Dr. Clea Kolster

Director of Science, Lowercarbon Capital

Clea is the Director of Science at Lowercarbon Capital and leads the firm’s technical research, diligence, and scientific strategy efforts. Clea’s career has always been focused on solving the climate emergency through innovation in technology, business models, and policy. Prior to joining Lowercarbon, she worked at San Francisco-based energy consulting firm, E3, where she developed electricity resource planning models and economy-wide decarbonization plans for state agencies like the California Air Resources Board, utilities, and asset owners like Calpine, with a focus on the role of emerging technologies like long-duration energy storage, carbon removal, geothermal and advanced nuclear. Clea earned her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Imperial College London part of which she conducted at Stanford University’s Energy Resources & Engineering department. Her work focused on the techno-economics of large-scale carbon capture and storage systems. Clea sits on the technical advisory board of Third Derivative, a climate innovation accelerator founded by the Rocky Mountain Institute.