[Episode #76] – Carbon Clampdown
The European Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS) has famously been dysfunctional for most of the past decade, unable to support a carbon price that would be an effective tool for energy transition. But...
View Article[Episode #77] – Perspectives of an Energy Transition Veteran
Energy transition has been under way for the better part of two decades now, and it’s easy to forget how much the world has changed over the time. We now have a host of energy technologies and consumer...
View Article[Episode #78] – 3-Year Anniversary on the Jonathan Koomey Omnibus
Veteran energy researcher Jonathan Koomey rejoins us for another anniversary show! In this episode we talk about California’s new plan to obtain 100% carbon-free power; the potential for “peak gas” as...
View Article[Episode #79] – Community Choice Aggregations (CCAs)
What are community choice aggregations, or CCAs, and why are they suddenly playing such a huge role in wholesale power markets? Since the first one launched in California in 2010, it was followed by...
View Article[Episode #80] – Building Infrastructure as a Service
If you owned a building, or a long-term lease on a commercial space, would you rather shop for your own building infrastructure—things like HVAC systems—or would you rather buy it as a subscription...
View Article[Episode #81] – Principles of Energy Transition
This episode features something a little different: Chris is the interviewee, and our guest is the interviewer. Dr. David Murphy, a professor of environmental studies at St. Lawrence University,...
View Article[Episode #82] – The Business Case for Renewable Energy
For large corporations, especially those in the industrial sector, buying renewable energy, reducing consumption and becoming more sustainable are surprisingly difficult things to do. Industries like...
View Article[Episode #83] – Revisiting Germany’s Energiewende
Germany gets a lot of criticism for its Energiewende (energy transition). For not phasing out coal quickly enough. For paying “too much” for solar early in the worldwide solar boom they helped create....
View Article[Episode #84] – Designing Climate Solutions
If you wanted to design a set of policies that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, right now, where would you start? How would you figure out which sectors of the economy to target in...
View Article[Episode #85] – Foreign Aid for Microgrids
If you wanted to build a standalone microgrid in Africa, powered by local renewable resources, and make it reliable enough to run a neonatal intensive care clinic, how would you do it? Work through a...
View Article[Episode #86] – Is Transition Worth It?
Are investments in energy transition, especially for public dollars in the form of incentives or subsidies, worth it? Do investments in energy efficiency truly pay off, or does efficiency just make...
View Article[Episode #87] – The Value of Flexible Solar
As variable renewables gain ever-larger shares of the grid power supply mix, integrating them on the grid is raising new questions about the best ways to do it. Storage systems are one obvious answer,...
View Article[Episode #88] – Energy Trade in Transition
The global energy trade is enormously complex, and its geopolitical implications are vast, but they are only made more complex by energy transition. If the US exports gas to Europe and Asia, might you...
View Article[Episode #89] – Energy Access and Health
How can solutions like Project Bo—the solar-powered microgrid we discussed in Episode #85—be extended to help people elsewhere in the developing world who have similar health and medical needs? How the...
View Article[Episode #90] – How Will Decarbonized Power Markets Work?
This one is for the grid geeks! With the Green New Deal now a hot topic in the US Congress, while wholesale power markets still struggle to figure out how to accommodate new kinds of resources even as...
View Article[Episode #91] – Energy Transition in India and Southeast Asia, Part 1
It has long been assumed that India, China, and other developing countries of Southeast Asia would power their vigorous economic growth for decades to come with coal. We heard over and over that China...
View Article[Episode #92] – Financing Coal Plant Retirements
The coal power sector in the US is continuing to shrink due to poor economics, but this doesn’t mean we’re retiring coal fired power plants quickly enough to reduce carbon emissions at a rate that...
View Article[Episode #93] – Energy Transition in India and Southeast Asia, Part 2
This is Part 2 of our two-and-a-half hour interview with Tim Buckley, of the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, based in Australia. We featured Part 1 in Episode 91, in which we...
View Article[Episode #94] – Integrated Decentralized Power Systems
As more distributed energy resources arrive unbidden onto the power grid, they are increasingly requiring us not to just think about new utility business models, but to radically rethink what a utility...
View Article[Episode #1] – The Real War on Coal
How the real war on coal is about economics, geology, and little skirmishes in local courts, not a national or presidential campaign; and the tragic failing of politics to address the phasing-out of...
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