>>Narrator: How do I know which path is best for me?

Is it possible to take on these challenges and obstacles?

Where do I even start?

What should I do with my life?

Sometimes, the only way to find out is to go see what's possible Since 2001, we've been sharing the stories of people who ventured out and explored different career paths and different possibilities for their futures.

This is one of those stories.

This is Roadtrip Nation.

[MUSIC] >> Leila: We're at the end of our road trip and it's a little bit bittersweet.

>> David: It's gone by so fast.

>> Julia: I'm definitely excited to go home and relax a bit, but also been a great time and a good adventure.

And learning about different technologies here in New York City and seeing energy solutions here, I think that that's something that I'll take with me.

>> David: I think just hearing about all these different perspectives, I realize that there's a lot out there for me.

>> [MUSIC] >> David: I'm David Yang, I'm a senior at Columbia University studying computer science and sustainability, and I'm 21 years old.

I was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and then I moved to the St. Louis area when I was around seven.

It wasn't a really diverse place growing up.

My high school was predominantly white.

Me and my parents would go to this Chinese language school every Sunday, where it was kinda just this hub of the Chinese community in St. Louis.

I wasn't too enthusiastic about it then, but nowadays it's definitely a big priority of mine to get more in touch with my heritage and my cultural background.

Growing up, I didn't really have access to all these authentic Chinese food places to eat at.

And just in the city having all these places, a huge Chinatown and restaurants at every corner, it's an experience that I really value now.

Where I can just go out and there'll be food that my parents know how to make and that I ate growing up.

>> [MUSIC] >> David: My parents both studied geophysics in China before coming to America.

They would take me on hikes all the time, and they just talk to me about rocks.

And that really influenced my look on sustainability and the outdoors and the environment.

In high school, I did this research project, it was kind of in environmental science on sediment science.

That's kind of where I got a lot more interested in the environment and sustainability itself.

My dad was a really outdoorsy guy and I think that kinda rubbed off on me.

We would go fishing, hiking a lot.

It gave me this appreciation for the outdoors and nature.

Coming into college, I thought I was gonna major in math and econ and just fully sell out, but I took one math class and one econ class and hated [LAUGH] both of them.

When I kinda decided on computer science and sustainability, I didn't really have that much of an idea of what I wanted to do.

I really wanna think of ways that I can combine kinda my two interests of computer science and sustainability.

Something that I'm really passionate about is the climate crisis, and I guess it's good to see that my generation and young people that are around me really care about it as well.

But of course when you see the progress they're making, it's kinda harder to find that hope.

I think technology has this great ability to both contribute to and kind of do bad when it comes to the climate crisis.

So I think that's an open question that I'm hoping to get answered to see where the bleeding edge of a technology is taking us, where it can help us achieve sustainability.

And hopefully it'll help me figure out where I fit into everything as well.

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: So we went and we interviewed Revel, which I was pretty excited about.

Revel is a rideshare and moped company, but they have a tech platform that's an app.

And you can call a blue Tesla to come pick you up, or you can rent one of their mopeds to take for the day.

So they're kinda tackling this clean transportation space specifically within New York City's for right now, although it sounds like they are trying to expand.

>> [MUSIC] >> Tony: We have fleet of about 200 Teslas in New York City.

And then we have a couple of sites and more sites to come.

There's just a movement towards EVs, right?

Rideshare is one of the critical components of that, and there's this challenge that you need people to use it, otherwise it's not economical to install it.

But then consumers don't wanna buy EVs cuz it's difficult to charge.

So we saw this opportunity to kind of help solve for that, because basically, we could generate our own demand, and then we can get infrastructure into the ground.

So I think we're doing something that's pretty hard, so I'm pretty confident that's accelerating the pace of things.

And the more sites we get in the ground, then you're gonna have more consumers, cuz these are publicly available sites too.

So that means that as a consumer, I'll be more interested in like, I can just buy an EV now, and it won't be a giant pain in the butt to try and do this.

>> Leila: What made you wanna get into this field?

>> Tony: I went to a liberal arts school in Western Massachusetts called Hampshire College.

I started out in art and economics and then I migrated towards design.

Then I started doing economic history and then I ended on Chinese history.

I took two computer science classes in college, Java 101 and 102.

And I thought it was interesting, and my professor offered me a job at a game company.

And in the end, I decided I would do this gaming thing, and that's where I actually learned how to code.

From there, I started my own company, and then I got to learn a lot in that context as well and try out different things.

And that kinda just continued to deepen my understanding in the computer science world.

After that, I worked at a well-funded startup, and that's where I really got to learn more of the organizational skills and sort of best practice-type stuff, working with other software engineers who are well versed in the industry.

I think working in startups, you generally have to do a lot of different things.

And as the company grows, your needs will shift over time.

But I think that progression there is all about taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves and not view things as setbacks, or you went the wrong direction.

Just figure out what it is that you wanna do next and then how can you bring all of what you have with you.

Generally in my career, I've gone after companies that are somewhat mission-focused.

And when I met the folks at Revel, I was really excited with what I saw in them.

I saw that combination of like, hey, we have product-market fit, we have a pretty interesting product.

I saw the leadership team cared about people.

They cared about the environment in a way that was attractive to me, but that impact was there.

We were able to raise capital, we were able to launch this market.

You need both together to really have it >> David: For those who are sustainability-minded and in the clean energy space like us, do you have hope in the tech industry for the giants of the industry to make that shift?

Or do you think it's gonna be up to smaller companies, market disruptors like Revel, to make that change?

>> Tony: I think often the use case needs to be proven.

So for instance, I would say, whatever Tesla's challenges may be, they did make electric vehicles attractive to consumer market.

None of the large incumbents really made that transition on their own.

So I think there are things that need a small company to kinda prove that it's working, but larger companies are going to follow what they see as proven business models.

I think in general, there is this momentum.

There's a ton of capital moving into the space, like the energy universe is very exciting for where people wanna put their money.

Everyone sees the global trend, so they wanna get ahead of that.

So I think naturally, all of these systems are gonna move in that direction.

So I do have hope around the movement towards more sustainable energy sources.

>> [MUSIC] >> David: Talking to Tony Lee was awesome.

He talked about this idea of having a mission in your work, and I really resonate with that.

I think believing in the work that you're doing is really important.

>> Julia: I found it pretty surprising that he was the chief technology officer and hadn't really started in a tech background.

>> [MUSIC] >> David: Hearing about people's nontraditional paths to where they're at now that gives me confidence that I can be involved in like whatever I want to be in the future.

>> Julia: We decided that we should probably make sure that their mopeds actually work, and it would be an understatement to say that I enjoyed it.

I shot through the roof, basically, something was released within me.

>> Leila: Yeah!

>> David: Let's go!

>> Leila: Go, go, go, go!

>> David: I know Julia had plenty of fun, speed racing all around the parking lot.

Careful, you're gonna get a speeding ticket.

One day I'll be there with her.

[LAUGH] >> Julia: David might have some work to do in terms of the bike riding category.

>> David: [LAUGH] >> Julia: But I was so happy to take Leila and David on my joy ride.

>> Leila: The scooters were dope, riding on the back of the moped with Julia felt so safe.

[LAUGH] >> [MUSIC] >> David: Jennifer Garvey, head of New York Market Strategy at Ørsted, is the development manager for Long Island where she leads the company's public affairs, community relations, and stakeholder engagement operations.

>> Jennifer: I work in renewable energy, specifically offshore wind.

I'm part of the development team.

I lead a lot of our stakeholder engagement, and support the permitting efforts that occurs before projects are built.

Also the bidding process and the effort in trying to create wind awards for additional projects.

It's New York's first offshore wind project, that's the project that I came to work on.

And so that was in 2017, and here we are five years later, and now it's being built.

So here we're looking at the lift boat Jill, and she's working to support an effort that's happening underground.

She's part of the effort to do the horizontal directional drilling, which is how we set the submarine cable deep underneath the near shore in the beach.

And so there's some equipment on land, and that drill will start about 500 feet back in the road.

And then drill deep underneath the road, underneath the beach, underneath the near shore area, and come up just in front of that vessel.

So it's about a third of a mile offshore, and then we'll pull a plastic conduit pipe through the hole that's created.

And then the big vessel with the submarine cable will arrive all coiled up on the back, and then the cable itself will be pulled through that path, through that conduit sleeve.

And basically we do it this way to make sure that the cable will be protected from exposure, from wave action.

>> David: I'd love to hear about that experience, beginning on a project five years ago and now seeing it built.

What's that been like?

>> Jennifer: Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

We started with outreach here in the community of East Hampton, where we knew we had to bring our power ashore.

The turbines for South Fork Wind are located about 35 miles east of Montauk, which is the most eastern part of Long Island.

The other fixed point for our project is the place where we needed to connect our power to the grid which is called the point of interconnection.

Our job is to figure out how to get from the offshore wind lease area where turbines will be, to the grid.

And to figure out what is the sort of least impactful way to do that from an environmental perspective, from a community perspective.

And so that's what we spent years doing is kind of talking to the community, thinking about what was the best way to sort of navigate through the community of East Hampton.

We've chosen technologies that allow us to really avoid disrupting treasured parts of the community like the beach.

The big rig that you saw today, obviously is part of that effort to make sure that we can tunnel under the beach without disturbing its surface.

It becomes a temporary construction footprint, but ultimately for a very short time.

And then once we're finished, you really won't see that we've been there.

There'll be newly restored roads and some manhole covers and that's it.. >> Leila: Environmental science can be pretty depressing sometimes.

It can sometimes feel like there's not really much to do.

What gives you hope about the future environmentally?

>> Jennifer: I mean, look at what we've already fixed.

I mean, if you look at it, the Hudson used to be incredibly polluted, and we fixed that.

Technology and just our ability to think of new and better solutions for how we do day-to-day things, I mean, think about how our homes, our appliances have become more efficient.

We've solved a lot of problems already, and when you hang around with people who are good at solving problems, it gives you hope.

It's a great thing to work on topics and on projects that you're passionate about.

Obviously you have great backgrounds that kind of lend themselves to working in the environment, but there's a lot of different ways in.

We have a real need for diverse skill sets, different backgrounds, different perspectives, and it just all contributes to connecting the dots and putting interdisciplinary teams together.

Pairing someone who's great with writing and communication with someone who's great at science and math.

Even better things happen, when you combine skill sets.

And so, there's definitely a place for everyone, in renewable energy, certainly in offshore wind as well.

And so I'm quite sure that we can think our way through things, but we have to will it, too.

I mean, you also have to do your part.

I have solar panels in my house, that was important to me.

You have to tell stories around the importance of doing this so that people are willing to take take action themselves.

I think that is a big challenge that we have.

Sometimes you can be spoiled by your comforts.

If you're not facing a problem head on, it's a little harder to take it seriously on the day to day and find meaningful ways to have impact, but that's something worth thinking about.

And just reading up and staying connected to ways that you can help even in small ways, or can be ways in the case of offshore wind.

>> Julia: I liked a lot that Jen was working on environmental issues related to a place that she cared about a lot.

She grew up on Long Island, and I felt that she also kind of had a matter of fact way of speaking about offshore wind.

There's a massive effort that goes into making this a viable solution for New York, and all up and down Eastern seaboard.

And there's just so many jobs that are being created that will need to be filled.

>> David: I, coming in, thought that offshore wind was already this really dated and old technology.

So to hear that it's just getting started and that there's so much potential for it for New York State, and for clean energy in general, was really awesome.

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: It's the last day of the trip and feels bittersweet.

We ventured up to the Bronx and got to talk to Adam Cohen of NineDot Energy.

>> Adam: We have a battery energy storage system, and a solar panel array here.

I'm gonna talk about what it does and why it helps the power grid.

NineDot is a community clean energy developer based here in New York City.

We develop projects that make the grid more reliable, more resilient, cleaner, and more affordable.

Actually, the story of NineDot starts with a road trip and led to New York City.

So my wife and I got married in 2015, and we're thinking, what's next?

And my wife and I decided we would take a time.

We actually built out our little Honda Element with a bedding system and all the stuff we needed, and we decided to just visit national parks.

And we would stop at cafes and libraries, and in our tents take out our laptops.

I'll be doing the data analytics, and we'd be doing the research to what led to NineDot Energy.

So we were born on the road and over a 16-month journey, we learned about what the policies, and the programs, and the opportunities were in New York.

And so we ended up taking the few possessions we still had in Washington DC, and myself and my co-founder David and Rebecca, my wife, moved to New York City.

And we started the types of projects we're doing now.

Our business started thinking about actually how do we get more solar on people's rooftops?

We're gonna do analytics to understand how do we make it so that the end consumer, who lives in a single family home, can put solar panels on their rooftop?

And always be good for the planet, but then also be good for their wallet.

People have been adopting solar for a decade in the United States, and for the most part they sign some contracts that say, I'll pay this much in year one.

I'll pay this much in year two, I'll pay this much in year three.

And it's not at all tied to what you would have paid otherwise.

And so we were gonna do is develop a financial model or we said, let's always index the cost of the electricity from my own rooftop to what I would have paid to my electric provider anyway.

And then we started bringing this model to solar companies.

Do you wanna sell this financial model?

And it turns out it wasn't the right time for that business.

Some of the solar companies were pretty happy with what they were selling.

They were doing all right.

And so, that original business led to us really getting a deep understanding of how utility rates work.

And when we decided to pivot and look at community energy and look at the the types of things we're doing now.

It gave us this guidance that I think has led to everything that we were able to do.

And so now when we build a project, it all ties back to this utility tariff, these utility rates.

And we have this deep understanding of not just what it is today, but what it's looked like for decades and decades in the past.

And we have these insights of how it could change in a year from now and five years from now, and ten years from now?

And so, it wasn't wasted time, understanding the utility rates, it was really what led to what we're doing.

>> Leila: Can you talk about how important it is to have things like this in big cities?

>> Adam: Yeah, so peaker power plants are really dirty.

And they've been operating the same way for decades and decades.

And if you were a regulator making decisions in 1960, about where should you put this new peaker power plant.

Unfortunately, they made decisions to put them in the poor Black and Brown communities.

And by shutting these power plants down, turning to battery energy storage and clean energy, we're making an impact on asthma rates and health rates and what's in people's communities.

And so it's such an important part of what we do.

The decisions we're making today, they're gonna stay with us in 2032, but also 2062 and 2072.

We're making these long-term decisions, we have the opportunity to get it right this time.

And so, I think that there's sort of these local benefits, sort of making this local power grid more resilient.

There's these global benefits about having more clean energy.

But there's also these decisions about communities and people that should go into these decisions about what we're doing.

>> Julia: Do you have any advice for young people like us?

Just kind of embarking on their paths.

>> Adam: Ask questions, ask questions of people you don't know, ask questions of people you do know, people are so willing to give their thoughts.

It could be your professors at school.

It could be the people who run a big clean energy company.

People wanna give their two cents, they wanna give their ideas, and when I got started, I asked.

The other thing I'll say is that no matter what you're interested in academically, you can help support this system.

We don't just need science.

We don't just need engineering.

We need all the trades.

We need all hands on deck.

We need people from the social sciences.

We need people who work with their hands.

We need people who are building things, we need people who are gonna fund this, we need people at banks and we need people in governments.

They all need to be part of this global transition.

No matter where your passions lie in terms of your career, there's a path to being part of this revolution.

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: It was really cool to hear Adam's commitment to figuring out how all this utility data kind of fits together and how you can work on some sort of solution.

It sounds like it evolved a lot.

Every aspect of his research that maybe didn't go somewhere, it seemed like it contributed to this end result.

And that was also exciting to hear.

>> David: Adam kind of mentioned and focused on what his systems will look like 60 years into the future, and just that emphasis on future-minded thinking, it was really good to hear about how our actions today will have consequences into the future.

Maybe if people thought that way 60 years before the present day, we wouldn't be in this situation we find ourselves in today.

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: So, I would say that we closed out our trip with something pretty crazy.

We were able to climb the side of a skyscraper.

>> Guide: Everybody go ahead and give me a wave.

All right, hello.

>> Leila: You're connected to the building and you climb up this flight of stairs and then you lean over the side.

>> David: We went right when the sunset was happening, and so the view was perfect.

My face was sore after from how much I was smiling.

>> Leila: David was so excited [LAUGH].

>> Speaker 7: Perfect, wow man, I just blinked and you are out there, man.

>> Leila: He was like so happy.

I've never seen that man so happy [LAUGH].

>> David: We're ready.

>> Guide: Ready.

>> David: Yeah.

>> Leila: Julia was beyond nervous.

>> Julia: They had us lean out of the building, which I truthfully could have done without.

But, you know, I did it, it's done.

I don't have to do it again [LAUGH].

But it was really fun, I'm really glad I could do it with David and Leila, and I think we'll remember that for always.

>> David: It being the last thing that we got to do with each other, it was kinda just this picture-perfect moment where you get this bird's eye view of everything that we've been learning about.

>> Julia: It felt like a moment of excitement for the future and a moment of closure.

And what a special moment to share.

>> David: I think that's actually been one of my favorite parts of the trip, is learning more about Leila and Julia.

We all come from such different backgrounds.

We all grew up in way different circumstances across the country.

It's been so great hearing their perspectives and their experiences, and just growing and learning together.

>> Julia: I'm looking forward to taking some of the stuff I've learned from this trip back to my life.

I've learned some solid new things about clean energy and technologies and things I'm excited about.

>> Leila: Coming into this trip, I thought that there wasn't gonna be much space for me in the environmental and sustainability field.

But I found that there are places for people like me.

Because the world is just so big.

>> David: Coming in, I was still in that phase of not knowing what I was gonna do, whether I should go to grad school or just go straight into the workforce.

This trip has taught me that I shouldn't be afraid of making that decision now.

There's plenty of time for me to learn and grow and find my place in the world.

>> Julia: I think that looking on the road map of my life, how I got to clean energy, has just been taking opportunities and just going with it.

I think I will stay in clean energy.

There's so much out there and the people you're surrounded with make things exciting and makes things worthwhile.

>> Leila: It can be pretty hard to kind of unlearn all of the negative things that you got from, whether it's your parents or school or anything like that.

But once you are surrounded by people who encourage you to believe in yourself and not compare yourself, it'll just make the quality of life so much better.

>> David: My final word of advice is just to be bold and seek out opportunities.

Even this trip for me is something that I would never have imagined myself doing and this experience has been so amazing.

While on this trip, I've been able to line up a job actually.

And I think going through the trip has taught me that I shouldn't be afraid to just take the opportunity, and that it's okay to not know where I'm gonna go from there because I have plenty of time.

It's my first job out of college and that's something we heard from the leaders too, is to not be afraid of taking risks and dreaming big.

>> [MUSIC] Wondering what to do with your life?

Well we've been there and we're here to help Our website has some awesome tools to help you find your path And you can check out all our documentaries, interviews and more Start exploring at roadtripnation.com