Cornell experts Lindsay Anderson and Tobias Hanrath are joined by Kasparas Spokas from the Clean Air Task Force to discuss how achieving a clean energy future requires moving beyond renewables and electrification alone to embrace integrated solutions including thermal systems, demand flexibility, streamlined permitting, and strategic university-industry partnerships.
Cornell Atkinson Center: https://www.atkinson.cornell.edu/
Clean Air Task Force: https://www.catf.us/
energy@cornell: https://ecornell.short.gy/KFArWw
The clean energy transition is reshaping how the world powers economies, builds infrastructure, and plans for a resilient future. This Keynote from the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability brings together three leading experts to break down the core technologies, systems, and societal shifts defining this transformative moment.
Designed for professionals across sectors, the conversation will offer a clear, accessible overview of renewable energy, grid modernization, carbon management, sustainable materials, and the complex policy and market forces driving global progress. It will also highlight how Cornell researchers, alongside key partners like the Clean Air Task Force, are advancing effective, science-based solutions for a sustainable future.
What You'll Learn:
Intro: Welcome to Cornell Keynotes. On today's episode, we are examining one of the most defining challenges of our time, how to power a growing global economy while addressing climate change. The clean energy transition is fundamentally reshaping how we power our world, but this transformation involves far more than simply swapping fossil fuels for renewables. It requires reimagining entire systems from grid modernization and carbon management to securing sustainable supply chains. Guest host Lindsey Anderson is Professor of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell and Senior Faculty Fellow with the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.
Lindsay is joined by two leading voices in this space. Kasparas Spokas, who is director of the electricity program at the Clean Air Task Force, and Tobias Hanrath, who is director of Cornell's energy transition initiative and crawl professor of Sustainable Energy Systems. [00:01:00] The panel explorers the technologies systems and partnerships that can turn the clean energy transition from aspiration into reality.
And now here's their conversation on paths to a clean energy future.
Lindsey Anderson: Let's start with the big picture. Decarbonization is often framed as an electricity challenge, but energy systems also include heat, fuels and materials. If we only optimize for electrons and neglect molecules and heat, we make the transition harder than it needs to be.
So for both of you, when we think about the fact that much of the transition, the mainstream narrative focuses on renewables and electrification, from your perspective, what are the critical elements that we are missing in this conversation?
Kasaparas Spokas: I think you're right that overall in the mainstream, there's been a lot of attention on renewable energy battery storage, and I think rightfully so, there's been a lot of progress in reducing the costs of wind solar. There's been a lot of cost reduction in battery storage technologies today. And so I [00:02:00] think it's worth celebrating some of the wins, we've had over the last couple decades.
But as you mentioned, I think that is still a pretty narrow slice of the overall challenge that we have accomplished so far. , I think there's a misconception that now that we have these technologies, progress is simply a matter of political will, and that's a little bit detached from the real reality on the ground here.
We have. One bucket of challenges, which is now that we have new technologies like wind, solar batteries, we have new demand response technologies and so on, there are a number of layered and complicated processes by which these solutions go through to be deployed. And we're facing various types of speed challenges with deploying these regarding permitting, siting, transmission planning, interconnection, you name it.
So there are a lot of kind of difficult challenges there that we need to resolve as a [00:03:00] collective group. And then the second bucket of challenges is that we still don't have the full suite of technologies necessary to decarbonize the full energy system at an affordable cost reliably and at a pace that is commensurate with some of our climate targets.
And so I think, there are some real challenges that require innovation. Policy, that go far beyond just political will. So, let's celebrate the wins, but we still have a far way to go.
Tobias Hanrath: One other thing , to add to that, and you mentioned that, said it nicely in terms of energy not just being, an issue of electricity.
, But I think very important to recognize that, almost half of the energy usage , is towards, heating, especially in a building context. If the discussion focuses solely on electrifying, I think there's a big, aspect that, that's missed in terms of how the heating, challenges and the cooling challenges, are addressed.
It's not just a matter of, electrifying things and setting up a bunch of, PV panels, but you gotta keep, the buildings, heated and cooled. And [00:04:00] I think that's something on the one hand, maybe , it's not as sexy of a technology as lithium-ion batteries or photoable takes, but, , from an energy balance perspective every bit , as important.
And, , I think the, , in the past couple of years, in terms of the wins that you've talked about, that's the aspect of integrating district heating, for example. Those things are not necessarily as fancy. , But I think there's significant opportunities there with significant prospects , for decarbonization.
Lindsey Anderson: Well, and I think, if you electrify all your thermal needs right, you're adding more stress to the system that we're trying to, transition already. Any way that we can break that up right. To, distribute the load Yeah. In terms of energy is gonna be really smart.
, So Kasparas, . What is the biggest bottleneck that you would solve today if you could wave a magic wand?
Kasaparas Spokas: Yeah. It's really challenging. The energy system generally evolves through a cascade of layered decisions, , whether it's planning, regulatory, oversight, citing and permitting.
I'm not sure there's one bottleneck Yeah. That [00:05:00] really unlocks speed and scale. I do think there is, , getting a little bit more granular and a little bit more practical about some of the challenges that we face outside of. Technology costs. Mm-hmm. With respect to planning and integrating, , across different sectors, which historically we haven't done, I think would do a lot to just move towards a much more integrated approach to energy system decarbonization that proactively foresee some of the bottlenecks, , that we're facing today.
Lindsey Anderson: . Yeah. That,, And so Tobias, coming back to your comment about the thermal. What do you think would be the biggest win on thermal integration?
Tobias Hanrath: I think in terms of thermal integration, , decarbonizing, heating as a is a huge opportunity space, for improvements in terms of a achieving that, , through things like earth source heating, for example the sort of initiatives here at Cornell with the, borehole observatory trying to figure out how to, do that in the northeast of the US which hasn't received as much as attention. As other places. And then integrating that with, district level, [00:06:00] heating systems. I think there's lots of prospects there, so.
Lindsey Anderson: we talked about electrification a little bit, so let's dig into electrification and low growth for a little while.
, So electrification has obviously always been a key component of decarbonization in almost every decarbonization strategy, has electrification as a centerpiece. , But the timing and concentration of new loads coming on from ai, from data centers and advanced manufacturing are really changing the game here.
So with the growth of AI data centers and widespread electrification driving unprecedented low growth, do you see this as a stress point for the grid, a test, or as an opportunity to innovate? Or both? Kasparas, you wanna go first on that one?
Kasaparas Spokas: Yeah. I think we see it as both. Mm-hmm. As you mentioned, electrification.
Electricity demand growth was always part of the strategy. Energy system models generally saw a lot of opportunities for electrification, met up with, , clean supply of electricity as a decarbonization vector. , In that were also a lot of [00:07:00] interesting efficiency benefits that would just make the system much more efficient than we have it today.
, I do think some of this near term low growth that we're experiencing today from data centers and other resources was a little bit unexpected in terms of scale, concentration, pace. Now I will say there's a lot of uncertainty in these load forecasts. But generally this is definitely a test of can we build clean electricity at a pace that can sustain these types of growth rates?
Because ultimately at some point in the future, if electrification takes off as was, hoped in a lot of these. Pathway models, that type of pace is gonna have to be sustained. And so I think we have to really make sure we are balancing things like rate, payer costs, making sure we're exhausting all of the solutions that are available before., A decision to build a new gas plant, is made, to, and slowly but surely, but evolve our systems in terms of how quickly we can [00:08:00] deploy clean energy infrastructure that will have long term benefits, even just beyond this near term, blip of low growth on the other side. I agree. I think there are a lot of opportunities.
I mean, the incentives to deploy clean energy solutions have never been higher, , over these last two decades, I think we've become a little bit conditioned by the last two decades of stagnant growth, , that we've become unable to meet. Certain load growth, as quickly , as we should be able to.
And so now we have a real opportunity to take advantage of the incentives and the demand to deploy the solutions we have. We've also seen that a lot of these companies, these hyperscalers, have an appetite to invest in some of the new advanced clean energy technologies, whether that's data center flexibility, which we all hope to see, come online, but also on the supply side, we've seen a lot of deals with hyperscalers, with advanced nuclear technology companies, with carbon [00:09:00] capture, and storage, projects.
And so that really is an opportunity to advance technology today that will have long term global ramifications for how these technologies progress and how much they're available at an affordable cost for us. , There's a lot of balancing here to make sure that, , there protect certain near term priorities, but also enable mm-hmm. Long term growth.
Lindsey Anderson: . And just, as you mentioned at the beginning of your comments, that this low growth is still fairly uncertain. , So the, trajectories going forward for these large loads, on the optimistic side, they're huge.
. But we also have to plan for the possibility that they won't all show up.
Kasaparas Spokas: Yeah, I think we have plan manage that, that they might not all show up. Mm-hmm. We have to plan that all of it might not also be met. And that means putting in rate payer protections, making sure that we are not, overinvesting or creating a certain narrative about, a power supply crunch.
Mm-hmm. Isn't real. At the same time, we have to be very serious about some of [00:10:00] the load growth mm-hmm. Projections. I think that can be balanced, but this is a rapidly evolving, situation. Sure. You hear about new load forecasts every quarter it seems, and they go up and down. And so we're all managing this uncertainty together right now.
Tobias Hanrath: I fully agree on, your points, Kasaparas about, , it's not just a stressor, but also an opportunity. I think in many ways it's a catalyst, for not just deployment of cleaner energy technologies, but also, of testing and demonstrating integration.
For example, solar and storage , is a great example of integrating, , those two systems and, advancing cleaner technologies, simply based on the fact that it's a, better option. For time to power, right? It's one thing to say we wanna move towards cleaner energy technologies based on some sort of, incentives, or policies, which is good, but, long term not sustainable and not necessarily scalable.
So if it's driven by opportunity, with a demand for, power, for data centers, I think that's a really, interesting, space , for innovation. Not just from a technical [00:11:00] perspective, not just, how do you actually provide the power and, can you do this with, , let's say setting up microgrids for example, but also from the perspective of, innovations in setting up, , power purchase agreements, and purchasing in general for those.
So it's , not just a technology innovation, , opportunity, but also , from a general perspective . In integration agreements and other things.
Lindsey Anderson: Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Okay, so Kasparas, we talked earlier a little bit about low growth, not just within the US I know, you know, you've thought a lot about global low growth.
And so do you wanna talk to us a little bit about some common misconceptions in this space? That we all tend to think about things in, , a North American, , European context, but yeah. What else is missing there?
Kasaparas Spokas: Sure. So yeah, cleaner task force works globally.
, We have programmatic work going on in the MENA region in Sub-Saharan Africa as well. You know, I think one, I'm not sure it's a misconception, perhaps it is, is we still have a long way to go in terms of [00:12:00] global energy access. , Which means there's a lot of nascent de demand globally for new energy. , I think we have to be very realistic that in in many parts of the world, especially low middle income countries, the priority is energy access, economic competitiveness, energy security.
So when we think about strategies globally, we have to always make sure we're prioritizing the needs of the different countries, and the different societies when we're thinking about how to make solutions more pragmatic, more aligned with those other priorities. And then from a global perspective, , one thing that we've noticed in a lot of the energy system modeling that goes to inform global policy making, there are a lot of remaining assumptions about continued energy consumption disparities per capita across the world.
And so if we're truly solving for both climate and energy access and energy security [00:13:00] globally, I think there are some assumptions that we frankly just have to update. , And some of the modeling work we do that then flows on to policy work and a general understanding on what is necessary to achieve our goals.
, I very much respect, , people have priorities,, for their local policies. But I also think we need to think about how some of the policy and innovation that we do here is relevant globally. If we can unlock a solution here, or if we can reduce the cost of a technology here that does have implications globally.
. And so finding those through lines of , what is very high impact work that not only impacts my society, but also has global ramifications, I think was an really interesting perspective, , that I think we should all kind of more adopt generally as a movement.
Lindsey Anderson: Mm-hmm. Even just as a sort of , a strategy to de-risk new things,
bring down the cost of them and then deploy them. . Tobias, what is one concrete strategy that you think about, , to unlock,, load flexibility or to use [00:14:00] the low growth as an advantage?
Tobias Hanrath: I think, as I mentioned before, I think , it's an advantage in many ways, as a catalyst, , for the deployment of these technologies.
And there's lots of, broader impacts as Kasparas had, had mentioned, so even if, the projections in terms of load growth, , even , if it falls short of that, with projections, so you can either be right or you can be lucky. And even if , the load growth, , is not as pronounced as, some of the current models predicting, I think what comes out of it in terms of, innovation , on, deployment of these, , clean energy technologies, I think they'll have, broader impact. Not just here, but globally also as he mentioned. .
Lindsey Anderson: So that ties into, one of our questions that came in from the live audience. , he said, thanks to Kasparas for your take on the bottleneck of speed and scale, but I see such resistance in our rural communities to even the concept of renewables, if you agree, what work is needed or going on to address this challenge.
Kasaparas Spokas: Community engagement early and often I think is been a somewhat neglected, , part of the energy transition. And as you point out, it is now materializing [00:15:00] in some speed to deployment bottlenecks that we're seeing, not just in the US but frankly in parts of Europe, as well.
And, , in terms of strategies to address this, again, I think. Proactive community engagement to understand what are the concerns of the community. Mm-hmm. What are some of the potentially, misconceptions that they're having or perhaps very, valid concerns about land use, change and development that they have, that we need to collectively address, , to make sure that communities are comfortable with the energy transition.
And so a lot of new initiatives are, , just starting out, from my perspective, , the governor here in New York has announced an effort to try to create clean energy zones. The specifics of that are a little unclear right now. But to me that signals a need for not only top down energy planning, but also bottom up community engagement.
Mm-hmm. To help communities, figure [00:16:00] out, , what is their role within the energy transition. Just last week, we heard an announcement of a very big 20 gigawatt solar development in California. Mm-hmm. In a community that has historically been an agricultural community, but is now suffering from water stress.
, And so they are seeking new ways to make revenue off the land, , that they have. So I'll say there are, it's a double edged sword. There are challenges, but there are also a lot of opportunities. Ultimately, the answer is proactive community engagement. In addition to that, figuring out community benefit agreements that can provide the value that communities are looking for from the transition.
No community wants to host a project without their benefit. , For the sake of another community. There is a lot of work to do to figure out what is that, , symbiotic relationship, , across different energy systems with communities.
Lindsey Anderson: Lots of buzz around nuclear power, including Governor Hochul's new [00:17:00] announcement this week. , Can you talk about the appropriate role of nuclear and the benefits and drawbacks and that, I think both of you could probably weigh in on that if you like.
Kasaparas Spokas: . I think it's a big announcement. , This follow was on some interesting work that the state did and published in December, that provided some power system modeling that showed the role of nuclear in achieving New York's, clean electricity targets.
I think nuclear, is having a little bit of a moment right now, , where the appetite for innovation and the appetite for revitalizing an industry that really, frankly failed, , during the last two decades during this, low growth period. , Is there, so in terms of nuclear, , the role of nuclear depends on every jurisdiction that you're in, but generally it is a clean base load generation asset that can provide clean electricity no matter the time of day or season.
, And that has a lot of potential benefits in a whole power system. A little bit of clean firm power, like nuclear [00:18:00] has an outsized impact on reducing how much infrastructure needs to be built mm-hmm. To achieve deep decarbonization. And so I think you're seeing that, be reflected now in some of the power modeling that's being done by , the relevant New York agencies.
, You're also seeing this as a strategy to make power sector decarbonization easier. . So not can only nuclear, can reduce the costs of the overall transition by having these large outsized impacts on reducing infrastructure build out, , for a system. But what it also does is that reduction in infrastructure enables us to move a little bit faster towards our goals because we don't have to build as many power plants.
We don't have to build as much transmission, we don't have to use as much land or as much critical minerals. . And so if you have stakeholders that are interested in minimizing some of those footprints, nuclear presents a really interesting option. . Now the challenge will be building nuclear.
On time [00:19:00] and on budget. Which historically the US has failed to do over the last couple decades. Now we can get into the details. Vogel was a project management disaster, , for many reasons, completely unrelated to the fundamental technologies. I think generally as a movement, we see success in nuclear build outs in other parts of the world.
Projects that are coming in on budget, on time. So we know it's not a fundamental issue of the technology, that it can't be built for a reasonable cost, but it's how we build it and that muscle we're gonna have to redevelop here. And so it's really exciting that New York is taking, the lead here because again, the learnings and the overall, developments that will happen here in New York will have ramifications all over the US in terms of making nuclear a much more viable technology. To be built for the transition.
Lindsey Anderson: And I think that, I wanna reiterate that point that you made about rebuilding that muscle. . So we haven't built nuclear in the US in so long. . So we're just outta [00:20:00] practice. We don't have the skills. Absolutely. , Which, , is probably what happened with Vogel.
Yeah. , So hopefully yeah, we can fix that up. , And then the advanced nuclear, of course being a little bit more flexible, . With these new nuclear technologies. So it doesn't only have to be base load, as you alluded to, it can provide some of that dispatchable clean firm that we're gonna need.
All right, we started talking about reliability, , and we talked about the fact that demand's growing.
And so as we're pushing toward net zero, reliability is still the number one non-negotiable, and it's not just as, as you already said, actually, it's not just about renewables and batteries, though that's mostly what we talk about, what we read and what we hear. , The reliability is framed around building enough renewables, building enough storage.
So what are the other factors? I'm not gonna list them here, but what are some factors , that you think should be more, embedded in this conversation around reliability going forward? Tobias?
Tobias Hanrath: I think in terms of, reliability, and it ties back also to the earlier discussion on, , load growth mm-hmm.
Related to data centers. I think , they present a unique challenge, especially , on integration , of, , inherently [00:21:00] intermittent, resources , and storage. And I think, , advances , on that end will have also, , significant implications , on making the overall grid, more reliable.
So if you couple that with, demand flexibility, that they're advancing, especially for large loads like that, I think, the combination of from on the technology side, systematically integrating storage, and generation and, then, on the demand side, setting up the system such that you have, flexibility.
I think the combination of those two, , is gonna be, quite beneficial to have a more reliable grid, moving forward. I know , that's a concern, , on many fronts with regards to grid reliability, , overall. But I think if you look at both , the supply and the demand side, and flexibility , that's built in on that , as they're moving forward, I think that's, will be interesting looking forward.
Lindsey Anderson: , I feel like we've been talking about demand side reliability or flexibility mm-hmm. Excuse me for, I don't know, 15 years. , What is the sort of key that makes us believe that we're gonna be able to hit it now? Is it the incentives that you talked about earlier? Is it new technologies? Is it a little bit of both?
Kasaparas Spokas: Yeah, , I think there's a [00:22:00] little chicken and egg here that we're dealing with in terms of assessing how much plausible demand response is reasonable over a certain amount of time. . I think in some respects. A lot of the existing demand response programs do not provide enough incentive or accurate enough incentives for the demand to flex in a certain way.
So that's one way that we can improve our overall deployment of demand response. Two, I think we still don't have a good understanding of some of the behavioral elements behind demand response. You know, what are customers really willing to provide from a demand response or what incentives is required to provide that kind of demand response?
And then third, I think, , as we slowly kind of start getting into more electrification, that ability to flex demand also increases, if you have much more electric vehicles, if you have more electrified heating, those are the devices, , that can enable a lot of the demand flexibility [00:23:00] that historically was not possible.
. And so I think there's a lot of potential. I think there's still a lot of unknowns. And , when we're solving for reliability, I think we have to be trying to incentivize as much reasonable demand flexibility as possible. Testing new technologies, testing new solutions. I think, , flexibility in data centers is a really big question.
. Right now that everyone is facing because to the extent that they can be flexible in some of their , training runs . That provides a much, , lower stress to a grid than having just a pure base load, base load data center. But I think time will tell we can't bank on it.
Mm-hmm. But we have to aim for it as much as possible. And time will tell.
Lindsey Anderson: Yeah. I'm glad you touched on the sort of potential flexibility of data centers because there's this conversation where, some people say, oh, , they're just gonna take all the power and other people say, oh, they're gonna flex so much.
And so I was curious where you'd come in on that.
Kasaparas Spokas: I think time will tell in terms of where we see actual agreements and behavior mm-hmm. That reflects, that kind of flexibility [00:24:00] though, to the extent that it is there. Again, even for the data centers, , there are a lot of incentives . To connect to grids if you can be flexible.
I'm hopeful that these incentives result in much more innovation , on demand side flexibility.
Lindsey Anderson: So I had one quick follow up question. So this is , like a rapid round. , So if you each had to pick one overlooked reliability lever, what would it be? Again, with a magic wand.
Tobias Hanrath: I think it would be interesting in terms of demand flexibility to make it easier, for residential users also to, leverage, let's say time-based rates, whether it's ,, in New York state or the US overall. I think, on the one hand, it, certainly is beneficial in terms of making more affordable.
, But there's this additional benefit of generating awareness around energy usage. , from a residential perspective, I think that would be, , interesting from a technology perspective, as far as I understand it, there's no, significant barriers to make that possible.
But, , from an actual implementation deployment perspective, there's still some bureaucratic barriers to make that possible. But if I had a magic wand, I think that would be an interesting one to, touch on. .
Lindsey Anderson: [00:25:00] Kasparas, do you have one?
Kasaparas Spokas: I think. In the near term. I actually think transmission and advanced transmission technologies, grid enhancing technologies, , still have a long way to go. Mm-hmm. In terms of being deployed. And I think when people think about transmission, they think about taking low cost wind , and transmitting it, to load centers ensure that that is certainly one of the applications, but transmission and all the relevant advanced technologies around it have a lot of reliability benefits.
And so to the extent that we can maximize their deployment, that will also increase the reliability of the system.
Lindsey Anderson: That's also a good one that's often overlooked. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about bringing this into practice, so how do we get there from here? So decarbonization only scales when it creates value.
You've both made that very clear. , We need lower cost, higher reliability and reduced risk. And we also know that no single technology wins everywhere. So integration is. , Basically what you both just said in different ways is the underappreciated [00:26:00] lever, , in finding real solutions. So we have all these ambitious visions, , for decarbonization, which are essential.
But like, when we were discussing this panel ahead of time, both of you a couple of times used the word pragmatic or pragmatism. , And so I'd like to explore what that means to you both in the context of actually going from, , new technology, from research, from, understanding the problem into actually creating solutions.
Which I would say is how do we move from the ideology to the integration? So making strategies that work across markets, technologies, and communities. Kasaparas, do you wanna go first?
Kasaparas Spokas: Yeah. So I've always thought that. You can both be pragmatic and ambitious at the same time. Yes. Okay.
And oftentimes when you say pragmatic, people might think, oh, , you're not being backing away. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. , But I think the word pragmatic really just reflects, again, society's prioritization for certain characteristics that they [00:27:00] require from energy systems, affordability, reliability, and so on.
I think we also have to acknowledge that systems have evolved for over a century, , with different set of priorities that now we have appended. Mm-hmm. And so figuring out how to make solutions pragmatically fit within the current system that we have, , is the fastest way to try to provide clean energy solutions.
As you mentioned, this is not an ideological puzzle. Once you get past, accepting the science behind climate change, after that it becomes a puzzle of how to create solutions that can be integrated into systems quickly. And , from our perspective, that's always been our strategy.
I think that's where also a lot of technology innovation strategy comes from, is trying to create new solutions simply adds to the arsenal of levers that we can pull, in different scenarios, and it makes the overall transition more [00:28:00] resilient. , The one thing I'll add too is I think there's a misconception sometimes that, investors aren't doing enough, , for climate , or, certain types of actors aren't doing enough for climate.
And sometimes that has validity. Mm-hmm. But a lot of times, , it's really up to us, the academics, the engineers, the business folks who are in the energy system space to make solutions that, are bankable, that add value. , Because ultimately that is the way to get them, to be deployed.
Tobias Hanrath: , Just to build on something , that you said in terms of pragmatism being in some sense considered, , some would interpret that as if someone says we're gonna take a pragmatic approach to the energy transition there, there's some that might look at that and say, ah, well you're backing up on climate targets, , by going that route.
But I think it absolutely is, an axiom of the energy transition that unless it generates value. I don't care what the level of, optimism is or what level of incentives there might be. Unless it generates value, it's not gonna be sustainable and it's not gonna scale.
[00:29:00] So, as you mentioned, those two are not, exclusive, right? So you can do the transition, , in a way in which it generates, value in which it is just simply the better option, the more affordable option. The more reliable option, , the faster, the power to scale option , is now also, faster for renewables than it is for fossil fuels.
So I think, quite simply, , if you just make the renewables, the better, more affordable option, it just goes hand in hand with being the pragmatic solution to get there.
Kasaparas Spokas: And can I add just one, one thing as well? That also relates to speed of transition and the different speeds that perhaps different regions, should be assumed to be taking.
Again, there's certain regions where energy access is the priority, and so they will deploy whatever solutions they have readily available to get that energy access. And so I think from a global lens as well, I think we just have to be also pragmatic that, the speed and scale of this transition, is determined by various other factors mm-hmm.
That are not clean energy [00:30:00] technologies solely. When I think about technology commercialization, wind, solar batteries are a great success story. But we can't forget that this started, 20, 30 years ago, , the Germans were paying something like 500 . Euros, a megawatt hour in feed, in tariffs to get solar deployed.
On their grids for now, our benefit. , And so these things take time. , And to a lot of the young viewers out here as well, I think part of being pragmatic is also not being disheartened by near term setbacks or near term challenges. This is a long term, , challenge. It will be a long road ahead of us, and so let's try to stay pragmatic, but also persistent, in our efforts.
Lindsey Anderson: , it would be great if, somebody could invest in speed, the transmission investment process, yes. Which you mentioned was really slow. So that ties into another question. , can you speak to the need for transmission capacity, please?
How can the grid handle the volume of new central and [00:31:00] decentralized generation that we're discussing?
Kasaparas Spokas: Overall, whether you think, , climate is a priority or not, just the amount of load growth that we are seeing on the system and that we expect mm-hmm.
Even from just economic electrification, requires significant amounts of transmission build outs. Now, the reasons why we've been slow at deploying transmission are intricate. They're very region to region. , But the one thing I'll say is it is a very active, . A topic that a lot of attention is going towards today.
There are real reforms going on at regional transmission operator levels, at more granular utility levels, , that policy makers are trying to sort out. , There's not , a silver bullet here. , And again, there are multiple layers of both planning, but then siting and permitting financing that have to be resolved.
But overall, yeah, we need a lot more transmission regardless of what your priorities are. , [00:32:00] I'm hopeful that at least today's environment has the incentives to really resolve some of these. Time will tell, whether we're successful.
Lindsey Anderson: , So following onto the sort of integration and pragmatism topic,, we all work in partnerships either from academia with external partners or from NGOs and industry partnering with academia. So I'd like to talk a little bit about that. , So the point being that universities aren't just research hubs, as we all know. We're academic institutions, but we also operate, , complex energy systems.
And Tobias, I know we'd like to talk about how we can operate as living labs, but scaling solutions require strong partnerships, , which come in many forms. So Tobias, can you talk a little bit about what role you think academia should play, in bridging research and deployment?
Tobias Hanrath: Yeah, I think it's , several good examples there. So I think first of all, one way to view the role of the university in the energy transition, in not just, , Cornell, but I think in general , is to provide a platform. For folks that are interested, in engaging in this, in participating in this, , to look beyond the day-to-day noise of [00:33:00] energy being in a polarized political environment.
That's, it's a shorter term disadvantage, but to provide a platform where you can turn your engagements and your passions in contributing towards, solutions on that. , Not just to learn about it, but actually to practice it, and to actually integrate it.
And there's several examples of that, , here. , For example, integration between , the academic mission and the facilities mission, which is a centerpiece of, , Cornell living lab approach to this. But also integrating, , commercial partners, to this. So, creating an environment, basically like an accelerator, type environment where startups in this space, , have access to not only facilities, but also the people that are interested in, working on that space.
So have access, to the technologies that are being developed, , in the lab and , the workforce that's interested in pushing us forward.
Lindsey Anderson: So Kasparas, clean Air Task Force and Cornell Atkinson, , have been working together actually for the last few years, on various energy transition projects.
So from the sort of CATF experience, what do you think of as an ideal partner? What do you think an ideal partnership looks like between, your, , [00:34:00] institution and an academic institution or, with industry? , What is the magic bullet?
Kasaparas Spokas: I think there's one, view. Perhaps misconception of academia is that, they create academia and universities create knowledge, and then passively put that knowledge out into the world for society to benefit. , For me, an ideal partnership doesn't look like that. It looks much more active and it's much more of a two way street, , to create good policy, you need good knowledge.
Universities provide a big source of that new knowledge that is created. And then used to your point, industry helps really discipline some of that knowledge for practicality, for real world application. And then us as the NGOs, , we observe and take that knowledge and try to translate that to policy makers.
But going back the other way, we listen to policy makers. And also try to provide cues to [00:35:00] researchers like yourselves about what is relevant, what is the most relevant framing, what are some of the scenarios we need to be looking at. And so to me, an ideal partnership is not a one-off project, it is a long-term partnership with discourse going both ways.
And that has not only us and researchers in the room, but also industry policy makers in the room. So we can make it a really dynamic, and policy relevant, , environment. Mm-hmm. know, We've been very thankful, , and have benefited a lot from our partnerships, with Cornell. , And we see a long road ahead at of continuing that because again, policy evolves, environment evolves, but that core dynamic and conversation that we create with these partnerships can live on through all the changes , ahead of us.
Lindsey Anderson: And I should also point out that our partnership with you working on energy transitions has been really beneficial in focusing our efforts in addressing the needs of the policy makers, so what questions do they need us to answer to [00:36:00] help inform moving forward?
So, . What's one thing that, that one or all of us can do , either in the near term or the long term to accelerate progress in the energy transition?
Tobias Hanrath: I think, one place to start would be from a user perspective, awareness, how do you get, broader buy-in and how do you address the issue of having, for example, signs that's say, , no solar on farmland or having, opposition to the transition.
Because , if it's perceived as this is something that's pushed down, , your neck from, let's say federal government or elsewhere, but rather to make sure that there's the awareness around that being, , the more affordable, the better solution. I think that's one area where there's, progress to be made.
Kasaparas Spokas: . Yeah. I think what's been very, rewarding in this line of work is energy and climate touches every part of society. And so wherever you sit, it's likely you can find your connection to both the energy system and also the climate challenge. And so regardless [00:37:00] of where you sit, I generally agree about being engaged, being well-read, , also being very disciplined about, , listening to multiple perspectives, and assessing, what you feel like is reality.
But in addition to that, just in your day-to-day life or wherever you work, it is likely you can find a connection to the energy and climate problem. And so find that connection and find your role in it, , I think helps people feel a little bit more grounded, a little bit more tangible, that it's not completely out of their hands.
. Because at the end of the day, this is a collective. Challenge, we can do a lot of work that is top down, that is policy and so on. But to your point, local communities have to be engaged. And at any part of the community, I think there are opportunities to be engaged. . So I would just encourage people to find their connection and find their potential role.
Lindsey Anderson: Given the reduction in government funding for basic research, what have been the impacts and how are universities like Cornell adjusting to what seems a new reality?
Tobias Hanrath: I'll basically quote what, Catherine Hamilton recently said, on that, [00:38:00] it's , one thing to look at it in terms of, , let's say grants , from Department of Energy being cut, if it's focused on development of renewables and that is a concern.
But one thing that she had also pointed to is that there's the enthusiasm of the students that are working on it. , And I think that goes a long way. They're less worried about, shorter term, , issues with regards to, , cuts , in funding for programs like that.
But, especially students that you get to work with now, , they recognize that this is also in their sort of longer term, , experience in terms of in the transition and their opportunity to contribute towards that. So they're not thinking of it in terms of a four year, timeframe.
I think leveraging that is good. The other thing that has, , resulted, as part of that is if there's less support from the federal government on that, , there's more push now towards, , trying to find support from foundations, and from the private sector,
I think ultimately , it goes back to, , there's a huge demand for clean, , energy technologies. And one example maybe bloom energy, right? If you look at the Department of Energy website for, , hydrogen initiatives, , that's basically blank.
, But if you look at how, , bloom energy, which [00:39:00] is solid oxide fuel cells. And they're targeting a lot also for data center growth. They've grown like crazy, over the past year. So it basically just goes back to simple, demand questions, the demand is there and then, , support for initiatives in that space will follow , to enable that.
Lindsey Anderson: , This appetite for energy, seeds, the innovation space, . , Okay, so considering buildings represent 40% of all energy use in the US and HVAC is 40% of all building energy use. I think a focus on heating and cooling systems is right on target and the largest hanging fruit. What technologies for load reduction do Cornell researchers, , and or the Clean Air Task Force think have the highest potential?
Tobias Hanrath: , From Cornell's campus , as a specific example. It's a great sort of, living lab example for that. But I recognize, what we do here may not necessarily translate to other parts of the country, but , it's still a great example , to address, , the heating load for what it's worth. The heating load, the peak heating load, , for our campus here is three times larger than the, , electrical load.
, That's an, important one to keep in mind just in terms of scale. And the transitions that are very much active there now, for example, , , to [00:40:00] modernize, , the district heating system. Mm-hmm. So , the power generation and the heat generation, , that's a closely integrated system already. Transitioning from, , steam distributed across the campus , to hot water. That's something that's active now. And part of the developments towards, decarbonizing campus. So , that's a low hanging fruit. It's not necessarily, a cheap, , low hanging fruit , in that sense.
But I think it's definitely one where if you just look at the magnitude of what is the heating demand versus the electrical demand, it's a must do and it's happening now,
Lindsey Anderson: especially in the Northeast. . Do you have anything you wanna add?
Kasaparas Spokas: Not much to add on in terms of the technologies. You know, I think historically heating and electricity have been planned a little bit in silos. And so I think from a policy perspective, from a state agency perspective, I think integrating those systems and planning for how those systems will co-evolve over time, is evolving and new. And I think that will provide a little bit more assessment of some of the value.
Of some of these integration. And so I'm quite hopeful that, , [00:41:00] efforts, a lot of which are in the northeast in New York as well, on integrating both heating and electricity in planning, , will provide a little bit more clarity in terms of, , the value of that , and what will result in more incentives , and more policy that pushes that forward.
Lindsey Anderson: , Circling back to , the generating value, if we plan, we can generate value by finding the optimal strategy. Mm-hmm. But if we find the optimal strategy separately, , they're by definition suboptimal, and so you're losing value there. So it's just totally inefficient.
I think you're absolutely right that has to be a next step to make sure we're doing that properly. Um, given the increasing share of electric vehicles on the road and in our garages, how do you view using EVs to power the grid?
Kasaparas Spokas: Electric vehicles, are very interesting example of what we were talking about before, where new electrified technologies are providing load growth, but are also providing opportunities to manage certain load growth in unique ways. , I would love to see more pilot programs at the utility [00:42:00] level working to try to see how best to integrate electric vehicle charging.
, Dynamically, I know there are also some pilot programs going on in terms of vehicle to grid, dispatch where you're using the battery and rewarding the customer for dispatching, , charge battery into the electricity grid. I think there's also just a lot of work to do on distribution level, electricity planning and optimization to enable some of this, , to occur.
, So yeah, all of that to say is there's a lot of opportunity. A lot of the details still haven't been worked out, and I think utility pilot scale projects, I think are really appropriate place, I think, to put some of this experimentation. , Because ultimately the planners and , the people who keep the lights on need to start becoming a little bit more comfortable
with this back and forth. 'cause historically powers flowed one way, and now we're talking about , the power flowing both ways. I think companies like Octopus Energy in the UK are a really nice, bright spot. , They've managed to show significant amounts of demand response [00:43:00] integration into the UK power grid, providing right incentives.
Part of that has also been a very pragmatic approach. Their approach has been, make it as easy as possible for the customers and they've worked with the utilities to make them comfortable. So there's a lot of, opportunity there. , So we'll see. .
Lindsey Anderson: I feel like we've come a long way. I remember when, EVs were first rolling out probably 10 years ago now. Yeah. And people said vehicle to grid and most of the people in the energy space or in the electricity space said, oh, that'll never happen. . Like, void the warranty on your battery, that's the most expensive part of the car. And now it's just an accepted next step. So we've come a long way.
Kasaparas Spokas: And globally the picture is also very encouraging. Here in the US gas prices are a very big political, issue. Globally in a lot of regions, gas prices are very expensive. . And so there are a lot of incentives to try to deploy electric vehicles.
You've seen, , Chinese electric vehicles be deployed globally, , at a large scale. So I'm hopeful we'll see a little bit more examples of some of this integration that we can all learn from.
Lindsey Anderson: You also mentioned that [00:44:00] political will is only a small piece of the energy transition. You mentioned other major drivers as industry organization, permitting and deployment. How would you define the line between what is a function of the local slash federal government and what is a function of community organization?
Kasaparas Spokas: The unfortunate answer is it really depends on the jurisdiction in terms of, who has authority over certain permitting, inciting decisions. However, local community buy-in mm-hmm. And local community benefit sharing, I think could, can be seen as a precondition to unlocking speed and scale.
In most regions. , And so doing that bottom up work, I think is quite relevant. , These types of permitting, , inciting, , policies can change over time, so the authority can move from the state down to the local community and vice versa also depends on the type of infrastructure.
Just increasing also gets at the complexity of some of this challenge of how many things, have to be done. So I would say wherever you are, I think you have to assess your own [00:45:00] situation,, and assess who has, certain authorities, and then go from there in terms of who you engage.
Lindsey Anderson: I have this one last little, lightning round for you. , So basically, this is it, 10 seconds each. Tobias you wanna go first? Last thought, something you'd share with the audience before we close out here..
Tobias Hanrath: I think there, there's a lot of energy also from, let's say the student perspective, in engaging in this. And they shouldn't be dismayed or disheartened by current, political turbulences and keep your eye on the ball in terms of the longer term, opportunities , to engage with this, and to contribute to this .
Lindsey Anderson: . Thanks Tobias. Kasparas.
Kasaparas Spokas: I guess I'll follow on and say the conversation that I have had with students here. I feel very optimistic about. They're generally grounded. They actually understand the need to create value and pragmatism, and I think they've shed some of the historical environmental, misconceptions, , that we're dealing with , in policy making. I'm quite hopeful that this next generation, , will be a large contributor to the solution.
Chris Wofford: Thanks for [00:46:00] listening to Cornell Keynotes. For more information about the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and their partnerships advancing clean energy solutions, check the episode notes for links and resources. .