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!

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 hello@apositiveclimate.com or follow us at www.instagram.com/apositiveclimatepodcast and https://au.linkedin.com/company/a-positive-climate.

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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 hello@apositiveclimate.com 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

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 hello@apositiveclimate.com 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...