Everybody in the Pool

E129: The AI Solution the Grid Desperately Needs with Gridmatic

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

The grid is getting smarter, cleaner, and infinitely more complicated all at once. Enter Gridmatic, a company using artificial intelligence to do what old-school grid modeling can’t: predict when the wind will blow, when prices will spike, and exactly when to charge or discharge a battery.

This week on Everybody in the Pool, Molly is joined by David Miller, Chief Commercial Officer at Gridmatic, to nerd out about why managing a grid full of renewables is so much harder than managing one full of coal and gas, and what it actually takes to make renewable energy reliable at scale.

We talk about:

Why forecasting renewable output is so much harder than forecasting demand
How Gridmatic uses AI to predict real-time price spikes a full day ahead and position batteries accordingly
Why Texas's grid interconnection queue has ballooned to 230 gigawatts when the state only uses 90 on its hottest day
What "Controllable Load Resources" are, and why they might be the key to unlocking faster grid interconnection for data centers
The crucial missing link between the vision of virtual power plants and actual grid reliability, and how software finally closes that loop

E128: How to Win the Climate Communications War with Josh Garrett

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Let's be honest: the climate conversation is having a bit of a PR crisis. The word ‘climate’ itself has become politically charged, federal funding is under threat, and media coverage has gone quiet. But the technologies are still working, the solutions are still scaling, and the people building them haven't gone anywhere. So how do you keep telling that story?

This week on Everybody in the Pool, Molly sits down with Josh Garrett, CEO and co-founder of Redwood Climate Communications, a specialty PR and strategic communications firm that works exclusively with climate tech companies and climate-focused nonprofits. Josh has been communicating about climate for 14 years, and right now, his expertise has never been more needed.

We talk about:

How to craft compelling stories about climate tech and policy
Why silence is not a strategy — and how to keep talking about climate even when the political winds have shifted
Simple word swaps that works across the aisle, like saying "pollution" instead of "greenhouse gases"
How the fossil fuel industry built a century-long messaging machine — including the origin story of "now we're cooking with gas"
Why climate advocates over-explain when they should be keeping it simple and repeatable
The power of leading with co-benefits: affordability, public health, energy freedom
How to be a “Climate YIMBY,” and why showing up to your local zoning meeting might be the highest-impact thing you can do right now
Balancing fear and hope: why disasters are our current reality, yet progress is inevitable

E127: Your House as a Power Plant with Enphase's Marco Krapels

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT

What if solar panels on your roof, a home battery in your garage, and the EV in your driveway could together make you money — while simultaneously solving the grid capacity crisis?

This week on Everybody in the Pool, Molly sits down with Marco Krapels, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer of Enphase Energy, to discuss what surging data center energy demand means for the future of residential clean energy — and why Enphase thinks the answer is turning millions of American homes into a distributed, AI-optimized virtual power plant.

We talk about:

Why the AI energy crisis might be the thing that finally scales residential solar and batteries
How Enphase's software turns rooftop solar, home batteries, and EV chargers into smart, dispatchable grid assets
The virtual power plant model, and why utilities are finally on board
How Green Mountain Power in Vermont and Octopus Energy in the UK have already proven this works at scale
Why adding solar and a 10 kWh battery to less than 10 million homes could solve the U.S. capacity crunch
The bi-directional EV charger that's coming later this year and why it's a 7x multiplier on home battery capacity
What a future where homeowners get paid by hyperscalers and utilities — instead of paying for their electricity — could actually look like
Why clean, distributed energy is the fastest path to winning the AI race

E126: How Budderfly Turns Wasted Energy into a Win-Win-Win

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 12:00:00 GMT

American businesses waste 25-35% of the energy they use. So why aren’t more business owners doing something about it? For most, the problem is too complex and too expensive — there’s no single fix, there are 30 or 40, and calculating the ROI on all of them is no easy task.

That’s where Budderfly comes in. Budderfly is an energy-as-a-service company with a beautifully simple premise: they take over a business’s energy bill entirely — funding all the upgrades at their own risk, and pocketing a margin on the savings. It’s a win-win-win situation for the company, the grid, and the planet.

On this episode of Everybody in the Pool, Molly sits down with Budderfly’s founder and CEO Al Subbloie to get a behind-the-scenes look into this unique business model.

We talk about:

Why Budderfly targets franchise businesses, and how their "copy-paste" model unlocks financing and scale
The four pillars of commercial energy waste: HVAC, lighting, refrigeration, and intelligent energy management
How Budderfly can lower a companies’ utility bill and upgrade their equipment with zero upfront cost to the customer
Why Al intentionally aligned cost savings with carbon reduction — so customers get climate impact whether it's their priority or not
What a virtual power plant actually is, and why focusing on small “behind-the-meter” energy adjustments actually matters for the grid
How Budderfly is building one of the largest distributed demand-response networks in the US — and why that's increasingly valuable in an era of AI data center demand
Their vision for working directly with hyperscalers and utilities as grid pressure intensifies

E125: How Mitra EV is Electrifying the Working Fleet

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 13:00:00 GMT

99% of registered fleets belong to small and mid-size businesses — but the EV industry wasn't built for them. High upfront costs, years-long waits for grid access, and charging solutions designed for large operators have left the backbone of the American economy behind.

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we meet a founder who’s changing that. Galina Russell, co-founder of Mitra EV, built a turnkey solution that bundles electric trucks and vans with charging infrastructure, so plumbers, electricians, and delivery companies can electrify their fleets without the logistical headache.

We talk about:

Why small commercial fleets are the most overlooked (and impactful) EV opportunity
The barriers to EV adoption for small and mid-size business owners
Mitra’s "laptop and charger" model: leasing vehicles and installing charging together, from day one
How Mitra works within existing grid capacity instead of waiting years for new power
Battery storage, peak shaving, and the vision for 50 megawatts of distributed backup power
Why cost savings — not climate ideology — is the killer pitch to small business owners

E124: Disaster Recovery Gets a Tech Upgrade with Tessi

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 13:00:00 GMT

Three million homes are damaged by natural disasters in the US every year — and with a billion-dollar storm hitting roughly every ten days, that number is only growing. But the system for repairing affected homes is stuck in the past, with mountains of paperwork, fragmented funding, and rampant fraud leaving vulnerable homeowners stranded.

This week on Everybody in the Pool, Molly sits down with Susan Hunt Stevens, the founder and CEO of Tessi, a platform working to fix what she calls the “broken post-disaster home repair system.” Tessi brings homeowners, vetted contractors, insurers, government programs, and other funders onto a single platform that uses AI-driven damage assessments to quickly evaluate a home in the wake of a disaster.

We talk about:

How Tessi uses AI and aerial imagery to generate damage assessments within 24 hours
How the surge in natural disasters has made homeowners increasingly vulnerable to contractor fraud
Why only 4% of homeowners affected by flooding and hurricanes are actually covered by insurance
How homeowners can use disaster repair as an opportunity to implement climate-adaptive upgrades
Tessi’s role in a complicated ecosystem where any repair might be funded by a patchwork of insurance, personal savings, home equity loans, government aid, and even GoFundMe
How Tessi is partnering with volunteer disaster relief organizations to serve socially vulnerable homeowners who fall outside the paid system
Tessi’s goal of serving 1 million homes within 5 years

E123: Why Adaptation Is Unavoidable (And Investable)

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 13:00:00 GMT

The impacts of climate change are hitting the world everywhere, all at once — making climate adaptation more urgent than ever before.

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re flipping the script on climate adaption; no longer viewing it as a funding gap, but as an investment opportunity that could bring lots of types of finance to the table for returns and impact. Niall Murphy, co-founder and managing partner of Morphosis, sits down with Molly to discuss how the world can scale solutions for an already-changing climate, and why the private sector needs to get involved in the new “adaptation economy.”

We talk about:

What living beyond 1.5 degrees means for adaptation
How 90% of adaptation funding is currently public money, and why that can’t scale to meet the demand
The case for viewing climate impacts as emerging markets and investment opportunities
Why insurers’ panic is actually the tipping point we’ve been waiting for
Real examples of commercially viable adaptation solutions, from solar-filtering polymers to micro-scale desalination
The policy gaps that are holding back deployment
How Morphosis aggregates capital to deploy solutions where they're needed most

E122: Better cooking (and grids) with Copper

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 13:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, another sexy gadget that doubles as a grid asset! We take a field trip to the Berkeley headquarters of Copper, which is reimagining the humble stove as a powerful tool for decarbonization. Their flagship product, Charlie, is a 30-inch induction range with a built-in battery that allows for plug-and-play installation, precise cooking, and the potential to support grid stability.

We talk about:

How a battery in a stove can reduce the need for electrical infrastructure upgrades
The magic of induction cooking - safety, precision, and efficiency
Incentive programs making electrification more accessible
The potential for appliances to become grid interactive assets
Copper’s vision for scaling electrification across housing
Bonus: their in-house chef loves it, too.

E121: Making heat pumps sexy with Quilt

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 13:00:00 GMT

Heat pumps are having a moment. Last year, the U.S. passed China to become the world's number one market for heat pumps—and they're not slowing down. But while heat pumps are efficient and effective on paper, they haven't always been objects of desire. Until now.

This week, Molly talks to Paul Lambert, CEO and co-founder of Quilt, about building a heat pump company that's equal parts climate solution and consumer product. Paul explains how his team is reimagining the mini-split heat pump—not just as an HVAC system, but as a piece of technology you're proud to have on your wall.

We dive into:

How heat pumps work: Why an AC is basically "a half-broken heat pump" that only runs in one direction
The two types of heat pumps: Ducted systems vs. ductless mini-splits, and why room-by-room control is a game-changer
Design as climate strategy: How Quilt spent half their initial capital on a domain name and invested heavily in industrial design to create pull, not just policy push
The installer advantage: Why partnering with contractors (instead of doing it all in-house) unlocked national scale
Smart grid integration: How Quilt's internet-connected system enables demand response without sacrificing comfort—curtailing load in empty rooms while keeping occupied spaces perfect
The data center opportunity: How replacing electric resistance heating with heat pumps near data centers can free up 75% of the energy load—without building new generation capacity
Why incentives help but aren't required: 60% of America is primarily cooling-driven, and heat pumps are just better air conditioners
Pricing reality: Quilt is competitive with high-end Japanese mini-splits, not luxury-priced like early Nest thermostats or Teslas
The personal mission: How Paul's Alberta roots in the fossil fuel industry and his commitment to his kids' future drove him to climate tech

Key insight: Space heating and cooling represent half of all home energy use and 70% of fossil fuel consumption in homes—making HVAC the single biggest lever for decarbonizing buildings.

Links:

Quilt: https://quilt.com
Find a Quilt installer: https://quilt.com (click "Find an Installer")
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
Become a member for the ad-free version of the show: https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/

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E120: Panama Bartholomy and taking pollution out of buildings

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 13:00:00 GMT

Buildings account for a third of America's greenhouse gas emissions, yet until recently, we've been flatlined on progress. That's changing—fast. This week, Molly talks to Panama Bartholomy, founder of the Building Decarbonization Coalition, about how an unlikely alliance of utilities, manufacturers, installers, and nonprofits is transforming the way we heat, cool, and power our homes.

Panama explains how finding 80% common ground among competitors created unstoppable momentum—and how the U.S. just became the global leader in heat pump sales for the fourth year running.

We dive into:

The coalition model: How businesses, government, and nonprofits work together through "shuttle diplomacy"
Why buildings matter: They represent ~33% of U.S. emissions and are the largest source of air pollution in California's worst air basins
The heat pump revolution: How the U.S. went from third place to global leader in just five years—heat pumps now outsell furnaces
The gas infrastructure trap: Why we're spending $50 billion annually on aging pipes while gas bills rise twice as fast as electric rates
Neighborhood-scale solutions: How utilities are offering $35,000 checks to electrify entire neighborhoods instead of replacing gas pipelines
"Stove Gate" as a paradigm shift: How controversy over gas stove safety created "sticky facts" that changed public perception
What "pollution" means: Why language matters—moving from "decarbonization" to a term everyone understands
The path forward: Why installers are the real heroes, and what political will looks like in action
Key stat: Space heating and water heating represent 90% of building emissions—and heat pumps can do both jobs 2-4x more efficiently than gas?

E119: Reinventing the grid with PG&E

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 13:00:00 GMT

What if the solution to our energy challenges isn't building more—but applying new thinking to the grid we’ve already got? This week, Molly talks to Quinn Nakayama, the senior director at PG&E’s Grid Research Innovation and Development, also known as GRID, division. (Clever, right?)

After years of controversy over wildfires that led to the utility’s eventual bankruptcy, PG&E is moving forward with dedicated R&D, pitch competitions, and monetary investment to figure out how to use new technologies to meet growing demand without compromising California’s clean energy goals.

We cover:

The massive energy demands from data centers and electrification
Innovative strategies to manage load growth without building massive infrastructure
How electric vehicles and smart charging can actually reduce electricity rates
California's unique challenge of meeting net-zero goals while supporting economic growth
Creative solutions like using data center backup generators as temporary grid support

In upcoming episodes, we’ll talk with some of the startups PG&E has identified as particularly promising reinvention partners!

E118: Getting protein from the source, with Leaft Foods

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 13:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we're diving into the world of protein production — in reverse. Recently, the USDA released a new food pyramid that controversially places red meat and dairy at the top. That, combined with the global and particularly American obsession with protein, make it a great time to talk to Ross Milne, CEO of Leaft Foods. Leaft is developing a groundbreaking technology that extracts protein directly from alfalfa leaves, potentially reducing emissions by 97% compared to traditional animal agriculture.

Leaft Foods isn't just creating a protein alternative - they're reimagining the entire food production system. By isolating RuBisCO, the most abundant protein on the planet, they've developed a nutritional powerhouse that outperforms eggs, whey, and beef in amino acid profile. Their first product, LeafBlade, packs 18 grams of protein and 58% of daily iron intake into a tiny 100ml pouch.

We talk about:

How extracting protein directly from leaves could transform agriculture
The nutritional superiority of RuBisCO protein
Why efficiency matters in solving the climate crisis
How this technology could improve both human nutrition and animal farming
The potential for scaling a more sustainable protein production method

Feed Drop: The S2G Podcast: The Future of Protein Through a Cross-Sector Lens

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:07:31 GMT

Here’s a bonus episode for you to kick off 2026. Back in episode 97, we interviewed Kate Danaher of S2G Investments about investing in the ocean economy. S2G are actually investors in a few of the companies we’ve had on Everybody in the Pool, including Matter, Moleaer, and Sofar Ocean. So this week, we’re featuring one of their interviews as they prepare to launch their new season.

The S2G Podcast is hosted by the team at S2G Investments, and looks at what it will take to scale the food and agriculture, oceans and energy transitions. Episodes launch every two weeks with a range of guests, including company leaders, innovators, investors, and policy experts. Season 3 starts on January 15 and you can find the S2G Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

S2G Episodes: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/podcast
Subscribe to the S2G Podcast: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/podcast
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
Become a member for the ad-free version of the show:
https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/

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E117: Reinventing Wood Without Trees

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 13:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re starting the year with an audacious question: what if we reinvented one of the most basic materials in the world?

Decarbonizing the built environment means tackling the stuff we use everywhere — wood, concrete, and steel — at the same time we’re trying to build millions of new homes, strengthen supply chains, and reduce our exposure to geopolitical and climate risk. That’s a tall order. But it’s also unavoidable.

My guest is Nathan Silvernail, co-founder and CEO of Plantd, a company building a tree-free, carbon-negative alternative to engineered wood. Designed as a drop-in replacement for OSB (oriented strand board), Plantd’s material looks and behaves like conventional wood — but without cutting down trees. And they’re not stopping at the material itself: Plantd is building the machines, manufacturing process, and agricultural supply chain needed to produce it at scale.

We talk about:

Why “sustainable wood” isn’t always as sustainable as it sounds
Why trees can’t scale fast enough to meet demand and climate goals
What it takes to replace a commodity material without asking builders to change how they build
The co-benefits: turning waste into biochar and high-purity carbon for adjacent industrial markets
The hard realities of scaling hardware, agriculture, and manufacturing at the same time

E116: The Narnia box for critical minerals

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 13:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re diving into one of the biggest bottlenecks in the clean energy transition: critical minerals—the lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, and precious metals we need for EVs, batteries, and the grid. The problem isn’t that we’re running out. It’s that extraction and refining are expensive, polluting, and increasingly constrained by geopolitics.

My guest is Adam Uliana, co-founder and CEO of Chemfinity Technologies, a startup spun out of UC Berkeley that’s building a modular “metal-selective Brita filter” for refining. Chemfinity’s system takes messy inputs—like e-waste, catalytic converters, industrial wastewater, and even mine tailings—and separates out high-purity metals one at a time using tunable “nano-sponge” materials. In other words: a potential way to recover critical minerals with dramatically fewer steps, less energy, and a much smaller footprint.

We get into:

What “critical minerals” are and why the supply chain is such a vulnerability
The climate and human costs of mining—and why recycling and recovery matter
How Chemfinity’s process works (liquify the feedstock, then filter metals out in sequence)
The real technical unlock: highly selective nanoscale materials that can distinguish near-identical metals
What scaling looks like: pilots now, modular systems later—including shipping-container deployments at mining sites
The business model question: when Chemfinity sells equipment vs. when it makes sense to sell recovered metals

E115: Mast Reforestation and the carbon-credit glow-up

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 13:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re talking about one of the biggest blockers to real climate action: amazing solutions that never scale because no one pays for them. My guest is Grant Canary, founder and CEO of Mast Reforestation, a company rebuilding forests after catastrophic wildfires — and reinventing carbon credits so that reforestation can actually fund itself.

Mast takes the most expensive part of post-fire recovery — dealing with hundreds of dead, unstable, methane-emitting trees — and turns it into a high-integrity carbon removal credit. The fire-killed biomass gets buried in engineered clay “vaults” that lock away carbon for centuries, and the revenue pays for restoring forests with native seed, nursery-grown seedlings, and good old human labor. It’s the super-sexy carbon accounting we desperately need.

We get into:

Grant’s origin story: the high-school teacher, the brutally honest friend, and the maggot factory (this is a true story)
From DroneSeed to Mast: why drones weren’t enough and what really unlocks reforestation
What high-severity “Mordor” fires do to ecosystems — and why invasives take over
How biomass burial works: clay soils, lasagna layers, 24/7 monitoring, and 5 different verification processes
Why high-quality carbon credits are hard — and why they matter
Who buys these credits (tech, airlines, real estate, Shopify, consulting firms) and the incentives behind each
Why relying on altruism won’t scale — but pricing ecosystem services will
How modern carbon accounting sets the stage for the actual holy grail: a price on carbon

Link:

Mast Reforestation: https://www.mastreforest.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
Become a member for the ad-free version of the show:
https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/

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E114: Everrati: electrifying your dream cars

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 13:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re starting in full aspirational mode (with one of my least climate-friendly obsessions) — with iconic classic cars rebuilt as state-of-the-art EVs. Think: vintage Porsches, Land Rovers, Pagodas, even a GT40… all stripped to bare metal, fully restored, and reborn as clean-air electric machines. Yeah, I’m dying over here.

My guest is Justin Lunny, founder and CEO of Everrati, a company that electrifies beloved classic cars while also building a cutting-edge EV powertrain platform used by new low-volume automakers around the world.

It’s a story about craft and circularity — giving existing cars a new, zero-emission life — and about how aspiration drives climate adoption. Wealthy early adopters (and their garages) help prove what’s possible, push down cost curves, and build social permission for the EV future.

We get into:

How Everrati “redefines” classic cars using full CAD modeling, advanced engineering, and hand-built restoration
Why their EV powertrains use motors and components normally found in hypercars and Formula E
The economics: donor cars, bespoke builds, and why the least-loved 964s are perfect candidates
Why keeping old cars alive — electrically — is a circularity win
The B2B side: powering new sports cars and specialty vehicles for low-volume OEMs
Why electrifying halo cars helps drive broader consumer aspiration
Battery modularity, future upgrades, and designing for long-term sustainability
Justin’s personal journey from tech entrepreneur to climate-driven car nut

E113: Hyfe: Turning food waste into gold (metaphorically, that is)

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 13:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re talking about one of the least-visible but largest waste problems in the world: food processing waste. Every time fruits or vegetables are peeled, chopped, juiced, or processed, mountains of perfectly good plant material get thrown out or sold for pennies. It’s expensive, it’s inefficient, and it’s a huge climate problem.

My guest is Michelle Ruiz, founder and CEO of Hyfe, a company unlocking the massive value hidden in this “waste.” Hyfe has developed a clean, water-based technology that can deconstruct food waste into high-value ingredients—like natural antioxidants that can replace carcinogenic petrochemical additives, fibers for gut health, and eventually the bio-based molecules that could power the broader bioeconomy.

Instead of paying to get rid of waste, food processors can turn it into a whole new revenue stream — while reducing emissions and building real circularity into the food system.

We get into:

Why food processing waste is one of the biggest untapped feedstocks in the world
How Hyfe’s process “unlocks” the compounds inside plant material without toxic solvents
The clean-label antioxidants that can replace petrochemical additives already being banned in multiple states
Why fibers are booming — and how food companies want cleaner, more functional sources
How this technology could one day replace a chunk of the petrochemical industry
The business model: why food processors, not consumers, are Hi-Fey’s real customers
Michelle’s journey from oil refinery engineer to World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer
The role of circularity, resilience, and adaptation in the future food system

E112: Sage Geosystems: The clean energy everyone loves

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 13:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, more power, right beneath our feet. Even as the United States has been attempting to stop or divest from renewable energy sources, there’s one kind of baseload power that doesn’t make anyone mad: geothermal.

So this week we’re talking not just geothermal, but next-generation geothermal.

My guest is Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geosystems, a company developing flexible, modular geothermal systems that can provide both baseload renewable power and incredible long-duration energy storage—all using the existing skill sets and drilling expertise of the oil and gas industry.

We get into:

Why geothermal is finally ready for prime time—thanks to new drilling techniques, better geologic modeling, and the lessons of shale
Sage’s “heat harvesting” approach that works in far more places than conventional geothermal
How their Geopressured Geothermal System doubles as ultra-affordable long-duration energy storage
Why geothermal could be the clean firm power the grid desperately needs
The role the oil and gas workforce can play in building the energy transition
What it will take to finance and deploy geothermal at utility scale

E111: The Span Plan: grid infrastructure in your garage

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 13:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re examining the seemingly humble—but absolutely critical—piece of hardware that could accelerate electrification, unlock virtual power plants, and save homeowners thousands of dollars: the electrical panel.

My guest is Arch Rao, founder and CEO of Span, a company building smart electrical panels that replace your old breaker box with real-time power management, whole-home circuit-level visibility, and the ability to electrify without a costly service upgrade.

If you’ve ever been told you need a new 200-amp panel before installing a heat pump, EV charger, induction stove, or home battery… Span thinks you don’t. And utilities are starting to agree.

We get into:

Why most of America’s 100-amp homes don’t actually need expensive utility upgrades
How Span’s digital panel manages loads in real time—throttling certain appliances for a few minutes a year to avoid tripping limits
What changes when every circuit in your house is visible and controllable (down to the second)
Span as grid infrastructure: how utilities like PG&E see smart panels as a cheaper alternative to billions in grid upgrades

E110: Simplifyber and a plastic-free textiles future

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 13:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re rethinking how clothes, shoes—and even car interiors—get made without plastic. My guest is Maria Intscher-Owrang, CEO and co-founder of Simplifyber. Her innovation takes plant fibers + water, then forms finished 3D shapes in a single step—skipping spinning, weaving, cutting, and sewing.

We get into:

What’s broken about fossil-based textiles (cost curves, subsidies, and why polyester took over)
How Simplifyber’s cellulose slurry + compression molding works—and why it cuts waste dramatically
Early results: an LCA showing up to 30× lower impact for shoe uppers vs. standard construction
Performance and durability (including why these parts can survive sun/heat/humidity in car interiors)
Unit economics: cost parity at scale via tooling (and why higher volumes matter)
Beachhead products: GANNI “moon shoe” uppers and a Kia EV2 concept interior, now moving toward production
What this could mean for labor, local supply chains, and using regional feedstocks (cellulose everywhere)

What you can do to help:

Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
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E109: 10-minute EV charging with Adden Energy

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 14:59:58 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re talking about one of the biggest hurdles in the clean energy transition — how to make electric vehicles as fast and easy to refuel as gas cars.

Our guest is Will Fitzhugh, co-founder and CEO of Adden Energy, a Harvard spinout developing self-healing solid-state lithium metal batteries that could charge fully in under ten minutes. These next-generation batteries promise longer range, faster charging, and safer performance — all using existing manufacturing lines. It’s a fascinating look at the next leap in energy storage — and what it’ll take to make 10-minute charging a reality.

We talk about:

What makes solid-state lithium metal batteries different from lithium-ion
How Adden’s “self-healing” separator prevents the failures that have held this technology back
Why faster charging could finally electrify drivers who can’t charge at home
How the company plans to use existing gigafactory infrastructure to scale production
What this breakthrough could mean for everything from EVs to robotics and aviation

What you can do:

Please subscribe and tell your friends about Everybody in the Pool!
Send feedback or become a sponsor: in@everybodyinthepool.com

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E108: Cleaning up the textiles industry with Matter filters

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re talking water — and the invisible pollutants hiding in it. Microfibers from textiles are one of the biggest sources of microplastics in our oceans, choking marine ecosystems and undermining the ocean’s role as the planet’s carbon sink.

Our guest is Adam Root, founder and CEO of Matter, who shares his insane founder story, from £250 and a shed to a budding Japanese street food empire to Matter, which is helping major textile manufacturers keep millions of liters of water cleaner every day. It’s an epic founder story with big implications for clean water and healthy oceans.

We cover:

How washing machines and textile factories shed microfibers at massive scale
Why current filtration is wasteful — and how Matter’s regenerative filters solve it
The founder story that went from Japanese street food stalls to the G7 stage
What this means for oceans, sludge management (yes, really), and circular materials in the future

What you can do to help:

Please subscribe and tell your friends about Everybody in the Pool!
Send feedback or become a sponsor! in@everybodyinthepool.com

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E107: The capital stack for climate, all in one shop

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re geeking out on money. Because even the best climate solutions won’t scale without serious capital behind them.

Our guest is Dawn Lippert, founder of Elemental (a nonprofit investor) and founding partner of Earthshot Ventures (a venture fund). She’s basically building an all-terrain vehicle for climate finance — covering philanthropic, project, and venture capital — to bridge the “valley of death” that stops too many good ideas from reaching the market.

We talk about:

Why “first-of-a-kind” projects are so hard to fund
The $150 billion capital gap that’s holding back climate solutions
How philanthropic dollars can be recycled like sourdough starter
The rise of AI in climate investments (and where it’s actually useful)
Dawn’s own journey from sea turtle conservation to DOE policy to climate finance

What You Can Do:

Please subscribe and tell your friends about Everybody in the Pool!
Send feedback or become a sponsor! in@everybodyinthepool.com

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E106: Wine-making that restores the land

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re heading to Napa Valley... sadly not literally. This time, anyway! David Pearson, president of Joseph Phelps Vineyards, has spent his career in wine, but he’s now leading a transformation that’s as much about climate solutions as it is about Cabernet. It’s a story about farming, philosophy, and, yes, some really good wine.

We dig into:

What regenerative farming really means — and why it’s not just a buzzword
How microbes, fungi, and “living soils” can make better grapes (and better wine)
Why this approach is also climate adaptation in a warming world
The surprising connection between soil health, nutrient density, and taste
How big players like Moët Hennessy are backing the shift

What you can do to help:

Please subscribe and tell your friends about Everybody in the Pool!
Send feedback or become a sponsor! in@everybodyinthepool.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

E105: Lightship, the all-electric RV that tows itself

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Now for something fun — that can also be electricity generating infrastructure, if need be. My guest is Toby Kraus, co-founder and CEO of Lightship RV, the first American company to build all-electric RVs. The Lightship isn’t just a camper — it’s a battery on wheels, with solar on the roof, a pop-up design for aerodynamics, and its own motor to cancel out towing drag. That means you can take it off-grid for a week … or park it in your driveway and use it as backup power.

We talk about:

Why RVs are a surprisingly big climate story (one in ten American families owns one!)
The range problem with towing — and how Lightship solves it
Turning an RV into an ADU or a home backup system
How to make clean tech appeal beyond the early adopters

It’s the clean energy transition, with a side of camping.

👉 Next week, we’ll step away from the grid and hit the trails — stay tuned.

What You Can Do:

Subscribe and tell your friends about Everybody in the Pool!
Send feedback or become a sponsor: in@everybodyinthepool.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

E104: Solar panels you can print, roll, and deploy

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT

We’ve been talking storage, reliability, and the grid … but what if we could just make more clean energy in more places? This week on Everybody in the Pool, we look at solar in a whole new way.

My guest is Anthony Letmon, co-founder and CEO of Kardinia Energy, which makes ultra-lightweight, recyclable printed solar. Imagine solar that looks more like a concert poster than a heavy panel. You can roll it up, ship it anywhere, and stick it where traditional solar could never go.

We talk about:

Why weight keeps solar off millions of industrial roofs — and how printed solar solves that
Why Kardinia builds panels to last just five years on purpose
Coldplay’s global tour as a solar testbed
How printing solar could power disaster relief, data centers, even stadiums

It’s the solar solution you didn’t know we needed — and it could open up whole new markets for clean energy.

👉 Last week, we looked at grid stability with Wärtsilä. Next week, we’re going camping — with the future of RVs.

What You Can Do:

Subscribe and tell your friends about Everybody in the Pool!
Send feedback or become a sponsor: in@everybodyinthepool.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

E103: Every battery tech in the pool

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT

We’re wrapping up the Smart Grid Series with a rocket scientist who thinks the next big thing in batteries might actually be … zinc.

My guest is Mike Burz, co-founder and CEO of Enzinc, which is commercializing a zinc “sponge” anode developed with the U.S. Navy. The breakthrough: solving the dendrite problem that has historically killed rechargeable zinc batteries. The result? A safe, recyclable, low-cost chemistry that could power everything from scooters to data centers — and replace lead-acid or nickel-cadmium in millions of applications.

We cover:

Why storage is the foundation of a renewable grid
The Navy’s quest for a battery as safe as lead acid, but with the energy of lithium
How a metal sponge structure prevents dendrites and enables true rechargeability
Why zinc is abundant, cheap, and fully recyclable — unlike lithium
The “Intel Inside” business model: supplying drop-in anodes to existing manufacturers
First demos: e-bikes, golf carts, and telecom backup
Longer-term possibilities: zinc-air chemistries for aviation and long-duration storage
Why this is not about killing lithium but about giving the grid (and vehicles) safer, more appropriate options

Links & resources:

Enzinc — https://enzinc.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
Subscribe to the newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
Become a member for ad-free episodes: https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/

What you can do & what’s next:

Please subscribe and share Everybody in the Pool!
Send your feedback or ideas for future episodes: in@everybodyinthepool.com

Smart Grid Series recap:

E101: Flow batteries with XL Batteries
E102: Synthetic inertia & reliability with Wärtsilä
E103 (this episode): Rechargeable zinc with Enzinc

Next week, we shift gears — from storage to deployment — with printed solar that could go just about anywhere. 🌞

Together, we can get this done.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Special episode: The future of energy from RE+

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This special episode is brought to you by RE+—North America’s largest gathering of clean energy professionals, developed by the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

On Monday, Sept. 8, 2025, I gave the opening keynote at RE+ in Las Vegas about where the energy transition is headed—followed by a panel with two leaders building it at scale:

Ray Henger, CEO of Copia Power (developing gigawatts of renewables and data-center infrastructure)
Pedro Pizarro, President & CEO of Edison International (parent of Southern California Edison)

What you’ll hear:

Our full panel discussion on the future of the grid, the challenges of accomplishing skyrocketing demand and what that means for net zero goals
Data centers, meet reality: AI-driven load growth and how to keep reliability while adding massive new demand.
Utility POV: Transmission, interconnection queues, permitting, wildfire risk, and keeping customers whole.
Developers at scale: Financing in a higher-rate world, siting tradeoffs, and building projects communities actually want.

How this fits:

This special drops in the middle of our Smart Grid mini-series:

Episode 101: XL Batteries on long-duration, pH-neutral organic flow batteries for utility storage.
Episode 102 (airs Sept. 11): Wärtsilä on synthetic inertia and batteries as an “airbag” for the grid.
Episode 103 (airs next Thursday): Enzinc on zinc-based batteries that are safer, recyclable, and ready for mobility and stationary use.

Subscribe to the newsletter and find every episode at everybodyinthepool.com. Want an ad-free feed and to support the show directly? Tap the link in your podcast app. And send your thoughts—or a voice memo—to in@everybodyinthepool.com.

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E102: An airbag for the electrical grid

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Continuing our Smart Grid Series, we zoom in on reliability — because building more solar and wind doesn’t matter if the grid itself can’t stay stable. We’ve seen what happens when it fails: blackouts in Spain and Portugal earlier this year, near misses in Texas, rolling outages in California.

My guest is David Hebert, VP of Global Sales & Business Strategy at Wärtsilä Energy Storage. Wärtsilä is a 190-year-old company that now builds integrated storage systems combining hardware + software to keep grids reliable — even in moments of stress.

We dive into:

Why grid operators need fast, flexible tools beyond just generation
Synthetic inertia: batteries mimicking the stabilizing effect of spinning turbines
How storage can act like an “airbag” — catching a wobble before it cascades into blackout
Real-world deployments: from the UK’s Blackhillock project to island microgrids in Bonaire & Graciosa
Reliability + resilience: sectionalizing grids after hurricanes, blackstart capability, and non-wires alternatives
Enabling more renewables by smoothing intermittency and curtailment issues
Why batteries are the “Swiss Army knife” of the grid: frequency regulation, voltage support, time-shifting, backup power
Cost, customer adoption, and how utilities are (finally) moving past reflexive resistance

Links & resources:

Wärtsilä Energy Storage— https://www.wartsila.com/energy
Everybody in the Pool: all episodes & newsletter — https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
Become a paid subscriber for an ad-free feed (and my eternal gratitude) — https://plus.acast.com/s/everybody-in-the-pool

What you can do & what’s next:

Send me your thoughts: in@everybodyinthepool.com — have you lived through blackouts? Tried a microgrid?
Share this episode with a friend who loves geeking out about grid reliability.

Smart Grid Series lineup:

E101: Safe, long-duration flow batteries with XL Batteries
E102 (this episode): Grid “airbags” & synthetic inertia with Wärtsilä
E103 (next): A rechargeable zinc sponge anode that solves dendrites — Enzinc

Together, we can get this done.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

E101: Reinventing Grid Storage with XL Batteries

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 12:00:00 GMT

For the next few episodes, we’re digging into the wild world of energy and the aging global electricity grid. This week, we start where reliability begins: utility-scale storage. The grid we have was built for one-way power plants; the grid we need has to juggle rooftop solar at noon, heat waves at 6 p.m., EVs, and data centers galore.

My guest is Tom Sisto, founder & CEO of XL Batteries. His team is commercializing a pH-neutral, aqueous organic flow battery — a non-flammable, salt-water system using carbon-based molecules instead of vanadium. Think: safer, long-life storage you can scale for hours to days, without sulfuric acid or scarce metals.

We get into:

Why storage is the “time machine” the grid needs (match generation to demand, cut curtailment)
Flow batteries 101: engine vs. tank, independent power and duration, and why that matters for utilities
XL’s chemistry: organic charge carriers in neutral saltwater (no vanadium, no acid), designed for long life
Cost and safety vs. lithium — and why duration + cycle life drive utility economics
Real-world progress: containerized field unit, EPRI duty-cycle testing, and an industrial pilot at Stolthaven Terminals
Retrofit potential: turning existing petrochemical tanks into energy storage tanks
Storage-as-transmission: placing batteries on both sides of a bottleneck to double effective flow
Reliability + resilience: PSPS/wildfire shutoffs, hurricane backup, and data-center load growth
Where decentralization fits, and how industrial customers can de-risk adoption on the way to utility scale

Links & resources:

XL Batteries — https://xlbatteries.com/
Everybody in the Pool: all episodes & newsletter — https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
Become a paid subscriber for an ad-free feed (and my eternal gratitude) — https://plus.acast.com/s/everybody-in-the-pool

Call to action & what’s next:

Send thoughts & voice memos: in@everybodyinthepool.com — where do you see storage unlocking reliability?
If you liked this one, share it with a grid geek friend.

Smart Grid Series lineup:

E101 (this episode): Safe, long-duration flow batteries with XL Batteries
E102 (next): Grid “airbags” — synthetic inertia & fast frequency control with Wärtsilä
E103 (after that): A rechargeable zinc sponge anode that solves dendrites — Enzinc

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

E100: Together, we can get this done

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re celebrating our 100th episode with a look at what matters most: your actions.

Since this show began a little over two years ago, the goal has been simple — to spotlight innovation, ingenuity, and capital coming together to tackle the climate crisis. Hope is stronger than fear, but hope alone isn’t a plan. This milestone episode is about agency — the choices we make in our own lives, and how together, those choices add up to systemic change.

Listeners wrote in and sent voice memos sharing the climate actions they’ve taken:

Investing through platforms like Climatize to fund renewable energy projects
Moving retirement savings and banking into fossil fuel–free funds and community credit unions
Cutting back on red meat, shifting diets, and sourcing local food
Tackling food waste with apps like FlashFood and composting with Mill (our presenting sponsor for this week’s episode)
Retrofitting homes with solar, heat pumps, and energy efficiency upgrades
Rethinking careers, transportation, and even family planning with the climate in mind

Along the way, we revisit powerful clips from past episodes and highlight the ripple effects of these solutions — from decarbonizing finance to building circular food systems.

Thank you to everyone who has listened, shared, and taken action. This episode is a reminder that we are not helpless — our feedback, votes, purchases, and investments all send signals that drive change. Drops become a flood.

Thanks to Mill for sponsoring this week’s episode! Get $75 off yours with my custom link! https://www.mill.com/lp/mollywood?utm_source=newsletter-sponsorship&utm_medium=partnership&utm_campaign=everbodyinthepool &utm_content=mollywood

All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
Become a member and get an ad-free version of the podcast: https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/

Please subscribe and tell your friends about Everybody in the Pool! Send feedback or become a sponsor at in@everybodyinthepool.com!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

E99: Mapping the Ocean Economy with Tim Janssen

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 00:06:13 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re diving into ocean intelligence. Despite covering more than 70% of the Earth, the ocean remains one of the least understood parts of our climate system — and that knowledge gap has huge consequences for weather prediction, global commerce, and climate resilience.

Our guest is Tim Janssen, co-founder and CEO of Sofar Ocean, a company building the world’s largest privately deployed network of ocean sensors. Their inexpensive, solar-powered Spotter buoys collect real-time data on waves, weather, and water conditions — information that fuels better climate models, safer shipping routes, and more sustainable ocean economies.

We talk about:

The massive “ocean data gap” and why it hinders weather and climate forecasting
How Sofar’s 2,500+ Spotter buoys are creating the largest private ocean sensor network
Wayfinder, Sofar’s “Google Maps for ships,” and how it saves fuel and cuts emissions
Why more ocean intelligence is critical for industries from aquaculture to shipping
Partnerships with researchers, governments, and nonprofits to democratize ocean data
The bigger vision: turning ocean information into a foundation for climate solutions

From global trade to Pacific Island communities, ocean intelligence has the potential to save money, reduce emissions, and protect vulnerable coastlines. Janssen explains why data may be the most important climate solution of all.

E98: Nano-bubbles, aquaculture and spas with Nick Dyner

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re talking ocean tech — in a slightly roundabout way. Nano-bubbles are a tiny but powerful technology that’s helping to make a big climate impact across wastewater treatment, irrigation, aquaculture, and more.

Our guest is Nick Dyner, CEO of Moleaer, a company that manufactures systems to produce nano-bubbles — microscopic bubbles that can enhance chemical, physical, and biological processes. The applications range from improving crop yields to cleaning food without chemicals, reducing energy use in wastewater treatment, and even building a nearly chlorine-free Jacuzzi.

We talk about:

How nano-bubbles work and why they stay in water for weeks or months
The potential to cut energy use in wastewater aeration, which consumes 2% of global electricity
Using nano-bubbles to boost irrigation efficiency, reduce chemicals, and increase yields
Applications in aquaculture, from improving salmon welfare to remediating ocean floors
Surprising future possibilities — from replacing soap to targeted cancer treatments
Why this “new class of science” is already deployed in more than 4,000 systems worldwide

From salmon farms in Norway to backyard spas, Nick explains how nano-bubbles could be a critical tool for climate solutions today — and the sci-fi breakthroughs of tomorrow.

E97: Investing in the Ocean Economy with Kate Danaher

Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re kicking off a mini-series on the ocean — the world’s largest carbon sink, a source of food for nearly half the global population, home to 80% of animal life on Earth, and heating faster than expected. It’s also a climate tech category full of untapped investment opportunities.

Our guest is Kate Danaher, Managing Director at S2G Investments, where she co-leads the firm’s oceans and seafood strategy. S2G is a growth-stage investment firm focused on food and agriculture, clean energy, and the ocean economy — and Kate’s work connects all three for maximum systems-level impact.

We talk about:

🚢 Why the ocean is more than a philanthropic cause — and how multi-trillion-dollar industries depend on it
🌬 Decarbonizing the maritime industry, which moves 80–90% of global goods and emits 3% of total greenhouse gases
⚡️ The technologies gaining traction fastest: route optimization, air lubrication, wind-assisted propulsion, and batteries
📡 Building better ocean intelligence with satellites, sensors, and unmanned vessels — and why balancing proprietary data with the public good is tricky
🐟 How aquaculture can take pressure off wild fisheries, and the tech making it cleaner and more efficient
🌍 Why global regulation (with or without the U.S.) is creating momentum for change

From high-tech sails ⛵️ to land-based fish farms 🏭🐠, Kate shares how aligning economic value with ocean health could unlock massive climate impact.

E96: Stuart Goldsmith — Comedy, Climate & Confusion

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 23:02:36 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re continuing Storyteller Summer with a stand-up comic who proves you can turn any job into a climate job — even one that usually involves jokes about socks.

Our guest is Stuart Goldsmith, a veteran stand-up comedian and host of The Comedian’s Comedian podcast, who now focuses almost entirely on the climate crisis. But instead of lectures or charts, Stuart brings humor, humility, and a healthy dose of self-deprecation to a topic that’s often overwhelming.

We talk about:

The long, strange road from Covent Garden street performer to climate comedy evangelist
Why “the problems are the material” — especially when it comes to eco-anxiety
The art of bombing (a lot) while trying to make ocean acidification funny
Making your own hypocrisy the butt of the joke
Why climate storytelling needs more action and less guilt

Also: sticky jokes, snow leopards, tariff metaphors, LinkedIn mic drops, and the surprisingly dark comedy of unaffordable insurance premiums.

This is climate storytelling at its smartest and most disarming. (And if you’re hiring a climate comic, please drop this man a line — his American clients have all fled!)

E95: Convening for Climate with Aimée Christensen

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re diving into the power of convening — and what happens when global climate leaders, local food producers, indigenous communities, philanthropists, and data nerds get in the same room... and then go mountain biking together.

Our guest is Aimée Christensen, a longtime climate champion and founder of Christensen Global, the Sun Valley Forum, and the Sun Valley Institute for Resilience. From negotiating clean energy deals at the Department of Energy to putting Google on the path to carbon neutrality, Aimée has worked at the highest levels of policy, law, business, and philanthropy.

She’s now focused on making an impact both globally and in her hometown of Sun Valley, Idaho — where she’s built a powerful hub for innovation and resilience. We talk about:

Her remarkable journey from the Earth Summit in Rio to Google.org and beyond
The origins and goals of the Sun Valley Forum
Why gathering people is a critical tool in solving the climate crisis
The incredible ripple effects of partnerships and solutions born at the Forum
Building resilient communities through food, energy, and investment

Don’t miss the short clip from this year’s Forum to see how nature quite literally stole the show.

E94: Ahmad Ghahreman: Recycling rare-earth metals, America’s only backup plan

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we explore the pioneering world of rare earth metal recycling with Ahmad Ghahreman, CEO and co-founder of Cyclic Materials. This is a a technology with big environmental implications, and a whole lot of geopolitical ones also. Rare earth metals are used to make magnets that are part of electric motors and wind turbines, on the clean tech side, but also kind of everything else electronic, including things like laser guidance systems, missiles, and jet engines. And China controls pretty much the entire market — and, since April, has stopped almost all shipments of metals and magnets!

Discover how Cyclic Materials addresses the critical challenge of recycling rare earth metals—essential for a sustainable, electrified future. Ahmad shares his journey from hydrometallurgy to developing innovative processes that extract high-value metals from discarded goods. As electrification accelerates demand, understand why recycling these metals is both an environmental imperative and an economic necessity.

Key Points

Recycling Importance: Emphasizing the need to recycle rare earth elements like neodymium and dysprosium, critical for manufacturing electric motor magnets.
Technical Challenges: Unpacking the complexities of extracting these metals and how Cyclic Materials develops solutions to overcome these hurdles.
Geopolitical and Supply Chain Insights: Ahmad’s perspective on the implications of locally producing these critical metals in North America and Europe, enhancing supply chain resilience.

Resources & Links

Visit Cyclic Materials
Connect with Ahmad Ghahreman on LinkedIn
Listen to all episodes: Everybody in the Pool
Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter
Get an ad-free experience: Become a Member

Help us spread the word about sustainable solutions!

Please subscribe and share Everybody in the Pool with your friends!
We value your feedback and inquiries: Contact us

Explore how innovative recycling solutions are vital for a cleaner, sustainable future. Tune in for valuable insights and engaging conversations.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

E93: Rev Yearwood on telling climate stories to everyone

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re sticking with the theme of climate storytelling and climate communication with a well-known activist and advocate for justice, climate action, equity, and getting out the vote. Rev Yearwood is the president of the nonprofit Hip Hop Caucus, which works to engage young people around voting and community service, and he also advises the Bloomberg Foundation on climate storytelling projects. He and Molly talk about putting the climate crisis in a language everyone can understand, why there aren’t any hip hop songs about climate change (yet?), and how Earth is like a spouse we need to stop taking for granted.

Bonus: Processing climate change through fiction

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 14:33:37 GMT

This week on "Everybody in the Pool," we are on one last week of summer vacation but we didn’t want to leave you without anything to listen to any longer! One of Molly’s other projects is a podcast called Futureverse, where she and co-host Ramanan Raghavendran interview authors of climate fiction, to try to understand how fiction and science fiction imagine a present or a future in the world of a changing climate. Recently, they interviewed the Harvard professor and scientist Naomi Oreskes. She is known for her climate change activism, for nonfiction works on coordinated disinformation, and for trying to communicate science to the masses — which led her to co-author a work of fiction called The Collapse of Western Civilization. We spoke with her about knowing what’s coming, how to stop it, how to win people to your side, and how sometimes fiction can tell better stories than science.

E92: Sharing the love with Supercool

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on "Everybody in the Pool," Molly Wood chats with Josh Dorfman, the dynamic co-founder and CEO of Supercool, a media company dedicated to highlighting climate solutions that cut carbon, boost business, and enhance modern life. In this episode, Josh shares insights from his journey in sustainability, from developing carbon-negative building materials to launching Supercool to spotlight scalable climate solutions.

Explore how Josh envisions a future where climate initiatives are not just about avoiding disaster but are pathways to a more exciting and innovative world. Discover the critical role of storytelling in transforming climate tech adoption and the surprising innovation layers driving real change.

Join us as we dive into the stories of people who are working smartly and tirelessly towards a sustainable future. Whether you're a climate tech enthusiast or a green lifestyle advocate, this episode sheds light on the collective effort needed to drive progress.

Listen now and get inspired by the brilliant minds propelling us towards a better, greener future.

LINKS:

Supercool
Linkedin - supercool
Josh Dorfman
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
Become a member and get an ad-free version of the podcast: https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/

Please subscribe and tell your friends about Everybody in the Pool! Send feedback or become a sponsor at in@everybodyinthepool.com!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

E91: Saving federal data with Jonathan Gilmour

Fri, 30 May 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we're taking a deep dive into the unsung hero of climate solutions: federal data. This crucial data helps predict extreme weather, guide public health responses, and by the way, underpins a whole lot of existing and future climate tech startups. But the US government is pulling the plug on long-standing climate infrastructure, and all kinds of groups are scrambling to protect it. Molly talks with Jonathan Gilmour, a data scientist from Harvard, who’s on a mission to protect this precious resource. He's part of a team working tirelessly to keep these datasets safe and accessible for all the researchers, startups, and policymakers who need them. If you're curious about how federal data impacts everything from insurance rates to groundbreaking tech innovations, this episode is a must-listen. Discover why protecting this data is not just important—it's essential for our future.

E90: BioLite: camping stoves and the future of energy

Thu, 22 May 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, it’s the final installation in our Kickstarter Successes miniseries. Molly talks to Jonathan Cedar, founder and CEO of BioLite. You’ll hear how BioLite uses their innovative "parallel innovation" model to deliver clean energy solutions to over 15 million people. The company started with a mission to tackle off-grid energy poverty in developing countries, which led to a range of products for the US market as well, from camping stoves to solar lights to lanterns to a forthcoming line of backup power solutions. Hear how BioLite manages both commercial and mission-driven product lines, and how it used Kickstarter to “hack” the startup funding model.

E89: Projectile tree-planting with Flash Forest

Thu, 15 May 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re looking at a climate tech company that’s a Kickstarter graduate with a surprisingly action-movie sounding solution to reforestation. Flash Forest is using drones that fire (harmless) seed projectiles at the ground to help automate and speed up reforestation. Co-founder Cameron Jones tells Molly how the mission to plant a billion trees was sparked by personal experiences with wildfire devastation in Canada, inspiring him to start the business with his brother. He shares insights on the challenges and triumphs of launching a Kickstarter-funded venture, turning innovative ideas into a reality. Stay tuned as we continue our miniseries on Kickstarter's success stories next week with Jonathan Cedar of BioLite.

E88: How Kickstarter lets anyone fund climate startups

Thu, 08 May 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re looking at some innovative ways to get money to the climate startups that need it — specifically, crowdfunding climate solutions on Kickstarter. Molly chats with Nathan Nalevanko from Kickstarter's design and technology team, uncovering how alternative funding can drive sustainability projects and how Kickstarter has been recruiting companies in this category, and helping them with promotion and even marketing. In the coming weeks, we’ll feature Kickstarter success stories Flash Forest and BioLite.

Kickstarter
Nathan Nalevanko
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
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E87: Re-air: Mill, the prettiest composter on the block

Thu, 01 May 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we couldn’t let Earth Month pass without one last conversation about consumer action and devices—and this week, we’re re-airing a conversation from someone who’s an expert at designing things that people want to buy. Matt Rogers is the co-founder of Mill, a kitchen appliance that turns food waste into dried, odorless grounds that consumers drop in the mail and that get upcycled into chicken feed. And Matt just happens to have also co-founded a little company called Nest, which has been a powerful driver of energy efficiency. He and Molly talk about how food waste is the unexpected giant emitter that requires major behavior change, and sometimes, a sexy gadget is just what you need to make that change.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Mill
Mill vs Lomi via Architectural Digest
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
Become a member and get an ad-free version of the podcast: https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/

Please subscribe and tell your friends about Everybody in the Pool! Send feedback or become a sponsor at in@everybodyinthepool.com!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

E86: Savor and the science of building a better butter

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re still diving into the choices that you can make as a consumer, in our Earth Month of personal climate action! And this one is a biggie: food. We love a climate entrepreneur with a vision to solve a big problem who goes looking around and lands on one you might not have thought of. Savor founder Kathleen Alexander did her research and landed on fats and oils, which are detrimental in all kinds of ways, from the way we practice agriculture to deforestation to energy use. Her company uses molecular construction to create replacement versions of fats and oils, starting with a butter that’s good enough to be in the chocolates of a Michelin-star restaurant. Taste test within!

E85: Commons: sustainable shopping made easy

Thu, 17 Apr 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, it’s Earth Month of personal climate action! This week we’re tackling an all-too-common question: I want to shop more sustainably, but I’m not sure what to buy (or what not to buy)! Commons is an app and website that helps you easily find sustainable alternatives to everyday items — mostly clothes and textiles now, with more to come. Founder Sanchali Pal is a self-described data nerd who’s been tracking her own carbon footprint, and the impact of her personal choices, for over a decade now. And here’s the thing: we keep getting told that we’re powerless and companies need to make meaningful change, but the truth is, they’re listening to us, and the votes of our dollars matter now more than ever.

E84: HomeBoost: a home energy assessment in a box

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re continuing our Earth Month of personal climate action! If your house is anything like mine, it’s a leaky sieve of escaping heat or cool air, your HVAC filters are disgusting, and there are sneaky fluorescent bulbs hanging around the house. It’s costing you money, and it’s wasting energy, meaning it’s contributing to planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in a way that’s probably fairly easy to avoid. This week, I’m talking to Evite founder Selina Tobaccowala about the company she has since founded, HomeBoost, and how it’s helping homeowners make their homes more comfortable, energy efficient, and lower utility bills as a result.

E83: Atomo Coffee: Finally, a coffee replacement that won’t break your heart

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re kicking off Earth Month with a month of action! Our choices matter, and one of the choices I’ve been avoiding is how to replace coffee — which contributes to deforestation, is energy intensive to produce, and isn’t good news for the coffee farmers, either. This week, we’re talking with Andy Kleitsch, founder of Atomo Coffee, about their sustainable coffee blends, the road to adoption and the compromises it sometimes entails, and some surprising trivia related to camels and date pits.

Atomo Coffee
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E82: Topofinance: How banking is the secret to gigantic climate action

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, bummer news: your bank deposits could be funding the climate crisis? But we’d never give you bummer news without a solution! This week, Molly Wood speaks with Paul Moinester, founder of Topofinance, who reveals the shocking climate impact of conventional banking. Discover how just $10,000 in a major bank generates emissions equivalent to driving 10,000 miles yearly, and why moving your money to climate-friendly banks might be the easiest climate action you've never considered. Paul explains how corporations' banking emissions often exceed all their other emissions combined, and introduces innovative solutions that make greener banking both simple and profitable.

E81: This carbon removal tech is literally rocket science

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 12:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, Molly Wood talks with Brad Hartwig, co-founder and CEO of Arbor Energy. Brad shares his remarkable journey from SpaceX rocket engineer to climate tech entrepreneur, developing technology that transforms waste biomass into carbon-negative energy using rocket propulsion principles. Yep, you read that right. A guy who used to want to be an astronaut woke up one day and realized this planet was the place to put his energy. Find out how Arbor’s tech could replace fossil fuel plants while simultaneously removing carbon from the atmosphere.

Show Highlights

Brad's transition from aerospace engineering at SpaceX to climate tech after witnessing California wildfires firsthand
How Arbor Energy's technology uses "oxy combustion" (inspired by rocket engines) to generate clean electricity while capturing carbon
The system produces no emissions - only pure CO2 (for sequestration) and clean water
Potential to replace up to 60 gigawatts of coal and natural gas plants in the US with carbon-negative power
Uses only waste biomass from agriculture, forestry, and potentially municipal waste
Economic benefits for wildfire prevention through monetizing brush clearing
First commercial deployment targeted for 2027

Resources

Arbor Energy
Brad Hartwig
Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson - Climate fiction book mentioned by Brad
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E80: Young people are suing for a livable future

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 19:16:15 GMT

In this episode of Everybody in the Pool, host Molly Wood speaks with Mat Dos Santos, co-executive director of Our Children's Trust, about how his organization is using the legal system to fight climate change on behalf of youth plaintiffs — the kids who have the most to lose if we get this wrong. Learn how landmark victories in Montana and Hawaii are creating precedents that could reshape climate policy across America.

Key Takeaways:

Constitutional Climate Rights: Our Children's Trust secured a historic victory in Montana, establishing that the state constitution's "clean and healthful environment" provision protects young people's right to a livable climate future.
Youth-Led Legal Action: Children and teens have standing to sue over climate policies because they face disproportionate, long-term impacts from climate change and have limited political voice.
Government Accountability: These cases highlight how fossil fuel development requires government permission and subsidies, challenging the "market-driven" narrative.
Recent Victories: The Montana Supreme Court ruling forces the state to consider climate impacts in permitting, while a Hawaii settlement requires complete transportation decarbonization by 2045.
Juliana v. United States: Learn about the ongoing federal case arguing that the U.S. government has violated young people's constitutional rights by knowingly promoting a fossil fuel system despite understanding climate dangers.

E79: Cocoon Carbon: fixing the unintended consequences of decarbonization

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 13:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, host Molly Wood talks with Eliot Brooks, founder and CEO of Cocoon Carbon, about an unexpected climate tech challenge: how decarbonizing steel production is disrupting concrete's path to net zero. Brooks explains how his startup transforms problematic steel slag from modern electric arc furnaces into valuable materials that reduce concrete's carbon footprint while cutting costs.

Key Takeaways:

Learn how steel's shift to cleaner production methods has unintentionally limited concrete's access to low-carbon materials
Discover how Cocoon Carbon's modular technology transforms waste into valuable cement alternatives
Understand why addressing interconnected industrial challenges creates powerful climate tech opportunities
Find out how this solution makes decarbonization more affordable for both industries, representing 15% of global emissions

More resources:

Cocoon Carbon
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E78: The case for (investing in) nature

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 13:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re exploring what might be the most overlooked tool in our climate toolkit: nature itself. Yes, we like to geek out about purely technological solutions like fusion or direct-air carbon capture or electric vehicles or consumer compost devices, but there's a whole world of climate solutions that nature has already perfected over millions of years. But how does the financial world think about these solutions? Siddarth Shrikanth is an investor at Just Climate, a division of the Al Gore-founded investment firm Generation Investment Management. He’s also the author of a book called The Case for Nature. We talk about the twin crises of nature and biodiversity loss plus climate change, and how their convergence is a threat and an opportunity of equal scale.

E77: Gigascale’s Mike Schroepfer and the laws of climate technology

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 17:27:24 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re going to keep talking about tech and climate innovation with a longtime technologist turned climate tech investor. Mike Schroepfer runs the investment fund Gigascale Capital, which has invested in some of the biggest names in climate tech: Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Mill, Form Energy, and a couple other names that will be appearing soon on this very show. Schrep, as he’s known, is also the former CTO of Facebook, so he’s someone with a long view of how tech evolves and gets adopted. Join us for a fascinating conversation about the inflection point we’re at with climate tech, how AI can in fact lead to cleaner energy, and how a better world is still within reach.

E76: Feeding the Matrix: JoAnn Garbin

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 22:14:37 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, it’s the last official episode of our miniseries, Feeding the Matrix, all about AI, energy use, and data center design. To cap off this series, Molly spoke with JoAnn Garbin, a longtime technologist, sustainability advocate, and innovator, about her work reimagining data center design at Microsoft. It turns out, the company realized years ago that communities might start rejecting new data center construction if they were too resource-intensive, polluting, or just plain ugly. Hear about how that exercise led to net-positive data center concepts, where that project sits now, and all about JoAnn’s new book, The Insider’s Guide to Innovation at Microsoft.

E75: Feeding the Matrix: Realta Fusion

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 20:59:40 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re continuing our series on AI and energy use, exploring how to expand data centers and computing without sacrificing sustainability goals or, you know, a livable planet. This week, we’re turning toward some innovations that could make that seemingly impossible goal a reality. Realta Fusion is a fusion energy company that spun out of the University of Wisconsin. It’s one of many startups working toward generating fusion energy—the clean, abundant energy that is the same reaction that powers the sun. But Realta is taking an interesting approach to deployment: it hopes to build fusion energy power plants right next to data centers or other facilities with intensive energy needs. Listen to Molly’s conversation with CEO Kieran Furlong.

E74: Feeding the Matrix: AWS

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 16:06:38 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, it’s the second episode in our special series on AI and energy use. When it comes to making data centers more energy efficient, few have a larger burden than Amazon’s AWS — the world’s largest cloud provider by market share. Molly talks with Chris Walker, head of sustainability for AWS, about how the company’s customers are pushing it to be as energy efficient as possible, for reasons of economics and the environment. He touches on an Accenture study that says moving AI operations to the cloud can be four times more efficient than doing them on-site. And Walker says making data centers more efficient involves everything from water positivity to producing custom chips (sorry, Nvidia) to simply rearranging the furniture.

E73: Feeding the Matrix: Nvidia

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 13:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, it’s the first episode in our special series on AI and energy use. We’re starting at the foundational layer of AI computing: the chips. Nvidia is the undisputed leader when it comes to providing the processors (and networking equipment and cards and servers and racks) and the software platform that lets companies use those chips to train AI models. But what’s the company’s responsibility when it comes to enabling more sustainable AI? We spoke with Nvidia’s head of sustainability about how the company is making its chip architecture 96% more efficient compared to just two years ago, how it’s pioneering digital twinning to model more energy-efficient data center construction (among other things) and how its their belief that companies are not pulling back on their sustainability goals in the age of AI. Fingers crossed!

E0: Feeding the Matrix: a special series on AI and climate, coming soon

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 13:00:00 GMT

Welcome back to the third season of Everybody in the Pool! Well, almost. We’re busy preparing an exciting way to kick off the new year: with a four-part series on everybody’s favorite topic, AI and energy use. We’ve already been worried about data centers and their global electricity consumption, but training new AI models (and answering our inane questions and writing emails for us) are pushing that demand potentially exponentially higher. In this series, we’ll talk to executives from chip giant Nvidia and data center giant AWS (you know, Amazon), about their efforts to make computing more energy efficient, and then we’ll turn to innovation with a fusion energy company that hopes to build plants right next to data centers, and a former Microsoft exec who was in charge of designing regenerative data centers. Get ready — “Feeding the Matrix” drops next week!

E72: Every climate apocalypse is local

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 13:00:37 GMT

This week, we are leaning into a powerful tool in the fight against climate change: storytelling. Molly talks with Greg Jacobs, co-director of The Here Now Project, about the innovative documentary, which presents climate change through the eyes of ordinary people worldwide. The film aims to evoke a sense of urgency and community around climate action, By demonstrating a series of climate shocks over the course of a single year, from a historic deep freeze in Texas to plagues of locusts and sea snot. The climate crisis is a global problem that hits home no matter where you are.

E71: Kill the laundry pods and jugs! Dehydrated laundry sheets are the future

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 13:00:03 GMT

In this conversation, GL Genco, founder of Generation Conscious, talks about how his company has created vending machines for dehydrated laundry detergent sheets. The goal is to promote sustainability and reduce waste, yes, but also to change the way we think about how we shop for hygiene products overall. He shares his personal journey, the environmental impact of traditional packaging, and the importance of making eco-friendly products accessible to all, particularly in university settings. The discussion also covers the potential for future expansion into other hygiene products and the role of data in enhancing user engagement and operational efficiency.

E70: The Invisible Energy Leak in Your Home (And How to Fix It)

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 17:57:26 GMT

In this episode of Everybody in the Pool, host Molly Wood explores an overlooked climate solution hiding in plain sight: leaky air ducts and building envelopes. She speaks with Amit Gupta, CEO of Aeroseal, about an innovative technology that uses "pixie dust" physics to seal energy-wasting leaks in buildings. Learn how up to 40% of your heating and cooling could be escaping through poorly sealed ducts, and discover a solution that's good for both the planet and your wallet.

"Leaking air ducts is the single largest reason for energy wastage in US homes. Single largest reason, right? And nobody is fixing it." - Amit Gupta

The episode reveals how simple infrastructure fixes could make a significant impact on both home comfort and climate change, with insights into how this technology is being used in everything from residential homes to hospitals and commercial buildings.

E69: RE-AIR: Make climate action easy by throwing a party!

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 13:00:05 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we are re-visiting a favorite episode from season 1, and maybe it’ll inspire you and your friends and family toward a fun holiday activity! Obviously, global warming and the climate crisis are intimidating topics. But this week’s guest has built an entire career out of play. Jenny Gottstein is a game-maker, previously of Go Games and IDEO, and a few years ago, she created a game called Beat! That! Heat!, a climate action game show. Molly and Jenny talk about how play can create an accessible conversation that celebrates climate action no matter where you start, offers an onramp to the conversation for people who are curious but embarrassed, and did I mention that making games for a living is an actual job?

E68: Pro athletes who are advocating for greener sports

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 13:00:46 GMT

In this conversation, Chris Dickerson, co-founder of Players for the Planet, discusses his journey from being a professional athlete to becoming an advocate for environmental awareness in sports. He shares insights on the impact of sports on the environment, the importance of community engagement, and the need for systemic change in how sports organizations handle waste and sustainability. The conversation highlights the evolution of Players for the Planet, the challenges faced in promoting climate action, and the innovative solutions being explored to create a more sustainable future in sports.

E67: You would not believe how much water went into making your iPhone

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 15:34:31 GMT

Usually on the show we talk about carbon-emitting sectors, but today we’re talking about one of the planet’s most precious resources: water. Specifically, industrial water, which is used in staggering amounts, horribly contaminated, and sometimes just put right back into the environment. Anurag Bajpayee, CEO of Gradiant, discusses the company's technology-driven end-to-end water solutions and their goal to conserve water for future generations and give nature its water back. Gradiant's approach is practical, driven by the outcome of cleaning and recycling water, rather than a specific technology or innovation (although there are plenty of innovations), and their latest achievement is a process to concentrate and destroy PFAS—aka, forever chemicals.

E66: Sealed: Making it affordable to decarbonize your home

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Installing climate-friendly home upgrades is expensive—lots of new tax rebates and incentives can help make it cheaper, but only if you can actually get them. Sealed is a company that focuses on residential energy efficiency and electrification and recently pivoted to helping contractors find new customers and take advantage of those all-important subsidies.

E65: Decarbonizing your house? Start with GoodLeap

Thu, 17 Oct 2024 23:29:37 GMT

GoodLeap is a technology-first company that aims to be a premier marketplace for all things sustainability in the home. They provide tools and resources for both homeowners and contractors to make sustainable home improvements easier and more accessible. GoodLeap offers a platform for homeowners to explore different sustainability options, connect with vetted contractors, and access financing options. They also provide education and support for contractors, helping them navigate the complex landscape of sustainability products and incentives. GoodLeap is committed to shaping the energy transition and working with utilities to create a more decentralized, distributed, and democratized energy system.

E64: How Twelve is turning captured carbon into jet fuel

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Etosha Cave, co-founder of 12, a carbon transformation company, discusses the origin story of the company and its focus on creating jet fuel from CO2 and water. The company's technology mimics the process of trees, taking in CO2 and water and using electricity to break them down into smaller atomic bits and reforming them into new molecules. The main motivation behind the company's work is the desire to create clean and abundant energy, driven by Cave's personal experience growing up near an abandoned oil and gas waste site. 12 is currently in the process of commercializing its technology and has announced partnerships with Alaska Airlines and IAG, the parent company of British Airways.

E63: The game-changer: fusion energy is closer than you think

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 12:00:10 GMT

This week on the show, Molly talks with Bob Mumgaard, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, at an event that was held during New York Climate Week. Fusion energy is one of the most promising and biggest swings we can take toward solving the climate crisis and potentially reversing some of the damage we’ve already done. Fusion energy is the same type of energy that powers the sun; if we can generate that kind of energy economically on Earth, we could have a nearly limitless source of energy that emits no carbon emissions and with minimal long-lasting radioactive waste. It’s the kind of technology that really could change everything, and companies like Commonwealth Fusion Systems are a lot closer to this reality than you might think.

E62: Draining the tub: Using the ocean to capture carbon

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 12:00:14 GMT

Steve Oldham, CEO of Captura, discusses carbon capture and removal, highlighting the importance of these processes in achieving climate goals. He explains that carbon capture aims to turn off the 'taps' of CO2 emissions, while carbon removal directly removes CO2 from the atmosphere. Captura focuses on utilizing the ocean's natural ability to capture CO2 through a process called electrodialysis. Oldham emphasizes that their process is designed to be environmentally friendly and does not harm the ocean. He also discusses the potential customers for Captura's technology, including new companies and existing energy companies looking to transition from fossil fuels.

E61: Woven Capital: Investing in the Future of Toyota

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Nicole LeBlanc, a partner with Woven Capital, discusses the $800 million growth venture capital fund for Toyota and its investments in sectors that support the growth and future of Toyota. The fund focuses on three core pillars: electrification, intelligence (software), and diversification. LeBlanc highlights two investments: Corvus Energy, a company that provides batteries and hydrogen for zero-emission marine vehicles, and Intuition Robotics, an AI companion for the elderly that helps reduce loneliness and provide mobility. LeBlanc also discusses the challenges and benefits of corporate venture capital, as well as the role of it plays in driving innovation and sustainability in the automotive industry.

E60: Turning poop into propane

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 12:00:26 GMT

This week, we’re talking about renewable fuels — specifically cleaner propane. Propane, as it turns out, is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions that not a lot of people are tackling. Dr. Rebecca Boudreaux, President and CEO of Oberon Fuels, talks about the company's work in decarbonizing the global propane sector. Oberon Fuels produces molecules out of bio-waste that can be blended into cleaner propane, and used in various applications, including transportation, industrial, and residential heating. The company leverages existing infrastructure and works with partners in the propane industry to bring renewable fuels to market. Boudreaux also highlights the challenges of commercializing new technologies—including having to spearhead a whole new set of tax regulations.

E59: Why yes, you actually can recycle EV batteries

Thu, 29 Aug 2024 12:00:00 GMT

We need battery materials, but we also need to reduce mining and critical minerals extraction and centralizing production outside our borders. So, this week, we’re talking about making batteries from old batteries. Mike O'Kronley, CEO of Ascend Elements, discusses the mission of his company to make batteries more sustainable by producing high-performance cathode materials from recycled batteries. The focus is on NMC batteries, which are primarily used in electric vehicles (EVs) and grid storage. By recycling critical minerals like nickel and cobalt, Ascend Elements helps address supply chain security and reduce the carbon footprint of battery production. The company also solves the problem of battery recycling, debunking the myth that EV batteries end up in landfills.

E58: A cookbook for making plastics, textiles, and other materials from nature

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 21:27:52 GMT

We talk to a lot of startups, but this week’s guest is a platform for inspiring and supporting a whole bunch of startups! Alysia Garmulewicz, co-founder and co-CEO of Materiom, discusses the importance of developing regenerative biomaterials as alternatives to petroleum plastics. Materiom offers an open database of biomaterial recipes, providing entrepreneurs and innovators with the information they need to create new materials. They also integrate generative AI into their platform to help startups optimize their biomaterial formulations and shorten the R&D cycle. The goal is to replace materials in sectors like packaging and textiles, with a focus on fast-moving consumer goods.

E57: Maybe DON’T take venture capital for your climate tech startup

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 12:00:49 GMT

Every thriving ecosystem needs connectors, support systems—pollinators, in fact. This week, Molly is joined by Jon Bonanno, the managing partner of Factor, to talk about building great climate companies with a combination of human skills, networking and introductions, and smarter ways to raise money. Jon pivoted into climate tech after the attacks of 9/11 left him deeply shaken. He emphasizes the violence and centralization of the fossil economy and the need for a transition to a clean economy that benefits all communities. He also explains the grant-making process and how it can be used as a commercialization tool for companies without requiring them to give up huge amounts of equity in their companies. Factor is a grant writing and advisory firm that helps climate companies navigate the grant application process.

Ep 56: Cutting-edge tech to keep food growing, no matter what

Thu, 18 Jul 2024 17:15:09 GMT

Agriculture contributes to climate change, sure, but climate change also makes agriculture a whole lot harder. This week, Poornima Parameswaran, co-founder and CEO of Trace Genomics, discusses the company's mission to unlock the hidden potential of soil and empower farmers to make data-driven decisions. By analyzing DNA mapping, data science, and machine learning, Trace Genomics provides farmers with comprehensive insights into their soil's biological and chemical properties. The data is used to optimize farming practices, improve yields, and mitigate disease risks. The goal is to build resilient soils and create a sustainable food system that’s ready for any climate.

Ep 55: More paint on Stonehenge, please! The power of climate activism

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 15:53:13 GMT

Dana R. Fisher, author of “Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action,” discusses the importance of activism in addressing the climate crisis. She explains that while the state and the market have not been able to solve the crisis, civil society has a crucial role to play. Fisher highlights the role of the radical flank, which engages in attention-getting actions to raise awareness and expand the movement (like throwing orange cornstarch on Stonehenge).

She emphasizes that these actions are nonviolent and aim to draw more people who are sympathetic to the cause. Fisher also discusses the need for a mass movement that pushes back against fossil fuel interests and works through various channels, including the electoral process and lobbying. And we discuss what it takes to turn attention-getting actions into mass mobilization.

Ep 54: ARPA-E Innovation Summit: Electric Airplanes, Laser Steel, and More

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 12:00:54 GMT

In this episode, we take you on an exciting journey to the ARPA-E Innovation Summit in Dallas, Texas. ARPA-E is a division of the government’s advanced research and projects agency, tasked with finding and funding the latest and greatest technology innovations to transform America’s energy production and use. Join Molly Wood on a walking tour of the summit’s expo hall, where she dives into the world of electric airplanes, laser-manufactured steel, and innovative solutions for the oil and gas industry.

Links:

ARPA-E Summit: https://www.arpae-summit.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
Become a member and get an ad-free version of the podcast: https://plus.acast.com/s/everybody-in-the-pool

Please subscribe and tell your friends about Everybody in the Pool! Send feedback or become a sponsor! in@everybodyinthepool.com

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Ep 53: How to secure our future food supply

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 12:00:32 GMT

Coffee, chocolate, oranges, berries, and a lot more foods are at risk of becoming harder to grow and even outright scarce as climate change worsens—oh and existing agriculture has lots of negative climate impacts. What if we could make high-quality, sustainable food accessible to everyone? In this episode of Everybody in the Pool, Molly Wood speaks with Gilwoo Lee, founder and CEO of Zordi. Zordi is an ag-tech company that combines greenhouses, robots, and AI to create autonomous food-growing environments that address the challenges of climate change and food security.

In This Episode, We Cover:

The origins and mission of Zordi
How Zordi’s technology combines greenhouses, robots, and AI for sustainable farming
The environmental and economic benefits of local, automated food production
Challenges and breakthroughs in indoor farming
The future of Zordi's technology and its potential impact on global food systems

Links:

Zordi: https://www.zordi.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
Become a member and get an ad-free version of the podcast: https://plus.acast.com/s/everybody-in-the-pool

Please subscribe and tell your friends about Everybody in the Pool!

Send feedback or become a sponsor! in@everybodyinthepool.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep 52: How Salesforce is Pushing for Greener AI

Fri, 14 Jun 2024 01:20:06 GMT

We all know we need companies to lead the climate transition, so which companies are doing the work? In this episode of Everybody in the Pool, Molly Wood speaks with Megan Lorenzen, Director of Climate and Energy at Salesforce, about the company's groundbreaking efforts in sustainability. Salesforce has achieved a rare milestone: powering its operations with 100% renewable energy. It’s also pushing industry changes like the Green Code Initiative, which reduces carbon emissions via efficient coding practices.

But the company’s newest move is the launch of its Salesforce Sustainable AI Principles, which focus on reducing AI's environmental impact while promoting innovation. These principles direct its own AI development but also call for AI regulation that takes climate impact into account, in addition to other considerations.

In This Episode, We Cover:

Salesforce's journey to 100% renewable energy
The impact of Salesforce's Green Code initiative on reducing carbon emissions
How Salesforce's Sustainable AI Principles are shaping the future of technology
The role of corporate leadership in driving climate action
Salesforce’s efforts to maximize the environmental benefits of AI

Links:

Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/
Green Code Initiative: https://www.salesforce.com/green-code
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
Become a member and get an ad-free version of the podcast: https://plus.acast.com/s/everybody-in-the-pool

Please subscribe and tell your friends about Everybody in the Pool! Send feedback or become a sponsor at in@everybodyinthepool.com!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep 51: Revisiting Kadeya, the Future of Reusable Water Bottles

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 16:00:27 GMT

For Everybody In the Pool's first anniversary, Molly Wood looks back at one innovative company that made a huge impression last year.

We re-air a fascinating episode featuring Manuela Zoninstein, CEO and founder of Kadeya. Kadeya is revolutionizing the beverage industry by eliminating single-use containers. Their unique system dispenses reusable stainless steel bottles filled with filtered local tap water. After use, these bottles are returned to the machine for washing, sanitizing, and refilling, creating a sustainable closed-loop system.

Manuela shares her journey and the innovative concept behind Kadeya, highlighting how the company addresses the waste problem with this groundbreaking solution. She also discusses the challenges of scaling the business and the significant positive environmental impact Kadeya has achieved through its pioneering circular economy model.

In This Episode, We Cover:

The innovative concept behind Kadeya and how it works
Manuela's journey and inspiration for tackling the waste problem
The environmental impact of Kadeya's system and its carbon footprint reduction
The unexpected success in markets like construction sites and Air Force bases
How COVID-19 shifted Kadeya's focus and led to new opportunities

Links:

Kadeya: https://www.kadeya.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
Become a member and get an ad-free version of the podcast: https://plus.acast.com/s/everybody-in-the-pool

Please subscribe and tell your friends about EITP! Send feedback or become a sponsor at in@everybodyinthepool.com!

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Ep 50: Rethinking Commutes: Getting E-Bikes from Work

Thu, 30 May 2024 13:49:46 GMT

It may be the last week of Bike Month, but it’s never too late to talk about bikes—and all kinds of micro-mobility, in fact. Molly Wood welcomes Chinmay Malaviya, co-founder and CEO of RidePanda. He shares his vision of decarbonizing daily commutes by providing employees with easy access to e-bikes, pedal bikes, and scooters.

RidePanda partners with employers to offer these eco-friendly vehicles as part of commuter and sustainability benefits, reducing reliance on personal cars and cutting emissions.

Discover how RidePanda's flexible subscription model, choice of high-quality vehicles, and service commitment make sustainable commuting accessible and practical for everyone. Join us to learn about the future of urban mobility and how you can be part of the green revolution.

In This Episode, We Cover:

How RidePanda is transforming urban mobility and what it means for people who live in cities
The types of e-bikes and scooters most popular among users
The environmental impact of micro-mobility vehicles on urban emissions
Overcoming Challenges to Using Micro-Mobility
How employers can encourage their employees to switch to sustainable transportation

Links:

Ridepanda: https://www.ridepanda.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Ep 49: Cleaning up the chemical industry

Thu, 23 May 2024 03:23:36 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, discover how advanced electrochemistry can clean up the chemical industry. Our guest, Jeff Erhardt, CEO of Mattiq, has pioneered a groundbreaking approach to decarbonize chemical production. Mattiq is using new electrochemical technology to make important chemicals with much lower carbon emissions. This could help lead to a cleaner and more sustainable chemical industry. Mattiq's tackling the problem by developing new catalysts, optimizing modular production, and targeting critical industries like fertilizers and adhesives. Join us to discover innovative solutions that can clean up the chemical industry and help build a sustainable economy.

Mattiq: https://mattiq.com
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Ep 48: Water, Water, Everywhere: Quicker, Easier Hydroelectric Power

Thu, 16 May 2024 17:43:16 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re talking about hydroelectric power, without the dams and major infrastructure and a little less worry about drought, to boot. Molly Wood talks with Emily Morris, founder and CEO of Emrgy, about how distributed hydroelectric systems are becoming a key player in the renewable energy mix. We talk about the historical and modern significance of hydropower, its environmental considerations, and how Emergy is both modernizing water infrastructure and also grabbing every last drop of available energy.

Emrgy: https://emrgy.com/
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Ep 47: Daily Harvest CEO on Climate-Friendly Food and Organic Farming

Thu, 09 May 2024 00:17:37 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, Ricky Silver, CEO of Daily Harvest, discusses the company's mission to provide healthy, organic, and sustainable food options. Daily Harvest sells ready-to-eat meals and smoothies made from organic fruits and vegetables, all of which are gluten-free and vegan (with the option to add whatever you like!). The company aims to make healthy eating more accessible and affordable, and has expanded its distribution to include retail stores like Target. But the company also aims to bring big changes to the food industry, by actively supporting farmers in transitioning to organic farming through partnerships, funding, and research. Yum.

Daily Harvest ready-to-eat meals: https://www.daily-harvest.com/
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Episode 46: Ryan Panchadsaram on Tracking Progress to Net Zero by 2050

Wed, 01 May 2024 22:14:44 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re taking a step back to take a look at the data and see how we’re tracking toward making it to net zero by 2050. Ryan Pancharadsam is a partner at Kleiner Perkins and together with legendary clean tech investor John Doerr, he wrote a book called Speed & Scale, breaking down the climate crisis into a series of categories with accomplishable objectives attached to them. We’ll talk about the team’s newly updated tracker, looking at progress toward our survival, and the places where we need to move a lot farther and a lot faster to make it to net zero.

Speed & Scale Tracker: https://speedandscale.com/tracker
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Episode 45: Making Better Everything with Natural Materials

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 23:07:14 GMT

Lots of brands, from BMW to Stella McCartney to Allbirds, are using all-natural fibers, textiles, and even shoe soles that are nontoxic and totally recyclable. And all of those materials come from one place: NFW, or Natural Fiber Welding. Molly Wood interviews Luke Haverhals, the founder and CEO of NFW, about how the company develops “recipes” using abundant natural resources and runs them through existing manufacturing infrastructure, enabling a scalable transition away from fossil fuel-derived materials.

RESOURCES & LINKS

NFW: https://nfw.earth/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 44: Solving the Plastic Crisis with Seaweed

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 03:47:59 GMT

Sometimes the water-related titles really write themselves. This week, Molly goes under the sea with Julia Marsh of Sway, which is developing a replacement for plastic using seaweed. Julia explains that seaweed is abundant, regenerative, and can be made into a replacement for single-use plastics using almost the exact same processes that are currently used to make plastic. Also, this is a woman who really, really loves seaweed.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Sway: https://swaythefuture.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 43: Enphase and a Pool of Energy at Every Home

Wed, 10 Apr 2024 20:58:12 GMT

Molly Wood talks to Raghu Belur, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Enphase Energy, about the company's pioneering work in decentralized solar power and their vision for a distributed, software-driven energy system that puts renewable power and storage in the hands of homes and businesses. They discuss Enphase's origins back in Clean Tech 1.0, the importance of microinverters, the role of batteries, and the policy challenges (ahem, California) that are shaping the adoption of distributed energy resources.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Enphase Energy: https://enphase.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 42: Making a Splash with Vertical Farming

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 00:30:15 GMT

This week, we’re talking about sustainable food production—both an adaptation and a mitigation opportunity. Molly Wood talks with Alexander Olesen, co-founder and CEO of Babylon Micro-farms, who shares the journey from a student project aimed at feeding people in refugee camps to developing small-scale, remotely managed vertical farming systems. This startup is focused on installing beautiful micro-farms in stores, campuses, senior centers, educational spaces, and other facilities that can benefit from growing food onsite. But we also tackle the bigger picture about traditional farming, such as soil degradation and high greenhouse gas emissions, and explore how controlled environment agriculture and hydroponics present a resource-efficient solution.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Babylon Micro-Farms: https://babylonmicrofarms.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 41: Diving into Urban EV Charging with It's Electric

Wed, 27 Mar 2024 20:59:33 GMT

In this episode of Everybody in the Pool, Molly Wood speaks with Tiya Gordon, co-founder of It’s Electric, a company focused on overcoming the challenges of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure in urban areas. They delve into the barriers to EV adoption, emphasizing the lack of accessible charging options for city dwellers without private parking. It’s Electric proposes a novel solution by installing small, bollard-style chargers powered by adjacent buildings, avoiding the need for extensive infrastructure and utility coordination. This approach not only promises to expand EV charging access in densely populated areas but also offers building owners a revenue-sharing model, turning every participating building into a potential charging station. The goal: make it easy to transition to electric vehicles no matter where you live.

RESOURCES & LINKS

It’s Electric: https://www.itselectric.us/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 40: A Splash of Hope Against Food Waste

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 17:45:42 GMT

This episode of Everybody in the Pool dives into the pressing issue of food waste and its significant impact on the climate crisis. Molly talks with Jordan Schenck, the Chief Customer Officer at Flashfood, exploring the staggering fact that 30-40% of the US food supply is wasted at various stages from production to household disposal. This results in a colossal loss of approximately $161 billion annually and contributes massively to greenhouse gas emissions, notably methane, due to food decomposition in landfills. Also it’s just dumb, because it’s food, people. Flashfood is an app that lets grocery stores sell surplus or near-expiry items at half the price, reducing waste and providing consumers with affordable food options, and letting margin-strapped grocery stores make a little extra, too.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Flashfood: https://www.flashfood.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 39: Geothermal: The Pool's Underground Heater

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 16:00:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re sticking with renewable energy! Wind and solar often steal the renewable spotlight, but geothermal energy—derived from the Earth's constant underground heat—offers a clean, infinite source of power for heating and cooling. This week, we’re joined by retired NHL great Mike Richter, who has an amazing career pivot story into climate finance and resource deployment. He’s currently the CEO of Brightcore Energy, which does all kinds of sustainable energy retrofitting for the built environment, and which, lately, is specifically focused on ground source heat pumps, using geothermal energy to heat and cool buildings even in dense urban areas, like Manhattan.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Brightcore Energy: https://brightcoreenergy.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 38: Utilities Are the Key to the Energy Transition. Who’s In the Pool?

Wed, 06 Mar 2024 19:18:39 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re talking utilities. We know that one of the big keys to dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions and slowing global warming to manageable levels is to transition as quickly as possible to renewable energy and electrify everything. And at the absolute heart of that challenge are utilities—the ones responsible for generating and distributing electricity. Addressing the challenge takes commitment, to start with, and not all utilities are created equal in this regard. The ones who are quickly realized it also takes investment and innovation. Molly talks with Steve Smith, the CEO of National Grid Partners, which is the corporate venture arm of National Grid Group, about the tech needed to modernize the grid ASAP.

RESOURCES & LINKS

National Grid Partners: https://www.ngpartners.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 37: The Deep End: Quantum Computing

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 17:00:09 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re getting a little high-tech. In the climate solutions conversation, people often talk about the need for game-changing innovation. That doesn’t mean giving up on policy and business and energy transition, obviously. But if we’re building a better future for everyone, it’s good to think of the breakthroughs that could not only solve our current crisis, but lay the foundation for all kinds of other breakthroughs, as well. One of those is quantum computing: computing powerful enough to revolutionize materials discovery, battery chemistry breakthroughs, fertilizer production, and who knows what else. Molly talks with Pete Shadbolt, co-founder of PsiQuantum, about the company’s attempts to commercialize quantum computing as soon as possible.

RESOURCES & LINKS

PsiQuantum: https://www.psiquantum.com/
Quantum computing, explained: https://www.explainthatstuff.com/quantum-computing.html
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 36: Wading Into AI and Biodiversity

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 17:00:26 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re featuring a panel discussion moderated by Molly at the GreenBiz conference, held in Phoenix, AZ, in February. The conversation blends tech and climate and three amazing professionals talking about how AI (the other hottest topic on the planet, if you’ll pardon the very scary pun) can help with efforts to heal nature and restore biodiversity. Molly spoke with Elizabeth Hunter, co-founder and COO of a robotics and AI biodiversity startup called TreeSwift; Melanie Nakagawa, chief sustainability officer at Microsoft; and Millie Chapman, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and Climate Change AI.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Video version: https://www.greenbiz.com/events/greenbiz/sessions/ai-nature-climate-and-beyond-how-new-tech-transforming-sustainability
TreeSwift: https://www.treeswift.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 35: Why Swim When You Can Fly

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 19:18:01 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re going a little sci-fi with a startup that spun out of Google and is trying to reinvent urban mobility. And by that I mean they’re developing modular electric tram systems that would take passengers around dense urban areas, hospital or college campuses, or maybe, you know, Google, on a series of cables suspended above buildings and streets. This means reducing the number of cars on the road, sure, but it also means we can build new cities, housing developments, and urban centers that have density without resource-hogging skyscrapers, and which don’t need a ton of extra land for parking and multi-lane highways and such. Wild? Sure. Doable? We’ll see. Interesting? Absolutely. With Swyft Cities founder and CEO Jeral Poskey.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Swyft Cities: https://swyftcities.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 34: Sustainable Prefab: the Wave of the Future

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 18:20:34 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re back to buildings! Buildings and the built environment are responsible for as much as 40 percent of carbon emissions and energy demand. In fact, a UN report from 2022 found that although the buildings and construction industry has done some investing in energy efficiency and more sustainable processes, its emissions hit an all-time high that year, after a brief dip during the pandemic. Solutions lie in more sustainable building practices, denser housing, and better building materials, and this week’s guest is doing all three. Plant Prefab sustainably builds multi-unit housing in super high-tech automated factories. This week’s guest is founder and former CEO Steve Glenn.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Plant Prefab: https://www.plantprefab.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 33: Soaking up Carbon From the Atmosphere

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 17:00:20 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re exploring a topic that once seemed fanciful, unlikely at best, and even slightly controversial: carbon removal. Literally, taking carbon dioxide out of the air and storing it so it doesn’t keep warming the planet. In fact, in 2022, the UN released a report that essentially said developing carbon removal technology is not optional, in addition to cutting emissions, if we want to keep warming to manageable (ie, not catastrophic) levels. So this week, we’re talking with one of the most promising players in the space, Spiritus, whose CEO Charles Cadieu details the novel material they’ve invented that will eventually become orchards of carbon-absorbing “fruits.”

RESOURCES & LINKS

Spiritus: https://spiritus.com/en
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 32: Activate: Filling the Pool with Geniuses

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 17:00:32 GMT

Welcome back to Everybody in the Pool. This week: how to get to the major breakthroughs that a lot of people think are necessary if we’re going to stop or even reverse the worst effects of human-caused climate change. Breakthroughs take money, yes, and they also take brilliant people, full stop! Scientists, inventors, wild-eyed optimists—the people who have ideas and need support, training, funding, and encouragement to see them through or come up with other brilliant ideas. Enter Activate, a nonprofit fellowship that provides all of that to scientist-entrepreneurs, in hopes of making sure there are more of them in every room where decisions are being made. This week, Molly talks with Activate’s new CEO, Cyrus Wadia. Enjoy!

RESOURCES & LINKS

Activate: https://www.activate.org/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 31: CES is in the Deep End

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 17:00:28 GMT

Welcome back to Everybody in the Pool in 2024! We’re getting a bit of a late start this year because Molly was at CES in Las Vegas last week, which turned out to be a stealth sustainability show. On this week’s episode, we caught up with Stefan Solyom, CTO of Pebble, which is making a completely electric travel trailer—think RV—that can sustain itself off the grid for up to a week, power your home like a giant backup battery, back up and park itself, and has tech built inside that puts all other glamping to shame. Plus, flying cars. No, really. Lots of them! Welcome back and happy New Year!

RESOURCES & LINKS

The Pebble RV: https://pebblelife.com/
From the newsletter: Is it the age of EVTOLs?
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 30: Everybody Who was in the 2023 Pool

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 00:45:03 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, it’s almost the end of 2023 and this little podcast just finished its first year of existence! Aww! Thanks to everyone who came on this ride and came on this show! This week, we’re doing a little retrospective to look at some of the fun, adoptable solutions we highlighted (from wrapping paper to repairing your phones and keeping them longer), all the way to the mind-blowing inventions that have us genuinely hopeful about the future. Shout-out Shiki Wrap, Kyle Wiens, Ridwell, Mill, Universal Hydrogen, Magrathea Metals, Anuma Aerospace, and more. Happy New Year!

RESOURCES & LINKS

All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 29: Building a Community Pool (of Electrified Houses)

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 03:16:18 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we are once again thinking big when it comes to the energy transition. If last week was about electrifying whole fleets of cars, this week is about electrifying entire towns! Dan Bridleman of KB Home and Matt Brost of Sunpower join Molly to talk about how they’ve teamed up on a big experiment in southern California: a planned community of more than 200 net zero homes, all-electric, with smart thermostats and plugs and energy meters, with solar and whole-home batteries, that will also be connected with a community battery and a microgrid that will send power back to the utility to help keep the lights on when needed and give power back to the utility when they need it. Cool, right? Let’s move there!

RESOURCES & LINKS

Shadow Mountain at Menifee: https://www.kbhome.com/new-homes-california/menifee
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 28: The Deep End of Electric Cars

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 01:07:59 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we all know it’s a big deal to get lots of drivers to switch from ICE (internal combustion engine) cars to electric cars. But getting them to switch one at a time is for the birds—let’s talk about fleets of cars all at once! Taxi cabs, company cars, delivery vehicles, government cars … what does it take to get hundreds or thousands of cars to go electric? Well, a lot, as it turns out. Today’s guest is Josh Green, CEO of Inspiration Mobility, which buys and leases electric cars but also provides all the fleet management services a company needs to transition to EVs—which, not for nothing, are cheaper and more reliable to operate once they do. Plus, the surprising reason existing fleet management companies don’t prioritize EVs.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Inspiration Mobility: https://inspirationmobility.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 27: Better Swimming through 3D Printed Furniture

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 01:36:49 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, new ways to make old stuff! The materials, creation, transport, and disposal of furniture all generate lots of greenhouse gases, and manufacturers have been exploring ways to make furniture production greener, including overhauling the entire manufacturing process by 3D printing beautiful furniture from biodegradable and carbon-neutral materials. This week, Molly talks with Phillip Raub of Model No. about sustainable design, hyperlocal manufacturing, and turning waste into super beautiful chairs and planters.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Model No. https://www.model-no.com/
Business Insider on furniture rental: https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/why-i-rent-furniture-2021-11
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 26: How the Property Industry is Bailing Itself Out with VC

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:49:59 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re going up a level, from the entrepreneurs inventing solutions to the climate crisis to an investor who’s keeping an eye out for the next big thing. But this isn’t just any venture capital fund—Fifth Wall is a massive investment fund that gets a lot of its money from the property and real estate industry. So, obviously, climate was an inevitable part of its investment thesis, since the built environment is a huge contributor to climate change, and an industry desperately in need of innovative solutions. Molly talks with Greg Smithies, co-head of the climate practice at Fifth Wall.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Fifth Wall: https://fifthwall.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
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Episode 25: Surviving when the Water is Rising

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 00:25:40 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re going back to the topic that first got Molly interested in climate solutions: adaptation and resilience. Or, put simply, how we survive the worsening climate crisis. This week, we’re talking with Emilie Mazzacurati, who’s been working on getting attention, money, and data on this part of the conversation for over a decade. She’s now founded Tailwind Climate, an organization designed to encourage, incubate and fund solutions that help us survive—and thrive—the changes all around us.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Tailwind Climate: https://www.tailwindclimate.com/
All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
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Episode 24: Making Metal out of Water

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 23:40:28 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, alchemy! Just kidding, it’s science. I’m talking to a cleantech entrepreneur who has co-invented a new way to make magnesium metal out of seawater, in a process that’s specifically designed to use renewable energy. That’s a big deal because magnesium is an alloy in all kinds of metals we need, like aluminum, steel, and titanium, and right now it’s almost all coming from China or Russia and it’s made with coal. An abundant supply of domestic lightweight metal leads to, among other things, EVs that go farther on a charge, and could just replace dirtier aluminum altogether. With Alex Grant, co-founder and CEO of Magrathea Metals.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Magrathea Metals: https://magratheametals.com/
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Episode 23: Los Angeles Has Entered the Pool

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 20:59:21 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re always looking to national governments and multinational corporations to make big changes, but a lot of times, the real impact is local. The LA Cleantech Incubator is a super interesting example of an organization that used support from the city to raise private dollars and start a fund to support entrepreneurs building cool climate solutions. And with the Olympic Games coming to town in 2028, it’s an organization on a mission to decarbonize the city before they get there. Who doesn’t love a deadline, right?

RESOURCES & LINKS

LA Cleantech Incubator: https://laincubator.org/
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Episode 22: Floating Airships of the Past and Future

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 16:00:05 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re going full sci-fi. And when we say full sci-fi, we mean back to science that was conceived in the 17th century and is only now being perfected by a startup that’s trying to bring back lighter-than-air ships (blimps and aerostats) in the hopes of eventually moving cargo around in a zero-emissions and possibly even carbon-negative way. Diana Little of Anuma Aerospace explains the tech and and how proving the co-inventor of calculus wrong is only part of the, ahem, equation.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Anuma Aerospace: https://www.anumaaerospace.com/
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Episode 21: Don’t Sleep on Solar

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 20:50:31 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, it’s funny how we keep talking about climate solutions and haven’t gotten to the big ball of free energy in the sky yet. Maybe it’s because everybody thinks solar is “solved,” or it’s old tech, or it’s boring. But actually, solar adoption is lagging, and that’s a problem, because as we electrify everything, we need lots more renewable energy to meet the demand, and solar combined with batteries is not only a renewable energy solution, but a really cool way to create a resilient and effective kind of “shadow grid” for electricity. Today’s guest is Chris Rauscher, the head of grid services at Sunrun. Oh, and we even get to geek out about cars!

RESOURCES & LINKS

Sunrun: https://www.sunrun.com/
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Episode 20: What Goes into that Pool You’re Building

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 16:00:04 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, more hard problems! Today we’re talking to a startup focused on buildings and the carbon emissions that get literally built into them. That comes from construction materials like walls and flooring and yes, concrete, and even windows and the steel used to support them. Increasingly, developers and builders are on the hook for measuring and reducing what’s known as “embodied carbon,” and this week’s startup helps them do just that. Nicole Granath and Anneli Tostar of Tangible Materials join Molly to talk about building better buildings, and, full disclosure, make a lot of “tangible” puns.

RESOURCES & LINKS

More on Tangible Materials: https://tangiblematerials.com/
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Episode 19: Cement That Won’t Sink Us

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 02:40:44 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, sometimes you just need to know that people are out there working on solving hard problems—like cement, which has roughly the same global CO2 emissions as … well, cars. It’s a big problem, it’s basically been made for the same way for 150 years, and it’s the single most-consumed human-made material on earth. So a few years ago, Cody Finke, a chemist, was looking for an impactful company to start in the climate space that wasn’t getting a ton of attention. Turns out, it’s cement. Fast forward to today and they’ve got a process for making carbon negative cement that’s exactly the same as what we use today. PHEW, right?

RESOURCES & LINKS

More on Brimstone: https://www.brimstone.com/
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Episode 18: Imaging Oceans with no Plastic

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 22:20:52 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, a two-fer of artist-activists who are both advocating for a world without fossil fuel-derived plastics and also working to portray that world in film and TV. Dianna Cohen is the founder and CEO of the Plastic Pollution Coalition, and Nada Djordjevich is an independent filmmaker, and both are trying to change the story—or at least make it represent real life.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Plastic Pollution Coalition: https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/
Plastic Kills! Horror short film contest: https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2023/9/7/plastic-kills-horror-short-film-contest-2023
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Episode 17: Why Reusable Water Bottles Ain’t Gonna Cut It

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 16:00:29 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we respectfully thank you very, very much for carrying a reusable water bottle and refilling it instead of buying plastic water bottles. And also, sadly, we’re going to have to do a lot more than that to get rid of disposable beverage containers. This week’s entrepreneur, Manuela Zoninsein, is building a whole bottling plant the size of a vending machine that plugs into local tap water, filters it, delivers it in a reusable stainless steel bottle, and washes, sanitizes, and refills it when you bring it back. And that’s cool, but what’s really smart is who the first customers are—warehouses, construction sites, Air Force bases—and how they ended up with those customers at all. Drink it all in and enjoy!

RESOURCES & LINKS

Kadeya
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Episode 16: Swimming with Vegans

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 17:00:41 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re diving into a topic that has many people afraid of the deep end: should you go vegan to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions? Like many things you maybe don’t want to do, the answer is unequivocally yes, at least from a climate standpoint. But I hear you, it’s tough. So this week, we’re asking our new favorite vegan, Jessica Resler, to address some of the myths, the barriers, and the resistance, and she gives some tips and tricks on how to get started.

RESOURCES & LINKS

More on Jessica Resler
Watch The Game Changers on Netflix
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Episode 15: Who’s in the Pool at Mill

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 16:00:16 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, I got to spend a little extra time with the rest of the team at Mill, to find out how they ended up working in climate tech, how they found their way to that company, and the origin stories that put them on this path. In this week’s episode, a sort of extended version of the Job Board takes us from the Obama White House to the search for just the right kind of climate company to a harrowing wildfire escape that put the search for a climate solution up close and personal.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/

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Episode 14: We’re Drowning in Gift Wrap

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 14:35:30 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, sometimes tackling the climate crisis means starting at home, with the things you love. Meagan Downey had a long career in nonprofit work and was looking for a way to have climate impact. She landed on one of her favorite things: giving and wrapping beautiful gifts. She’s now the founder of Shiki Wrap, reusable gift wrap that, if we all got in the pool, could keep millions of pounds of waste out of landfills every year. Also it’s just super pretty and fun!

RESOURCES & LINKS

Shiki Wrap
Furoshiki: the Japanese wrapping tradition
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Episode 13: Food Waste: Hidden Climate Flood

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 20:21:15 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, a climate entrepreneur and tech veteran solving big climate problems in unexpected ways. Matt Rogers is the co-founder of Mill, a kitchen appliance that turns food waste into dried, odorless grounds that consumers drop in the mail and that get upcycled into chicken feed. And Matt just happens to have also co-founded a little company called Nest, which has been a powerful driver of energy efficiency. He and Molly talk about how food waste is the unexpected giant emitter that requires major behavior change, and sometimes, a sexy gadget is just what you need to make that change.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Mill
Mill vs Lomi via Architectural Digest
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Episode 12: When the Flood is at your Door

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 02:16:01 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, prepare for a bit of a tone shift. We’re talking with climate futurist Alex Steffen, author of The Snap Forward podcast and newsletter, who’s been covering climate and climate solutions as a journalist for decades, and now tries to prepare people and businesses as a futurist. The over-arching lesson from this episode? The future we tried to avoid for 30 years is here now, and in some cases, is happening faster than we expected. So we’d better get rugged, and fast.

RESOURCES & LINKS

The Snap Forward
Ruggedize Your Life
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Episode 11: Ridwell Helps Recycling Flow to the Right Place

Wed, 26 Jul 2023 16:01:00 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, one of the most common things people say to me is: “recycling isn’t real, right?” It’s complicated, but it could definitely be better. And services and startups are stepping in to fill the void—like Ridwell, which is a super cheerful pickup service that takes plastic, batteries, light bulbs, old clothes, styrofoam, and “surprise” categories once a month to trusted partners for either recycling or re-use. And the question becomes: cool, yeah, how do we get this everywhere and make it easier for cities to do it, too!? Molly talks with founder and CEO Ryan Metzger.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Ridwell
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Episode 10: Your Dollars, New Renewable Energy Projects, Everybody Swims

Wed, 19 Jul 2023 20:35:40 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’ve got a double whammy of solutions. We know that to transition our economy away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible, we need to deploy as much renewable energy as fast as we can (and yes, interconnect it, I know). Also, renewable energy deployment is a huge investment opportunity that’s mostly unavailable to you and me, even though these are projects that can throw off reliable cash for 20 or 30 years. So, startups are coming in to try to connect regular old people with renewable energy projects—like crowdfunding, but with a return. This week, Molly interviews Will Wiseman, co-founder and CEO of Climatize, an app that does all of the above. Win-win!

This week’s episode is sponsored by Fennel Markets.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Get the Climatize app
Climate Tech VC deep dive into project finance
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Episode 9: Make Climate Action Easy: Have a Pool Party!

Wed, 12 Jul 2023 16:00:58 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, it’s playtime. Obviously, global warming and the climate crisis are intimidating topics. But this week’s guest has built an entire career out of play. Jenny Gottstein is a game-maker, previously of Go Games and IDEO, and a few years ago, she created a game called Beat! That! Heat!, a climate action game show. Molly and Jenny talk about how play can create an accessible conversation that celebrates climate action no matter where you start, offers an onramp to the conversation for people who are curious but embarrassed, and did I mention that making games for a living is an actual job? This week’s episode is sponsored by Fennel Markets.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Beat! That! Heat!
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Episode 8: What if Planes Only Emitted Water

Wed, 05 Jul 2023 21:33:02 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re going big. Like, air travel big. Green hydrogen (that is, hydrogen produced using only renewable energy) is a super promising solution for powering rockets and airplanes, but one thing holding it back is a lack of infrastructure. As in, there aren’t hydrogen “gas stations” in every airport yet. This week’s guest is Paul Eremenko, the co-founder and CEO of Universal Hydrogen, a company creating a sort of “Nespresso capsule” fuel cell for plug-and-play hydrogen in regional jets. It’s a company with an ambitious vision that happens to be very doable. Let’s go.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Universal Hydrogen celebrates its first test flight
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Episode 7: Don’t Drown Your Old Gear

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 16:00:23 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, the best possible climate solution for the lazy among you: just never get rid of your stuff. Molly talks with Kyle Wiens of iFixit, the how-to and repair manual site that teaches you how to fix and restore everything from laptops to phones to wigs to purses and shoes. Kyle is also the de facto leader of the Right to Repair movement, which is pushing to undo actual real laws that prevent you, in some cases, from fixing your own electronics (by which we mean everything from phones to tractors). The more stuff we buy, the more resources we need, and e-waste, in particular, is the fastest-growing waste stream in the world, and it’s toxic as heck. Be cool, carry old stuff.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Celebrating 20 years of iFixit
Right to Repair
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Episode 6: You, Your Money, and Finding Yourself in the Deep End

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 20:43:43 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, the climate crisis is already costing you money. Whether it’s higher prices at the grocery store, skyrocketing home insurance, replacing furnishings and infrastructure after an extreme weather event, or the declining value of your stock portfolio and its fossil fuel investments, personal finance and global warming are on a collision course. That’s how this week’s guest, Farnoosh Torabi, found herself in the pool: she’s a personal finance blogger and podcaster who increasingly realized that her stories, like so many others, are actually climate stories. Torabi is the host of the podcast So Money, and joined Molly to talk about personal finance in the climate economy.

RESOURCES & LINKS

So Money, the podcast
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Episode 5: Colleges Try to Clean the Pool

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 19:48:36 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool, enough coddling the next generation. They’re filthy trash-generating beasts, and while you might think they’re going off to college to learn and become productive citizens, they’re really just generating waste at a colossal scale, and on-campus dining is at the core of a ton of it. Actually, lots of tons of it. But you know me, I’m not here for problems. I’m here for solutions. On today’s show, Topanga.io, a software company that makes it easy for colleges to offer reusable packaging that students can check out and return. Some schools are even making it mandatory. Maybe the kids are all right after all.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Topanga.io
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Episode 4: Draining the Fossil Fuel Pool

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 18:24:21 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool … my absolute favorite thing: a super boring-sounding topic! In this case, your 401k. Turns out our retirement plans are how we are unknowingly funneling at least a trillion dollars into fossil fuel companies, and there’s a growing social movement for employees to demand greener options in their benefits portal. This week, I’m talking with a serial entrepreneur who has a new company that makes it easier for employers to offer better options. Plus, an update on the state of home insurance in California: turns out, we’re uninsurable! That escalated quickly!

RESOURCES & LINKS

Join the movement at Sphere
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Episode 3: Fill the Pool, not the Package

Wed, 31 May 2023 17:41:39 GMT

This week on Everybody in the Pool … we’re shopping! Consumer goods and the food we eat account for about a third of global carbon emissions, and everything we buy has what I like to call a True Cost. There’s what the thing actually costs, but there’s also the cost that went into producing it, shipping it, packaging it, and disposing of it. This week’s show has a little explainer about how all that works, plus an interview with a startup, Finch, trying to make shopping for sustainable alternatives just a little bit easier.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Shop at Finch
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Episode 2: No Pool For You

Wed, 24 May 2023 17:54:55 GMT

Don’t kid yourself: we’re in the climate economy now. Extreme weather, drought, fire, floods—all of it means adapting to a changing climate, and that adaptation process will touch just about every business. This week, we’re looking at two businesses in particular: real estate, and interior design. I asked a real estate agent and a kitchen and bath designer what shoppers are asking for, how climate change is impacting the work they do, and how being climate-aware is a differentiator in their businesses. Also, cool product alert: recycled denim insulation!? Who knew!?

RESOURCES & LINKS

National Association of Realtors GREEN certification
ClimateCheck
Recycled Denim Batting
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Episode 1: A Drop Becomes a Flood

Wed, 17 May 2023 19:27:15 GMT

Welcome to the first episode of Everybody in the Pool! This week’s climate solution has to do with where and how you invest, and how new companies like Fennel Markets are coming along trying to give you even more power to use your dollar and the voice that goes with it. Plus: the first edition of The Job Board! This is our segment that features people who want to pivot into a new career in climate (or who already have). New episodes every week — please subscribe and tell a friend!

RESOURCES & LINKS

Fennel.com
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Introducing Everybody in the Pool

Thu, 11 May 2023 21:38:02 GMT

Introducing Everybody in the Pool, a podcast about climate solutions, hosted by longtime journalist and climate tech investor Molly Wood. New episodes every week, starting May 17, 2023!

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