Field notes The Energy Transition for the Rest of Us

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22 notes · Catalyst 16 · Steel For Fuel 6

  1. Catalyst · 28 May 2026 Building inference data centers on the high seas with Garth Sheldon-Coulson, co-founder and CEO, Panthalassa Could you power AI compute by putting the generator and the servers together on untethered steel structures bobbing in the deep ocean, and would it pencil?
  2. Catalyst · 21 May 2026 A blueprint for scalable fusion power with Carrie von Muench, founding chief operating officer, Pacific Fusion After the 2022 ignition result, where is fusion actually standing on the road to a power plant that competes on cost, and which milestone should you watch next?
  3. Catalyst · 5 Mar 2026 Digging deep for super hot geothermal with Carlos Araque, CEO and founder, Quaise Energy Geothermal works only where heat sits near the surface. If you drill deep enough to find much hotter rock, can you actually reach it, get the heat out, and do it cheaply?
  4. Catalyst · 11 Dec 2025 Can AI revolutionize EPC? with Alex Modon, co-founder and CEO, Unlimited Industries Big capital projects are chronically late and over budget. Can AI change that, and is engineering even where the leverage is?
  5. Catalyst · 8 May 2025 The US nuclear groundswell with Chris Colbert, co-founder and CEO, Elementl Power The US nuclear market is clearly stirring again. Does a groundswell like this one turn into an actual wave, or into another 2007-style mirage?
  6. Steel For Fuel · 28 Apr 2025 So you want to revolutionize the energy system? by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners Why has the energy sector proved so resistant to revolutionary companies, and what separates the ones that work?
  7. Catalyst · 17 Apr 2025 Serving data center load with carbon capture with Julio Friedmann, chief scientist, Carbon Direct Hyperscalers are driving a large gas buildout while holding real decarbonization commitments. Can carbon capture square that circle, or is “capture ready” the same empty promise “hydrogen ready” turned out to be?
  8. Catalyst · 16 Jan 2025 FOAK tales with Mario Fernandez, head of Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, Breakthrough Energy What does it actually take to get a first-of-a-kind climate project financed, and why is that still the hardest step?
  9. Steel For Fuel · 16 Dec 2024 It’s time to build! (light water reactors) by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners Should the United States expand nuclear power by repeating the large reactor design it has just finished, or by building small modular reactors?
  10. Catalyst · 12 Dec 2024 What happened at Northvolt? with Sam Jaffe, principal, 1019 Technologies Northvolt raised more money than almost any private company in Europe to become its homegrown answer to the Asian battery giants, then filed for bankruptcy. What actually went wrong, and what is the right lesson to draw?
  11. Catalyst · 3 Oct 2024 DAC’s bumpy road to commercial scale with Andreas Aepli, chief financial officer, Climeworks The first commercial direct air capture plants are running. What does it actually take to get from there to commercial scale, and what has the one company that has done it learned along the way?
  12. Steel For Fuel · 3 Oct 2024 The Age of FFOAK and The Better Mousetrap Fallacy by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners Now that climate tech has plenty of promising technologies, is inventing more of them still the best use of capital?
  13. Steel For Fuel · 2 Oct 2024 The end of the beginning for “climate tech” by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners Is the funding downturn in climate tech the beginning of the end for the sector?
  14. Catalyst · 23 Aug 2024 Hunting for geologic hydrogen with Pete Johnson, CEO and co-founder, Koloma Hydrogen forms naturally underground all over the world. Can we drill for it the way we drill for oil and gas, and is there any public evidence yet that a tappable resource exists?
  15. Steel For Fuel · 19 Aug 2024 Direct Air Capture and (machine) learning curves by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners What does Climeworks’ first real-world direct air capture plant missing its design targets tell us about the technology?
  16. Catalyst · 15 Aug 2024 The cost of nuclear with Jessica Lovering, co-founder and executive director, Good Energy Collective Why does a nuclear reactor cost roughly four times as much to build in the United States as in South Korea, and what would actually make American nuclear cheap?
  17. Catalyst · 27 Jun 2024 Going deep on next-gen geothermal with Roland Horne, professor of earth sciences and head of the geothermal program, Stanford University Of the next-generation geothermal approaches now nearing market, which are actually ready to scale, and what would it take for geothermal to work outside the few places it works today?
  18. Catalyst · 6 Mar 2024 Shopify’s head of sustainability on the realities of carbon removal with Stacy Kauk, head of sustainability, Shopify What does it look like to be one of the first corporate buyers of durable carbon removal, and what does three and a half years of it teach you?
  19. Catalyst · 11 Jan 2024 2023 climate tech venture investment trends with Kim Zou, co-founder and CEO, Sightline Climate Climate tech venture funding fell about 30% in 2023. What did that drop actually measure?
  20. Catalyst · 21 Dec 2023 Financing first-of-a-kind climate assets with David Yeh, climatetech investor and debt provider, most recently CIBC; previously the White House, the DOE Loan Programs Office and Generation Investment Management Why is financing the first commercial plant for a new climate technology so hard, and how do the ones that get built actually get paid for?
  21. Catalyst · 16 Nov 2023 The cost of nuclear with Jessica Lovering, co-founder and executive director, Good Energy Collective Building a reactor in South Korea costs about a quarter what it costs in the United States. Why, and what would actually make American nuclear cheap?
  22. Steel For Fuel · 30 May 2023 A Tale of Two Nanettes by Andy Lubershane, Partner and Head of Research, Energy Impact Partners How much time does decarbonization actually have, measured on the scale of a human life, and what does that clock rule in or out?