Today, we are thrilled to welcome the incredible Mona Dajani to the show. Mona serves as the Global Co-head of Energy, Infrastructure, Hydrogen, Mobility, Renewables, and Water at Baker Botts. She is also an ambassador for the US Department of Energy’s C3E initiative and a regular news correspondent on energy transition topics. Through her extensive career in clean energy, Mona has witnessed the evolution of global opinions on this issue.

Mona believes that the way we engage in conversations about energy is pivotal to advancing the energy transition. These discussions can often be polarizing, making it essential to find common ground. As someone deeply experienced in navigating these challenging conversations, Mona shares how she approaches the topic with openness and gratitude, even when engaging with diverse leaders and stakeholders.

Tune in to learn from Mona's insights on fostering productive and impactful dialogue about the energy transition and how we can all contribute to meaningful progress.

Keynotes:

• Dealing with polarized opinions on energy

• The importance of having technical conversations with those from a non-technical background

• The evolution of the energy transition, and opinions surrounding it

Resources mentioned:

• Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)

• American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE)

• Department of Energy (DOE)

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Sam Beskind is an Investor and Chief of Staff at Floodgate, a VC firm backing Prime Movers across numerous different industries. Before this role, Sam completed his undergraduate and first masters degree at Stanford and followed this with a Masters in Advanced Energy Systems at the Colorado School of Mines. He also previously interned at VDE Americans, a renewable energy consultancy, and Incite.org, an organization supporting mission driven enterprises. In this episode, Sam talks to us about his decision making process for degrees and opportunities, why he started his podcast, Built for Earth, and advice for students interested in the VC space. Sam finishes the episode by emphasizing the importance of building relationships and adding value to companies or organizations with your “superpower”.

Keynotes:

- How to approach picking your degree programs

- The value of soft skills like communication and relationship building

- Adding value wherever you go

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50 episodes later… Thank you all for joining us on this journey. We are so pleased to celebrate this milestone by hosting Neha Palmer, CEO and Co-Founder of TeraWatt Infrastructure! Neha Palmer’s career in energy is extensive, with experience in utilities, finance and technology. In her role most prior to TeraWatt, as Head of Google’s Energy Strategy, she led Google to be the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world.

In this episode we will dive into the electric heavy-duty vehicle space. This sector is notoriously hard to decarbonize, yet accounts for 23% of US transportation emissions. Tackling it has major benefits for our air and Earth. To do so, Terawatt’s approach includes thinking of electric heavy-duty vehicle infrastructure in the same way as we think about building energy solutions to data centers. The demand is high, the scale is large, and the capital is intense. Tune in to hear Neha’s thoughts.

Thank you to Energy Dialogues for making this (and all our prior episodes!) happen.

Keynotes:

• How to tackle complicated electrification issues

• Why is the energy transition a ‘once in a generation’ transition?

• What lessons is TeraWatt taking from global electrification leaders?

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Matthew Koh, Co-founder of Sequestor, is combining his dual passions of finance and sustainability by building the copilot for carbon markets.

Growing up in Singapore, Matthew quickly found a passion for finance. In high school, he founded an investment platform that equips Gen Z with the tools to learn and understand investing, a venture he credits with helping him build entrepreneurial skills and an interest in starting companies. After high school, he served in the Singapore Army before arriving at Duke University, where he currently studies economics.

In the episode, we talk about Matthew's vision for Sequestor, trends in sustainable investing, his thoughts on leadership skills, the mechanics of starting a company in college, and much more.

Key points:

• How to build leadership skills at a young age
• Why picking co-founders is the most important decision you make and how to do it right
• How to validate ideas with customer feedback
• The complexity of carbon markets
• And much more

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In the last 20 years, the United States has only successfully built one nuclear energy project. So how does startup The Nuclear Company plan to turn the industry on its head?

In this episode, we are joined by Joe Klecha, Chief Nuclear Officer of The Nuclear Company, to discuss the startup’s ambitious plans to deploy 6 GW of new nuclear power in the next decade. Having played a key role in the development of Southern Company’s Vogtle project, Joe reflects on lessons learned and how the nuclear industry will look much different in the future.

We cover must-know topics including why nuclear energy is seeing a resurgence in public opinion, how technology will play a key role in lowering costs, why their innovative partnership model is critical to their success, and where the next generation can play a role.

Keynotes:

-Why the U.S. stopped building new nuclear, and why need to start again

-How macro trends like electrification and AI are affecting perceptions of nuclear energy

-How digitalization and technology will make nuclear energy more cost-effective

-And much more

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Jacob Mansfield is the CEO & Co-Founder at Tierra Climate, a startup whose mission is to accelerate grid-scale battery deployment by unlocking and monetizing grid decarbonization services. Before pursuing his MBA and starting Tierra Climate, Jacob began his career as a rotational analyst at Citi in power trading. He tells us about the lessons from this experience and what drove him to then pursue an MBA. Jacob then explains the process of identifying the problem that Tierra Climate was founded to solve, and gives us the behind the scenes of what it was like to start and grow the company. Jacob finishes the episode with advice for students and aspiring founders, and how young people can use their youth as an asset.

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First time is a charm, right?

For many climate technologies, building a first-of-a-kind (FOAK) project is a major barrier to widespread adoption and commercialization. The ecosystem of early-stage climate tech funding, such as venture capital and grants, is well-known and used to taking substantial risk for outsized impact. The pools of capital and expertise for turning those technologies into commercial-scale projects, however, is more challenging to navigate. Nevertheless, it is critical for companies to learn to navigate this gap to bring impactful technologies to scale.

Deanna Zhang, CEO of V1 Climate Solutions, joins us on the show to talk all things FOAK. With a background in investment banking, she has built an expertise in helping companies navigate the pitfalls of FOAK projects and works with startups, investors, and corporates to help them define strategies to successful scale-up climate technologies. Tune in to learn more about how we can best bridge the gap between FOAK and Nth-of-a-kind projects and what developments are needed to make that possible.

Lamisa Chowdhury, University of Kansas grad and current Patagonia Program Officer, has dedicated the early years of her career to investigating energy justice. Lamisa walks us through her path to the energy transition, including why the built environment stands out to her, and why storytelling has become influential to her own understanding of energy systems. Lamisa’s roles have been across nonprofits, utilities, and now the private sector. Each of these experiences shaped Lamisa’s goals for the energy transition, and helped her understand all of its interwoven dimensions. She walks the audience through the importance of equity within the transition, and what students can do to equip themselves to tackle this challenge. She reminds us that humans, people, are at the center of all energy systems.

Keynotes:

- The importance of community-focused energy work

- How different experiences shape our personal understanding of the energy transition

- The gaps in current energy system structures