Podcasts about harness solar energy

Alice Hill, the David M. Rubenstein senior fellow for energy and the environment at CFR, and Varun Sivaram, a senior fellow for energy and climate at CFR, sit down with James M. Lindsay to discuss what the United States has done and should do to confront a changing climate. This episode is the second in a special TPI series on the U.S. 2024 presidential election and is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.   Mentioned on the Episode    Alice C. Hill, The Fight for Climate After COVID-19   Varun Sivaram, Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet   The U.S. Election and Foreign Policy, CFR.org For an episode transcript and show notes, visit The President's Inbox at: https://www.cfr.org/podcasts/tpi/climate-challenge-alice-hill-and-varun-sivaram-election-2024-episode-2 

This week, host Daniel Raimi talks with Varun Sivaram, a visiting senior fellow at Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy. Sivaram is an expert on all things energy and recently spent two years working in India on solar energy. Sivaram and Raimi discuss the evolution of India’s power grid, including its rapid expansion of energy access and its historical dependence on coal; the rise of solar, wind, and storage; and the challenges that lie ahead. References and recommendations: "Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet" by Varun Sivaram; https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/taming-sun "The Next Phase of India's Renewable Energy Transition" by Varun Sivaram; https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/the-next-phase-of-indias-renewable-energy-transition/ "Short-Circuiting Policy" by Leah C. Stokes; https://www.leahstokes.com/book "Columbia Energy Exchange" podcast; https://energypolicy.columbia.edu/podcast/columbia-energy-exchange "Our Daily Planet" newsletter; https://www.ourdailyplanet.com/ "After Coal: Stories of Survival in Appalachia and Wales" by Tom Hansell; https://aftercoal.com/book/

About our Guest:   Benoy Thanjan   Benoy Thanjan is the Founder and CEO of Reneu Energy and he is also an advisor for several solar startup companies. Reneu Energy is a premier international solar energy consulting firm and developer and the company focuses on developing commercial and industrial solar and utility scale solar plus storage projects. The company also sources financing for solar projects and hedges energy and environmental commodities. Reneu Energy has brokered $27 million in environmental commodities transactions.   Benoy received his first experience in Finance as an intern at D.E. Shaw & Co., which is a global investment firm with 37 billion dollars in investment capital. Before founding Reneu Energy, he was the SREC Trader in the Project Finance Group for SolarCity which merged with Tesla in 2016. He originated SREC trades with buyers and co-developed their SREC monetization and hedging strategy with the senior management of SolarCity to move into the east coast markets. Benoy also worked at Vanguard Energy Partners, Ridgewood Renewable Power, and Deloitte & Touche.   Thom Byrne   Thom Byrne is the Founder and CEO of Clean Capital; a financial technology company that makes it easy to invest in clean energy. Clean Capital has built a proprietary technology platform that identifies, screens, and manages clean energy projects enabling project owners an opportunity to exit their portfolios while providing accredited investors, including institutional investors, family offices, and investment funds, unique access to the clean energy investment market.   Thom received his start in environmental projects with Waterkeeper Alliance, where he helped launch local environmental organizations. After graduating from Berkeley Law school, he received extensive experience in the renewable energy finance arena through the law firms, Chadbourne and Parke, and then Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld. Using his experience, Thom dove deeper into renewable energy asset with True Green Capital, before founding Clean Capital. Episode Summary   Thom Byrne shares how as an entrepreneur, he addressed calculated risks to create Clean Capital, a company now providing investment opportunities in the tens of millions of dollars for solar energy. As opposed to smaller investments in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, what was once just a vision, is now injecting tremendous amounts of capital into the solar energy market not just domestically, but internationally as well.     Insight from this episode: How increasing larger institutional capital is vital for growing the renewable energy space. How technology plays a key role in efficient investments. What to look for in a potential market for investment. Strategies for finding solutions to getting capital into new markets. What macro drivers are affecting the Solar market today. How to determine if being an entrepreneur is right for you and if your idea should go to market.   Quotes from the show: “We always wanted to be mission oriented.” Thom Byrne, Episode 14   In regards to the renewable energy market: “Yes you can make money doing it, but it’s an important challenge to be trying to solve.” Thom Byrne, Episode 14 In regards to being an entrepreneur: “Life’s too short and the risk you perceive is not as big a risk as it really is. It’s more fearful when you look out at the risk than when you’re actually living in it.” Thom Byrne, Episode 14 In regards to being an entrepreneur: “There is a risk tolerance that you have to find acceptable. I think most people don’t find it acceptable and they don’t get into entrepreneurship but I would encourage people to evaluate the risk in the grand scheme of things and if you do that, you may find that it’s much more tolerable.” Thom Byrne, Episode 14 In regards to being an entrepreneur: “It’s better to try than to have regret.” Benoy Thanjan, Episode 14 “If you have the appetite to do it, to be an entrepreneur, you have to do it. That bug is not going to go away and you don’t want to wake up with grandchildren and just a story about something you were going to do, rather than having actually tried to do it.” Thom Byrne, Episode 14 “Everyone is talking about storage and how in the market, tariffs and costs continue to go down.” Benoy Thanjan, Episode 14 “A statistic the World Economic Forum put out, is that .5% of any institutional capital being put out is for clean energy.” Thom Byrne, Episode 14     Resources Mentioned: “Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet” by Varun Sivaram “The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future” by Gretchen Bakke   Stay Connected: Benoy Thanjan LinkedIn.com/bthanjan Facebook: Reneu Energy www.reneuenergy.com info@reneuenergy.com   Thom Byrne www.cleancapital.com Experts Only Podcast Linkedin: CleanCapital Facebook: @CleanCapitalCo Twitter: @CleanCapital_ tbyrne@cleancapital.com  

In this episode, we interview Jonathan Elkind (Columbia University, former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy) and Clara Gillispie (NBR) about U.S. energy policy in Asia. Elkind and Gillispie discuss the role of energy in the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” strategy, how countries in the region are responding, what U.S.-China trade tensions have to do with energy, and what they’d like to see from the Trump administration’s policies in the future.   2:30 How did your interest in energy policy begin? 4:50 What is the U.S. energy policy towards Asia? 8:49 Can you separate energy policy from broader policy toward Asia? 10:15 How do Japan and South Korea fit into our energy policy? 12:30 What are the primary concerns from other countries in the region? How have they been reacting to U.S. policy? 15:33 What is the future of U.S.-Russia relations on energy? 18:40 What are the prospects for a Russia-Japan energy pipeline? 20:12 How are U.S.-China tensions on trade affecting energy policy? References the report, “A Natural Gas Giant Awakens: China’s Quest for Blue Skies Shapes Global Markets” 27:55 How is the energy industry handling uncertainty in U.S. policy? 35:50 What have you seen in the Trump administration’s approach to investing in emerging energy technology? 40:20 What do you wish the administration would consider as it formulates energy policy? 43:58 What is the most promising energy source for the future and why? 45:00 What book on energy would you recommend to an Asia generalist? Richard Rhodes, Energy: A Human History Varun Sivaram, Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet Meghan O’Sullivan, Windfall: How the New Energy Abundance Upends Global Politics and Strengthens America's Power

Climate change—that “tragedy of the horizon”—is already here. From relentless wildfires to hurricanes to droughts, 2017's slew of extreme weather events highlighted the existential threat facing us in the coming decades. But as bleak as the reality of climate change is, innovative solutions to mitigate its effects and support a transition to clean energy are also being developed and deployed on an increasing scale—particularly so since the Paris Climate Agreement. These include everything from advanced technologies such as solar photovoltaics and electric vehicles to the urban design policies necessary to make them effective. What are the most exciting solutions being implemented, and what other breakthrough technologies are needed to power the clean energy revolution? What must we do to stand a chance against climate change? Varun Sivaram's book Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet will be available for purchase and signing from The Book Cellar following the program. SPEAKERS: Anand Shah, Senior Advisor, Albright Stonebridge Group; Senior Vice President, Ola; Varun Sivaram, Philip D. Reed Fellow for Science and Technology, Council on Foreign Relations; , Senior Fellow, Global Cities. Moderated by .

Energy is a hot topic and a critical issue in politics, business, and society at large. And it doesn't look like this will be changing any time soon.  On the forefront of this discussion is clean energy, and, particularly, the rise of solar-powered technology. To get a better understanding of why this is the case and what that means for our world, we held a conversation on The Future of Solar Technology with climate and energy expert Varun Sivaram. Varun authored the recent book, Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet. In a live conversation moderated by David Livingston — who serves as the Deputy Director of Climate and Advanced Energy at The Atlantic Council's Global Energy Center — Varun offers insights on the innovations that are powering our world and the role America is playing in harnessing clean technology.

Solar energy, once a niche application for a limited market, has become the cheapest and fastest-growing power source on earth. What’s more, its potential is nearly limitless—every hour the sun beams down more energy than the world uses in a year. But in his new book, Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Save the Planet (MIT Press, 2018), Dr. Varun Sivaram, Philip D. Reed Fellow for Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations and CGEP Adjunct Senior Research Scholar, warns that the world is not yet equipped to harness erratic sunshine to meet most of its energy needs. And if solar’s current surge peters out, prospects for replacing fossil fuels and averting catastrophic climate change will dim.  Innovation can brighten those prospects, Dr. Sivaram argues. Financial innovation is already enticing deep-pocketed investors to fund solar projects around the world, from the sunniest deserts to the poorest villages. Technological innovation could replace today’s solar panels with coatings as cheap as paint and employ artificial photosynthesis to store intermittent sunshine as convenient fuels. Systemic innovation could add flexibility to the world’s power grids and other energy systems so they can dependably channel the sun’s unreliable energy. Unleashing all this innovation will require visionary public policy: funding researchers developing next-generation solar technologies, refashioning energy systems and economic markets, and putting together a diverse clean energy portfolio. To discuss the state of solar energy and his new book, which Bloomberg has called "the first important policy book of 2018," the Center on Global Energy Policy hosted a talk with Dr. Sivaram. Following Dr. Sivaram's presentation, CGEP Founding Director, Jason Bordoff moderated the discussion.

Nothing can stop solar's growth trajectory -- except maybe solar itself.This week, we have a deep discussion on the future of solar photovoltaics. Solar is exploding around the world, but have we grappled with the technology and market limitations that could stop the next order of magnitude in growth for PV?On this week's episode of The Interchange, Shayle Kann sits down with Varun Sivaram, author of the new book, Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet.Shayle and Varun examine every angle of the solar transition. They consider numerous possible futures, good and bad, for the technology. "If we do not take the right actions and urgently in innovation today, I warn that in the medium term we might run into a penetration ceiling for solar. And by the time that happens, it might have been too late to start investing in these long-term innovations that only pay off after you've invested for a little while," explains Varun.Varun Sivaram is the Philip D. Reed Fellow for Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.This podcast is brought to you by Fiveworx, a turnkey customer engagement platform for utilities. Find out more about how Fiveworx can help your customer engagement program succeed -- and get you beyond the meter.Subscribe to The Interchange podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.

What is the future of renewable energy under Donald Trump? Are recent gains made by solar and wind in jeopardy? Or is the momentum these industries have gained over the past eight years made them borderline unstoppable. This week on the Trump on Earth podcast we talk with a man who's literally writing the book on this topic. Varun Sivaram has been following following energy policy as the Phillip D. Reed fellow for Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations.  He is the author of the forthcoming book, Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Save the Planet (MIT University Press, February 2018).