Latest / Factor This / This Week in Cleantech (09/25/2026) - Iran war energy crisis backs Bangladesh into a corner

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This Week in Cleantech (09/25/2026) - Iran war energy crisis backs Bangladesh into a corner · Factor This

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to this week in CleanTech, a 15-minute-ish roundup of the biggest stories in climate and clean energy this week.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: Today is Friday, September 25th, 2026.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: We have first-time guest David Fickling from Bluebird joining us shortly.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Clarion Events Director, Content Director, Jeremiah Karpowitz, and I'm joined again by Clean Tech commentator Mike Casey of TigerCom.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: Mike, I'm here today because Paul Gurky is out sick.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: So when was the last time you took a sick day?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh when's the last time?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: I I think last year I got my hip replaced, so I took a few days off then.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: That uh that that counts, but just a couple days and you were back back up and at it, right?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, I real for real, I did I did I have both my hips replaced and I did this week in clean tech the day after surgery, both days.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm really I don't have any claims to badassery anymore, but that's my one claim.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Just saying.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's that's pretty good.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: So Paul better be back next week.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um so you know, we always appreciate hearing from viewers and listeners.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so make sure you make your opinions part of the show.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: If you have a story that you want to see covered, email us at TWIC at tigercom.us.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: So, Mike, let's get into it.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: What's the first story that we're covering this week?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Story number one, Coco Liu from Bloomberg.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is like a Bloomberg fest this episode.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the new cleantech meta and Google are turning to power AI.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: So AI power demand has already pushed billions of investment into next generation geothermal and advanced nuclear.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the hyperscalers are turning to long-duration storage, which means batteries that can hold power for many hours or even days.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: More than lithium-iron batteries, which only get get they only get you a few hours.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, Google's working with Italy's energy dome in Arizona on batteries that compress carbon dioxide into liquid and then expand it back to gas to release power, storing energy for up to 10 hours.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: Crusoe teamed up with Form Energy on iron air batteries that can discharge for several days, and Meta signed a deal with New Energy, which stores power by splitting and then recombining CO2 molecules for systems that store renewable energy for 100 hours.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, Mike, a lot there.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, they estimate that at least 150 gigawatt hours of new long-duration energy storage projects have been announced, permitted, or financed in the U.S.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: since the start of 2025.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's more than five times the country's total plant installations as of late 24.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And most of that new demand is coming from AI data centers.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: So two years ago, Noon Energy had almost no data center business.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Today it's almost half their pipeline.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Many of these technologies also skip critical minerals like graphite, which have been caught up in geopolitical fights.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: So while the Chinese suppliers dominate lithium-ion, industry watchers say leadership in long-duration storage is still up for grabs.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's plenty of time for the current administration to throw that one away as well, Jeremiah.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, never, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: I I think it just it just speaks to how much is as changing.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Even a couple like you said, a couple, a couple of years ago, there was so much different with data centers and how energy storage is changing.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's uh there's a lot that can that can take shape over the next couple of years or even sooner.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: So our second story is by past Twick guest, Valerie Volka Bukovici.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: I got that right.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't I, Mike?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: Bulkovici.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: Good job.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: And Richard Cohen at Reuters titled Senate Inches Closer to U.S.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: Infrastructure Permitting Reform Bill.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: So, Mike, what's what's in this one?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this place you might not have heard of.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: The U.S.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Senate is close to a permitting deal meant to speed up infrastructure projects after the Trump administration gave ground on renewables, according to the top Democrat on the Environment Public Works Committee, Seldon, Sheldon White House.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: So permitting talks have been stalled since December when Trump halted construction of a f of five near-complete East Coast offshore wind farms.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Senator Whitehouse says the administration has given assurances to improve how wind and solar projects are handled.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: A vote before the midterms is still uncertain, but uh something tells me that uh Mr.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Trump will want his name on all these things.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's always a safe assumption.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: But you know what else jumped out to me that they halted this construction on five near-term or nearly complete East Coast offshore wind farms, like and then also tearing down the East Wing.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Does he just have something against the East, uh, the direction?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't know.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: Sensing a pattern here.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um so Senator Whitehouse says that he appreciates the move, but still wants more clarity from the administration on their promises for wind and solar.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, that would be that would be great.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Democrats have expressed openness to reforming environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act, which Republicans blame for lengthy project delays as part of the deal.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: They want to see changes that make it easier to build transmission line, which help get renewable energy where it's needed.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, we've covered this in the past, Mike, that building new transmission lines, yes, yes, and yes.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh industry groups representing utilities, renewable companies, and the oil and gas companies are all pushing for some form of permitting reform this year, which again would be would be great because we need more of it, all of it, all of the above, everything.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Mike, what's our what's our third story?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Gavin McGuire, Reuters, uh, Reuters and Bloomberg in a race for who gets the most stories this episode.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Africa's cement boom signals next great shift in global energy use.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot, a lot with Africa.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: Mike, do you know how big Africa is?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: You can see it behind my head here, but Africa is really big.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's always when you see those real maps of like how big the actual continents are, like how many different United States can fit in Africa, it's it's crazy big, but which almost makes it surprising.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: Right now, Africa uses under 5% of global energy.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but growth in cement plant production suggests that's about to change.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, African nations account for 42% of all cement capacity under construction worldwide, according to Global Energy Monitor.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: They hold on, but they only hold uh 8% of what's currently operating.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Maguire's point is that cement is a leading indicator.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: Before a country uses more steel, chemicals, manufactured goods, and energy, it ports huge amounts of concrete to build the housing, ports, factories, and power infrastructure.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Egypt has the largest existing capacity, about 88 million tons per year.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: Nigeria has the biggest pipeline under construction, 10 million tons, second in the world only to India.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, Mike, what do you think?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: So 16 African countries are building cement kilns right now.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: They they include Libya, Mali, Angola, Uganda, Mozambique, and Cameroon.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: They all rank in the global top 20.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: So Africa currently has 43 million metric tons of cement production capacity under construction, 23 million more planned, which together could raise the continent's total by about 15%.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Cement is very energy hungry.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: It takes coal, petroleum, coke, and gas to run the kilns.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: McGuire expects fossil fuels to cover most of that demand first.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: But here's the opportunity.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Modern plants are more efficient, rooftop solar can power some of the processes.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Electric kilns are increasingly available.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'll also say that our friends at Rondo Energy can store uh the heat that can power cement factories.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh cost could be an exciting factor.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: If cleaner options like carbon capture are more expensive, fewer producers will buy them.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: But once these plants are built for they run for decades, so these decisions have long-term influence.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah, fourth story?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: So our fourth story is by Ben German, and he's over at Axios, and it's titled Iran War Causes Global Pain at the Pump.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: And it's another one.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: A lot here, Mike.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh tell us.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: We we I think we do this some version of the story at least every other episode.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: But perhaps you've noticed that fuel prices are going up at the pump.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the Iran War, it's driving up fuel prices around the world, it's sparking angry protests, it's hurting the economies of countries that have nothing to do with the war.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Countries that depend heavily on imported fuel, like Pakistan and Myanmar, have seen steep price increases.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: They have set off a wave of electric vehicle purchases, particularly the two-wheel kind.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: But even the US, the world's biggest oil and gas producer, has soaring prices because crude prices are set on global markets.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just Iran.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries are also pushing up fuel prices, especially diesel.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a this is exactly why energy independence matters.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: The sun and the wind are not trading on a global market.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: No terrorist group or hostile country can shut you down once you built it.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and no overseas war can send their prices through the roof.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: So Pakistan's getting hit at the pump because its cars and trucks run an imported fuel.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: But back in March, we covered how that country's massive solar build-out has given its power sector a cushion against these price shocks.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: It even helped the country cut its LNG imports last year.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: Gosh, just underscores that.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, what you just said, energy independence matters.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's easy to say that, but the the bottom line with it, the reality of it, there's just there's just so much there.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um so dozens of countries have capped, subsidized, or cut taxes on fuel, according to the IEA.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, some are also trying to cut demand with more remote work and limits on government travel.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the IMF is worried about what all that support costs, especially since a lot of these so-called temporary measures don't have end dates or cost estimates, which makes them maybe they're not so temporary.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Kenya is a good example of how bad it can get, though.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh higher fuel costs are piling onto inflation, public debt, public debt, and youth unemployment there.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the country's also getting hit with higher fertilizer fertilizer costs, and it saw major protests in May.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh scholars at the Carnegie Endowment say that Kenya is a warning for the rest of the region, and they're calling for measures that make countries less vulnerable to outside shocks, which again, just energy independence, it's it's essential.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so, Mike, what's our last story?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: It is by David Fickling, a columnist with Bloomberg, who's making his first appearance on the show.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Are your$30 genes are running out of cheap power in Bangladesh?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, um, David, how are you?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the show.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, we're not a more mature and serious bunch, but you're gonna have to navigate these all the way from Australia.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: If people haven't read this piece, which I thought was really cool, um, what is its big takeaway?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, look, I think the crucial thing to remember is that um Bangladesh is completely crucial to uh the global fashion industry.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Something like uh, you know, a third of um uh genes in Europe and a similar proportion in uh in the US uh imported come from Bangladesh.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's got this massive garment industry which has really transformed the economy.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, like the economy these days uh on some measures performing better than like bigger neighbors like India.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: But um the whole thing that depends on uh cheap energy.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh historically, Bangladesh had a lot of cheap domestic gas, uh, but those gas fields are running out very fast.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: By some measures, they run out by 2031.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so you you mentioned Pakistan um just a moment ago.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Bangladesh is like the opposite of that.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: But Pakistan, after 2022, after the Ukraine um gas crisis, uh invested very, very heavily in uh in solar.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um and Bangladesh uh basically didn't, and the government put a lot of uh a lot of uh roadblocks in the way of developing uh clean energy.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And now I would say Bangladesh of major countries is probably suffering the the worst effects from the current Hormost gas crisis.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there is uh, you know, some parts of the country are having power cuts for 16 hours a day.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh crucially.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably that's mostly in rural areas, but in urban areas, if you're a garment factory, it's four to six hours a day.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And this matters a lot because you have you have um customers in Europe and the US who want you to be just in time, you they want you to be following the latest fashions, and you can't actually do it anymore because you don't have the power at the right time.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um they're losing uh, you know, there have been recent surveys like they're losing 60% of them are losing orders, 90% of them are um are having um, you know, problems fulfilling orders in time.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and there have been surveys of sort of gas stations in the sort of suburbs of Dhaka and places like that, where um they're they're selling like five times as much diesel as they normally as they would normally sell, because of course these uh these garment factories are having to buy diesel to run generators as backup because the normal grid supply is just gone.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: So, David, what was the what was the bigger upshot from you out of out of this piece?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Does it go back to what we were just talking about, about the importance of energy independence, or is it more about getting getting in front of some of these energy challenges, kind of seeing where where things are going and then having to scramble because of that?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like what uh what were the biggest lessons learned for you?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I mean I think uh Bangladesh has been lulled into a bit of a false sense of security.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: It did it did have historically these big gas fields, which you know, if you have domestic gas fields, it is very, very cheap energy.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if you wanted to sort of design in a lab a country that is really bad for clean energy, you would probably design something that looks like Bangladesh because it's a very small country.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's 175 million people in a country the size of England.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's about as densely populated as Chicago.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: The whole country is about as densely populated as Chicago.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's very low-lying, it's basically the delta of the Ganges, so you can't um you can't really use hydro very much.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's very Bacalm, so you can't really use wind.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so naturally they have depended a lot on fossil fuels.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I would argue it's actually not quite as uh as desperate a situation as as it seems.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen uh estimates that their their rooftop soil has potential to supply about like 40% of current um grid demand.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if you put uh if you put solar on some of their fish farms, they have a lot of fish farms there um to feed this big population.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's another 30%.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: They are building a nuclear um power plant, so there are things that could be done.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but generally uh Bangladesh has actually blocked these things.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: They have extremely high tariffs of um uh and taxes on on renewable equipment and much lower ones on fossil fuel equipment.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: And is that like tariff?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: There's their there's our one of our favorite words, Mike.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like, would would dropping the the tariffs really really tangibly change it?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Is that is that where your head is after kind of digging into this?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think in a lot of countries, I mean you see the contrast between uh Bangladesh and Pakistan.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Pakistan has built um you know 35 gigawatts or so of solar in a in a couple of years.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and Bangladesh has about one gigawatt of solar.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And some of that is that Pakistan has more space.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not just that.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: These these um uh these taxes are so high, they're so much higher than for fossil fuels, and there's a lot of other regulations like defining how much energy you're allowed to um you're allowed to put in, making it hard for financing, and all these regulations interlock to make it almost impossible that they have dropped in the midst of this crisis um a lot of these taxes on solar, rooftop solar, to to 1% from uh from I think um 29%.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um but just for six months.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so at the moment, maybe they're gonna change that regulation again.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: But at the moment, if you don't get it installed by March, you're back up to uh you know 17 or 18%.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And there's still other regulations making it very, very hard for you to do this.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's a problem for the country as a whole, because the country is running out of electricity, it's got these power cuts, the you know, there's no near-term recovery from this sort of LNG crisis that it's suffering.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And meanwhile, every year the domestic gas, which is still the sort of backbone of the system, is disappearing very, very fast.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, in six months they'll have this problem solved, don't you think, David?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just fine.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like you just go to the wall switch, flick the switch, you're good to go.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: But but I mean, the the lesson of Pakistan, and I think we saw it in South Africa when a couple of few years ago it was having similar um you know crises in the grid, is that the the um the solar, particularly solar and batteries can come in incredibly quickly if you get the policy settings right.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as I say, Pakistan installed 27 gigawatts in two years, um, or uh which is uh which will be enough to substantially solve most of um Bangladesh's problem if it could could have that same scale of boom.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: So last question is I I don't want to lead the witness too much, but you wrote about this as you needed to because it's a bit you could define it as kind of a bespoke problem, but a friend of mine, Jigger Shaw, who um has uh has a podcast himself, it's much inferior to ours, of course, but we'll set that aside.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: But he made this case when when um when the war kicked off, he said, you know, if you really need things that you order from Amazon, you want might want to order about a six-month supply, because at some point in the arc of this war, half the stuff on Amazon is gonna become way less available in no small measure because the packaging on all this is made from fossil fuels.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: So his point was that there was this there's a general ripple effect across global supply chains because the oil and gas industry has engineered a much greater dependence on its products, not just to propel things or to produce electrons, but to make stuff.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: And how much of this problem that you wrote about do you think ties into the global supply chain challenge?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh it's I mean it's it's it's immense.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, just to give one other example, of course, um polyester.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the you know natural fibers in uh in clothing have not really grown.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: The supply of natural fibers has not really grown in 20, 30 years.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um about 80% of all fibers in in the fashion industry are essentially polyester.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that's made from oil.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's there's a there is recycled polyester, and that's actually quite a big thing in the fashion industry these days.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, you know, probably I can't I can't see the fleece top you're wearing in in a lot of detail, but it's probably it's probably polyester.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and that has, you know, we we saw quite early on in this crisis the uh the supply chain in China, where which um, you know, there's a couple of countries, uh, companies that produce, you know, 20% of there's there's one company I know, Tong Kun, which produces about 20% of the polyester in the global market.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it really immediately, you immediately saw impacts because the uh you know polyester production in China collapsed, because of course it depends on the availability of of uh petroleum to be to be made.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: So there are a lot of effects that you'll see on this.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, the fashion industry also depends on jet fuel because it's it's um it's all flown around the world at high speed.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's just going to affect the uh the price rather than the availability.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: But but all these things compound.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I think that the point uh JR made is absolutely right.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah, we're about out of time.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: We need to go to our clean checker of the week, even though uh we could talk to David for another 20 minutes.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: If only, if only.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so this week's clean checker of the week is Dr.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Joe Rom, a physicist and one of the most influential voices in the flight against climate change.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: And fortunately, he passed away unexpectedly this month.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, Dr.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Joe served at the Department of Energy under President Clinton and turned his focus to climate after his brother lost his home in Hurricane Katrina.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: He founded the blog Climate Progress, which Time called the web's most influential climate change blog, and he was chief science advisor of the Emmy Award-winning series Years of Living Dangerously.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh rest in peace, Dr.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: Joe.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Folks, we uh want to thank David Fickling for joining us and uh Jeremiah for you pinch hitting for Paul, who um was also child sitting tonight with a sick kid.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: So he uh he couldn't he couldn't make it in the time that it was available.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: But David, thanks for joining us from halfway around the world, and we want to thank our wonderful producer Brian Mendez, as well as Alex Peterson and Claire Queerin for helping gather these stories.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: So please subscribe, give us feedback, share your story suggestions.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you can also read all the articles that we discussed this week by clicking on the links in the episode description.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Be good.