The story of steam

Steam production hasn’t evolved much over the past century. Thermal storage, heat pumps, and electric furnaces could change that.

An episode of the Catalyst with Shayle Kann podcast, hosted by Latitude Media, titled "The story of steam" was published on June 19, 2025 and runs 32 minutes.

June 19, 2025 ·32m · Catalyst with Shayle Kann

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Summary

Addison Stark thinks waste heat is a waste of time. The real opportunity, he argues, is decarbonizing industrial steam, which accounts for roughly 30% of industrial heat in the U.S. But doing that means deploying alternatives to the fossil fuel boilers industry currently relies on. So how do you clean up steam? And why does Addison think waste heat is overhyped? In this episode, Shayle talks with Addison Stark, the CEO — or as he likes to call himself, chief boiler maker — of industrial heat pump startup AtmosZero. They dive into topics like: The difference between saturated and superheated steam — and why it matters Why fuel dominates OpEx in steam generation, and how fuel types vary across regions How the cost of steam affects overall cost of delivered products Why resistive boilers reached maturity ahead of heat pumps Why standardized, air-source heat pumps are emerging as an attractive alternative to resistive boilers The role of thermal storage combined with renewable PPAs Why Addison thinks waste heat is a distraction for decarbonization Resources: Joule: To decarbonize industry, we must decarbonize heat The Green Blueprint: Rondo Energy’s complicated path to building heat batteries Catalyst: Solving the conundrum of industrial heat Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor. Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a platform enabling solar and storage developers and buyers to save time, reduce risk, and increase profits in their equipment selection process. Anza gives clients access to pricing, technical, and risk data plus tools that they’ve never had access to before. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude. 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.