into a platform to mainstream and scale innovative finance. Alix explains that its three pillars are its strategic advisory services, managing its own boutique investment fund, and making funders and non-profits and others aware of innovative finance. At its core is blending forms of finance and bringing together different capital tools. Her firm is expert at using philanthropy to catalyze initiatives, to de-risk them, then bringing in institutional and larger investors to scale initiatives.

Alix's work is sector agnostic. She and her colleagues are advising clients and raising funding across sectors including water, energy, agriculture and food, affordable housing, and health. It's all about scaling solutions by using an innovative finance playbook to shape a resilient and healthy economy and climate. For the past five years, LEBEC has worked with families, foundations, corporations, and banks, all looking to put capital to work in more impactful ways. At the other end of the process are recipients: The firm is supporting socially responsible entrepreneurs.

Ted asks for a few examples and Alix presents four: She began developing the innovative financing model working with Water Equity, an organization founded by Gary White and actor Matt Damon. Its mission was to help women and their families get small loans to access drinking water, originally in India and Bangladesh. They began by using private sources of capital to provide micro-financing for water taps into main lines. Based on a track record of consistent repayments, they effectively de-risked larger investments of more conventional grants and loans from major organizations. Ultimately, the initiative secured $5 billion in capital for a range of water infrastructure and sanitation projects scaled up on several continents. Seeing that "financing playbook" work so well encouraged Alix to launch LEBEC.

Other consulting works, included working with a Fortune 500 company that required strong returns for its investments, but that also wanted to have greater societal impact. Alix helped the company mix its financing tools, strategically blending its philanthropic endeavors with more conventional financial instruments. For the Miami Foundation, Alix built an innovative for affordable housing and environmental protection in Florida, using its philanthropic activities to prove the model and then seed conventional financing. LEBEC also works with non-profits and entrepreneurs with sourcing capital and using limited funds for the greatest impact.

The conversation shifts to Alix's assertion that the world is falling short some $5 trillion in funding for the new economy - investments in low-carbon, climate-resilient solutions. "Clean energy is the future," she says, things like scaling solar-powered water pumping. Closing the funding gap is critical to enhancing food production for a growing population. There is also a huge need for health care and education. While some think that foundation grants and program-related investments will be sufficient, Alix believes that philanthropy has to be leveraged to tap into larger sources of financing, like big banks such as JP Morgan. Another key driver, she asserts, is proper valuation of climate risk. As the insurance industry forces us all to get real on these risks, capital will flow to help close the multi-trillion-dollar gap.

Ted closes with asking Alix where she got the passion for her work. She responded that early exposure to different cultures, growing up abroad, and traveling across the Southeast Asia region, opened her eyes. Her first job, working on a documentary in Sudan, reinforced her sense of need and direction. Then working for The World Bank, she saw first-hand the struggles of underserved communities, and the disparity with people who have so much. This rooted her passion and LEBEC's important drive to democratize access to capital, opportunities, and wealth.

Sierra Flanigan and Skye Flanigan, Ted's daughters host this milestone edition. They draw out the good, the breadth of topics and featured guests... and even some of the biggest blunders!

"So what does this milestone mean to you Dad?" Ted thanks his daughters for urging him to shift from publishing a monthly newsletter -- which he did for 40 years -- and to create a podcast. "After all Dad, you love to talk, you are full of BS, and you know so many professionals in this space! If you can just get to 10 podcasts, you'll be off and running," they said then. No one imagined hitting the 250 mark!

Ted talks about how the podcast has enriched his life. Yes, it takes a lot of work, but how amazing it is to have the privilege to interview and network with so many inspired and inspiring individuals... over 200 great guests with valuable perspectives all. 

Skye notes that the podcast has featured quite a number of "big wigs" Yes, notes Ted. It's been an honor to converse with so many chief executive officers, executive directors, a mayor, a U.S. Representative... even a Chinese billionaire. Featured guests include Gina McCarthy, Mary Nichols, Mike Peevey, Denis Hayes, and recently Jon Creyts, the Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Institute where Ted began his career. Ted also discusses his international guests, beaming in from Tahiti, Dubai, Nairobi, Scandinavia, and Australia... covering topics such as ocean health, "slow fashion," and energy access in the developing world. He thanks repeat guests including Jigar Shah, Steve Lewis, Jonathan Parfrey, and Evan Mills.

The informal conversation touches on over 50 guests... from grubstaking with Henk Van Alphen, to recycling the unrecyclable with Tom Szaky, to much more efficient electric transmission lines with Dr. Jason Huang, and watershed health with TreePeople's Amanda Begley. Ted notes Rebecca Tickell's Big Picture Ranch films on the soil and regenerative agriculture, and Jack Gro... the NFL's sustainability officer.

The breadth of issues is what makes the podcast fresh and interesting for listeners. Ted discusses his view of sustainability and the taxonomy he has developed that address what he calls the spheres of sustainability... energy, water, transportation, the built environment, greenhouse gases, waste management, food and agriculture, and health and wellness. Topics covered include climate music, wildlife crossings, oyster farming, sustainable energy utilities, coffee, tea, the Aspen Ski Company's methane capture, and biophilic design with former colleague Bill Browning.

Sierra has hosted Eco-Logic's 17 crash courses in which she interviews Ted, together working to take challenging topics and to relate them in interesting and digestible ways. These include courses on offshore wind, vehicle-to-grid integration, microgrids for energy resilience, net billing, and most recently a course on combusting green hydrogen. More to come! Ted threatens to tackle power factor in an upcoming episode... a complex nuance of power system engineering.

When asked, Ted presents a few key lessons learned. First off, be prepared. Then. like journalism, kick off with the meat of the matter. Not to much chit-chat! Then hang loose. And yes, there will be blunders.... He recounts some of those with a chuckle. 

The conversation ends with thanks to all who have been instrumental in making the podcast a success: Sierra Flanigan, Skye Flanigan, Alizeh Siddiqui, and Bill Flanigan, with special recognition to Eco-Logic's podcast coach, Rhys Waters from Podstarter in Nova Scotia. It's a team effort, with lots of parts. Ted laments that recording the conversations is the least of it!

In closing Ted again thanks his wonderful guests and encourages listeners to send nominations for more of them. "We've had so many great guests that we'd never heard of including recent ones like Tom Chi, Ralph Bianculli, Rinaldo Brutaco, John Belizaire, Chance Claxton, and Heather White. Bring 'em on! We're now working on the next 250!"

Drew tells his origin story...  from early explorations, the realization that consumers are unwilling to completely give up beef, to his early recipes, leading to manufacture at a major burger facility in San Diego. At this point, the burgers are available in 142 retail outlets -- notably at Pavilions and Vons supermarkets, through Thrive on line, and at Disneyland. Clearly 50:50 Foods has come a long way... a bootstrapped start-up that Drew notes "checks all the boxes!" He discusses the dual needs to cut down on beef consumption and to increase vegetable consumption. For parents, his burgers are a form of "stealth health," as they taste better while offering a potential sustainability solution.

While not marketed for their environmental benefits, Both burgers address environmental concerns head on. Fully 14% of all greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to cows. For every pound of beef production avoided, 100 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided. Cows and cow food production are responsible for nearly half of all fresh water used in America, dwarfing the 12% used in our homes. Every Both burger cuts water use by nearly 2,000 gallons in the switch from all beef to 50:50's recipe. But Drew is not one to "brow-beat" consumers: Fundamentally, he stresses that Both burgers are delicious. And when produced at scale, they will cost less as vegetables cost less than beef on a pound-per-pound basis. 

The conversation weaves through Drew's rather fortuitous start-up, some of the challenges of working within FDA and USDA protocols and regulations, the clear benefits of 50:50 Foods, and the entrepreneurial path that Drew and his team have taken in developing their potent niche. What's next? First, scaling the burgers.... then taking a look at other related products like meat balls, hot dogs, and chicken nuggets.

Based on Bozeman, Montana, Heather is connected with Mother Earth. Her books help others find their own connections. Her books do not prescribe what people ought to do, but instead asking about who they are... and thus how they can use that self identity to take action... and to find joy in taking action. She explains that it's fulfilling... a far cry from the eco-anxiety that stymies action and well-being.

Heather's three books flesh out her philosophy. In 2021, she wrote "OneGreenThing: Discover Your Hidden Power to Help Save the Planet." This was followed by a guide: "Sixty Days to a Greener Life." Recently, she has published "Eco-Anxiety: Saving Our Sanity, Our Kids, and Our Future." The last book's forward was written by Erin Brockovich who serves on OneGreenThing's board. 

Ted and Heather jump into plastics and the gross ravages of plastic pollution. Her upcoming TedX talk on global plastic pollution is all about solutions and what each of us can do to repel the onslaught of plastic in our lives. To the greatest degree possible, she urges us to avoid single-use plastics, to buy products that have minimal packaging, and to use compostable materials where possible. She offers a plethora of solutions and encourages us all to complement our consumer patterns with being active in the policy arena.

The podcast covers Heather's tenure at the Environmental Working Group which she headed, and her remarkable experiences with media. She's been featured on Good Morning America, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, the New York Times, Washington Post and more. And to maintain balance in life, she talks about her own daily practice of getting outside, and imparts the wisdom of a fellow author... who recommends us all to spend time each day... looking up.

Tom explains that climate change is not gradual but instead it is marked by extreme fluctuations. Its the outliers, the six degrees hotter in summer and 2 degrees cooler in winter as was the case at his reef, 122 degree heat in British Columbia, and multiple thousand year events taking place in less than a decade, all dangerous outliers. Clearly the Earth's natural systems are out of equilibrium. Tom believes that we have messed up on climate change communications. They are centered on average temperature changes that are "papering over" the worst parts of climate destabilization.

At that moment, Tom decided to give up his work at GoogleX -- the best job he'd ever had -- to work on climate solutions. The awakening spurred him to dig into the source of the death in his neighborhood. And he learned that it could happen to entire world, damage that might take 10 - 20 million years to resolve. He considered taking a sabbatical. But he knew the lift was large enough: Clearly he could not effectively work on this in his spare time.

So Tom travelled the world to the front lines of ecological damage, to glaciers calving at alarming rates, rivers running dry, Southeastern Asian rainforests destroyed. He witnessed communities where people live on $2 dollars a day, and how that links with ecosystem destruction like slash and burn in the Amazon. He was digging into the root causes of global ecological problems and found some 60 issues that need attention. Rather than being lost in the abstraction of destruction of our ecosystems, he talks about the need to work locally. "Specificity is the friend of innovation." The more specific you are in addressing problems, the faster you succeed, he explained.

At One Ventures, Tom brings his tech savvy to influence investors to support new innovations, to stabilize them into high-yield manufacturing cycles... getting technologies into a global business setting to be profitable. He and his colleague are disrupting those sectors that do the most damage. One of At One's investments is with Factor 2 that is developing a geothermal technology that uses CO2 as the working fluid, replacing water with far greater efficiency.

Ted and Tom talk about Tom's new book that will be released in February titled "Climate Capital: Investing in Tools for a Regenerative Future." In it he lays out the world's biggest challenges -- climate destabilization, economic destabilization due to AI, and geopolitical instability. He then addresses these with his 4 Cs... critical thinking , creativity, compassion, and community.

Sometimes the problems at hand are so big that they are abstract. One of is book's key directives for all of us to repair our own backyard bioregions. He presents inspiring, localized stories... like the reemergence of the Nene birds in Hawaii. It was a small group of people there that spearheaded a captive breeding program that turned that species' decline around. A lone biologist in San Francisco focused on a native species of butterflies, worked with local botanical garden, and created an ideal habitat that rebounded that rebounded population. He stated that you've got to get past national headlines and get specific to get results. That is where we have the power to change the course of history. Tom works directly on technologies that are restoring mangroves with drones, robots that effectively replant coral reefs and sea grasses.
 
Tom ends with a thoughtful response to Ted's question on his work-life balance. He explains that his form of relaxation and best thinking comes from time in his hammock in Hawaii, away from devices. A little swaying motion triggers the vestibular system. He believes that if you want to be less anxious about the future, get into the process of creating the future you want. The people that will make it are "the builders." They make progress every day, not at a newsworthy pace, but progress that is accretive and additive. This is grounding, a salve for what people are struggling with.

Education and advocacy are key parts of Andrew's job, in this case EA's efforts culminating in favorable public policy. The crossings solve two problems: wildlife deaths and motorist accidents. This additional funding will support all manner of crossing forms, be they smaller structures, or modifications to existing bridges and underpasses, or culvert widening for terrestrial and aquatic species.

"How did you choose glom onto wildlife?"  Andrew describes his early roots:  his family cabin in the north woods of Wisconsin, the Burgess books that impressed him with stories for children about wildlife. As he got older, he focused on rain forests and their wonton destruction for beef production. To combat that habitat destruction he formed the non-profit Rainforest Biodiversity Group in college, something that continues to this day. And he explains, the need is great. 
World Wildlife and the Zoological Society of London have reported that North America has lost 40% of species of wildlife since 1970, due in large part to habitat loss, but also to pollution and toxins. 

Andrew is credited with having created Latin America's first bird tourism trail. By doing so, he found the means to allow fellow birders to witness some of Central America's most interesting birds... including the endangered Green Great Macaw. Birding trails were a natural addition to ecotourism in countries like Costa Rica. They tapped into existing lodges in remote sites. And through bird tourism, Andrew enabled local farmers to care for their livelihoods while doing better for conservation.

Back in the States, Andrew has been a spokesperson and advocate for wildlife. He spent 11 years at the American Bird Conservancy. He has lectured extensively and written articles and papers. One discussed in the podcast is his paper on the impacts of fighter jet training on wildlife, including test bombings with practice munitions. Andrew explains that much of this has taken place in the American Southwest. He and others have worked to change military policies, for instance regulating training altitudes to protect wildlife. 

Andrew is new to Environment America and is excited about the organization's work and strategies. Just how does EA prioritize its funding? Andrew notes the breadth and width of the threats to wildlife. He notes that EA is pragmatic, only taking on campaigns that have a good chance of success. He discusses EA's canvass that exists to this day and that surveys neighborhoods to inform and guide its policies and research directions. Much of EA's funding is grass roots... small denominations that collectively are critical to wildlife across America. For those interested in chipping in, see EnvironmentAmerica.org.

Amanda explains how watershed management integrates activities within a common area of land that drains to body of water. It's about "basins of relations," the trees, water, soil,  people, and all sorts of activities.  On behalf of TreePeople, Amanda guides this process in the Santa Clara watershed. She's an educator, a connector between communities and their needs, developing projects for water supply and water quality and community benefit.

Thanks to Los Angeles County's 2018 Measure W, LA's nine watersheds are taking new approaches. Instead of allowing an inch of rain in LA to wash the streets into the sea, releasing 3.5 billions of gallons of polluted water in to the Pacific Ocean, Amanda her colleagues are working to retain the water in the upper reaches of the watersheds for multiple benefits, creating more green space, shade, cleaner air, more habitat for birds and pollinators.

When queried about what homeowners can do, Amanda recommends simple measures such as diverting downspouts so rainwater can be used to water trees and shrubs. Yes, there was a time, when stormwater management was all about channeling water to the sea to avoid dangerous flooding. But now there are better solutions... ways to capture precious fresh water and to use it to green our communities.

Much of TreePeople's work has been in "upper watersheds," providing mountain restoration after fires. She and her team have been replanting native plants and restoring the biological functions of that land. Measure W funding has three goals: refilling "water savings accounts" (aquifers), promoting water quality, and community enhancement, be it new parks, less concrete, green and complete streets, more trees, gardens, habitat, and more. Measure W provides $280 million each year to fund projects that make local sense. LA is a national leader in this regard.

The best example of watershed health in LA? Amanda highlights the South Gate Urban Orchard Park that recently opened in a tough, industrialized area of Los Angeles. Now there is an oasis there with clean water feeding avocado and citrus orchards, community gardens and native plants. There are trails for hiking and a play area for kids inspired by local tribal partners. "We can do this," she says, proving that we can create spots in LA's intense urban infrastructure that feel restorative. LA gets a bad rap of being divorced from nature, but Amanda sees it differently, that we are blessed to be here nestled between the ocean and mountains, a vibrant community now bolstered by thoughtful watershed management.

The vast majority of Americans want healthy food. Polls show that 80% do. And while many are very concerned about the chemicals going into our food, our government is at odds with this strong majority. Even Robert F Kennedy Jr's Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) campaign is contradictory to federal policy. An effort that was begun to promote healthy food, MAHA has been coopted and conflicted... resulting in funds being stripped away from small farms, organic and regenerative agriculture, and instead being used to support big business. 

Kari notes that 60 - 70 chemicals used by U.S. farms today are banned in the countries where they are manufactured. The Chinese make Paraquat but have banned its use in China and instead ship it to America. That's just one issue. Meanwhile, the United States is losing 60 farms a day due to labor issues, climate change and weather, not to mention tariffs that are hurting small and big farms. We are up against "corporate controlled food," explains Kari.

Kari makes clear the connection between agriculture and climate change. Working for Environmental Working Group some years ago, Kari wrote the "Meat Eaters Guide to Climate Change and Health." In it, she advocates "diet shift." In the case of meat, she suggests, if you eat it... eat less and use the savings to make sure that the meat that you buy is healthy. Food factory meat is laced with antibodies and growth hormones. Fatty tissues in meat accumulate toxins like dioxins.

Later in the discussion, Ted asks Kari what we each of us can do. She smiles and simulates eating a forkful of food, making clear that we each control what we eat. We can choose to eat organic. We can support local farms through farmers' markets. We can ask our local supermarkets and restaurants where our food is sourced. But Kari explains that we can't solve the food issue just by changing our consumption patterns. She emphasizes that we also need to get engaged in the policy arena: Join organizations like FOE, she says, and reach out to our politicians with this simple message: We want healthy food.

The clean tech sector has never been more relevant, he notes. The solutions that entrepreneurs are creating are meeting needs of the country... but not the financial needs that these entrepreneurs deserve. Yes, they are doing well at decarbonizing the energy system, but not doing well in terms of financial rewards. Thus Multiplier is helping management teams get better compensation.

Ted asks about the impact that the current administration is having on clean tech. Is the sky falling? Good news: Jigar makes clear that stock market returns do not suggest so. In fact, he reports that stock values for clean tech have been "off the charts" for the last seven months. Trump's bad-mouthing clean tech seems to be helping the clean tech sector.

The conversation shifts to Jigar's service for the country. "It was terrifically rewarding for me," he reported, as he carried out a clear set of objectives to forge a functioning partnership between the public and private sectors that did not exist in Obama administration nor the first Trump administration. Instead our government has been subtly telling companies that are scaling up American innovations to go to China, India, Malaysia, and other countries. Now U.S. companies are scaling up and doing so in Texas and Tennessee and other states.

Jigar was at the helm of a "more muscular" Loan Programs Office (LPO). Its funding was ramped up from $40 billion to $400 billion. During Jigar's tenure, the LPO committed $108 billion.. and closed deals for $61 billion. Most of the $400 billion war chest is still there. Furthermore, Jigar states that the One Big Beautiful Bill promoted and passed by Trump is actually the largest largest climate bill ever. While it prematurely phased out solar and electric vehicle tax credits, it left in place production tax credits as well as tax credits for geothermal, nuclear, hydrogen, carbon capture, and batteries through 2034. It left the LPO with loan authority for advanced transmission projects, new nuclear, and new geothermal.

For all the hand-wringing which is real... Jigar reports that there is still potential for the U.S. government to be a partner with private sector to compete with China in clean tech. Loans made under Biden with lithium-ion for example, have promoted the highest quality ores... so much so that the U.S. can be net exporter by 2034. Furthermore, the Trump administration knows that if they continue to restrict and confuse LPO applicants that it will be impossible for the LPO to support the nuclear industry.

Jigar is crystal clear that the Trump administration has declared ware on the solar and wind industry. But we are now a nation that knows how to build solar and wind. It's what we have built for the past five years, not natural gas and certainly not coal for which the supply chain does not exist. He is calm and clear: "Cooler heads will prevail" and we will continue to meet the moment to power AI with renewables and to navigate the misinformation presented by the current administration.

Jigar strongly believes that the solar and wind industries need to be more proactive in creating a culture that makes clear that solar and wind is doing good for our country. The oil and gas industries have done a good job doing so, supporting Fourth of July parades, Boy Scout troops, etc. Now solar and wind need to do better, to move beyond the moniker of alternatives... and taking full responsibility for the power system using grid enhancing technologies paired with conventional baseload resources as well as batteries and small modular reactors.

The interview ends with a discussion of Jigar's most memorable moments in DC. He mentions Easter Egg hunts in the Rose Garden with his son, taking his wife to certain events. But most off all, he is proud of having convinced hundreds of colleagues to join the federal government and to getting them to believe that serving in the government is a noble cause. He got the nation's best and brightest to serve, helping to make sure that the United States not only invents, but also scales up, clean energy technologies domestically and with our allies.

Ralph recounts his prior career in the food service industry, at odds with the planet. "I was part of the problem," he laments, and he wanted to change that. He had a rude awakening traveling the world where he recognized that other countries were well ahead of us in adapting to the functionality of products and disposables. America was relentless using virgin materials then and throwing them away. 

Emerald Ecovation's product portolio today covers food service compostables, facility supplies, janitorial products, and packaging materials. The company is providing "everyday essentials" for institutions of all kinds, from major Fortune 500 companies to cruise lines, universities, hospitals, and more. It is an aggregator of raw materials, different types of fiber materials such as bagasse, wheat, and miscanthus... a fast-growing grass. "We create formulations for finished goods," and license manufacturers with 48 factories around the world. Ralph explains that the company's path has been painful at times, but more so exciting, for instance finding new uses for miscanthus in pet and equestrian bedding. Clay is used in packaging materials instead of plastics and is readily compostable.

An important part of Emerald Ecovation's work is educating its buyers and suppliers about lifecycle analysis of products used and made. To do so, Ralph formed the Emerald Sustainability Institute (ESI). Let's use trees as an example: Ralph explains that they sequester 18% of the carbon on the planet and at same time give off oxygen. Trees are the lungs of the planet and thus need to be revered, certainly not wasted. All of Emerald's suppliers are ESA certified and ESA now has over over 2,000 graduates.
 
Emerald also helps its customers meet their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals, The Environmental Impact Reports that Emerald provides present clear metrics, giving all stakeholders solid indexes of what they are accomplishing by shifting to eco-friendly products and practices. Emerald boasts being the only tree-free paper producer and it is serving 1.2 million clients a day. It is putting farmers to work. Its mission is move past recycling. Its organic materials are formed into products, go into its composting systems, and 24 hours later come our as organic soil.

Ted asks what Jon is most proud of. In his 15-year tenure at RMI, three as CEO, the Institute has grown 10x in size, and arguably in stature making the world better RMI is leading the global energy transformation, and Jon is amazed by the change RMI is producing... operating in more than 50 countries... from promoting sustainable concrete production, to working with fleets of heavy duty trucks and demonstrating electric drive trains, fuel cells, and super efficient biofuels, to a rooftop solar pilot in India, to green steel standards for Chinese factories selling to European markets, to electrifying agriculture in Africa.

Jon discusses RMI's founder, Amory Lovins, and his guidance.. and his hugely optimistic and pragmatic notion of "applied hope,"  a term Amory coined years ago.. a vision that coupled with a little muscle... has been key to willing change into existence.   For RMI's 650 staff and partnerships network collaborators, focusing on efficiency first and then market-based solutions, applied hope "unites us" explains Jon.

The conversation then shifts to a global perspective on the clean energy transition. Jon makes clear that it has not bee derailed by the current presidential administration. China is leading the charge, with 3 GW of solar being installed each day, half of its new cars sold are electric, and RMI believes that China is now past peak CO2 emissions. China has proven that a country can decouple carbon emissions and economic growth.  And other countries such as India and Australia are on similar trajectories... every country surging in the transition. Jon emphasizes that 80% of the world is unlocking the economic opportunities of clean energy at scale. While the transition is "messy," Jon makes clear that it is happening faster than many of us thought it would.

That said, there is still tremendous energy waste in our global economy... some $2 trillion a year. This constitutes low-hanging fruit... economic opportunity indeed to fuel the transition. Jon presents a powerful and optimistic view, making clear that the long-term arc of history is bending toward efficiency, renewables, and sustainability. 

Jon then turns a bit "nerdy" and provides an example of RMI's focus on new and exciting technologies, featuring a roof coating that repels heat, wicking heat away from buildings and sending long wavelengths of heat back into space. This is known as passive daytime radiative cooling and has tremendous global promise. Through radiative cooling coatings -- developed for aerospace initially -- our global society can offset the great need for additional cooling resulting from climate change.

Jon concludes with his focus for RMI at the upcoming COP-30 conference in Brazil... where he and others will focus on how to strengthen power grids worldwide... so critical to electrifying mobility and industry, and bringing renewables to the fore. He will also focus on RMI's work with decarbonizing hard-to-reach subsectors such as steel, cement, and chemicals.

At Ted's prompting, he ends with a few notes on balance and his passion for music. He travels the world with a guitar and takes time each evening to unwind and to find time for solace and quiet and harmony... essential ingredients for us all as we work the challenge of transforming the global energy economy for the benefit of all. 

Tom's family fled from Hungary after the Chernobyl nuclear accident. As a young man in Toronto, Canada, he and his father watched a large television being thrown away. TVs are coveted items in Hungary, Tom explains. They took it home... and it worked... in color! Tom was struck by the throw-away society in North America and has devoted his career to recycling things other than paper, plastic, cans, and bottles. These are already profitable. It's the rest of the waste stream that needs attention.

Tom began his recycling work at college at Princeton. He organized and composted food service wastes there.... deep into vermiculture (worms). He left school to take this on full time... from food wastes to compost to sales in Europe and in America to major companies including Kroger and Walmart. Today he has a staff of 400 and is working across the country and internationally. Tom highlights re-use... even better than recycling. With Asics shoes, TerraCycle is taking old foam and other materials from spent shoes. Then Asics is using that "raw" materials for a line of its shoes.

He spun off the TerraCycle Foundation to support ocean clean-ups. His foundation has been working in Thailand on upstream waste collection... in rivers and canals before the waste washes into the oceans. So far, that work has resulted in 3.2 million pounds of material. Meanwhile Tom was writing four books, hosting a television show, growing his companies' impacts, and with his wife raising a family with four kids. He has been recognized by the United Nations and by Time and Fortune magazines for his innovation and sustainability impact. His reward, he notes, is "running a purposeful business."

Evan puts CEA in context: For the past 10,000 years, agriculture has been almost exclusively outdoors. Early experiences with  growing food indoors dates back to the Roman Empire when the Emperor had his melons grown in greenhouses glazed with translucent stones. In the 1450s, Koreans grew some crops in heated greenhouses. But it wasn't until the 1960s that CEA took off in countries like Norway, Sweden, Russia, Japan, and Iceland... largely in cold climates where fresh vegetables are not available in the depths of winter. The research includes Inuit villages in Canada and other "extreme CEA" at the poles.

Evan discusses types of CEA facilities: Some are low-tech, open greenhouses. Others are closed, windowless structures. No soil, no rain, no wind, etc. They use energy for lighting, heating, cooling, dehumidification, snow melting, refrigeration, and soil streaming. This energy use allows year-round, multi-crop farming of crops including lettuce, tomatoes, herbs, leafy greens, cucumbers, and micro-greens. Of all CEA crops, Evan explains, cannabis is the most energy intensive... demanding 23,200 megajoules/kilogram of marketable weight. This compares with an average of 78 MJ/kG for other plant factories. Being the largest US cash crop, cannabis can afford the costs of that level of energy intensity. Its energy use results in CO2 emissions equivalent to 10 million cars.

The discussion digs into how to make CEA more efficient. Barriers are discussed -- cost, finance, lack of knowledge, skepticism, etc. -- as well as opportunities for increased efficiency including more efficient lighting, glazings, and heating practices... as well as decreasing the photoperiod and varying "fertigation" techniques. Root zone cooling has been experimented with in the United Arab Emirates. Later, Evan comments that trying to make CEA more efficient "is like optimizing the suboptimal."

Evan and Ted discuss claims that CEA is more sustainable that conventional agriculture: "It uses less land, it requires less transport of food crops, it is more resilient." Each are debunked. And major companies such as General Mills, Google, GE, GTE, and Sylvania all made attempts with CEA... and all backed out given the unattractive economics of the practice. Consider this, noted Evan: Growing enough protein for one adult for an entire year, if done with CEA, requires as much energy (16 MWh) as an all-electric home with two electric vehicles. That's a lot of power. The conversation ends with Ted asking Evan for his views on CEA. Is it ever appropriate? Yes, in certain applications and certain locations it is... if done efficiently, of course. Final point made by Evan: Conventional agriculture has tremendous opportunities for greater efficiency as well.

Dr. Evan Mills is a retired Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Research Affiliate at the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California at Berkeley.

Orbis is working in several verticals: The motors are also being employed in the refrigeration systems in refrigerated trucks, driving down costs and boosting efficiency. Recently, Orbis Electric has promoted its motors for cooling systems in AI data centers. Chance explains that this is a booming market, there are lots of eyes on it. Thus there is great interest and fundraising capabilities in deploying this type of innovation and efficiency in that energy-intensve vertical.

Ted delves into Chance's diverse career, unearthing lessons learned in her path of entrepreneurialism. She began with a company designed to make Italian lines of furniture easily accessible, a company aptly called Design Within Reach.They developed an online catalog and then managed manufacturers in Italy to deliver the products.

For 13 years, Chance was at the helm of U Konserve. That company was and still is about packaging to avoid food waste. With kids in school, she thought there must be a better solution than disposable ziplock bags. This career aligned with her sustainability values. U Konserve known  for reusable containers and food wraps. It ultimately sold to a bigger company, teaching her about scaling up, and knowing when to step aside. It's all about timing she said more than once.

Another job taught her when to throw in the towel. With a business partner/inventor, she decided to make the ultimate mask to protect from Covid. They were manufactured it in China. She was just about to release just as the requirements for masks in America were lifted! She called that venture a swing and a miss... all back to timing. Remarkably, she and that inventor went on to develop automotive breaks. Orbis Brakes has the goal of disrupting the $30 billion brake industry. Orbis makes an inside-out form of disc brake, a ring with lots of ventilation. The motor fits right inside; the wheel encompasses the whole system. Chance explains how the brakes not only cut material costs, but also reduce nano-particulate pollution.

Orbis Electric is focused on the motors and how to commercialize them. She describes the two test vehicles supplied b by Volkswagen to prototype the in-wheel motor system, one being an ID4 modified in California and then extensively track tested. Her company is working to develop alternative magnet materials, decreasing costs while increasing the sustainability of products. 

Chance discusses raising capital, a big piece of the equation. It's not easy being a self-funded company, constantly working to balance opportunities and resources. Thus the current data center focus. You have to go where the money is... matching that with areas of huge potential. She describes how one-third of world's electricity is wasted by inefficient motors and their operation. Many are not "smart motors," they are running all the time even when not needed.

The conversation ends with more advice and reflection: Timing, staying in lane, defining your path, sticking with it, and radically shifting if need be. She discusses passion, a key ingredient in being resilient, so critical for entrepreneurial paths... perhaps more important than eduction and specialization. And passion need not be singular... it can be applied in lots of different ways at different times. You can't know it all, she implores, but there's so much you can learn by rolling up your sleeves.

This episode is a follow-on interview. Episode #230 documented his inspiring green home construction project. While he was told repeatedly why he could not pursue a fossil-free and healthy home, Robert was determined, got educated, convened smart collaborators, and "impossible" was transformed into reality. He burns no fossil fuels, his home is healthier, and his family is saving money every day.

Robert and Ted discuss the role of green building consultants, helping clients to plan carefully, and to tap into new technologies that make sense. Robert is an owner's rep; he who works on behalf of clients. Like Ted, he has worked with schools, businesses, and homeowners making sure they realize savings for their investments.

Robert stresses the need for consideration of green measures early in the design process. Things like relatively small investments in whole house surge protection can be readily incorporated, providing insurance for years to come. Robert and Ted talk about the merits of "doing it right" the first time: They discuss orientation for solar, recognizing varying levels of shading throughout the year and both its cooling benefits and solar power generation demerits. 

The short and long-term benefits of solar and green measures are front and center in the conversation... providing dollar savings, healthier environments and comfort. Robert and Ted focus on lifecycle benefits - which can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars - versus the upfront costs of measures which can be in the tens of thousands. Solar and efficiency, and electric vehicles and heat pumps, can save money over time... serving as viable annuities. Robert presents his own home savings, now well over $60,000... money that he and his wife put into their son's college education.

Robert describes the courses that he teaches for Southern California Edison. For the past ten years Robert has taught a course on building electrification, with invaluable lessons for architects, engineers, and lay people. They learn how to keep costs down while eliminating fossil fuels. A new course focuses on how to avoid costly panel upgrades through sophisticated controls and smart energy management, despite adding loads such as heat pumps and electric vehicles.

Georges explains the genesis of IEN. Spurred by the president of Hampshire College, Jonathan Lash, IEN was originally formed to help institutions divest from fossil-fueled industries that were counter to their climate action plans. Student and faculty concerns really started to press on endowment portfolios in 2013. Today, IEN works with some 250 endowments. Ted asks the bottom line question early: How are these endowments performing? Are they losing money, or are they on par, or are they ahead? Georges explains that on balance, they are at par or better.

IEN provides a number of tools and resources for its members.. from virtual and in-person "convenings," to benchmarking tools, case studies, and more. The network provides insights and negative screening tools to weed out investments that run counter to an institution's mission and goals, while highlighting positive investment opportunities to reduce risk and steer institutions towards profitable investments in the green economy. 

The conversation shifts to case studies of "platinum" members: Georges discusses leading institutions including the University of California system and Arizona State University. He discusses how some institutions have found means to invest in their own facilities... for instance solar projects and facility upgrades that make dollars and cents while addressing inequality and other social issues. Georges sites the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as a shining example. Born of oil and gas and fossil fuels, Rockefeller has been a leading example of an organization whose Standard Oil roots are now focused on "intentional investments" with highly positive performance. 

For more on IEN and its mission and results, check out Georges' new podcast, "The Future of Finance."

Jason explains that the power sector is very conservative, working diligently to provide safe and reliable transmission services. Many utilities are using 120-year old transmission technology... while others are using "advances" that are 50+ years old. TS Conductors uses a combination of carbon fiber cores, which double their strength and weigh 80% less, with encapsulated aluminum conductors. Through TS Conductors, utilities can invest in the future... restringing power lines at lower costs and faster than using traditional technologies.

For years, utility transmission lines have been constrained by sagging in high heat and swaying in high winds. Many lines have to be derated in extreme heat events, times when utilities need the power the most. To add more capacity, utilities have had to make towers taller and to add towers. TS Conductors allows utilities to refurbish their transmission corridors and expand their power capacity without costly tower replacements. More important than the lower costs are avoiding permitting for new transmission corridors, processes that can take more than 12 years. In one case, TS Conductors were used in Montana, cutting CAPEX costs 40% and shortening the project schedule to provide means to bring wind farms' power to market by 12 months.

The conversation concludes with a look at the massive potential and market for advanced conductors. There are nearly a million circuit miles in America, and many more millions of conductor miles given three-phase configurations. And the conductors can be used for 18 million+ distribution lines as well. For the United States to be competitive in the global AI market, and to boost sustainability, TS Conductors offers a win-win solution.

Joyce grew up in Colorado and then moved to the East Coat for her education at Tufts -- to focus on public health -- and then MIT where she was a student of Urban Studies and Planning. She talks about her first career step, working for an engineering firm that worked on the Three Gorges Dam project in China. The firm was helping China leap from a second world country to a first world country. Joyce's work surrounded relocating well over a million people whose land would be flooded by the dam. That prepared her for advocacy of relocating communities and towns to steer clear of the most threatening aspects of climate change.

Ted and Joyce dig in on adaptation, a sorry reality. Why not cut greenhouse gases and avoid the need for adaptation? Joyce's climate action planning in Chicago made clear that even a city with a progressive mayor and populous, was falling short of its climate goals. Like it or not, citizens there -- and globally -- will have to adapt to rising CO2. Thus for nearly ten years, Joyce's firm has been providing consulting for cities and states... helping them prepare for floods, fires, droughts, windstorms, coastal inundation, and sea level rise.

The conversation shifts to the brand-new guide that Climate Resilience Consulting has developed for small businesses. Sadly, one in three small businesses in climate change events have suffered financial losses. Data confirms that 26% of small businesses have resilience plans and fully 94% feel that they are prepared. But in areas ravaged by climate change events, 40% of small businesses are forced out of business. Not good. Joyce explains as small businesses employ half of all American workers and contribute 40% of our nation's gross domestic product. 

By helping small businesses -- with a practical guide complete with checklists and AI prompts - they can be more profitable, able to fare far better than ill-prepared others. They also "bounce back" more quickly... having moved to higher ground, or away from extreme fire risk areas. They are part of what Joyce calls the solution set... ripe with innovation and smarts in determining how to get "more crop for the drop," and formulating new kinds of exterior house paint that is more resistant to wildfires. Joyce gets great satisfaction in helping business and communities prepare for and reap the benefits of her grandmother's oft-stated view that "a stitch in time saves nine."

Henk's career in mining began in Canada, and then led him to extensive works in Argentina, Chile, and other South American countries. He was agnostic about what minerals he sought to develop... working with coal, iron ore, gold, silver, copper, zinc, uranium, and ultimately lithium. He discusses the process of developing mine sites... noting his style and business model of working collaboratively with indigenous populations, making them part of the process which ultimately led to longer term successes.

The conversation then shifts to lithium mining. Henk discusses where lithium is found - in brine, clay, and pegmatites - and how it is mined. His work involved extracting lithium from brine in "salars" or drying lakes. This was not well received because in arid countries, solar evaporation of the brine wastes precious water... so he and his colleagues have focused on DLE or Direct Lithium Extraction.

Ted and Henk discuss the value of lithium, a mineral at the core of the clean energy revolution. Henk is articulate about the role of lithium in electric vehicles, and in laptops and cellphones. He notes China's preeminence in this field. While other battery chemistries are being examined, Henk notes that advances in lithium batteries are extending EV's range, making EVs clear winners in the automotive future. And he posits that lithium will be with us for some time even if other chemistries are promising and may ultimately replace lithium. That will be, he jokes, when he is six feet under!

Gene was born in Japan to a U.S. serviceman and a Japanese mother. He grew up in Arizona before getting his law degree. In short order he realized that he wanted his law to be important, to make a difference to our society. He applied that vision to his work in regulatory law at Southern California Edison. He became Director of Efficiency, a role that expanded to include distributed energy resources of all kinds.

The conversation shifts to Gene's deep appreciation for the field of efficiency... what he calls a foundational element for every utility to boost reliability and local economic development, to cut consumer costs and increase affordability, while protecting the environment at least cost. Gene stressed that California did it right, aligning good business sense with environmental concerns, and meeting the needs of all stakeholders. Calling it a group effort in California, he saluted leaders, John Bryson, Mike Peevey, Ralph Cavanagh, and Art Rosenfeld. They were successful in defining the role of efficiency. Gene explains that it's not a soft customer service, but part of the make-up of a reliable energy system.

Gene left Edison in 2014 to work for the consulting firm ICF, noting that it was a company whose "moral compass was facing due north." When reflecting on his work there in the ICF Clean Energy division, Gene notes that he is most proud of the collaborations that he helped seed and nurture in meetings of cohorts. He found those forums most impactful. 

The conversation ends with a discussion of Gene's tenure at the U.S. Department of Energy where he served the Biden/Harris administration as Assistant Secretary of Energy in the Office of Electricity. While the DOE's Forrestal Building is stark, formidable, and intimidating, Gene stressed that he found the staff there to be the most committed group he has every worked with. His heart aches for the current administration's policy to decimate the role of these non-political, career servants. So then, asked Ted, "Are you optimistic?" Gene said no, he is not optimistic about the current changes, but he commented that when he was appointed, he was confirmed by a voice vote of unanimous consent, representing both sides of the aisle. Gene said, those on the R side are still there. While they knew that Gene came from a deep green background, importantly, they understood his common sense approach to energy management. And they are still there.

After a start in Hollywood, and a role in a horror film, Rebecca knew that she wanted to focus on films that make a difference. After seeing Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, it became clear to her that she wanted to tell stories about the ravages of climate change and ways to save the Earth. Working with her husband Josh, they have produced over 20 climate-conscious films... reaching some 2 billion people.

Their first films focused on oil... its devastating impacts... made crystal clear by their documentary on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. Filming the accident poisoned Rebecca and solidified her commitment to caring for the planet.

Influenced by a colleague, they shifted from oil to soil, highlighting the great value of soil in carbon sequestration.  Paul Hawken's Project Drawdown influenced Rebecca. By caring for the soil through regenerative agriculture, Hawken stated that the teraton of carbon that humans have released to the atmosphere since the industrial revolution could be captured.  She and Josh then bought a farm in Ventura County to practice what they preached.

Rebecca discusses the basic tenets of regenerative agriculture, and how it can not only boost production, but address the vast areas of land globally that have been desertified. Their award-winning and broadly revered films -- Kiss the Soil and Common Ground -- have been rooted in rebuilding the soil. And they highlight successes, more profitable forms of agriculture, a greater diversity of products able to withstand droughts, fires, and flood. Farmers are finding that eliminating herbicides, pesticides, insecticides, and fungicides can save them $400 an acre... helping them break out of the vicious farming cycle of loans and risk and unhealthy produce.

Today, Rebecca notes that about 5% of American agriculture is based on the principles of regeneration,. But this is ten times what it was five years ago... and projections suggest that 10% of American farming will be regenerative in the next few years. This is the tipping point... when the forces of logic in agriculture become unstoppable, both domestically and worldwide.

Healthy soils lead to healthy food, which leads to healthy people. Our health, Rebecca makes clear, is a reflection of the health of our soil. The health of our guts is a reflection of the health of the microorganisms in our soil. This will happen acre by acre, inch by inch. For more information and to download Rebecca's films, visit bigpictureranch.com.

Ted explains that CPA provides three tiers of rates, important choices for its members: About 10%of its members have selected its Lean Power rates, pricing that is about 2% less than the rates offered by Southern California Edison (SCE). Another 25% have selected the Clean Power rates that are equal in price but a better environmental product. Two-thirds of its members are on the 100% Green Power rate, paying about 6% more than they would if they were still buying power from SCE. These choices have been key to CPA's remarkably low opt-out rate (and its 93% participation rate)... meaning that members are pleased with the CPA products and have for largely have not returned to SCE.

CPA is now mature and offering a suite of programs that enhance its services. Ted explains that there are two types of  programs: CPA offers programs for its member agencies that feature resilience for critical facilities as well as up to $250,000 grants for building electrification. CPA also offers a suite of customer programs... things like incentives for advanced battery energy storage and EV charger incentives. By working closely with its board of directors, Ted explains that CPA's services are locally rooted, and that CPA has a fine-grained understanding of its customers' needs.

The conversation then shifts to the current presidential administration's decrees... retarding wind and solar. Fortunately CPA "resourced" its portfolio of green power early and at relatively low cost, putting the CCA in a strong financial position. But Ted explains that there is no question that the administration is changing the market for renewables... with less tax credits, policies making it harder to permit renewables, and the effects of tariffs on supply lines. Without question, these changes are impacting the "ecosystem" supporting renewables... making it harder for customers to "do the right thing" to control costs and drive down emissions. Ted notes that "California will do a good job of holding this ecosystem together" though "there will be some backsliding.'

When asked about next steps for CPA, Ted flags directions including refining and expanding programs, exploring asset ownership, and working with customers to make them co-managers of electrification. Just as Californians have and will respond to water shortages, Ted wants CPA to lead a cultural shift such that electricity consumers are active participants.... driving down costs and emissions for all.

He and Ted dig into his education and the value of his law degree, what he calls a "set of tools" that have served him well. As a young lawyer he took on the largest of the baby bell telephone companies, and won a $132 million settlement at the California State Supreme Court. But as he lamented, he lost further lawsuits in the same case, disillusioning him about the value of lawsuits and the profession of law. At the urging of Ralph Nader, he formed the California Public Interest Law Center... to highlight issues of great importance in need advocacy. He explains that his mission has been about shifting human consciousness... and allowing businesses to lead the masses, building new business paradigms, replacing old-school business school metaphors of jungles and wars... with noble professions and stewardship. 

The conversation digs into nuclear power, a technology that he says will never have a viable role in our clean energy future. Small nuclear modular reactors, he explains, have all the same problems as large nuclear reactors. And despite millions of dollars of investment and the government's promotion, no businesses are buying it. Instead, hydrogen is the future... providing high temperature applications for cement and steel, powering locomotives and large 18-wheelers.

The current administration, he implores, is doing everything wrong. "What isn't it doing to hurt green energy?" The United States has lost its leadership in solar and wind and now in hydrogen. While the Chinese have latched on to electrification, the White House has been pushing "drill baby drill." But Rinaldo explains that oil company executives, while taking advantage of government subsidies and tax breaks, see the writing on the wall too. They do not want to drill baby drill as markets for oil are falling. Every EV driver is stripping away the value of oil, and thus major investments in its infrastructure are becoming less and less valuable.

The discussion ends with a focus on the electric power grid, and how it is fast becoming obsolete. It will be replaced, Rinaldo states, with honeycombed microgrids that are resolute in tapping solar and wind and geothermal, while reducing the need for costly and inefficient transmission that tie us to fossil fuels of waning importance and value. The 100% Clean Energy Moonshot he envisions for California, has no oil or nuclear... just resources that tap the sun's infinite and free energy. This he makes clear, is where wealth will be generated. This is where businesses will lead.

As he and his wife planned their home remodel, Robert was struck by the black soot on his windowsills, and struck even more so when he learned that his own home was producing the soot... from cooking, water heating, his furnace, and his garaged car. He certainly didn't want that for his family. After employing a reputable green architect to create a healthy home, and having his vision suffer disappointment, Robert questioned authority. What he dubbed his "impossible home" became a labor of love, community involvement, and a demonstration of what is possible. 

Robert is a musician from Philadelphia. His dance band there became highly popular because Robert bought an early Mac computer and learned to market his gigs. His tenacity and entrepreneurial spirit earned him a spot at the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania where he studied business. When he met Monica, who became his wife, they travelled the world visiting 20 countries with their eyes wide open. They learned many lessons that they wanted to incorporate in their home... and they did.

The architect was fired. Robert used Sketch-Up to design a home with a major overhang to keep out the summer heat and keep the home cool. He ditched natural gas in favor of solar and an all-electric home. He turned to his community and found an abundance of talented folks all keen on pitching in. Fully 97% of the materials in the old home were repurposed, he cut his energy use by 70%, solar produced enough energy for his home and car, and he capped his natural gas line. All told, the project engaged 70 collaborators, and at its conclusion he'd had 5,000 visitors to witness his Living Building Challenge certified home, it garnered lots of press and a Los Angeles County green leadership award.

Robert today runs ForStrategy Consulting, a firm that coaches leadership and innovation. He notes that he likes to "coach clients out of dark places!" In addition to playing his drums, being a band leader, and continuing his passion for music.. he provides green home and building decarbonization consulting for Southern California Edison and others... proving that if you have a vision, and you pursue it diligently, you can serve yourself and others with a healthy home and fulfilling lifestyle.

Bob Freling was born and raised in Dallas, Texas and was educated at Yale University where he earned his degree in Russian Studies. He has an intense appreciation of linguistics having studied Spanish, French, Russian, and Mandarin. After colleage, and when on assignment in Taiwan, he joined the antinuclear movement, and came upon clean solar energy and SELF. He never looked back, realizing the life-changing value of solar in the developing world.

Bob discusses SELF's evolution from providing small household, 50-watt solar solutions -- which powered a few lights and a radio -- to the "whole village development model" which provides a broader spectrum of benefits including community water pumping, power for health clinics, streetlighting, and microenterprise centers. One memorable project was in the Valley of a Thousand Hills in South Africa. There, SELF installed a satellite dish and 2.4 kW solar array that powered a school which received 20 personal computers donated by Dell Computers. All of a sudden, that community had access not only to energy but to "the universe of information." Another project was in the African country of Benin where SELF supported water pumping and drip irrigation, and hydroponics, fostering solar market gardens run by women's farming cooperatives.

Recently SELF has been promoting new forms of agriculture in Masai villages in Kenya... using water most judiciously and effectively. SELF is also focused on e-cooking using advanced electric cooking devices. Bob discusses the great value of the sun in supporting the energy-water-food nexus and is thankful for the support SELF has received from foundations, philanthropists, corporations, and international aid agencies. 

For his dedication and important works, Bob was honored to receive the King Hussein Leadership Award which was presented to him by Jordan's Queen Noor. For more information and to support SELF, please visit www.SELF.org.

Geoff Stapleton began his career in off-grid solar in Australia, originally working for BP Solar Australia. He then formed his own company, Southern Solar Australia, that he managed for over 20 years, designing and installing solar systems primarily in New South Wales where he lives. Geoff's company promoted solar, wind, micro-hydro, and even diesel gen-sets. He explains that the Australian government had been subsidizing grid-connected power consumers for years, and when this cross subsidy was recognized, government subsidies for off-grid systems were introduced that boosted the installation of off-grid systems there. 

For two decades Geoff worked for, and continues to work for, Global Sustainable Energy Solutions (GSES). After serving as its managing director, he stepped down from that management role three years ago to direct GSES's international solar training program, and to carve out time to be Executive Officer of the Sustainable Energy Industries Association of the Pacific Islands. His life-long passion for promoting solar, and extending the great value of solar for Pacific Island nations, and his dedication to training and standards is clear. He recounts different experiences in Australia, the Pacific Islands, as well as in Africa and other countries.

The discussion shifts to his views on the drivers for successful solar programs and policies in different countries. What makes a country a leader in solar deployment? Geoff explains that while cultures, traditions, policies, and programs are important parameters... it is the people on the ground that really make the difference. In some countries, there are passionate and dedicated and effective professionals are key to mobilizing the solar industry. Those are the champions that deliver success.

The interview ends with a discussion of the online solar museum that Geoff and others have created, a great tribute to the rise of solar power, its remarkable evolution to being one of the world's most important sources of power, and certainly a major key to uplifting communities around the world.

For the past 16 years, Julia has supported a number of transportation agencies and other groups... finding ways to protect both wildlife and motorists from accidents. She explains that her work with transportation ecology is at the intersection of the human and natural environment. She is a collaborator no doubt, bringing together diverse interests to build underpasses and overpasses and other roadway mitigation measures such as motorist warnings activated by cameras that detect the presence of wildlife. Every project and community is unique, different terrain and different species --deer, elk, moose, bears, coyotes, and smaller animals -- require different forms of crossings. Ted chimes in with his experience dodging deer in Vermont and monkees on roadways in Malaysia.
 
Julia then presents the results of a number of her projects in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Virginia. The Colorado State Highway 9 wildlife protection project, she explains, is really a "system" made up of seven crossings, 10.8 miles of fencing, as well as 62 motion-sensor activated cameras at 49 locations to track the results of the protection systems. What years of careful evaluation has proven is a 90% decrease in accidents... a success rate that has earned significant recognition of the efficacy of careful and early planning, including both mitigation and crossing feasibility studies. Most recently, Julia has been consulting for Roaring Fork Safe Passages, working for its Director, Cecily DeAngelo, to prioritize wildlife crossings on Colorado State Highway 82, the busy transportation corridor that connects Aspen and Glenwood Springs.

John, a self-decribed nerd in his youth growing up in Brooklyn, New York, was always at the cutting-edge of computers, even as a young man selling floppy discs in school while others were selling magazines and running newspaper routes. He then went on to Cornell University where he earned two degrees in Computer Science. He then followed that up with an MBA fron the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. That was followed up by a career that began in finance... prior to tapping into the convergence of the megatrends of renewable power generation and artificial intelligence. 

The notion of co-locating data centers with renewable facilities first occurred to John when he was visiting a project in Morroco, Africa. How could excess wind there be used? At the time, block chaining and bitcoin mining was on the rise, and there were -- and still are major concerns with the electricity required for these functions. Now most of John's 800 MW of data centers is used for regenerative AI. Instead of building and repowering massive power plants - even nuclear installations -- for data centers, John envisions a future in which data centers are distributed. Soluna has found a logical niche... one which is green in both ways... both in power generation and in data center applications.

There has been understandable concern that to meet the Los Angeles mandate of 100% clean energy generation by 2035, that green hydrogen will have to be used and that it will likely have to be used in peaker plants to keep the power on. Early studies on the combustion of green hydrogen make clear the great benefit of this carbon-free fuel, but note that its combustion may actually increase nitrogen oxide emissions. Why? Hydrogen burns hotter than natural gas, amplifying the "endothermic reaction" whereby air -- loaded with nitrogen - is drawn into the heat where it forms nitrogen oxides.

This finding of increased NOx, which is both a greenhouse gas, and a regional air pollutant causing smog and health issues, has alarmed the Los Angeles environmental justice community that had been looking forward to their neighborhoods' power plants being permanently closed. Now they face continued operations albeit with hydrogen, and the threat of local air quality hazards in the form of increased NOx.

The paper digs into ways to mitigate NOx emissions from combustion turbines and there are many. Some are before a power plant's combustion chamber, some are inside the chamber, and others outside. Hydrogen burns hot, but it can be lean, lowering the temperature. Inside the fire are adjustments to reduce NOx, and 70 - 95% of the NOx can be captured in selective catalytic reduction systems.

The Crash Course covers the big picture too. Electric utilities are electrifying mobility -- witness the EV explosion -- and decarbonizing buildings. These functions have huge CO2 and NOx reduction benefits. Furthermore, power plants contribute less than 1% of all NOx in our region. Bottom line: Los Angeles may well explore and can certainly justify limited green hydrogen combustion, until efficiency and fuel cells and other technologies can help meet peak demands on the hottest days of summer.

Past Crash Courses have focused on microgrids, net energy metering, electric vehicles, vehicle to grid, microgrids, offshore wind, climate action, energy storage... and Ted's experimental solar home in Colorado. The father/daughter duo works again in this sixteenth Crash Course to take a somewhat complex subject, and to make it clear and easy and  interesting to digest.

Flanigan's Eco-Logic
Episode 225
June 30, 2025

★ Episode details: https://share.transistor.fm/s/63c98026

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© 2025 Flanigan's Eco-Logic

What Cecily learned is that the Roaring Fork Valley, which runs from Aspen to Glenwood Springs, Colorado, is bisected in terms of wildlife and biodiversity. Highway 82, which runs parallel to the Roaring Fork River, has caused a dangerous divide for wildlife. To address this she formed Roaring Fork Safe Passages, a citizen-led coalition that raises awareness about the opportunity to build wildlife crossings, either overpasses or underpasses. Supported initially by the Aspen Skiing Company, she and her colleagues developed a "Prioritization Study" that ranks sections of the highway for safe crossings. Now, working with the communities in the Valley, and hopefully with the Colorado Department of Transportation, she is working raising funds to build overpasses in key areas, funneling wildlife in specific areas thanks to well-designed fencing for safe crossings.

The podcast also features Cecily's determination to get involved in politics. Inspired by the former president of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, who gave birth when in office, Cecily is passionate about urging young citizens -- reproductive age and underrepresented -- to take action and to get involved with school boards, commissions, and councils. In 2024, she ran for Snowmass Village City Council and won, expanding its female majority... working on key issues such as community planning, affordable housing, and sustainability. Despite the challenging juggling act of raising a family, managing Roaring Fork Safe Passages, and serving her community on City Council, Cecily is excited and fulfilled by positively influencing the region where she lives, and encourages others to follow suit.

These questions led Catherine to a career working with schools and communities, linking education and applied learning to food systems. She sought to emulate the edible schoolyard program that Alice Waters created in Berkeley, California. There, students were learning growing food in their schoolyards, gaining an appreciation of healthy food, and developing pathways for lifelong wellness. This inspired Catherine to work with local schools in Massachusetts, working on applied learning, food procurement, and linking local schools to local farms... all to bring healthy, pesticide-free food, and "scatch-made" meals to students. She explains that much of her work involves diligent networking and matchmaking to support food policy councils, school districts' food procurement professionals, and local farms.

Determined to better understand food systems and food policy, and to undo the food inequity she found distressing, Catherine earned a graduate degree from University of Massachusetts to advance Fertile Ground and its work with schools and communities. Since then, Fertile Ground has provided food system evaluations with recommendations for school districts on how to best tap Farm Bill funds to advance healthy food. Fertile Ground develops approaches and programs and gardens. She then joined the U Mass faculty where she has inspired and guided hundreds of students on a similar mission, work that she continues... driven by passion and fulfillment in her successes. 

"What's in your garden this spring?" Ted asks Catherine in closing. She responds that, yes, "It's planting time. The greens are going in. Tomatoes too." And not only in her own garden: She relishes in having fostered and continuing to support hundreds of gardens at schools and within the communities that she serves. Catherine makes clear that providing healthy food at schools and in our communities is challenging, but more so, it is rewarding as it nurtures young minds and healthy souls and organically supports communities.

Zero Homes is unique in many ways: Its primary focus is on electrifying homes... their space and water heating, cooking, etc, to help solve the climate crisis. He works to upgrade electrical panels to make homes ready for heat pumps, EVs, and solar systems. Of note, Zero Homes has reformed the front end of all construction processes... the process of bidding on construction jobs. Zero Homes provides interested parties with an online tool. It gives homeowners some homework... wiping out the inefficiency of multiple firms coming to the property to analyze and compete for opportunities for jobs and savings.

Grant came up with the business model after working on his family's construction business. Free quotes cost all contractors and their customers time and money. By using Zero Homes' online tool, homeowners take photos and videos of their home and provide other pertinent data Then Zero Homes builds a 3D model of the home and identifies and prices measures for decarbonization. Zero Homes collapses the sales cycle; it also provides the design and quality assurance services. As a licensed general contractor, Zero Homes maintains a roster of vetted subs who complete the installations. Zero's process is faster and more efficient, and the result is projects that cost ~10% less while improving both the contractor and customer experience.

Jigar Shar brought Susan and other professionals to Washington to help with the LPO's surge of activity, what they all knew was a moment in time. Susan's role at the LPO was in supporting loans for Clean Energy Title 17 projects... focusing on virtual power plants. The key was helping companies on a "bridge to bankability," helping promising firms with solid technologies in their execution of business plans to scale up and seek conventional financing.

Since leaving the LPO, Susan has been on assignment with Planetary Boundaries, a UK-based organization with leading, global sustainability professionals that has established nine principles/indicators of planetary well-being. Alas, there are still many red-light indicators, but a framework has been established that is helping countries in their policies and practices.

In this episode, Susan shares aspects of her career and what motivates her: She was educated in science and information technology, worked for Apple on the launch of I-Tunes, and she developed AutoDesk's clean energy design integration. She's now moved up from Washington and is working globally, keen on applying her aspiration of accelerating the adoption of clean energy through capital and creativity.

Stephan and his ~40 collaborators have found that music is a good entry point for those that might not go to a scientific lecture or read a report. Instead, ClimateMusic is tapping into the universal, and uniquely powerful language of music. To date, ClimatMusic has worked in 10 countries and has reached audiences in over 30 countries.

One of ClimateMusic's campaigns that targets youth -- the Be Cool Campaign -- engaged 2,400 young singers on four continents. The musical composition is joyful. Stephan notes that the climate emergency is hard for young people. They find it scary. Like adults, they often do not have a sense of the urgency of the climate emergency, nor a sense of what they can do to combat climate change. 

ClimateMusic is strategic and deliberate with each concert covering three parts: the climate science, the musical performance, followed by conversations for engagement. The Be Cool Campaign, a collaboration with U.K.-based Musicians Declare Emergency, serves as a convenor that draws out emotions that in turn leads to action. Be Cool has connected kids in many countries. It has over 136,000 views. One of its exciting results was a GoFundMe campaign for a solar system that will provide light and cooling for a Nigerian school.

Utility rates are discussed, and Harvey makes clear the need for rate reform. Why do utilities continue to offer flat electricity rates that send no signals to consumers? As other industries have done, such as airlines, Why not set dynamic rates that give consumers accurate price signals? Utility grids are inefficiently managed. There are times when power is very cheap. Flat rates -- like the average 33 cents per kWh in Massachusetts -- retard the adoption of beneficial electrification. What is needed, he makes clear, are rates that reflect marginal costs of power delivery... so that heat pumps and electric vehicles and other forms of beneficial electrification can be cost-effectively purchased and universally adopted drawing power at low cost periods and boosting utilities' load profiles.

Harvey and Ted discuss the nexus between customer action and utility policy. On one hand, AI and its machine learning is allowing consumers to near-automatically make smart energy management decisions and to lower their costs and environmental impacts. AI can take complex energy management and pricing signals to optimize on usage. Meanwhile, Harvey makes clear the need for policy reforms to combat climate change.

Yes, Harvey explains, that the utility sector is in a period of retrenchment. Politics is the challenge of the day. But from challenging times spring forth innovation. AI provides powerful decision-making capabilities, means of optimizing energy use to meet today's challenges. New forms of grid services such as virtual power plants and other controllable loads, provide means to meet consumer and utility objectives. While optimistic, Harvey is concerned about the urgency of the climate crisis. He is impatient for society to truly "connect the dots" and responsibly address energy management and carbon mitigation needs head on, to use the tools at hand and to meet our broad and critical societal objectives.

Bernadette makes clear the benefits of local, distributed solar and storage. It saves everyone money, not just those that have panels on their roofs. It creates local jobs. It helps the State meet our climate protection goals. And all ratepayers save money as our utilities do not have to build new power plants. They also do not need to spend billions of dollars on new transmission and distribution lines. She points out that while generating solar in the desert is very inexpensive, it's the cost of the transmission to bring it to us that jacks up power bills. This has been quite out of sight of California's ratepayers but  the resulting rate increases are severe.

She discusses how there are now two million California homes, businesses, schools, organizations, and public facilities of all kinds that now have solar. And as a result, she explains, the State did not need to build 16,000 MW of new generating capacity. Again, distributed resources -- paid by individual home and business owners and others -- are saving us all money. But despite this, our utilities continue to attack distributed generation.

Ted and Bernadette talk about future models" Will utilities embrace networked distributed resources, or will they resist, potentially amplifying grid defection? Already utilities have imposed fees on solar system owners... disincentivizing solar and storage and the benefits that they provide. So the fight goes on. Bernadette is clear that there is stronger need than ever for advocacy of the benefits of distributed generation, warning that the force of utility profit-making is daunting, and needs a strategic and more-diligent-than-ever approach.

Joel discusses his years at Google where he was on a team of sustainability managers. Their goal was to decarbonize all of Google's 40 million square feet of real estate by 2030. To do so, they studied hundreds of facilities in many countries... prioritizing projects based on numerous parameters. What Joel realized in that job was the power of AI in sifting through massive amounts of data and developing work plans to decarbonize and advance sustainable practices.

Ted and Joel dig into the fact that the data centers that power AI systems are very energy intensive. Ted queries, "Is the Cambio platform a sustainable solution given the energy intensity of AI?" Joel believes that, yes, this application of AI does provide a net societal benefit as retrofits and new construction activities are flagged that make economic sense... measures and carbon savings that would not have been realized absent the AI platform.

They also recount Joel's pioneering work for the City of Santa Monica, developing City Hall East, one of the world's most sustainable buildings. Joel acknowledges the key role played by Denis Hayes in promoting the project's unique design features at Santa Monica's City Council. Denis had recently completed the Bullitt Center's radically sustainable headquarters in Seattle, and had encouraged others to follow suit, pushing the envelope of sustainable buildings.

Joel highlights a few of City Hall East's greatest challenges: First and foremost was rooftop rainwater collection for potable water. This involved certifying rooftop surfaces -- including solar panels -- for water that is now used for showering and drinking. Another challenge was the inclusion of composting toilets there... the first ever in a public building of its kind. 

Steve's home was miraculously spared even though fires licked up the fences on either side of his property and the base of his front yard tree charred. He recounts that home after home were decimated by fire; households and generations of Alta Dena residents disrupted in a city-wide bonfire fueled by channels of 100+ mile per hour winds.

Since the fire, Steve explains how he has been focused on working with others to rebuild the community, not just its built environment, but its culture. Alta Dena has been one of Los Angeles's most unique communities, diverse in professions and income and race. It is known for its black community and its rich sense of place. 

Working with others, Steve is rebuilding Alta Dena's pride. He is working on designs of public spaces and collaborating with others to enhance its commercial corridors. He and others are helping to maintain and bring back architectural styles, developing blueprints that feature Alta Dena's heritage, and that are poised for streamlined permitting.

Ted and Steve talk about the cause of the fires, how each of us is responsible for climate change and how we can make our homes more resilient to fire. Steve shares his optimism that lessons can be learned, that the community can be reborn from the ashes of the Eaton Fire, a calamity of epic proportions. 

Paul and Jenna Mann's story began at home, with an outdoor shower next to their hot tub. They rigged a system such that the shower's water came from captured rainwater, harvested in a large tank. The shower's drain was channeled into their three-level garden beds. These and other measures -- including leak detection systems and irrigation controllers -- cut their water use by a shocking 60 - 70%.
They found that new technologies, like recirculating water shower systems, cut water and energy use while delivering more fulfilling showers. These systems collect and reuse water, they clean it, reheat it, and disinfect it with UV. Their discovery with basic practices and new technologies resulted with them wanting to share their experiences, pamphleting their neighbors, telling them about their success. This launched Water Champions.

Today Water Champions provides consulting service for homes and businesses to help them use water efficiently... from the water source to its reuse, ultimately supporting end-uses such as drought-tolerant landscaping and permaculture. Paul and Jenna also created the Renova Academy which trains architects, designers, landscapers, homeowners, and others online. One need not give up the pool, Paul explained. Through smart water use, Water Champions helps people maintain quality lifestyles through a portfolio of water solutions.

He and Ted briefly discuss his background, born and raised in Armonk, in Westchester County, New York. He studied International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, and holds an MBA from Thunderbird, The School of Global Management at Arizona State University. He shares that he had his environmental epiphany while working as a quality-control in China. Knowing that bikes would eventually be replaced by cars - and that there were going to be billions of them.

Since then, his career has been focused around building companies that solve climate change by cutting carbon, boosting the bottom line, and improving modern life. Josh has launched and led multiple sustainable businesses, including Vivavi, a pioneering retail venture specializing in modern design, sustainable furniture, named to Inc. Magazine’s “Green 50” as an innovator accelerating the green economy. He also highlights his role at Plantd, a manufacturer of carbon-negative building materials, where he raised the company’s seed and Series A rounds, generated millions in early-stage revenue, and grew brand awareness through accolades, including Fast Company’s 2024 list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies and the Innovation by Design Awards.

Josh shares that he enjoys speaking about innovative climate solutions and communications strategies that sway skeptics to become supporters. He concludes by sharing an optimistic view on the climate crisis, pointing out energy efficiency gains in recent years, as well as the opportunities for entrepreneurial growth to affect change and create stronger and more vibrant communities. 

Before becoming the second executive director of Energize Delaware, Drew built a resume of 20 years of experience in various roles, such as Delaware’s Public Advocate, then-Rep. John Carney’s Kent and Sussex coordinator and legislative assistant for the State Senate. In his work with the Office of Public Advocate, he worked to strengthen the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standards and the competition of the Artificial Island project to improve reliability for the electric grid.

He and Ted discuss the comprehensive and community driven array of programs that Energize Delaware offers, including energy audits, rebates, low interest loans or grants for large renewable energy systems, and programs available to low-income customers. He specifically highlights the weatherization assistance program, solar initiatives and incentives, and programs for farmers, ranchers, growers, and other agri-businesses to take charge of their energy future. He also shares how Energize Delaware works collaboratively with the utility, working together to ensure market certainty, avoiding program duplicity, and regularly introducing new, innovative, and relevant solutions to power their community with clean, efficient, and affordable energy.

The technology is revolutionizing energy efficiency by capturing, storing, and reusing waste heat, significantly reducing industrial and commercial energy consumption. For the facilities they serve, such as data centers and universities, Thermal Banc/TESS Energy Solutions technology supports carbon emission reduction, energy efficiency enhancement, resource conservation, and circular economy alignment, demonstrating a dedication to pioneering renewable energy solutions that not only drive profitability, but also contribute to a cleaner, more sustainable world.

Ted and Jim discuss his background briefly, based in Colorado, spending most of his career in the television industry, and recently moving into the renewable energy space with Thermal Banc and TESS Energy Solutions. He digs into the technology, which collects waste heat from different kinds of facilities and up to 135 sources. The collected waste is stored in phase change materials, generating power to offset carbon dioxide emissions and to cut peak demand charges. 

Ted and Yin discuss his background briefly, studying mechanical engineering at China's Donghua University, and business at Warwick University in the UK. He shares humble beginnings of Greenworks, recalling a meeting with one of their first clients placing a modified bike battery on the table, noting that it would be the centerpiece of all their applications. Fast forward, Greenworks now has more than 7,000 employees and manufacturing facilities in China, the U.S. and Vietnam, and offers everything from riding lawn mowers to snow removal tools and pressure washers – all powered by batteries. 

Yin shares his outlook on how Greenworks has shifted the narrative, and landscapers are now embracing battery power because it is in their best interest. Environmental benefits aside, Greenworks products improve workers’ day-to-day well-being. As they engage with the cleaner battery-powered technology, landscape professionals can now focus more on their tasks without the negative side effects of inhaling toxic fumes.

Yin also highlights Greenworks Optimus line of OPE, which was previously focused around the residential sector, but now focused on developing new products and comprehensive solutions for the commercial sector. The research and development, product testing, manufacturing, and customer service for the commercial equipment is being done at the Greenworks Commercial Center of Excellence in Morristown, Tennessee, ushering Greenworks Commercial into a cleaner, quieter, and more sustainable manufacturing future here in the US.

Prior to joining Aeromine, Swanson held a distinguished career in solar and distributed energy, serving as COO at Complete Solaria. He also spent time as COO and General Manager of EPC at Borrego Solar Systems, and served as Vice President at SunPower. In his new role as CEO at Aeromine, Mark will oversee Aeromine’s transition from low volume manufacturing and pilot projects to full-scale manufacturing and widespread commercial use. He shares that Aeromine is currently working with some of the world’s largest and most ambitious enterprises to plan their first commercial Aeromine installation.

He and Ted discuss Aeromine's breakthrough technology, which is harvesting the flow of wind over a building. The scalable renewable energy solution harnesses the power of wind in an efficient system, with motionless, vibration-less, and noise-less units. The solution is long-lasting, and requires much less rooftop space than other options to generate distributed energy. Ideal for large, flat rooftop buildings – including warehouses, big box retailers, data centers, office, and apartment buildings - Aeromine is leveraging existing financial structures, installation resources and incentives established by the solar industry.

He and Ted discuss his background and upbringing. Martin was born in Guatemala, and spent his childhood - marked by unrest and political upheaval - moving around from Nicaragua to Costa Rica to Peru, and ultimately immigrating to the US. These formative experiences, coupled with the challenges of being an immigrant to the United States as a Latino in the 1980's, shaped his worldview and approach to business. He decided to use his education in International Business and Finance from Georgetown University to revolutionize the global agricultural trade. 

Championing sustainable coffee practices since the mid-90s, Mayorga Organics stands as a testament to the power of creating new, efficient supply chains built from the ground up through a commitment to the well-being of small farmers, their land, and their communities - resulting in the consumer receiving the best quality products at a price that is fair to them. By prioritizing the needs of farmers, communities, staff, and customers, Mayorga Organics has created a brand that resonates with consumers who care about both quality and ethical consumption, while developing industry-leading supply chains that provide better value for all participants. Martin’s focus on lean, high-quality operations has led the company to grow in a highly competitive market while creating a reputation that has led to multiple awards, business recognition, speeches, international distribution, and private label manufacturing for some of the world’s largest retailers.

She and Ted discuss the inspiration for Rogue Wave, which all started with her kids and their beach toys that were swept out into the ocean by a wave. It hit her when she scrambled to get them all back onshore, enjoying this interface between land and sea, and using products that were detrimental to its health. She decided then that she had to make a better product, and wanted to make conventional, oil-based plastics obsolete.

She shares the challenges she faced in engineering and manufacturing, almost throwing in the towel at times. While searching for a truly compostable, petroleum-free material for her beach toy products, Kate realized her mission had to be bigger than beach toys, and to create the biggest positive impact on the global plastics economy, she needed to make this material available to the world. 

Kate's ultimate goal is to change the way these products are made and bought. Her innovative, patented, compostable beach toys, made from biopolymers and designed to compost, reflect both her commitment to environmental stewardship and to shifting the materials economy and consumer expectation. 

He and Ted talk about his upbringing in Korea, then being adopted by a family from Minnesota, overcoming the odds, to earn a bachelor’s degree in economics/foreign affairs from the University of Virginia, a master’s degree in business administration from Virginia Tech, and both a master’s and doctorate in education/higher education from Claremont Graduate University.

With extensive experience in higher education administration, Joel has previously held significant roles, including Director of Facilities, Operations, and Construction at Glendale Community College District, and Assistant Vice President for Capital Projects and Facilities at Harvey Mudd College. Additional expertise includes leadership positions at notable companies such as Level 3 Communications and BellSouth Corporation, focusing on strategy, corporate development, and operations.

He and Ted discuss his role as Vice Chancellor and Executive Operations Officer, overseeing facilities and construction for one of California’s largest community college districts. He is also  responsible for the SDCCD Police Department and completion of the district’s $1.6 billion bond construction program. He shares the make up and demographics of the District, looking to the future to determine its facilities needs. Joel plays a key role in guiding the development of necessary campus housing, and the training programs needed for the next generation and beyond.

Jennifer shares a bit about her background, growing up on a 360-acre farm in Iowa, and was the youngest of 8 kids. She and her twin sister worked on the farm, and carried their deep farming roots into their careers. She earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees at Iowa State University, and after a stint as a horticulture agent for the CSU Extension office in Douglas County, she followed her passion and pursued a doctorate of science in horticulture at CSU.

Jennifer shares details on her green roofs project for her doctoral thesis, highlighting how she came upon rooftop agrovoltaics as a happy accident, finding there was a great synergy between the plants and solar panels; the plants grew better, and the solar performed better because of the plants' cooling effect. 

With a roster of graduate students and researchers, her team is pushing the boundaries of horticultural science with numerous pieces of published research and scientific discovery every year. She goes into the history of green roofs, and discusses her research on rooftop agrivoltaics and its benefits, including enhanced food production and security, improving clean energy pathways, and exploring sustainability integrations. 

Ted and Michael dive into a discussion on electric utility rates and options, the amounts that large facilities, schools, and municipal and corporate facilities pay for power, and finding potential errors that can result in big savings. Michael shares that utility rates and rate components are in a constant state of flux, and encourages customers to make sure they are on the right rate.

Michael also discusses rate components, such as energy and demand charges, breaking down basic rate categories, as well as the time of use and seasonal aspects. He shares the tools he uses to analyze rates via interval data, and how and why customers end up on the wrong rates in the first place. 

He and Ted highlight the primary findings of their clients' case studies. They found rate errors which led to big savings, which have been amplified by the dramatic utility rate escalation. They conclude by stating that it is well-worth customers' time, energy, and payments to acknowledge critical peak pricing, and to invest in rate checks and analysis.  

As Southern California is still dealing with devastating wildfires, Ted addresses how resilience is now top of mind for homeowners, business owners, and EcoMotion's clients. Thousands of households and businesses have suffered, and will continue to suffer, from power outages – some for more than a day – as dangerously high wind gusts knock out electricity and utilities impose precautionary power safety shutdowns. 

With the imminent threat of climate change, the grid will undoubtedly become less stable as these events increase in the number and severity, posing economic impacts, and a danger to the health and lives. Ted discusses critical loads, shares his recommendations on making your home or business more energy resilient, highlights lessons learned from EcoMotion's resilience works, and addresses equitable pathways to foster resilience in the future. 

Bill shares his journey from the lumber industry to now leading the development and production of high-quality biochar, harnessing lumber and agricultural wastes to create innovative solutions that reduce carbon footprints, enhance soil health, and strengthen communities worldwide. Red Mountain Biochar turns biomass residuals, like sawdust and wood chips, into biochar through pyrolysis. This sustainable solution helps reduce waste and generate revenue from materials once considered costly to dispose of. The innovative pyrolysis technology not only provides sustainable solutions but also offers significant carbon credits, helping industries achieve a greener footprint.

With projects in Tanzania, India, and beyond, Bill explains how biochar improves soil health, reduces water usage, and even makes concrete carbon-neutral—all while building a sustainable business model and contributing to climate resilience. Bill believes that integrating biochar into business practices isn’t just eco-friendly; it’s a game-changing strategy for sustainable growth.

Dr. Stults has dedicated 20 years of focus and national level expertise on urban resilience and climate change in an array of roles, prior to joining the City. She has worked on adaptation to climate change since 2004, as the Climate Director at ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability and as a consultant to philanthropic organizations. Missy holds dual PhDs from the University of Michigan in urban & regional planning and natural resources & the environment. She also has her Masters in Climate and Society from Columbia University, and undergraduate degrees in Marine Biology and Environmental Science from the University of New England.

She and Ted focus their conversation around some big and recent news out of the City: 79% of Ann Arbor voters voted to form a Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU). An SEU is another form of utility, rooted in energy efficiency, activated locally, and intended to be an accelerated pathway for the community to promote clean energy to meet its 2030 climate commitment. Ann Arbor's SEU is an opt-in, supplemental community-owned energy utility that will provide energy from local solar and battery storage systems. It will also implement networked geothermal systems beginning with a 232-home project in a low income neighborhood, also serving a public school and community center. Thanks to the SEU, green energy will be provided to residents and businesses through direct installations on their properties, as well as through small-scale distribution systems such as networked systems or microgrids.

Missy and Ted discuss the benefits of the City's SEU: improved energy reliability at times when the grid goes down through increased access to solar and energy storage and shared geothermal systems - all City owned, energy justice initiatives, including broad and deep access to renewable energy, and the creation of programs for low income and underserved residents, including workforce training opportunities, and the expansion of weatherization services. 

Janet is also the Founder of Hudson Valley EATS, a bimonthly column that she started several years ago to highlight food entrepreneurs and restaurant owners in the Hudson Valley. However, during the pandemic, she shifted its focus to raise money and raise awareness for sustainability and hunger relief organizations in the area. She decided to use the platform to ensure that "Everyone EATS" in the Hudson Valley, and that has been the main focus ever since.

She and Ted dig into the My Mindful Kitchen (MMK) Method, which offers practical solutions to household food waste, addressing a critical issue contributing to climate change. Aligned with the EPA's Wasted Food Scale, Janet explains that the program focuses on preventing waste before it starts, encouraging mindful consumption, and making sustainability an easy part of everyday life. In her course, she touches on healthy eating and cooking, though the core of the program is equipping families with the tools to tackle common challenges—like overbuying, disorganization, and poor planning—and create meaningful, positive change.

Janet concludes by sharing that the course launched on January 2nd, and her goal is to help families recognize that food choices matter—not just for physical health, but also for emotional well-being, the health of others, and the planet. By fostering this awareness, families can transform unpleasant feelings about big issues like inflation, political uncertainty, and climate change into a sense of empowerment. She believes that each family and individual has the power to make a significant difference in shaping a better future.

He goes on to highlight zinc-ion batteries, floatovoltaics braving through extreme weather conditions, EV charging networks deployed across the country, Wisconsin Public Service Commission approving the 1.3 GW Vista Sands Solar Farm, PG&E's $15 billion federal loan guarantee to expand clean energy, the Montana Supreme Court ruling in favor of youth, Africa's renewable electricity highway, and lithium battery record price drop.

Matt has focused his career on ethical food choices, and how that all fits in with the path to sustainable living. He and Ted discuss his new book, and how he aims to shift how people view the process of going vegan, framing it as a joyful opportunity rather than an obligation. He views it as an incremental journey rather than an identity earned by perfection. 

He points out that veganism is aspirational, and something to continually strive towards. He also considers how one can live out going vegan in realistic and adaptable ways, giving advice particularly to college students. He encourages them to work towards the end goal of a vegan life, while accommodating the limitations of prepaid meal plans that may not prioritize a wide array of vegan options. He suggests these students can be preparing for more intentional dietary changes for when they have more food autonomy.

He concludes by drawing similarities between his theory of change, and EcoMotion's philosophy of "The Power of the Increment." He encourages his readers to take small steps that move them in the direction toward veganism, refusing to expect perfection or judgement when falling short based on access or circumstance, especially when there is continual striving and incremental growth in that direction.

Charles wants people to pay attention to the enormous influence that public utility commissions (PUCs) have on the U.S. energy transition, and get involved with this long-neglected area, pushing for a utility regulatory system that can better serve American consumers, grow the economy, and support communities. His concern is that most states have an outdated utility regulatory system that is not prepared to tackle modern energy challenges. He also claims that there are 200 commissioners controlling the monopolistic utilities at the heart of America's electricity system, with over 200 billion dollars in utility spending.

By engaging with the people, policies, and processes needed to deliver on this agenda, PowerLines approach is to pull together a big tent coalition of people interested in public utility commission (PUC) reform, including PUC staffers themselves, state legislators, clean energy providers and customers, academics and researchers, as well as grassroots groups. They'll serve as a hub for modernizing utility regulation by bringing together these diverse stakeholders to share ideas, resources, and solutions on a path forward to effective utility regulation.

Charles and Ted dig into the problems with PUCs, discussing the unrestrained, unregulated authority over the U.S. electricity system. With the immense power and significance on the country's clean energy future, Charles highlights opportunities for reform, including the revision of statutes, the effectiveness of integrated resource plans, decarbonization, equity, and creating more latitude or space for regulators to embrace a more forward-thinking, innovation-oriented mindset.

He also highlights Ann Arbor, Michigan creating a Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU), Swiss roadways, railroads, and rooftop solar, BYD topping Tesla in EV sales, squatting for bus fares in Romania, vehicle-to-home virtual power plants, and second-life batteries.

Ted and Kameale discuss her background, and early influences that drove her passion for data, technology, and community empowerment. She is a native of Los Angeles, attended Azusa Pacific College, majored in organizational leadership, and has over a decade of experience in CleanTech. She previously worked at EV Connect, where she was the Director of Programs for the EV charging station network provider. 

Kameale formed ChargerHelp! with her co-founder Evette Ellis to create a reliable EV charging infrastructure. With the mission to leverage technology to promote economic mobility within all communities, ChargerHelp! uses data to identify and provide maintenance and repair services for EV charging stations. 

Kameale's innovative approach blends real-world data, predictive analytics, and machine learning to provide industry-leading solutions to ensure EV charging reliability. She is also deeply committed to workforce development, helping to create high-paying jobs through partnerships with organizations like the Society of Automotive Engineers and the U.S. Department of Labor. Her background in operations and technology, combined with her commitment to empowering historically marginalized communities, has positioned her as a thought leader in the clean energy and mobility sectors.

Just back from New York Climate Week, he jumps right into his highlights from all the events, sharing that it was great to see a large California contingent there. Climate Resolve hosted an event that demonstrated bouncing sunlight back into space to help curb the greenhouse effect, raising greater awareness of the radiative forcing benefits of cool surfaces.

In addition to the actions they have taken to curb the heat island effect and keep LA cool, Ted and Jonathan also discuss LADWP's dilemma (where Jonathan served as a commissioner from 2008-2013), and the tension of reaching 100% carbon free electric delivery by 2035, especially with the potential for using green hydrogen in peaker plants. They also discuss nonprofits' role in electoral campaigns, specifically Climate Resolve's stance on Proposition 4, and the best way to protect folks from heat waves.

Jonathan concludes by sharing the numerous plans that Climate Resolve has helped develop for LA, including the LA County Climate Vulnerability Assessment, the LA County Sustainability Plan, the Long Beach Climate Action and Adaptation Plan, the California Climate Adaptation Planning Guide, and the Fourth California Climate Change Assessment. He shares the difference between planning and implementation, and what his feelings are between the two approaches.

Curt and Ted dive right into his work building out Lagoon Valley, the Bay Area’s First Conservation Community, where sustainability is not just a goal but a way of life. Curt oversees all aspects of community development, which features over 700,000 square feet of office space, an organic farm, wildlife preserve, 1,015 homes consisting of fourteen neighborhoods, ranging from affordable to age-qualified and executive housing, a vibrant Town Center, numerous parks, with over 70% of the Specific Plan area conserved for open space and recreational use. 

He and Ted discuss the sustainable development principles that are at the core of the community. He emphasizes the importance of incorporating live, work, and play. He also mentions the conservation work and preservation that has been done and is unique to the community. This includes a golf course that will not only serve as a championship-level course, but will act as a fire and flood buffer for the area.

Curt shares that his design model has always been to never replicate, but to embrace change and diversity, to employ compassion for the uniqueness of each location, to honor existing demands of environmental stewardship, and employ lessons learned from others that find better methods for living sustainably on this planet. Ted concludes by commending him for deliberately creating a sustainable culture and community, and addressing all the resource issues that the Lagoon Valley faces. 

He also highlights Australian rooftop solar providing 50% of demand on the country’s main grid, Scandinavian heat pumps at scale, solar-based solar power, bi-directional EV charging, Home Depot purging plastics, and U.C. San Diego's requiring all students enrolled this fall and from here on to take a course on climate change. 

His Podcast, The Energy Show, delves into a wide range of energy-related subjects. These topics encompass the evolving political landscape influencing the future of energy generation and consumption, as well as valuable money-saving advice for trimming energy use in both residential and commercial settings.

He and Ted dive right into the politics behind the state of distributed solar in California. They discuss the role that the utilities have played in the change in regulations and stripping down incentives, grid defection, and the path forward for all of California’s electricity customers.

Richard has provided advisory services for major institutions including USAID, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank in Bangladesh, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Nepal, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and elsewhere. He has also been an invited speaker in countries ranging from Argentina and Honduras to Senegal and the Philippines. 

He and Ted discuss his background, originally from Connecticut, now based in the Boston area and internationally. He holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts and a master's degree in business administration from Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. 

They also dig into his early works, pioneering the use of solar for rural electrification in the Dominican Republic with small systems installed by local solar companies combined with microfinance, a breakthrough that made solar systems affordable for rural families. This led to him introducing solar for rural electrification in Honduras, where he continues to lead efforts as President of Soluz Honduras. Soluz continues to work to advance the global transition to sustainable energy, with a special commitment to increasing access to electricity using solar photovoltaic technology. He highlights his focus on universal access, and not leaving anyone in the dark. 

He offers 33 years of experience in climate change, sustainability, and resilience planning. Robert has worked in a variety of roles in the government, consulting, and academic sectors providing advice on sustainability for various energy resilience projects throughout California.  Since the late 1980s, he has either led or participated in climate change projects globally, ranging from local-scale projects worldwide (including for local, state, national, and multilateral agencies) to global analysis for the United Nations. He specializes in topics such as greenhouse gas emissions, sea level rise adaptation, and sustainable facilities management.

He and Ted discuss his background, growing up in Yorkshire, England. They also discuss his family, early influences, and sense of exploration. His father was an electrical engineer at the local utility and his mother was a homemaker and market researcher on consumer goods. His parents were avid hikers, and his love of the outdoors is what got him in the climate space. 

They dig into his early coastal zone management and climate risk management works. Robert demonstrates throughout his career that he has brought people together to solve complex problems. He is a sought-after facilitator and engagement specialist. He shares highlights from providing expert guidance to Pacific Island delegations to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP) including COP15 (Copenhagen), COP21 (Paris), COP22 (Marrakesh), COP23 (Bonn), and COP25 in Madrid. He concludes by sharing his excitement for upcoming trips, including NY Climate Week next week!

He has an undergraduate degree in Urban and Regional Planning and an advanced degree in Regenerative Studies from Cal Poly Pomona. Prior to joining Climate Resolve, Enrique helped pass several County measures and state propositions including Measures M, A and Proposition 68. Enrique also brings a wealth of experience advocating for historically marginalized communities through his work as a community green space organizer. He gained useful analytic tools assessing the interplay between local, regional and state policy while working as a city planner for the City of South Gate. 

As the Legislative Director at Climate Resolve, Enrique forms strategic partnerships with other statewide organizations, cultivating relationships to move legislation. He is a master of building collaborations, doing the work on the ground, knocking on legislators’ doors, often with parties who have different agendae, bringing in potential coalition partners to the state capitol to advocate on behalf of extreme heat and the need to adapt to this rising threat.

He and Ted discuss Climate Resolve’s extreme heat bill, which is one of the few that actually looks to help marginalized communities adapt today and focuses on societal fixes. Enrique shares how his experience of community organizing opened his eyes to the resilience that lots of these communities have, and how community cohesion is already in place - and often women led. 

He also shares his travelog of his second round of sailing the Maine Coast, massive solar projects at JFK and Six Flags in Los Angeles, MagLev automobiles, the restoration of the the Klamath River from coffer dams, and Skywind microturbines.

Based in East Bay, San Francisco, she shares with Ted that growing up, she was deeply intrigued by science and wanted to be a medical doctor. She began working as a medical assistant at a doctor’s office, where she gained experience in the medical environment. While working as a medical assistant, she came to the decision that she did not want to pursue being a doctor. She realized her passion was more about the process of creating drugs rather than being a prescriber, and began thinking about how to get involved in creating products to help fight diseases worldwide.

This discovery led to work and experience in various industries, including sales, research, biopharmaceuticals, and skincare. In her current role as CEO at TripleBar, she is leading a team focused on innovation and strategic growth to address some of the world’s most challenging sustainability problems around food and healthcare by developing products that can meet current and future unmet needs for healthy nutrition and better disease treatment outcomes on a global scale. 

She and Ted delve into how they apply this in food and nutrition to bioactives, functional food proteins and cultured meat, and in pharma to better and novel biologics. Maria also discusses the broader implications of these technologies for the future of food and healthcare industries. She emphasizes the potential for bioengineering to not only solve current issues, but also to foresee and mitigate future challenges. Her vision includes fostering a more resilient and health-conscious global community through the application of science and technology.

Tucker also hosts the Path to Zero podcast, in which he engages a variety of thought leaders in provocative discussions regarding energy and climate change. He has interviewed over 100 experts on subjects ranging from the internal combustion engines to nuclear fusion, electrification, and environmental justice. 

He will soon be releasing a new book called Path to Zero, highlighting his wide-path philosophy to achieving critical decarbonization goals. Path to Zero is based on his Path to Zero podcast. In his book, Tucker reflects on 12 of his most memorable conversations with renowned climate scientists, academics, and innovators. Each chapter draws a bright line from the year 2050 back to today to show a variety of climate-friendly solutions that already exist, and can create a net zero carbon future. His "wide path" philosophy confidently asserts that we can, and are, addressing climate change.

He and Ted discuss the practicality and accessibility of the "electrifying everything" approach. Tucker highlights the scientific facts and economic realities around going all electric, and addresses how decarbonization can be dramatically accelerated with today’s technologies. He concludes by sharing his optimism, and encouraging action to support "wide path" climate and human-friendly solutions.

He also highlights a plan to build the world’s biggest battery in the State of Maine, Johan Cruyff Arena in Amsterdam's capability to run a soccer match entirely on sustainable energy, record clean tech investment in the U.S., addressing the coal reality, the Passive House Network and standard, Ocean Ark's fish farming vision, and heavy-lift cargo drones servicing offshore wind. 

Catherine was born and raised in LA, and has focused her work around the conditions of the community she grew up in, with limited access to green spaces, just west of downtown LA. She attended Wellesley College, and upon graduating, received a CivicSpark Fellowship, where she worked at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. There she worked on developing an Urban Heat Island Reduction Plan for the County which focused on strategic tree planting, “green space” development and planning, implementation of “cool roof” ordinances and the piloting of cool and permeable pavement projects. This experience allowed her to approach environmental justice from a local government perspective.

Lia was also born and raised in LA, sharing that she grew up in a family with lots of siblings and an open door policy, so her values are very much rooted in community care. She attended UCLA, graduating summa cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in International Development Studies and minors in Public Affairs and Environmental Systems and Society. Before joining Climate Resolve, Lia worked as a virtual field organizer for the Ohio Coordinated Campaign, mobilizing turnout in a key swing state during the 2020 election.

Ted, Catherine, and Lia discuss current projects that they are working on at Climate Resolve, both background and front-facing community work. Catherine starts with the Boyle Heights Community Plan Update, a plan that is supportive of environmental quality, economic vitality, and urban design that promotes safe and walkable neighborhoods. The draft plan includes many policies that address climate change and build resilience such as tree planting, cool roof replacement, solar panel installation, sidewalk improvements, resilience hubs, and community engagement. Lia also discusses coordinating the Sustainable Transportation Equity Project (STEP) grant implementation in the City of Commerce, and helping lead project implementation efforts for the Baldwin Hills Community Resilience and Access Plan, as well as the South LA Eco-Lab Transformative Climate Communities grant.

They also discuss tools for displacement avoidance, grassroots environmental justice efforts, and creating vibrant communities with access. 

He and Ted discuss his background, born in Torrance, CA, raised in Manhattan Beach, and still lives in the South Bay area in Hermosa Beach. He shares that he grew up at the beach and in the ocean surfing, which is how he wound up in the environmental field. Being eco-conscious was ingrained in the ethos of growing up where he did, participating in beach clean ups, and very much aware of the deterioration of water quality. 

He attended Long Beach State to play volleyball, and then transferred to the University of Southern California to study American Literature.  Between his undergraduate degree and graduate degree, he worked in the film and event planning industries. He then decided to shift to a career in the environmental sector, attending graduate school in Washington DC at Johns Hopkins via their hybrid program, studying environmental science policy and sustainability. 

He and Ted met when he worked at EcoMedia, where he was hired to be a Program Director, developing and managing public/private partnerships. He then worked for Waste Management as a national business development manager, where he focused on customized and scalable programs for Waste Management’s Fortune 500 customers, leveraging internal assets and technology. 

Brian then moved on to consulting with climate tech companies. He and Ted discuss some recent ventures, including the Bluebox energy efficient HVAC solution, Hytch Rewards mobility app, Oceanworks recycled plastic solution, and being a board member of Sustainable Surf. Working with all of these mission-driven companies that tackle big problems, Brian believes that the concept that the environment and profit are at odds is a myth, and that creativity and innovation prove that every day!

Andy grew up in southwest LA and began planting trees to rehabilitate smog and fire damaged Los Angeles–area forests when he was 15 years old. At 18, he founded TreePeople, bringing together people, trees, and forest-inspired ‘green infrastructure’ to protect cities against droughts and floods, prevent water and air pollution, and mitigate and adapt to climate change. 

Andy served as a consultant to the City of Los Angeles as a program planner and public engagement and education facilitator. TreePeople’s work in LA provided a model for environmental, economic, and social sustainability in cities everywhere. He created a greener future for Los Angeles by inspiring people, along with their local governments, to plant and care for trees and harvest and conserve the rain. Since its founding, TreePeople volunteers have been responsible for the planting of more than 2 million trees and counting. Its environmental education program reaches more than 200,000 students per year, with millions of children touched over the decades.

With climate change impacts already creating a chronic emergency for cities around the world, Andy's work has demonstrated promising new ways for individuals, communities and government agencies to collaboratively reshape urban tree canopy and water infrastructure to save lives and grow a more livable future. After retiring from TreePeople in 2019, Andy launched Accelerate Resilience LA, a fiscally sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors to inspire and enable people and local governments to equitably accelerate climate resilience in Los Angeles.

He shares with Ted that his personal mission is to inform, inspire, engage, and support people and communities to participate in restoring the healthy functioning of an ecosystem so it can abundantly provide life support services. He highlights the power of individuals and communities to make a positive impact, and the great need that exists to heal our environment. He and Ted discuss the numerous programs that increased citizen involvement in urban tree planting and care, which led him to being recognized by Johnny Carson.

He and Ted discuss his background, growing up in Charleston, West Virginia in an immensely polluted area, which led to his interest in studying and protecting the environment. He moved to New York City to attend Columbia University, and has been there ever since. He started his career in journalism, later deciding to become an environmental lawyer, and then shifted to writing books and entered the world of academia. 

Before joining the Columbia Law School faculty in 2009, Michael practiced law in New York for three decades, most recently as the partner in charge of the New York office of Arnold & Porter. As an environmental lawyer, he tried numerous cases and argued many appeals in federal and state courts and administrative tribunals. He also handled the environmental aspects of diverse transactions and development projects and provided regulatory compliance advice to an array of clients in the private and public sectors. Several publications rated him the leading environmental lawyer in New York and one of the leaders in the world.

He has also written or edited 14 books, including Global Climate Change and U.S. Law, the first and leading work in its field (co-edited with Jody Freeman and Michael Burger), and Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States (co-edited with John Dernbach). His 12-volume Environmental Law Practice Guide and four-volume Brownfields Law and Practice each received the Association of American Publishers’ Best Law Book of the Year award.

He highlights some of his most impressionable career cases, and shares that he is currently leading a legal effort to sue the Governor for New York, Kathy Hochul, for indefinitely pausing the rollout of congestion pricing in New York City. He also shares with Ted his work with the government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands on the legal issues caused by rising sea levels that threaten the island nation.

She and Ted discuss her background, discussing the late 60s and early 70s in Ithaca, New York. She majored in Russian Literature, received her B.A. from Cornell University (1966), worked in journalism at the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) straight out of university, then attended law school, receiving her J.D. from Yale Law School (1971), devoting her career to fighting air pollution from then on. She shares that her interest in the environment came about as a result of having been involved in the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements, believing in the need for activism at the community level. 

After law school, she worked as an attorney for the Center for Law in the Public Interest in Los Angeles (1971-74) where she brought the first litigation under the then recently passed Clean Air Act. From 1993-1997, Nichols served as Assistant Administrator of Air and Radiation for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton. Her efforts there led to the first federal air quality standard regulating potentially deadly fine-particle pollution and the acid rain trading program.

Nichols brings a large area of expertise drawing from her many other positions. She served as the California Secretary for the Natural Resources Agency from 1997-2003, as Executive Director of Environment Now Foundation; founder of the Los Angeles Office of Natural Resources Defense Council; Professor and Director at UCLA Institute of Environment; and co-founder of the first environmental justice working group, a multi-ethnic forum for leaders from traditional environmental and community-based organizations to address issues of environmental equity.

During her leadership at the CARB, California became a national leader at developing clean energy and clean transportation solutions that many other states and nations have adopted. She shares with Ted that her current climate-related work is focused in China, travelling there twice a year in her capacity as a member of the board of The Energy Foundation.

Steve brings to ZGF a wealth of experience across urban planning and design, most notably holding a post with the City of Detroit where he served as the Design Director for the Central Region of Detroit’s Department of Planning and Development as well as holding a Professorship in Practice, leading design studios focusing on community issues and urban planning at the University of Michigan. He was a founding partner of the firm RAW International in Los Angeles where he helped build a successful design practice over a 20-year period and collaborated with ZGF on memorable projects including the Exposition Park Master Plan and the California Science Center that made a real difference in the fabric of their communities.

From Southern California to Detroit and back, Steve's ethics-driven urban planning and design has made the cities he’s worked in not only more aesthetically beautiful, but also more equitable and representative of the surrounding communities. Following in the footsteps of his father, an architect with a drive for justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, Steve designs, speaks, mentors, and volunteers tirelessly to advocate for what he believes in and to see those values embodied in the built environment. 

He and Ted discuss his AIA Presidential candidacy and campaign experience, the elements of sustainable design, digging into embedded materials, energy use, building decarbonization, and electrification. Steve concludes that he is dedicated to equity in design to affect positive change for the future of architecture. 

Sean has been an entrepreneur and CEO in the renewables and energy efficiency construction space since 2008. Since founding Cal Solar Inc, Sean has executed $150MM in such projects and has led the company through continuous exponential growth, breaking through the barriers to solar in California, proving that rooftop solar is alive and well in Southern California. 

He and Ted discuss Cal Solar Inc.'s diverse portfolio of projects. Cal Solar Inc. is a full-service California engineering, procurement, and construction services company, with well over 200 employees. It has teams of in-house engineers, estimators, and state-wide installation crews. Sean shares his EPC service self-performs everything from initial design and engineering to installation and service. They discuss Cal Solar's installation of what at the time was the tallest Solar Water Heating system in the world, atop the 42nd floor of 399 Fremont Street in San Francisco. They also focus on Panel-Level Energy Storage technology that Cal Solar is deploying. 

Sean concludes by sharing the sentiment with Ted that the "solar coaster" is an interesting one, especially with so many policy changes across the board, but the industry in California is the industry to join. There is still tremendous opportunity and a need to tap this free, renewable resource. 

She and Ted discuss her background, growing up North of Boston, obtaining a BS/BA from the University of Massachusetts, an MBA from Regis University, earning the LEED AP credential, and training with Vice President Al Gore as part of his Climate Reality Leadership Corps. Before joining the Federation in 2011, she worked on sustainability, green building, and climate change programs for Xanterra Parks & Resorts in Yellowstone as its Director of Sustainability. Under her leadership, Yellowstone’s environmental programs received environmental achievement awards from the National Park Service three years in a row. Prior to her role in Yellowstone, she served as the Vice President/CFO for the non-profit Yosemite Association (now Yosemite Conservancy) in Yosemite National Park.

Although most of her career has been spent in national parks, she shares that her main conservation priority is now focused on urban wildlife conservation and creating coexistence strategies within urban spaces. She believes that the future of conservation is about the integral link between wildlife and people – and cities are vital to forging those links.

Di Angelo Publications just released her new book, I Heart Wildlife: A Guided Activity Journal for Connecting with the Wild World in August, and Heyday Books published When Mountain Lions Are Neighbors in 2016. She has given a TEDx talk about coexisting with wildlife called, “How a Lonely Cougar in Los Angeles Inspired the World,” and is featured in the new documentary, “The Cat that Changed America.” Her book, Yosemite Wildlife, with photographer Robb Hirsch, will be released by the Yosemite Conservancy in 2025.

She and Ted discuss her background, originally from Pennsylvania, and currently based in Vermont since attending graduate school at The University of Vermont. She shares her story of landing in the EV space through her works with energy efficiency and utilities. She found herself running cost benefit analyses of EVs, studying the impact on the grid, cost savings to consumers and drivers, impacts on public health, and social cost of carbon.

She and Ted discuss the broader societal benefits of EVs, the history and genesis of Plug in America, and how EVs are a critical component to a sustainable and equitable energy future. Ingrid also shares a broadened view of vehicle grid integration, and her excitement to continue fighting for policy change at Plug In America.

Jack and Susan have been minimizing the environmental impacts of major sports events for 30 years, including the NFL’s major special events. They also designed the sustainability plan for the NCAA College Football championship series. They are widely recognized for the unique and impactful community projects they develop and have consulted on sustainable transportation development, municipal waste diversion, building sustainability, and renewable energy.

Ted and Jack discuss his varied background, growing up in Massachusetts, attending UMass Amherst, then going on to teach straight out of college before going back to school for journalism, spending some years TV reporting, before diving into consulting in communications and PR for companies around environmental issues. 

Since then, Jack and Susan Groh, now based in Warwick, Rhode Island, have been at the forefront of making the NFL and other organizations more environmentally conscious. In 1993, they developed the first environmental initiatives ever implemented at any professional sports league in the United States at Super Bowl XXVIII in Atlanta, Georgia. Their journey began with simple recycling projects during the Super Bowl and evolved into making the game the greenest professional championship in the world. Their efforts extend beyond visible actions, including recycling, food recovery and material repurposing, to making a substantial difference in the environmental and community impact of large events. 

Through their independent consulting efforts at Legacy Sustainability, they aim to leave each community better than they found it and inspire others to do the same. Some of the green legacy programs they leave behind in every community include planting trees, creating pollinator gardens, habitat restoration, equipment donations and school supply programs, recycling and composting, taking excess food and drink off to local food banks, and using renewable energy and helping organizations get renewable energy certificates. Jack highlights the Miami Coral Reef Project, Super Kids Super Sharing event, and the NFL Green Super Bowl LVIII Program launch. 

Ted and Greg discuss his background, born in Paris, grew up in Connecticut. He attended University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for his BA, and received a joint graduate degree from Princeton in Public Administration, and Stanford in Business Administration, and is a Certified Energy Manager. They mention their time at Rocky Mountain Institute together, then focus on Greg's career and current works.

Greg served as Managing Director of Good Energies, a several billion-dollar global clean energy fund investing in low carbon companies, and served for six years as the Director of Financing for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the US Department of Energy. Greg also played a large role in designing and developing LEED, the green building standard. He was hired by the World Bank to guide the creation of a new World Bank green building design standard. He was later hired by the Enterprise community partners to guide development of the first and still leading green design standard focused on low income housing, called Green Communities. Ted highlights Greg being the Founding Chairman of the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP), who built the Protocol into the global energy and water efficiency design and verification standard used in over $100 billion in building upgrades.

He founded the Smart Surfaces Coalition in 2019 to slow global warming, redress social inequity, and build urban resilience. It is a powerful collection of 40 leading organizations in urban health, sustainability, equity, architecture, energy, water, and urban policy dedicated to the adoption of “smart surfaces,” a set of technologies that allow cities to better manage sun and rain, save money, and create more livable communities. Smart surface solutions include a strategic combination of reflective roofs and pavements, porous pavements, green roofs, solar photovoltaics (PV), and trees, enabling cities to lower their temperatures despite global warming, as well as create increasingly resilient and livable infrastructure. 

He also highlights green ammonia becoming a major ingredient of the clean energy revolution, 31 countries passing the EV tipping point, GETs or Grid Enhancing Technologies, 90% of all new car sales in Norway being fully electric vehicles, instant EV rebates in the US, and Finland's massive thermal energy storage. 

Russell starts with his introduction, exploring and explaining the impressive evolution of the off-grid solar industry over the past fifteen years, which has emerged for the first time to provide power to 2 billion people who do not have access to reliable and modern energy. He then introduces Jesse to the conversation, and describes M-KOPA as a sustainable and profitable company which continues to innovate for the financially excluded.

Ted and Jesse then dive into his works, first discussing his background, originally from Toronto, Canada. He holds an MBA from Oxford University (Skoll Scholar) and a BA from the University of North Carolina (Morehead Scholar). Early in his career, with a desire to drive social impact, Jesse worked with the international development charity CARE. His work then transitioned from a strictly humanitarian focus to enterprise solutions, spurred specifically by an interest in advancing cellular connectivity in Africa via M-PESA, a virtual payment service launched by Vodafone and Safaricom in 2007. 

M-PESA offered a playbook for what would become M-KOPA, which was founded in 2010 with an idea of combining the power of digital micropayments with GSM connectivity to make life-enhancing assets more accessible. Jesse has since overseen the company’s growth from startup to over 2,000 employees and 20,000 sales agents. M-KOPA currently has offices in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, UK and Hong Kong. The company has received numerous awards for its innovation, impact and scale: including winning the prestigious Zayed Future Energy Prize, making the coveted MIT Technology Review 50 Smartest Companies list, and being listed by Fortune Magazine as one of the Top 50 Companies Changing the World. Investors in M-KOPA include Generation Investment Management, CDC Group and Standard Bank, as well as esteemed entrepreneurs such as Virgin Founder Sir Richard Branson and AOL founder Steve Case.

As a leader in empowering homes and small businesses through connected technology, Jesse is representative of an industry of entrepreneurs that sees the only way to address these fundamental problems within commercial markets at scale is with companies that are responsive to customer needs instead of donor biases, and are able to innovate, drive prices down, and continuously provide products that people need.

Ted and Mike discuss his background, sharing that he had an untraditional childhood, landing in the flats of Hollywood in the early 70s when he was 12. He shares that there was a moment while living in Hollywood when he became aware of what smog was and how car-heavy LA was. The use of gas and nonrenewable resources didn't make sense to him, which led him down an environmental path in his studies and career.

Ted and Mike then dive into his pivot from 30 years in virtually all aspects of energy resource consulting and management, to music and activism. Music, for him, became a vessel to be environmentally active. He shares that he is a Board Member of Music Declares (Climate) Emergency-US, which comprises a group of artists, music industry professionals and organizations that stand together to declare a climate and ecological emergency, and call for an immediate governmental response to reverse climate change. They believe in the power of music to promote the cultural change needed to create a better future.

Mike recorded his first album in 2012, and recently released his new album, “living is," debuting a single from the album, “The Reckoning” which is his ode to Earth, live on the podcast for Earth Day! 

GWMP's signature program is the Keeling Curve Prize, which awards $50,000 annually to each of 10 global projects that demonstrate the ability to reduce, replace, or remove greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Since 2018, GWMP has awarded $1.75M to 60 nonprofits, for-profits, and startups, vetted more than 1,100 viable solutions, and grown one of the largest networks of global warming mitigators in the world. The projects that GWMP has awarded are currently projected to reduce 3.27 gigatons of CO2e emissions this year alone.

Ted and Jacquelyn discuss her background, growing up in Aspen, Colorado. While attending John Hopkins University for a Master’s program in Energy Policy and Climate, she decided that the solution to decarbonizing the planet was to find, fund, and elevate climate leaders and entrepreneurs around the world. This realization led Jacquelyn to create the Keeling Curve Prize and the Global Warming Mitigation Project (GWMP) in the fall of 2017, and a commitment to investing her skills, expertise, and resources to help transition all of humanity to a future beyond fossil fuels. She uses scientific rigor, mathematics and pragmatism as tenants for climate forward-thinking leadership.

She shares some of her favorite impact stories with Ted, highlighting creativity from the younger generation finding new ways to make solutions that are smart and effective. She also discusses upcoming events, running programs, and a new tool within their database - carbon abatement portfolios - an idea that comes from the voluntary carbon markets. She concludes by emphasizing that solutions to the energy transition and emission abatement already exist, and are just waiting to be scaled up.

Liz and Ted discuss her background, growing up in San Diego on the water. Her father was an avid sailor, taking their family on a 5,000-mile, 6-month cruise in Mexico on their sailboat. At fifteen, her love of the ocean and natural athletic inclination led her to try surfing, and eventually started competing, surfing in private contests and for the UCSB surf team while studying at UC Santa Barbara.

Liz enjoyed the exploratory part of surfing, looking for remote waves, and has since spent the last 9 years exploring the Pacific, searching for and surfing numerous incredible reef passes as well as working on local environmental projects and presenting talks in schools across Polynesia to raise awareness of pollution and conservation issues. Her aim is not only to promote environmental awareness in the places that she visits, but also to do so on a larger scale by documenting her voyage and sharing it through her writing and photography in the hope that it will inspire others to live out their passions and connect with both themselves and the planet. 

Liz is now based in French Polynesia, where she started writing SWELL, and has dropped the hook more permanently in Tahiti with her partner to expand her activism work, resulting in the creation of A Ti’a Matairea, a non-profit organization in French Polynesia working for environmental protection, animal welfare, and youth empowerment. There is more sailing in her future, but for now, she is enjoying giving back to the planet and learning how to positively impact local environmental issues.

Ted and Margaret discuss her background, growing up in Illinois, studying Eastern History, and later earning a Master of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She went on to do some graduate work in Tunisia, focused on social housing and the nexus to transportation.

Margaret's project management experience includes managing a diverse team of experts as well as managing planning and sustainability tasks for major projects, such as the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Chicago's Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Guidelines, Anacostia Waterfront Transportation Infrastructure Master Plan, and the Lower Georgia Avenue Streetscape Project. 

She was appointed by Governor Newsom in 2019 to be the Director of Planning and Sustainability at California High-Speed Rail. Her duties include policy development and implementation, station and station area planning, greenhouse gas emissions inventory, tracking, and offsets, renewable energy planning, sustainable design, and district-scale sustainability approaches.

As an AICP (American Institute of Certified Planners) urban planner and Envision Sustainability Professional, she previously led the sustainability division for the Authority as a consultant. Cederoth oversaw corporate sustainability initiatives for WSP USA, the Authority’s Rail Delivery Partner. That work included a commitment to carbon neutral operations and the development of training and tools for implementing sustainability approaches on a range of infrastructure projects.

Through his website, Gipe is well known for his frank appraisal of the promise and pitfalls of wind energy, including his stinging critiques of internet wonders and the hustlers and charlatans who promote them. His most recent book, Wind Energy for the Rest of Us, is Gipe’s seventh book on wind energy. In it, he debunks novel wind turbines, rebukes revisionist historians, and argues that renewable energy is too important to be left to electric utilities.

Gipe’s interest in wind energy grew out of his wish to limit the environmental effects of conventional energy sources, particularly those of coal and nuclear power. He contributed to the seven-year struggle for passage of the National Surface Mining Act, which regulates the strip mining of coal in the United States. As part of that effort, Gipe co-authored Surface Mining, Energy, and the Environment and was invited to the White House by President Jimmy Carter for the signing ceremony.

He and Ted discuss the wind energy industry at large, highlighting technological advancements in design, commercial vs. residential uses, offshore "floaters" vs. on land turbines, and solar vs. wind cost efficiency. They also share their love for driving EVs. 

Dr. Brown founded TerraVerde in 2009 and served as CEO through December 2019. Since TerraVerde's founding, the consulting firm has supported the successful implementation of close to $650 million worth of distributed solar PV and battery energy storage systems for which they have provided independent technical and financial feasibility analyses, project development support, project implementation management, and continue to provide ongoing asset management services for a portfolio of nearly 400 solar and battery energy storage systems.

He and Ted discuss his involvement in California legislation regarding clean energy and numerous regulatory proceedings impacting the growth of solar, storage and other distributed energy resources. He played a central role in the passage of SB 585, California legislation that provided $200 million in funding for the California Solar Initiative rebate program and in budget legislation directing the expenditure of $1.5 billion in Proposition 39 funds.

Since retiring as CEO, Dr. Brown has spent a lot of time on advocacy work, through a number of different venues. He continues to work on the State's solar policy, specifically net energy metering, and market and capital innovations in support of decarbonizing and increasing the resilience of the energy and building sectors.

With over 35 years of experience in the electric power sector, he advises clients on strategies to respond to the rapid transformation of the energy sector, including utilities, energy intensive industry, innovators, start-ups and companies engaged in the electricity delivery supply chain, and regulators and policy makers.

He is also a prolific author in the energy space, and the editor and publisher of EEnergy Informer, a monthly newsletter with international circulation, now in its 29th year of continuous publication.

He and Ted discuss his decades of experience, working in more than 3 dozen countries, covering all aspects of the electricity power sector. They reminisce on their Demand Side Management (DSM) works at EPRI, and discuss the transformation, new framework, and structuring within the utility industry, specifically integrating distributed energy resources into the grid.

They also highlight his newsletter and 15 books, including his 16th, forthcoming book on electrification, stating that the way to climate salvation is to electrify everything and anything that we possibly can.

Ted begins with his work in the Philippines as part of the Efficient Lighting Initiative to accelerate transitions to more efficient lighting in developing countries. There was a big focus on rural electrification and advancing more efficient technologies. He then hops over to Sweden for four consecutive summers with The Energy Coalition. The purpose of these trips were exchanges with utility and city officials from California, notably from Irvine and Santa Monica, and vice versa, as well as with students through the PEAK program. Ted highlights the district heating systems and comfort utility rates.

Sierra then asks Ted about his solar tours in Germany and Spain. He starts with Germany, unpacking the reason why Germany is seen as a global leader in solar, and sharing the story of the most lucrative feed-in tariff (FIT) ever implemented. He then moves on to Spain, highlighting the difference with their FIT program, which was not quite as rich, but really moving the market at the time.

They conclude with the tour of Iceland's geothermal facility, and Ted shares how impressed he was by the sheer amount of geothermal energy and electricity as a result, that the country started converting cars to hydrogen fuel with the excess to decarbonize their transportation sector.

Ted and Sierra wrap the three-part series, highlighting how rich the world is with renewables, and how much can be learned when travelling with a mission and broadening horizons.

They build on the first episode of the three-part series, which focused on Ted's travels in the 80s. In part 2, they focus on the 90s. Ted begins with his work with the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and his involvement in the Urban Carbon Reduction Project. The idea was for local environmental movements to take form, which was then taken internationally. Ted shares stories from Ankara, Turkey, Helsinki, Finland, and Omiya, Japan.

They then move on to The Results Center, discussing the genesis and players involved, the importance of the era, and the legacy of it. The idea was to write case studies of the most successful programs and approaches, starting with North America, and then looking broadly and out of the country. Ted and his team wrote 128 case studies, including a series of case studies on Europe. 

Sierra and Ted conclude with the linking of ideas around climate action to a universal way of connecting and growing relationships and strengthening bonds, underscoring the value of meeting people where they are, creating greater visibility around the numbers, opening channels of communication, and cross-cultural collaborations that Ted facilitated and shed light on. 

They introduce the mini series, which will highlight 40 years of international trips, which gave him global perspective on energy issues. This led to 40 years of reporting on these issues and opening people's eyes to energy innovations and technologies all over the world. They will highlight  his experiences from travels to countries including Canada, The Soviet Union, France, Singapore, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Philippines, Thailand, China, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Iceland, and South Korea.

In part 1, Ted begins with the lessons learned from his fulfilling experiences abroad that have enriched his work life. Throughout all his years of international travel, his biggest takeaway is that 98% of the people in the world are good people, and he's constantly been reassured through human connection and learning from different cultures. 

The first trip that Ted and Sierra reminisce on is his works in Canada in the James Bay area around 1985 and the huge hydro Quebec Electric projects there. He also discusses his works in Ontario and working for the City of Toronto as it sought soft path solutions.

The second trip they covered was Moscow at the Global Forum on Sustainable Development in 1988. Ted was asked to attend as a sustainability expert to help guide the forum on behalf of Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI).

Ted concludes with a favorite trip, an experience which was also afforded to him via RMI, in Singapore, and thanks to Lee Eng Lock, that culminated with a side trip into the jungles of Malaysia and the South China Sea. Sierra thanks him for taking a trip down memory lane, and reiterates the idea of being open and receptive to what other cultures have to teach us - which is a lot. 

In his career, Dr. Faruqui has advised some 150 clients in 12 countries on 5 continents and appeared before regulatory bodies, governments, and legislative councils. He has authored or coauthored more than 150 papers in peer-reviewed and trade journals and co-edited 5 books on industrial structural change, customer choice, and electricity pricing. He has taught economics at San Jose State University, the University of California, Davis, and the University of Karachi and delivered guest lectures at Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, Idaho, MIT, New York University, Northwestern, Rutgers, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UC Davis.

He and Ted discuss his background, born and raised in Pakistan post partition, studied Economics and went into Civil Service before moving to the US and attending UC Davis for his PHD, which led to work in forecasting for the California Energy Commission. While working in energy, Dr. Faruqui still remained very engaged with defense policy in his home country, becoming the leading voice in mainstream conversations about Pakistan in the US post 9/11. He has carried out in-depth analyses of Pakistan's defense policies, evaluating the multiple dimensions of national security, the combat effectiveness of armies, and the consequences of spending more on the military dimension and less on the social, cultural and economic dimensions of national security.

He shares his journey in the energy world, highlighting the Demand and Conservation Program at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), as well as his consulting works at The Brattle Group. He also shares the more contentious parts of the journey, seeing the utility industry go from basic rate structures to more sophisticated rates, leading to the question of what rates do in the ideal that help society, and diving into the net energy metering / net billing issue. 

He concludes by sharing the energy efficiency improvements he's made in his home over the years, including changing HVAC equipment, installing rooftop solar, adding battery for backup during outages, and buying an EV, all leading to bill savings and happiness as a result.

Chris is an internationally recognized expert operating at the intersection of the technologies and policies needed to address climate change, particularly in the fields of energy storage, electric vehicles, and renewable energy. 

He and Ted discuss his background, born in Independence, Missouri, grew up in Topeka, Kansas, and attended Trinity University in San Antonio, earning a degree in Environmental Studies. He then went on to Berkeley and joined the Energy Resources Group (ERG), which led him to his first summer job at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Chris served seven years in the NRDC Energy Program, helping to launch NRDC’s work on climate change, electric vehicles, and voluntary partnerships with electric utilities to improve residential energy efficiency. Chris then co-founded Ecos Consulting in 1997, working with a team of researchers on behalf of the U.S. EPA ENERGY STAR® program, the California Energy Commission, PG&E, NRDC, NEEA, NYSERDA and Natural Resources Canada to improve the energy efficiency of residential lighting, appliances, power supplies and consumer electronics through voluntary labeling and incentive programs and mandatory efficiency standards.  

He and Ted dig into his works in consumer electronics and the external power supply story. They discuss Eco's startling revelations about the standard test for television efficiency at the time, as well as cleantech investment. He shares that he continues to do consulting work in the Energy Star world, and is currently in discussions with them on some additional work related to batteries and EVs.

Bill is one of the green building and real estate industry’s foremost thinkers and strategists, and an advocate for sustainable design solutions at all levels of business, government, and civil society. His expertise has been sought out by organizations as diverse as Fortune 500 companies, leading universities, non-profit organizations, the U.S. military, and foreign governments.

He and Ted worked together at Rocky Mountain Institute, where he founded Green Development Services, an entrepreneurial, non-profit “Think and Do Tank." He later went on to co-found Terrapin Bright Green, created out of the Partners’ shared sense of urgency to transition to a sustainable development model that could only be achieved by working with developers, communities, and companies around the world. Their mission has become an imperative to not only create a sustainable world but one that is aligned with natural processes and supports human health and wellbeing at all levels.

He defines biophilic design and shares case studies that demonstrate the effects that  harmonizing the built environment and natural world have on cognitive growth, health and wellbeing, and profitability and productivity within the business sector. Terrapin's work is reflective of both the culture of the community and the environmental features of a given ecosystem.

The management of EnergyAid has collectively over 100 years of experience in the solar power industry and is passionate about making sure system owners realize their expectations when it comes to system performance, utility bill reductions, and a positive effect on greenhouse gasses.

Born and raised in California, Bryan has seen the industry grow firsthand. He started his career in solar on the sales end, dealing with consumer frustrations that arose when original installers went out of business, or failed to provide the necessary service and maintenance required. That led him to providing the much needed residential solar service and repair solutions at EnergyAid.

He and Ted discuss the future of the solar industry, as Bryan points out is still in its infancy, and EnergyAid, which he predicts will be part of the service-first business model as it continues to mature. The company is expanding across the Western states, and has recently opened a location in Arizona. They are also working with new technologies, such as EV charging, which is a large component of the future.

Currently based in San Diego, Gareth grew up in Liverpool, studied Environmental Science at Lancaster University, travelled around the world, and ended up in Calgary, Canada working for WorleyParsons supporting the cleanup of old oil and gas sites in the Rockies.

Gareth led Worley’s Global Distributed Energy Systems strategy and Power Networks & Systems team, ending up in the Middle East following the Gulf War, which set his mission in motion; it opened his eyes to a world without access to reliable energy and other basic essentials needed to survive. He saw the impact that can have on the stability of a region, and the health and success of businesses and communities. Driven by this experience, he committed himself to find solutions that create profitable and sustainable energy outcomes such that everyone can thrive. 

Helping Worley and its clients successfully navigate energy transition, Gareth sought out to empower businesses and communities make the global transition towards a more affordable, secure, and renewable energy future through VECKTA. VECKTA's platform empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions in their energy transition journey. Gareth and Ted discuss his business model, real life examples of businesses harnessing the power of onsite energy solutions, such as wineries and mines, and the future of resilience. 

Russell is an innovator in the field of sustainable energy market development, and has been a sector leader across international multilateral institution, private sector, and NGO professional platforms over a 35-year career mobilizing investment in clean energy technologies.

Ted and Russell discuss his background, raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He mentions that he was aware of his privilege growing up. He became increasingly aware of existential environmental challenges, and also society evolving in some troubling ways around concentration of wealth, inequities, apartheid in South Africa, which led to him becoming politically involved and motivated to organize in college.

His studies focused on energy and natural resource policy and finance at the University of North Carolina and Harvard University/Kennedy School of Government, where he received a Masters in Public Policy. Early in his career, Russell did econometric modeling at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and worked on the first energy performance contract (ESCO) agreements in the United States at the law firm of Lane and Edson, LLC.

Russell then redirected his focus to accelerate adoption of clean energy technology in developing country markets where he has been a global leader in sustainable energy market development for the past 25 years. As President of the International Institute for Energy Conservation, Russell expanded the NGO’s reach globally, across 6 continents. At the International Finance Corporation – the private sector-focused investment arm of the World Bank Group -- Russell developed innovative business models that enabled IFC to leverage $2 billion a year in sustainable energy finance, projects which created resilient, low carbon infrastructure that has avoided several hundred million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. 

He is the creator of the Lighting Global program, which has catalyzed the global off-grid solar industry that has to date attracted private investment and has enabled 500 million people to emerge from energy poverty and avoided 200 million tonnes of GHG emissions by providing affordable, clean modern solar electricity household and productive use energy services.

Today Russell continues to advise the off-grid solar industry that he helped to create. In addition, his primary focus is on supporting the development of the next generation of students and young professionals who will carry forward his vision of universal energy and clean water access enabled by a global economy built on a foundation of sustainable technology.

Ted and Scott discuss his background, born in New Jersey, based in the Pacific Northwest since high school, lived in Seattle for 17 years, and moved to Tacoma, Washington during the pandemic, where he currently lives. 

Scott has a B.A. from Williams College and MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Prior to founding Recurrent, Scott spent 10 years as Chief Operating Officer of EnergySavvy, an energy efficiency software company where he played a critical role in growing the company to 75 employees and $10M in annual revenue prior to being acquired in 2019. 

He shares with Ted that he came into auto through the electrical grid and his realization that the new technology of EVs meant new challenges and lots of unanswered questions, as used EV car buyers don't yet have the tools to shop for them. Unlike vehicles with combustion engines, where the odometer read is a key measure of the car's life, mileage is not the key indicator of an EV's value. For EVs, it’s all about battery health and understanding the available range in different conditions. So, he and his team are supporting the secondary market for EVs by helping people evaluate and buy used electric cars with confidence.

By providing more transparency and confidence in pre-owned electric car transactions, Reccurent's mission is to accelerate the overall adoption of electric vehicles. This is key to reducing the 20% of U.S. carbon emissions that are currently produced by light-duty combustion engine vehicles.

Ted and Kristian discuss his background, born in Calgary, Canada, grew up in Dubai, UAE, moved to the states for boarding school and university, and has been bouncing around the world ever since. 

He attended the University of Pennsylvania, studied data analytics and minored in climate science, and attended Harvard Business School online.

Kristian shares his story with Ted, when he went thrifting during the pandemic and accidentally bought a pair of women’s jeans. In the process, he went viral, with his story resonating with nearly everyone he speaks to, boasting 700K followers and 6.8M likes on TikTok. 

Fast forward to today, that experience kicked off a series of events that lead to the founding of Slø, which has redefined what it means to build companies through community. With a remarkable $360,000 pre-seed funding, a 100,000-strong waitlist (projected $10M revenue), and zero ad spend, he and his team are igniting the slow fashion revolution. 

He and Ted discuss navigating sustainability in an industry built on exploitation and waste, pioneering eco-conscious capitalism to combat the climate crisis, leveraging consumer power and data, and the importance of community building vs. traditional marketing. 

Ted and Dan discuss his background, growing up in Philadelphia, traveling far and wide to places like Syria and Jordan after graduating high school, which sparked his interest in international development. He then attended Brown University and studied overseas in Taiwan to study Chinese.

After earning a Masters in Economics at Johns Hopkins University, Dan spent over 20 years in the field as an economist at the Federal Reserve and in various finance roles at Cisco Systems. He lived in Asia for 18 of those years, starting off in Hong Kong, then Singapore, and then in Shanghai. In 2015, Dan moved to Glendale to share his passion for economics as a professor at Glendale College. 

Alongside his academic endeavors, Dan co-founded the Glendale Environmental Coalition to push for a greater focus on sustainability. He and Ted discuss the Grayson Power Plant debate, and how the utility went from the initial proposal of 260 MW to less than 60 MW with engines that can only be operated 15 percent of the time, a huge accomplishment under his leadership!

They start high level, being that working on campuses and sustainability is a shared passion in their professional careers - Sierra more on the strategic side, and Ted more on the operations side.

They jump right into the story, starting with EcoMotion's introduction to the District, and the first step of analyzing one school site to gauge potential, which resulted in a very favorable result for large-scale solar. The next step was performing a feasibility analysis for all 49 campuses, revealing the opportunity to save $60-77 million over 25 years ($60 million if financed, and $88 million if a community bond initiative passed). Ted then presented this to the school board, and they authorized EcoMotion to proceed with releasing an RFP for full-scale solar.

With the passing of the bond, EcoMotion projected $88 million in savings, which has now been recalculated to over $100 million in savings with the escalation of utility rates. EcoMotion then advanced the opportunity to market, reaching out to 24 solar companies that were deemed capable of such a large job and multi-site deployment. The District ended up selecting Engie, with a cost of $4.71 cents per watt, including $7 million O&M over 25 years. 

With the contractor, Engie, selected, EcoMotion facilitated project oversight and quality control, maintaining owner's rep throughout construction, which took a little over 2 years. The 49 sites were in aggregate of 8.1 MW total (175-200 kW per school site), with approximately 18,000 panels, offsetting approximately 80 percent of annual consumption. 

Sierra asks Ted if the Chula Vista ESD experience can be emulated at other school districts, and Ted responds yes, in many cases. There are major opportunities for major energy, cash, and environmental savings.

Ted concludes by sharing that it is also a lesson in smart energy management for students, staff, and teachers alike. It is something to be proud of, and a solar lesson to take home that will have a generational impact.

Ted and Feliz discuss her background, born and raised in Denver, Colorado. She mentions her connection to the natural world since she was a child, sharing that her parents taught her to have a strong awareness of being a part of a greater system, and determining where she fits into that picture. She also shares that both of her parents engaged with the natural world in their own ways. Her mother is still a practicing attorney, focused on water law, so she's always thought about things from systems and trade off perspectives. 

She is an alumna of Pomona College, first studying Biology and then International Relations. While at Pomona College, she studied abroad in Chile as an exchange student, both at the Catholic University and University of Chile, studying political and forestry-related issues in Chile.

She then went on to the University of California San Diego for Quantitative Policy Analysis, geared towards climate-related issues and how decisions made from a management perspective influence the results. This could be from a livelihood perspective for those that rely on the resource, a carbon perspective using a broader environmental lens, or fiscal and economic development impacts that should be known, understood, and broadcast as decisions are made about how the resources are managed.

Prior to Ava, Feliz worked to integrate climate resilience into infrastructure, urban and real estate development at two global planning, design, and engineering firms, led the State of Washington's cleantech economic and market development program, and worked with global startups to measure and improve their ESG performance at the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C.

At Ava, Feliz leads the Resilience Programs, focused on developing and implementing energy resilience solutions for municipal, residential, and medical customers that result in wide-ranging benefits across Ava’s service area.

He and Ted discuss how climate modelling is an important step towards mitigating carbon emissions and making the right policy and personal choices to drive down emissions

Andrew was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and trained in environmental engineering and system dynamics modelling through a B.A. at Dartmouth College and a M.S. in Technology and Policy at MIT. At Dartmouth College, he became a student of Dana Meadows, who introduced him to the world of both systems thinking and global models as ways for citizens and top decision makers to test their thinking about what it is really going to take to create a sustainable world.

He then worked with Ted at Rocky Mountain Institute in the 1990s and in the 2000s with Dana Meadows at Sustainability Institute. At Climate Interactive and MIT Sloan, he and his team developed C-ROADS and En-ROADS, two user-friendly climate simulations in use by analysts around the world. 

His interviews have appeared in multiple media, including The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, and NPR’s Morning Edition. Andrew has also written two op-eds in the Sunday New York Times — one on building grounded hope and another in the form of an interactive simulation.

He co-accepted the ASysT Applied Systems Thinking Prize for “a significant accomplishment achieved through the application of systems thinking to a problem of U.S. national significance” and the System Dynamics Society’s Applications Award for the best real-world application of modelling. He is the 1990 recipient of Dartmouth College’s Ray W. Smith Award for the most significant contribution to the status of the College.

Andrew is based in Asheville, North Carolina, and teaches system dynamics at MIT Sloan and the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He and Ted discuss his background, growing up in Northeastern Pennsylvania, in a small, rural town. He is a proud alumni of Penn State University, and shares that he has had a varied career, starting in the pharmaceutical industry in Philadelphia, which brought him out to Southern California, and later jumped into consulting, which led him to digital retail, now the focus of his career. 

Previously, Mike was the EVP/Digital Business Leader for Macy’s, where he and his team were responsible for 10x revenue growth over 8 years, and firmly established Macys.com as the #5 Digital Retailer in the U.S. Currently, Mike is acting as both an angel investor and strategic advisor for numerous early stage AI-enabled startups, specifically focused on critical components of the ever-evolving retail customer journey. In addition, he is the Head of Retail Operations and a Founding Member for The Eighth Notch (aka T8N), an early stage startup in the Logistics-tech space.

Mike discusses the how and why behind an urgent need for the retail industry to adopt more sustainable solutions and critical insights into how both small and large-scale retail brands are beginning to align with demand from investors and consumers for eco-conscious alternatives and operations. 

He shares the mission of Eighth Notch, which is to reduce the number of deliveries and create a more sustainable supply chain by ensuring the most sustainable mile is the one never driven. The Eighth Notch is working with retailers and carriers to reduce the number of deliveries and optimize routes. This not only results in significant operational savings for retailers but also contributes to a more sustainable environment by cutting down on carbon emissions. Mike emphasized that the avoidance of emissions, rather than offsetting, is a crucial part of their approach.

He and Ted discuss his background, growing up in Central Florida, just outside of Orlando. He shares his family's agricultural roots, and his exposure to pollution through sugar-cane crop burning, thus developing an awareness early on in his life of the effects of that kind of practice on the environment. 

While attending Princeton, Chris connected with a group in the mechanical engineering department which was influential in the renewables space. He got involved with a research team looking at biomass gasification, and went on to obtain a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from NC State. He entered the clean energy field as Policy Director for North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center. He also spent ten years with ABB in various roles in inverter design, R&D, and more.

As a 25‐year clean energy veteran, Chris has been instrumental in positioning Dynapower as the leading power electronics provider for hybrid solar plus storage systems. He partnered with other industry leaders to bring DC‐DC technology to life, and he discusses that and its broader application. Chris is now responsible for commercial applications including renewable energy, microgrids, e‐mobility, and green hydrogen.

Talmage recalls his youth, born in New York City, then raised in Washington, D.C. He and Ted discuss his connections to nature as a child, particularly at his family's 300-acre family farm on the Chesapeake Bay. The farm is now the home of Hollywood Oyster.

Ted and Talmage are family friends that go back generations. Forced to play as kids, they later connected at University of Vermont. Talmage dove into commercial real estate, and then a few other career steps, before his major pivot to oyster farming.

Hollywood Oyster began with Talmage experimenting with growing oysters at the farm. He was among the first to get a Maryland tax credit for oyster farming. For ten years he growing and harvesting oysters, up to 15,000 oysters a year. A chef noted how good the oysters are, sweet with a mineral finish.

Talmage discusses the sustainable aspect of oyster farming, digging into the topic of aquaculture versus wild harvest. He shares that his operation at Hollywood Oyster farm sustainably contributes to the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay, with its millions of oysters filtering waters, and by its creation of habitat in and around its thousands of growing cages.

They start at the very genesis, when EcoMotion was hired to conduct GHG inventories and climate action plans in the Coachella Valley. To demonstrate to the communities how carbon emissions are compounding, and problems that are caused, Ted decided to come up with a representation of the average person in California's carbon footprint - 1 metric ton of CO2 per month. 

After some research, the vision was born and the EcoMotion team decided to build the display to scale, calling it the Emissions Time Bomb, which served a really important purpose in raising awareness. Ted and Sierra then get into the details: how to simulate the graphic, reaching out to bounce house technology and experts and inflatable vendors, how to master the accuracy of calculations in the display, and cost.

They also discuss the ultimate use, which was to raise awareness about climate issues in the communities, as well as creating the full fledged Save a Ton campaign. The goal of the campaign was to try to get people to save 1 ton, or 1/12th of their annual emissions. 

While its primary use was in the Coachella Valley for work funded by Southern California Edison, the Bomb was used in many cities in Southern California and even made a road trip to New England, where it ended its eight-campus tour at Yale University.

Ted concludes by sharing that the Emissions Time Bomb ultimately fulfilled its mission and is now looking for a new home! He asks listeners to reach out if they know of any organizations that would have interest in the donation. 

Laura’s legislative work is focused in three primary areas: addressing the housing affordability and homelessness crisis, combating climate change, and protecting vulnerable communities. She has authored a package of bills to create new avenues for communities to tackle the affordable housing crisis, encourage water conservation, strengthen environmental sustainability, protect communities against devastating wildfires, improve access to higher education and health care, and ensure that California’s foster youth have the support that they need as they transition to adulthood.

She and Ted discuss her background, born in New York, and raised in south Florida. Her mother was very liberal and became an activist in south Florida during the Anita Bryant years, founding the first chapter of NOW in Broward County, which is national organization for women. Laura grew up canvassing for the ERA and abortion rights her whole childhood.

She got her start in the private sector working as a film and television executive and producer after receiving her B.A. from the University of Rochester, New York. After working in the film industry for 25 years, she moved to Glendale in 2000, where she was involved with historic preservation work around LA County with the LA Conservancy and was recruited to be on City's Design Review Board for 5 years. Building on her years of community service, she was elected to the Glendale City Council in 2009, served as Mayor from 2011 through 2012, and was re-elected in 2013. She is now running for US congress to be the Representative for the 30th Congressional District in the State of California. 

Teds asks Laura about her Glendale City Council days, successfully pushing the City to execute all kinds of green initiatives. She also highlights her time in the Assembly, securing over $60 million in funding for key projects across the District, being tapped for several leadership roles in the Legislature, including the Assembly Select Committee on Urban Development to Combat Climate Change, and being recognized as a steadfast advocate for the environment, sustainable communities, and active transportation.

She and Ted discuss her background, born and raised in Guelph, Ontario, which was a pilot town for different types of initiatives like recycling. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Queen’s University in Canada, and later moved to New Zealand for her graduate studies, earning a Master of Science from Victoria University of Wellington. She stayed in New Zealand following her studies and served five years as senior advisor to environment and conservation cabinet ministers in the New Zealand parliament.

Prior to joining CalCCA, Beth served as executive director of the California Cogeneration Council where she advocated for companies operating combined heat and power facilities. She has worked extensively in both the public and private energy sectors, consulting with government agencies, non-profits, and private sector interests on energy, climate, and environmental public policy issues. 

In her current role, she frequently presents CalCCA’s positions on various policy issues at the California Legislature and California Public Utilities Commission and is a regular speaker at energy industry events. 

Chelsea considers herself to be a western water junkie with two decades of work with Natural Heritage Institute (California) and Environmental Defense Fund (western US and Mexico), taking program designs from the energy world and applying them to the water world. Most recently, she has been consulting on collaborative projects to improve river management, stream flows, and water accountability in Colorado. She also serves on the boards of Western Resource Advocates, Colorado Rocky Mountain School, and Space for Giants.

She and Ted discuss her background - a Colorado native, born and raised in Denver, spending most summers and weekends in Aspen, and being a naturalist from the start, with the Roaring Fork Valley embedded in her life from the beginning. They also discuss her studies at UC Berkeley, her interest in water resources, her work with the Energy and Resources Group, wanting to specialize in being a generalist. 

As a film and media producer, Chelsea is committed to bringing compelling stories about relationships to nature to a variety of audiences. She uses storytelling and multimedia communication to help people -- especially young people -- find a voice, get involved, be entrepreneurial and feel effective in promoting positive social change. 

In her current role as co-founder of the Global Biodiversity Narrative Project, Chelsea is deeply engaged in creating and promoting the stories that help people see themselves as a part of nature and engage a broad global movement in transforming relationships with the planet. 

Chéri also serves as an Advisor to the Yale School of Business and the Environment, served as an Advisory Board member for the Masters in Renewable Energy degree program at Penn State, and as a Buffalo & Erie County, NY Workforce Investment Board Director. She is an MIT Indigenous Communities Fellow, a Cordes Fellow, and a Climate Leader, trained by former Vice President, Al Gore.

She has 20+ years of experience in senior leadership and consulting roles with organizations including Tesla/SolarCity, U.S. Department of Energy, Interstate Renewable Energy Council, American Council on Renewable Energy, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, and Boston University.

She and Ted discuss her background, born and raised in the Boston area, descended through both of her parents, from the Mi'kmaq nation of Northern Maine and the Canadian Maritimes. They also discuss the evolution of Indigenous Energy Initiative, from its grassroots origins to becoming the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy. 

With the passing of the IRA, The Alliance is providing the critical technical and financial assistance and wrap-around services tribes are currently seeking in order to build their own capacity – to access and manage the historic amounts of federal energy infrastructure and climate funding, and to ensure these historic investments are implemented in an equitable and just way. As a 25-year veteran of the renewable energy sector, Chéri is leveraging her deep experience and relationships to support tribes in their self-determined pursuit of renewable energy as a means to diminish poverty, mitigate climate change, and restore true sovereignty and hope.

They start at the very beginning of the story, first sharing their family history - Ted being the grandson of the founder - then fast forwarding to 2013 when the solar system story begins. They then dive into the first steps: sizing the solar system, netting out efficiency, providing capacity for additional geothermal, and figuring out where to put the system. 

They also discuss financing. The goal was to finance the system and to save money. Ted explains the Benefactor Investment Model that was developed for the project, giving credit to Millbrook Alum Mark Hopkinson. However, thanks to a New York State Grant, the system was ultimately financed with a highly favorable PPA. 

Ted concludes by sharing the challenges and solutions along the way, as well as the next steps for Milbrook. He thanks all the key players for the success of the solar story.  

He also serves on the boards of the Atlantic Class One Design Association, Camp DeWolfe, Concerts By The Pond, and the Long Island Traditional Music Association.

George is a lifelong resident of Oyster Bay and Cold Spring Harbor, New York. He studied theater at Harvard College and the Yale School of Drama, and retired in 2017 after thirty four years as General Manager of Tilles Center for the Performing Arts at Long Island University.  He is an avid sailor and, with his wife, Nancy Metz, enjoys folk music and dancing, and traveling to visit their three children and two grandchildren.

He and Ted discuss the launch of the Ida May, the first diesel powered oyster-dredging ship, which he rebuilt from scratch with other community members. They also discuss the health benefits of oysters, the history and preservation of oysters in Oyster Bay, and the future of Oyster farming. 

Her extensive knowledge, expertise and experience has made her a sought-after speaker and trainer for the specialty tea industry. Sipping Streams’ custom tea infusions have won 1st, 2nd, and 3rd at the North American Tea Championships and 2nd at the Global Tea Championships, along with earning Jenny a 1st prize for the Top Tea Infusionist at the 2011 World Tea Expo. Sipping Streams also has been featured in Fresh Cup Magazine, Edible Alaska, and NPR. 

Jenny and Ted discuss her background, born in Hong Kong and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska, leaving only for five years to attend Boise State University in Idaho to study education and health. She shares how Alaska has shaped her and that tea was medium to help her with her self identity.

Her company began as a vision in 2004 when Jenny was making a career pivot from teaching high school and noticed the way that tea was able to bring different people together. Jenny’s passion for community, sustainability, and quality have allowed the Sipping Streams Tea Company to specialize in high-quality organic loose leaf tea, tea education, and running a specialty tea shop. Every blend is handcrafted and curated to be unique and fresh, and sourced directly from all over the world. Sipping Streams emphasizes the importance of sustainability through packaging, and especially with their non-GMO compostable pyramid tea sachets. In 2021, Sipping Streams Tea Company started the first ever tea farm in Alaska, and the only geothermal powered tea farm in the world. Jenny highlights the environmental and social impacts of tea. 

Esha is an accomplished author who specializes in writing about sustainability, international development, and the emergence of mission-driven brands. In the last decade, she has made significant contributions to numerous national and international publications, such as The Guardian, New York Times, Wired UK, Washington Post, Atlantic, Fast Company, Forbes, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and more, establishing herself as a prominent voice in her field. Her writing offers insightful perspectives and nuanced, thought-provoking analyses of pressing issues. Her work has been supported by the UN Foundation, and has been awarded multiple fellowships from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington, D.C.

Esha and Ted discuss her background, Delhi-born, first-generation immigrant moving to California at the age of 6, and her interest in journalism from an early age. She moved to Washington D.C., received her undergraduate from Georgetown University, and then attended the London School of Economics and Politics Science for her graduate degree. 

Her latest book is one of the first of its kind. It is a journalistic work with a series of case studies across industries that sheds light on the businesses which have restorative and regenerative practices at their core, going beyond the greenwashing to a shift in mindset that is helping heal the world. She describes her travels and the entrepreneurs and activists she met across the world, hitting every continent except Antarctica. She also unpacks the social and environmental innovations in relatable industries that people have everyday interactions with, such as coffee, shoemaking, healthcare, energy, and hospitality, highlighting companies that are genuinely doing the work and part of a global movement.

Gina McCarthy is one of the nation’s most respected voices on climate change, the environment, and public health. As head of the Climate Policy Office under President Biden, McCarthy’s leadership led to the most aggressive action on climate in U.S. history, creating new jobs and unprecedented clean energy innovation and investments across the country. Her commitment to bold action across the Biden administration, supported by the climate and clean energy provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, restored U.S. climate leadership on a global stage and put a new U.S. national target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 within reach.

Throughout her years of public service in both Republican and Democratic administrations, McCarthy is credited for her common-sense strategies and ability to work across the aisle, with states, communities, business leaders, and the labor community, to tackle our nation’s toughest environmental challenges in ways that spur economic growth, and improve public health for workers and families, especially those living in environmental justice communities.

Prior to her appointment as White House National Climate Advisor, McCarthy was president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council. She served as professor of the practice of public health in the department of environmental health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she served as the director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment. McCarthy was also a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she engaged students, faculty, professionals, and climate leaders on actions to promote sustainability and justice. She also served as Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and an advisor to five Massachusetts governors.

Gina and Ted discuss her background, growing up in Boston, and spending her formative years playing outside in natural resource areas within the boundaries of the City. She shares that nature was in her blood and that being outside was all she cared about, so it was inevitable that the challenges that we are seeing with climate change is something that attracted her attention. She landed in the climate arena as a career when she was working as the Board of Health Agent in the town of Canton, intrigued with the intersection between environment and health, and the challenges that can be tackled to make people's lives better by remaining positive and  showing them the future that can be delivered. 

William and Ted discuss his background, growing up in South Carolina. He received his B.A. from University of North Carolina, his M.A. and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group, and his J.D. from Stanford Law School. He then moved to Washington D.C. and worked for the World Resources Institute, and was previously a Professor of Law and a John H. Schultz Energy Law Fellow at University of Colorado Boulder School of Law. 

His primary research and teaching interests are in energy law and regulation, climate change law and policy, and environmental law. He continues to be actively involved in climate, energy, and environmental policy matters at multiple levels of governance. Since 2009, he has served as the Project Lead for the Governors' Climate and Forests Task Force (GCF), a unique subnational collaboration of 38 states and provinces from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Spain, and the United States that is working to develop regulatory frameworks to reduce emissions from deforestation and land use. Boyd is also the founding Director of the Laboratory for Energy & Environmental Policy innovation (LEEP), a policy innovation lab based in Boulder, Colorado that works with partners around the world to develop and support real-time policy experiments, establish robust networks for learning and exchange, and contribute to effective and durable policy outcomes.

Dr. Mills is a member of the international body of scientists under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC collectively shared the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 with former U.S. Vice President Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. 

He and Ted discuss his background, growing up in the LA Hollywood Hills amongst creatives of all sorts. His academic career began at an alternative high school in Southern California. He then attended the University of California at Santa Cruz and was exposed to energy and building energy, and transferred as a sophomore to the University of California at Berkeley. While completing his Bachelors of Science degree in Conservation and Resource Studies at Berkeley, he studied and taught about green buildings with Sim van der Ryn. He received a Masters of Science degree from Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group (where he is now a Research Affiliate) and a Ph.D. from the Department of Environmental and Energy Systems Studies under Thomas B. Johansson at Lund University in Sweden. 

In Sweden, he worked closely with the Swedish State Power Board (Vattenfall) and the Swedish National Board for Industrial and Technical Development on national energy planning projects, while serving as an energy advisor to the Swedish Parliamentary Working Group on Energy Futures. He then spent most of his career at LBNL. His closest mentor and collaborator there was Art Rosenfeld, for whom he served as his Deputy Director of the Center for Building Science, later leading the Center. He also currently consults widely for private industry and the public sector.

Dr. Mills research centers on the impacts of climate change and mitigating those impacts through reduced emissions and loss prevention. His specialties are energy efficiency in buildings and industry and the intersection of energy technology, global climate, and risk management. His interests further center around pinpointing "sleeper" uses of energy and empowering policymakers, consumers, and non-traditional market actors to capture improved efficiencies, reduced greenhouse-gas emissions, resilience, and other non-energy benefits. 

Specifically, he highlights the edge cases and topics that don't get attention from mainstream policies, programs, or research agendas like the problem of kerosene lighting in the developing world, the issue of housing insurance in the face of climate change, green-gaming, the carbon footprint of cannabis cultivation, and remaining optimistic about the areas of improvement in building commissioning. 

They start by bringing the power grid down to basics – power plants, transmission lines, distribution lines – and how the grid handles this kind of stress. The conversation uses California and its Independent System Operator which manages our 50 GW system. Ted and Sierra then shift to responsible actions that each of us can take on the demand side to alleviate peak demands that are costly, and at times are highly disruptive and sometimes even life threatening.

Ted breaks what he calls “smart energy management” into four actions: conservation, energy efficiency, load management, and local distributed solar energy. Sierra asks Ted to link these actions with grid duress. What can be done right away? Ted encourages incremental action on the home front, we can all cut our power use by at least 5%, and encourages listeners to back policies that support innovation and an accelerated path to the ubiquitous clean energy future.

Jay is also Author of The Promise of Wilderness: American Environmental Politics since 1964 (2012), which focuses on debates over public lands protection in the United States. His second book, The Republican Reversal: Conservatives and the Environment from Nixon to Trump (2018, co-authored) details the evolution of conservative opposition to environmental reform, culminating with the Trump administration. 

He and Ted discuss his background, growing up in Virginia, attending Washington and Lee University, Brown University, and Princeton University for his PhD in environmental history. Jay has been teaching in the Environmental Studies Program at Wellesley College since the fall of 2006, and has also been active in sustainability initiatives at Wellesley and nearby communities, especially those pertaining to energy and climate change. In 2017, he helped lead a community solar campaign in Natick, Massachusetts that resulted in more than 150 new solar installations.  

His most recent book, Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future, unpacks the history of batteries to explore why solving the battery problem is crucial to a clean energy transition. He highlights their many uses: powering zero-emission vehicles, storing electricity from solar panels and wind turbines, and modernizing the electric grid, and demonstrates that they are essential to scaling up the renewable energy resources that help address global warming. He also digs into batteries' unique environmental impact—including mining, disposal, and more—questioning a clean energy transition risk trading one set of problems for another. With new insight on questions of justice and sustainability, Charged draws on the past for crucial lessons that will help us build a clean energy future, from the ground up.

He and Ted discuss his background, growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, attending Brown University for his undergraduate degree, and Georgetown University for his Law degree. Following law school, he served in the Obama White House as Special Assistant to the President and Director of Private Sector Engagement, where he focused on economic policy related to jobs and competitiveness and oversaw the Administration’s relationship with the private sector. 

Prior to Rewiring America and Purpose Venture Group, Ari was Chief Strategy Officer at Renovate America, which was the largest residential renewable energy and financing platform in the U.S., financing $3.5 billion of improvements across 150,000 homes. He also co-founded Young Invincibles, a nonprofit delivering economic opportunity to young adults. As the senior executive responsible for strategy and impact investing at the Rhode Island Foundation, he secured over $1 billion of new affordable housing and thousands of new, local jobs.

Rewiring America is working to launch a movement that electrifies everything. His team is motivated by the fact that 90 percent of all emissions in the U.S. are energy-related, and 42 percent of those energy emissions come from the decisions made at around kitchen tables: how we heat our air and water, cook our food, dry our clothes, and what kind of cars we drive. Through accurate, accessible, and actionable data and storytelling tools that power smart, inclusive advocacy and market-transforming partnerships, Rewiring America aims to achieve national emissions goals, improve health, lower monthly bills, and create millions of clean energy jobs.

Janice has distinguished herself as a leading clean energy changemaker and visionary. She brings more than two decades of experience in clean energy market development and corporate strategy to her current role. She has won numerous industry awards, including the 2019 Entrepreneur of the Year Cleanie® Award; the 2014 NAATBATT Market Development Award; and the ESA 2013 Phil Symons Energy Storage Award. She has served on the Electricity Advisory Council of the US Department of Energy, the Board of Advisors for the Energy Policy Initiatives Center (EPIC), and the Energy Storage Committee of Joint Venture Silicon Valley.

She and Ted discuss her background, growing up in Philadelphia, moving to Taipei, returning to the US following her high school graduation, and attending the University of Pennsylvania to receive a BS in Economics from the Wharton School, and a BA in International Relations from the College of Arts and Sciences. Janice also holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Prior to founding Strategen in 2005, Janice held several senior management positions with PowerLight Corporation (now SunPower Corporation), including Vice President of Product Strategy and Vice President of Business Development. During her tenure at PowerLight, Janice led initiatives in product and new market strategies, business development, regulatory affairs, strategic partnerships, investor relations, and customer finance.

She co-founded the California Energy Storage Alliance (CESA) in 2009, where she successfully served as Executive Director for ten years, growing the organization into the definitive voice for energy storage in the state and beyond with over 100 active members. Janice also co-founded and for seven years chaired the annual Energy Storage North America (ESNA) conference and expo, the only mission-driven and the leading standalone grid-connected energy storage event in North America.  

In her current role at Strategen, she has advised a diverse range of clients including renewable energy technology and service providers, developers, large corporations diversifying into clean energy, utilities, investment funds, and non-governmental organizations such as the World Bank. In 2019 Janice founded and serves as President at the Green Hydrogen Coalition, an educational non-profit dedicated to advancing the production and use of green hydrogen in all sectors where it will accelerate the transition to a carbon free energy system. 

Rod is an experienced business technology consultant and microgrid solution provider with a background in aligning energy and technology initiatives with core business objectives. He is passionate about slowing down the impacts of climate change and believes the deployment of microgrids is a part of the solution. 

He and Ted discuss his background, growing up in Shreveport, Louisiana, ranking nationally in High School as a fencer, joining the Navy as an electronics technician, and attending Southern Illinois University studying workforce development before delving into the IT world at Next Solutions, Inc. 

At Brevian Energy, he's currently on a mission to take what he's learned as a business technology consultant and microgrid solution provider to educate real estate developers and property owners who are considering how and when to add microgrids, or other renewable energy infrastructure to their projects.

Wiktor has a corporate development background in original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and Tier 1 and 2 businesses where he has facilitated decision making for boards of directors of both listed and privately held companies. The ever-changing amount of input parameters (e.g., sustainability, investment capex, profitability, electrification) driven by an increasingly volatile investment environment led Wiktor to develop tools such as ZeBeyond's ePOP technologies, which enable instant change of assumptions and turn large-scale investments into footprint or platform developments.

He and Ted discuss his background, growing up in Southern Germany, attending university in Italy, and moving to Sweden ten years ago to pursue his career. In his current role as Chief Executive Officer at ZeByeond, a new global company leading the way in providing innovative and reliable system level simulation software, Wiktor and his team are providing manufacturers with an innovative, reliable, and cost-effective set of tools they can trust for their products, ensuring reductions in R&D time while supporting their sustainability commitments. 

ZeBeyond has established a broad set of relationships with multiple partners and collaborators including automotive OEMs, Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers, as well as sustainability life cycle centers and universities. Through these partnerships, the software company has had the opportunity to help embed sustainability into their early research and development efforts and ensure greener solutions for their systems. Wiktor shares that his vision is grounded in a commitment to engineering beyond net zero.

Dan has 20 years of experience in developing and deploying Distributed Generation (DG) technologies in North America and Europe. He is an expert in the commercialization of advanced energy technologies, and has led multiple product launch campaigns of various renewable technologies including geothermal, wind, waste heat recovery, and combined heat & power (CHP). 

He and Ted discuss his background (originally from Israel), and before joining the energy space, being a concert pianist. Prior to joining Enviro Power, Dan held management positions at Ormat Technologies, Repower AG, Siemens Gamesa, and Qnergy where he led business development, sales, and marketing activities. He holds an M.B.A. from Cornell University, Johnson Graduate School of Management.

In his current role as Chief Executive Officer at Enviro Power, an advanced climate technology company that is revolutionizing the multi-billion heating system replacement market, Dan and his team are allowing property owners to generate on-site electricity within their existing heating system infrastructures. Enviro Power’s patented SmartWatt Boiler technology integrates a simple, low-pressure steam turbine into a condensing boiler structure. The product helps reduce carbon emissions at the same purchase, installation, and maintenance costs as replacing a traditional boiler. Dan shares that the SmartWatt Boiler is also positioned to become hydrogen-ready for future production of CO2-free heat and power.

They start by discussing the wild fires on the East Coast, leading into a discussion on the climate crisis and how to be a part of the solution. 

They break down their discussion into three three parts: the electricity, mobility, and manufacturing sectors. Ted highlights developments in offshore wind, EVs, and buildings and industry. 

In addressing the push for practical solutions, they unpack materialism and quality of life. Part of the solution is making individual lifestyle changes and intentional decisions that serve oneself, community, and the planet at large. 

Greg has served on the boards or advisory boards of local non-profits, including Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES), and on Pitkin County’s Healthy Rivers and Streams Advisory Board, from its founding until the fall before he ran for Commissioner in 2016. He's also served on the Aspen Public Radio Advisory Board. Greg knows the community well, having made many biographies and documentaries for and about local non-profits, including The Aspen Institute, Music Festival, Challenge Aspen, and the Aspen Hall of Fame.

He and Ted discuss his background, being born and raised in Aspen. His father, Harry, was a 10th Mountain Division ski trooper who taught skiing to the troops at Camp Hale, Colorado, then fought in the major battles in the Italian Alps. His mother, Jony, was an avid skier, journalist, and artist. Harry Poschman, Greg's father, helped construct the first chairlift in 1946. Greg’s parents also started a ski lodge and his father was the sole operator of the Aspen Chamber of Commerce in the early 1950s, tasked with promoting their then-unknown ski resort.

Greg is a graduate of Aspen High School, and has a Civil Engineering degree from the University of Colorado, with minors in business and filmmaking. He later travelled the world shooting documentaries and nature films, and over the course of his career, won 3 National Television Emmy awards for Directing and Camerawork.

In his current role as a District 3 Pitkin County Commissioner, representative to the CORE board, he's helped build a powerful board of trustees, attract major donations, and helped begin the smooth transition to a new CEO. He shares with Ted his motivation for joining the Board of County Commissioners, his feelings of optimism around the role, and his intentions to serve another term. 

Andrew has over 30 years of experience in the domestic and international energy arenas, primarily related to policy, utility planning, energy efficiency, and distributed renewable energy. He has worked across the world to deploy clean, cost-effective energy solutions with counterparts ranging from tiny remote communities to the largest of utilities. He administered two of California’s signature renewable energy programs, developed and operated energy efficiency programs for utilities, and conducted a broad range of policy-related research for California and the federal government.

He is a board member and immediate past board chair of the National Association of State Energy Officials, and a board member of the Alliance to Save Energy. His deep grounding in technology, policy, and the marketplace provides him with uncommon insight on the accelerating changes taking place in California’s energy sector.

He and Ted discuss his background, growing up in Nashville, TN, attending Dartmouth College where he started understanding how important energy was when studying engineering. He later served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica, and obtained a master of science and a Ph.D. from the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley.

Prior to joining the Energy Commission, he was managing director at the California Center for Sustainable Energy. He worked with the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association International, Ltd. in Central and South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa on renewable generation, load management, utility planning, and remote power projects. He was also a project manager at an energy-consulting firm and an energy efficiency analyst at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

In his current role at the Energy Commission, he leads the policy area of energy efficiency, including the Building Energy Efficiency Standards, appliance efficiency, and load management and flexibility. More broadly, he is focused on enabling modern, data-rich analytical tools to support strong clean energy policy development and program implementation.

Andrew concludes by sharing his experience walking the walk and talking the talk, putting California's energy code into practice with the construction of his energy efficient and sustainable home in Davis. Watch the process from start to completion, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUbH4Vpt8ZE. 

Doug serves on numerous corporate and non-profit boards, including Ameresco, Inc., Renew Energy Partners, the Environmental League of Massachusetts, and the Center for Large Landscape Conservation. Among many awards recognizing his public interest work, Doug has received the President’s Environmental and Conservation Challenge Award (the nation’s highest conservation award), the Woodrow Wilson Award from Princeton University (its highest honor bestowed on a graduate), and the Order of the British Empire (OBE) from the Queen of England.

He and Ted discuss his background, growing up in New Jersey, graduating from Princeton University as a University Scholar in engineering and physics, Cambridge University in England as a Churchill Scholar in geophysics, and from Harvard Law School. Doug was also a member of the 1968 USA Olympic Rowing Team and the 1969 USA National Rowing Team.

Prior to launching Serrafix Corporation, Doug served as the first Secretary of Commonwealth Development in the administration of Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. In leading this “super-Secretariat”, he oversaw the agencies of Transportation, Housing, Environment, and Energy. Before his service in the Romney administration, Doug served for 25 years as the President and CEO of the Conservation Law Foundation, New England’s premier environmental advocacy organization.

His current role at Serrafix Corporation is devoted to sustainable business practices and the development of social enterprises, primarily in the areas of energy, housing, smart growth, transportation, and climate change. He shares his belief that the three major players in the fight against climate change are advocacy groups, government, and private enterprise. According to Doug, Private Enterprise, in particular, holds the key to the future. 

He is an innovator with a unique career focusing on sustainability and economic development that spans three continents. He currently serves on the Executive Committee of the California Community Choice Association (CalCCA), where he actively works on CCA and energy market issues across California.

He and Ted Flanigan discuss his background, growing up in the Bay area, spending time in Mexico, attending Wesleyan University, serving as a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times of London during the 90s in both Mexico City and Bangkok, and then moving back to the states to attend the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University. 

Prior to CPA, Ted Bardacke worked for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, where he was Director of Infrastructure for the City of Los Angeles and Deputy Director of the Mayor’s Sustainability Office. Prior to that, he worked in the Green Urbanism Program at Global Green USA. Ted Bardacke also taught at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs for 10 years.

In his current role at CPA, Ted Bardacke works with the Board of Directors and CPA’s experienced staff to develop and implement CPA’s strategy to rapidly decarbonize Southern California’s electricity system, provide customer choice and competitive rates, and deliver customer programs that benefit the CPA community.

Sean has worked for 25 years in building electrification, designed the retrofit and new construction of more than 25,000 all-electric residences for disadvantaged populations, co-authored five practical guides to building electrification, provided legal and technical support to dozens of gas bans nationwide, helped develop the 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2025 Title 24 California Energy Codes, and has received sustainable design awards from the United Nations, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the SoCal Building Industry Association.

He and Ted discuss his background, being a committed environmentalist since the age of 13, growing up in rural Wisconsin as genderqueer, moving to California to flee violence violence directed toward his sexuality, gender identity, and gender expression, and attending Humboldt State University, where he found his passion for sustainability and was trained in radical activism. 

Sean shares his life-changing experience where he lived in the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology (CCAT), a student-run demonstration house that was off-grid (solar, wind, biodiesel and batteries), before diving into his works in California’s affordable housing market. He highlights his work at Redwood Energy, North America’s #1 producer (per NBI/NZEC master list) of all-electric, 100+ percent solar housing from 2015-2020. Sean's winning formula is combining all electric solar powered designs with affordable housing developments. According to him, this helps developers become more profitable because electric design is cheaper to build and there are incentives for affordable housing.

Jeff is a seasoned market strategy professional with 10 years of experience scaling new businesses in the areas of solar project finance and clean energy. Jeff has negotiated millions of dollars worth of business venture agreements between U.S. and Chinese clean-tech companies and supported the closing of >30MW of distributed solar energy across the country. 

He and Ted discuss his background, growing up in Irvine, CA, attending Claremont McKenna College for his undergraduate degree, and going on to University of California San Diego for his masters degree in Global Policy and Strategy. Jeff also earned a LEED AP certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Jeff shares his experiences around traveling and working in China, before diving into his works in the solar industry. He highlights his work at NEXT Energy Technologies developing transparent energy harvesting window technology that allows architects and building owners to transform windows and glass facades into producers of low-cost, on-site, renewable energy producing assets. NEXT's technology is enabled by proprietary organic semiconducting materials that are earth-abundant, low-cost, and are coated as an ink-enabling buildings to power themselves and reduce overall energy consumption.

He is also the author of three books on solar energy: A Golden Thread: 2500 Years of Solar Architecture and Technology; From Space to Earth: The Story of Solar Electricity; and Let It Shine: The 6000-Year Story of Solar Energy, as well as a visiting scholar in the department of physics at UC Santa Barbara.

He and Ted discuss him being a Los Angeles native, publishing the first edition of A Forest Journey: From Mesopotamia to North America” in 1986, and now, 34 years later, releasing an updated, third edition of the book via publisher, Patagonia. 

John emphasizes the mitigation of climate change by renewing our symbiotic relationship with the trees that have sustained us. From construction to fuel to weaponry, John highlights that wood may be humanity’s most essential material. “Wood, in fact, is the unsung hero of the technological revolution that has brought us from stone-and-bone culture to our present age,” he writes.

Cisco has over 20 years of experience in the energy sector. He served as an aide to the U.S. Secretary of Energy during the Clinton Administration, was chief of staff to the Mayor of Berkeley, and designed one of the most successful clean energy products, “Property Assessed Clean Energy” (PACE), which won the Scientific American World Changing Idea Award and is implemented in over 20 states. Cisco is now transforming Demand Response with OhmConnect, where he and his team are deploying their technologies to help reduce power demands during peak periods.

He and Ted discuss his upbringing just outside Yosemite National Park, studying at UC San Diego for his undergraduate degree, and then going on to Berkeley for his graduate program in Public Policy. Before OhmConnect, Cisco co-founded Renew Financial, which became one of the largest dedicated clean energy finance companies in the U.S. As CEO of Renew, he raised over $2 billion in private capital that financed energy efficiency and clean energy projects in nearly 100,000 homes.

Cisco explains what OhmConnect does, how their platform works, and what led him to now serve as CEO. He highlights their unique approach to using existing internet-connected thermostat and smart plugs, in conjunction with data from electric meters, to provide Demand Response benefits to the grid. Their business model is simple: customers get paid for lowering electric usage during high demand, and utilities can keep the power on without purchasing expensive peak power.

Steven has worked in the energy efficiency field for over 40 years and has over 200 publications on energy-efficiency subjects. He has testified many times before the US Congress on energy efficiency subjects and was a major contributor to multiple new US energy laws including the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. 

He and Ted discuss studying Government at Wesleyan University, and receiving a Masters degree in Environmental Studies. Before ACEEE he worked for both the state of Massachusetts’ largest utility and largest environmental organization and also worked to bring energy efficiency to inner-city neighborhoods in Connecticut.

Steven joined ACEEE in 1989 and has served as Executive Director since 2001. He highlights his current research interests, including energy and climate change policy, strategies to decarbonize the buildings, transportation and industrial sectors, utility-sector energy efficiency programs and policies, and appliance and equipment efficiency standards. 

April is passionate about transportation electrification and has both been in the industry and driving electric vehicles for over 12 years. She has inspired thousands of drivers to do the same by working with states, counties, and utilities across the U.S. to develop and launch their electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure strategies.  

At S Curve Strategies, April assists state and county agencies create fast charging corridors and strong EV policies. She helps utilities build strong EV teams, develop strategic plans and implement their EV customer experience efforts. Her clients rely on her for her innovative stakeholder engagement efforts that gain both regional consensus and results.

April and Ted discuss her studies at UC San Diego, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in communication. Prior to forming S Curve Strategies in 2017, April led San Diego Gas & Electric’s EV customer experience. Her holistic approach to EV program development and grassroots campaigns has been the key to her success. Today, the region has one of the highest EV adoption rates of any city in the country.

Ralph joined the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1979 and has had an illustrious career focusing on removing barriers to cost-effective energy efficiency, and on the role that electric and natural gas utilities can play in leading a clean energy transition.

Ralph and Ted discuss his studies at Yale College and the Yale Law School, and becoming a member of the US Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board (SEAB) from 1993 - 2003. They also dig into performance-based rate paying, revenue decoupling, NRDC's stance on net-energy metering in California, and current decarbonization works. 

Ralph has been a visiting professor at the Stanford and UC Berkeley Law Schools and a lecturer on law at Harvard, and he is a long-time faculty member at the University of Idaho’s Energy Executive Course. He chairs the advisory board of the Energy and Efficiency Institute at the University of California at Davis, and he serves on the boards of the Bipartisan Policy Center and BPC Action. He has received the Heinz Award for Public Policy, the BPA Administrator’s Award for Exceptional Public Service, the Alliance to Save Energy’s Charles H. Percy Award for Public Service, and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ Mary Kilmarx Award. 

James has been sailing since he was 4 years old. He has 37 years of experience in the renewable and energy-efficiency industry, having developed and managed over $140M in energy-savings projects in the USA. He is a Certified Energy Manager, Association of Energy Engineers. With a broad spectrum of lifetime accomplishments and innovations, James’ new frontier is to expand the benefits of renewable energy and electric propulsion to boat owners in California.

He and Ted discuss his early years and love for sailing, attending the University of Michigan to study Naval Architecture, and their shared experience of setting sail on the Ramblin’ Rose, a 40-foot sailing yacht powered by solar panels and electric propulsion. It’s one of the only vessels of its kind on the West Coast. The Ramblin' Rose generates enough solar energy for instruments, auxiliary systems, cooking, and low-speed propulsion needed to get wind to sail.

Hunter is a consultant to scores of industries and governments worldwide, and has briefed heads of state and leaders of hundreds of governments. Hunter is also the author of 16 books and hundreds of articles. She has won dozens of awards, including the Right Livelihood Award. Time Magazine recognized her as a Millennium Hero for the Planet, and Newsweek called her the Green Business Icon. 

Her most recent book, A Finer Future: Creating an Economy in Service to Life won a Nautilus Award. Her areas of expertise include climate solutions, energy policy, regenerative agriculture, social enterprise, economic development, and sustainability.

She and Ted discuss ranching in Colorado, small-holder farming, and the circular economy of the soil. She notes that to feed a growing population, we need to restore soil quality, and ultimately reconcile farming systems with natural cycles. 

She then delves into the concepts of "Natural Capitalism" and "Regenerative Economics," highlighting that the future of capitalism will be built on intact community and adaptive values, with energy efficiency and renewable resources already driving prosperity.

She and Ted discuss her early life growing up in a small coastal New Jersey town, attending Duke University, and holding four additional degrees from esteemed universities. She also shares her experiences in travelling the world, beginning her professional career within the Finance and Capital industries, where she held several high-profile roles across Asia and the US, investing and fundraising in alternative energy, new media, and sustainability companies.

She served as Executive Director for Code REDD, an environmental company she built from a piece of paper into a globally recognized brand. She then became the Chief Executive Officer of Build It Green, where she oversaw a portfolio of energy efficiency programs across California, developed a low-income line of business, and fostered a culture of innovation and purpose-led growth. Karin later served as Regional Vice President for Franklin Energy Services LLC after executing an asset sale of Build It Green, guiding the cultural transition and integration of her company while managing five different Pacific states for Franklin Energy.

At SDCP, she is responsible for overseeing a $900+ million budget, a 30+ member staff, ensuring sufficient and reliable clean power procurement, as well as developing and executing the organization’s strategic plan in collaboration with the Board and staff. As an accomplished leader in the renewable energy sector, Karin is utilizing her diverse and broad experience to elevate SDCP to the apex of clean energy transitions, starting at the community level and expanding beyond. Karin is a dynamic innovator who seamlessly incorporates organizational efforts within humanity-focused strategy to affect change. 

He and Ted discuss his early life in Italy, attending a Polytechnic University, and his studies in engineering and physics. He shares his experience in moving to the United States, and delves into his current works in nanotechnology.

Nicolò has been a pioneer in the synthesis and processing of carbon nano structures for energy storage. He has successfully led multiple industrial programs to design and manufacture high performance and scalable energy storage, including lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors. He now leads new product development, including  binder-free composite electrodes, and the chip ultracapacitor. 

The resulting products provide greater power, energy density, and performance in extreme environments compared to traditional battery designs, benefiting the electric vehicle industry.

Matt is chair of the Climate Mayors board, and a board member of Global Green USA, Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles, Center for Environmental Health, and the Sir Edmund Hillary Institute for International Leadership.

He and Ted discuss his upbringing in Modesto, California, his studies at Chico State, and his early experiences in running campaigns and working with Mikhail Gorbachev at Green Cross International. 

He then went on to co-found Global Green USA and led the organization for 19 years as President and CEO. The organization was a pioneer in greening affordable housing, schools, and cities as well as helping grow the solar sector. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Matt put forth a vision and mobilized resources to green the rebuilding of New Orleans, including schools, the Lower 9th Ward, and more.

Prior to joining LACI, Matt was appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti as the first ever Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of Los Angeles. Serving as CSO for four years, Petersen was the chief architect of the groundbreaking Sustainable City Plan, led efforts to make LA a global leader in EVs, and helped create the Climate Mayors.

At LACI, leading cleantech startups are creating an inclusive green economy by unlocking innovation, transforming markets, and enhancing community. Matt highlights LACI's three priorities: accelerating transportation electrification, clean energy, and sustainable cities.

Drew is a social entrepreneur, environmentalist, and force in the industry. He founded the world's largest annual net zero event, the Net Zero Conference and Trailblazer awards. He is also one of just six individuals who have been honored as both a LEED Fellow and Living Future Hero. 

He and Ted discuss his upbringing in Maine, his studies and holding a 5-year professional degree in Architecture from the University of Notre Dame, and about the evolution of Verdical Group, from starting in his backyard to becoming a nationally leading sustainability consulting firm that specializes in green building certifications, engineering services, strategy, and events. Drew also highlights the building industry's impact on the climate crisis and net zero building design.

Tucker unpacks propane, from its sources to its many applications and environmental attributes. He explains its widespread use in over 6 million American homes for heating; it's not just for barbeques, Zambonis and forklifts! In fact, "Autogas," as it is called abroad, is used worldwide in cars and buses and trucks. 

The U.S. alone has 15 billion gallons a year of excess propane, also known as liquid petroleum gas, which is exported. Unlike natural gas, and its pipelines and distribution system that leaks the highly potent greenhouse gas, methane, propane has no methane, burns clean, and thus we learn, is a preferred fuel in many applications.

Panama discusses his youth in Northern California, and from an early age, seeing the importance of the human dimension on forging a healthy and sustainable future. He then describes his academic career which focused on sustainable community development. Panama goes on to share his works for the California Division of the State Architect on a sustainable schools initiative, for the California Conservation Corps, for the California Energy Commission, and as an advisor the Speaker of the California State Assembly. 

He then moved to Europe and worked for over three years in the Netherlands for the Investor Confidence Project, an Environmental Defense Fund initiative to standardize certification of energy efficiency retrofits to ease financing and lower interest rates.

He later moved back to the states to found the Building Decarbonization Coalition, now in its fourth year with a prestigious list of sponsors. The Coalition he leads is a force, now marshalled to enact policies and to foster collaboration between manufacturers, designers, and installers. So far, nearly 100 cities have passed ordinances that ban natural gas use in new construction. 

He concludes with a discussion of scale, and scaling decarbonization. He talks about "Zonal Decarbonization," taking neighborhoods and sequentially removing the gas. He sees the 2020s as preparation.... and 2030s as the decade of scale.

Mark discusses his youth in Northern California, traveling down to Southern California for tennis matches, and his early concerns about air pollution. He then describes a distinguished academic career which started in civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, and progressed into atmospheric science at UCLA. Mark goes on to share his works as a prolific researcher, pioneering air quality monitoring as well as global wind potential modeling.

He then dives into his work co-founding Climate Solutions, a consortium of business leaders, actors, and scientists working together to present WWS (wind, water, and solar) solutions for cities and globally. 

Mark has published textbooks and peer-reviewed journal articles, been featured on TED Talks, and was a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman. He shares his optimistic view on better understanding air pollution and global warming problems, and developing large-scale clean, renewable energy solutions for them.

Chris discusses his awakening to nature and early fascination with birds, his upbringing in the southern United States, and his studies in environmental engineering at University of Florida, touching on his collegiate boxing prowess, and ultimately his move west to Colorado. He describes his early works with Ted at IRT Environment conducting case studies on exemplary energy efficiency programs.

Chris goes on to share his experience as the first Environment Affairs Director at Aspen Skiing Company, building a LEED certified building -- The SunDeck -- at the top of Aspen Mountain. He also talks about his work at Xanterra, where he directed the resort management firm's sustainability program, and was instrumental in building a 2 MW solar field in Death Valley. 

He then dives into his work at the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES), leading a staff of 45 employees who work with partner organizations, schools, government agencies, and other key decision makers to tackle regional environmental issues around ecological literacy, forest health, regenerative agriculture, land restoration, and climate change to advance conservation and education outcomes and create life-long commitments to the Earth.