We already have many of the climate solutions we need. But scaling them is hard. The Green Blueprint is a show about the people who are architecting the clean economy. Every other week, host Lara Pierpoint profiles the founders, investors, and organizational leaders who are solving complex challenges in the quest to build climate technologies fast.
Latest episodes
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36 min
Critical Capital: Can nuclear seize on data center momentum?
This week, we’re presenting a drop-in episode of Critical Capital, a new partner podcast from Crux and Latitude Studios. The rush to build data centers has sparked an energy debate…
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44 min
The pivot that reinvented the air conditioner
While living in Delhi, Sorin Grama gave a window air conditioner to an employee. He found out weeks later she wasn't using it because the electricity costs were too high. It was a…
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44 min
How “Black Sand” could help build a domestic battery supply chain
When David Fauvre and his co-founder entered the battery space in 2015, they started as brokers exporting American battery waste to recycling partners in Korea and Japan. But as th…
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45 min
Burying trees to save forests?
“Good fires" naturally regenerate forests. But a rise in high-severity blazes in the American West are leaving behind barren moonscapes filled with dead trees. These scorched trees…
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47 min
The microbial solution to our massive copper shortfall
To build the physical infrastructure of the clean energy transition — from wind turbines and grid stabilization to massive new AI data centers — the world needs more copper between…
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49 min
Did someone just figure out how to project finance nuclear?
For decades, the promise of new nuclear power in the West has been stifled not by the technology itself, but by the “construction problem.” Massive, multi-billion dollar mega-proje…
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44 min
The missing capital for climate startups: more debt
Climate tech companies are often forced to rely on expensive equity to bridge the gap between government grant awards and the cash needed to get projects off the ground. But for fo…
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43 min
The ‘brutal reality’ of scaling low-carbon fertilizer
Nitrogen fertilizer is essential for global food security, yet its production is a hyper-centralized, fossil-fuel-intensive process that accounts for 5 to 7% of global greenhouse g…
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45 min
Form Energy's manufacturing breakthrough
Lithium-ion batteries have revolutionized energy storage, but inexpensive, truly long-duration batteries may still have a significant role to play in backing renewables and decarbo…
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46 min
Why the climate tech ‘missing middle’ is a massive opportunity
If you’re building a consumer software startup, your investors may expect you to project hockey stick-style growth. But if you’re building the physical infrastructure of the clean…
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39 min
The perovskite bet that could transform solar
Silicon solar panels have led the market for decades but will soon hit a ceiling around 25% efficiency. Perovskite, a frontier material once dismissed for degrading too fast, is no…
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44 min
How Supercool Earth's microbes could ease the water crisis
California recorded its second-lowest Sierra Nevada snowpack on record this spring. That's not just a bad ski season, it's a water supply crisis. Snowpack is where California's wat…
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45 min
The $6 trillion threat to climate tech finance
The global financial system is undergoing a structural shift into a "volatile new world order," where unpredictability is the norm, and climate tech is uniquely exposed. Venture in…
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3 min
The Green Blueprint is back for a second season!
We already have the blueprint for decarbonizing the global economy. We've invented many of the solutions, but much of that tech is still sitting on the sidelines waiting to get fin…
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38 min
Sage Geosystems' bet on underground energy storage
About 90% of global energy storage is pumped storage hydropower – which requires a mountain, a lake, and a whole lot of permitting. While lithium batteries have gotten drastically…
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36 min
Inside Microsoft’s plan to remove 50 years of carbon emissions
In 2020, Microsoft announced a major goal: by 2050 the company aims to remove from the atmosphere all the carbon emissions it has produced since its founding in 1975. When Phil Goo…
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30 min
Captura's high-stakes gamble
Back in January, Captura CEO Steve Oldham was sitting in a conference room in Hawaii, entertaining reps from the company’s first potential customer. What the customer didn’t know w…
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38 min
Boston Metal’s path to carbon-free steel
This year in the U.S., steel manufacturers will produce more than 71 million tons of steel – enough to build nearly 200 Empire State buildings. It's a stunning statistic, but not s…
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41 min
The thermal battery transforming cold storage for India’s dairy farmers
In 2007 Sam White, co-founder of Promethean Power Systems, was traveling through India looking for a rural electrification problem to solve. He and his team had just won a $10,000…
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49 min
This VC wants climate tech to play hardball in Washington
Clean energy founders love to talk about technology, capital, and scale. But few are prepared for the fourth pillar of success: government. Shomik Dutta, a co-founder and managing…