From Models to Money: Reflections on a Year of Practical Decarbonization

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Before diving into a reflection on the year, it feels important to start with gratitude. None of this work happens in isolation. Over the past year, an extraordinary number of people took the time to share their expertise, challenge my assumptions, correct my mistakes, and patiently help me understand subjects more deeply than I would have managed on my own. Others trusted me enough to ask for help, whether to sense-check an idea, clarify a strategy, or explain complex issues to broader audiences. I am deeply appreciative of that generosity. Whatever value this work has comes as much from those conversations and collaborations as from anything I personally contributed.

Professional efforts

2025 was a year where theory increasingly met practice. The most tangible milestone was the incorporation and early commercialization of Trace Intercept, a UK-focused B2B SaaS platform delivering lightweight digital twins for underground water infrastructure, something increasingly impacted by climate change and requiring all the help it can get in developing greater resilience. Moving from concept to paying client sharpened everything, from product discipline to sales realism. It reinforced how risk reduction, measurement accuracy, and practical usability in an era of increasing climate instability matter far more to asset owners than buzzwords or architectural elegance.

In parallel, via my consulting firm TFIE Strategy—the future is electric, naturally—I spent significant time working through strategy processes with Trifecta Ireland and Supergrid Europe ahead of the launches of those Dublin- and Brussels-based NGOs, and then continuing in advisory roles as those efforts matured. These engagements were less about slogans and more about sequencing, political economy, and where capital and institutions are actually willing to move. That’s a continuation of my work with Lesley O’Connor, the force of nature behind both NGO’s, in 2024, working on the second edition of Supergrid Super Solution and sharing a stage with her and European politicians and thought leaders in Brussels late in the year. One deeply intellectually fulfilling activity for Trifecta was creation of the first draft of an every five year road map to full decarbonization of Ireland’s energy future in 2050. Closely related were a series of pragmatic recasting workshops for Netherlands’ transmission systems operator TenneT on 2050 energy scenarios in the Netherlands, grounding long-term ambition in grid physics, land constraints, and social acceptance rather than idealized pathways.

I also deepened relationships with a repeat energy-sector venture capital client, supporting investment assessments with sharper filters around scalability, learning rates, and policy durability. Alongside that, I spent more time with a green infrastructure fund focused on where capital flows are realistically heading over the next decade. Those conversations consistently reinforced the same conclusion: decarbonization progress comes less from novelty and more from disciplined deployment of technologies that already work.

Reports, white papers, and public strategies

Writing remained central to my work this year, particularly longer-form pieces designed to shape strategy rather than chase headlines. Beyond Portland: Cement’s Transition to 2100, produced through my consulting firm TFIE Strategy Inc, examined cement decarbonization as a century-scale systems problem rather than a near-term technology race. That thinking was extended academically in Towards a Net Zero Cement, co-authored with Sanjeev Kumar and Ankita Gangotra, and peer-reviewed and published with Springer Nature, which emphasized policy design, sequencing, and institutional alignment over technological silver bullets.

Logistics and infrastructure were another major focus. The New Logistics: Electrifying Freight With Microgrids, co-authored with Rish Ghatikar for CleanTechnica, explored how electrification can advance faster when grid constraints are treated as design inputs instead of blockers. From Quay to Sea: A Port Decarbonization Roadmap through TFIE Strategy extended that logic into maritime systems, linking ports, vessels, fuels, and grid planning into a coherent whole.

Other reports deliberately tackled harder and sometimes more uncomfortable topics where enthusiasm often runs far ahead of evidence. A Techno-Economic Assessment of Seabed Mining: American Samoa and Global Implications, co-authored with Lyle Trytten and commissioned by the National Ocean Protection Coalition, subjected seabed mining claims to detailed cost, energy, risk, and governance analysis. The work avoided advocacy in favor of reference-class economics, operational realities, and institutional capacity, testing whether proposed projects could plausibly deliver materials at scale without creating new environmental and geopolitical liabilities.

Several other efforts were developed through TFIE Strategy Inc, often following a familiar pattern for me of first drafting sections as public-facing articles, gaining insights from criticisms and discussions, then editing, expanding, and integrating them into cohesive reports. Beyond the Hype: Geothermal in Context separated established geothermal heat applications from speculative deep drilling narratives, focusing on learning rates, cost structures, and realistic deployment pathways. Mass Timber in Canada: Industrial Strategy and Policy approached mass timber not as a branding exercise, but as an industrial system shaped by fiber availability, manufacturing scale, building codes, and trade dynamics. Across these reports, the common theme was disciplined realism: distinguishing technologies that can scale within meaningful timeframes from those that remain aspirational, and clarifying where policy can accelerate deployment versus where it primarily subsidizes delay while preserving the status quo.

Presentations and podcasts

Public engagement remained intense and varied, with high-profile forums anchoring the year. I was invited to speak at the Jefferies Group US-China Summit for global investors on critical minerals and the next phase of resource-driven geopolitics, followed by participation in the P3GQA Megaprojects Conference on climate-resilient infrastructure and designing systems intended to last the next fifty years. Both settings emphasized the same underlying challenge: aligning capital, policy, and engineering reality at scales that actually matter.

Beyond those flagship engagements, I presented The Short List of Climate Actions That Will Work at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, continuing to refine a framework that has proven useful for students and practitioners alike. I also joined a panel at the Vancouver Maritime Centre for Climate’s Greenship 2025 conference on the future of port electrification, where the discussion centered on grids, not fuels, as the limiting factor in maritime decarbonization.

The remainder of the year was filled with a wide range of hosted conversations and appearances. These included keynoting the Distributed Wind annual conference, extended discussions with Nigel Banks of Octopus Energy on the Mesh YouTube channel about the fabric first trap, public webinars on seabed mining with Pacific Island representatives, and what felt like a steady stream of interviews, including with Al Jazeera on Tesla’s autonomous vehicle claims. Richard Delevan kindly hosted me again on his Wicked Problems webcast. Inevitably, I am sure I have missed a few along the way, and my apologies to anyone who hosted me and whom I have inadvertently left out.

Podcasting continued to be both intellectually rewarding and unexpectedly influential. Redefining Energy episodes with Laurent and Gerard on 2025 predictions and the Seven Sins of the Energy Transition sparked some of the most thoughtful listener feedback of the year, and saw the highest downloads of that great show, which saw 550,000 listens this year. Redefining Energy — Tech, my side nerdcast, became a platform for deep, technical conversations with engineers and researchers who rarely get airtime in mainstream energy discourse, and saw tens of thousands of listens despite going into the weeds of their areas of expertise.

Articles and series

The writing volume this year was substantial, approaching 400 articles across platforms. As I note sheepishly when asked, I don’t have kids, I don’t follow any major league sports, and I write like Usain Bolt runs. One unexpected blow-up piece examined road damage as a function of vehicle weight, cutting through decades of misframing and reaching hundreds of thousands of readers in CleanTechnica and over 100,000 on the summarizing LinkedIn post. That experience reinforced the power of simple physics clearly explained. A lot of people care viscerally about the conditions of the roads they drive upon it seems. I leaned heavily on Cambridge Professor David Cebon’s work assessing road civil engineering and a great deal of time we spent discussing it over years of varied collaboration, just one example of experts graciously sharing their time and insights with me, something I continue to be grateful for.

I now publish every couple of weeks through Australia’s Renew Economy as well, focusing more tightly on Australian implications of the global cleantech transition. Several long-running and ongoing assessments continued in parallel: critical minerals in cleantech, including iron, aluminum, and platinum; systematic debunking of hydrogen for energy and transportation; and assessments of transit electrification in Canada and globally.

Other threads tracked the failures of CCS, including Northern Lights, the reality of the low-altitude economy where drones are succeeding while eVTOLs fail, as I predicted years ago, and the ongoing growth and transformation of biofuels globally. Shipping decarbonization, oil and gas demand dynamics, EV market tipping points, and nuclear energy misadventures all received ongoing attention. And, of course, there were the Sankey diagrams. Pakistan, the Netherlands, Canada, Ireland, ports. Bloody Sankeys everywhere this year.

Reach

The reach of this work continues to surprise me. Redefining Energy–Tech passed 100,000 downloads, which feels respectable for a bi-weekly podcast that unapologetically dives into PhD-level detail. Articles collectively reached millions of readers, LinkedIn posts saw 4.3 million reads, countless re-sharing and engagement, and my work was cited in IEA working group material and quoted in publications across multiple languages.

On LinkedIn, my following grew from roughly 27,000 to over 37,000, with about 12,000 connections, almost all inbound. I am amused, and slightly puzzled, that employees of Shell account for the largest share of the 21,000 profile views I saw this year at 10%, with Deloitte close behind and the European Commission not far off. Given my focus on informing and influencing policymakers, the EC’s level of attention suggests the work is at least being read. Whether it is being embraced or dismissed is, as ever, harder to know.

Personal note

Despite the workload, I managed to keep a personal life intact. I traveled with my life partner through several European cities over the summer, improved at disc golf (my latest 2–5 year sport), lost the last of my COVID kilos, and cooked a lot of good food. I finally got my mother into long-term care, which was a tremendous relief, and oversaw the refresh and sale of her condo.

I would also like it on the record that I was not one of the Michael Barnards who passed away, committed major crimes, won darts championships, or directed plays in Phoenix this year, nor the one publishing on trucking in New Zealand. Namesakes are strange companions.

My mission remains unchanged: to help ensure that the trillions required for a low-carbon future are spent more wisely and more quickly. My dance card for 2026 is not full. If you think I might be able to help you move the needle, reach out.