Supercool

Mass Timber For The Masses: How Sterling Mainstreamed CLT

Mass Timber is growing fast—expanding from a handful of commercial wood buildings in the U.S. just over a decade ago to more than 2,000 today, with 24,000 projected by 2034. Once considered niche, mass timber is moving mainstream—competing on price, speed, and domestic supply chains, not sustainability alone.Sterling Structural is leading that shift. As America's largest CLT manufacturer, the company produces one cross-laminated timber panel every 65 seconds, sourcing 100% of its wood from domestic sawmills. Sterling has recently produced its one millionth panel.This is mass timber for the masses—standardized, modular systems that contractors already understand.Michaela Harms, Vice President of Mass Timber at Sterling, joins Josh Dorfman to share how mass timber went from alternative to mainstream in a decade. She discusses how Sterling supplied 1,100 prefabricated CLT panels for Amazon’s new facility in Elkhart, Indiana, and why the industry is scaling by competing directly on price, speed, and practicality—with the carbon and forestry benefits included.Show NotesGuest: Michaela Harms, Vice President of Mass TimberCompany: Sterling StructuralFor more low-carbon innovations now scaling—and the playbooks driving their market adoption—subscribe to the podcast plus our:* Weekly Newsletter* Climate Adoption Playbook* Supercool on Instagram * Supercool on LinkedIn 

The Clean Energy Transition Runs on Affordability

Clean power has never been cheaper. So why are electricity bills rising—and what's blocking faster deployment? Jigar Shah joins Supercool to explain why 2025 marked a turning point: for the first time in history, essentially 100% of new electricity demand worldwide was met by solar, wind, and nuclear. It happened because the same solutions that solve climate change are winning on affordability.But deployment could be moving much faster. The technology is proven. The finance exists. The barrier is political: governors and mayors don’t realize the leverage they have over utilities, and utility CEOs won’t act unless forced by law.In climate circles, Jigar needs no introduction. He pioneered solar financing at SunEdison, launched the Carbon War Room with Richard Branson, and ran the DOE Loan Programs Office that deployed over $100 billion in clean energy financing during the Biden Administration.We dig into what gives elected officials more power than they know, why some utility CEOs want to be mandated to deploy cheaper solutions, and why Jigar’s headline for 2026 isn’t more technology—it’s more workforce.Show NotesGuest: Jigar Shah, Co-Managing PartnerCompany: MultiplierFor more low-carbon innovations now scaling—and the playbooks driving their market adoption—subscribe to the podcast plus our:* Weekly Newsletter* Climate Adoption Playbook* Supercool on Instagram * Supercool on LinkedIn

The $2.2 Trillion Year: Clean Power Keeps Compounding

In 2025, the U.S. president called climate change a hoax. Meanwhile, global clean energy investment hit a record $2.2 trillion. Akshat Rathi is a senior reporter covering climate and energy for Bloomberg. His read on the past year: China is becoming the modern Standard Oil. The same way Rockefeller's empire exported petroleum infrastructure globally, China is now exporting electrification—solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, grid tech, project finance—to countries racing to modernize their economies. Pakistan imported solar equal to half its grid capacity in twelve months. And Ethiopia went from zero to 7% EV market share. Developing countries treat electricity like a growth engine. Rich countries struggle to meet 4% annual demand increases. Rathi joins Supercool to walk through Trump's rollback, the ripple effects at home and abroad, and why none of it is stopping the global transition to the low-carbon future.Show NotesGuest: Akshat RathiRecent Articles: BloombergBook: Climate Capitalism  Podcast: Zero: The Climate RaceFor more low-carbon innovations now scaling—and the playbooks driving their market adoption—subscribe to the podcast plus our:* Weekly Newsletter* Climate Adoption Playbook* Supercool on Instagram * Supercool on LinkedIn

The Grid's Next Move: Nuclear Daydreams vs. Distributed Energy Reality

In this end-of-year conversation, David Roberts, a renowned climate and clean energy journalist, lays out his headline for 2025: the rapid growth of AI data centers has forced long-delayed decisions about the power system. After two decades of mostly flat U.S. electricity demand, utilities are now facing sharp new load growth, tighter timelines, and major uncertainty—making grid capacity and interconnection central challenges. Roberts, who hosts and writes the Volts podcast and newsletter, argues that long-lead solutions like new nuclear power plants are poorly matched to this moment. The fastest, lowest-cost capacity available today comes from distributed resources: solar, batteries, flexible building loads, coordinated EV charging, and virtual power plants. Because hyperscalers face real financial pressure to get data centers online, he sees a potential opportunity to redirect some of that capital toward building distributed capacity that benefits the wider grid. The conversation also touches on political volatility and why clean energy and electrification continue to advance globally on their favorable economics, even amid U.S. policy uncertainty.Show NotesGuest: David RobertsCompany: VoltsFor more low-carbon innovations now scaling—and the playbooks driving their market adoption—subscribe to the podcast plus our:* Weekly Newsletter* Climate Adoption Playbook* Supercool on Instagram * Supercool on LinkedIn

Remote-Control High-Rises: HVAC That Pays You Back

Real estate companies say they want sustainability. They'll pay for it too, provided it comes with zero risk.Brad Pilgrim is co-founder & CEO of Parity, a remote HVAC optimization service for high-rises and hotels. Its customer team can walk into a building, spend 90 minutes going from the basement to roof, and tell the owner how much energy they can save—then guarantee it. After eight years, clients like AvalonBay—one of the largest multifamily REITs in the country—are seeing 20-30% cuts in HVAC costs with payback in one to two years.Brad joins Supercool to discuss how Parity overcomes real estate's risk aversion, why proof matters more than technology, and what happens when you can precondition a thousand-unit building before a heatwave hits. Plus: the one slide Brad had to add to his Series B funding round deck that changed everything.Show NotesGuest: Brad Pilgrim, co-founder & CEO Company: Parity Inc.For more low-carbon innovations now scaling—and the playbooks driving their market adoption—subscribe to the podcast plus our:* Weekly Newsletter* Climate Adoption Playbook* Supercool on Instagram * Supercool on LinkedIn