Dispatches from the new frontiers of climate technology. The Latitude features coverage of the business and tech trends that are reshaping energy and decarbonization, straight from the Latitude Media newsroom.
Latest episodes
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12 min
Australian outages show the value of solar and batteries
In Australia, one in three homes hosts a rooftop solar system. And 20% of those systems are attached to batteries. In February, a major grid outage put those systems to the test. E…
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16 min
Can NVIDIA become an AI power broker on the grid?
There are two critical ingredients fueling the AI boom: energy and chips. And NVIDIA, one of the most important companies in AI, is looking to be a power player in both.NVIDIA was…
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18 min
Will government rules hinder green hydrogen?
The US green hydrogen industry is at a critical juncture. After months of input and debate, the government put out draft rules for tax credits at the end of last year – setting fir…
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9 min
Data center experts on AI energy demand
Data center energy use is spiking around the world. The International Energy Agency says that demand could double in the next two years, as artificial intelligence workloads soar.T…
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9 min
A US city tries a novel approach to microgrids
As cities around the U.S. ramp up their renewable energy goals, they’re sometimes at odds with the utilities that serve them. Some have tried to break away and form their own utili…
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10 min
Under the hood of a novel virtual power plant
We have 60 gigawatts of virtual power plant capacity in the US. But that needs to triple in the next decade to support a zero-carbon grid – while also meeting a surge in peak deman…
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9 min
Bigger, faster, cheaper: tech innovations in renewables
Wind and solar projects are relatively simple to build compared with thermal power plants. But there’s a lot of technological innovation going into how those renewable plants are d…
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10 min
Will the geologist shortage impact US critical minerals?
The world needs a lot of critical minerals. By the middle of the century, we could be looking at a six-fold increase in demand for lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel, and magnesium to…
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8 min
Can AI alleviate the critical minerals crunch?
Elon Musk has called lithium “the new oil.” Demand for critical minerals is booming alongside the surge in global battery production. And countries are racing to control as much mi…
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9 min
Cleantech’s weird year in the public markets
It’s been another tumultuous year for the clean energy sector in the stock market. Even with strong tailwinds from the Inflation Reduction Act, many public companies took a hit thi…
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10 min
A visit to America’s first direct-air carbon capture plant
America’s first commercial plant for capturing CO2 directly from the air is online. It marks the start of an industrial race in direct-air capture – or DAC – an industry that needs…
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8 min
Can concentrated solar power be reborn?
The concentrating solar power industry – also known as solar thermal – has been defined by bankruptcies, failed projects, and high costs. But is it finding new life?Crystalline sil…
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12 min
Building novel storage projects on brownfields
Transmission backlogs. Land constraints. Local pushback. They’re all causing headaches for developers of wind, solar, and battery projects.And that’s making brownfields more attrac…
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11 min
Carbon removal's awkward phase
The market for engineered carbon removal is starting to resemble, well, a real market. Tax credits. Billions in government support. Corporate buyers. A wide range of startups that…
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12 min
Green hydrogen makers are caught in limbo
Green hydrogen is a critical resource for cleaning up industry and heavy trucking. With tens of billions of government and corporate dollars plowing into the space – electrolyzer c…
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11 min
The AI wild card for data centers: ‘Oh sh*t, this is for real’
Top tech companies are on a quest to run their massive data centers around the clock with clean power.It’s not an easy task, but they’ve been making progress. The energy efficiency…
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9 min
How AI is changing weather forecasts for solar and wind
Electric grids are increasingly being saturated with weather-dependent renewables. At the same time, power systems are also getting challenged by intensifying and unpredictable ext…
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17 min
What to do with all this excess renewable energy?
Renewables are now super cheap and abundant. We could install nearly a half terawatt of new wind and solar capacity this year – more than the entire capacity of China.But with that…
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3 min
Introducing: The Latitude
Hi Climavores listeners: we're announcing a change to this feed. Going forward, this show will be called The Latitude.Solar, wind, and batteries have all surged around the world. W…
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40 min
Climavores: We can feed the world without frying it. But will we?
In this last episode of the season, Tamar and Mike discuss what they’ve learned over the past six months and debate whether there’s hope for solving the food and climate problem (s…