This week on Watt It Takes: How a Ukrainian immigrant quietly toiled away on a new battery chemistry and created a billion-dollar unicorn. Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch sits down with Gene Berdichevsky, the CEO of Sila Nanotechnologies. Sila is developing a new lithium-ion battery chemistry that uses silicon in place of graphite — leading to an i ...…

It’s been a decade since the fracking boom reshaped U.S. energy markets — so when will we ever use our drilling prowess to create a similar geothermal boom? That’s the hope. The Department of Energy just released a massive new report revisiting America’s geothermal potential in conventional hydrothermal, enhanced geothermal, direct use and heat ...…

It may be a couple election cycles late, but we’re finally getting a wave of climate plans from presidential candidates. The issue is now front and center in the Democratic primaries. We’ve spent the last week collecting the plans from leading candidates, surveying the stances of the rest of the field, and monitoring the reactions. We’ll sort t ...…

A new report from the International Monetary Fund shows that the world spent $5.2 trillion on fossil fuel subsidies in 2017. That’s half a trillion dollars more than in 2015. But it also shows that fossil fuel subsidy spending is down by half since 2012. What gives? How much are we actually spending to make fossil fuels cheaper? We’ll clarify t ...…

It took four decades for America to install a million solar systems. And it took just three years to install the second million. From here on out, the U.S. market will likely see a million systems every couple of years, according to the latest data from Wood Mackenzie. To mark this new era of scale, we’re going to look back at the most importan ...…

For well over a decade, researchers have been modeling the cost of state renewable energy mandates. The results break down in predictable ways: conservative and progressive groups often come to very different conclusions based about costs and benefits. An authoritative 2015 report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab found that compliance co ...…

This week on Watt It Takes: How a product manager at Google saw promise in geothermal heat pumps — and applied the lessons of solar to an underserved market. In this episode, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch sits down with Kathy Hannun, the co-founder of Dandelion, a home geothermal company that uses a proprietary drilling technique, simple product ...…

This week, we present a special episode produced in collaboration with CohnReznick Capital. How do you broker billions of dollars worth of renewable energy deals — and do it again and again? It takes grit, sure. But it also requires empathy. And that, says Conor McKenna, is the real art of the deal. McKenna is a senior managing director at Cohn ...…

The tech giants are all going long on renewables, but Amazon seems to be going long on oil and gas. A new story details Amazon’s budding romance with the fossil fuel industry, while also lagging behind its peers in buying clean energy for its operations. Other tech companies are using their analytics for helping extract more fossil fuels — but ...…

This week, the Green New Deal ripples through Washington. A few leading Republicans are responding to the progressive climate plan with some ideas of their own: the New Manhattan Project and the Green Real Deal. They’ve gotten a mostly cold response from the left. But have we finally broken the ice for a legitimate cross-party policy discussion ...…

This past week, we recorded a live show at the MIT Energy Conference. The theme of the show: what the grid may look like by 2040. As a topical show, we usually don’t know what we’re going to be discussing until a day or two in advance. But the theme of the MIT conference was "tough tech and the 2040 grid" — so we decided to take it head on. To ...…

Lyft is set for an IPO on Friday; Uber is driving up to the IPO window soon. Investors seem enthusiastic, but skeptics see a lot of risks and a bumpy path to profitability. In 2018, transportation network companies — pretty much Lyft and Uber — gave 2.6 billion rides. Lyft gave a billion of those rides, doubling its revenue over 2017 to $2.2 bi ...…

We're on spring break this week. We'll be back on Thursday with our regular show. To get you through the next few days, we’re offering up an earlier episode of Watt It Takes about the origin story of Greentech Media. In this edition of Watt It Takes, Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch interviews GTM Co-Founder Scott Clavenna about the beginning of the ...…

The latest numbers for U.S. energy storage activity are out. They show a surge of activity coming over the next five years, leading to 6x market growth. By 2024, the storage market will be worth $4.7 billion dollars, driven evenly by utility-scale and behind-the-meter battery projects. On this week's episode, we'll unpack the numbers in the lat ...…

This week on Watt It Takes: Terry Jester has seen it all in her four-decade career in solar and electronics. As both an engineer and an executive, she’s learned that timing is everything in the energy business. “I think as I’ve gotten older, I understand when best to strike…a good idea can not make it for bad timing, and a bad idea can go too f ...…

This week, we’ve got a bonus episode produced in collaboration with NEXTracker. It’s all about the risks and rewards of doing business in the roaring Latin American solar market. We are speaking with two of the most in-the-know people on the subject. We’re joined by Manan Parikh, Wood a solar analyst focused on the Americas for Wood Mackenzie P ...…

We weren’t planning on making the Green New Deal a weekly item on the show. Then a video of Senator Dianne Feinstein dropped over the weekend, where she appears to lecture climate-protesting kids. It set off a chain reaction of outrage. The social media fervor has since died down, but some really interesting journalism was left in its wake. Thi ...…

It’s been one year since the Trump White House slapped 30 percent tariffs on solar cells and modules imported into the US. What happened since? The solar industry said tariffs would destroy tens of thousands of jobs and set the market back years. Turns out, the market is a lot more resilient than presumed. We now have the jobs numbers and insta ...…

The Green New Deal plan is out, and we’re suddenly having a national conversation about climate change again. It’s also injecting some early drama into the presidential primaries. This week, we’re digging into the plan. We’ll tell you what’s in it, assess the reactions, and look at whether it will amount to anything. Also: is the democratic-soc ...…

This week on Watt It Takes: How David Crane worked his way up in the power business to become CEO of NRG Energy — only to get tossed out of the job for his bold stance on climate. In this episode, Emily Kirsch talks with Crane about taking risks in the conservative power industry. We’re going to hear from Crane about why being a CEO is so lonel ...…

This week: a battle Royale for energy dominance. We're cross-posting an episode from our other Greentech Media podcast, The Interchange. The competitors: utilities, oil & gas majors, mobility providers and big tech. We’re pitting them against each other inside of a voice-activated, electrified cage to see who will emerge as the energy company o ...…

What will the U.S. grid mix look like in 2050? It depends on which models you follow. The future according to the Energy Information Administration's latest report: wind will stop growing, coal will stop declining, demand for electricity will keep going up, and emission reductions will moderate. A lot of people are unhappy about it. It's no sec ...…

What is energy efficiency? That sounds like a pretty simple question. But it’s not. Defining efficiency used to be pretty straightforward: weatherize, upgrade equipment and lighting, use a bit of social science to cut consumption. But now efficiency is becoming just as much about shaping demand in real-time to support distributed energy. And th ...…

We are about to witness one of the most contentious and consequential bankruptcies in the history of energy. PG&E, California’s biggest utility, is reeling from wildfire costs — and it is now headed to the courts, where it will likely be dismantled. Will it crush California’s goals to clean up the electric grid? Or will lawmakers step in with a ...…

The political insanity in Washington can feel disconnected from reality. But two years into the Trump presidency, Americans all over the country are feeling it in the form of higher pollution. In this week's episode, we're starting off with a look at how the government shutdown and Trump's regulatory rollback are impacting energy-related agenci ...…

This week, it’s our year-ender episode. And you know what that means: we’re going round the horn with our assessment of 2018. First, we’ll discuss the top trends of the year. Then, a roundup of the best energy journalism of 2018. And finally, some predictions for 2019 — with a twist. Here some links to our top journalism choices: “The Coal Bail ...…

This week on Watt It Takes: Wunder Capital CEO Bryan Birsic on why he wants to solve the commercial solar financing challenge, when so many others couldn't. "That is what a startup is to me. It's 50 or 100 people who can move a multi-billion-dollar industry in a way that an incumbent with thousands of people and multitudes of resources cannot," ...…

Back in 2008, there was a lot of excitement about geothermal. Many major banks were backing large-scale geothermal projects around the world; a wide range of startups were promising to unlock new resources; and wind and solar hadn’t shown their explosive growth yet. But then the financial crisis hit. In the decade since, growth in geothermal ha ...…

California has seen a million and a half acres of forest burned this year. As the state recovers from the devastating Camp Fire and Woolsey Fire, residents are looking for someone to blame. Now attention turns to utilities. Both Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric are under investigation and facing class-action lawsuits for po ...…

This week on Watt It Takes: How Sunrun CEO Lynn Jurich convinced homeowners and banks to invest millions into third-party rooftop solar during the great recession. “Everybody said it won’t work. We took it as a challenge,” says Jurich. “And so we just went for it.” Sunrun was a pioneer in residential solar services. Unlike some of its fallen br ...…

This week: we make sense of America’s midterm elections. Will Democrats do anything on energy in the House? Why did so many ballot initiatives fail? What does the score tell us about the value of running as a climate hawk? First, we’ll look at what happened in states with major ballot questions on carbon pricing, market design and renewables. T ...…

Ten years ago this week, stock markets around the world cratered as fears grew that the global economy was headed into a deep, dark recession. Alan Greenspan called it “a once-in-a-century credit tsunami.” Today, we are still feeling the economic and geopolitical consequences of the financial crisis. Energy markets were also transformed as a re ...…

This week: the White House abandons a plan to save coal plants. Did Trump read the IPCC’s latest report and have a change of heart? Turns out, the legally-flimsy effort caved under its own weight. We’ll explain. Then, failing Brexit talks weigh heavily on energy companies in the UK. If a deal can’t be struck with the EU, what will happen to ene ...…

For two years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been working on a new analysis about global emissions pathways. The report was released this week — and the conclusion is pretty dire. Or is it actually more hopeful than it appears? This week, we’ll discuss the IPCC’s findings, debate the tone, and dissect media coverage of the r ...…

This week, we're live in New York City. Our theme: are we making progress? We're joined by special guest Eric Roston, the sustainability editor at Bloomberg. A big thanks to the Urban Future Lab, ACRE and Solar One for organizing the show as part of Clean Energy Connections.

For all our East Coast fans of The Energy Gang: make sure to get your tickets for our live show on October 4 in New York City! Find them here. This week on Watt It Takes: Why one man spent 15 years of his life obsessed with flying a solar airplane around the world. We’re going to hear from Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss-balloonist-turned-futurist wh ...…

Before you do anything else, buy tickets to our live show on October 4 in New York City. It sells out fast, so get your tickets now! One year after Hurricanes Harvey and Maria crushed Texas and Puerto Rico, Florence became one of the ten costliest hurricanes in U.S. history. North Carolina is still reeling from severe flooding. And like Houston ...…

This week on Watt It Takes: How a Texas entrepreneur with fossil fuel roots came to see solar and storage as the future of energy. We feature a conversation with John Berger, the CEO of the residential solar-and-storage firm Sunnova, about his mission to convince traditional energy investors to put their money into solar. Sunnova has pulled in ...…

This week: California passes a bill to source 100% clean electricity by 2045. What does that actually mean? And more importantly, how will the target be met? Then, writing in the New York Times this weekend, journalist Bethany McLean warned about fracking’s financial bubble. Is this a dire warning or a re-hash of old arguments? We’ll end with a ...…

This week, we're using an entire episode to discuss an ambitious piece of reporting on climate change. Earlier this month, the New York Times Magazine devoted an entire issue to a specific period of time in modern history: 1979 and 1989. It was a time when we first reckoned with the impact of climate change — a period of great awakening in scie ...…

This week on Watt It Takes: How Ryan Popple’s experience in the military, Tesla and venture capital helped him lead electric bus maker Proterra. “It’s good for the ‘keep calm and carry on mentality’ when people tend to bring me a box of broken parts. So if you’re the founder or CEO of an organization, you shouldn’t be surprised when most of wha ...…

There are now one trillion watts of wind and solar installed around the world, according to new figures from BNEF. It took a few decades to get here, but it’ll only take five years to do it again — and nearly 50 percent cheaper. Now that we’ve reached the terawatt scale, the true acceleration begins. This week on the podcast, we'll contextualiz ...…

The Gang is on summer vacation this week. We'll be back soon with our regular analysis and debate on the stories in energy. Meanwhile, we'd like to introduce you to Political Climate, GTM's newest podcast hosted by Senior Editor Julia Pyper. The show features healthy debates from Republicans and Democrats over the politics of energy and climate ...…

This week on Watt It Takes: We’ll hear from Susan Kennedy, the CEO of Advanced Microgrid Solutions, about her transition from politics to behind-the-meter energy storage. Kennedy was an important player in California environmental politics. She influenced some of the biggest pieces of legislation that launched the state’s solar industry and cap ...…

This week, David Roberts, a staff writer at Vox, joins the gang to talk about a wide range of topics in the news. How would a good carbon tax work? Are we fooling ourselves thinking Republicans will ever support one? In the absence of a carbon price, is 100% renewable energy good politics? Is it good policy? Should we bail out nuclear? Can rene ...…

Dozens of companies across solar, batteries and biofuels have imploded over the years. But it's hard to match the spectacular implosion of Better Place five years ago. Better Place rose to fame in 2007, pulling in nearly $1 billion of venture capital by promising to put millions of cheap electric cars and battery switching stations on roads aro ...…

Like fantasy sports? Listen to our deep decarbonization draft. The Energy Gang is break this week for the July 4 holiday. We'll be back next week. In the meantime, we're offering up a re-run from The Interchange. In this episode, Shayle and Stephen choose their rosters of nine technologies to decarbonize the global economy. The goal: find the b ...…

A new peer-reviewed study in the journal Science gives us a clearer picture of the climate impact of natural gas. According to researchers, methane leakage across oil and gas operations in the U.S. are 60 percent higher than government estimates. Put another way: the methane leakage from oil and gas has the same warming effect over a 20-year ti ...…

Leila Madrone was constantly looking for creative ways to use robots. In the mid 2000's, she co-founded a music group called Ensemble Robot, which featured robots that played music. "I had this great passion to use robotics to have meaning in the world," said Madrone. Later, Madrone worked for NASA's intelligent robotics group. Then she caught ...…