Ep. 36 - Protecting the Planet from the Ground Up
Show Notes
The challenge of climate change can seem daunting, but trying to solve daunting challenges is exactly what Google X does. One former employee of Google’s moonshot factory, Kathy Hannun, is on a mission to help wean your home off of greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels. Her strategy: make it so easy for you to convert your home to geothermal energy that you just have to hire her startup, Dandelion Energy, to do it.
Kathy’s work is quickly making her a rock star of the renewable energy world. In fact, Fast Company named Kathy one of the most creative people in business.
As you’ll hear in the episode, Kathy’s now raised $35 million, including from Google Ventures, and has already slashed by more than half the cost for geothermal installation, which in turn can reduce the greenhouse gases emissions of a house by around 80 percent. In fact, homeowners using Dandelion Energy can pay no upfront cost at all and then just have their energy bill lower immediately upon the conversion.
It’s an impressive story, and one more example of the power of a good business idea to help save the world.