CleanTechies Podcast

00:00 – Intro: Recording in-person at 9Zero in San Francisco.
02:45 – Antonio’s Background: From Stanford PhD to Flow Batteries.
06:00 – The History: What is the "Zebra Battery" and why did it fail in EVs?
10:15 – The Chemistry: How Sodium, Iron, and Salt work together.
12:30 – The Economics: Why $1/kWh material cost changes everything.
17:00 – Safety First: No thermal runaway and safer than Lithium-Ion.
22:00 – Manufacturing Strategy: Leveraging existing UK talent and factories.
28:00 – The "Bankability" Challenge: Proving a "new" old technology.
34:00 – Commercialization: Who buys these batteries? (Utilities vs Developers).
41:00 – The Grid Reality: Why "Non-Wires Alternatives" are the immediate market.
46:00 – Founder Advice: How to hire A-players for a hardware startup.


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00:00 – Intro: Why energy regulation is the "unsexy" bottleneck of the transition.
03:11 – Hudson’s Background: From SEC Attorney to rewriting federal data laws.
05:55 – What HData Does: The platform for rate cases, compliance, and wildfire plans.
06:40 – The Natural Monopoly: Explaining the "Regulator vs. Regulated" conflict.
10:13 – The Rate Case Process: How utilities get paid (and why it takes so much paper).
14:00 – The ROI of AI: Moving from "Control-F" to vertical AI agents.
22:20 – The Urgency: Why grid modernization creates a compliance explosion.
35:00 – Hyperscalers & AI: How data center demand is changing the regulatory game.
46:18 – The Future of Work: Will AI replace regulatory lawyers?
48:00 – Founder Story: The 2022 cash crisis and the "Dark Night of the Soul."
53:00 – Hiring Framework: The 3 motivations Hudson looks for in talent.


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What happens when an oil well dries up? Usually, it becomes a "zombie" liability—leaking methane and waiting to become a taxpayer burden. Kemp Gregory, CEO and Co-founder of Renewell Energy, joins the show to explain how he’s turning these multi-million dollar liabilities into clean energy assets.
Renewell converts idle wells into mechanical gravity batteries. By using existing deep wellbores to raise and lower heavy weights, they’ve created long-duration energy storage that is cheaper than lithium-ion and uses the infrastructure we already have.
Key Takeaways:
The Problem: Why the "Orphan Well Pocalypse" is a looming global crisis.
The Tech: How gravity storage works and why it doesn’t degrade like chemical batteries.
The Business: Convincing oil companies to hand over wells instead of plugging them.
The Grid: Why "stranded assets" are actually perfectly positioned for grid stability.
Building Deep-Tech: Why "agency" is the #1 trait Kemp looks for in early hires.
Timestamps:
01:40 – Kemp’s journey from Oil & Gas to CleanTech.
05:00 – The Scale: 900k active wells vs. 2 million idle wells.
14:15 – Gravity storage vs. Lithium-Ion: Cost and mechanics.
18:00 – Turning abandonment costs into revenue shares.
40:15 – Hiring for "Evidence of Agency."
Connect & Links:
Guest: Kemp Gregory | Renewell Energy
Host: Connect with Silas on LinkedIn
Community: Follow CleanTechies on LinkedIn
Watch: Subscribe on YouTube
Our Sponsors:
Climate Finance Solutions (CFS): Secure government grant funding with a 90% success rate. Learn more at ClimateFinanceSolutions.com.
ErthSearch: Specialized CleanTech recruiting. Fast, accurate, and guaranteed. Get started with Silas today.
Disclaimer: This podcast is NOT investment advice. Please do your own due diligence.


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cleantechies.substack.com/subscribe

Speed Strapping: How to Reach Breakeven on The era of easy money is over. For CleanTech hardware startups, the old playbook—raise a Seed, build a prototype, and pray for a Series A—is leading companies straight off a cliff. Shaun Abrahamson, Managing Partner at Third Sphere, returns to the pod to unveil the "Speed Strapping" playbook: a survival guide for 2026.
Shaun explains why the graduation rate from Seed to Series A has plummeted and why founders must stop building "bridges to nowhere." The new goal? Reach profitability on less than $6M of paid-in capital to control your own destiny.
🎧 Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Pocket Casts
💡 Key Takeaways:
The $6M Limit: If you can’t reach breakeven on $5–$6M of capital, you are at the mercy of a volatile market.
Avoid the CapEx Trap: Don't build a factory until you’re hitting $10M–$20M in revenue. Use contract manufacturers instead.
The "LEGO" Strategy: Use existing, off-the-shelf components for your V1 instead of reinventing every part.
Negative Churn: In hardware, losing a customer isn't just lost marketing spend—it often means getting a broken product back.
📝 Key Moments:
08:15 – Defining “Speed Strapping”: Why breakeven is the new Series A.
15:58 – The “Bridge to Nowhere”: The danger of planning for non-existent funding.
28:38 – The CapEx Trap: Why you shouldn’t build a factory too early.
36:50 – The “LEGO” Strategy: Moving faster with existing parts.
🗣️ Select Quote:
"Most of the companies that we see failing right now are failing because they were building a bridge to a Series B that doesn’t exist." — Shaun Abrahamson
🚀 Check Out Our Sponsors:
Climate Finance Solutions (CFS): Secure government grants with a 90%+ success rate. ClimateFinanceSolutions.com
ErthSearch: Specialized CleanTech recruiting for sales, engineering, and execs. ErthSearch.com
Connect with Silas: LinkedIn
Follow CleanTechies: LinkedIn
Disclaimer: This podcast is NOT investment advice.


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cleantechies.substack.com/subscribe

Eclipse Energy: The $0.50/kg Geologic Hydrogen Breakthrough with Prab SekhonPrab Sekhon, CEO of Eclipse Energy (formerly Gold H2), joins us to detail their disruptive technology that is poised to solve the green hydrogen cost problem. Eclipse Energy is taking end-of-life oil fields—which are massive liabilities for oil and gas companies—and turning them into clean energy assets by producing Geologic Hydrogen at an unprecedented $0.50 per kilogram.Key Topics Covered in the Episode:
Introduction and Rebrand (01:06, 05:16): Prab introduces himself and discusses the recent rebranding from Gold H2 to Eclipse Energy, reflecting a broader strategy to move beyond just hydrogen.
The Moonshot Goal (06:54): Breaking down why the 50 cents per kilogram price is crucial and why their process avoids the high costs and potable water consumption associated with traditional Green Hydrogen.
The Technology & Feedstock (08:38, 14:46): Learn how Eclipse Energy uses "uneconomic oil"—a waste stream—as a free feedstock. Prab explains the process using the "gut biome" analogy: injecting specific microbes into deep reservoirs to stimulate the bacteria to produce pure hydrogen.
The Business Model & O&G (11:20, 49:10): Discover the "accidental" business model that allows oil companies to defer billions in Plug & Abandon (P&A) liabilities by transforming non-producing wells into 20-year assets. Prab also addresses the role of energy pragmatism in working with oil and gas incumbents.
Energy for the Future (18:40): Hear about the Armada partnership to co-locate data centers directly on-site, using the hydrogen to power the AI boom off-grid, and the benefit of hydrogen combustion producing water for cooling.
Costs and Macro Trends (21:00, 42:55): A comparison of hydrogen costs (Gray at $1-$1.5/kg vs. Eclipse's $0.50/kg) and an update on the core macro trends in the global hydrogen space.
Talent & Scaling (26:50, 54:10): Insights on the "niche field of petroleum microbiology," why the best talent for the energy transition comes from the oil and gas industry, and their partnership with Weatherford to help scale and deploy.
Guest: Prab Sekhon, CEO of Eclipse EnergyA quick shoutout to our sponsors: Climate Finance Solutions and ErthSearch.


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cleantechies.substack.com/subscribe