👋 Welcome to this week’s roundup of PodSnacks.
🎙️ Discover selected quotes from 10 recently covered episodes.
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⚡ Carbon & Energy
Podcast: Watt It Takes
Episode: The Forgotten Renewable (Original Title: "Fervo Energy Co-Founder & CEO Tim Latimer")
Host: Emily Kirsch
Guest: Tim Latimer | Co-Founder & CEO | Fervo Energy
Category: ⚡ Renewable Energy
Apple | Spotify | 🕰️ 1 hr | 🗓️ 12/07/2021
Selected Quote:
[29:39] “Geothermal has a really strong attribute among renewable energy resources in that it works 24/7. And what we find is that as we try to push beyond to deeper levels of decarbonisation, that actually matters more. So if you think about the most ambitious climate targets and renewable portfolio standards in the US, going back a few years ago, they were all 20% or 33% […]. But then solar and wind got so cheap that we were able to meet those targets. And at those levels, it doesn't really matter when you're producing, because you can absorb that energy generation and hit a 20% target with a variable renewable energy resource. But whenever you start talking about bills, like […] in California, that not only establish a 100% target for 2045, but a 60% target for 2030, that requires you to decarbonize not just daytime hours, but nighttime hours. And not just summer, but winter as well. And obviously, batteries are going to be very meaningful in that. But what grid modelers show again and again is that you have to have something that works in that 24/7 role. So our role on the grid is providing that backbone, that flexibility, that always in nature from a carbon free resource that really helps underpin a lot of the accomplishments from other carbon free energy resources to actually generate a low cost system that is fully decarbonized.”
Podcast: Carbotnic
Episode: “Solving EV Grid Challenges”
Host: James McWalter
Guest: Apoorv Bhargava | CEO & Co-Founder | Weave Grid
Category: ⚡ Renewable Energy
Apple | Spotify | 🕰️ 44 min | 🗓️ 12/07/2021
Selected Quote:
[0:16] “Weave Grid is working at the intersection of two of the most carbon intensive industries in the world: electricity and transportation. As we think about decarbonizing both of those spaces, one of the most important and most interesting things out there [that]'s happening is […] this S curve […] in the electricity space, where we're going from centralized fossil generation to more and more renewables. And we're hoping we can accelerate that as quickly as possible. And at the same time, we're seeing this S curve and this transition happening in the automotive world where we're going from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles. And I think the sort of genesis of the name, but also the sort of raison d'etre for this company is really that these two spaces are converging. At this moment, they are both becoming one integrated system. They're going from transportation and electricity to electrified transportation.”
Podcast: Climate 21
Episode: “Intelligent Decarbonisation”
Host: Tom Raftery
Guest: Markus Kraft | Director | Cambridge Centre for Advanced Research and Education in Singapore (CARES)
Category: ☁️ Carbon Reduction
Apple | Spotify | 🕰️ 41 min | 🗓️ 12/15/2021
Selected Quote:
[9:10] “Hydrogen technology in a way is a good thing. But it is much more practical if you look at a hydrocarbon molecule. There is a reason why we love fossil fuels so much. Reason number one is, it's versatile, it can be used for almost anything, and it's really almost a sin to combust it only because you can also use it for commodity chemicals and so on. […] And then, it has a wonderful energy density. […] Hydrocarbon fuels [also] have a very high energy density and that is beautiful. They also come in liquid forms, which means it can be very easily transported. This is the reason why if you go to a petrol station, you can fill up your tank so quickly. And this is one of the problems with electric cars, where you have the charging problem of batteries. And we need to address this problem. There are many reasons why you should use an electric car, but the speed of charging is not one of them.”
Podcast: The Carbon Copy
Episode: “Your ‘Carbon Footprint’ is a Marketing Ruse”
Host: Stephen Lacey
Guest: Mark Kaufman | Climate Reporter | Mashable
Category: 💬 Opinion
Apple | Spotify | 🕰️ 22 min | 🗓️ 12/15/2021
Selected Quote:
[9:59] “In the early 2000s BP hire[d] PR professionals to create this advertising campaign called “Beyond Petroleum.” […] And they wanted to promote the idea of the carbon footprint. […] [They launched the carbon footprint calculator, so] people could calculate the things that we all do in our normal lives, like buying food, or doing something wild like traveling to visit our parents. They [could] add up how their actions are contributing to climate change.”
Podcast: TED Climate
Episode: “Tracking the Whole World's Carbon Emissions”
Host: Gavin McCormick
Category: ☁️ Carbon Reduction
Apple | Spotify | 🕰️ 11 min | 🗓️ 12/07/2021
Selected Quote:
[6:51] “It used to be the case that only rich countries can afford to look at their emissions in great detail. [With Climate Trace] we are talking about properly global systems that are available and free for everyone. The reason of course we can do this is because satellites have come down so much in cost. There are now literally thousands of eyes in the sky up above us. And many of them are actually free and open to anyone to use that information. But you know what’s come down in recent years even more in cost and satellites, big data, and AI. […] We now live in a world where if a certain meme is trending on Twitter, there are automated marketing algorithms that know that worldwide in minutes. We suspect there are stock market algorithms that know it in seconds. […] So we actually exist as a society, spending more resources on monitoring funny cat video views on the internet than a civilization threatening crisis.”
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💧 Water
Podcast: Words on Water
Episode: The Invisible Part of the Water Industry (Original Title: "Spotting & Supporting the Trends")
Host: Travis Loop
Guest: Antoine Walter | Senior Business Development Manager | GF Piping Systems
Category: 🗣️ Opinion
Apple | Spotify | 🕰️ 26 min | 🗓️ 12/07/2021
Selected Quote:
[8:42] “If you look for instance, in Brazil, there's something very powerful, which is the condominium. A condominium is a decentralized approach. It's saying that for your part of the city, you're going to gather with your neighbors, and you're going to build your micro utility, […] which you're going to manage and which you're going to support yourself. So there's still a central utility, which is helping you with the global planning, […] with some engineering and stuff like that, but on the local scheme the first responsible is the citizen. And that blended approach between traditional utility and now local solution is a very powerful way to give access to water and wastewater to these billions of people which are lacking access today, because it's cheaper to some extent, but it gives you also a better ownership of water.”
Podcast: (don't) Waste Water!
Episode: “Surprising 2022 Predictions for the Water Industry”
Host: Antoine Walter
Guest: Björn Otto | Founder & Managing Director | Interius Solutions
Category: 🔬 Research
Apple | Spotify | YouTube | 🕰️ 58 min | 🗓️ 12/13/2021
Selected Quote:
[29:55] BO: “The water tariffs for next year will dramatically go up. […] I'm talking about 20% plus. And the reason why is simple: we actually do have a global crisis. So that means inflation at the moment. We are talking about 4 or 5% in Europe, even more in North America. […] The other reason is that the electricity will go up dramatically. We are talking about 20 to 30% right now.”
Podcast: Water Nerds
Episode: “Well Water 101”
Host: Analies Ross-Dyjak
Guest: Christina Liu | Science Team Head | Hydroviv
Category: 🔬 Research
Apple | 🕰️ 21 min | 🗓️ 12/15/2021
Selected Quote:
[11:36] AR: “Groundwater, especially in the East Coast and Northeast part of the United States can be extremely corrosive. The USGS has this wonderful map that I would definitely recommend checking out. [It] shows different areas of the country and how corrosive the groundwater is in these different areas. Corrosive water creates lead pipes to leach. And we saw this in Flint, Michigan, and Washington, DC, we see it everywhere around the country, actually. […] So if you're living in a home that was built before lead pipes and plumbing were kind of phased out in the US [in] 1986, […] there's a very high likelihood that you have lead pipes or fixtures.”
Podcast: waterloop
Episode: “State Of The Beach”
Host: Travis Loop
Guest: Stefanie Sekich-Quinn | Coastal Preservation Manager | Surfrider Foundation
Category: 🗣️ Opinion
Apple | Spotify | 🕰️ 32 min | 🗓️ 12/15/2021
Selected Quote:
[10:04] “67% of [coastal] states […] are not prepared [for sea level rise].”
Podcast: Talking Under Water
Episode: “State of the Industry 2021”
Hosts: Lauren Del Ciello, Katie Johns & Bob Crossen
Category: 🔬 Research
Apple | Spotify | 🕰️ 40 min | 🗓️ 12/16/2021
Selected Quote:
[2:40] BC: “[The] nearly $1.2 trillion [Infrastructure] Bill includes $550 billion in new spending, of which $55 billion has been allocated to drinking water, wastewater, stormwater and infrastructure funding. […] The EPA has noted that this is the single greatest investment in water and wastewater since the Clean Water Act amendments in the 70s. It is more money than all the past 10 years combined for the industry. […] The primary drivers that we know in the industry are the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, and the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. Each of those individually, over five years are going to get at least $11.7 billion every single year for the next five years.”
