Climate Now Podcast

Climate Now: Aug 28, 2023

Made in America: The next generation of solar

You may recall an Auxin Solar tariff case in which a small domestic solar PV manufacturer, Auxin Solar, alleged that solar cells produced in Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam were circumventing U.S. trade duties against China. On August 18th, the U.S.

Climate Now: Aug 21, 2023

Building Solar Neighborhoods

There are over 8 billion square meters of rooftops in the US that are viable for solar energy generation, and could produce as much as 40% of national energy needs. And yet, only 8% of US households have installed rooftop solar panels. With so much availab

Climate Now: Aug 14, 2023

Climate Now Debates: Carbon Capture and Storage

One of the most controversial parts of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act – the most ambitious climate spending bill in history – was the large pot of federal dollars that could now subsidize the nascent Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) industry. The

Climate Now: Aug 7, 2023

Revolutionizing ammonia production

The Nobel-prize winning discovery of how to create synthetic ammonia has been called the “most momentous technical advance in history,” and for good reason. Today about half of the food consumed worldwide comes from the increased harvest yields resulting f

Climate Now: Jul 24, 2023

What happens after forests burn?

2020 was a record breaking season for forest fires in California. Over 4 million acres burned, releasing enough CO2 into the atmosphere to wipe out the prior 18 years of emissions reductions progress in the state. Effective forest restoration and management ca

Climate Now: Jul 17, 2023

Tracking Methane Leaks for Planet and Profit

In September 2022, two pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia across the floor of the North Sea were sabotaged, rupturing and emitting an estimated 500,000 tons of the potent greenhouse gas methane (the primary component of natural gas) into the atmosphere

Climate Now: Jul 11, 2023

Getting on track with home decarbonization

The Biden Administration in the U.S. has set a goal of achieving a net-zero emissions economy by 2050, which among other things means that U.S. households, and the appliances and machines that run within them, will need to be powered almost entirely by carbon-

Climate Now: Jun 26, 2023

In the Navy! There is a climate action plan

In 2003, the U.S. Department of Defense released a report entitled, “An abrupt climate change scenario and its implications for United States national security,” which “imagined the unthinkable” – that gradual global warming could lead to relatively

Climate Now: Jun 20, 2023

Less waste, more energy

Landfills emit about 2% of the world’s greenhouse gases, but in terms of lowering global emissions, they represent some of the lowest hanging fruit. When organic waste – like municipal food waste, agricultural waste, and forest residue – is disposed

Climate Now: Jun 12, 2023

This Week in Climate News: Fires, national EV charging standards, and the global stocktake

This Week in Climate News: One of the greatest difficulties in addressing climate change has been how invisible the crisis was. You cannot see the 40 billion metric tons of CO2 being added to the atmosphere each year, or necessarily feel that average global

Climate Now: Jun 5, 2023

What could climate instability mean to you?

Since humans began settling down and building civilizations 10,000 years ago, the Earth’s climate has been relatively stable. But before that, the climate was more unstable – unpredictable – and humans were nomads, forced to follow the good c

Climate Now: May 29, 2023

Episode 100: How to talk about climate change

A 2022 study by Yale University found that two thirds of Americans (67%) rarely or never talk about climate change, and rarely or never hear people they know talking about it either. Despite the existential threat that it poses, one third of Americans (32%)

Climate Now: May 23, 2023

The evidence for peak fossil electricity

In 1909, headlines declared the U.S. would run out of petroleum by 1940. In 1945, the estimate was that the U.S. had 13 more years of petroleum reserves left. In 1966, we only had 10 more years before the “figurative dipstick in the United States’ oil sup

Climate Now: May 15, 2023

Fixing the problems with ESG investing

According to a 2022 poll from the Associated Press, although 93% of Americans acknowledge that human activity impacts climate, nearly half of Americans (47%) feel that their actions don’t have an impact on climate change. And yet, we know – it is the colle

Climate Now: May 8, 2023

What will happen when the permafrost thaws?

Since the Industrial Revolution nearly 150 years ago, global average temperatures have increased by more than 1 degree C (1.9 degrees F), with the majority of that warming occurring since 1975. But during these recent decades of accelerated warming, temperatur

Climate Now: May 1, 2023

LEED certifying buildings and cities, and why it matters

The built environment represents one of society’s largest environmental impacts – contributing nearly one fifth of global GHG emissions, not to mention impacts on natural resources like air and water quality, local ecosystems, and quality of life fo

Climate Now: Apr 25, 2023

The debate about nuclear’s role in the clean energy transition

Every approach to decarbonizing the energy sector comes with its share of costs and benefits: renewables are cheap and clean, but require enormous amounts of land and are not always available when power is needed. Batteries provide useful back up power, but ad

Climate Now: Apr 12, 2023

What is the future of agriculture in California?

On March 30, 2023, in partnership with the Livermore Lab Foundation and The Maddy Institute, Climate Now hosted a one day summit in Fresno, CA, examining the intersection of climate change and agriculture. Agriculture is both a leading driver of greenhouse gas

Climate Now: Apr 3, 2023

Making hydrogen and carbon black out of renewable natural gas

Renewable natural gas (RNG), made from the decomposition of organic waste like livestock manure, is not necessarily net-zero if it’s burned to run a turbine or drive a car. But what if the RNG is not burned, but is rather pyrolyzed, breaking it down in

Climate Now: Mar 27, 2023

Minerals discovery and mining for the energy transition

As we transition to a clean energy economy, demand for minerals like copper, cobalt, nickel, and lithium is projected to skyrocket. According to a 2022 report from the International Energy Agency, the total mineral demand from clean energy technologies will

Climate Now: Mar 20, 2023

Decarbonizing a city with heat pumps and thermal energy networks

For a building owner, building decarbonization has myriad benefits: lower utility bills, lower maintenance, healthier and more comfortable living. But the barriers to reaching those benefits are large, particularly the high upfront costs and complicated renova

Climate Now: Mar 13, 2023

Net-zero cities: Making decarbonization work for everyone

Reducing average global temperatures. Preserving biodiversity. Decreasing the risk of droughts, floods and hurricanes. Reducing air pollution. Reducing utility bills. Creating new jobs and opportunities. Building community engagement. Fostering environmental e

Climate Now: Mar 6, 2023

Low carbon fuel standards: what, why, and how?

On February 15, 2023, the U.S. Senate held a hearing considering a national clean fuels program, modeled after California’s state-wide Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). The LCFS sets an annually decreasing standard of net carbon intensity (amount CO2 emission

Climate Now: Feb 27, 2023

The road to decarbonized trucking

2022 potentially marked a turning point for the U.S. electric vehicle (EV) market, with new EV car sales increasing by 65% over 2021 sales, and now accounting for nearly 6% of all new vehicle sales. (If EVs maintained a 65% annual growth rate, they would reach