The Green Blueprint

In 2021, Commonwealth Fusion Systems proved it had built the most powerful magnet in the world. The breakthrough was based on a specific material - a tape - that conducts massive amounts of current with very little loss. Rick Needham, Chief Commercial Officer for CFS, says the breakthrough led to a $1.8 billion Series B fundraising round. Since then, the company has turned its attention to turning this scientific breakthrough into a commercial technology. And in late 2024, the company announced it had signed a deal with Dominion Energy Virginia to build the world’s first commercial fusion power plant, ARC. In this episode, Lara talks with Rick about how CFS plans to take its technology from the lab to real-world deployment. They discuss major milestones, like proving net energy gain and finding a customer for a technology that has never been proven in the field. And Rick makes the argument that fusion is much closer than most people think. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.

Clean energy attracts nearly $3 trillion in investment annually, but most of that capital flows to massive utility-scale projects through the world's biggest banks and large-scale asset managers. Meanwhile, smaller distributed projects — rooftop solar, batteries, microgrids — face a structural financing challenge that Amanda Li calls "death by a thousand cuts." As co-founder and COO of Banyan Infrastructure, Li sees this dynamic constantly. Distributed infrastructure developers are trying to secure deals for $500,000 or $1 million, but face the same transaction costs as billion-dollar projects. "You might have a thousand times the amount of data at every single one of those stages, a thousand models, a thousand PDF documents or contracts, a thousand counterparties," Li explains. "So that's where the overhead really becomes crushing." Rachel Halfaker, who leads the community infrastructure program at the Milken Institute, sees the same fragmentation from a different angle. Unlike utility-scale projects with a single counterparty, distributed energy involves "a hundred business owners, a hundred nonprofits, a hundred YMCAs or churches" who aren't accustomed to thinking about term sheets and risk profiles. The solution they are pursuing? Standardization. But previous attempts have failed for specific reasons that go beyond market immaturity. "Everyone intellectually understands and believes in the benefits of coordination and standardization," said Li. But past efforts lacked dedicated coordinators and sufficient critical mass. The complexity of distributed energy finance makes standardization uniquely challenging. These projects often require blended capital stacks where three or more financing sources must align simultaneously. "All three things have to be in coordination in order for that deal to pencil,” said Halfaker. This orchestration typically falls to local developers with small teams, rather than the armies of investment bankers and lawyers that structure utility-scale deals. The result is frequent near-misses where viable projects nearly fall apart due to financing complexity. In this episode, recorded live as part of Latitude Media's Frontier Forum series, Stephen Lacey talks with Li and Halfaker about why standardization is critical for scaling distributed energy into a trillion-dollar asset class. They explore how standardization could eventually enable securitization — the "holy grail" that would create secondary markets for distributed energy assets. This episode was recorded live as part of Latitude Media's Frontier Forum with Banyan Infrastructure. Watch the full video here and download Banyan’s white paper on standardization here.

This week, we're bringing you a special episode of Catalyst with Shayle Kann, a show about how to decarbonize the planet. In this episode: what it takes to secure investments for first-of-a-kind infrastructure projects. First-of-a-kind projects need infrastructure investment, the kind of money that costs less than venture capital and usually comes in the form of deals worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. But infrastructure investors are notoriously conservative and convincing them to bite can be challenging. So what do infrastructure investors really want? In this episode, Shayle talks to Mario Fernandez, head of Breakthrough Energy’s FOAK finance program. It has worked with companies like Rondo, Form Energy, and Lanzajet to overcome challenges on the path to infrastructure investment. Coincidentally, the program is also called Catalyst (no relation to our show). Mario and Shayle talk about the journey from lab-proven technology to a fully de-risked infrastructure investment, covering topics like: Why investors want to see a path to multiple, repeatable projects Mario’s prescription for a scale-up path: pilot, demo, and FOAK project The difficulty of following that path on a limited financial runway The commercial construct and the tension between negotiating a flexible offtake and securing a customer Developing the right capital stack and accurately estimating capital needs Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.

In 2023, Sarah Jewett was on her honeymoon in France when she received a life-changing text: steam was flowing from Fervo Energy's first commercial geothermal project in Nevada. That moment confirmed their revolutionary approach—applying horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing from the oil and gas industry to tap heat resources previously considered inaccessible. Unlike traditional geothermal that requires rare, steam-laden sites, Fervo's technology can access hot rock that exists almost everywhere underground. After proving their concept with Project Red in Nevada, the company is now building Cape Station, a 500-megawatt facility that will be one of America's largest geothermal plants, in Utah. In this episode, Lara talks with Sarah about navigating first-of-a-kind financing challenges, finding partners willing to take on the risk of new technology, and deciding when to take the next step in a scaling journey. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. Register here for Transition-AI 2025 in Boston on June 12th, 2025. Use promo code LATITUDEPODS10 for 10% off your ticket.

In 2021, Neha Palmer co-founced Terrawatt Infrastructure with a bold mission: create the backbone for America's electric trucking revolution. Within its first year, Terrawatt secured a billion-dollar investment. But as the company developed plans for a nationwide charging network, it confronted the daunting challenge of building infrastructure for an electric truck market that barely existed. High-profile bankruptcies like Nikola Motors cast long shadows over the sector's viability, raising questions about whether heavy-duty transport can truly be electrified. In this episode, Lara talks with Neha about how Terrawatt aims to transform freight transport despite market skepticism. Neha explains Terawatt’s strategic approach to site selection, innovative charging designs for fully-loaded trucks, and the vision for a revolutionary California-to-Texas network. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.Register here for Transition-AI 2025 in Boston on June 12th, 2025. Use promo code LATITUDEPODS10 for 10% off your ticket.

In 2014, Drew Baglino was helping build Tesla's energy division with a passionate, scrappy team. Using parts from Tesla's vehicles, they created the first Powerwall home battery. But as demand grew, they hit a critical bottleneck: cell shortages. Customers across multiple markets were already excited about the new product, but Drew’s team struggled to keep up with demand. With Powerwall 2 already announced, pressure mounted while the supply chain faltered. And with Tesla prioritizing vehicles,, the energy team was left to "get the scraps and figure it out". In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks with Drew Baglino, former senior vice president of powertrain and energy at Tesla, about building a new product category through bootstrapping and creative resource sharing. Drew shares how a couple dozen "Swiss Army knife" engineers created a residential battery system that would ultimately define the market. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.

In 2018, LineVision was a young company with revolutionary technology for electric transmission lines. Its dynamic line rating sensors and software could increase the capacity of existing power lines by up to 40% without building new infrastructure — a critical solution for integrating renewables and meeting growing electricity demand. But to prove its tech, it needed to win over notoriously cautious utilities. When a crucial project worth $750,000 went to a competitor, LineVision's leadership made a last-ditch appeal that changed the company's trajectory. In this episode, host Lara Pierpoint talks with LineVision’s vice president of customer success, Karthik Rao, about navigating utility cybersecurity requirements, escaping “pilot hell,” and how LineVision became the partner behind the world's largest DLR project. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.

Dan Shugar has been trying to move solar panels around since the 1980s. What started with a few experiments as a young engineer has turned into one of the biggest solar tracker companies in the world. In 2012 he founded Nextracker with a single product. Since then, Nextracker has revolutionized tracking technology through an array of innovative products. This week, host Lara Pierpoint talks with Nextracker CEO and founder Dan Shugar about product innovation and customer relationships, and how Nextracker made it through the pandemic. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts.

When Raffi Garabedian co-founded Electric Hydrogen in 2020, he saw existing electrolyzers as too small and expensive to make green hydrogen economically viable. Instead of building standard sub-megawatt units, his team aimed for 100-megawatt systems at half the industry cost. Initial market enthusiasm brought millions in capacity reservations, fueling construction of a Massachusetts manufacturing plant. Then came the "trough of disillusionment" – a global cooling on hydrogen as projects faltered under high costs. In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks to Raffi about taking big technology risks while building a factory during market volatility. He explains why startups, not incumbents, are best positioned to drive the cost reductions needed to make green hydrogen competitive with fossil alternatives. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts.

Leila Madrone founded Sunfolding in 2012 with an innovative idea – build a solar tracker using pneumatic "airbags" instead of motors and torque tubes. By 2015, the company was deploying the technology in a field test in Davis, California. Over the next six years, Sunfolding iterated on the technology’s design, built out the supply chain, and tried to prove bankability. Then, in 2021, the company found themselves faced with a major decision: take on a utility scale solar project during a global pandemic, or pass. In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks to Leila about SunFolding's journey from breakthrough technology to shutdown, exploring the critical decisions that shaped the company's path and ultimately led to Sunfolding shutting down in 2023. Leila also shares the broader lessons for climate hardware startups navigating the complex intersection of innovation, manufacturing, and venture funding. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.

This week, we’re featuring an episode of Open Circuit, a new show from Latitude Media that reunites Jigar Shah, Katherine Hamilton, and Stephen Lacey. Many listeners may remember them from The Energy Gang, a show they co-hosted for eight years. They are back together, co-hosting a weekly roundtable that will cover the latest news – to explain what's really accelerating the energy transition, from technological leaps and supply chain shifts, to market upheavals and policy uncertainty. If you like what you hear, go to your podcast app and subscribe to Open Circuit. You can also hear every episode and read transcripts at Latitudemedia.com. We’ll be back with a normal episode of The Green Blueprint next week.

In May 2024, Yanni Tsipis was watching as his team prepared to pour a low-carbon version of concrete — one that had never been used in a commercial project. As senior vice president of WS Development, he was in charge of the team building Boston’s largest net-zero office building for operating emissions (not embodied emissions), and he had spearheaded an effort to use a new type of low-carbon cement from a startup called Sublime Systems. It's hard to understate how big of a deal it is for the construction industry to try a new version of cement. It’s the glue that holds concrete particles together, and the recipe used today has barely changed since 1824. It's incredibly versatile stuff, but making it accounts for nearly 8% of global emissions, so there's pressure on the industry to clean up. But with the literal foundations of buildings, bridges, and roads at stake, you can understand why the industry might be slow to change. But Yanni's team wanted to try. In this episode, Lara talked to Yanni about the journey to the first commercial deployment of this low-carbon cement. He talks about the economics of cement, securing enough material in time to meet construction deadlines, and earning buy-in from WS Development’s internal team, plus their long list of contractors and subcontractors. It’s a case study in finding the right customer for a first-of-a-kind climate tech project. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Daniel Woldorff and Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter. On February 19th, join Latitude Media and Crux Climate for their upcoming Frontier Forum to unpack Crux’s 2024 Transferable Tax Credit Market Intelligence Report. Learn how tax credit transferability is accelerating investment in energy, and gain insights into what is shaping the market’s growth through 2025 and beyond. Register today for this virtual event.

When Chris Taylor and his team at GridStor were building California's largest battery storage project in Goleta, they saw an opportunity: become one of the first companies to transfer tax credits under the newly passed Inflation Reduction Act. But there was no playbook to follow. Instead of working with smaller, specialized investors, GridStor took an unconventional approach. They went straight to JP Morgan, one of the largest tax credit investors in the country, to prove that battery storage projects could work with mainstream financial institutions. The strategy involved navigating complex legal requirements, securing specific opinion letters, and creating a framework that other companies could follow. In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks to Chris Taylor, CEO of GridStor, about executing this groundbreaking financial deal while simultaneously building a 60-megawatt battery storage facility. They discuss the challenges of pioneering new financial territory, working with major financial institutions as a startup, and what successful tax credit transfers could mean for scaling clean energy projects. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.

On Christmas Eve 2023, Doug Chan wasn't celebrating with family. Instead, he was in Hellisheiði, Iceland with his team, preparing to commission Mammoth — what would become the world's largest operational direct air capture facility. Getting there wasn't easy. After building two successful smaller plants, Climeworks faced its biggest challenge yet in attempting a 10x scale-up of its Orca plant. When the team broke ground, they discovered issues with their newly designed equipment that forced tough decisions. And Iceland's harsh winter conditions complicated both construction and operations. In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks to Douglas Chan, chief operations officer at Climeworks, about proving and scaling direct air capture technology. They discuss managing technology risks, choosing the right partners — and what's next as Climeworks plans for an even bigger facility in Louisiana. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.

In 2022, John O’Donnell and Peter von Behrens figured out how to design a heat battery that would deliver heat at very high, constant temperatures. The breakthrough came on the heels of two years of research and development, some of which took place in Peter’s garage. Now, John and Peter were ready to prove their technology at commercial scale. So they approached a long-time innovation partner, Calgren Renewable Fuels, about deploying a 2-megawatt-hour heat battery for industrial heat delivery in Calgren’s Pixley, California plant. That’s when the next wave of problem solving started. It turns out, designing the technology was just half the battle. Manufacturing and installing a commercial scale demonstration proved harder than expected. In October 2023, they started on a six-month construction project that threw a myriad of challenges at the new start-up. In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks to John O’Donnell, co-founder and chief innovation officer at Rondo Energy, about the bumpy road of building a first-of-a-kind commercial demonstration. They cover things like the structural engineering challenges of scaling a new technology, and finding the right construction partner. Plus, John explains what new design specs mean for the company going forward. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media’s newsletter.

In the aftermath of the presidential election, the clean energy industry is scrambling to figure out what a second Trump administration would mean for their companies and projects. But Tom Burton isn't just looking at the next four years. After 25 years serving the industry with the law firm Mintz, he's thinking about the growth of the industry over another couple of decades. “Back in 2000, many pundits said the internet was dead – and that was around the time Google started their business. These transitions take decades. We're probably in the third inning of the game, and we're moving in the right direction,” said Burton. So what does the state of play look like in that third inning? In this episode, produced in partnership with Mintz, we have a series of conversations tackling some of the biggest stories shaping clean energy today – across finance, policy, and markets. Tom Burton, chair of the energy & sustainability practice of Mintz, details the three distinct phases of the industry: innovation, growth, and scaling. Tanya Das, director of the energy program at the Bipartisan Policy Center, explains why she remains optimistic about the US policy environment. Frank O’Sullivan, managing director of the energy transition team at S2G ventures, talks about the need to de-risk emerging clean energy technologies for infrastructure investors. And Sayles Braga, a senior partner at Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners, discusses innovations to manage data center load growth in the AI era. These conversations were recorded at the Mintz Energy Transition Summit. For finance, policy, and market insights from the Mintz team, sign up for their newsletter.

In 2022, Via Separations was getting ready to build its commercial-scale filtration system, a technology that could help cut emissions and costs for a wide range of industries like paper, chemicals, and food processing. And when the company faced two paths — scale up 10x or 100x — CEO and co-founder Shreya Dave decided to scale faster by building a commercial project at a paper mill in Alberta, Canada. It was a choice that put Via in a race against cash burn and the onset of the cold Canadian winter. The stakes for the company were high. The goal was to replace energy-intensive industrial evaporation at the paper mill with a first-of-a-kind membrane, akin to a pasta strainer, made of graphene dioxide. Shreya and her team had worked for years in an MIT lab to develop the membrane, hoping to extract materials with far less energy. Initial tests had shown promise. Scaling up 100x would prove their technology was viable for broader commercial applications. That is, if they could overcome the challenges. In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks to Shreya Dave, co-founder and CEO of Via Separations, about the risk of going big. They cover things like the challenges of finding a first customer and grappling with how fast to scale. Plus, Shreya explains what she would have done differently. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media’s newsletter. On December 3 in Washington, DC, Latitude Media is bringing together a range of experts for Transition-AI 2024, a one-day, in-person event addressing both sides of the AI-energy nexus: the challenges AI poses to the grid, and the opportunities. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code LMPODS10. Register today here!

In 2009, John Woolard’s team flipped the switch on a first-of-a-kind concentrated solar power project. The pilot paved the way for BrightSource Energy, where John was CEO, to build its first commercial CSP plant, a 440-megawatt project in the Mojave Desert called Ivanpah. John and his team believed they were far ahead of the competition, including photovoltaics. And they were on the verge of building several large, concentrated solar plants. That was the plan. But in the middle of building the first commercial plant, the BrightSource team faced a series of unexpected challenges that forced them to ask: “if we stay the course, will we survive?” In the first episode of The Green Blueprint, host Lara Pierpoint talks to John Woolard, former CEO of BrightSource Energy and current CEO at Meridian Clean Energy, on lessons from the concentrated solar boom and bust. They dig into how John salvaged a financial deal that collapsed in the middle of a global financial crisis, the unexpected challenges of permitting and environmental regulations, the competitive threat of solar PV, and knowing when to pivot. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media’s newsletter. On December 3 in Washington, DC, Latitude Media is bringing together a range of experts for Transition-AI 2024, a one-day, in-person event addressing both sides of the AI-energy nexus: the challenges AI poses to the grid, and the opportunities. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code LMPODS10. Register today here!

We’ve already invented many of the solutions needed to decarbonize the global economy. But a big chunk of emission reductions will come from technologies that are not yet commercial. We don’t have decades to get these commercialized – we have years. So what can we learn from the people who are bringing new technologies from the lab to the market, constructing first-of-a-kind projects, building companies, challenging and transforming incumbents, and finding the right kind of investment to support their scaling? The Green Blueprint is a new show from Latitude Media and Trellis Climate about the architects of the clean energy economy. Hosted by Lara Pierpoint, managing director at Trellis, the show profiles the people who are doing the hero’s work of scaling clean technologies: founders, investors, engineers, policymakers, and organizational leaders who are solving a complex set of challenges in the quest to scale quickly. Every other week, we’ll hear stories about the complexity of building gigafactories, the mind-boggling logistics of mega-clean energy projects, and the risky choices on how fast to scale – plus boardroom disagreements, financial hardships, and moments of failure and redemption. The Green Blueprint is dropping this fall. You can find it on Latitude Media, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

Since we stopped The Carbon Copy, some listeners had questions about what’s next. Here's a preview of our new podcast, the Transition-AI event in December, and a new newsletter called the AI-Energy Nexus. Stay tuned to the feed for our new show, dropping later this fall!