We Didn’t Start the Fire

Energy Gang

Wood Mackenzie

Tech News, Environment, Sustainability, Innovation, Renewable Energy, Technology, Alternative Energy, Energy, News, Cleantech, Wind Energy, Business, Climate Change, Solar Energy

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2019

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Could you do us a favor? Take our listener survey so we can give you more relevant content: bit.ly/gtmpodcast

The world’s fifth-largest economy looked more like a developing country last week, as PG&E purposefully cut power to millions of people in Northern California for days.

We knew this was coming. The growing safety and financial risk of wildfires in the state mean mass power outages will become more common. But in this case, PG&E was slammed for the way it handled things.

We’ll dig into the scope, the fallout, and the solutions of California’s power shutoffs due to wildfire threats.

Then: Dyson made a big business out of selling $400 hair dryers and $500 vacuum cleaners, but it couldn’t make a high-end electric car work. We’ll talk about why Dyson wrote off its EV plans.

Finally, the Trump administration lifts a tariff exemption for bifacial solar panels. So why are these two-sided solar panels becoming so popular now?

Additional resources:

New York Times: Inside PG&E’s Control Room
Bloomberg: What Happens When a Vacuum Company Tries to Make an Electric Car
GTM Squared: Has Bifacial Solar Finally Moved From Theoretical to Practical?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, before we get things going, a quick favor for you. We've got a survey for
0:03.7	listeners of the Energy Gang and the Interchange. It's right there in the show notes and
0:07.2	it'll just take you a few minutes. It is anonymous and it helps us learn
0:10.9	more about who our audience is so we can serve up more relevant content.
0:14.3	And to be totally transparent, it helps us find the right advertisers for this show as well.
0:18.8	So pick up the device you're listening on and tap that link right there in the show notes to fill out the
0:23.2	survey and you'll qualify for a swag giveaway too so some lucky listeners will
0:29.8	get some energy gang gear thank you so. And a thanks goes to our sponsor
0:34.9	Sungrow. Sungrow is the leading solar inverter supplier by volume in the world and
0:38.9	is now a leading supplier across the Americas. It's got more than three
0:42.2	gigawatts shipped in the past two years
0:44.1	alone. Sungrow inverters are the backbone of some of the most innovative projects in the world.
0:48.4	From floating PV to big projects for tech companies like Apple. Find out more at sungrow power.com.
1:08.0	From green tech, this is the Energy Gang. Weekly debates and discussions on the fast-changing world of energy. I'm Stephen Lacy, a contributing editor with GTM. I'm coming to you from Boston. Welcome. The world's fifth
1:14.8	largest economy looked a little more like a developing country last week as PG&A cut power
1:19.4	to millions of people in Northern California. We knew this was coming. The growing safety and
1:24.6	financial risk of wildfires in the state mean mass power outages will become more common,
1:29.2	but in this case, PG&E is getting slammed for the way it handled things.
1:33.4	We'll dig into the scope, the fallout, and the solutions.
1:36.9	Then Dyson made a big business out of selling $400 hair dryers and $500 vacuum cleaners,
1:42.3	but it couldn't make a high-end electric car work.
1:44.2	We'll talk about why Dyson rode off its EV plans just a couple years after
	...

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