That’s a wrap! It's our annual review episode, with Alex and Nick covering all the climate technology news from 2023.

The hottest year on record brings a reminder that we need to be doubling down on the right solutions, so we hope you enjoy our reflections about what we think matters.

Thanks again to all you listening out there! It’s been a big year for us - where we hit the Top 5 in tech podcasts (in Malawi) -  and we’ve loved hearing from many of you throughout the season. 

Chapters

(00:00) Intro

(01:20) We announce the Pitch Fest Winner!

(02:23) Our Years Reviewed

(05:32) Large Scale Solar, Batteries and Global Developments (including Alex’s strange love of steel mills)

(21:32) Nuclear Energy (!)

(27:55) APC Season Portfolio Review

(38:41) BIG PREDICTIONS

Companies mentioned: Microtau, All G Foods, Samsara, Uluu, Novalith, SunDrive, Jolt Charge, Infravision, Nourish Ingredients, Goterra, Antora Energy, ahem Positive Ventures, JET Charge, Sicona, AMSL Aero, Renewable Metals, SeaForest, GridMo, Hysata, MGA Thermal, Eku Energy, Akaysha Energy, Zenobe, Raygen, Vast Solar, ThyssenKrupp, NuScale, and the EV company formerly known as “Build Your Dreams” 

See you next year!

***

As always if you don’t want to miss any eps, hit that follow button!

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**

About the podcast

A Positive Climate is an uplifting podcast about tackling climate change. An entertaining look at the products, people and technologies making a real difference. 

Hosted by Australian climate technology experts Alex McIntosh and Nick Zeltzer, two friends on a mission to find the solutions to keep our existential crises at bay.

Previous guests have included innovators from JET Charge, 5B, Amazon, Zoomo, V2Food, All G Foods, Vow, Sea Forest, Great Wrap, Infravision, Zero Co, Hysata, Sicona, OneSmallStep, Tenacious Ventures, CarsGuide, AMSL Aero, Nori, EnergyLab, MicroTau and many more.

Music by the late, great Nick Weaver

Production by our hero Mark Spencer from Here.Media

Social Media, Comms and PR by Alistair Perkins

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nick and Alex hear pitches from ten up and coming Australian startups working on climate solutions! *Vote HERE*

We’re back with our second pitchfest episode! And again teaming up with EnergyLab’s accelerator program, but this time it’s different - there will be a winner decided by YOU! 

We’ve secured some awesome prizes that will go to the People’s Choice startup. 

G+T Ventures, the startup arm Australian law firm Gilbert + Tobin has donated a full day legal workshop to prepare a startup for their next fundraising round.

Cake Equity - an Australian software platform that helps startups manage their equity and stock options in minutes - has donated free access, premium support and mentoring. And there’s more prizes!

Each startup gets a 60 second free pitch then there’s some Q&A from us to better understand their unique solution and opportunity. All the startups are listed below and don’t forget to vote for the People’s Choice! Voting will close on Friday October 27.

The lineup

(00:00) Intro Alex and Nick

(04:09) Renewable Metals - Turning Battery Waste into Battery Metals (Luan Atkinson)

(10:09) Pyrochar - Biochar for Green Steelmaking (Cameron Bell)

(17:06) Dovetail -  Zero emission electric aviation (David Doral)

(23:37) Orkestra - Energy project feasibility just got easy, accurate and fast (James Allston)

(31:42) Tasmanion - Developing new aluminium-ion battery technologies (Shalini Divya)

(36:21) Elecsome - Solar panel recycling, reusing and upcycling (Neeraj Das)

(43:54) Savic -  Australia’s premium high-performance electric motorcycle company (Dennis Savic)

(53:16) Emmi - The platform to help investors assess the carbon impact of their portfolio (Michael Lebbon)

(61:13) Bygen - Low cost production of activated carbon from waste (Lewis Dunnigan)

(66:34) Perl Street - Enables distributed infrastructure companies to sell more, raise more and manage more  (Tooraj Arvajeh)

We are proudly supported by Bank Australia (www.bankaust.com.au).

You can hear last year's episode here.

***

As always if you don’t want to miss any eps, hit that follow button!

We’d also love it if you gave us a review / rating on Apple or Spotify! It helps other listeners find us.

You can sign up to our mailing list, say [email protected] or follow us at www.instagram.com/apositiveclimatepodcast and https://au.linkedin.com/company/a-positive-climate. 

**

About the podcast

A Positive Climate is an uplifting podcast about tackling climate change. An entertaining look at the products, people and technologies making a real difference. 

Hosted by Australian climate technology experts Alex McIntosh and Nick Zeltzer, two friends on a mission to find the solutions to keep our existential crises at bay.

Previous guests have included innovators from JET Charge, 5B, Amazon, Zoomo, V2Food, All G Foods, Vow, Sea Forest, Great Wrap, Infravision, Zero Co, Hysata, Sicona, OneSmallStep, Tenacious Ventures, CarsGuide, AMSL Aero, Nori, EnergyLab, MicroTau and many more.

Music by the late, great Nick Weaver

Production by our hero Mark Spencer from Here.Media

Social Media, Comms and PR by Alistair Perkins

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week Alex is away so Nick is let loose on the podcast! Nick chats to Christiaan Jordaan, CEO and founder of Sicona. 

Sound familiar? We interviewed Christiaan in back November 2021 in one of our all-time listener favourite episodes: "Australia's Role in the Battery Revolution".

Since then Sicona has come a long way! Fresh off their recent $22m funding round for their battery technology we thought we'd cover the big issues since our previous chat:

• How the US Inflation Reduction Act has changed the game for climate startups (2:05)
• How Australia should respond (9:11)
• How the rise of Artificial Intelligence has affected climate startups like Sicona (12:29)
• Christiaan's HOTTEST TAKES on venture capital and funding climate solutions (15:38); and
• The inside scoop on Christiaan's recent funding round (21:28)

In case you missed our last episode with Christiaan, here's a quick recap on Christiaan and his business (or you can have a a listen here)

• Sicona aims to revolutionise the battery world by improving battery efficiency with their unique anode materials, a technology that can be used with existing lithium ion batteries.

• Christiaan is also the co-founder of Novalith, a company that uses carbon dioxide as a reagent in extracting lithium. We have an episode featuring Novalith where we spoke to his Co-founder Steven Vassiloudis.

We are proudly supported by Bank Australia (www.bankaust.com.au).

***

As always if you don’t want to miss any eps, hit that follow button!

We’d also love it if you gave us a review / rating on Apple or Spotify! It helps other listeners find us.

You can sign up to our mailing list, say [email protected] or follow us at www.instagram.com/apositiveclimatepodcast and https://au.linkedin.com/company/a-positive-climate. 

**

About the podcast

A Positive Climate is an uplifting podcast about tackling climate change. An entertaining look at the products, people and technologies making a real difference. 

Hosted by Australian climate technology experts Alex McIntosh and Nick Zeltzer, two friends on a mission to find the solutions to keep our existential crises at bay.

Previous guests have included innovators from JET Charge, 5B, Amazon, Zoomo, V2Food, All G Foods, Vow, Sea Forest, Great Wrap, Infravision, Zero Co, Hysata, Sicona, OneSmallStep, Tenacious Ventures, CarsGuide, AMSL Aero, Nori, EnergyLab, MicroTau and many more.

Music by the late, great Nick Weaver

Production by our hero Mark Spencer from Here.Media

Social Media, Comms and PR by Alistair Perkins

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We chat to Doug Mcnamee from Jolt Charge, an Australian electric vehicle charging business that has raised $100million from Blackrock (the world's largest money manager).

EV uptake in Australia is on a charge! When we recorded our first EV episode in 2021, they comprised less than 0.5% of total sales. In the first half of 2023 this number was up to 8%.

So while EVs are just one part of decarbonising how we move, the signs are promising. We enjoyed chatting with Doug about the future of transportation, whether Australia is out of the EV doldrums and what makes Jolt Charge different.

We are proudly supported by Bank Australia (www.bankaust.com.au).

***

As always if you don’t want to miss any eps, hit that follow button!

We’d also love it if you gave us a review / rating on Apple or Spotify! It helps other listeners find us.

You can sign up to our mailing list, say [email protected] or follow us at www.instagram.com/apositiveclimatepodcast and https://au.linkedin.com/company/a-positive-climate. 

**

About the podcast

A Positive Climate is an uplifting podcast about tackling climate change. An entertaining look at the products, people and technologies making a real difference. 

Hosted by Australian climate technology experts Alex McIntosh and Nick Zeltzer, two friends on a mission to find the solutions to keep our existential crises at bay.

Previous guests have included innovators from JET Charge, 5B, Amazon, Zoomo, V2Food, All G Foods, Vow, Sea Forest, Great Wrap, Infravision, Zero Co, Hysata, Sicona, OneSmallStep, Tenacious Ventures, CarsGuide, AMSL Aero, Nori, EnergyLab, MicroTau and many more.

Music by the late, great Nick Weaver

Production by our hero Mark Spencer from Here.Media

Social Media, Comms and PR by Alistair Perkins

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We chat with Vince Allen from SunDrive, a Sydney-based startup on a mission to transform Australia into a solar manufacturing powerhouse.

In 2021, SunDrive made headlines by developing the world's most efficient commercial-sized solar cell. Not only that - by swapping silver with copper as the conductive material their products could be lower cost too. With over $30 million in funding from high-profile investors like Blackbird, Mike Cannon-Brookes, Main Sequence Ventures, Malcolm Turnbull, and CEFC/Virescent Ventures, they're a force to be reckoned with.

We loved this chat and especially Vince's love of solar, passion for Australia's great opportunity and also his toast analogy to explain how a solar panel actually works. 

We are proudly supported by Bank Australia (www.bankaust.com.au).

**

Don't miss out on future episodes—hit that follow button! Your reviews and ratings on Apple and Spotify really help us reach more listeners, so we'd love your support. 

You can sign up to our mailing list, say [email protected] or follow us at www.instagram.com/apositiveclimatepodcast and https://au.linkedin.com/company/a-positive-climate. 

**

Chapters
(00:00) Intro: Nick and Alex set the scene (Bonus: Nick's Rant)

(6:17) The Unstoppable March of Solar Energy

(10:34) The SunDrive Origin Story, Vince's Love Affair with Solar

(14:27) The Toast Analogy: Where SunDrive Fits in the Solar Ecosystem

(23:49) What's Next for SunDrive

(25:49) Making the Case for Australian Solar Manufacturing

(31:39) Australia's Competitive Edge in Solar

(39:01) The Transformative Potential of Low-Cost Solar

***

About the podcast

A Positive Climate is an uplifting podcast about tackling climate change. An entertaining look at the products, people and technologies making a real difference. 

Hosted by Australian climate technology experts Alex McIntosh and Nick Zeltzer, two friends on a mission to find the solutions to keep our existential crises at bay.

Previous guests have included innovators from JET Charge, 5B, Amazon, Zoomo, V2Food, All G Foods, Vow, Sea Forest, Great Wrap, Infravision, Zero Co, Hysata, Sicona, OneSmallStep, Tenacious Ventures, CarsGuide, AMSL Aero, Nori, EnergyLab, MicroTau and many more.

Music by the late, great Nick Weaver

Production by our hero Mark Spencer from Here.Media

Social Media, Comms and PR by Alistair Perkins

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do we have enough lithium for all the batteries we’ll need for a low carbon future? What is the impact of lithium extraction on the planet? And can we do it in a more sustainable way? 

Nick and Alex chat with Steven Vassiloudis of Novalith, a Sydney startup that can extract lithium in a way that not only reduces emissions but also the amount of chemicals used in the process.

We are proudly supported by Bank Australia (www.bankaust.com.au).

 **

As always if you don’t want to miss any episodes, hit that follow button! We’d also love it if you gave us a review / rating on Apple or Spotify! It helps other listeners find us.

You can sign up to our mailing list, say [email protected] or follow us at www.instagram.com/apositiveclimatepodcast and https://au.linkedin.com/company/a-positive-climate. 

**

About the podcast

A Positive Climate is an uplifting podcast about tackling climate change. An entertaining look at the products, people and technologies making a real difference. 

Hosted by Australian climate technology experts Alex McIntosh and Nick Zeltzer, two friends on a mission to find the solutions to keep our existential crises at bay.

Previous guests have included innovators from JET Charge, 5B, Amazon, Zoomo, V2Food, All G Foods, Vow, Sea Forest, Great Wrap, Infravision, Zero Co, Hysata, Sicona, OneSmallStep, Tenacious Ventures, CarsGuide, AMSL Aero, Nori, EnergyLab, MicroTau and many more.

Music by the late, great Nick Weaver

Production by our hero Mark Spencer from Here.Media

Social Media, Comms and PR by Alistair Perkins

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nick and Alex chat with Julia Reisser of Uluu, a startup based in Western Australia creating biodegradable plastic made from seaweed. 

This is episode two of our PLASTIC DOUBLE HEADER, this time tackling the plastic problem from the very source - the production! 

Plastic is a very real problem we need to address and unfortunately, given the way we currently live our lives it's not going anywhere fast. 

We are proudly supported by Bank Australia (www.bankaust.com.au).

 **

If you enjoyed this episode, remember to check out the first in our plastic DOUBLE HEADER with Samsara Eco - a Canberra based startup with unique technology that can allow plastic to become infinitely recyclable. As always if you don’t want to miss any eps, hit that subscribe button!

We’d also love it if you gave us a rating on Apple or Spotify! It helps other listeners find us.

You can sign up to our mailing list, say [email protected]  or follow us at www.instagram.com/apositiveclimatepodcast and https://au.linkedin.com/company/a-positive-climate. 

We are proudly supported by Bank Australia (www.bankaust.com).

**

About the podcast

A Positive Climate is an uplifting podcast about tackling climate change. An entertaining look at the products, people and technologies making a real difference. 

Hosted by Australian climate technology experts Alex McIntosh and Nick Zeltzer, two friends on a mission to find the solutions to keep our existential crises at bay.

Previous guests have included innovators from JET Charge, 5B, Samsara Eco, Amazon, Zoomo, V2Food, All G Foods, Vow, Sea Forest, Great Wrap, Infravision, Zero Co, Hysata, Sicona, OneSmallStep, Tenacious Ventures, CarsGuide, AMSL Aero, Nori, EnergyLab, MicroTau and many more.

Music by the late, great Nick Weaver

Production by our hero Mark Spencer from Here.Media

Social Media, Comms and PR by Alistair Perkins

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is Samsara Eco Australia’s most exciting climate startup? With enzymes that literally eat plastic, it’s hard to disagree!

Nick and Alex chat with Paul Riley of Samsara Eco, a Canberra based company that has raised ~$60 million to tackle one of the biggest problems of all: plastic recycling.

It’s a tangible, challenging and very current problem in Australia, so we loved diving into all the issues with Paul, understanding more about how the technology works and how Samsara Eco is positioned to be a global leader.

 **

This is our plastic DOUBLE HEADER and in two weeks time will have another hugely exciting Aussie startup tacking the problem in a very different way! So if you don’t want to miss it, subscribe away!

We’d also love it if you gave us a rating on Apple or Spotify! It helps other listeners find us.

You can sign up to our mailing list, say [email protected]  or follow us at www.instagram.com/apositiveclimatepodcast and https://au.linkedin.com/company/a-positive-climate. 

We are proudly supported by Bank Australia (www.bankaust.com.au).

**

About the podcast

A Positive Climate is an uplifting podcast about tackling climate change. An entertaining look at the products, people and technologies making a real difference. 

Hosted by Australian climate technology experts Alex McIntosh and Nick Zeltzer, two friends on a mission to find the solutions to keep our existential crises at bay.

Previous guests have included innovators from JET Charge, 5B, Amazon, Zoomo, V2Food, All G Foods, Vow, Sea Forest, Great Wrap, Infravision, Zero Co, Hysata, Sicona, OneSmallStep, Tenacious Ventures, CarsGuide, AMSL Aero, Nori, EnergyLab, MicroTau and many more.

Music by the late, great Nick Weaver

Production by our hero Mark Spencer from Here.Media

Social Media, Comms and PR by Alistair Perkins

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stop The Burps! Nick and Alex have a chat about using less dairy. We then interview Jan Pacas of All G Foods - a Sydney-based company which has raised A$50 million to spearhead a global revolution to create real dairy, without the cows or the emissions (8:00)

The technology is called precision fermentation and it could soon enough upend the $1 trillion dairy industry. 

**

If you enjoy the show, we’d love it if you subscribed and/or gave us a review on Apple or Spotify! It really helps other listeners find us. 

Sign up to our mailing list via our website, say [email protected] or follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn. 

We are proudly supported by Bank Australia (www.bankaust.com.au).

About the podcast

A Positive Climate is an uplifting podcast about tackling climate change. An entertaining look at the products, people and technologies making a real difference. 

Hosted by Australian climate technology experts Alex McIntosh and Nick Zeltzer, two friends on a mission to find the solutions to keep our existential crises at bay. We cover it all on the show while keeping things optimistic and accessible: electric planes, waste eating maggots, plant-based meats, hydrogen made from beer, the solar revolution, the coolest new sustainable products and much much more.

If you’re passionate about the latest sustainable technology, the environment, or are just keen to know more about what’s going on in Australia to tackle climate change, this podcast is for you.

Previous guests have included legends from JET Charge, 5B, Amazon, Zoomo, V2Food, Vow, Sea Forest, Great Wrap, Infravision, Zero Co, Hysata, Sicona, OneSmallStep, Tenacious Ventures, CarsGuide, AMSL Aero, Nori, EnergyLab, MicroTau and many more.

Music by the late, great Nick Weaver

Production by our hero Mark Spencer from Here.Media

Social Media, Comms and PR by Alistair Perkins

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We speak to Henry Bilinsky from MicroTau. The Sydney-based startup’s shark skin technology applied to planes has the potential to improve the efficiency of aviation by up to 10%, meanwhile saving airlines up to $61 billion a year on fuel.

**

If you enjoy the show, subscribe and give us a rating on Apple or Spotify! You can sign up to our mailing list, say [email protected]  or follow us at www.instagram.com/apositiveclimatepodcast and https://au.linkedin.com/company/a-positive-climate. 

We are proudly supported by Bank Australia (www.bankaust.com.au).

**

In Australia we love flying and given our vast and isolated land, we often NEED to fly. While there are a number of options to get to zero carbon transport, many of these solutions may take decades for mass adoption. This includes technologies like battery or hydrogen powered planes (which we covered on our episode with AMSL Aero) or even sustainable aviation fuel.

But in the meantime, we have to pursue anything and everything that can increase the efficiency of aviation. This is where MicroTau’s shark-skin comes in. 

In this episode we cover:

• The challenges of decarbonising long haul transport;
• How Henry came up with the idea;
• How the US Airforce got involved with the idea; 
• Sharks on a plane you say? How does this actually work; and
• How the technology could be applied to other forms of transport

About the podcast

A Positive Climate is an uplifting podcast about tackling climate change. An inspiring look at the products, people and technologies making a real difference. 

Hosted by Australian climate technology experts Alex McIntosh and Nick Zeltzer, two friends on a mission to find the solutions to keep our existential crises at bay. We cover it all on the show while keeping things optimistic and accessible: electric planes, waste eating maggots, plant-based meats, hydrogen made from beer, the solar revolution, the coolest new sustainable products and much much more.

If you’re passionate about the latest sustainable technology, the environment, or are just keen to know more about what’s going on in Australia to tackle climate change, this podcast is for you.

Previous guests have included innovators and technologists from JET Charge, 5B, Amazon, Zoomo, V2Food, Vow, Sea Forest, Great Wrap, Infravision, Zero Co, Hysata, Sicona, OneSmallStep, Tenacious Ventures, CarsGuide, AMSL Aero, Nori and many more.

Music by the late, great Nick Weaver

Production by our hero Mark Spencer from Here.Media

Social Media, Comms and PR by Alistair Perkins

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re BACK with our best season yet! Launched on 27 June 2023, we'll release interviews fortnightly, speaking with Australia’s very best startups in the global climate transition. 

They’ve got game changing sustainable technology. They’ve raised hundreds of millions of dollars. And they’re ready to turn the world’s biggest problem into Australia’s great opportunity. 

Low carbon aviation. Cow free dairy. Sustainable lithium mining. Plastic recycling. Next generation solar. The future of EV charging. And much more. Join us to learn more from leaders building what could be billion dollar businesses.

Press “Follow” in your podcast app of choice, share with your friends and follow along with us on LinkedIn, Instagram or via our mailing list at www.apositiveclimate.com

This season is brought to you by Bank Australia (www.bankaust.com.au).

If you're a long time fan of the show we'd love it if you spread the word

About the podcast

A Positive Climate is an uplifting podcast about tackling climate change. An inspiring look at the products, people and technologies making a real difference. 

Hosted by Australian climate technology experts Alex McIntosh and Nick Zeltzer, two friends on a mission to find the solutions to keep our existential crises at bay. We cover it all on the show while keeping things optimistic and accessible: electric planes, waste eating maggots, plant-based meats, hydrogen made from beer, the solar revolution, the coolest new sustainable products and much much more.

Previous guests have included innovators and technologists from JET Charge, 5B, Amazon, Zoomo, V2Food, Vow, Sea Forest, Great Wrap, Infravision, Zero Co, Hysata, Sicona, OneSmallStep, Tenacious Ventures, CarsGuide, AMSL Aero, Nori and many more.

If you’re passionate about the latest sustainable technology, the environment, or are just keen to know more about what’s going on in Australia to tackle climate change, this podcast is for you!

Music by the late, great Nick Weaver

Production by our hero Mark Spencer from Here.Media

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.