Sep 21, 2023 · 1h 3m · green-blueprint
New frontiers of clean energy emerge
Julian Spector · 23m spoken Stephen Lacey · 15m spoken Jeff St. John · 11m spoken Lisa Martine Jenkins · 6m spoken
0:00 / 0:00
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Journalists from Canary Media and Latitude Media convene for a roundtable discussion on the emerging frontiers of clean energy, analyzing commercial liftoff for long-duration energy storage, the rapid expansion of domestic battery recycling, and operational lessons from Hawaii's coal plant retirement.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 5.0 Guest teaching 3.4 Guest disagreement 0.9 The hosts pushing back 0.3
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 51:29 Critique of California's net metering revision
Spector criticizes California regulators for prioritizing limiting rooftop solar savings over leveraging distributed energy resources to meet evening peak demand.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 35:16 Lacey presses on the solvability of battery wasteLacey directly questions the panelists on whether battery waste is actually solvable at the massive scales required or if structural bottlenecks remain.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 34:01 Comparative yield metrics for lithium recycling vs. miningSt. John cites ReCell Center data showing 28 tons of recycled batteries yield the same lithium as 750 tons of brine or 250 tons of ore.
The host holds their own ▶ 20:32 Connecting VPP wave to early storage predictionsLacey leverages his 2014 reporting on storage to contextualize the modern shift into virtual power plants and quotes Jigar Shah on the evolution of solar.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-Show Announcements: Latitude Media Launch and Upcoming Conferences | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Solo host housekeeping and announcement segment introducing Latitude Media and upcoming events. | |
| Episode Introduction: Commercial Frontiers of Clean Energy and Agenda Overview | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Lacey sets the episode agenda, introduces guests Jeff St. John, Julian Spector, and newcomer Lisa Martine Jenkins in a friendly roundtable opening. | |
| RE+ Conference Takeaways: Massive Scale and Commercial Liftoff for Long-Duration Storage | 6 | 4 | 1 | 0 | The panel discusses the massive scale of the RE+ conference in Las Vegas and the commercial maturation of long-duration energy storage. Spector and Jenkins share on-the-ground reporting with concrete utility project examples. | |
| Broader Decarbonization Horizons: Electrification, Grid Infrastructure, and Clean Molecule | 5 | 5 | 1 | 0 | St. John provides a deep-dive overview of the electrification frontier, from industrial process heat to hydrogen and transmission grid expansion, with the host synthesizing the immediate integration challenges. | |
| The Rise of Virtual Power Plants and Proliferation of Residential Batteries | 6 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Jenkins describes the high interest in the DOE virtual power plant liftoff report, and Spector details the expansion of residential battery hardware brands. | |
| The US Battery Recycling Boom: Scaling Circularity, Economics, and Geopolitical Strategy | 6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Lacey and the guests explore the massive capital inflows into battery recycling companies like Redwood Materials and Ascend Elements, analyzing manufacturing scrap, geopolitics, and regulatory levers. | |
| Case Study: Hawaii’s Rocky Coal Plant Phaseout and the Power of Distributed Solar | 6 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Spector and St. John analyze Hawaii's transition away from coal, highlighting how rooftop solar and the Battery Bonus program stepped in to stabilize the grid when utility-scale projects fell behind schedule. | |
| The Forecast: Corporate Carbon Removal, Ancient Trees, Electric Trucks, and Coal-to-Batter | 6 | 4 | 1 | 0 | In the Forecast segment, each panelist shares a forward-looking item: Amazon's DAC purchase, ancient bristlecone pines, electric truck depot trials, and Massachusetts coal-to-battery plant conversion. |
Statements from this episode (19)
Spector: RE+ attendance reached 40,000, roughly doubling across two shows
“So they're saying about 40,000 people, which you know, there, there's already a surge last year, because it came a few weeks after the Inflation Reduction Act passed and you could feel that energy on the floor in Anaheim, which is a much tougher city to have t…”
Jenkins: LDES Council membership will soon peak as battery startups consolidate
“I spoke with Julia Sauter, she's the CEO of the Long Duration Energy Storage Council, and she said that she's just anticipating that their number of members will peak shortly, because right now they have Many, many members, but she anticipates that as the indu…”
Spector: ESS is delivering ~2 GWh of iron flow batteries to SMUD
“ESS with this iron flow technology is, is delivering to Sacramento's municipal utility something on the order of like two, two gigawatt hours over a course of several years. And they've started the initial installations there.”
Spector: Energy Dome operates megawatt-scale CO2 storage and builds utility projects
“There's a Italian company called Energy Dome that Has, like, a big, kind of, balloon of carbon dioxide to store energy, and they're already operating a megawatt scale project and at work on a much bigger one for utility customers.”
Jeff St. John: Behind-the-meter customer assets balance the grid much more cheaply
“You can do that a lot more cheaply, it turns out, when you're tapping into stuff that people are buying anyway.”
Jeff St. John: Hydrogen is currently necessary for heavy industry decarbonization
“There's also clear and consistent evidence that we definitely need Something and hydrogen is the thing at present for high temperature heat, for making cement, making steel, to replace fossil fuels for chemicals and fertilizer, and to provide some kind of carb…”
DOE report shows tripling VPPs redirects peaker plant spending
“I mean, it outlined kind of how tripling the current rate of VPPs could, and I quote, support rapid electrification while redirecting grid spending from peaker plants to participants and reducing overall grid costs.”
Spector: Home battery pack supply constraints have effectively ended
“It's just kind of a whole new world where instead of having that whole market dependent on, like, how many units Tesla feels like shipping this quarter there's now seemingly not going to be any real constraint on the supply of battery packs to homes.”
Spector: Duracell and Energizer home batteries are brand-licensed products
“It turns out the Duracell and the Energizer are actually kind of licensed, so it's, it, it's not, like, directly those companies manufacturing it, but they, you know, they have to maintain a level of quality to, like, keep that license.”
Lacey: Redwood Materials Raised $1B Round Alongside $2B DOE Loan Guarantee
“Redwood Materials, the battery recycling company founded by former Tesla CTO, JB Straubel, pulled in a billion dollars in venture funding. That brings the company's total fund raise to two billion dollars, and they've got a supplemental two billion dollar cond…”
Lacey: Ascend Elements Raised Over $500M Following $480M Federal Grant
“Ascend Elements, another recycling company that won a four hundred and eighty million dollar grant to construct a factory in Kentucky, just pulled in more than half a billion dollars in venture investment.”
Spector: Intractable Climate Problems Gain Rapid Traction Once Attempted
“I think that's a trend I see over and over again in the climate solutions world is some problem that seems big and intractable is actually just viewed that way because no one took a serious swing at it yet. And then once you actually try, suddenly the traction…”
St. John: 28 Tons of Recycled Batteries Yields One Ton of Lithium
“The Resell Center is a battery recycling consortium led by the U.S. Department of Energy. They did some research that says you can get a ton of battery grade lithium out of 750 tons of lithium brine, 250 tons of lithium ore, or 28 tons of recycled lithium ion …”
Spector: Majority of Hawaii's Electricity Still Comes from Burning Oil
“The majority of power in Hawaii is still from burning oil, actually, because that's what you can ship in.”
Spector: Hawaii Aggregated Nearly 30 MW in Home Battery Capacity Within a Year
“Within a year, they got close to, like, 30 megawatts of capacity out of all this which makes it definitely one of the largest Aggregations of home battery capacity in the country.”
Spector: Hawaii Has More Rooftop Solar Capacity Than Utility-Scale Solar
“There's more solar capacity on rooftops in Hawaii than in utility scale projects.”
Jenkins: Amazon commits to buy 250k tons of carbon removal credits
“Amazon is committing to purchase 250,000 tons of removal credits over 10 years, which is honestly a fairly standard amount as far as these commitments go, and is
Just a drop in the bucket, to be clear, compared to what's needed.”
St. John: Short-haul freight trucking is totally electrifiable now
“I think it does prove that short haul, kind of run and return type trips are totally electrifiable now, and that maybe even some of the longer haul
Freight routes are totally possible in the realm of possibility.”
Lacey: Cogentrix building $80M battery system at retired Mass. coal site
“The company that operates it, Congentrix a battery storage, a clean energy advocate within the company started working on this project to
create a massive battery storage 45 megawatt, eighty million dollar battery storage project to replace the coal plant on …”