Transforming Our Energy System – Vanessa Chan, U.S. Dept of Energy

Dec 5, 2023

“The theme across all of this, this clean energy transition, it is private sector led, but government enabled. So, we as a government are trying to enable the private sector to move faster so we can meet our very ambitious goal, which includes a 50% reduction from 2005 levels of greenhouse gas pollution by 2030… There's a lot of clean energy technologies that are underpinning all of this and, includes things like, clean hydrogen, advanced nuclear, virtual power plants, carbon capture and sequestration and so forth.”  Vanessa Chan on Electric Ladies Podcast

While leaders across countries and sectors meet in Dubai this week for the UN climate conference known as COP28, engineers, scientists and business leaders across the country are transforming our energy system to be zero carbon emissions. They are powered in part by the billions of dollars in federal funding and incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Investment Act and the CHIPS & Science Act.

Where’s that money going? Listen to Vanessa Chan, Ph.D., Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of the Office of Technology Transfer at the U.S. Dept. of Energy, explain it in this fascinating discussion with Electric Ladies host Joan Michelson. 

You’ll hear about:

• The cool technologies transforming our energy system – and how innovating it works
• How they are spending the billions in the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Investment Act and the CHIPS and Science Act
• How you can track their investments and progress
• What it means for how you power your home, business or school
• Plus, insightful career advice, including what she learned by working in distinctly different jobs – corporate, academia, as an entrepreneur, and now in government:

“Always live below your means. I cannot say that enough. You know, my late husband and I, we, shared a house where the four of us, including two kids, shared a bathroom. And this was when I was a McKinsey partner, and he was in a senior executive…which meant that we could bank all our money, which gave us huge financial flexibility going forward, which means you can take more risks, right?... I think second is, really be willing to follow a north star that matters to you and no one else. And so, my North Star has always been, am I interested in what am I doing and am I learning?” Vanessa Chan on Electric Ladies Podcast

Read Joan’s Forbes articles here too.

You'll also like:

• Melissa Lott, Ph.D., Director of Research at the Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University – on what it will take to get to carbon zero.
• Lauren Salz, CEO & Cofounder, Sealed, heat pumps company  - on how heat pumps work, and how you can leverage the new federal funding to get one inexpensively.
• Halla Hrund Logadottir, Director-General, Iceland’s National Energy Authority, on how the country has become 85% renewable energy.
• Meredyth Crichton, Ph.D., Clemson University Energy Innovation Unit  - on wind power
• Jennifer Gerbi, Ph.D., Deputy Director and Acting Director, ARPA-E, the innovation arm of the Department of Energy

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