Welcome

Katherine Radeka (00:03):
Welcome to Accelerate Net Zero, the podcast dedicated to the acceleration of the technologies we need to address climate change. My name is Katherine Radeka, and I've been accelerating innovation for a long time in a number of different industries. And nowhere is that acceleration more important today than in the renewable energy materials, food production, transportation, and other programs to limit carbon emissions so that we can stabilize our climate. So if you are working on these programs as a technologist, as a manager, as an investor, a public policy maker, an activist, or just a concerned citizen, then you have come to the right place to learn how we can eliminate obstacles and put more momentum into these programs so that they can begin delivering the impact on carbon emissions sooner. And we can reach Net Zero faster.

Introduction

Katherine Radeka (01:00):
When I'm working with a team to help them turn an idea into a fully realized innovation, we take the time to develop a Core Hypothesis for that idea. This is a summary of the innovation: the technology or whatever it is that's new about it; the customer need, or the problem that this solves for the customer; and the business model, how we make money from it. When a team is aligned around these three core things about an idea, then it's easier for them to understand what they need to validate in that idea in order to turn it into an innovation that a customer will actually pay for. And it's easier for them to recognize when something has fundamentally changed — when they've disproven part of the hypothesis and therefore they need to pivot. Frankly, it saves a lot of argument and it also saves a lot of pain of building the wrong product. It short circuits, the time that it takes to achieve product market fit, because it gives you a much clearer sense of direction about where you're going.

Katherine Radeka (02:03):
My guest, Deborah Stine proposes another dimension to this. She specializes in understanding the non-economic impacts of an innovation. These are the impacts that will be most important if say you're receiving government funding for your innovation because it is going to drive down carbon emissions ,or perhaps attract investors that have a social mission, as well as a financial mission. These non-economic impacts are the things that help you characterize the ways that your innovation is not just good for the customers. It's also good for society by spelling out exactly how, and then exactly how you're going to measure that and be able to be held accountable for those results.

Katherine Radeka (02:52):
Deborah Stine has a long history working in this area going back more than 30 years. Today, she's President of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy Analysis & Education, LLC and Founder & Chief Instructor of the Science & Technology Policy Academy. In that role, she basically serves as a bridge between the sciences and technologists who are working to build an innovation and the policymakers, the public students, and the investor community who will be engaged in this innovation.

Katherine Radeka (03:22):
Her clients include the Energy Futures Initiative, the American Sssociation for the Advancement of Sciences, Catalyst Connections, and a wide variety of universities that are working in this area. She was a professor at Carnegie Mellon and the Associate Director for Policy Outreach for the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation. From 2012 to 2018 she was the Executive Director of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2012. So with this long history of experience in understanding the role that these non-economic impacts play in driving adoption from the policymaker perspective and from the community and citizen perspective, I think she has a lot of valuable insights to bring to our conversation around how to Accelerate Net Zero. Tell me a little bit about the work you've been doing, especially around the non-market analysis. What is that?

Interview with Deborah Stine

Deborah Stine (04:14):
I'm an engineer by training, but I also have a background in policy analysis. And so I'm always interested in new and emerging technologies and what I found particularly when I went from the national level of, in DC to Pittsburgh, where I am now is that oftentimes entrepreneurs who have interesting technology ideas don't think at all about policy. They think about policy as something that might be at the end of the process, but they don't really think about it at the beginning of the process. But what we find is that when these technologies go into the marketplace, they're, they're under a policy regime and those policy factors can influence how successful they are in the marketplace.

Katherine Radeka (05:08):
What is the relationship between this work and the theme of this podcast, which is Accelerate Net Zero?

Deborah Stine (05:14):
So it's about mitigating climate change. So when you have a technology, let's take something like energy storage. For example, energy storage is obviously very important to renewable energy sourses, as well as other, other sources of energy. But in order for energy storage to advance in the marketplace, you need to have some sort of technology pull for it to occur in terms of how, like, for example FERC, which is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission handles it and how say state agencies manage it wtih the state energy policies that are there. So in this case, for example, California has set a goal of having a certain amount of energy storage by a certain year. And that then becomes a focus so that when you're thinking about where you should focus your energy storage efforts, obviously California is a good place because that's going to create demand for your technologies.

Deborah Stine (06:11):
It can also be the opposite. So say you have wind energy while you're trying to install say a wind turbine. But it's on the Gulf Coast and people are worried about the impact it might have on birds and bats. Well, you need to think about that when you consider your design, like where the wind turbine is going to go, how it's designed, can you put radar other kinds of technologies on it to avoid that public opposition? Because even though we like to think that all renewable energy has no barriers, the reality is is every renewable energy has barriers. One kind or another, for example, solar roof tiles, you can put on your house while some people don't like the look of those. So people don't want have to look at solar panels on their house. They have neighborhood associations that oppose them. So these are all things you have to consider because they affect your ability to sell your product.

Katherine Radeka (07:09):
So one of the models that you shared with me is a model where you talk about the emerging technology market potential. And you're looking at things from the engineering perspective and the business perspective and the policy maker perspective and from the society perspective. People that are familiar with my work will understand that I talk about this thing called the Core Hypothesis and the Core Hypothesis, the reason why a company is investing in a given product development program or given technology development program. And that Core Hypothesis has three dimensions. It has customer dimension, which is what is the customer need we're filling. It has the technology, which is your, your engineering perspective, which is what is the technology we're going to use to fulfill that customer need. And then it has the business value, which is what do we get from doing all of this?

Katherine Radeka (07:56):
And we try to frame that as more than just money, we try to frame that as it's going to help us increase market share, or it's going to help us grow a particular category, to be more specific about how it's going to drive growth for the business. What I found very interesting about yours is that it almost seems like for some of the programs that are operating in the renewable energy space or a sustainability space, it almost seems like these other two perspectives are missing.

Katherine Radeka (08:22):
And I'm kind of wondering whether or not that should even be something that say, if I'm developing a Core Hypothesis with a company like we have another guest on this podcast that will be coming up. She is doing solar energy and Puerto Rico. And so there's a Core Hypothesis there, which is that if we deliver this distributed technology for solar energy generation to the communities in Puerto Rico, they will have more reliable, more robust, more resilient power. And we will be to get revenue from the leasing of that equipment, to those communities. But it also seems like they should be including these two other additional perspectives. Can you talk a little bit more about the policy perspective and the society perspective.

Deborah Stine (09:11):
So a number of years ago, I was in Arizona and I was visiting Hopi lands and things like that with a Hopi guide, right. So we just were driving around and we went to the village to this Mesa where his his family lived in, it was a whole village. And what was interesting to me is that almost every house had a solar panel on it, which is okay, great. But then I asked him, I said ",how come there's no wind turbines,"right? Because it seems to me that obviously this is an area where there's a lot of wind blowing in those mountaintops. It seems, but there's no wind turbines. Well, it turns out that tthere are cultural aspects of it, and this is where the societal perspective comes in.

Deborah Stine (09:57):
So the first thing is, is that on this Mesa right directly across from them was another Mesa. And about a hundred years ago, they had built like a Christian traditional steepled church. So that everybody who was in the Hopi village had to look at this church that did not represent their beliefs. So that was one aspect of it that this land was sacred to them. And they did not like that in their vista, which is not that different sometimes when you see the people who oppose offshore wind on the East coast, right. And that's the other aspect of it. They love to see these beautiful, great vistas of our West. And they did not want to see a bunch of wind turbines on those mountaintops.

Deborah Stine (10:49):
And so something would seem like so logical to me — you could have all this great power, you could create jobs, you could do all these different things. And a lot of the people who were up to the Navajo, which is the, the area next door actually worked in coal plants, they preferred that over having wind turbines, which really surprised me. And so that gives an example of a society perspective where you want to go in early to understand those kinds of issues and ask people "what would you think if we put wind turbines here" and then you'll find things that you might have no idea occur or, or were a barrier from a policy perspective. There's also those same kinds of issues where you have policymakers that you need to think about.

Deborah Stine (11:37):
Right now I am working as a consultant to West Virginia university, looking at water in West Virginia, which is very important obviously. And they have all sorts of challenges with water, but they also have opportunities. Like they have a lot of crumbling dams that a company could come in and retrofit them to make them power dams. But you know what the people think, right? You just can't go in there and start retrofitting a dam. Even though obviously this is a good way for for a state that doesn't have a lot of income to maybe fix a dam that might collapse, but what are the people thinking? And so part of what we're doing is working with the extension service in West Virginia to talk to the local leaders and the people and say "what do you think about this? Is this a good idea? Is this a bad idea?"

Deborah Stine (12:27):
And you want to do all that early before you invest a lot in design, because maybe you need to incorporate something into the design from an engineering perspective that you might not have thought of otherwise. And then what about the policy, the public policy perspective? How did that play in? Yeah. So the policy aspect of it is that if the West Virginia legislature is going to approve repairing these dams, then they want public support. And if the public, if the local public opposes it, there's no way the policymakers are going to say, "Oh yes, we're willing to save some money and retrofit these dams with hydro-power." So public support can really be a major factor in policymakers and their opinion. I know sometimes people I think have a bias sometimes against policymakers something, Oh, it's, you know, the big money and so forth comes in.

Deborah Stine (13:23):
But the reality is they really do want to know what their people think. And that's the first consideration you should have is what does their constituency think? Are they going to think this is a good idea? Is this going to be a bad idea? And I was actually just looking at some data this morning and for climate change the national number of support that just came out from the Yale center is about 50, 60% in terms of actual climate change. So West Virginia, wasn't too far below that that is still 10% below that. So they're not necessarily going to agree that just for climate change, that they're going to take action.

Deborah Stine (14:10):
There's going to be a certain portion of the population who are going to want to consider other factors, might be cultural factors, might be economic factors. You know, the kind of the jobs that are created, things that are of that nature and a policy maker will consider all those factors. So when I teach about public policy, I teach what I call the four E's, which are not just from me that are based on literature and policy analysis, which is first, is it going to be effective? In this case, is this retrofit, you know, where it's a public private partnership, a company comes in, fixes up the dam is it going to be effective in reaching that goal? Is it going to be efficient, which is that the best bang for the buck in terms of getting electricity and fixing that dam? Is it equitable, which is basically who are the winners and losers? And then the last one, which is where this comes in primarily is ease of political acceptability. The public has to be for it. If you've done your homework and really spend some time with the community, that you're going to have a much easier time when it comes to political acceptability.

Katherine Radeka (15:07):
And what's interesting to me about that is that that's a lot about generating pull for the idea from society. And then also having that feed into the pull that's coming through the policymakers, because policymakers, that's one thing that I've observed in the work that I've done around this so far is that policymakers have the ability to pull through regulation that requires particular advances or through funding,so they have the ability to generate pull for the right technologies. Right. so it's about figuring out what's going to help them create those levers that are going to make this attractive for them so that they start pulling it.

Deborah Stine (15:41):
Right. So, so in this case, I think, I think most policy wonks like myself, we believe that sometime in 2021, regardless of who is President, there is going to be some sort of stimulus bill or infrastructure bill. And so when the West Virginia legislators are deciding, okay, what should we ask for as part of our pitch, they're going to want to do actions that the public supports. I mean, they don't want to get anybody mad at them because this is supposed to be a good thing. Right? So the last big stimulus plan was at the beginning of their bond administration. And there are all sorts of energy projects, renewable energy projects that were supported, energy storage projects, all sorts of different things, but it was very localized, like each community and each state. So how can we use a stimulus money to generate jobs, generate income, to do all those things that we need to have, have done?

Deborah Stine (16:38):
And you just don't want to start from above top-down and say, Oh, okay, well, we're going to put wind turbines on every mountaintop in West Virginia without knowing what the people who live on those mountaintops and in those communities actually think? Because that's the first thing that policymakers going to ask you is, okay, well, have you talked to people in that community? Are they willing to have those turbines there? Are they willing to have that dam fixed? Are they willing to introduce this new water technology that will save them money?

Deborah Stine (17:13):
One other example is in in West Virginia, it turns out there's these straight pipes that basically go directly from homes with sewage, into some of the waters in West Virginia. And they had a grant to try to fix those for free so it would not cost the homeowner anything. And they got turned away and this is some faculty that were at West Virginia University ended up giving the money back because they couldn't convince enough homeowners to take this free deal, which was to develop a septic system for their house to try to help clean things up. And obviously all that goes to our emissions, our climate change emissions and everything else.

Katherine Radeka (17:59):
So I know that you've done a fair amount of work in this area, you know, looking at self-driving cars. Can you talk a little bit about how you've applied that framework in that area?

Deborah Stine (18:08):
Self-driving cars are really in an interesting topic when it comes to this issue. So I often use it as an explanation of what the topic is. So the first thing is, is that we have, we have different companies following different strategies. And, and so some people call it the wild West. So we have some companies like say Tesla who are going out there immediately with early versions of like a self-driving car. And then we have other companies like here in Pittsburgh, Uber, you can just like drive around the city and you'll see them, the self-driving cars with two people inside, but the car is doing all the driving, driving around the city, they're doing testing for it. And that's because Pittsburgh is a city, which is very accepting of new technologies. And then you have Google and Google seems to be focusing more on a policy strategy and talking to various state legislators.

Deborah Stine (19:05):
So at Stanford, for example, they've done a very interesting analysis looking at what different states have done, because most of these driving laws are not national laws, but they're state laws. So right now, if you wanted to have a self-driving car and drive it, say between California and Pittsburgh you really couldn't do it. And that is because some states along the way had decided, no, they did not want self-driving cars in their state. So, you know, when you're thinking about self-driving cars as a big market you really have to think about what is the policies that govern the ability to use these devices? Am I as a consumer, no matter how much I think a self-driving car is cool going to be willing to drive it. If I can't go outside of my own state where it's legal?

Deborah Stine (19:57):
And so you get to have to lay the ground like Uber, ytraditionally there's a like sort of Uber Wars, right? Which I'm sure you maybe heard about it on the news where they got into trouble for their new service model where there's opposition from taxi drivers. I remember people getting blocked on the way to the airport in Paris. So it wasn't just a US thing. It was a global thing. So that will make a policymaker reluctant to approve those new technologies. Unless you lay the groundwork, lay the framework, will people be safe? What happens when the car is driving down the street and it can either hit a baby in a stroller or can hit, an old man with a cane coming the other way, what does the car decide?

Deborah Stine (20:48):
We have a lot of work behind those kinds of decisions that affect the algorithm before these self-driving cars can really take over the population. Going back to the emissions thing, if we have such driving cars, they are supposed to save emissions, particularly when it comes to like long distance things like trucks, for example. When you have a caravan of trucks that can really follow much more closely together, there's been a lot of analysis that shows that that will save energy and obviously greenhouse gas emissions.

Katherine Radeka (21:20):
Yeah. So I find that really interesting because of the different approaches that the different companies have taken. Also because of the fact that these companies have different reputations, right. So it's like, would you, as a public policymaker, thinking about how Uber has just been willing to trample the existing laws and ask for forgiveness, not permission to an extreme degree — they don't seem to come across as very trustworthy, whereas a company like Google may be able to create some openings just because they have paid more attention to that.

Deborah Stine (21:52):
Right. Right. And the challenge of course, is that just like with anything it's just like, when there's an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it's not only that company - BP - that has a problem, that's all the oil companies. Right. And the same thing is, is going to be true for the self-driving car companies — just because the strategy one is better than the strategy of another does not mean that it will, if there's one bad actor, it won't affect everybody else.

Katherine Radeka (22:22):
That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So when you're thinking about incorporating this kind of analysis, at what point in the development of a new technology when would you recommend that people start seriously considering these issues?

Deborah Stine (22:37):
I really think it's important to think about them at the design phase. You know, there's a sort of standard kind of thing now where you're supposed to talk to a hundred people who might buy your product right. And that's supposed to influence the design and goals of the product. Well, I think part of that initial process should also include people from the actual community where these technologies would reside and also policymakers to see what they think, because that too can affect your design. And it's much better to do that early in the process than wait all the way to the end. And you should really also understand the issues. That's the main thing there's like these four "I"s which is the issues, the interests that people have, the institutions and what information they need to help make a decision.

Deborah Stine (23:32):
So obviously with self-driving cars, it's safety, right? And with things that are, maybe say renewable energy, like things that are solar or wind, then it's more to be things that are, that are more say localized interests, things that people care about. And you should at least also like, know the institutions like who actually makes these decisions. I think a lot of people in energy world probably don't know very much about who FERC is. For example, they think maybe the Department of Energy, but they don't think about the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, but yet that has a really important influence on many different energy fields.

Katherine Radeka (24:11):
So one of the things that I coach teams to do when I'm working with them in very early development is to understand who their stakeholders are. And this seems like that would be the point in time to start having a conversation around, okay, what are the policy making bodies that you're going to need to interface with in order to help drive adoption in order to clear regulatory barriers? And if there is pull coming from government to reduce emissions or to increase energy storage or whatever it is that you are on the radar screen.

Deborah Stine (24:41):
Right. Exactly. So like again, going to self-driving cars, because that's something that a lot of people know about the Department of Transportation, for example, has done a lot of work, at least during the Obama administration to try to set up what are different levels and zones and things like that in terms of now, we have cars that do parallel parking, right? That is basically an autonomous vehicle skill. So that's relatively low level obviously than say driving down the road. Then they've also worked with societies that set standards so that we begin to develop these standards and all of this work takes time. And so you, you want to start it early in the process. So when you're really ready to enter the market, everything will be in place.

Katherine Radeka (25:30):
Yeah. So that seems very interesting. How that's interesting is that the way that we accelerate the innovation of an idea is to help ensure that we've cleared away all the obstacles and regulatory — obviously there's going to be regulatory barriers and making sure that you understand if there are what those, what those hurdles are? Making sure that you understand what agencies you need to be engaging with or what government bodies you need to be connected to. And sometimes if you're developing something really new, you may actually be able to be one of the people helping to write the policy, come in as the recognized expert. But that's only possible if you're thinking about these issues far enough in advance.

Deborah Stine (26:08):
So exactly. You want to make sure you're at the table because people will probably remember things like the Beta versus VHS Wars. You might remember those and those standards policies, those battles have occurred over time.

Speaker 4 (26:21):
So if I'm a technologist and, say I am working in a field, but I've developed something, an idea say for a renewable energy, but I'm not familiar myself with the regulatory structures in the industry that I'm proposing to enter. What's the best way for me to begin closing the knowledge gaps that I have around these policymakers I need to be engaged with?

Deborah Stine (26:44):
There are lots of different ways to do it. Like in my case, when I was a professor at Carnegie Mellon we took on new technologies and we did that analysis basically pro bono for some of these new companies in Pittsburgh. For example, we did one for biofuels,. And that is one way to do it in is to try to reach out to experts in your area, see what it is, what might be out there to help you. The second is to hire like a consultant or somebody like myself, who helps you do that kind of analysis or you can just do it yourself and then bring on a policy intern or somebody like that from a college who studies public policy and give that person the task and see what it is that they come up with.

Deborah Stine (27:34):
So those are the inexpensive ways. You can of course spend lots of dollars for lawyers and people who cost a lot of money to do this. But I think for most small emerging companies that might be too much for them to do at this initial stage. And so I've certainly had students in the past at Carnegie Mellon who got hired as a summer intern, just to get some lay of the land and the other aspects of it, which is also important when you're pitching to venture capitalists and investors. They do know that there are all these policy barriers and you should be able to answer that question. It's not good to to propose something like an edible battery and not have any notion of how hard it will be to get approved for people to actually use it. You might start slow and build up over time, but you should be able to least answer the question about those four I's that we talked about earlier.

Katherine Radeka (28:38):
Okay. And those four "I"s are Information, Interest, Issues. And what was the fourth one?

Deborah Stine (28:45):
Institutions.

Katherine Radeka (28:46):
Institutions. Yes. Yes. Wonderful. All right. So I'm going to ask you my last question, which I'm going to be asking every guest on this podcast, which is what is the one thing that we need to do to Accelerate Net Zero from where you sit?

Deborah Stine (28:59):
One of the projects that I do consulting for is the energy futures initiative. This is an organization run by a former Secretary of Energy Ernie Moniz and includes a lot of people who were working in the Obama DOE. And they have a really interesting report on carbon dioxide reduction technologies. And so these are new technologies that are some of them are already out there. Some of them in that stage where they do direct air capture, they take the CO2 out of the air and they turn it into something else.

Deborah Stine (29:36):
And what that report recommends, and which I agree with is to have a very strong research development and demonstration strategy for that. Because I think one thing I've been working on, on climate change since I was in PhD school. So very long time ago now, and over time, it, you just become more realistic about mitigation options and the degree to which mitigation is going to be able to help us achieve our goals. Just like with energy, we see a lot of advances in renewable energy, but we still have a long way to go. So we really need to have a mixed strategy going for this mitigation options. And we need to really try to look at these carbon dioxide reduction technologies in a serious way and think about how they can get to the marketplace.

Reflection

Katherine Radeka (30:29):
I think the most important lesson from today's interview was the fact that if you have an innovation, any type of innovation, but especially an innovation that is supposed to deliver some kind of public good, like accelerate progress toward Net Zero, then you need to understand the universe that your innovation is entering into. And there's a public policy universe where regulators can make it easier or harder for your product to get to market where taxation can either create incentives or disincentives for people to use your technology for other dimensions of public policy that either create a pull signal for you, or put obstacles in your way, and to understand what that looks like.

Katherine Radeka (31:11):
And there's probably a mix of both. There's probably things that are in your way, and there's probably things that are creating good demand signals, and then to understand the community aspects, not just your paying customers, not just the people who are going to be using your product in the way that you intended to get whatever they, you intend to help them get from it, but also the people around them. How will it impact them? You know, how will it impact the broader environment?

Katherine Radeka (31:32):
The time when I would recommend that you start to do that is when you're in the process of developing your Core Hypothesis, you have, if you're working to Accelerate Net Zero, you have a hypothesis about how your innovation is going to do that. And that I think will make it easier for you to talk to these other people who may not necessarily have the problem that you're trying to solve for your customers and who may not have a financial stake in what it is that you're doing, but may have a bigger stake in the innovation that you're attempting to bring to market. And I think that if you can articulate that as part of your Core Hypothesis, we are intending to help reduce carbon emissions in these specific ways, by these specific amounts, or, you know, we have a carbon capture technology erall emissions, you know, by giving them out, that's going to reduce CO2.

Katherine Radeka (32:27):
.And you can be very clear about that. Then I think it makes it easier to engage with these other communities. And I think that when we include that in the Core Hypothesis, it's also a signal that this is important for us to validate through these conversations with public policy makers, by engaging with them in conversations about how to create demand signals for the things that society wants. And as well as having conversations with the community, are there any unintended impacts? Are there any side effects that people are worried about? They may or may not be real? I mean, you may look at it and say, well, that's actually not going to happen, but they may still be worried about it, but you won't even find out if those worries are in place.

Katherine Radeka (33:13):
If you don't know that this is a dimension of your product, that you need to validate. If you're working on a program to Accelerate Net Zero, I first of all, encourage you to build a Core Hypothesis. If you don't have one. And then in the Core Hypothesis to add a little bit onto the end of that, to say, "what is the societal benefit that I project that my innovation will contribute" so that you can open the door to have conversations with these public policy makers and community members in a way that helps them see what you are trying to do with this innovation and how and why it's important for them to support you.

Sponsorship

Katherine Radeka (33:51):
Thank you for listening to Accelerate Net Zero. For resources, transcripts, and additional information about this project, please visit our website, acceleratenetzero.com. The Accelerate Net Zero project is sponsored by the Rapid Learning Cycles Institute. We help innovators change the world faster. To learn more about the Rapid Learning Cycles framework, and how it can help you accelerate innovation, visit rapidlearningcycles.com.