Fellow Climate Warriors,

This episode I drink 🍹Mamie Taylors with BJ Johnson, Co-founder and CEO of ClearFlame Engines.  

Join us as we discuss the significance of solving the 🚗 Diesel fuel problem, how US national labs drive innovation through incubators, the Midwest climate tech innovation ecosystem, the importance of crafting a narrative, reciting The Empire Strikes Back backwards, 🏊‍♂️ how competitive swimming shaped BJ as an entrepreneur, why Seattle’s football team is called the 🐓 Seachickens and oh so much more!

📻 Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Audacy and Substack👉

🤝 Sponsored by ☀️ Yotta Energy + 💎Aether Diamonds

Please see below about the newest podcast episode and the 🥃upcoming CTC Happy HourS tour of the South. We’ll be Denver on 11/10 and Austin on 11/17!  Yeehaw!  

Thank you for your continued support, and keep up the good fight with a cool beverage in hand.

⚡️ New to CTC? Sign up here!👉

📲 Follow us on Twitter 👉

📝  Show Notes Below👇

🎧 New podcast episode:

BJ Johnson, Co-founder and CEO of ClearFlame Engines on the importance of reducing use of Diesel fuel:

“Globally we’re emitting about 5 Gigatons of CO2 from Diesel engines every year...so you’re looking at about 15% total emissions coming from that fuel in particular.”  -BJ Johnson, Co-founder and CEO of ClearFlame Engines.  

BJ Johnson (@bj_johnson87) is CEO and Co-founder of ClearFlame Engines (@ClearFlameEng), which is a startup taking the diesel fuel out of the diesel engine for heavy-duty industries. BJ leads business development, fundraising, and strategic planning operations at ClearFlame. BJ received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford in 2015 while developing the technology used by ClearFlame. At Stanford, BJ was supported by fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) program, and Stanford’s School of Engineering. BJ was also a member of the USA Swimming national team, representing the United States at world championships, and participating as a leader in USA Swimming diversity camps. 

🍹 What we drank during the episode: Mamie Taylor

Enjoy the show!

📻 Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Audacy and Substack

Interested in sponsoring? 

Please reach out to m@climatetechcocktails.com

🍻 11/10 Denver Climate Tech Cocktails Happy HourS:

Wednesday, November 10th, 5:15-9:15pm. We’ll begin at Raices with food+bev sponsored by the Colorado Cleantech Industries Association (CCIA) from 5:15-7:15 and then continue as a group to 🐺 Meow Wolf from 7:40-9:15!

🚨RSVP for the Happy HourS HERE

🚨Purchase your Meow Wolf tickets HERE for 11/10 at 7:40pm

🥃 11/17 Climate Tech Cocktails Happy HourS:

Wednesday, November 17th, 5:30-7:30pm This is Matt’s grand return home! (Yes, he’s from TX). We’ll be celebrating the closing of Yotta Energy’s Series A  RSVP coming soon!

Companies/Startups mentioned during the show:

🐣 Glenfiddich

🐣 Goslings

🐣 Nellie & Joe’s

🐣 Reed’s

🐣 Volkswagen

🐣 Ag Startup Engine

🐣 Clean Energy Ventures

🐣 Cummins

🐣 Ag Ventures Alliance

🐣 FIN Capital

🐣Flyover Capital

🐣 Twelve

🐣 Sila Nanotechnologies

🐣 Meati Foods

🐣 Remora

People/places/things mentioned during the episode

🧠Dune

🧠Stanford

🧠Seattle Sea...chickens memes

🧠Greatest Team Ever: The Dallas Cowboys Dynasty of the 1990s

🧠Seattle Supersonics

🧠Kevin Durant

🧠Wim Hof

🧠The Empire Strikes Back

🧠The Empire Strikes Back Soundtrack

🧠Prof Chris Edwards

🧠Argonne National Lab

🧠Chain Reaction Innovations

🧠Stranger Things

🧠US Department of Energy

🧠Oak Ridge National Lab

🧠Los Alamos National Lab

🧠Joel Harris

🧠Daniel Goldman

🧠Chicago Booth

🧠To Kill a Mockingbird

🧠Outliers

🧠Moonshots: Creating a World of Abundance

🧠The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

🧠Gene Berdichevsky

🧠Etosha Cave

🧠Justin Whiteley

🧠Tyler Huggins

-TIMESTAMPS-

[0:00] Intro

[3:30] Drink of the show

[5:00] Fear is a mind killer

[6:40] Where BJ grew up

[8:30] BJ’s competitive swimming background and what he learned from it

[10:30] PhD 

[11:30] Reciting the Empire Strikes Back backwards

[13:00] Starting ClearFlame

[14:00] Why focus on internal combustion engines (ICEs) vs. EVs

[16:00] Hard to electrify part of transportation industry--hint: diesel!

[20:50] Working out of Argonne National Lab/Chain Reaction Innovations

[24:30] Transitioning out of the lab and getting first institutional investment

[25:30] First investors out of Iowa and MidWest ecosystem

[32:00] Crafting the ClearFlame narrative

[40:00] Capturing CO2 from the ethanol productions process

[41:30] 3 books that have impacted the way BJ thinks

[45:30] 3 founders and/or startups BJ loves

[49:00] Conclusion

🤝 

This episode is brought to you by ☀️ Yotta Energy!  We all know energy storage is key to deploying renewables at scale. I’ve seen many energy storage solutions for commercial buildings over my years in climate tech, but none as impressive as Yotta’s.  

Yotta Energy’s unique "PV-Coupled" ecosystem of solar+storage solutions simply integrates within the standard solar installation process. Even better, their integrated storage technology can enable up to 60% more solar to be deployed on commercial buildings.  With commercial buildings consuming 35% of US electricity that means Yotta is making a serious dent in CO2 emissions. With the electrification of everything revolution underway, Yotta Energy is poised to meet the growing demands of electrification by sizing solar+storage resources to recharge electric vehicles as they future proof buildings into distributed energy sites powering the grid of the future. Find out more at YottaEnergy.com and follow Yotta on Twitter @YottaEnergy.

🤝 

This episode is also brought to you by 💎 Aether Diamonds.  If you’re planning to propose, or purchase a timeless gift for your partner, I couldn’t think of a better purchase than Aether Diamonds.  

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Interested in sponsoring Climate Tech Cocktails (CTC)?  Please reach out to m@climatetechcocktails.com