Green hydrogen unicorn, renewables popularity, and clean stocks collapse

This Week in Cleantech is a new, weekly podcast covering the most impactful stories in cleantech and climate in 15 minutes or less. Produced by Renewable Energy World and Tigercomm, This Week in Cleantech will air every Friday in the Factor This! podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts.

This week’s episode features Wall Street climate finance reporter Amrith Ramkumar who breaks down a major fundraising deal for green hydrogen startup Electric Hydrogen.

1. Americans don’t hate living near solar and wind farms as much as you might think — The Washington Post and Renewable Energy Is Reckoning With Its Perception in Rural America — CNET

Two different polls on Americans’ views of renewable energy were covered this week; one from Washington Post-University of Maryland and another presented by Tigercomm and Embold Research at RE+ last month. The main takeaways were that Americans’ are comfortable living by solar and wind farms, but there is a lot of skepticism that the projects will truly benefit their communities.

This will likely become a growing problem for developers if they don’t improve their community engagement tactics. Community opposition is the industry’s growing, multi-billion problem. The underinvestment in community engagement by the industry is putting these projects in jeopardy.

2. The US power grid quietly survived record summer heat waves without outages — Vox

The power grid just barely made it through this summer’s scorching heat without major outages. A blackout at the wrong place and wrong time could kill thousands. Renewable energy and battery storage helped keep things up and running, but the grid is not getting any younger, and extreme weather events and rising global temperatures that threaten the grid are only getting more frequent.

Permitting and interconnection reform, demand-side interventions like virtual power plants, demand response, and energy efficiency, will be critical to avoiding future outages.

3. Renewable energy stocks hit hard by higher interest rates — Financial Times

The inflation wave and rising interest rates have caused the S&P Global Clean Energy Index stock to drop 20.2% over the past 2 months. The oil and gas-heavy S&P 500 Energy Index has increased 6%. This is a threat to renewables companies, and it may alter investors strategies if they view there is too much risk in green energy investments.

The energy transition is still drawing a lot of needed investment, but we need a better economic environment to ensure the momentum that rewards that investment.

Watch the full episode on YouTube

4. Underground thermal energy networks are becoming crucial to the US’s energy future — MIT Technology Review

13 U.S. states are now planning to use underground thermal energy networks for their commercial and residential buildings to cut carbon pollution. One is already being constructed in Massachusetts and set for a November completion.

This means reduced stress on the grid and an opportunity for union workers who have experience maintaining natural gas pipelines, to transition to a job in the clean energy sector.

5. The Secret Behind the First $1 Billion Green Hydrogen Startup — The Wall Street Journal

Electrolyzers have been labeled as uneconomical. They use a vast amount of renewable energy to produce a small amount of hydrogen. Startup Electric Hydrogen has now created an electrolyzer that would produce more hydrogen, making it easier to produce green hydrogen– and they’ve raised more than $600 million to do it after their latest round.

They plan to open their first electrolyzer factory next year. This could potentially be extremely successful; the winner of the green hydrogen race could reach a $1 trillion market.

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This Week in Cleantech is hosted by Renewable Energy World senior content director John Engel and Tigercomm president Mike Casey. The show is produced by Brian Mendes with research support from Alex Petersen and Clare Quirin.