Financing the Energy Transition

Jonah Allen

Lead Researcher, Energy Transition Value Chains

Jonah is a Lead Researcher in Energy Transition Value Chains at the Jain Family Institute and a third-year Ph.D. student in Mineral and Energy Economics at the Colorado School of Mines, where he researches water policy, energy markets, and sustainable finance. He previously obtained his B.S. in Environmental Studies and certificate in Technology Business Management from UC Santa Barbara, where he focused coursework on renewable energy deployment, water management, and the energy-water nexus. In his senior thesis he studied the potential for industrial-scale remediation of contaminated brownfield sites using white-rot fungi.

As an undergraduate, Jonah complemented his coursework with internships in data analysis for a water management district, market research for software company in renewable energy, and project management for a renewable technology innovation hub. Before beginning the Ph.D. at Mines, Jonah spent two years managing finance and operations for a small residential construction company in his hometown of San Francisco.

Related Publication Series

Financing the Energy Transition

This series presents at investors and policymakers with a high-level picture of the factors influencing the financing and bankability of green technologies in the United States. For each technology -- including nuclear, solar, wind, hydrogen, long duration energy storage, carbon capture, and industrial decarbonization -- our team of data analysts and market experts conducts in-depth interviews with investors and scholars to ground sector-specific levelized cost models. These models, in turn, allow us to capture the key sensitivities governing each technology's cost profile and identify the most important levers for optimizing their financial viability. With these reports, we aim to equip decisionmakers, on both the investment and the policy sides, with the insights they need in order to make informed decisions that will accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Mineral Wealth and Electrification

The energy transition represents a significant opportunity for countries producing the materials critical to electrification. In this series, we look at eight such materials: aluminum, cobalt, copper, natural graphite, iron, lithium, manganese, and nickel. As demand for so-called “critical minerals” grows, producer countries must develop robust strategies for effective value capture to transform a temporary windfall into an opportunity to grow shared wealth and climb the value chain. Doing so demands both institutional capacity and political will.