logo
episode-header-image
Jul 2024
20m 39s

NOAA is helping utilities face multiplyi...

GridX and Latitude Studios
About this episode

Sarah Kapnick has always been drawn to solving complex problems, and as a kid she dreamed of being a mathematician. But a stronger desire to work on more tangible things, led her to blaze a career path that combined climate science and financial risk. 

Since becoming NOAA’s chief scientist in 2022, one way that Kapnick has applied her unique skill set is by helping utilities better leverage climate data and predictions in resiliency and operational expenditures.

In this episode of With Great Power, Sarah tells Brad how NOAA is supporting the Electric Power Research Institute, how she has seen utilities’ response to climate threats evolve, and why the power sector needs to monitor another possible threat: space weather.

This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Up next
Sep 30
Can your EV save the grid?
During a visit to Silicon Valley in 2015, Nick Woolley realized that the many Teslas he saw whizzing past him were not just new cars, they could also be distributed energy resources. He was working for National Grid in his native England at the time, but he couldn’t shake the ide ... Show More
24m 1s
Sep 16
A second shot at smart meters
In 2015, Laura Sherman and her colleagues from Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet’s office rode horses into a special part of the Rocky Mountains called the Thompson Divide. Laura had landed in Sen. Bennet’s office after grad school as part of a policy fellowship with the American Acad ... Show More
23m 32s
Sep 2
Crunching the numbers on the nuclear renaissance
Mike Kramer has always liked puzzles. But in 2017 he faced one harder than any sudoku. This one involved the livelihoods of hundreds of American families. As director of business operations and the chief financial officer for Exelon Corporation’s eastern region, Mike Kramer was a ... Show More
24m 56s
Recommended Episodes
Apr 2023
BCG Presents: Climate Rising – How BCG Uses AI to Address Climate Change
This week, we’re presenting an episode of Climate Rising from our friends at Harvard Business School.  In this first episode of a new series on climate change and AI, Hamid Maher and Charlotte Degot, Managing Directors and Partners at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), explain how BC ... Show More
42m 26s
Jul 18
Best of: How the grid is becoming more human-centric
We’re in the midst of summer and we know that power outages can happen more frequently during this season due to higher temperatures and an increased demand for electricity. A couple years ago we sat down with Ram Rajagopal, an expert in the future of electrical power. He shared ... Show More
29m 7s
Jun 2025
Geothermal, dealmaking, and the future of clean energy finance | live from the ACORE Finance Forum in New York
In the third and final special episode recorded live from the ACORE Finance Forum, host Ed Crooks and regular guest Amy Myers Jaffe talk to industry leaders to explore some key issues in renewable energy technology and finance.Amy starts the episode by speaking with David Ulrey, ... Show More
1h 11m
Aug 8
Climate Science Gets a Seat in Congress with Eric Sorensen
Representative Eric Sorensen of Illinois brings his background as a meteorologist to the halls of Congress, advocating for science-based policy amid intensifying climate threats. In this episode, he shares how personal experiences with extreme weather shaped his career and why pr ... Show More
17m 59s
Mar 2025
Liquid Demand: Tech Solutions for Water Stress
We live on an increasingly thirsty planet. Growing populations and rising demand from industry, data centers and farming have led to water stress across the globe. Even under a scenario where global warming is limited to 2C, some three billion people are projected to live in area ... Show More
29m 51s
Aug 2024
The greenest reason to drill: clean power that's always on
Before he founded the geothermal startup Fervo in 2017, Tim Latimer was a drilling engineer for the oil and gas industry — a job he loved. “Honestly, if it wasn't for climate change, I probably wouldn’t have ever changed my career,” he says this week on Zero. Now Latimer is apply ... Show More
38m 53s
May 2024
This bank is turning Africa into a climate investment opportunity
Africa currently loses between $7 billion and $15 billion a year because of climate change. If that trend continues, the sum could reach $50 billion by 2030. But African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina sees a way forward. He describes the financial instruments the ban ... Show More
35m 51s
Mar 2025
The potential for flexible data centers
Tyler Norris says regulators have been getting two different stories. On one side, they’ve been hearing that data centers are largely inflexible loads. On the other, last year the U.S. Department of Energy recommended data center flexibility, and EPRI launched its DCFlex initiati ... Show More
33m 29s
Sep 19
Making Cents Out of Watts: What’s Driving Up Your Energy Bills? | Climate One
This is an episode of a podcast we think you'll love, Climate One. A third of Americans say that they've skipped food, medicine, or something else to be able to afford their energy bills. Much of the increase in the cost of electricity is driven by rising demand from artificial i ... Show More
56m 51s
Jan 2025
What Can We Do About Wildfires? With Convective Capital’s Bill Clerico
This week on No Priors, Sarah and Elad sit down with Bill Clerico, founder of Convective Capital, an early stage venture fund focused on technology-driven solutions for wildfire mitigation and climate resilience. The wildfires in Los Angeles have caused unprecedented property dam ... Show More
37m 59s