The World Changing Podcast
Aston Labs Co.
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Join us as we talk to the skeptics, supporters, and innovators in the fields that depend on electricity to run their industries, which is changing every single day. Hosted by Greg Robinson and Flo Lumsden, an Aston Labs Co. podcast produced by Chorus Studios.
Available episodes
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Aug 7, 2023
Greg & Flo Take on The (monolithic) Power Utilities
Flo asks: "Are our power utilities businesses or part of the government?" The answer is pretty murky. How did most power utilities in the US become investor owned, publicly traded companies with no competition? In this episode, Greg and I try to address these questions. We look into the history of power utilities in the U.S. and try to imagine how the current “business model” could be innovated. How we use power has changed a lot since 1882, but the companies and business models that serve us, have not. Today we have all kinds of energy consumers - large and small - depending on the power grid for anything from producing pharmaceutical drugs to powering your home air conditioning. Additionally, customers increasingly want to both consume and produce green energy (solar PV etc). Seems like we need our power grids and the businesses that run them to innovate. But what will incentivize this innovation when they have no competition? Let's discuss.
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Jun 20, 2023
Modernizing & Decarbonizing the US Power Grid with Gary Rackliffe (Hitachi Energy, ABB, Westinghouse Electric)
The dream of the smart, sustainable grid. What will it take to achieve the energy grid of our dreams? We are so excited to share this conversation we had with Gary Rackliffe. Gary is a special person to talk to for several reasons. First, Gary has spent his entire 30+ year career building and designing the US power grid. Second, he is a leader in the planning and technology needed to modernize and decarbonize the grid for the future. Our biggest take away from our conversation with him is we may already have a lot of the infrastructure and technology needed to meet our future energy needs. If we add more transmission lines along side time-sensitive consumption, we could achieve a lot of our goals. What is your take away from this conversation?
Let us know!
Gary's Full Bio:
Gary Rackliffe is the Vice President for Market Development and Innovation at Hitachi Energy located in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is an industry leader for the energy transition, grid modernization, and digital transformation of the electric power grid. He has extensive experience leading Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS); Utility Operations Software business development, sales, and product development; Strategy and Marketing Communications for Power Grids products and systems; Regional Sales for T&D equipment; and Innovation and Strategic Initiatives for smart grid and grid modernization, the digital transformation, and the energy transition.
Gary is a member of the Department of Commerce Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Advisory Committee (REEEAC), the DistribuTECH Advisory Committee, the GridWise Alliance Technical Council (past board member), the E4 Carolinas Innovation Council, and the IEC Smart Energy Systems Committee (SyC SE), serving as the SyC SE Technical Advisor for the IEC US National Committee. He also chairs NEMA’s Utility Products & Systems Division Leadership Committee and serves on the Board of Directors for the Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster, the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA), Texas A&M Smart Grid Center, and E4 Carolinas.
Gary holds BS and ME degrees in Electric Power Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY and a MBA degree from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. He is a Registered Professional Engineer and an IEEE Senior Member. He has co-authored a T&D planning book and has written numerous technical papers and articles.
Terms and notes for the show:
NYTimes article referenced in the introduction: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/12/climate/us-electric-grid-energy-transition.html
Transmission and Distribution:
A transmission line carries electric energy from one point to another in an electrical power system. They can carry alternating current or direct current, or a combination of both.
Transmission lines are important for moving energy around.
HVDC:
A high-voltage direct current electric power transmission system, offers long distance power transmission, Improved integrity of renewable energy and the ability to connect different power grids.
Solar PV:
PV stands for photovoltaic and it gets its name from the process of converting light photons to electricity, which is also called the photovoltaic effect. This is another way (fancier) to describe solar power.
Load versus Generation:
Load is another word for the demand for electricity on a grid.
It's the total electricity being consumed or removed from the grid by the users of the grid.
Dispatchable power versus a Non-dispatchable power:
These two terms refer to the ability of a power source to be controlled and adjusted, to meet fluctuating demand for electricity.
Dispatchable power sources (currently) include fossil fuels, hydrogen, Geothermal and biomass power.
Non dispatchable power also known as intermittent or variable resources are those that cannot be easily controlled or scheduled to match the electricity demand. Examples include solar power, wind power, wave and tidal power.
These fall into the non dispatchable category because their availability is influenced by weather conditions and natural phenomenon.
One gigawatt:
One gigawatt is enough to power about 750,000 homes. So, three quarters of a million homes can be powered by one gigawatt.
100% uptime:
100% uptime it's a reliability term. It is referring to perfect or near perfect reliability with no power outages.
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May 29, 2023
Greg & Flo Take on Crypto
What the heck is crypto? And for that matter, what is money? Greg and I take a thought provoking and philosophical journey exploring these fundamental questions. Our conversation delves into the profound implications of these technologies and their significance in our lives. One of the key topics we tackle is the formidable energy needs associated with these technologies. Who will be responsible for installing the infrastructure necessary to support crypto and decentralized finance?
Let's discuss!
Here are references to the facts and topics discussed in our conversation, with timecode:
(02:39) Greg asks Flo if she knows the difference between “coins” and “tokens.”
To tell if you're dealing with a crypto coin or token, find out whether the cryptocurrency has a blockchain or not. If it has its own blockchain, then it's a coin, and if it operates on an existing blockchain, then it's a token. (reference)
(07:05) Greg and Flo question when money began to be used in human society.
In 2021, Chinese archaeologists with the State University of Zhengzhou announced the discovery of the world’s oldest known, securely dated coin minting site in Guanzhuang in Henan Province, China. A mint is a facility where currency is created. Sometime around 640 BCE, this facility began striking spade coins, one of the first standardized forms of metal coinage. (reference)
(09:10) Greg says that in 2022, about 950,000 people in the world owned one Bitcoin.
In 2022 according to blockchain analytics company Glassnode, the number of wallets holding at least 1 BTC or more reached 950,000. (reference)
(28:00) Greg talks about Figure.com
Learn more about Figure here: https://www.figure.com/about/
(37:21) Greg says “The crypto industry has stomped out Ponzi schemes in a few years.”
Greg is referring to the fact that previous ponzi schemes, like that of Bernie Madoff's, went unchallenged for decades. In contrast, the FTX ponzi scheme was caught and brought to justice within a few years of commencing operation. (reference)
(39:15) Greg claims "The fastest rate of crypto adoption in the world is Africa.”
In 2021, Chainanalysis noted that Africa 'has some of the highest grassroots adoption in the world, with Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania all ranking in the top 20 of our Global Crypto Adoption Index.'" (reference)
(01:16:44) Greg: “AI will use more electricity than blockchain technology as a whole.”
According to third party analysis sources, the race to build high-performance, AI-powered search engines is likely to require a dramatic rise in computing power, and with it a massive increase in the amount of energy that tech companies require and the amount of carbon they emit. (reference)
(01:18:53) Greg: “We have to grow the grid by about 60% in the next handful of years.”
"Most plausible pathways to net-zero emissions call for the electrification of multiple services, such as heating and transportation. The resulting increase in electricity demand will require major upgrades to the grid, with some studies suggesting a 60% increase in peak demand by 2050." (reference)
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May 1, 2023
James D’Albora on Why Renewables Need Better Internet Service
James D'Albora began his lifelong journey as an entrepreneur when he was 10 years old. With the dream of purchasing his own TV, he decided to get a paper route in Sacramento. Today he runs Verify Energy and sells The PowerFly (his invention) to solar companies (or EPCs). James realized that solar power EPCs didn't have a simple way to remotely monitor or adjust the power supply being produced. James' PowerFly is one example of innovations at the grid edge allowing for greater utilization of renewable power in the future.
What does James think the future energy grid will look like? Listen and find out.
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Mar 15, 2023
Greg & Flo Take on Community Solar
Welcome to our first Greg-Flo-isode! In these episodes we take on a single timely topic that interests us and work to think unbiasedly about it. What opportunities and possible disadvantages do these programs, technologies and even ideas present us?
In this episode, we break down what community solar is and why it may matter to you. Also,
how does it fit in the big picture of addressing climate change and de-carbonizing the energy grid? Let's discuss!
For more information about net metering and solar legislation in your state: https://www.dsireusa.org/
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Feb 19, 2023
Are we ready to go Nuclear? Alan Hoffman (MIT, Oklo, Cloudant, PayPal) on the current opportunities and challenges of nuclear power
Are we ready to go nuclear? We’ve brought in the brilliant and multi-talented Alan Hoffman (MIT, Oklo, Cloudant, PayPal) to help us dive into the current opportunities and challenges of nuclear power. Are we ready to take the leap and employ this technology further to mitigate climate change? Let’s find out.
About Alan: Alan holds a PhD in particle physics from MIT. While at MIT, he co-founded and built a software company (Cloudant) to fix the big data problem that he and his co-founders experienced in their particle physics research. Alan and his team built the company to over a thousand customers before it was acquired by IBM after just six years. Alan was then appointed head of product for one of PayPal's major payments platforms. Most recently Alan was Chief of staff at Oklo, an energy startup that is at the cutting edge of small modular nuclear power.
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Jan 23, 2023
Ed McKenzie: Online Identities, Discovering Code and Power 3.0
Meet Ed McKenzie: programming wiz kid, Greg's bff and musical genius. Greg and Ed have been friends and business partners for 15 years. They first met playing in a band together in college and have since written hundreds of songs together and started two companies. What makes Ed a particularly interesting guest? Ed began coding at a young age when he discovered he could hack into his own video games. He then sold his first software to SoftDisk at 15 years old. He worked at Microsoft and Google writing foundational code for the internet. In this conversation, Ed and Greg explore the weight of online identities (aka why Ed doesn't really want to do this podcast), talk about how Ed discovered code at a very young age, and unpack why they are starting Aston Labs.
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Jan 6, 2023
Introducing The World Changing Podcast
Welcome to... The World Changing Podcast! Who are we? Why do we care about changing the world? Meet your host Greg Robinson and producer Flo Lumsden. In the first half of the episode, we introduce each other and discuss why we are making this world changing podcast. In the second half of the episode, Greg and I discuss how his first sustainable energy start-up, Drift, has led him to his newest venture, Aston Labs. We also go into more depth about various topics we are interested in addressing with the podcast. We hope you enjoy it and, who knows, maybe together we will change the world!
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Jan 4, 2023
Trailer: The World Changing Podcast
Curious what The World Changing Podcast is all about? Here's a snack-able summary.
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