ADL has long articulated the potential of Industrialized Construction (IC) to revolutionize the U.S. construction sector. Industrialized Construction, an advanced manufacturing-centric approach to building buildings, could reverse the construction sector’s declining productivity, satisfy missing middle housing & building supply, bring sustainable employment opportunities to disadvantaged communities, and could help address the sector’s massive impact on climate change.

A recent ADL Ventures run “innovation summit” at PG&E, America’s largest investor owned utility, featured a keynote from Elon Musk and attracted an astounding 600+ applications for their upcoming Pitchfest. How can other corporations unlock the power of start-up partnerships at such a massive scale, and how do start-ups navigate this highly selective and often intricate process?

Methane seeps into the atmosphere from leaks along the natural gas chain, and reducing these fugitive emissions represents one of the least costly solutions for limiting greenhouse gases in the short term. Each cubic foot of leaked gas constitutes wasted value from fixed assets failing to serve consumers. Federal regulations for methane emissions are evolving, and innovators are developing creative new tools for efficient, comprehensive monitoring of natural gas leaks; the challenge now lies with facilitating their deployment.

The Deposit Insurance National Bank of Santa Clara” sounds like a made-up business name from an SNL skit or perhaps a cheeky Sunday Night Football intro (like THE Ohio State University), but for much of the weekend this very real and unexpected FDIC receivership entity for the bank formerly known as SVB held the fates and near-term liquidity of over half of America’s start-ups in its hands.

In this post, we explore America’s RNG potential and what gaps remain in turning RNG into America’s leading gaseous fuel.

Especially with the unknown potential for gold hydrogen, now is the time for utility companies and hydrogen hubs to step up to create a strong yet balanced hydrogen industry. Investment in a diverse demand chain for hydrogen must happen today to avoid the economic danger of a supply/demand imbalance and a price crash. While research remains ongoing, hydrogen’s wholesale price could fall far faster than was previously expected, and so development of hydrogen offtake infrastructure cannot be delayed.

The coal mining industry created a skilled labor force and resilient distribution network in Appalachia, but its decline has stranded assets and left many struggling to find work. As we consider how best to transition these workers to a post-coal world, it is clear there is a critical gap in American manufacturing they can fill.

Despite major government incentives and a growing consumer shift toward EVs, U.S. EV upstarts are facing major headwinds. The race is on to secure a spot in the future EV market, but supply chain delays, plummeting stock prices, and competitive legacy OEMs are posing major hurdles for the top contenders. Many of these upstarts are securing early deals with corporate buyers and investors, but are these partnerships enough to help the upstarts maintain launch velocity - and staying power?

Beneficial Planned Obsolescence (BPO): The process and/or resulting quality of intentionally becoming obsolete due to the pursuit of maximizing customer and/or societal value.

With transportation accounting for the largest portion of US annual greenhouse gas emissions, electrifying the sector is a critical step to reducing U.S. emissions at scale. In a previous article, we calculated the major cost savings associated with EV ownership but dissected existing barriers to widespread EV adoption such as high upfront costs and range anxiety. Given unprecedented shifts in the transportation sector during the pandemic and post-IRA passage, this article presents the updated economic calculus of substituting an ICE vehicle for an EV.

$27M PV Incubator Funding Opportunity Headlines Key Innovation Opportunities; ADL Continues to Support Multiple DOE / NREL Initiatives

The United Kingdom is facing the worst energy crisis in Western Europe, with no long-term plan to get out. As the British government strives to address this problem, it must look beyond short-term solutions and instead focus on the true root causes of the high prices: fossil fuel dependence and systemic energy inefficiency.

As you probably know, America is experiencing an affordable housing crisis. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), 580,000+ people are experiencing homelessness on any given night, while 70% of all extremely low income families pay more than half their income on rent. The NLIHC estimates that only 57 rental units are affordable and available for every 100 very low-income renters.

Offsets (AKA “credits”) are certificates representing the reduction of one metric ton of carbon dioxide from one source (e.g., planting trees) to compensate for the equivalent amount of carbon emitted from a different source (e.g., power plant).

In Sweden and Japan, up-front focus on and investment in automation along with an emphasis on both affordability and quality are instructive examples that show prefabricated housing can achieve a sustainable market foothold when investments are driven by long-term visions.

The construction industry has been dealing with a general and skilled labor shortage that has never really recovered since the 2008 Great Recession. Currently, there are a reported 430,000 vacant construction jobs in the U.S. that need to be filled this year to meet the high demand we are seeing in the industry.

In this blog post, we explore human evolution as an analogy for why urgent deployment - and not just innovation - is paramount to our long-term success.

Developing and sharing digital tools that help optimize the location of new distributed energy resources (DERs) will allow utilities and developers to minimize the need for upgrades to transmission and distribution (T&D) infrastructure. Being strategic about where we site DERs — and empowering developers with the data to make those assessments at the start of their planning process — can decrease wait times in the interconnection queue, convert a greater percentage of proposals into completed sources of generation, and clean the grid for less.

Off-site construction has a multitude of benefits when compared to traditional on-site construction. The lead times are shorter because there are no weather delays, building envelopes tend to be tighter which leads to less problems with moisture and drafts, and there is less raw material waste. With less waste and a tighter envelope leading to utility bill savings, off-site construction seems to be a strong decarbonization pathway for the building industry. So why is there still hesitation when it comes to off-site construction?