The Interchange: Recharged

California plans to ban new internal-combustion vehicles by 2035. But are electric vehicles ready to take their place?

We know that there are dozens and dozens more models of electric cars on the market. Ranges are increasing. Consumers like the driving experience. And total costs are creeping downward.

But America’s electric vehicle market is anemic. Dealers aren’t pushing them. Consumers aren’t demanding them. And there are still very real infrastructure challenges.

So in this episode, we’re unpacking those trends in the context of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order mandating a halt to new gas-powered cars in 15 years.

This is a conversation between co-host Shayle Kann and his colleague at Energy Impact Partners, Andy Lubershane. It’s a detailed look at the underlying trends that could complicate California’s plans.

In this conversation, they touch on the state of the EV transition, the state of the technology and consumer habits, and the impact of lots of EVs on the grid.

The Interchange is supported by Schneider Electric, the leader of digital transformation in energy management and automation. Schneider Electric has designed and deployed more than 300 microgrids in North America, helping customers gain energy independence and control, while increasing resilience and reaching their clean energy goals.

We’re also sponsored by NEXTracker. NEXTracker has more than 30 gigawatts of resilient and intelligent solar tracking systems across six continents. Optimize your solar power plant.

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For all the hype around autonomous vehicles, we're still in the very early stages of a rollout. While most of the attention is being paid to the Waymos and Zooxs of the world, trying to build fully autonomous passenger vehicles on public roads, there's an entirely separate category being created: off-road.

These are similarly autonomous vehicles that are mostly all-electric. But they don't ride on public roads. Instead, they're in shipping yards, distribution warehouses, mining operations, on campuses, and in farming. It's underappreciated how big that shift could be.

In this episode, Shayle Kann talks with Alisyn Malek, the executive director for the Commission on the Future of Mobility. She is also the founder and CEO of Middle Third, a boutique consultancy focused on mobility strategy.

We’ll hear from Alisyn about the state of the technology, different applications, regulatory hurdles, and the near-term promise for deployment.

Support for The Interchange comes from Trina Solar, a global leader in PV modules and smart energy solutions. With decades of industry recognition and awards, Trina Solar is committed to delivering reliable and fully bankable solar technology to the world. Download the free TrinaPro Solution Guide Book on how to optimize utility-scale solar projects.

The Interchange is brought to you by S&C Electric Company. Today, non-wires alternatives like microgrids can provide more sustainable, resilient, and economical ways to deliver reliable power. S&C helps utilities and commercial customers find the best solutions to meet their energy needs. Learn more.

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This week, Shayle and Stephen stumble into career counseling.

There are now 3.4 million people in America working in clean energy, spanning across transportation, renewable energy, energy efficiency, environmental services and many other related areas.

It’s a big number. But it also means there are tens of millions of others with the right skills or the desire who haven’t yet joined the advanced energy economy.

We’ve gotten numerous career questions from listeners — some starting careers, some later in careers, and some in consumer tech looking to find a more meaningful job addressing climate change. This week, we’re going to address some of them, using our own experience and drawing from others.

We’ll hear from Nicole, an anonymous manager in tech who is looking for a way into the field.

We’ll hear from Astrid Atkinson, a former senior Google engineer who quit her job to start an energy software company.

We’ll hear from Mark Hughes, an engineer at Sila Nanotechnologies, who offers some advice on finding your unique voice.

And we’ll speak with Liz Dalton, executive director of the Clean Energy Leadership Institute, about the many pathways into the industry.

Looking for some more resources? Here are a few we mentioned on the show:

• Greentech Media’s newsletters
• The Clean Energy Leadership Institute
• Jobs With Impact
• Women in Cleantech and Sustainability
• Young Professionals in Energy
• A list of renewable energy trade groups

Don’t forget to listen to our careers episode produced with Wunder Capital. We talked with Wunder CTO Dave Riess about the framework he used to completely change his career path into solar — eventually co-founding a successful company. Listen to that episode in the Interchange feed or find it here.

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Solar scaled first to become king in residential smart energy. But as other residential DER tech has advanced -- EVs, batteries, smart panels, and so forth -- has solar been dethroned as the anchor product in this space?

We’ll walk with Arch Rao, the CEO of Span, about the biggest technological changes underway in home energy.

• How should we sell and manage distributed energy resources?
• Who buys them, and what do we actually do with them?
• What will scale to the mass market?
• How will consumers interact with their DERs?

Span is a startup making a new kind of smart electrical panel. It just raised a $20m VC round and announced an integration with Alexa. Prior to Arch, helped lead the product team at Tesla that built and launched the Powerwall.

The Interchange is brought to you by the Yale Program in Financing and Deploying Clean Energy. Through this online program, Yale University is training working professionals in clean energy policy, finance, and technology, accelerating the deployment of clean energy worldwide, and mitigating climate change. To connect with Yale expertise, grow your professional network, and deepen your impact, apply before March 14, 2021.

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Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage is evolving rapidly from a niche market to a mainstream investment theme. To explore the technology, financing and science behind this key piece of the energy transition puzzle, industry leaders and analysts met in Houston for Wood Mackenzie’s CCUS Conference.

The Interchange: Recharged was there, capturing the best conversations and debate from a packed day of discussion. Across two full episodes, David Banmiller brings you the thoughts and insights from industry experts, as they examine the potential for CCUS to solve some of our biggest challenges in decarbonizing. Will it be the key to decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors? How much more development does the technology need? And where does the carbon actually go once it’s captured or sequestered?

David kicks things off with the opening remarks from Wood Mac’s head of CCUS research: Mhairidh Evans. She explores the current state of the market and highlights some of the existing CCUS infrastructure and projects around the world that are leading the way.

George Bilicic, Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Global Head of Power, Energy & Infrastructure at Lazard is joined by Ed Crooks, Vice-Chair Americas at Wood Mackenzie, as they look at the regulatory environment for CCUS activities, and the complex route of finalizing financial decisions (FID) for projects.

Tim Duncan from Talos Energy, and Chris Powers from Chevron New Energies are next to join David in the podcast studio, fresh from a panel discussion on stage in which they looked at the opportunities for corporates in the CCUS space. What are the challenges for operators? What are the key needs to scale a CCUS business?

There’s an interesting link between green hydrogen and CCUS; this partnership is explored in depth by David’s next guest Mercy Renteria, National Business Development Manager of Hydrogen and CCS at Endress+Hauser. Mercy’s background in oil and gas, and transition to green technology operation, is indicative of the wider shift across the industry. She stresses the need for collaboration in reaching net zero: as David says often on the show, the energy transition will need a multitude of technologies, working in tandem to achieve net zero.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show, and check out part two of our special live broadcast from the conference in Houston, with insight from Exxon Mobil, Wood Mackenzie, Emerson and Compact Membrane Systems.

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