Cutting through the climate tech hype and looking for profit

Zero: The Climate Race

Bloomberg

Technology, Business, Science

4.7 • 219 Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2024

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Reporter Akshat Rathi speaks to Eric Toone of Breakthrough Energy Ventures about what’s hype and what’s not in the world of energy startups. Breakthrough is one of the world’s biggest funders of early stage climate technologies and has poured billions of dollars in more than 120 startups. Toone weighs in on everything from carbon removal to the grid, nuclear fusion, nuclear fission, and green hydrogen.

Explore further:

Past episode about Commonwealth Fusion System’s reactors
Past episode about the drilling techniques employed by geothermal startup Fervo
Past episode about the plethora of carbon capture startups
Past episode about the energy startup trying to replace coal with a very cheap battery
Past episode about TS Conductor’s approach to reconductoring
Past episode with Bill Gates about the areas of the energy sector he’s investing in

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Mythili Rao. Special thanks this week to Sharon Chen, Ethan Steinberg, and Jessica Beck. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Zero. I am Akshadrati. This week, Climate Tech hype or not?
0:19.7	Breakthrough Energy Ventures is one of the biggest funders of early stage climate technologies,
0:26.4	spending billions of dollars so far with investments in more than 120 startups.
0:32.1	Since Zero launched two years ago, we've featured a number of companies that Breakthrough Energy
0:36.5	has invested in.
0:38.1	You can find some of those episodes in the show notes. But there's a brain trust behind
0:43.2	Breakthrough Energy Ventures that makes the decisions of what kinds of technologies they invest in.
0:49.1	One of those people is Eric Toon. In his former life, he was a professor of chemistry,
0:55.5	which, as someone who studied chemistry, is something that always gets my attention. Over the years, I've talked to him
1:00.2	plenty of times trying to understand where exactly he sees the technology landscape going.
1:06.2	So for this episode, I wanted to bring you into some of our chats, to get his take on what set of
1:12.1	climate technologies he's hyped about and what technologies he thinks the world shouldn't be hyped
1:17.3	about.
1:18.2	And why he thinks his set of technologies will not just work, but also make money.
1:23.7	Because no longer is he just a professor, he doesn't just assess the feasibility of a technology,
1:29.2	but also the company's potential profitability.
1:33.6	We touched on carbon removal, grid technologies, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, and hydrogen.
1:39.5	We also talked about some of the companies he's most excited about.
1:59.9	Eric, welcome to the show.
2:02.0	It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
2:06.7	Now, you were a tenured professor of chemistry and biochemistry at DECU University.
2:12.4	A tenured position is a ticket for life to do what you want.
	...

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