Chicago Climate Week 24 Top 5 Takeaways

I had the great fortune of speaking at TechChicago 's 2024 Climate Week on Wednesday to discuss how innovative energy technologies can help decarbonize the grid. The weather in Chicago this week would suggest we have no climate crisis whatsoever, but those of us who live in the northern part of the U.S. know this is fleeting and winter is coming.

First off, the space and energy of the 1871 co-working space/ tech hub was amazing. I always love seeing a hodgepodge of new technology and random connections being made, and it reminds me of the early days of Greentown Labs back in the South End.

The discussions at this years Climate Week were wide ranging, from sustainable materials, and bio-technology in agriculture to energy and sustainable aviation fuel. The news crews and even Governor of Illinois JB Pritzker took the stage to share their thoughts, and here are my top 5 take aways from the day:

1. Collaboration and partnership - If there was one theme to connect all these different wide ranging topics wit would be collaboration. Every panel either started or ended with some story of collaboration and it seems that most state agencies, academia and private sector folks in Illinois are all about working working together to solve the climate crisis. My hope is that this spirit of collaboration funnels down to the utilities and local city boards/ permit offices so we can more rapidly deploy energy projects.
2. The energy supply, and transmission, problem is real and not going away - Ocient CEO Chris Gladwin asked if the "hype was real" around power growth in the U.S. And while some on the panel didn't commit, given at Enchanted Rock I've personally seen 1GW of data center proposals, I can say that it is real. Invenergy CEO Michael Polsky acknowledged as much saying that this is the first time in his career (or at least from 1985) that he has seen the demand for power finally outpace our ability to deliver adequate supply.
3. More Power, Clean as possible - the Governor acknolwedged the tension between Illinois wanting to be a net power exporter, needing more reliable power for data centers and industries now, and wanting that power to be as clean as possible. He mentioned that this tension is nearly impossible to solve until you can build out Small Modular Reactors (which he's a "fan" of ) to more locally and densely provide clean carbon free power to the state. Kudos to him and his office, because I totally agree.
4. There is alot of money available for energy/ climate projects - The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) still has something like $240B in tax credits that are waiting for projects to fund. It sounded like you will need a small army of lawyers, accountants and engineers to actually take advantage of these, but it's possible.
5. Don't wear polyester!! - perhaps one of the more interesting takes from the day was the collective agreement that recycling is "a bunch of hooey" and that most of the materials we use in our clothing and everyday products contain some plastics that need to be landfilled. I'll let you do your own reasearch on polyester, but safe to say I'll be going through my closet with a fine tooth comb.

Thanks again to Joanne Mello at Southern Company for the invitation and opporutnity to speak at this years event. I'm looking forward to my next invitation and event in Chicago...as long as it's not in January.