Green Giants: Titans of Clean Energy Podcast

AI is creating an enormous demand for electricity. But what if the bigger challenge isn't just how much power data centers need, but how quickly that demand changes?
In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Clean Energy, host Wes Ashworth, President of Lee Group Search, sits down with Dr. Raj DasGupta, CEO of Electrovaya, to explore why AI infrastructure is creating an entirely different opportunity for advanced battery technology.
Raj has spent nearly two decades in the lithium-ion battery industry, moving from materials science and R&D into manufacturing, business development, operations, and ultimately leading Electrovaya. Along the way, he's learned that building a better battery isn't simply about storing more energy or lowering costs.
It's about solving the right problem.
While much of the battery industry has focused on producing cheaper energy storage, Electrovaya has taken a different path, developing high-performance batteries for demanding industrial applications where safety, longevity, reliability, and power matter most.
Now, with AI data centers experiencing dramatic fluctuations in electricity demand, that strategy is opening the door to an entirely new market.
Wes and Raj explore how Electrovaya's ElvaPulse high-power energy storage platform is designed to help manage those fluctuations, why the economics of battery storage are changing, and what it takes to bring advanced lithium-ion manufacturing back to the United States.
In this episode:
Why Electrovaya deliberately stepped away from commodity battery markets and how that decision shaped its future
The hidden electricity challenge facing AI data centers and why conventional energy storage isn't always the ideal solution
Understanding power versus energy, and why dollars per kilowatt can matter more than dollars per kilowatt-hour
How ElvaPulse could improve data center efficiency, reduce battery footprint, and help stabilize rapidly changing electrical loads
The science behind Electrovaya's ceramic separator technology, long battery life, and safety performance
What decades of industrial battery deployment have taught Electrovaya about reliability and customer economics
The challenges of bringing lithium-ion cell manufacturing to Jamestown, New York
Why skilled workers, supply chains, and manufacturing execution are critical to America's energy future
How energy security, AI, and electrification are reshaping the battery industry's next chapter
Key moments:
00:00 | Meet Raj DasGupta and Electrovaya
03:24 | Why Electrovaya chose a different path in the battery industry
10:45 | The economics of high-power energy storage
15:05 | AI data centers and unpredictable electricity demand
18:57 | Introducing ElvaPulse and its high-power advantage
24:32 | Battery longevity, performance, and ceramic separator technology
30:57 | Bringing lithium-ion manufacturing back to America
34:41 | The reality of domestic battery supply chains
37:34 | What's next for the global battery industry
Whether you're working in battery storage, AI infrastructure, renewable energy, manufacturing, or grid modernization, this conversation offers a valuable look at how the next generation of energy systems is taking shape.
Learn more about Electrovaya: https://electrovaya.com
Raj DasGupta on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raj-s-dasgupta-90666411/
Subscribe to Green Giants: Titans of Clean Energy for more conversations with the leaders and innovators shaping the future of energy.
Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/
Email: wes@leegroupsearch.com
https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
https://leegroupsearch.com/

What if one of the biggest opportunities in clean energy is not discovering a new energy source, but making the sunlight already reaching us more useful?
In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, Wes Ashworth, President of Lee Group Search, sits down with Hunter McDaniel, Founder and CEO of UbiQD, to explore how quantum dots are moving from advanced materials research into real-world applications in agriculture, solar, and large-scale manufacturing. 
Hunter’s path began in physics, electrical engineering, and materials science, eventually leading to a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering and postdoctoral research at Los Alamos National Laboratory. What started as highly specialized work in semiconductor nanocrystals became the foundation for UbiQD, a company built around a simple but powerful idea: use nanoscale materials to control how light behaves. 
Wes and Hunter break down quantum dots in practical terms, including how changing particle size can change the color of light they absorb and emit. That capability creates a platform for spectrum engineering, where sunlight can be tuned before it reaches a plant or solar cell.
In agriculture, UbiQD’s UbiGro technology shifts portions of sunlight toward wavelengths that can improve plant performance. Hunter discusses greenhouse trials across multiple regions, what growers actually care about, and why the future may involve different light recipes for different crops. 
The conversation then moves into solar, where the scale becomes dramatically larger. Hunter explains how quantum dots can target underutilized portions of the solar spectrum, why even modest performance improvements can create meaningful economic value across millions of panels, and what has to be proven before a major solar manufacturer will trust a new material inside a product expected to operate outdoors for decades.
They also explore UbiQD’s expansion through its acquisition of BlueDot Photonics technology, including the emerging concept of quantum cutting, where one high-energy photon can potentially produce nearly two lower-energy photons better suited for solar conversion. 
But the heart of the episode is not just the science. It is the challenge of turning science into industry.
Hunter shares what changes when a company moves from making small research batches to operating reactors, managing supply chains, qualifying materials with customers, building manufacturing capacity, and preparing for production measured in tons rather than grams. UbiQD’s recent growth, capital raises, expanded Los Alamos footprint, and long-term solar supply ambitions illustrate just how different deep-tech scale-up is from traditional software growth. 
This episode covers:
How quantum dots change the way light behaves
Why spectrum engineering matters in both agriculture and solar
How greenhouse light manipulation can influence crop performance
Why small efficiency gains can matter enormously at utility scale
The difference between standard fluorescence and quantum cutting
What it takes to prove durability for materials expected to last decades
How an R&D company becomes a manufacturing company
Where promising national-lab technology can get lost before commercialization
Why advanced materials may play a major role in the next wave of clean energy innovation
For anyone interested in solar, advanced materials, climate technology, deep-tech commercialization, or the future of domestic manufacturing, this conversation offers a rare look at what it actually takes to move a scientific breakthrough from the lab into infrastructure-scale deployment.
Links:
Hunter McDaniel on LinkedIn
UbiQD's Website
UbiGrow's Website
Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/
Email: wes@leegroupsearch.com
https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
https://leegroupsearch.com/

Why Nuclear's Moment Is Now: Stefano Buono, CEO of newcleo
For newcleo founder and CEO Stefano Buono, nuclear energy's next chapter has been more than 30 years in the making. Now, rising electricity demand, energy security concerns, and changing attitudes toward nuclear are creating an opening for ideas he began pursuing in the 1990s.
In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Clean Energy, host Wes Ashworth, President of Lee Group Search, sits down with Buono to explore what makes this nuclear moment different and what it will take to turn that momentum into commercial projects.
A physicist and entrepreneur, Buono previously founded Advanced Accelerator Applications, the nuclear medicine company acquired by Novartis for approximately $3.9 billion. He shares how that experience prepared him to return to his original ambition: developing a different approach to nuclear energy.
Today, newcleo is developing lead-cooled fast reactors designed to use recycled nuclear fuel. Buono explains the technology in accessible terms, including why useful energy remains in spent fuel, how liquid lead supports the company's approach to passive safety, and why the economics of recycling matter.
The conversation also tackles the difficult questions: plutonium security, the history of costly U.S. fuel projects, regulatory approvals, and the challenge of financing and building an entire reactor and fuel supply chain.
In this episode:
Why decarbonization, energy independence, and AI-driven electricity demand are reshaping nuclear's opportunity.
How lead-cooled fast reactors differ from conventional nuclear plants.
What recycled mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel could mean for fuel supply and nuclear waste.
newcleo's proposed work with Oklo and its ambitions at Savannah River.
Why industrial heat and manufacturing matter alongside data centers.
The milestones that will show whether newcleo is moving toward commercial deployment.
Buono's advice for founders building technologies that take decades to reach the market.
Release update: This conversation was recorded ahead of newcleo's Nasdaq debut. The company subsequently completed its business combination with NewHold, securing approximately $247 million in gross proceeds, and began trading under NWCL on September 22, 2026.
For energy leaders, founders, and anyone curious about advanced nuclear, this episode connects the science to the practical work of bringing new energy projects to life.
Subscribe to Green Giants: Titans of Clean Energy wherever you get your podcasts, and share this episode with someone following nuclear's next chapter.

Links:
Stefano Buono on LinkedIn
newcleo's Website
newcleo's Nasdaq Listing and $247 Million Funding Announcement
newcleo Targets US Expansion with Nasdaq Debut, AI-Driven Power Demand

Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/
Email: wes@leegroupsearch.com
https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
https://leegroupsearch.com/

The nuclear renaissance is about far more than building reactors.
It is also about capital, fuel security, recycling, infrastructure, commercialization, supply chains, workforce, and whether the energy system can scale fast enough to meet a new era of electricity demand.
In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Clean Energy, Wes Ashworth, President of Lee Group Search sits down with Michelle Urben, Managing and General Partner at The Synergos Fund, to explore what it will actually take to finance and build the next generation of energy infrastructure. 
Michelle brings more than three decades of experience across banking, asset management, investor relations, and venture capital. Her path from the Philippines and an oil-industry family to Wall Street and deep-tech investing gives her a unique perspective on energy affordability, energy security, and the role patient capital can play in solving foundational infrastructure challenges.  
The conversation begins with a fundamental investing question: Is traditional venture capital structured for technologies that may require years of technical validation, regulation, demonstration, and infrastructure before reaching full commercialization?
Michelle explains how The Synergos Fund approaches that challenge through milestone-driven investing, long-term alignment, active participation, and a focus on durable companies across energy, manufacturing, food, and health.
From there, the discussion moves into one of the most overlooked pieces of nuclear energy: the fuel cycle.
Michelle shares why nuclear recycling company Curio became such an important part of her transition into deep tech and why she believes spent nuclear fuel should increasingly be viewed as a strategic energy resource rather than simply as waste. The conversation explores fuel security, domestic nuclear supply chains, recycling, commercialization, and the broader ecosystem required around the reactor itself. 
Wes and Michelle also examine the massive increase in electricity demand being driven by AI, data centers, reshoring, and electrification. If generation, grid infrastructure, and behind-the-meter solutions cannot keep pace, the constraint may increasingly become access to reliable power.
They also discuss Gate 5, a wastewater-to-energy technology in the Synergos portfolio, as an example of a broader investment philosophy: finding valuable energy resources in places the traditional system often treats as liabilities. 
But technology and capital alone will not build the next energy system.
The episode closes with one of the most important constraints facing the industry: people. Engineers, welders, electricians, operators, technicians, construction professionals, regulators, and other skilled workers will all be necessary to turn ambitious energy plans into functioning infrastructure.
In this episode:
 Why Michelle moved from traditional finance into nuclear and deep tech 
 What patient capital should demand from infrastructure companies 
 Why timing matters in private-market investing 
 The nuclear fuel-cycle opportunity beyond the reactor 
 Why spent nuclear fuel could become a strategic resource 
 How AI and data centers are reshaping electricity demand 
 Wastewater-to-energy and the opportunity behind overlooked resources 
 Why commercialization requires strong operators, not just investors 
 The workforce challenge facing nuclear and energy infrastructure 
 Why the companies quietly building through difficult problems may ultimately shape the next energy era 
For investors, founders, energy executives, and anyone thinking seriously about the future of nuclear power and energy infrastructure, this episode offers a much broader framework for understanding what the next energy system will actually require.

Links:
Michelle Urben on LinkedIn
The Synergos Fund Website
Curio's Website
Episode 89 with Ed McGinnis of Curio
Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/
Email: wes@leegroupsearch.com
https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
https://leegroupsearch.com/

Breakthrough science is only the beginning. The harder challenge is turning promising technology into a system that can operate reliably, economically, and repeatedly in the real world.
In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Clean Energy, Wes Ashworth, host and President of Lee Group Search sits down with Tina Tosukhowong, Investment Director at TDK Ventures, to explore what separates deep-tech companies that scale from those that stall between the lab, pilot plant, and first commercial facility. Tina brings an unusually valuable perspective to venture investing. Before becoming an investor, she spent years as a chemical engineer and industrial operator working across process development, pilot operations, scale-up, commercialization, manufacturing, and customer qualification.  
That operating experience shapes how she evaluates climate tech, advanced materials, AI infrastructure, and other capital-intensive technologies today.
Tina explains why scaling is not simply a matter of building a larger version of a successful pilot. At commercial scale, entirely new risks emerge around heat transfer, fluid flow, contamination, materials handling, uptime, permitting, utilities, feedstocks, safety, supply chains, and integration with customer sites. The companies that succeed are often the ones that identify failure modes early, run the right experiments, and learn faster than their capital disappears. 
The conversation also tackles one of the most important questions in deep tech: When has a company actually earned the right to scale?
Wes and Tina explore why raising too much money too early can be dangerous, how founders should think about risk retirement before committing hundreds of millions of dollars to a first commercial plant, and why the strongest financing strategy aligns capital with specific learning milestones. They also discuss founder-market fit, coachability, executive hiring, productive board conflict, and why the right investor syndicate can matter as much as valuation. 
The discussion then moves into the rapidly evolving physical infrastructure behind AI. Tina breaks down opportunities across data-center power delivery, energy storage, cooling, thermal materials, networking, semiconductors, and photonics. She explains why the next wave of AI infrastructure innovation may come not only from better chips, but from everything required to power, connect, and cool them efficiently.  
The episode also explores fusion energy, synthetic fuels, critical minerals, and frontier technologies, including Tina’s perspective on Type One Energy, INERATEC, and the growing overlap between clean energy, computing, advanced materials, manufacturing, and national supply-chain resilience. 
In this episode, you’ll learn:
 Why industrial scale-up exposes risks that laboratory success cannot predict 
 What founders should prove before committing to a first commercial facility 
 How capital discipline can prevent expensive first-of-a-kind mistakes 
 Why learning speed and coachability matter so much in deep-tech leadership 
 When experienced executives help startups and when they can slow them down 
 Why investor syndicates and boards become critical when plans break 
 Where Tina sees overlooked opportunities in AI data-center infrastructure 
 Why cooling, rack-level power conversion, and photonics could become major bottlenecks 
 What industrial operating experience reveals about the future of fusion 
 How e-fuels, critical minerals, AI, and advanced materials are increasingly converging 
For founders, investors, operators, and leaders building the next generation of clean energy and deep-tech companies, this episode is a practical look at what it really takes to move from possibility to commercial reality.
Links:
Tina Tosukhowong on LinkedIn
TDK Ventures Website
Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/
Email: wes@leegroupsearch.com
https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
https://leegroupsearch.com/