CleanTechies Podcast

• #271 The $10 Billion Reason Commercial Real Estate Finally Has to Electrify | Charles Conwell (Novele)

  JOIN US FOR THE HACK SUMMIT!The HackSummit returns to Newlab on December 10-11, bringing together 500 founders, funders, and industry leaders in Climate Deep Tech. Together we’ll explore abundance, alongside Founders and Investors at Andreessen Horowitz, Brimstone, Crux, DCVC, Durin, Earth AI, Endolith, Navier, Radical AI, Rainmaker, Voyager Ventures and SOSV. Sign up for 10% off here.Imagine if every commercial building and data center in a city acted like a smart, flexible battery. That’s the world Charles Conwell is building.Charles, CEO of Novele and a former commercial real estate guy turned energy founder, joined me on the show to break down how they’re transforming buildings from passive energy hogs into active grid assets. And his insight into how the built environment actually works will probably change how you think about energy forever.Novele’s system starts inside the building, at the point of consumption. Their Energy Boards are these thin, wall-mounted batteries that slip into unused space instead of eating up rentable square footage. But the real unlock is the software, a “swarm architecture” that syncs hundreds of distributed devices in real time. Instead of reacting to energy spikes, the system predicts them and reshapes load before it ever hits the meter.Why does this matter?Because commercial buildings have been stuck in a broken model for decades.Charles explained how landlords constantly overbuild electrical capacity because tenants wildly overestimate their needs. Add in the classic “split incentive”, landlords pay for upgrades, tenants reap the savings, and no one invests in efficiency. The result? Massive waste and massive bills.But the world changed. Fast. New rules like Local Law 97 created real financial pain for inefficient buildings. Energy prices started climbing double digits. Demand charges blew past the cost of the energy itself. And suddenly Novele’s solution went from “interesting” to “we need this yesterday.”The kicker?Novele runs on a Hardware-as-a-Service model. No CapEx fight. No landlord-tenant politics. Just a monthly fee that’s usually covered. Customers are seeing IRRs in the 20–30% range.We also got into Novele’s Ripple Board for data centers and why AI’s power spikes are becoming one of the biggest electrical problems no one is talking about. Charles lays out how distributed storage smooths those swings and why storage + nuclear is the most underrated combo in clean energy.If you want to understand better where urban energy is heading and why buildings are about to become one of the most important assets on the grid, tap play for this episode. 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

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• #270 - Some Big Announcements + Gratitude for an Amazing 2025 (Happy Thanksgiving)

  Hey everybody! It’s Thanksgiving week, and I’m shooting a short, solo episode to share some gratitude for an incredible year and drop a few major announcements.Podcast Announcements* Farewell to Somil: Our co-host, Somil, is moving on! He accepted an amazing offer in the fast-growing AI space with Decagon to advance his product management career. We’re sad to see him go, but wish him the best! He deserves a lot of credit and thanks for helping us kick the podcast into high gear and grow our listenership.* The Podcast is Now Part of ErthSearch: ErthSearch (my cleantech recruitment firm, formerly ErthTech Talent) has acquired the podcast, bringing everything in-house under one P&L. The content won’t change, but we have more resources and are exploring deep-dive content on hiring, talent, and team building.* A Little Surprise is Coming! We have a new project brewing, and we’re hoping to launch it before the end of the year. If you’re a loyal listener and want to get early access and give us some feedback, please reach out to me directly via [email protected] or LinkedIn DM.* Moving to Nashville: I’m moving to Nashville in January! I’ll be traveling in NYC for most of December. This means posting may be a bit less frequent throughout the holidays, and any content created will have lower audio quality until I rebuild the studio. Thanks for your patience!A Look Back and Forward* Gratitude for the Past Year: It’s been an absolute pleasure to build this podcast over the last (almost) five years. We’ve continued to grow our listenership, hosted two live pods (in Houston with Energy Tech Nexus and during Climate Week), and invested more heavily in our social media content.* Optimism for Cleantech: Despite some of the bad news, I’m seeing massive growth coming for cleantech. Founders are building strong business models and making real money—it’s not just a “green premium” frenzy anymore. Companies are investing heavily in teams, and while we’re seeing fewer “climate tourists,” there are still plenty of jobs and growth opportunities!Support the Show* Sponsorship: We have a few anchor sponsor openings for the first half of next year. Our audience is primarily CleanTech investors and founders in the US and Europe. Reach out to discuss rates if you’re looking to sell to this audience! [email protected] * Thank You to Our Sponsor: A huge shout-out to our current anchor sponsor, Climate Finance Solutions, who has helped cleantech startups raise $1.6 billion in grant funding since 2020.* Join Us at Climate Hack Summit: Don’t forget to register for the Climate Hack Summit on Dec 10th and 11th at New Lab in NYC. We’ll be there creating content!Happy Thanksgiving to you all! We’ll see you next week on CleanTechies. 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

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• #269 The Unexpected Climate Agents: Why Insurance Companies are Driving Resilient Modular Homebuilding | Vikas Enti (Reframe Systems)

  JOIN US FOR THE HACK SUMMIT!The HackSummit returns to Newlab on December 10-11, bringing together 500 founders, funders, and industry leaders in Climate Deep Tech. Together we’ll explore abundance, alongside Founders and Investors at Andreessen Horowitz, Brimstone, Crux, DCVC, Durin, Earth AI, Endolith, Navier, Radical AI, Rainmaker, Voyager Ventures and SOSV. Sign up for 10% off here.What happens when an ex–Amazon Robotics leader looks at the housing crisis and says, “Yeah… I can fix that”?You get Reframe Systems. And honestly, this might be one of the boldest climate-tech swings happening right now.Vikas Enti joined me on the show, and within five minutes, it was clear: the home construction industry we have is broken. Slow builds. Sky-high costs. Massive waste. Homes are leaking energy like crazy. And absolutely zero scalability.Reframe Systems is flipping the entire industry on its head.They’re building homes like you’d build hardware: in micro factories, with robots, software, and tight quality control. Their houses use about 80 percent less energy, slash embodied carbon, and cut the chaos of job-site construction. And they’re doing it with these insanely flexible robotic work cells that cost under $200k and fit inside a garage.Here’s another thing that will blow your mind away.They cracked the code on mass customization. Everyone else tries to copy-paste the same house. Reframe built the software that turns any custom design into robot-ready instructions.The economics hit just as hard. Developers are paying $350 to $450 per square foot today. Reframe comes in at $275 to $325 — and builds faster. Their long-term target? Under $100 per square foot. If they get to hit that, game over. Housing changes forever.Also… insurance companies are pushing this wave faster than anyone. With wildfire and climate risk exploding, insurers want buildings that actually perform. Reframe homes check every box: airtight, fire-rated, flood-resilient, and way cheaper to run.Vikas and the team built their first full micro factory and delivered a permitted home in just 18 months. Now they’re scaling through joint ventures and laying the tracks for a network of small, fast factories that can pop up anywhere housing is needed.If you care about climate tech, housing affordability, robotics, or the future of cities… this is really one of those episodes you should listen to. 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

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• #268 Robot Pirates are Pillaging the Wasted Metals at the Bottom of the Ocean | Oliver Gunasekara (Impossible Metals)

  JOIN US FOR THE HACK SUMMIT!The HackSummit returns to Newlab on December 10-11, bringing together 500 founders, funders, and industry leaders in Climate Deep Tech. Together we’ll explore abundance, alongside Founders and Investors at Andreessen Horowitz, Brimstone, Crux, DCVC, Durin, Earth AI, Endolith, Navier, Radical AI, Rainmaker, Voyager Ventures and SOSV. Sign up for 10% off here.Hey everyone, Silas here. Welcome back to CleanTechies, the show where we talk with the founders, funders, and visionaries building our clean future.In today’s episode, we’re heading deep (literally) into one of the most untouched frontiers on Earth. My guest, Oliver Gunasekara, is the co-founder and CEO of Impossible Metals, a company on a mission to mine the ocean floor without wrecking the planet.Now, before you picture some massive vacuum ripping up the seabed, forget it. That’s how it’s always been done for fifty years. Impossible Metals flipped the script. Instead of tractors and dredges, they’ve built fleets of autonomous underwater robots. Battery-powered, self-piloting, and armed with computer vision, these things hover above the seabed, picking up polymetallic nodules one by one like it’s a sci-fi claw machine.These nodules are loaded with four critical metals: nickel, copper, cobalt, and manganese. The stuff that powers EVs, wind turbines, batteries, and AI data centers. Every piece of the clean economy runs on metals like these. But here’s the problem: land-based mining is running out of high-grade ore. It’s also slow, expensive, and environmentally brutal.Oliver’s approach? Ten times cheaper. Zero deforestation. No child labor. And every operation runs off clean electricity.The world needs metals but we need a better way to get them.The geopolitical angle makes this even crazier. China currently controls between 40 and 90 percent of the world’s mineral supply. Deep-sea mining could flip that balance, giving the West a new, independent source of critical minerals.Impossible Metals already secured its own licensed exploration area through the Kingdom of Bahrain. And since the US never signed the UN’s Law of the Sea, it’s basically a two-track race to secure access. Oliver says the deep ocean is “the new real estate rush” and his team’s staking claim on the highest-grade zones before anyone else.And here’s the kicker: the market is massive — a half-trillion-dollar metals industry today that’s projected to hit a trillion by 2035.Oliver’s story goes beyond the tech, though. We talk about what it takes to build world-class teams, people who are “orders of magnitude better,” as he puts it, and how to align them on mission. We talk about fundraising clarity, why first-of-a-kind technologies need patient capital, and what it means to build something the world has literally never seen before.It’s a conversation about innovation, geopolitics, and the future of clean materials.Make sure to hit follow or subscribe wherever you’re listening, because we’ve got a huge announcement coming this quarter. Enjoy listening! 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

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• #267 Decarbonizing Steel and Disrupting a Commodity Product | Sandeep Nijhawan (Electra)

  JOIN US FOR THE HACK SUMMIT!The HackSummit returns to Newlab on December 10-11, bringing together 500 founders, funders, and industry leaders in Climate Deep Tech. Together we’ll explore abundance, alongside Founders and Investors at Andreessen Horowitz, Brimstone, Crux, DCVC, Durin, Earth AI, Endolith, Navier, Radical AI, Rainmaker, Voyager Ventures and SOSV. Sign up for 10% off here.Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast where we talk to founders, investors, and leaders building the future of climate tech. I’m Silas Mahner, the host of Cleantechies and today we’re diving into one of the biggest climate opportunities, clean steel.If steel were a country, it’d be the third largest emitter in the world, right behind China and the U.S. And 90% of those emissions come from one step — ironmaking.That’s exactly where Electra comes in. Co-founded by Sandeep Nijhawan, Electra is rethinking how we make iron from the ground up, literally. Instead of melting ore in a 1600°C blast furnace, they’re doing it at 60°C using a unique process.Think about that for a second: they’re turning iron ore into pure metallic iron without the heat, smoke, or fossil fuels that have defined the industry for centuries.That shift paves the way to a few massive advantages such as slashing energy use and cost and it works with intermittent renewables like solar and wind. It can also process low-grade ores that miners usually throw away, turning waste into value.Sandeep also talks about the economics of clean iron, how Electra’s modular design lets them scale like solar, and how they’re partnering with major players in steel and mining to prove that clean iron can be cost-competitive today. We also get into:How the automotive and data center industries are driving demand for low-carbon steel.What it takes to innovate in a commodity market where “cost parity” is king.Why Sandeep focused early on building a “minimum viable ecosystem” And what it means to be intentional about your team, investors, and mission when you’re building something this big.This episode is a masterclass in scaling deep tech and rebuilding the raw materials that make our world. So, if you’ve ever wondered how we’ll clean up one of the dirtiest industries on Earth, this conversation is going to open your eyes. 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

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