75% of “clean” power isn’t clean

75% of “clean” power isn’t clean

From Climate CEOs: Scaling Startups by Dr. Chris Wedding — Climate Tech CEO Coach | CEO @ EFI

April 10, 2026 · 10 min

About this episode

The episode discusses critical decisions impacting climate CEOs, focusing on clean power, permitting speed, and building confidence.

Three decisions shaping climate CEOs right now: where to build, how to build confidence, and what to fix first. Speed vs purity - 30% of data centers going behind-the-meter, often gas-powered; permitting speed and time-to-power are dominating carbon goals Geography arbitrage - red states with faster permitting winning deployment; “Whole Foods per capita” matters less than interconnection timelines Confidence loop - most CEOs over-index on “the gap”; tracking “the gain” builds repeatable confidence and better execution Evidence over narrative - “we did” compounds trust internally and with investors; institutionalize monthly gain reviews tied to revenue and traction metrics Constraint focus - identify the single bottleneck that breaks if demand doubles; apply urgency to the system, not emotional volatility in leadership -- Work with me (EFI) Private CEO group (capped at 50) for climate tech founders navigating capital, strategy, and scale. entrepreneursforimpact.com Newsletter (Climate CEOs) Read by 40,000 climate operators and investors annually. entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com Leave a review If you got value, take 30 seconds and do the community a favor. It helps push more…

People in this episode

Host: Dr. Chris Wedding

Topics covered

  • clean power
  • climate CEOs
  • confidence building
  • permitting speed
  • geography arbitrage
  • evidence over narrative
  • constraint focus

Keywords

  • clean power
  • data centers
  • permitting
  • climate tech
  • confidence
  • bottleneck
  • investors
  • execution

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: EFI, Whole Foods, Climate CEOs, entrepreneursforimpact.com, entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com

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