The tape that led to a fusion breakthrough

In 2021, Commonwealth Fusion Systems proved it had built the most powerful magnet in the world. The breakthrough was based on a specific material - a tape - that conducts massive amounts of current with very little loss.  Rick Needham, Chief Commercial Officer for CFS, says the breakthrough led to a $1.8 billion Series B fundraising round. Since then, the company has turned its attention to turning this scientific breakthrough into a commercial technology. And in late 2024, the company announced it had signed a deal with Dominion Energy Virginia to build the world’s first commercial fusion power plant, ARC.  In this episode, Lara talks with Rick about how CFS plans to take its technology from the lab to real-world deployment. They discuss major milestones, like proving net energy gain and finding a customer for a technology that has never been proven in the field. And Rick makes the argument that fusion is much closer than most people think.    Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.

Clean energy attracts nearly $3 trillion in investment annually, but most of that capital flows to massive utility-scale projects through the world's biggest banks and large-scale asset managers. Meanwhile, smaller distributed projects — rooftop solar, batteries, microgrids — face a structural financing challenge that Amanda Li calls "death by a thousand cuts." As co-founder and COO of Banyan Infrastructure, Li sees this dynamic constantly. Distributed infrastructure developers are trying to secure deals for $500,000 or $1 million, but face the same transaction costs as billion-dollar projects. "You might have a thousand times the amount of data at every single one of those stages, a thousand models, a thousand PDF documents or contracts, a thousand counterparties," Li explains. "So that's where the overhead really becomes crushing." Rachel Halfaker, who leads the community infrastructure program at the Milken Institute, sees the same fragmentation from a different angle. Unlike utility-scale projects with a single counterparty, distributed energy involves "a hundred business owners, a hundred nonprofits, a hundred YMCAs or churches" who aren't accustomed to thinking about term sheets and risk profiles. The solution they are pursuing? Standardization. But previous attempts have failed for specific reasons that go beyond market immaturity. "Everyone intellectually understands and believes in the benefits of coordination and standardization," said Li. But past efforts lacked dedicated coordinators and sufficient critical mass. The complexity of distributed energy finance makes standardization uniquely challenging. These projects often require blended capital stacks where three or more financing sources must align simultaneously. "All three things have to be in coordination in order for that deal to pencil,” said Halfaker. This orchestration typically falls to local developers with small teams, rather than the armies of investment bankers and lawyers that structure utility-scale deals. The result is frequent near-misses where viable projects nearly fall apart due to financing complexity. In this episode, recorded live as part of Latitude Media's Frontier Forum series, Stephen Lacey talks with Li and Halfaker about why standardization is critical for scaling distributed energy into a trillion-dollar asset class.  They explore how standardization could eventually enable securitization — the "holy grail" that would create secondary markets for distributed energy assets. This episode was recorded live as part of Latitude Media's Frontier Forum with Banyan Infrastructure. Watch the full video here and download Banyan’s white paper on standardization here.

This week, we're bringing you a special episode of Catalyst with Shayle Kann, a show about how to decarbonize the planet. In this episode: what it takes to secure investments for first-of-a-kind infrastructure projects.  First-of-a-kind projects need infrastructure investment, the kind of money that costs less than venture capital and usually comes in the form of deals worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. But infrastructure investors are notoriously conservative and convincing them to bite can be challenging.  So what do infrastructure investors really want? In this episode, Shayle talks to Mario Fernandez, head of Breakthrough Energy’s FOAK finance program. It has worked with companies like Rondo, Form Energy, and Lanzajet to overcome challenges on the path to infrastructure investment. Coincidentally, the program is also called Catalyst (no relation to our show). Mario and Shayle talk about the journey from lab-proven technology to a fully de-risked infrastructure investment, covering topics like: Why investors want to see a path to multiple, repeatable projects Mario’s prescription for a scale-up path: pilot, demo, and FOAK project The difficulty of following that path on a limited financial runway The commercial construct and the tension between negotiating a flexible offtake and securing a customer Developing the right capital stack and accurately estimating capital needs Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.

In 2023, Sarah Jewett was on her honeymoon in France when she received a life-changing text: steam was flowing from Fervo Energy's first commercial geothermal project in Nevada. That moment confirmed their revolutionary approach—applying horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing from the oil and gas industry to tap heat resources previously considered inaccessible. Unlike traditional geothermal that requires rare, steam-laden sites, Fervo's technology can access hot rock that exists almost everywhere underground. After proving their concept with Project Red in Nevada, the company is now building Cape Station, a 500-megawatt facility that will be one of America's largest geothermal plants, in Utah. In this episode, Lara talks with Sarah about navigating first-of-a-kind financing challenges, finding partners willing to take on the risk of new technology, and deciding when to take the next step in a scaling journey.  Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. Register here for Transition-AI 2025 in Boston on June 12th, 2025. Use promo code LATITUDEPODS10 for 10% off your ticket.

In 2021, Neha Palmer co-founced Terawatt Infrastructure with a bold mission: create the backbone for America's electric trucking revolution. Within its first year, Terawatt secured a billion-dollar investment. But as the company developed plans for a nationwide charging network, it confronted the daunting challenge of building infrastructure for an electric truck market that barely existed.  High-profile bankruptcies like Nikola Motors cast long shadows over the sector's viability, raising questions about whether heavy-duty transport can truly be electrified. In this episode, Lara talks with Neha about how Terawatt aims to transform freight transport despite market skepticism. Neha explains Terawatt’s strategic approach to site selection, innovative charging designs for fully-loaded trucks, and the vision for a revolutionary California-to-Texas network. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.Register here for Transition-AI 2025 in Boston on June 12th, 2025. Use promo code LATITUDEPODS10 for 10% off your ticket.

In 2014, Drew Baglino was helping build Tesla's energy division with a passionate, scrappy team. Using parts from Tesla's vehicles, they created the first Powerwall home battery. But as demand grew, they hit a critical bottleneck: cell shortages. Customers across multiple markets were already excited about the new product, but Drew’s team struggled to keep up with demand. With Powerwall 2 already announced, pressure mounted while the supply chain faltered. And with Tesla prioritizing vehicles,, the energy team was left to "get the scraps and figure it out".  In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks with Drew Baglino, former senior vice president of powertrain and energy at Tesla, about building a new product category through bootstrapping and creative resource sharing. Drew shares how a couple dozen "Swiss Army knife" engineers created a residential battery system that would ultimately define the market. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.

In 2018, LineVision was a young company with revolutionary technology for electric transmission lines. Its dynamic line rating sensors and software could increase the capacity of existing power lines by up to 40% without building new infrastructure — a critical solution for integrating renewables and meeting growing electricity demand. But to prove its tech, it needed to win over notoriously cautious utilities. When a crucial project worth $750,000 went to a competitor, LineVision's leadership made a last-ditch appeal that changed the company's trajectory. In this episode, host Lara Pierpoint talks with LineVision’s vice president of customer success,  Karthik Rao, about navigating utility cybersecurity requirements, escaping “pilot hell,” and how LineVision became the partner behind the world's largest DLR project. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.

Dan Shugar has been trying to move solar panels around since the 1980s. What started with a few experiments as a young engineer has turned into one of the biggest solar tracker companies in the world. In 2012 he founded Nextracker with a single product. Since then, Nextracker has revolutionized tracking technology through an array of innovative products. This week, host Lara Pierpoint talks with Nextracker CEO and founder Dan Shugar about product innovation and customer relationships, and how Nextracker made it through the pandemic. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts.

When Raffi Garabedian co-founded Electric Hydrogen in 2020, he saw existing electrolyzers as too small and expensive to make green hydrogen economically viable. Instead of building standard sub-megawatt units, his team aimed for 100-megawatt systems at half the industry cost. Initial market enthusiasm brought millions in capacity reservations, fueling construction of a Massachusetts manufacturing plant. Then came the "trough of disillusionment" – a global cooling on hydrogen as projects faltered under high costs. In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks to Raffi about taking big technology risks while building a factory during market volatility. He explains why startups, not incumbents, are best positioned to drive the cost reductions needed to make green hydrogen competitive with fossil alternatives. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts.

Leila Madrone founded Sunfolding in 2012 with an innovative idea – build a solar tracker using pneumatic "airbags" instead of motors and torque tubes. By 2015, the company was deploying the technology in a field test in Davis, California.  Over the next six years, Sunfolding iterated on the technology’s design, built out the supply chain, and tried to prove bankability. Then, in 2021, the company found themselves faced with a major decision: take on a utility scale solar project during a global pandemic, or pass.  In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks to Leila about SunFolding's journey from breakthrough technology to shutdown, exploring the critical decisions that shaped the company's path and ultimately led to Sunfolding shutting down in 2023. Leila also shares the broader lessons for climate hardware startups navigating the complex intersection of innovation, manufacturing, and venture funding. Credits: Hosted by Lara Pierpoint. Produced by Erin Hardick. Edited by Anne Bailey and Stephen Lacey. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter.