How We Got Here - Ep 4

Rachel : Hi everyone. I'm Dr. Rachel Lupien and

Stephanie : I'm Dr. Stephanie Spera

Rachel : Our climate is in crisis and we all want to help, but we might not know how

Stephanie : We're talking to people who have figured out how to use their talents to combat climate change and the hopes that their journey might inspire your own.

Rachel : How we got here: because the earth needs professional help.

How's it going?

Stephanie : It feels like fall here in Richmond. So that's finally, I know we had a crazy cold front move through. We had two cold fronts move through yesterday. Just taught my class about cold fronts, but I'm in a flannel and I'm happy.

Rachel : You love flannel.

Stephanie : Who doesn't?

Rachel : A lot of people don't.

Stephanie : And so even though it did hit 72 degrees today, I sweltered in my flannel.

Rachel : We also, it is very much fall in New York. And I went on a lovely bike ride this past weekend with some gravel cycling, actually in New Jersey. And it was, um, it was delightful.

Stephanie : I actually, I see your picture, first of all. So as you know, my husband and I used to have a previous road biking life and we lost that once we came to Richmond because of the lack of bicycle safety, VDOT. The one road in the county does not equate to bike safety.

Anyway, I saw your pictures on Instagram.

How else was your week? Do you have anything good or bad?

Rachel : Yeah, I had a pretty good week. Um, I had some exciting just like friend things.

Like I had a couple of friends get some job interviews, which was very exciting. I just feel very happy for them. And I also, like, I've got like a, kind of a new group of friends at work that is like a bunch. We have a bunch of new post-docs in my research group, but also sort of adjacent research groups and we've been having lunch together and it's just nice to feel that sense of community.

It's tough as a postdoc sometimes because you're not a student, you don't all start at the same time. So that's been really nice to get to know these people.

Stephanie : I think that's huge. I remember specifically a colleague, Bronwen Konecky, who's an amazing, um, paleolimnologist? I saw her at an AGU Brown meetup or whatever, and I remember her saying her postdoc was the alienating.

Rachel : Uh, it's tough. Yeah. I felt a little like, oh, lonely in my group for a little while, but it's all good people. It's just, we have more now and it's, it's nice.

Especially post COVID to sort of have a hall post come later, later in COVID we're figuring things out.

Stephanie : Oh, wait, did I also read that you were quoted in.

Rachel : Yeah, I was. Well, it was a, it was an article about, um, about human evolution.

It was about homo erectus dispersing out of Africa. And what drove that. And I, I, uh, had a little interview with the, with the journalist and it was picked up in the Atlantic, smithsonian magazine.

Stephanie : That's great. That sounds like a great week.

Rachel : How about you?

Stephanie : My son has been sick even to the doctor. It's not COVID, it's not strep, so I'm grateful for that, but like, what is it? I don't know. It means he's crying every night. So do I remember my week? I think we had a good weekend. What's the farmer's market. I got kombucha. My, my favorite fall seasonal.

Rachel : Oh, man, probably held a pumpkin or two.

Stephanie : I do have a pumpkin on my front porch.

Rachel : Yeah. Is it a jack-o-lantern yet?

Stephanie : I really don't want to even do that. ,

Rachel : we have very tiny gourds that we got for like a dollar from the grocery store. That's our, that's our decoration that's motherfucking guard season

Stephanie : I had my students read that in an interview by him because he talks about climate change and how his falls don't feel like other falls anymore. Wow.

Rachel : Wow. You're such a cool professor.

Stephanie : I know we also like to just think about our week and normalize things, not successes, or just talk about things that we're struggling with.

Rachel : Yeah, I mean, just going along with the, the autumnal theme is I'm just noticing more and more how dark it is earlier, and that is so tough, especially to get work done at the end of the day.

It's very difficult for me, at least to I'm sure for other people too, to like leave work when it's dark out and it hasn't quite happened yet, but daylight savings is only a couple of weeks away and like, I'm just dreading.

Stephanie : Um, two weeks. Yeah, I agree. I'm dreading it for mine. My son wakes up at 5: 30. Now he's going to wake up at 4: 30.

 But also you are very great about being, um, your lack of carbon. This is how tired I am. Oh my gosh. But you bike to work is what I'm trying to say.

Rachel : Well, I bike home from work. I am, uh, dropped off at work, in a car with my bike because it's on a hill and I don't like biking up that hill.

So yeah. So I tried to bike as much as possible home from work last week and yeah, I'm not going to be able to, and it's raining all weekend.

Stephanie : Halloween is coming up. This is like a good, bad, I have been looking forward. Daycares Trunk-or-Treat. It's like his school, either parents go and the kids trick or treat at the cars you just parked in the parking lot. You open your trunk, car trunks,

so right. He's home. He's got a fever. Doctor calls it a virus. No one knows. He can't go to the trunk or treat, but I will care.

Rachel : Wait, but it hasn't been decided

yet.

Stephanie : Cause if he gets back, the doctor cleared him as long as he doesn't have symptoms because he doesn't have any crazy. Great. I mean, any parent right now with kid and daycare at a time of COVID yeah. Nevermind. This costume. Oh, I'll link on the website.

Rachel : Yeah. Well, I'm really excited for our guest today. It's my pal from elementary school, even all the way back. . So Doug Miller is a clean energy pioneer working to make the transition to renewables faster, easier, and accessible. He uses the power of open source digital technology to accelerate the pathway towards lower carbon emissions.

He gives talks all over the world and he's talking to us for some reason. He talks on subjects, including decarbonizing cryptocurrency, and he is a staunch believer in the power of technology to solve environmental problems. Doug and I, as I said, went to elementary, middle and high school together. And fun fact, he gave me, he probably does not remember this at all.

He gave me a purple watch with an elastic band for my ninth birthday at an indoor soccer arena. That was my birthday party. And it was sick. I loved it .

Stephanie : I'm actually so excited to talk to Doug. I can't wait. I can't wait.

Rachel : .Well, Hey Doug.

Doug: Hey Rachel, it has been awhile. Been a few years since we last talked. Yeah.

Rachel : God 12. Yeah. Wow. So thank you so much for joining us. And we cannot wait to hear about what you do, because we really, this is, this is a bit outside of our little tiny scientists' brains and we cannot compute, but you're going to tell us, so first off, what do you do?

What is your job title? What is on your business card? Not the details, but, you know.

Doug: Yeah. Um, well I work at EnergyWeb , which is a nonprofit organization. I'm sure we'll talk more about what we do as an organization, but my title technically is manager. Um, and you know, I, I can go into more what that role entails, like okay.

Stephanie : Yeah. So your business card basically just says manager. So then yeah. What do you actually do? What, what do you manage?

Doug: Oh yeah. So, um, at the core of it is, uh, market initiatives and strategic partnerships with different energy companies, electric utilities, grid operators, and then industry associations in protect.

Rachel : I am going to be real with you. I don't know what a lot of those things are. So, and Steph is also shaking her head, but we're going to get into it. So, okay. So I guess what would help us tiny brained people understand is like, what do you actually actually do on a day-to-day basis? What would we find you doing at the office? Or I don't know, in the field?

Doug: Right now work from home office still. Um, and you know what you'd find me doing. It's both a combination of things that are external- facing and then work with my team. So in terms of the external facing stuff, it's, um, part of it's education.

So it's helping different different companies that work across essentially help make sure the lights turn on, um, in the U S and abroad, we help them understand what is blockchain technology and other decentralized technologies. How might it be useful for. Help them understand how it might fit into their business.

Um, then based on what people understand that I am also have a role, I also have a role in helping them figure out what, what types of technologies they might want to build and solutions they might want to build for say you or me as customers of our particular, um, you know, electric utility. Um, so that's where, when I say strategic partnerships, that means writing contracts, understanding what, what is the thing we're actually going to be doing together?

Who's doing what, what you're, what are you responsible for over what timeframe? And it takes a lot of work to get to that point of being able to put that on a piece of paper. Um, so that's when I say strategic partnerships, it's defining all those different buckets of things. Just like if you're, you know, putting together, um, you know, maybe a proposal for a scientific grants, let's say you have to figure out all those basic questions and this is the way to formalize it.

Um, and so I worked to draft. Put it in front of people to sign. And then once it's signed, um, part of my work is to then share what we learned from that work and that again, feeds into the education component. Um, then when I say market initiative, sure.

Stephanie : Really quickly, you use the word block chain.

Rachel : Oh yeah. We need, we need

Stephanie : some help. Okay. So you're what, you're, what you do is you help other companies decide if they want to blockchain, blockchain, verb, noun, and then gin block. Yeah. It's not that. And then what, why would a company, what is a blockchain? What is blockchain?

Rachel : It's for it's for our listeners.

Doug: Yeah. I can take a stab at it. Um, okay. So, I mean, before doing that though, I think something that's worth mentioning. And to set the context, this technology like other technologies we use for say, recording this podcast right now, there are a whole bunch of different technology tools that help make this happen so that we can, you can hear me.

I can hear you right now. We can see each other on this video screen. You were, I don't, I certainly couldn't explain to you all the different technology technology components that help make this happen. I don't even know what all the different components are called. Um, but we know how to use the app that all this technology came together to form.

 So that's, if that's the starting point, one of the challenges with why I think and why, you know, I, when you spread the word blockchain, you're like I could see your faces change. Um, I think the thing about this technology as something that operates almost in a parallel universe of technology, because of the way it's been covered by the media, um, the way to think about it is that it's useful because of.

For an application, like the one we're using today. It's another one that does some specific things in the stack of tools to deliver applications. So that's the context. It's not like a parallel internet. It's not something that operates on its own. It doesn't interact with other tools we already use. So that's 0.1, not the dark web.

Yeah. Um, so it is, and how is it useful in general? It's, it's useful in scenarios where you need multiple people or organizations to know about a single thing. Okay.

Rachel : So like recording a podcast or slack,

Doug: Well, I mean, you're getting there, so to give an example in the energy sector, which is one that's really known for being really behind the times in terms of technology adoption, um, they use software that's like 20 years old.

If you go onto your, you know, app, it probably doesn't look like other more modern apps you use and geo city's website. Exactly. Um, and so in the energy sector, lots of people need to know information about, for example, how much electricity did you consume? When did you consume it? What was the price of electricity?

Did you pay a bill? Um, and one of the challenges, the energy, and I'm going to get to what blockchain is in the second, but I think it's all to show the use. Um, it's, um, it, in these scenarios, multiple people need to know information, but there's not that much information to have to deal with. It's just, you know, your monthly payment.

Um, did you sign up for a program, et cetera, in the energy sector? I think as we know, as we work to tackle the climate crisis, there are many more devices or things that are interacting with our electric grid. We have solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries, smart, thermostats, more and more small things.

Essentially that makes our grade way more complex. It's a lot more information keep track of, and we can't use spreadsheets and old databases anymore. When there's say 2, 3, 4, even many more organizations that need to know was it, did this payment happen or, um, did did it, but this particular battery provides storage.

And so blockchain is useful as a distributed ledger to be the single source of truth about a particular event. And so blockchain, blockchain as a tool is a, it's a database. And a lot of you can think of it that way, but it's one where similar to a Google doc, multiple people can be at the same time to see if a change happened.

And over time you can see the history of change that happened from her particular thing. I'll go into more later, but, um, maybe that's a helpful starting point then maybe a different than what you might see on a, you know, some sort of public.

Stephanie : Yeah. I mean, I've seen the word blockchain and then I just, my brain shuts off.

So that was

Rachel : helpful. Cool. Yeah. So wait, is it like, it's like a strategy or it like blockchain, oranges. It is a type of technology, but it's not like, it's like a way of like fingerprinting something.

Doug: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's like that. So, you know, when you save, um, you're being on your Gmail, uh, let's say where, if you save something to a shared drive, that's being stored somewhere in a single database, like a Microsoft or Amazon database, right.

Um, this is a way to build that storage of data. In some ways you can think of it, but where there's no one owner of the.

Stephanie : You're like democratizing this database or decentralizing it, not to monetize. And also you can see previous, it sounds like you can also see like previous edits. Is that true also? Or is that an important component or no,

Doug: it is an important component you can see.

Yeah. So you can, and then there are ways, cause there's one thing that you always have to balance is privacy. So there's certain ways to balance what you record versus referencing that something happened that has that, that has a unique link to private, uh, you know, data that's protected separately.

Stephanie : So that's definitely why it's decentralizing and not democratizing.

Okay. So to catch up your actual day to day is helping companies to say. Whether or not particularly energy companies decide whether or not they want to incorporate blockchain technology and then dealing with all the logistical stuff that goes into these contracts to help them decide why they might want to include blockchain in their strategy.

Rachel : Well, you are so good. I was half there.

Doug: Yeah. That's really, really well said. And then, you know, that's how that then feeds into other work is then I share with, share with the team internally, you know, where are we going? Where does this company want to go? How does this, you know, what are we going to have to do?

And then based on what we do, I can share what we learn externally to then get other companies on board work. Um, so that's one, it's this strategic partnerships. And then the second piece is market initiatives. What I mean by that is we say, we think this, this is an important thing for a particular industry to do.

Let's say one I'm running right now. It's called the Crypto Climate Accord. Um, let's have the entire Bitcoin Ethereum, all the different groups. Uh, currencies you may have heard of, let's make sure that as much of the sector as possible is powered with renewable energy and uses new technology tools. Like the ones I started talking about earlier, um, to help power that, uh, that solution.

And so that's one where there's a whole nother set of work, but, um, yeah.

Rachel : Yeah. That's interesting. You bring it up. I mean, that's what I've heard about cryptocurrency from like a climate perspective is that it's just terrible for the environment Steph and I were talking before and we were like, wait, why, wait, why is it bad for the environment?

Well, we've heard that.

Stephanie : Yeah. So our question to you is why, and then also what is a Bitcoin and what is an NFT, but the more important part is the climate change.

Doug: Yeah, well, um, you know, so the question is the environmental impact of crypto. I think the helpful context. The energy use for the crib crypto sector is growing. And some people equate it to the size of several countries, equivalent of energy use, which, you know, makes it sound, um, maybe more impressive than it than it is in the sense that, um, it's still less than 1% of global energy use.

So I think when you said it that way, um, you know, the comparisons are to really small countries in terms of their energy use. Um, but what I don't think the conversation about the energies of crypto is helpful in a vacuum from, from our perspective or at least my perspective. Um, I think every sector has an energy problem.

None of them are fully renewably powered, um, and all, you know, not enough of them have invested enough in energy efficiency as well. So. What were you at energy lab, part of the, the race for creating this crypto climate accord. And it's just an example of the type of work. Um, I have is, um, there's a lot of the crypto sector has a limelight right now.

It's getting criticized for its energy use. Let's take the attention and change the narrative. Let's, let's accept it. That it's an issue just like every other industry has this issue and let's build solutions to decarbonize prove that you made progress on this with new technologies using blockchain. Um, and then provide an example for other sectors to follow.

For example, if you look at the financial sector, so banks, financial institutions, um, a recent report by CDP, formerly carbon disclosure project found that their investment portfolios have a carbon emission equivalent of 700 times greater than their own direct emissions. So I mean, bank. Finance oil and gas projects, coal projects, et cetera.

Um, so that's the reason to bring it up again. It's just to say that this sector, the crypto sector has an issue, so to others equivalencies. Exactly. Um, so that's an example of that type of work. And, um, yeah. Can

Stephanie : I ask up questions this crypto climate accord, which sounds very cool. And I wish our normal countries would just pass a normal climate record. Is it who, who would say? So I see an accord is like a thing that signatories latch on to who is it, a country that was sign on or how does that work?

Doug: So we've set it up it's it was the idea that we call it an accord to show that it's inspired by the Paris agreement. Right. Um, it's a private sector led initiative, so it's just companies that sign up and essentially they commit to decarbonize their crypto activities.

What that means is if you're a crypto exchange, um, you might've heard of say. For a place where you might buy and sell cryptocurrency, we're working with those types of organizations to help them link the enter, to estimate the energies of those holdings by renewable power. And then essentially say if you're buying or selling crypto on our platform, we can guarantee that it's principally powered and here's proof.

Um, for some, for someone who's actually mining cryptocurrencies to the actual, um, essentially those who have helped maintain these networks, um, we are helping them directly essentially change their electricity sourcing to renewables rather than the generic grid, and then proving it to investors or regulators, whoever is relevant.

Um, but this is all early stage. We only launched the crypto climate court six months ago. Um, but what's interesting is that it's both crypto companies and then climate energy groups, essentially. They want to sell them the products as they get it, that the crypto sector is just another buyer of, uh, clean energy solutions, just.

Apple and Google and a whole bunch of household name brands by renewable power.

Stephanie : It's like fair trade certified.

Doug: Right. But like actually climate carbonless certified.

Yeah. It's easier to define if it's simply just every unit of like renewable electricity in our grid and us or European grid or any international market.

Um, it's, it's called a renewable energy certificate or there's a couple of other names. So one req is equal to one megawatt hour, clean electricity. And so that's the instrument to prove it. And going back to my point earlier, these, the current technology tools to manage these markets are really old. So we're just trying to use these new technologies to make it easier to say which wrecks are available, who bought what and prove it, that you did buy it rather than, um, having to deal with old databases and.

Is that you are not using an E using an email as a PDF to stand up and your corporate report.

Stephanie : You don't want to query something and SQL you don't want to just do that first. Did you have a real question because I have so many more questions. No, no, no, no.

Rachel : That's great. I've learned so much already. It's been like 10 minutes.

Stephanie : Can I ask two more questions? I know we can move on to actually 12 more questions and then I'll stop when you say mining Bitcoin. This is not a physical digging a mine, correct? Correct.

Doug: You are digitally digging a mind.

Stephanie : No, but truly like why or how or what, what does that mean? How do you make Bitcoins? Like, okay. I know back in the day, the U S treasury used to ha. Like gold back, right? Like now, now all currency is fake basically, right? Like, I guess that's where this whole Bitcoin versus whatever it comes, but how, how does, how do you mine a Bitcoin from the computer?

Doug: So broadening it a bit. So with blockchain, um, the whole point is to provide a, you know, there are different ways exist already today to establish trust about what happened and who say, did I send you a payment? Did you send me this document? Um, this is a way to do without a single organization being in charge of the whole process.

And it's a way to remove it because of the way that many markets are set up or different organizations, own different parts of the process. You then might need to hire somebody to navigate that process or to get you from step one, to step two, because they're a state of gatekeeper. Um, and so. In the case of Bitcoin, the whole point of Bitcoin is just to send financial values, send money.

Um, and it's in a, it's done in a way where, you know, if I were sent where I sending you money through say Venmo or PayPal, ultimately interacts with the banks to prove to the transfer happen. And that's the way to establish trust that something changed that, you know, I went through 10 bucks and you received 10 bucks, um, with Bitcoin, it's a weight it's at the end of the day.

It's a way for me to send you that $10, um, with, without somebody running the show, it's a way for, so, and I'll get it to what mining is in a second. So it's just, it's a way to then verify this thing happened. I transferred the funds and I, and I also had the funds beforehand. And so the way that the whole point of mining in the case of Bitcoin it's.

It's in a sense, it's an incentive scheme. So for people to want to participate in build this network where one can send this case financial value from one party to another mining is a way to win money or big into the form of Bitcoin where you essentially help run. What's called, um, the node to maintain the network.

So if you're mining Bitcoin, practically, what you're doing is you're trying to solve. And, um, and then you can stop me if this gets-

Stephanie : here's the thing I am like so engaged because I have never had someone sit down and talk to me about that. I just, yeah.

Doug: So, okay. A blockchain value to visualize it. I would like to think of it like train cars. And you might've heard of Bitcoin versus Ethereum.

So you can think of the point is you can think of each blockchain as its own independent real system.

Yep. And in some cases there is fragmented as our TranSystems systems are, but in some cases you can interconnect it depending on which blockchains we're talking about.

Um, so on every blockchain there's you can think of there being like the, the train cars, where there are rules and about what types of things can be on the train cars. If it's Bitcoin is just Bitcoin. So it's current form of currency ship. It's other another blockchain, like the energy web chain. There's other stuff that can be in there.

Um, and each with each train truck, um, each blockchain, the train cars roll at a different. They leave, they leave it as different speeds. So in Bitcoin and they leave every 10 minutes with our blockchain. It's every three seconds and yeah, it's a weight and it's, it's a way to, so that's like the movement and the ideas within each of those timeframes, you have a certain amount of time to put stuff in the train car, close it the way to lock it so that you know, that everything's in there is in there.

Everybody knows it's in there. That that's mining is that part is the locking. Um, and there's a financial incentive to encourage somebody to lock it. And that's what mining is. And so in Bitcoin, if I am the one who solves the puzzle and locks the car, I win a Bitcoin. And, um,

Rachel : this sounds made up. I just, I mean, I guess

Stephanie : it is, but it isn't isn't right, because there are businesses that are, the Bitcoin is foundational to their economy

Doug: or like their, yeah.

I mean, now it's accepted, it's accepted currency and more and more platforms that banks,

Rachel : my wedding photographer, accepts it,

Stephanie : Wait, Doug, I don't own any, should we mine some Bitcoins, but like also, can I buy a Bitcoin with a dollar? Obviously not a dollar,

Doug: so the part of it too is you can buy, um, fractions of cryptocurrencies and you don't have to buy a whole one. Cause right now today it's $62,000 per Bitcoin

Stephanie : for one.

Rachel : But what if I learned you guys solve the puzzle?

Doug: So if you, if you set up a Bitcoin mining facility that you could, you could do that,

Rachel : I interrupted you before you were going to get to mining it.

Stephanie : Yeah. What do you know? It's solving the puzzle. You were going that locks the trace, but you're the one. So the puzzle is how do I get all this stuff to this person and put it on the train

Doug: because people want, people want to be part of that rail system and put stuff on it because they know it's going to be sealed and work and deliver the things that are in the car.

Right. And, but they don't want one person to run the show. Right. So this is, this is the, it's essentially just the incentive scheme to have a it's like a co-op to have it running.

Stephanie : Okay. Honestly, this was truly, truly helpful. And Rachel, I really hope that you pay your photographer and Bitcoin. Now we will, we'll own a fraction of a bit. Um,

Rachel : I would love to, because I don't like my photographer and I have no Bitcoin. So I will say that I will pay them in backwards with that.

Stephanie : Doug, that was honestly okay. Thank you. That one episode of John Oliver once, and I didn't really get it, but this was helpful.

Doug: I'm glad it was helpful. I wasn't originally planning to do it

 But the point again from the earlier.

Did it's maybe helpful to know generally how it might kind of works, but the point is that we're now reaching a point where this technology, we in the back, like behind the scenes of an app you might use. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. You might not know that.

Stephanie : So Doug, as I understand it, you both help companies decide whether or not to use blockchain create, do the really un-fun contracting work. And also you're doing this really you're on the front end of trying to create this crypto climate cord to be like, okay, even though everyone is pointing at us for taking a lot of energy and we kind of are, but let's get ahead of it.

And let's actually. Get on board and be all renewables and actually lead unlike other countries that we may live in, um, or other that we reside. Yeah. So I think this is kind of clear, but how would you say your work contributes to combating the climate crisis? Even though I may have articulated?

Doug: Yeah. Yeah. So, um, so energy, as I mentioned before, as a nonprofit, what's interesting, those who worked like a tech startup. So we are a staff of about 60 people, but we have about 45 or 50 software program, programmers and engineers. So, um, we're spread across all continents except Antarctica this stage.

Um, and, um, essentially what our mission is. Is to provide digital infrastructure for the clean energy transition. So the energy, the clean energy transition is the idea that we need to change the way our electric grids are powered. And we need to electrify more things. Meaning our cars needed to become electric.

Our appliances need to become electric in our homes and offices, et cetera. And to get to that future state, there's a lot of focus. For example, the bill back blood or better plan right now from the Biden administration, but actually hopefully gets passed in some form. Um, it's a focus on physical infrastructure.

It's we need more wind turbines, batteries, EVs, candidly speaking. It seems like there's not enough focus on the digital infrastructure. And what I mean by that is if you say, let's say you were, I bought a, uh, electric vehicle, a battery and a solar panel. Let's say we had those in our home. It's not user-friendly to have all those things, doing everything you thought they were supposed to do when you bought them.

And so we're here to provide more tools in the same way that our web apps have become. Become easier to use. You have different integrations between different apps, where we see blockchain being helpful behind the scenes of applications, so that when you turn on your Evie and you plug it in and say, you know, DC versus California, or another country, or you want to sell electricity in a particular market from your solar, that it all just works behind the scenes.

And the way that we're doing that, um, and I'll wrap up in a second is by creating tools. And it's all all using what, like w what we call decentralized technologies to create a digital passport for you or me as people for companies and for physical energy devices, and then using blockchain as the place where we establish that those passports exist and what the attributes and responsibilities and roles and actions of those who own the passports are.

And just like with passports, it's yours, you have. Um, we want to put people more controlled their data too. And, um, again, where you can plug it in wherever you want to plug it in.

Rachel : So you're making it easier for people and the easier it is, the more people will use it. The more investors will see that people are using it and the more the positive cycle.

Stephanie : It also sounds like though, you're, I mean, we've talked to a few other people who are working on the sort of their work surrounds the build back better plan. And it's really interesting. Right. Cause you're, it also sounds like a lot of this is make, you would need the grid. You want more wind energy, more solar and nothing.

Doug: Well, yeah. So to make our grids work in this. You'll have certain politicians in particular say, um, well, when it's not always windy, it's not always sunny as if people haven't thought about that. Um, so, so this is part of the role of the technology that we're focused on. So, because as I said earlier, our grades are becoming way more complex.

We have many more devices doing things and can offer things that we need to make sure to tap into. We need to make sure that when we come home after work and we turn the air conditioning during the summer and the sun's going down, or it's not as strong. Um, and it's certainly not windy that time of day that we have batteries in the form of actual batteries or say electric vehicles that are ready to provide extra electricity to the grid.

We're working to provide those, the tools behind the scenes, where then those who run our grids can say, I know. However many EVs and batteries I need. So I can keep all the lights on. Even if the solar productivity is going down and our electricity use is going up as we get home. Yeah. That's one very specific example.

But when I say digital infrastructure, it's actually managing the grid, right? Not the physical stuff on the grid. Yeah.

Rachel : No, it seems really important

Doug: and it's not talked about enough, but it is, you know, you can see probably like, you know, you lose people pretty quickly in terms of what we have to know, but in the sense of like, we have to get the other stuff done first, but yeah, from our perspective, we want to make sure that this is part of how we approach things and, um, Also, I'm sure as you've maybe experienced before, uh, you want to make sure that all the different pieces of hardware you buy can all plug into each other and work rather than, you know, trying to fit a certain circle into a square shape.

Rachel : okay. So we have learned so much, the name of the podcast is how we got here. And so we really want to know like how you got to this job. So if you could tell us a bit about. You know what he's been up to since my fourth grade birthday party? Like, what was your first job out of? What did you study in college?

What did you was your very first job dreaming about digital infrastructure?

Doug: I never thought I, it would work in tech or in this case it's a nonprofit that does tech, which is even more niche.

Stephanie : Wait, what was your very first job ever?

Doug: Yeah. My very first job ever was at RMS. Um, which is a clean energy think tank based out in Colorado.

Stephanie : Oh. But like, you didn't have like a 16 year old, like I am stuck working at

Rachel : like field hockey camp counselor. Yeah.

Doug: I guess it might vary. Yeah. So my very, very first job, um, I knew very early on that I wanted to focus in the environmental sector.

So my first job was at a green architecture firm. Oh, wait.

Rachel : Was it the same one that we didn't work together? I was at Baltimore, Baltimore green construction. That was more of a contract.

Stephanie : So you knew the whole time though that you were like environment and did you go to college for, do you major in like environmental studies

Doug: Yeah. So in college I did, um, I originally thought I wanted to do sustainability from the perspective of cities and that's one of the reasons why I chose the school I went to and I thought I was going to do environmental studies and urban studies, but then I worked for, um, the mayor of Baltimore sustainability office.

Didn't want to realize, I didn't want to do, you know, that type of.

Rachel : That's totally a common theme we're finding is like, it's so good to have that first job and be like,

Doug: Yeah. And so I, yeah, totally. Um, and for the perspective of students, I know, you know, they're, it depends on what's available and everything and what's possible, but, um, I try to use internships as a learning experience and I try to do different things every year.

Um, I forgot what was most appealing versus not.

Stephanie : So then that's a really good tactic. Yeah.

Doug: Yeah. So every summer I did a completely different part of the, luckily I knew the environmental sector, so it focused on completely different parts. Um, but ultimately it landed on as this, I knew I needed something else to support the environmental studies focus.

Cause I knew you couldn't just necessarily learn about the issues and getting something interesting in the field, at least for how I was thinking about it. So. Ultimately landed on a program called philosophy politics and economics PPE, which focuses on essentially at the end of the day, behavioral science.

 In school I focused on or learn a lot about, uh, behavior change, social norms, essentially how I got to that question and some of my undergrad, and then post-grad research was if, if the, if adopting climate solutions is just about dollars and cents would already be doing this because energy efficiency, it's already cheaper to invest in energy efficiency today in all industries and our buildings, et cetera.

But we're just not. And it's not about dollars and cents, because even if you think about upfront costs, it pays back faster than other things.

 And ultimately my undergrad thesis was on, how do we change social norms, meaning what we think others are doing, what we think others expect of us.

How do we knowing that that's really important for how we make decisions, whether it's investments or our day-to-day habits, how we turn things in the tide and supportive climate action. And that then was kind of the folk, the overarching theme of my undergrad and then grad school thesis, um, to my undergrad program was, uh, environmental studies and PPE with essentially behavioral science focus.

Um, and I went straight to grad school after that, um, focused on the, it was a one-year master of science focused on environmental technology.

Rachel : How did you find that master's program? Like what drew you there?

Doug: Um, there were a couple of scholarships I was nominated for from Penn.

Um, and so I was not made for the Rhodes scholarship and then one or two others, and then I didn't get any of them, but through that process, um, yeah, so I didn't get them, but through the process, one of the programs had you applied to two UK universities. Um, and I discovered this particular program at Imperial college that I thought looked really cool.

So ultimately that was my, became my top choice. Yeah. Um, and part of the reason of wanting to do the UK in the first place was my undergrad thesis. I, um, ran at Oxford looking at the role of social, social norms and promoting new clean energy habits.

Stephanie : That's awesome. So then you add that's really cool. And it's also kind of neat that this sort of came, you weren't necessarily initially thinking of doing it, but it came out of these other experiences that you were like, oh, this is a cool program. So then after that you went to Rocky mountain Institute and that was your first job job job that wasn't an internship.

Doug: And again, the point about using internships for different types of perspectives. My last internship was in the UK and, um, it was at a think tank. And I just thought that was a really interesting, um, opportunity.

And it's between that, you know, my experience at RMI where I am now, um, I have a certain, uh, take on those who were in the sustainability sector, however broad. You want to consider that for how to think about opportunities like this. And the way I think about it is if you can imagine a two by, um, a grid with two, you know, two by two X and Y axis.

Um, I think about it in terms of. What scale of impact. And I hate that term in a lot of ways, but what scale of impact do you want to have in your career and what I mean by that as very local or very global, and then how much control do you want to have over it? The actual implementation of the thing and, um, meaning, you know, do you want to be directly in control of the project you're installing the solar panels or putting the project up in your city, whatever it might be, or do you want it to be, you want to put it out to eat.

There are 10 form water conversations and dialogues, however you want to frame it. Um, sounds like

Rachel : you need blockchain to sell some of those.

Doug: Exactly.

Stephanie : No, I think that's awesome. Did you go right from RMI to this in DC or did you have, so,

Doug: um, my role at my, it was really interesting and, um, I try to where possible bring in some of my experiences in the role of the role of a. Social psychology and social norms in actually getting adoption of clean energy because, um, RMIS core focuses on making the economics make sense and showing the business case for different things.

I think, you know, again, the barrier isn't always dollars and cents. It's other cultural factors and, you know, it's like, yeah, exactly. And, um, so for example, one of, one of my last projects are my, which I really had fun with was informing Hollywood on, uh, and even writing the script for a couple of shows and even NBA basketball game advertisements and things like that on how do you make clean energy part of normal pop culture in terms of the attractive character in a show as a solar installer or, you know, the compelling dialogue is about something electric.

Um, and so that I produce guidance with the producers Guild of America on this topic. And that was it. Nothing else. It was a nice thing for me to put my cap on, um, in terms of something was social norms, because it wasn't clear where the opportunities would be with bringing them in the space. But I feel like that was a really cool project to say, okay, that that's out there, people can use it.

Rachel : Yeah.

Stephanie : So my weather climate is this. I teach a classical water climate society, and I always struggle to find a, like a fun pop culture representation of climate change or green energy or exactly what you were saying. We watched like clarify as the closest thing we get. So we have them watched either The Day After Tomorrow or Geo storm.

Both are not good. But I always told my students, like if you come across a, sit-com a commercial, something that is, has just like a hint of climate change, let me know. Cause I do search for it. And I think it's, it's actually the lack of that topic in pop culture is important, right?

Because the word we talk about these things, the more we acknowledge them. So I actually, this is so interesting. I haven't seen, I don't watch like the big bang theory.

Doug: Didn't come through, but we we've put together a whole pitch for.

Stephanie : So cool. Um, wait, having, did you see, did it go like, is there something I should be using in my class that I don't am not acknowledging, like, there is an episode of 30 rock that I'm thinking of

Doug: I think, I mean, the core story though is like, yeah. Um, the course, the core story is about representation. The clean energy sector already employs more than the oil and gas and coal sector in the United States, even without much support from government. Um, and with the limited actual percentage of our electricity supply.

Um, and yet of course, nobody knows that even during the Trump years, the top of the top three fastest growing jobs too, were solar installers and wind technician. Um, well,

Stephanie : Trump told me it was coal and coal is coming back to us.

Doug: Um, so it's just about better representing these stories that people have because it's a larger share of the population it's going to become more.

Rachel : Yeah. That's really interesting.

Stephanie : Maybe

Rachel : we should have like a, yeah, like a social scientist.

Stephanie : I think it's really neat that you, as an undergrad sort of recognize, I need to do this social.

Rachel : You need to like figure out how to convince other people of this. Yeah. And that's where you can have a huge impact much further beyond yourself.

Okay. So what skills do you use for your job? What are you really good at?

Doug: They're not ones I necessarily had before. Um, you know, they're not once I would say I worked on when I was in school or that I thought I would use my day to day. I'd say the things that I have become. R, um, uh, one, the ability to negotiate and under.

And what I mean by that is understand what are people interested in? What are their concerns? What are their, um, the practical limitations of, you know, both within their organizations or their interests or priorities. So it's a lot of, it's just, it's about, you know, you can think that almost a balance of empathy and, you know, try to put yourself in other people's shoes.

Essentially, if there's something you think you want to do together, how do you put yourself in their position? So you can help them get to the shared goal together. Um, and then another thing, and yeah, it's, it's hard to put, it's hard to put a specific name to this, but, um, I'm S one of my strengths, I think.

Just give me a small idea and I'll turn it into a big, bigger thing. Whether that's an initiative or, you know, the example I brought up yeah. That was, we should create a climate accord and, you know, six months later we have 200 or almost 200 organizations. We have people working on different things. We have some solutions being built and that was sick, you know, six months ago we've launched it.

Um, it we're briefing, uh, regulators and policymakers, um, or in the case of the example from before somebody at the water cooler and sometimes this stuff, I guess does happen said, would it be cool if we got clean energy on to a TV show and then we did and then turned into this bigger thing. Um, so I think with that, it's, you know, run running with.

And being able to, um, you know, anytime you join an organization, you're not necessarily there gonna be a lot of new things you have to learn and the ability to take limited information or mom, a bit to do something and, uh, come up with something that others think is important and valuable. And that's, I think again, hard to put a specific name on that.

Um, that's something that I've gotten, I think really good at, um, I guess the last, the practical thing to work on here for those who are in school. Um, the biggest, I think value in a lot of ways from my undergrad education in grad school was that they were multidisciplinary. And why that's interesting is

the ability to take different perspectives on a single issue and also make sense of things. I think it's something it's helpful not to look at through just one lens. So the ability to, and this, I think, I guess probably goes to some of the first two points I brought up, but, um, being able to. Uh, question or challenge from different perspectives, um, I think is really important.

Stephanie : So you're advocating for a liberal arts education

Doug: Thousand percent people should not do a b-school undergrad.. Yeah.

Stephanie : Oh, I mean, that's like my number one thing, but yeah, I fully agree. Um, Doug, if there were no climate crisis, how would you be spending using your great? I would also add, I think you're a great communicator and explainer.

Rachel : Cause now I know train tracks. I know I'm going to go tell everyone I know tomorrow what the blockchains are.

Stephanie : That's awesome. But no, but if there were no climate crisis, how would, what do you think you'd be doing?

Doug: It's a good question. Probably to route. Yeah. So I'll give you the maybe lane lane response to start, which is, you know, it's, there's not, it's not just the climate crisis. We also have water and energy issues. Um, so I think an area that's been under investigated and we need more people working in it and it's, you know, where I keep an eye on things just for maybe opportunities in the next five to 10 year kind of timeframe is the agriculture sector.

Um, yeah, great. We keep human and human health or environmental health, um, and different social problems that emerge from how, what we consume, how we consume it. Um, how we produce the food in the first place. I think there are so many challenges and needs in that space. Um, and so that, you know, that would probably be what I focus on.

If we were just caring. If it, if the focus wasn't just reducing carbon and methane emissions, um, I guess were we to solve that problem too? I always was interested in architecture, architecture, and design, and I don't know what exactly, but I love, um, spatial things. So, I mean,

Rachel : I do remember now I do remember now that you did that, do you remember this where we, I was working at my green contracting firm internship.

And you were working at your green architecture firm and we like met on site. We were like the little, two little interns following her. I came back to me when you said that we, we had no idea what we were

Doug: doing, your actual career path. Yeah. Formative.

Rachel : Yeah, that was probably my first like anything near environmental career path.

Anyway. That's great.

Stephanie : Those are great answers.

Rachel : Yeah. So to wrap up. What do you have any pets?

Doug: We have a COVID puppy. Her name is Aster after the wildflower from Missouri. Cause that's where my wife's from.

Um, and it grows in the, uh, Midwestern Prairie, which is, um, a as diverse as the rainforest, just at a more microscopic level. And it's been destroyed, uh, for agriculture, mass skill agriculture. Um, and she has a cabin two, which is a mix of the cavalier spaniel and a poodle great dog outdoors.

Rachel : Cool. Well, it was so nice. First of all, catching up with you, but also learning so much and hearing that your journey to how you got here.

Stephanie : Yeah. And I think you're going to solve some stuff. And if you run for some sort of.

Uh, political office I'd vote for you. Yeah.

Rachel : We don't live, where you are running, but we would still vote. Doug. Thanks so much. .