Geoff Stapleton is considered "a force" in the solar industry, particularly in Australia and the Pacific Islands. So far, he has worked in 39 countries supporting solar... introducing standards and training to validate and shore up the solar industry. His work has been widely recognized, culminating recently in his recognition and award of the "Order of Australia" title.

Geoff Stapleton began his career in off-grid solar in Australia, originally working for BP Solar Australia. He then formed his own company, Southern Solar Australia, that he managed for over 20 years, designing and installing solar systems primarily in New South Wales where he lives. Geoff's company promoted solar, wind, micro-hydro, and even diesel gen-sets. He explains that the Australian government had been subsidizing grid-connected power consumers for years, and when this cross subsidy was recognized, government subsidies for off-grid systems were introduced that boosted the installation of off-grid systems there.

For two decades Geoff worked for, and continues to work for, Global Sustainable Energy Solutions (GSES). After serving as its managing director, he stepped down from that management role three years ago to direct GSES's international solar training program, and to carve out time to be Executive Officer of the Sustainable Energy Industries Association of the Pacific Islands. His life-long passion for promoting solar, and extending the great value of solar for Pacific Island nations, and his dedication to training and standards is clear. He recounts different experiences in Australia, the Pacific Islands, as well as in Africa and other countries.

The discussion shifts to his views on the drivers for successful solar programs and policies in different countries. What makes a country a leader in solar deployment? Geoff explains that while cultures, traditions, policies, and programs are important parameters... it is the people on the ground that really make the difference. In some countries, there are passionate and dedicated and effective professionals are key to mobilizing the solar industry. Those are the champions that deliver success.

The interview ends with a discussion of the online solar museum that Geoff and others have created, a great tribute to the rise of solar power, its remarkable evolution to being one of the world's most important sources of power, and certainly a major key to uplifting communities around the world.

In this episode of Flanigan's Eco-Logic, Ted interviews Julia Kintsch, the Principal and Senior Ecologist at Eco-Resolutions. Julia grew up in Boulder, Colorado where she was ingrained with a deep love of nature. She went to University of Colorado at Boulder and earned a degree in Environmental Conservation. Then, after serving in the Peace Corps in Africa, she enrolled at Duke University and earned a masters degree in Landscape Ecology. After working for The Nature Conservancy and other non-profits, she formed Eco-Resolutions with the goal of minimizing and mitigating the impacts to nature of human activity.

For the past 16 years, Julia has supported a number of transportation agencies and other groups... finding ways to protect both wildlife and motorists from accidents. She explains that her work with transportation ecology is at the intersection of the human and natural environment. She is a collaborator no doubt, bringing together diverse interests to build underpasses and overpasses and other roadway mitigation measures such as motorist warnings activated by cameras that detect the presence of wildlife. Every project and community is unique, different terrain and different species --deer, elk, moose, bears, coyotes, and smaller animals -- require different forms of crossings. Ted chimes in with his experience dodging deer in Vermont and monkees on roadways in Malaysia.

Julia then presents the results of a number of her projects in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Virginia. The Colorado State Highway 9 wildlife protection project, she explains, is really a "system" made up of seven crossings, 10.8 miles of fencing, as well as 62 motion-sensor activated cameras at 49 locations to track the results of the protection systems. What years of careful evaluation has proven is a 90% decrease in accidents... a success rate that has earned significant recognition of the efficacy of careful and early planning, including both mitigation and crossing feasibility studies. Most recently, Julia has been consulting for Roaring Fork Safe Passages, working for its Director, Cecily DeAngelo, to prioritize wildlife crossings on Colorado State Highway 82, the busy transportation corridor that connects Aspen and Glenwood Springs.

John Belizaire heads up a company called Soluna. It's business model is to tap curtailed renewable capacity -- wind and solar -- and to use this previously wasted energy to power data centers. John explains that 30 - 40% of all wind and solar farms is curtailed... essentially "stranded " capacity. By utilizing this renewable energy is it monetized... boosting the economics of the renewables while powering data centers with green energy.

John, a self-decribed nerd in his youth growing up in Brooklyn, New York, was always at the cutting-edge of computers, even as a young man selling floppy discs in school while others were selling magazines and running newspaper routes. He then went on to Cornell University where he earned two degrees in Computer Science. He then followed that up with an MBA fron the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. That was followed up by a career that began in finance... prior to tapping into the convergence of the megatrends of renewable power generation and artificial intelligence.

The notion of co-locating data centers with renewable facilities first occurred to John when he was visiting a project in Morroco, Africa. How could excess wind there be used? At the time, block chaining and bitcoin mining was on the rise, and there were -- and still are major concerns with the electricity required for these functions. Now most of John's 800 MW of data centers is used for regenerative AI. Instead of building and repowering massive power plants - even nuclear installations -- for data centers, John envisions a future in which data centers are distributed. Soluna has found a logical niche... one which is green in both ways... both in power generation and in data center applications.

In this Crash Course, hosted by Sierra Flanigan, she and her father, Ted Flanigan, dig into the key issue related to the combustion of green hydrogen in peaker power plants. Ted learned of the adverse impact of burning hydrgoen last year from his friend and colleague, Jonathan Parfrey, Executive Director of Climate Resolve. Together they wrote a white paper to clarify the issue... the basis of this Crash Course.

There has been understandable concern that to meet the Los Angeles mandate of 100% clean energy generation by 2035, that green hydrogen will have to be used and that it will likely have to be used in peaker plants to keep the power on. Early studies on the combustion of green hydrogen make clear the great benefit of this carbon-free fuel, but note that its combustion may actually increase nitrogen oxide emissions. Why? Hydrogen burns hotter than natural gas, amplifying the "endothermic reaction" whereby air -- loaded with nitrogen - is drawn into the heat where it forms nitrogen oxides.

This finding of increased NOx, which is both a greenhouse gas, and a regional air pollutant causing smog and health issues, has alarmed the Los Angeles environmental justice community that had been looking forward to their neighborhoods' power plants being permanently closed. Now they face continued operations albeit with hydrogen, and the threat of local air quality hazards in the form of increased NOx.

The paper digs into ways to mitigate NOx emissions from combustion turbines and there are many. Some are before a power plant's combustion chamber, some are inside the chamber, and others outside. Hydrogen burns hot, but it can be lean, lowering the temperature. Inside the fire are adjustments to reduce NOx, and 70 - 95% of the NOx can be captured in selective catalytic reduction systems.

The Crash Course covers the big picture too. Electric utilities are electrifying mobility -- witness the EV explosion -- and decarbonizing buildings. These functions have huge CO2 and NOx reduction benefits. Furthermore, power plants contribute less than 1% of all NOx in our region. Bottom line: Los Angeles may well explore and can certainly justify limited green hydrogen combustion, until efficiency and fuel cells and other technologies can help meet peak demands on the hottest days of summer.

Past Crash Courses have focused on microgrids, net energy metering, electric vehicles, vehicle to grid, microgrids, offshore wind, climate action, energy storage... and Ted's experimental solar home in Colorado. The father/daughter duo works again in this sixteenth Crash Course to take a somewhat complex subject, and to make it clear and easy and interesting to digest.

Flanigan's Eco-Logic
Episode 225
June 30, 2025

★ Episode details: https://share.transistor.fm/s/63c98026

★ Additional episodes: https://flanigansecologic.transistor.fm/

© 2025 Flanigan's Eco-Logic

Cecily DeAngelo read an article in the New York Times about wildlife crossings, and ever since, she has been laser-focused on developing wildlife crossings in the Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado. She grew up there and has witnessed first hand the carnage along Pitkin County's roadways... dead bears, deer, elk, rabbits, and more and more moose. These vehicle wildlife accidents decimate wildlife in the Roaring Fork Valley and are responsible for 30% of vehicle accidents there.

What Cecily learned is that the Roaring Fork Valley, which runs from Aspen to Glenwood Springs, Colorado, is bisected in terms of wildlife and biodiversity. Highway 82, which runs parallel to the Roaring Fork River, has caused a dangerous divide for wildlife. To address this she formed Roaring Fork Safe Passages, a citizen-led coalition that raises awareness about the opportunity to build wildlife crossings, either overpasses or underpasses. Supported initially by the Aspen Skiing Company, she and her colleagues developed a "Prioritization Study" that ranks sections of the highway for safe crossings. Now, working with the communities in the Valley, and hopefully with the Colorado Department of Transportation, she is working raising funds to build overpasses in key areas, funneling wildlife in specific areas thanks to well-designed fencing for safe crossings.

The podcast also features Cecily's determination to get involved in politics. Inspired by the former president of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, who gave birth when in office, Cecily is passionate about urging young citizens -- reproductive age and underrepresented -- to take action and to get involved with school boards, commissions, and councils. In 2024, she ran for Snowmass Village City Council and won, expanding its female majority... working on key issues such as community planning, affordable housing, and sustainability. Despite the challenging juggling act of raising a family, managing Roaring Fork Safe Passages, and serving her community on City Council, Cecily is excited and fulfilled by positively influencing the region where she lives, and encourages others to follow suit.

In this episode of Flanigan's Eco-Logic, Ted welcomes Catherine Sands, Director of Fertile Ground, to the podcast. After years of working in development and promoting special fund-raising concerts for Natural Resources Defense Council, Catherine moved north from New York City to the Berkshires of Massachusetts to raise a family and live closer to the land. There, she became involved with schools and asked a very basic question: Why do local schools have such lousy food?

These questions led Catherine to a career working with schools and communities, linking education and applied learning to food systems. She sought to emulate the edible schoolyard program that Alice Waters created in Berkeley, California. There, students were learning growing food in their schoolyards, gaining an appreciation of healthy food, and developing pathways for lifelong wellness. This inspired Catherine to work with local schools in Massachusetts, working on applied learning, food procurement, and linking local schools to local farms... all to bring healthy, pesticide-free food, and "scatch-made" meals to students. She explains that much of her work involves diligent networking and matchmaking to support food policy councils, school districts' food procurement professionals, and local farms.

Determined to better understand food systems and food policy, and to undo the food inequity she found distressing, Catherine earned a graduate degree from University of Massachusetts to advance Fertile Ground and its work with schools and communities. Since then, Fertile Ground has provided food system evaluations with recommendations for school districts on how to best tap Farm Bill funds to advance healthy food. Fertile Ground develops approaches and programs and gardens. She then joined the U Mass faculty where she has inspired and guided hundreds of students on a similar mission, work that she continues... driven by passion and fulfillment in her successes.

"What's in your garden this spring?" Ted asks Catherine in closing. She responds that, yes, "It's planting time. The greens are going in. Tomatoes too." And not only in her own garden: She relishes in having fostered and continuing to support hundreds of gardens at schools and within the communities that she serves. Catherine makes clear that providing healthy food at schools and in our communities is challenging, but more so, it is rewarding as it nurtures young minds and healthy souls and organically supports communities.

​Grant Gunnison is the founder and CEO of Zero Homes, a Denver-based firm that specializes in electrification of homes in Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, and California. Grant gave up his post-MIT work at NASA and returned to Colorado to run his family's construction business, shifting its focus to tackle climate change. He recognized the need to decarbonize some 60 million American homes, with 4 - 5 measures per home. What he did then was revolutionize the retrofit process, uncovering efficiencies to drive down costs and to boost the customer experience. Grant, an enthusiastic soul, has clearly been a beneficial disruptor!

Zero Homes is unique in many ways: Its primary focus is on electrifying homes... their space and water heating, cooking, etc, to help solve the climate crisis. He works to upgrade electrical panels to make homes ready for heat pumps, EVs, and solar systems. Of note, Zero Homes has reformed the front end of all construction processes... the process of bidding on construction jobs. Zero Homes provides interested parties with an online tool. It gives homeowners some homework... wiping out the inefficiency of multiple firms coming to the property to analyze and compete for opportunities for jobs and savings.

Grant came up with the business model after working on his family's construction business. Free quotes cost all contractors and their customers time and money. By using Zero Homes' online tool, homeowners take photos and videos of their home and provide other pertinent data Then Zero Homes builds a 3D model of the home and identifies and prices measures for decarbonization. Zero Homes collapses the sales cycle; it also provides the design and quality assurance services. As a licensed general contractor, Zero Homes maintains a roster of vetted subs who complete the installations. Zero's process is faster and more efficient, and the result is projects that cost ~10% less while improving both the contractor and customer experience.

​In this episode of Flanigan's Eco-Logic, Ted interviews Susan Gladwin. She's just finished a 2.5 year role in the U.S. Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office (LPO). The office, under the leadership of Jigar Shah, had an amplified mandate to foster innovative companies launching energy innovations. The Inflation Reduction Act boosted the LPO's budget from $40 billion to $400 billion making it the world's largest green bank.

Jigar Shar brought Susan and other professionals to Washington to help with the LPO's surge of activity, what they all knew was a moment in time. Susan's role at the LPO was in supporting loans for Clean Energy Title 17 projects... focusing on virtual power plants. The key was helping companies on a "bridge to bankability," helping promising firms with solid technologies in their execution of business plans to scale up and seek conventional financing.

Since leaving the LPO, Susan has been on assignment with Planetary Boundaries, a UK-based organization with leading, global sustainability professionals that has established nine principles/indicators of planetary well-being. Alas, there are still many red-light indicators, but a framework has been established that is helping countries in their policies and practices.

In this episode, Susan shares aspects of her career and what motivates her: She was educated in science and information technology, worked for Apple on the launch of I-Tunes, and she developed AutoDesk's clean energy design integration. She's now moved up from Washington and is working globally, keen on applying her aspiration of accelerating the adoption of clean energy through capital and creativity.