Podcasts about steyer taylor center

Solar siting, the future of hydroelectric dams, and grid transmission buildout have been some of the most contentious and important areas needing attention as the U.S. builds out the electric grid of tomorrow. In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg interviews Dan Reicher who is a former Assistant Secretary of Energy and is associated with the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, as well as Dartmouth's Irving Institute for Energy and Society.The discussion centers on a program at Stanford called Uncommon Dialogues which aims to sort out divisive issues and make progress solving them.“I started to look into this Uncommon Dialogue program, and I was really quite intrigued given the difficulties we have in resolving some of today's big energy, climate and environmental issues,” said Reicher.The idea is to get opposing parties together at least once and see if there's any interest in really trying to resolve some of their big differences.“I think we've got a good process, and we've tested it now in both hydropower and big solar, and I think it could work well on a lot of other issues. We got some of the biggest solar developers in the United States to sit down with some of the big environmental groups including The Nature Conservancy, the largest U.S. conservation group, and with tribal representatives and a whole host of others.”The result was the groups bought in on an agreement about how to proceed.“We've been moving forward ever since to really try to improve the way we site, operate, and transmit the power from these big solar projects, often measured in the hundreds and hundreds of megawatts and some of them approaching 1,000 megawatts.”Dan Reicher is a former Assistant Secretary of Energy in the Clinton Administration. Mr. Reicher is currently attached to the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Mr. Reicher joined Stanford in 2011 as the executive director of Stanford's Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy & Finance. Before joining Stanford, he was the Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives at Google.Mr. Reicher holds a B.A. in biology from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. 

David McColl is currently the Executive Director of Stanford Climate Ventures and is a Graduate Research Fellow at the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy & Finance. He is also a Partner at Echelon, an early-stage venture capital firm, and its affiliate Shoreline Capital. David received a B.S. in Management Science & Engineering and an M.S. in Energy Resources Engineering from Stanford University. He is a nationally-ranked beach volleyball player. About VSC Ventures: For 20 years, our award-winning ⁠⁠PR agency VSC⁠⁠ has worked with innovative startups on positioning, messaging, and awareness. We are bringing that expertise to help climate startups with storytelling and narrative building. Last year, general partners Vijay Chattha and Jay Kapoor raised a $21M fund to co-invest in the most promising startups alongside leading climate funds. Through the conversations on our show CLIMB by VSC, we're excited to share what we're doing at VSC and VSC Ventures on climate innovation with companies like ⁠⁠Ample⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Actual⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Sesame Solar⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Synop⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vibrant Planet⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Zume⁠⁠ among many others.

Grid Talk is back for its third season, and we kick things off with a discussion about the impact of the massive Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which will funnel more than $60 billion to Department of Energy.Host Marty Rosenberg talks with former U.S. Assistant Energy Secretary Dan Reicher about where and how that money will be spent.“Some of that's going to be in the so-called ‘innovation hubs' where they're going to certain areas of the country and focusing on certain technologies and how to get those accelerated in terms of their development and deployment. Some of this is going to go through existing programs like the low-income home weatherization program to make buildings more efficient.”Mr. Reicher talks about specific items for infrastructure spending and explains what he calls the clean energy triangle.“If we can integrate around that triangle: technology, policy, and finance; if we can find more common ground than we are finding to date, I think we've got a real chance to do well and to do good in clean energy and have a real shot at successfully addressing the climate crisis.”Dan Reicher is a former Assistant Secretary of Energy in the Clinton Administration. Mr. Reicher is currently a senior research scholar at the Stanford Woods Institute for Environment.  Mr. Reicher joined Stanford in 2011 as the executive director of Stanford's Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy & Finance. Before joining Stanford, he was the Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives at Google.Mr. Reicher holds a B.A. in biology from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. 

This week, we talk to Jeffrey Ball, who lead the recent study "Hot money: Illuminating the financing of high-carbon infrastructure in the developing world." In this conversation, we ask: if renewables are so cheap, why is fossil fuel infrastructure still being built in the developing world? Ball helps us understand what is happening and, more importantly, where the money is coming from to power the nation's most in need of more energy resources. He also explains the possible solutions and what to watch for as the politics and economics of decarbonization evolve.  Jeffrey Ball is the scholar-in-residence at Stanford University's Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, leads the The Stanford Climate of Infrastructure Project, and is a lecturer at Stanford Law School. He is a long-time writer on energy and climate issues and has appeared in Fortune, Foreign Affairs, Mother Jones, Texas Monthly, The New Republic, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and Slate. You can check out more of his work on his website here. Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/ As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our new YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group. Check out our updated website! Further Reading: Revealed: Biden administration was not legally bound to auction gulf drilling rights

The recent power blackouts in Texas have raised serious questions about the state’s energy grid and how it is regulated. Jeffrey Ball joins David Dollar in this episode to explain what exactly went wrong and how policy decisions contributed to the crisis. Ball is a scholar-in-residence at Stanford’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance where his research focuses on energy and the environment. He clarifies how renewable energy sources performed during February’s storm and their role in Texas’s energy sector. Ball and Dollar then turn to discuss economically efficient ways to decarbonize the U.S. power industry and the need for global cooperation to combat climate change. Dollar & Sense is a part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Send feedback to BCP@Brookings.edu and follow us at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

Air Date: 8/30/2019 Today we take a look at the strategies being developed to mitigate and adapt to climate chaos while centering social justice in our planning Be part of the show! Leave a message at 202-999-3991   EPISODE SPONSORS: Clean Choice Energy SHOP AMAZON: Amazon USA | Amazon CA | Amazon UK  MEMBERSHIP ON PATREON (Get AD FREE Shows & Bonus Content) VOTE IN THE WEEKLY SHOW TOPICS POLL! SHOW NOTES Ch. 1: Life After Carbon with Peter Plastrik and John Cleveland - Infinite Earth Radio - Air Date 2-25-19 What do cities look like today? What do they need to look like in the very near future? Innovation is needed. We need radical transformation and integration of rural and urban. Ch. 2: Adapting to Climate Change - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 4-24-19 Jeffrey Ball, lecturer at Stanford Law School, scholar-in-residence at Stanford’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, and writer on energy and the environment, talks about the complications of try to adapt to climate change. Ch. 3: The Land Politics of Solar Energy - The Real News - Air Date 8-25-19 Dustin Mulvaney examines the complicated environmental impact—and political economy—of U.S. solar projects, and explains his hopes for the industry's future Ch. 4: Climate Safe Infrastructure with Cris Liban - Infinite Earth Radio - Air Date 10-17-18 Sustainable infrastructures must be implemented with the goal of helping the marginalized and reducing inequality. Investments in communities and people to get us to work and reduce the dangers of climate change. Ch. 5: The State of Adaptation and Climate Adaptation Finance with Harvard’s Jesse Keenan - America Adapts - Air Date 2-23-19 Dr. Jesse Keenan, from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, recently published a book Climate Adaptation Finance and Investment in California. Topics include adaptation finance, understanding ‘maladaptation’, social equity and much, much more! Ch. 6: Designing Our Communities for Justice - The Next System Podcast - Air Date 5-30-19 This week we are discussing how to design communities for justice, in particular as communities seek to respond to challenges of climate change, with new projects from transit to infrastructure. VOICEMAILS Ch. 7: Thoughts on the Democratic party dispute - V from Central New York Ch. 8: Thoughts on the new energy from the youth of America - Vance from Oregon FINAL COMMENTS Ch. 9: Final comments on the slow progressive takeover and the power of having a good story to tell MUSIC: Opening Theme: Loving Acoustic Instrumental by John Douglas Orr  The Edification of Art - Nathanael Christy God's Playground - Nathanael Christy In the Name of the King - Nathanael Christy Growing Pains - Nathanael Christy A Space-Time Odyssey - Nathanael Christy Voicemail Music: Low Key Lost Feeling Electro by Alex Stinnent Closing Music: Upbeat Laid Back Indie Rock by Alex Stinnent   Produced by Jay! Tomlinson Thanks for listening! Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com Support the show via Patreon Listen on iTunes | Stitcher| Spotify| Alexa Devices| +more Check out the BotL iOS/AndroidApp in the App Stores! Follow at Twitter.com/BestOfTheLeft Like at Facebook.com/BestOfTheLeft Contact me directly at Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com Review the show on iTunesand Stitcher!

In its dominance of low-carbon industries that range from solar and wind power, to electric vehicles, to more-efficient coal combustion, China is emerging as a clean-energy juggernaut. That’s according to , the author of a new paper from the titled “” Ball, argues that the West, instead of seeing this development as a threat, should see it as an opportunity both for business and for the planet. In this episode, Ball is interviewed by , the co-chair of the energy and climate initiative here at Brookings. Victor is also a professor of international relations at UC San Diego and director of its Laboratory on International Law and Regulation. In addition to his Brookings affiliation as a nonresident senior fellow, Jeffrey Ball is also a scholar in residence at Stanford University’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, and a lecturer at Stanford Law School. Also on today’s show, a look at how housing and transportation trends in the Washington capital region impact commuting, the climate, and the economy with , a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program. Subscribe to Brookings podcasts  or on , send feedback email to , and follow us and tweet us at  on Twitter. The Brookings Cafeteria is part of the .

We are joined this week by Alicia Seiger Deputy Director, Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance and Managing Director, Precourt Institute Clean Energy Finance Initiative. Alicia leads the center’s work to develop and deploy financial innovations for philanthropic and long-term sources of capital to catalyze a rapid decarbonization of the global economy. This week’s conversations focuses on the evolution of the academic thinking on climate and finance and what’s driving the business case for investing in clean energy. Experts Only is made possible by CleanCapital. Learn more: http://www.cleancapital.com Follow on Twitter: @CleanCapital_ Connect with Alicia via twitter @aaseiger and Steyer Taylor Center @StandfordSTC Alicia’s latest articles mentioned in the pod: Businesses and Investors Need to Act on Climate Now https://ssir.org/articles/entry/businesses_and_investors_need_to_act_on_climate_now Connecting Climate Resilience to the Bottom Line https://ssir.org/articles/entry/businesses_and_investors_need_to_act_on_climate_now

As sea levels rise, winters become harsher and crop patterns are disturbed. All eyes look towards Paris and the UN climate change conference to see if the international community can make meaningful progress towards curbing emissions. While the role of states in negotiating a treaty can be expected, what roles do philanthropy and the private sector play in creating state agendas and implementing change? This discussion will focus on the current state of the environment, what we can expect from upcoming negotiations and how we can work across sectors to implement solutions. Speakers Guillermo Castilleja, Chief Program Officer, Environmental Conservation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, David G. Victor, Professor of International Relations, School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego, and Sissel Waage, Director, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, BSR, are in discussion. Alicia Seiger, Deputy Director, Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, Stanford University, moderates the discussion. For more information about this event please visit: http://www.worldaffairs.org/media-library/event/1547

Once again, there’s no need to watch any other program. No need to go out there and waste your time with the mainstream media.All you have to do is watch this show because we’re going to tell you everything that you need to know and we’re going to tell you the inside story that nobody else is talking about.This morning, we got Hillary Clinton clarifying her comments. Apparently, the blowback from her comments about how businesses don’t create jobs was too severe.We’ve also got Britain is ending it’s combat mission in Afghanistan and there is a new poll out of what Brits think. And we have the young woman who’s returning home back in Maine after her ebola quarantine. -----If you would like to discuss anything with John about the show, email him at Jason@TheLiveShow.TVYou can also use the hashtag #TheLiveShowFollow Jason on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/TheLiveShowTVFollow Us on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/TheLiveShowTV-----If you are really enjoying the show and would like to support what we're doing at The Live Show, please consider donating to our cause. You can do that at www.Patreon.com/TheLiveShow-----Are you interested in advertising on The Live Show?Reach out to us at Advertising@TheLiveShow.TVWe’d love to talk with you.-----SponsorsTrade Pro Futures: http://tradeprofutures.com/The industry's top futures and forex trading platforms.Trade Empowered: http://www.tradeempowered.com/Learn how to day-trade, swing-trade, or become a profitable long term trader.Main Street Alpha: http://mainstreetalpha.com/A social site that links up professional successful traders with verifiable track records to capital.----- Let me reiterate, ladies and gentlemen, ebola is not a threat.It’s not. The risk of you getting ebola are super low unless you happen to be in Sierra Leone as a medical worker dealing with people who are on their deathbed with ebola. Then your risk of contracting ebola is very high.What I find difficult to understand. By the CDC’s own projections they put out 2 weeks ago, they said that they estimate by January 2015 there will be a total of approximately 550,000 ebola cases. They’re the ones calling for saying that it’s a massive pandemic.But when we actually have people that are over there, that are of the highest risk cases, who end up coming back to the United States, they just simply say ‘don’t worry about it. If you get a fever, let us know’. And then when you call and you say you have a fever, they say ‘you can get on the plane anyway’. Is this not the most impudent organization on Earth?I’m starting to think that the CDC has no idea what they’re talking about. It was the CDC who said that they cannot confirm whether ebola was an airborne virus or not. They don’t know. They admit they don’t know. Yet they don’t think it’s necessary to quarantine people who are coming back from overseas.Now, don’t get me wrong, I have a great deal of respect for doctors who are willing to go over to third world countries in order to try and help those places who have the least amount of medical care possible.But think about what America is asking of you when you’re coming back. You’re willing to go to Sierra Leone. You’re willing to work with one of the most deadliest diseases that we know of right now. You’re willing to help people and save lives with that terrible disease. You’re putting your life on the line to go over there.And yet, when you come back, it’s somehow a violation of your liberty to be in a quarantine? You made the choice to go over there, we all appreciate the fact that you went over there and I’m sure there are people who didn’t die because you were there. But now that you’re back here, there is a responsibility and you have a responsibility to the people in this country that you wait out the quarantine period to make sure that you’re not sick. Nobody knows what’s really going onFirst it was global warming. Then they realized it was getting colder. Now it’s climate change because who can argue against that the climate is changing? Al Gore said we weren’t going to have any polar ice caps anymore. They were going to be all gone by today. And we find out that no, they’ve actually doubled in size, that they’re growing.This goes along the same lines with the CDC and this ebola scare. I believe wholeheartedly that it is nothing more than an attempt to control you. An attempt to gain power from the people by scaring them with all of these ideas. And global warming is just another one of those ideas.The surest way to get yourself in a panic is to listen to what the government tells you because they are virtually always wrong. They’re almost never right.What frustrates me is that nobody looks at the outcomes of their principles and the outcome of their claims. And the reason that they become overly excited about these things is because if they didn’t and there was a real pandemic, well then they get blamed.But if they go way overboard on it, like tell us that a million people are going to die, well then all of a sudden, when only ten thousand people die, well then they say they took all this action and did something about it. Hillary Clinton is in a lot of trouble. She’s had to backpedal big time.This is so typical of politicians to do things like this, to say things so utterly ridiculous. What’s funny is, I’m fairly certain that this was scripted, that she was reading from a prepared speech to this group of supporters when she said these things.If you haven’t heard about this, basically, yesterday she made this comment.“Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs. You know that old theory, trickle-down economics. That has been tried; that has failed. It has failed rather spectacularly.” - Hillary Clinton Well, in response to that, she had to come out and clarify her statement today. Hillary Clinton clarifies comments on job creationhttp://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2014/10/27/hillary-clinton-businesses-job-creation/So-called trickle-down economics has failed. I shorthanded this point the other day, so let me be absolutely clear about what I’ve been saying for a couple of decades: Our economy grows when businesses and entrepreneurs create good-paying jobs here in an America where workers and families are empowered to build from the bottom up and the middle out — not when we hand out tax breaks for corporations that outsource jobs or stash their profits overseas. This is not a clarification. This is what we call a total reversal. A contradiction.On yesterday’s show, I explained that trickle down economics is not a real economic theory. What it is is it’s a way liberals have been explaining a principle about economics that the do not understand. Hillary Clinton has absolutely no idea what she’s talking about on an economic scale.If you ask her what trickle down economics is, she will tell you it’s when you give money to the rich in form of tax breaks in hopes that then the money will trickle down to the little guy. And we went to great efforts yesterday to explain that that is not how free market capitalism works. When you reduce taxes on people who save and invests, that investment dollars that is made first goes to the worker.You can go back and watch yesterday’s episode as well as read the show notes for the complete analysis. It’s pretty simple. If you give tax breaks, you give tax breaks across the board to everyone in every sector.You equally disperse those tax cuts because, here’s the thing, a subsidy is something that a company gets that another company doesn’t get. So, it is the government picking who is going to get capital and who isn’t in the form of tax refunds, grants, or whatever it may be. We, as libertarians, believe if you are going to give tax relief or tax benefits or tax reductions, you do that equally across the board.If you’re going to raise taxes, you’re going to do it equally across the board to all companies in all sectors, giving them more capital with which to invest with and you allow those businesses to stand on their own merit without subsidy, without special hand outs.Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton does not understand even the basics of all this. She goes on to talk about more hot button issues that liberals hate, which is this idea of tax breaks of corporations who outsource jobs. So let me just put that issue to rest as well. There is not a single company in the United States that’s given a tax cut to send their jobs overseas, nor are they given tax cuts to keep capital overseas.What happens is companies can get better tax rates and cheaper labor overseas than they can get it over here.Why can they get that? For one, standard of living is higher here. Low wage workers, there’s a floor on where you can pay low wage workers so the minimum wage hampers their ability to stay here in the United States. And the overall tax burden on them is lower so you see many companies looking at it and they say ‘look, it’s cheaper for me to uproot my entire company, move it overseas, then ship the goods and services back to the United States, and sell them here. I can actually make more money doing that’.And, as I stated yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, instead of trying to fix the problem of an undue tax burden on individuals who create jobs by Hillary Clinton’s own admission and we need to fix that so more companies will want to come here to work so we create an environment here that will increase GDP, that will increase growth, instead, what do they do?Instead, they want to put into place laws that prevent people from moving overseas, to prevent people from leaving this country. We need to put a fence around America. When that is the situation that you are faced with, you’re wrong. You’re making terrible mistakes and something has to change.But I guess some people were listening to this show and this is why you don’t have to listen to anybody else. You don’t have to go anywhere else for your news. You just have to watch this show. Because, as I said yesterday, if you want the clearest indication of what creates wealth inequality, all you have to do is look at the principles that liberals promote: deficit spending, money to the banks, all of these things. Draghi May Help Europe’s Rich Get Richerhttp://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-10-27/draghi-may-help-europe-s-rich-get-richerEuropean Central Bank President Mario Draghi, fighting a deflation threat in the euro region, may need to confront a concern more familiar to Americans: income inequality.With interest rates almost at zero, Draghi is moving into asset purchases to lift inflation to the ECB’s target. The more he nears the kind of tools deployed by the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan, the more he risks making the rich richer, said economists including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, chief economist for the World Bank from 1997 to 2000.In the U.S., the gap is rising between the incomes of the wealthy, whose financial holdings become more valuable via central bank purchases, and the poor. While monetary authorities’ foray into bond-buying is intended to stabilize economic conditions and underpin a real recovery, policy makers and economists are increasingly asking whether one cost may be wider income gaps -- in Europe as well as the U.S. Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economyhttp://amzn.com/0465022529A must read to educate and empower you to understand the basic tenets of economics. Stealthy Norwegian entrepreneur aims to revolutionize U.S. energy storagehttp://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/27/us-energy-storage-eikeland-idUSKBN0IG29T20141027Jostein Eikeland, a Norwegian entrepreneur with a mixed record of success, is hoping to jolt the world of energy storage.On Tuesday, Eikeland's latest venture, Alevo, will unveil a battery that he says will last longer and ultimately cost far less than rival technologies.The technology, which is meant to store excess electricity generated by power plants, has been developed by Eikeland in secret for a decade. Alevo's approach stands in stark contrast to the public announcement last month of Tesla Motors Inc's planned $5 billion factory in Nevada, which will make batteries for electric cars. Tesla says its plant will employ 6,500 people by 2020. It will receive more than $1 billion of state incentives."Building a $1 billion facility in stealth mode is definitely unusual," said Dan Reicher, executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University. Reicher, a former green technology investor, said he was not familiar with Alevo or its technology.State and county officials in North Carolina confirmed that Alevo has not sought any business incentives.One of the most interesting pieces of this article is that apparently he has taken no federal money for it. Amazing. You mean, you have an entrepreneur out there with an idea?Who risked his own money and his own capital on the line to try to create something?And he didn't need a government grant to do it?He didn't need the support of the public sector? He didn't need tax money to achieve his goal?No. Eikeland, 46, said Alevo, named for the inventor of the battery, Alessandro Volta, has $1 billion from anonymous Swiss investors and has taken no state funding or incentives.Alternately brash and self-deprecating, Eikeland did not shy away from discussing his up-and-down past. He founded software company TeleComputing Inc during the dot-com boom, helped take it public on the Oslo stock exchange, then left in 2002 after the tech bubble burst.He later invested heavily in and took the helm of Sweden-based auto parts manufacturer, TMG International, which went bankrupt in 2008. Broke, he was forced to sell his lavish homes to pay his taxes, according to media reports that were confirmed by representatives for Alevo.After TMG, Eikeland spent a few years investing in software and battery technologies, many of which he admits failed."I know how hard it is to lose eight of your 10 fingers," he said. "I wish I had somebody else to blame."Ladies and gentlemen, this is the true entrepreneur. This is what entrepreneurs really go through. It's not a situation where suddenly they make all kinds of money and they're rich forever now, and their constantly exploiting people.No, what is he doing? He made a lot of money during the tech boom. He took that money, he tried to invest it in other places and he failed. He failed again, and again, and again.He went broke. He had to sell his lifestyle, sell his home to pay his taxes. And then he goes right back at it again.That's what producers do. And this is the misunderstanding that I want to get across to you about the difference between producers and workers. The progressives, the Democrats, would have you believe that it is the worker that is the producer.Unfortunately, that just isn't the case. If you're a worker, you're labor.The producer is the guy that can create regardless whether you are there or not.The employees are there to create economies of scale. The real producer is the guy who creates the widget. The guy who puts it together. The guy who took the idea and turned it into reality.And if all of the workers were gone, the producer would still be able to make a living because he could still churn out the widgets on his own.This is the difference. This is the guy that invests, who risks his life's savings.Support the show.

Three years after Fukushima is nuclear power dead in the water? Or is it poised for revival due to the world’s desperate need for carbon-free energy? Every day the Fukushima reactors dump 70,000 gallons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, and there is no end in sight. In the United States, the industry faces more systemic challenges - abundant and cheap natural gases are making new nukes uneconomic, despite the efforts of the Obama administration to jumpstart a nuclear renaissance. Per Peterson, a professor of Nuclear Engineering at UC Berkeley and a former member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, says the Fukushima disaster has had a significant impact on how engineers design the nuclear power plants of the future, and their safety systems. He says it has led to the development of what is called “passive safety” – the ability for the plant to shut down without needing external sources of electrical power. Two new plants are currently being constructed in South Carolina and Georgia, but at a staggering cost - $10+ billion per project. Peterson says that cost is due in part to major improvements over previous designs. “One of them is the passive safety…but the other is the use of modular construction technology which now does the majority of the fabrication of the buildings and the equipment modules and factories.” Peterson says. “And the implementation of modular construction does have the potential to give you much better control over schedule and cost. This said, it's still a puzzle why the construction prices are as high as they are…there must be some way to bring these numbers closer together.” Dozens of old plants are receiving a new lease on life from regulators who have approved letting them run another decade or two. But what happens when plants are run beyond their expected lifetimes? “We've had nuclear power plants in the United States get into trouble in far shorter than their lifetimes.” says Dave Lochbaum, Director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “We've also had some nuclear power plants running longer than 40 years. So it's not what the calendar says; it's how well you maintain the plant and ensure that safety measures are maintained, whether it's one year or 41 years.” Jon Koomey, a research fellow at the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford, and author of the book "Cold Cash, Cool Climate" says it’s important to recognize that all energy technologies have risks. “We need to figure out a way to innovate not just in technology but also in our institutional structures, in our incentives, in the ways that we encourage people to report problems,” Koomey says. “And if we don't do institutional innovation as well as technological innovation, then we're not going to be able to count on many of these technologies that we would like to count on to reduce climate risks.” Dave Lochbaum, Director, Nuclear Safety Project, Union of Concerned Scientists Jon Koomey, Research Fellow, Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, Stanford University Per Peterson, Member, Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future; Professor of Nuclear Engineering, UC Berkeley This program was recorded in front of a live audience at the Commonwealth Club of California on April 3, 2014.

Dan Reicher '78, Executive Director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University

Dan Reicher '78, executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University, talks about how Dartmouth cultivated his interest in sustainability.

Energy Innovation: Overhaul or Tweak? Severin Borenstein, Co-director, Energy Institute, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley Richard Lester, Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center Dan Reicher, Executive Director, Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, Stanford America’s innovation engine is the envy of the world, yet it struggles to deploy new technology at the scale commensurate with its economic might. This panel of experts from three of the nation’s leading universities says that the U.S. risks falling behind if it refuses to address the technical, financial, and political barriers slowing energy innovation. Richard Lester, Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center, lays out what he calls the three waves of energy innovation: energy efficiency in this decade; the scaling of low- or de-carbonized energy supply technologies beginning in 2020 and running through about 2050; and breakthroughs we don’t even know about today, or may know about but are in the lab stage, but that can take decades to mature. Dan Reicher, Executive Director, Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, Stanford University, is especially bullish on the promise of Lester’s first wave, energy efficiency. “It is the low-hanging fruit, and it’s also the low-hanging fruit that grows back. We don’t use it up,” he says. Reicher says that energy efficiency and other low-carbon technologies are needlessly held back because we ignore one or more critical criteria: technology, policy, and finance. And even when easy efficiency gains are there to be had, such as in new cars, says Severin Borenstein, Co-Director, Energy Institute, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, we are slow to act. “The technologies are getting better, but gasoline, for the most part, remains cheap. When you ask people how much they need to save to drive a smaller car, it’s a lot more than most people are willing to give up,” he says. These difficulties and more – think our broken political system – have convinced Richard Lester that a new approach, one not dependent upon raising the price of energy, is necessary. “It may be time for a shift in the policy debate to focus less on what is certainly the key requirement of increasing the price of energy to reflect these costs and focusing more on the other half of the equation, which is figuring out how to reduce the cost of the things that we actually want, which are low-carbon energy technologies and efficiency,” he says. Dan Reicher shares Lester’s concern about our broken politics, particularly as it is manifested in the GOP focus on the bankruptcy of Solyndra. “We may be demanding that anything that we put money into has got to show very reliable, very quick success. And not allow for what innovation requires, which is placing bets,” he says. Severin Borenstein urges policymakers to ramp up funding for basic science research, in part because he is pessimistic that existing renewable energy technologies will be sufficient. “The technologies that are going to solve this problem don’t exist yet,” he says, adding that “most of the technologies that exist don’t have the potential to be cost-effective with fossil fuels.” “We can’t take our eye off the price on carbon,” he says. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on November 3, 2011

Environmental sustainability is on President Obama’s agenda, and in this panel discussion we hear from senior government energy and technology officials on what’s up and coming in this area. Experts discuss the administration’s policies, programs, and initiatives to support clean energy innovation and entrepreneurship, in particular. The event was a panel discussion convened by the Stanford’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, a joint initiative of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Stanford Law School. https://ssir.org/podcasts/entry/clean_energy_dc2vc_environmental_sustainability_and_energy_policy