So Much More than an Event: Take-aways from the Breakthrough Energy Summit
🤔 Now that I’ve had a week to reflect on the recent BE Summit in London, I have a few take-aways:
⚡️Energy is Prosperity: A simple statement displayed during the opening plenary. It was striking how many participants posted this very image on their social feeds. Seems that in times of weaponized energy, scarce energy (i.e. Europe), volatile energy (i.e. LNG prices) and the lure of (cheap) energy (i.e. countries quickly sprung in to buy from Russia after sanctions were imposed), this issue is top of mind. But that’s far from enough. While ostensibly all this should make the energy transition easier and faster, that’s not a given - and will only happen with consistent and conducive public policies.
🧬 Science matters - a lot: The most widely talked about presentation was that of Dr. Eric Toone, Technical Lead at Breakthrough Energy Ventures. A professor of chemistry, Eric took us on a deep dive on the urgent need – and formidable challenge - to decarbonize the global economy. Even though all of our participants deal with climate tech, we all learned A LOT. It demonstrates how indispensable it is to know the state of the art, esp. in public policy which is supposed to steer this transformative, decades-long process. But how can policymakers unleash or fund the tech frontier if they don’t know where it resides?
💡Startups power cleantech innovation: I have never been to an event where startups were so clearly the stars, got the big stage, made the landmark announcements. Whether Sarah Lamaison, PhD of Dioxycle or Eric Trusiewicz of Rondo Energy, they got the crowd raving about the solutions in the pipeline and possibilities on the horizon. Turning carbon into green chemicals? Clean industrial heat to replace natural gas? It’s possible but just like Hillary Clinton once said it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a conducive ecosystem to help these climate technologies to scale. As our executive director Rodi Guidero says: we’re going from possibility to probability. Next step is profitability. Only the 3 P’s in unison will succeed in replacing fossil fuels. That’s why the business case for the energy transition - as eloquently laid out by the European Commission’s Kerstin Jorna - is so indispensable. Kerstin certainly has her work cut out for herself to turn the EU’s #greendeal into thriving companies and scalable business models.
➡️ I already noticed that when we convened our community in Seattle in autumn 2022 the experience left me #optimistic, #motivated, #inspired 🤩 The feeling was even stronger this time around - if I’ve ever seen a ‘can-do’ crowd, it’s this one 💪 And that’s also why I say that this is - and has to be - more than a ‘mere’ summit. These are the entrepreneurs, the investors, the policymakers and philanthropists, that are bringing about the #cleanenergy #revolution the world so urgently needs.
⏰ The time has come, and the time is now.
