Shayle Kann

San Francisco

Partner at Energy Impact Partners (@energyimpact_), investing at the frontier of climate tech. Host @Catalystpod. Used to lead GTM Research (acq by @verisk).

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Articles

The US nuclear groundswell

1 week ago | latitudemedia.com | Shayle Kann

Listen to the episode on: The nuclear renaissance of the 2000s turned out to be something of a mirage. Buoyed by rising fossil gas prices, growing climate awareness, and steady load growth, nuclear seemed poised for a breakout moment. But that momentum stalled. Electricity demand flatlined. The fracking boom sent gas prices plummeting. And Fukushima rattled public confidence in nuclear power. Ultimately, only two new reactors, Vogtle units 3 and 4 in Georgia, reached completion over a decade later.
Catalyst Live at SF Climate Week

2 weeks ago | latitudemedia.com | Shayle Kann

Listen to the episode on: It’s a Catalyst first-of-a-kind: our very first live event! We hosted it last Wednesday at San Francisco Climate week. In this episode, Shayle talks to Mike Schroepfer, co-founder and partner at Gigascale Capital and former CTO of Meta, and Nick Chaset, CEO of Octopus Energy US.
The geopolitics of rare earth elements

3 weeks ago | latitudemedia.com | Shayle Kann

Listen to the episode on: China’s new export controls on rare earth elements (REEs) are a problem for EVs, renewables, and other industries that rely on the minerals, especially the permanent magnets they’re used in. The vast majority of the global supply chain is in China. Plus, Chinese companies control supply chain operations around the world. So is it possible to stand up a rare earth supply chain outside of China’s control?
Serving data center load with carbon capture

4 weeks ago | latitudemedia.com | Shayle Kann |Lisa Martine Jenkins |Maeve Allsup

Listen to the episode on: Big tech’s data center construction boom is fueling a flurry of natural gas development, despite the fuel’s challenges, and it’s complicating big tech’s climate goals. But carbon capture and storage (CCS) could mitigate emissions from those new plants, and hyperscalers could secure low-carbon power while meeting their needs for speed and reliability. So how could natural gas with CCS serve data center loads?
How climate disasters are shaping insurance markets

1 month ago | latitudemedia.com | Shayle Kann

Listen to the episode on: Premiums are rising. Insurers are leaving markets. But people keep building in risk-prone areas, and the climate disasters just keep coming. Can insurance markets adapt? In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Judd Boomhower, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California-San Diego and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He studies how insurance markets are reacting to climate change.
Specialized AI brains for physical industry

1 month ago | latitudemedia.com | Shayle Kann

Listen to the episode on: Everyone wants a piece of general purpose models. Instacart has deployed ChatGPT for recipes and meal planning. The Mayo Clinic is using it to summarize patient records. Schneider Electric is using an OpenAI LLM to generate sustainability reports. With such powerful models, what’s the need for specialized models built for specific industries, especially in climate tech? In this episode, Shayle talks to Sam Smith-Eppsteiner, partner at Innovation Endeavors.
The potential for flexible data centers

1 month ago | latitudemedia.com | Shayle Kann |Maeve Allsup

Listen to the episode on: Tyler Norris says regulators have been getting two different stories. On one side, they’ve been hearing that data centers are largely inflexible loads. On the other, last year the U.S. Department of Energy recommended data center flexibility, and EPRI launched its DCFlex initiative to demonstrate the same. So he and a few other researchers wanted to know, What’s the potential for data center flexibility? And what benefits could it have system-wide?
An ode to electrochemistry

2 months ago | latitudemedia.com | Shayle Kann |Scott Clavenna |Maeve Allsup

Listen to the episode on: Batteries were electrochemistry’s breakout hit. For years it was a field that kept a low profile, outshined by flashier cousins like biotech and computer science. That is until lithium-ion batteries became big business, showing that studying the relationship between chemicals and energy could unlock technical pathways that other disciplines could not. Now the field is making breakthroughs in critical areas like cement, metallurgy, and new battery chemistries.
A skeptic’s take on AI electricity load growth

2 months ago | latitudemedia.com | Shayle Kann |Maeve Allsup |Lisa Martine Jenkins

Listen to the episode on: The predictions are coming in hot. Data centers could grow to consume more than 9% of U.S. electricity generation by 2030, according to the Electric Power Research Institute. That’s more than double its current estimated data center load. AI will increase global data center power demand 165% by 2030, says Goldman Sachs. And billions of dollars are at stake. Utilities, megasite developers, and data center operators are all basing major decisions on predictions like these.
Cultivated meat’s 'trough of disillusionment'

2 months ago | latitudemedia.com | Shayle Kann |Sara Baldwin

Listen to the episode on: Between 2013 and 2023, cultivated meat companies raised a total of nearly $3 billion. In 2020, Singapore approved the world’s first cultivated meat products, with the U.S. and Israel following close behind. But head to the meat department of any American grocery store today, and you won’t find cultivated meat for sale. After short-lived restaurant tasting menus in the U.S., it’s no longer available.