Catalyst with Shayle Kann

While much of the world has been focused on the war in Iran’s impact on the energy sector, another arguably more impactful market has been largely overlooked: fertilizer.

The global fertilizer market is in a precarious spot. Roughly a third of the world's seaborne fertilizer trade goes through the Strait of Hormuz. Even before the war in Iran began, China, the world’s top phosphate producer, halted exports of the crucial compound. As a result, the longer the strait remains closed, the more the threat to our global food supply escalates.

In this episode, Shayle speaks with Josh Linville, vice president of Fertilizer at StoneX, to make sense of the global fertilizer market and its cascading impacts.

Shayle and Josh cover topics including:

The current state of global fertilizer markets

The tenuous relationship between natural gas prices and the cost of producing nitrogen-based fertilizers in Europe

How stalled shipments of fertilizer could impact supply and demand for next year’s planting season

The impact of Chinese phosphate export restrictions on the global market

How a prolonged closure of the Strait could impact food supplies around the world

Resources

Josh Linville’s X account


Open Circuit: Iran, energy shocks, and the case for distributed power


Latitude Media: DOE’s second ‘Energy Dominance’ loan was reworked to embrace coal


Latitude Media: This isn’t demand destruction. It’s rationing.

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

Tune into Critical Capital, a brand new podcast from Crux and Latitude Studios. Hosted by Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, Critical Capital explores the interlocking forces powering clean and critical infrastructure. Join us every other Tuesday for in-depth conversations at the intersection of energy, government, finance, and global markets. Listen here, or wherever you get podcasts.

Even though autonomous passenger vehicles have entered the mainstream in cities across the country, autonomous trucks still lag behind. But Humble Robotics thinks it has cracked the code with a new design that completely does away with the tractor-trailer model we see on the highway every day.

In this episode, Shayle speaks to Eyal Cohen, founder and CEO of Humble. The company built its electric trucks from the ground up. Fully cabless, they combine the tractor and trailer into a single platform designed to optimize energy efficiency, unit economics, and roadway safety.

Shayle and Eyal explore topics including:

The differences between autonomous passenger and freight vehicles

The challenge of transporting heavy payloads at high speeds

Why Humble has shifted away from LiDar in favor of a camera-centric approach offered by visual language models (VLMs)

The unit economics of electric and autonomous freight

Why Humble is embracing a "hub-to-hub" model for its trucks

The evolving regulatory landscape for autonomous trucking

Resources


Catalyst: Volts crossover: Six big energy questions


Latitude Media: Can the Tesla Semi finalize decarbonize trucking?


Latitude Media: Rivian and EnergyHub are teaming up on managed charging


The Green Blueprint: A billion-dollar play on electrified transport

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

Tune into Critical Capital, a brand new podcast from Crux and Latitude Studios. Hosted by Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, Critical Capital explores the interlocking forces powering clean and critical infrastructure. Join us every other Tuesday for in-depth conversations at the intersection of energy, government, finance, and global markets. Listen here, or wherever you get podcasts.

As the utility-scale solar market collides with an era defined by massive load growth, EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) firms are rethinking their strategy to meet the moment.

In this episode, Shayle speaks to George Hershman, CEO of SOLV Energy, one of the largest solar and storage construction firms in the US. George offers a unique perspective into the state of the market as well as the logistics of building gigawatt-scale projects and insights into how automation is changing the EPC game.

Shayle and George discuss:

Why George believes rising demand can help solar move past boom-and-bust cycles

How SOLV is taking on larger projects without needing to increase its workforce proportionally

How automation helps SOLV build and install utility-scale solar faster

The logistics bottleneck impacting EPCs’ ability to scale

How AI-driven simulations can help optimize installations


Catalyst: Can AI revolutionize EPC?


Catalyst: 2026 trends: Gas turbines, Texas’ load queue, and China electrifies


Catalyst: Scaling America’s domestic solar supply chain


Latitude Media: Can the US bring solar installation to below $2 per watt? 


Latitude Media: This former solar installer is all-in on software-only sales

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

Tune into Critical Capital, a brand new podcast from Crux and Latitude Studios. Hosted by Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, Critical Capital explores the interlocking forces powering clean and critical infrastructure. Join us every other Tuesday for in-depth conversations at the intersection of energy, government, finance, and global markets. Listen here, or wherever you get podcasts.

As the race to build out artificial intelligence accelerates, the infrastructure required to support it is undergoing a remarkable transformation. In February, Google announced a plan to spend $175 billion to $185 billion in CapEx for 2026— a figure roughly equivalent to the GDP of Hungary.

In this special live episode, recorded at Transition-AI 2026 in San Francisco, Shayle sits down with Amin Vahdat, Google’s chief technologist for AI infrastructure. Amin pulls back the curtain on how the hyperscaler is rethinking everything from data center reliability and behind-the-meter power generation to real-time inference.

Shayle and Amin discuss:

How Google’s shift from focusing on training to inference can enable more distributed, smaller-scale data center deployments

Why Google is moving away from traditional "five nines" reliability for certain workloads in exchange for doubling compute capacity

How on-site generation can serve as a "bridge" to manage interconnection latency

Google’s milestone agreement with utilities for one gigawatt of demand response

How software can co-optimize chip design, building cooling and power generation to create superefficient and flexible "AI factories"


Catalyst: The rise of flexible data centers


Catalyst: Will inference move to the edge?


Catalyst: The mechanics of data center flexibility


Open Circuit: The natural gas ‘bridge’ becomes a highway


Open Circuit: Are investors losing faith in the AI infrastructure frenzy?


Latitude Media: Energy Vault is expanding into infrastructure for AI


Latitude Media: The rise of the AI infrastructure asset class

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

Tune into Critical Capital, a brand new podcast from Crux and Latitude Studios. Hosted by Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, Critical Capital explores the interlocking forces powering clean and critical infrastructure. Join us every other Tuesday for in-depth conversations at the intersection of energy, government, finance, and global markets. Listen here, or wherever you get podcasts.

[This episode is a re-run from October 2025. Look out for a new episode of Catalyst on Thursday, April 23.]

Yesterday, Base Power announced a ⁠$1 billion series C⁠, giving the residential battery company an eye-popping $4 billion post-money valuation. Base manufactures, installs, owns, and operates residential batteries — a vertical integration strategy that CEO ⁠Zach Dell⁠ says is the “magic” to beating utility-scale batteries on CapEx. The company also acts as an electricity retailer and sells generation capacity.

So how does Base’s business model work? And what will it do with its new fundraise? 

In this episode, Shayle talks to Zach about Base’s business model, the vertical integration strategy, and the challenges ahead. They cover topics like:

The customer value proposition: how customers pay for backup power and Base uses the batteries for grid services

Bases’s “gentailer” business model in ERCOT, earning revenue from monthly customer fees, retail electricity sales, and battery arbitrage

The regulated market approach, where Base sells capacity directly to utilities

Base’s vertical integration strategy: from ground-mounted designs to decoupled installation processes

Challenges like managing a fixed workforce amid fluctuating demand and the declining price volatility in ERCOT

Resources:

⁠New York Times⁠: Base Power, a Battery-Focused Power Company, Raises $1 Billion

⁠Open Circuit⁠: Is this moment for distributed energy different?  

⁠Catalyst⁠: Is now the time for DERs to scale? 

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor. 

Catalyst is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company’s messaging by visiting ⁠fischtankpr.com⁠.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting ⁠energyhub.com⁠.