The Green Blueprint

Last week, we started the show with a simple question: what do we want from the artificial intelligence systems advancing so quickly?

Inevitably, when we start grappling with that question, we have to talk about ethics and data quality.

This week, we feature two conversations about the ethics and implementation of AI across the energy economy.

We'll talk with Pamela Isom, an AI ethicist and former director of the DOE’s artificial intelligence and technology office, about the “happy path” of implementation that avoids racial, gender, and economic bias.

Then we’ll feature a roundtable of experts about building AI systems on the grid. The participants include: David Groarke, managing partner at Indigo Advisory Group; Elizabeth Cook, the director of advanced grid systems at Duquesne Light Company; Titiaan Palazzi, head of power utilities at Snowflake; and Jess Melanson, the chief operating officer at Utilidata.

For all these experts, the deployment of effective and fair AI systems is all about the quality of the data.

The Carbon Copy is supported by FischTank PR, a public relations, strategic messaging, and social media agency dedicated to elevating the work of climate and clean energy companies. Learn more about FischTank’s approach to cleantech and their services: fischtankpr.com.

The Carbon Copy is brought to you by Sungrow. Now in more than 150 countries, Sungrow’s solutions include inverters for utility-scale, commercial & industrial solar, plus energy storage systems. Learn more at us.sungrowpower.com.

Note: this is a crossover episode between Volts and The Carbon Copy. If you like what you hear, consider subscribing to both.

Pop culture is increasingly grappling with climate change themes. And some of it is appealing to wide audiences.

But Hollywood films with climate themes are often dystopic and heavy-handed. They fail to consider the forces causing it right now in nuanced ways.

So when David Roberts heard about a new Netflix film last December called Don't Look Up, he figured it would be more of the same. But he was delighted when screenwriter and director Adam McKay flipped the disaster-movie premise.

It worked. Don’t Look Up became one of the most popular movies ever on Netflix. And it sparked an overwhelming online response among climate scientists, culture writers, and audiences responding to the angst.

This week on The Carbon Copy: a conversation between David Roberts and Adam McKay about the inspiration, themes, and impact of the film. Will it convince Hollywood to approach climate differently?

Guest: David Roberts, founder of the Volts Newsletter & Podcast. Read his review of the film. Listen to the extended version of his interview with Adam McKay.

The Carbon Copy is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.

Support for Carbon Copy comes from Climate Positive, a podcast from Hannon Armstrong, the first U.S. public company solely dedicated to investing in climate solutions. Climate Positive podcast features candid conversations with the leaders, innovators, and changemakers driving our climate positive future. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

The term “carbon footprint” is everywhere. But it’s not rooted in the environmental movement. It’s rooted in a two-decade corporate marketing campaign created by an oil giant.

Mashable Reporter Mark Kaufman recently dug into the backstory of the term. He looked at the history of how companies have used advertising to shift the burden of responsibility for industry pollution away from them, and onto us.

And that brought him to BP, which launched a highly successful marketing campaign around “beyond petroleum” -- and put the carbon footprint at the center.

This week: The story of how that campaign is still fooling us about the real solutions to climate change.

Guest: Mark Kaufman, a climate reporter for Mashable. You can read his article about the history behind the carbon footprint here.

The Carbon Copy is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.

The Carbon Copy is brought to you by Oracle. Oracle unlocks the energy of everyone. With the most comprehensive technology solutions and a deep understanding of human behavior, Oracle is putting people at the center of the energy transition. Learn more about Oracle’s vision of making the distributed, people-centered grid a reality: go.oracle.com/energyofeveryone.

We’ve already invented many of the solutions needed to decarbonize the global economy. But a big chunk of emission reductions will come from technologies that are not yet commercial.

We don’t have decades to get these commercialized – we have years.

So what can we learn from the people who are bringing new technologies from the lab to the market, constructing first-of-a-kind projects, building companies, challenging and transforming incumbents, and finding the right kind of investment to support their scaling?

The Green Blueprint is a new show from Latitude Media and Trellis Climate about the architects of the clean energy economy.

Hosted by Lara Pierpoint, managing director at Trellis, the show profiles the people who are doing the hero’s work of scaling clean technologies: founders, investors, engineers, policymakers, and organizational leaders who are solving a complex set of challenges in the quest to scale quickly.

Every other week, we’ll hear stories about the complexity of building gigafactories, the mind-boggling logistics of mega-clean energy projects, and the risky choices on how fast to scale – plus boardroom disagreements, financial hardships, and moments of failure and redemption.

The Green Blueprint is dropping this fall. You can find it on Latitude Media, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

A version of this episode originally ran on Catalyst w/ Shayle Kann.

Stock markets are in decline. Inflation is on the rise. Interest rates are up. Private tech companies are laying off workers.

Is this the long-awaited market correction that never quite materialized during the bull market of the last 13 years?

And what does it mean for climate tech?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Saloni Multani, a partner at Galvanize Climate Solutions and former chief financial officer for Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign.

Shayle and Saloni place the current moment in historical context. They cover the recent wave of low-cost capital that poured into climate tech and the low interest rates that gave renewables an advantage over fossil-fuel investments.

The Carbon Copy is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.

The Carbon Copy is supported by Nextracker. Nextracker’s technology platform has delivered more than 50 gigawatts of zero-emission solar power plants across the globe. Nextracker is developing a data-driven framework to become the most sustainable solar tracker company in the world – with a focus on a truly transparent supply chain. Visit nextracker.com/sustainability to learn more.

The Carbon Copy is supported by Scale Microgrid Solutions, your comprehensive source for all distributed energy financing. Distributed generation can be complex. Scale makes financing it easy. Visit scalecapitalsolutions.com to learn more.