248. Remembering Joe Romm (1960-2026): Clearing the Air on Climate Solutions - Sep26

Laurent Segalen and Gerard Reid (0:03)

With Laurent Segalen from London and Gerard Reid from Berlin, this is Redefining Energy.

Michael Barnard (0:09)

Welcome back to Redefining Energy. I'm your host, Michael Barnard. Today we're returning to the Archives to provide an edited down version of the two-part conversation I had with Joe Romm. Before we replay this conversation, I want to say a few words about Joe Romm, who passed away last week. Joe had an unusual combination of technical depth, practical experience, and an enduring interest in how ideas get communicated. He had a PhD in Physics from MIT and spent five years at the US. Department of Energy. Eventually serving as Acting Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. He then spent decades writing and thinking about climate change, energy technologies, and what it would actually take to deploy solutions at a meaningful scale. That last part mattered to me. Joe was deeply interested not simply in whether technology worked, but whether it could matter. Hydrogen, carbon capture, direct air capture, bioenergy, renewables, efficiency. He kept coming back to scale, economics, and the physical realities underneath the claims. We first had Joe in this podcast in 2023 for a two-part discussion about carbon offsets, bioenergy with carbon capture, and direct air capture. We stayed in touch after that, exchanging ideas and occasionally disagreeing. Joe later asked me to provide technical comments on the completely rewritten 20th century anniversary of the hype about hydrogen. I joked afterward that my notes were pretty minimal because Joe sweated the small stuff. The fact that he had substantially rewritten a book 20 years after first publishing it. Shodi sweated the big stuff as well. He was willing to revisit his own arguments, look at another two decades of evidence, and do the work again. We didn't agree about everything. He pushed back when he thought I was overstating China's climate performance and we differed over Germany's nuclear closures. I valued that. Joe was interested in the argument and the evidence, not in requiring agreement. He was also generous. He recommended me to the editors of Environmental Form for work alongside his own writing on carbon removal, and he publicly supported Redefining Energy and the work Gerard, Laurent, and that I were doing. That willingness to bring other people into the conversation was something I appreciated enormously. Joe's contribution was much broader than the technologies we tended to discuss. Climate Progress made him one of the most important climate communicators of the early Internet era. And later, he became increasingly interested in communication and storytelling themselves, right down to exploring what Taylor Swift could teach people about how stories work. I'm glad I had the opportunity to know Joe, to learn from him, to argue with him occasionally, and to have these conversations recorded. So rather than say more about Joe, let's hear from Joe himself.

Welcome back to Redefining Energy. I'm your host, Michael Barnard. My guest today is Dr. Joseph Romm, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Science, Sustainability, and Media. His work focuses on the sustainability, scalability, and scientific underpinnings of major climate solutions. The 20th anniversary of his book, The Hype About Hydrogen is landing on Earth Day, and we're here to talk about it. Welcome, Joe.

Joseph Romm (3:04)

Thanks for having me, Mike.

Michael Barnard (3:05)

You asked me to have a quick look at your book and to provide any technical notes I saw, and now it's coming out in six days. So exciting.

Joseph Romm (3:14)

It is very exciting. It was a lot of work, but the good news is it's a complete rewrite. You've read it, so you know. I threw out 80 percent of the original book and added another 60,000 words. I think people will find a lot of very useful examination of what is the real solutions to climate change. But unusual for a book, I spent a lot of time on what are the promises that people are offering in a bunch of different areas like hydrogen, but also small-module reactors and e-fuels and fusion and direct-air capture. Not that these are all terrible ideas. Some of them aren't good ideas and some of them are just a long way away.

We do need to focus on reducing emissions now. While we do some longer-term R&D, but our focus has to be on reducing emissions now.

Michael Barnard (4:08)

Joe, I always like to start these things out with who the person is and how they got there. Apparently, non-nerds actually like to know about people. Who knew? Tell us how you arrived working with Michael Mann and what your journey was. I think the focus should be 20 years ago, you got people to publish a book about hydrogen and so you had something that led up to the point where people said Joe's the guy. Maybe start before the book and then lead up to the first book and then tell us about the last 20 years briefly.