Redefining Energy

At Cop26 was launched the Global Methane Pledge to catalyse action to reduce methane. The problem is that no one really knew how much methane leaked nor who emitted what. Even the emitters didn’t have a clear view of the problem. First came satellites, that provided a regional assessment of the problem. But they only solved a fraction of the equation. In order to get more granular and be able to p...

Geothermal has been around for decades and always considered part of the Energy Transition. Unfortunately, its development has been limited to very specific geographical location (US West Coast, Iceland, Japan, Philippines, Indonesia), basically the Ring of Fire. Those historical techniques, called “hydrothermal” have proven quite niche and, in the US, only represented 4GW of capacity or less than...

After a decade in obscurity, carbon offsets have resurrected in recent years as more companies are targeting net zero. Volumes and prices have picked up in 2021-22 to create a 2bn USD market that some institutions predict could rise to 50bnUSD by the end of the decade. But the market is non-regulated, very opaque and shrouded in incomprehensible jargon. Sounds familiar? Is carbon the new crypto? A...

As the growth of the EV market and Energy Storage continues unabated, we wanted to know what the current State of Play in the Battery industry is. In 2023, China dominates the Li_Ion battery market and its main companies, BYD and CATL are – alongside Tesla – blazing the trail of new technologies and performances. Are there options beyond Lithium? How much progress have the battery technologies rec...

Live from Brussels, on the 20th of June 2023, we were invited to interview Leonard Birnbaum. Since he came last on the show (Ep50), the whole Energy Sector has been through hell with Russia invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent near-death experience of 2022. Leonard Birnbaum is the CEO of the giant German Utility E.ON and also president of Eurelectric, the sector association which represents the...

Steel is essential for the equipment of the Energy Transition (Wind, EVs) but at the same time bears a very significant carbon footprint: 1.8tCO2/t steel. Pushed and/or incentivised by policies in the US and EU, the Steel industry must innovate to reduce its CO2 emissions which today represent 7%-8% of the world’s carbon dioxide. ArcelorMittal (the world biggest steel company outside China) is in...

What a pleasure, what an honor to have the original Energy Gang on our show to celebrate our 100th Episode. The wit of Katherine Hamilton and the laugh of Jigar Shah were our inspiration 5 years ago when we got drunk at the Red Lion pub near Piccadilly to launch our show. The “ambitious” business plan was to create a tiny European copycat of the Gang. 900k downloads later, this is where we are. Ka...

The electricity network is the bloodline of the economy. It is a very complex system, built over decades, with layers of technologies and it has to be reliable 24/7. We hardly talked about this network of wires and cables a few years back but now, in the context of the energy transition, it plays a critical role in solving the three main challenges: the three D’s – decarbonisation, decentralisatio...

How to optimise a fleet of hundreds of solar parks? And the work needs to start once the asset has been energised...and continue for decades. Plus, as with an iceberg, most of the work is below the surface. How to manage this complexity, what lessons can be learned from one territory to another? How are the teams trained? What is the impact of digital to optimise the economic performance? We have...

The Power Markets have been created thirty years ago to respond to the Energy Deregulation drive. They have recently faced crisis, such as the Ukraine Russia war or storm Yuri in Texas, with power prices going crazy and creating a lot of financial distresses for certain producers and consumers. Meanwhile, we see the development of renewables that increase the volatility and remove the traditional...

The Energy Storage Market, namely large-scale batteries, is the fastest growing segment of the Energy transition. Texas, UK, California, and Australia are witnessing phenomenal deployment rates. We are talking about annual growth of 30%-40%. As more and more infrastructure investors are either considering investing in Batteries, or have already started, we wanted to make a deep dive on how to mone...

Can we really go to Net Zero and keep energy secure and affordable with current policies, or do we need to make hard choices that politicians might not be willing to sustain over the long term? Are the new technologies going to save us or will have to rely on dirigiste policies to dampen the energy prices spikes and secure affordable power. What will it take to go net Zero? Are we too dependent on...

3 million heat pumps were installed in Europe in 2022 (up 38% year on year) with some markets going crazy (Poland went up 120%). The movement is not limited to Europe, as US annual sales rose above 4 million units for the first time in 2022 (more than gas boilers). As the deployment of heat pumps has reached an inflection point in 2022, we wanted to dig deep into the decarbonisation of heating. We...

The supply chains in renewables are a total mess. Security of Supply, Price fluctuations, Technological changes, ESG… Acquiring equipment on time and on budget is becoming a harder challenge by the day. How to fix the supply chain for renewables? We needed to bring a real professional on the show, and that’s Özer Ergül. Özer is Group Head of Procurement with Aquila Capital. Prior to joining Aquila...

We discovered Simon Moores, CEO of Benchmark Minerals Intelligence, on YouTube, during a legendary testimony during the US Senate in 2019. Simon just blew our mind, so it had been an ambition for this show to bring him on. And we did. With Simon, we analyse the whole supply chain of batteries, from mining (lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite) to refining, down to the Gigafactories. The battery indus...

Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) are private contracts between a producer of renewable energy and consumers. The PPA was developing consistently, mainly driven by Utilities. Then 2022 arrived and we witnessed an unprecedented volatility in PPA markets in Europe. What were the consequences of that turmoil on the PPA markets in terms of prices, tenures, counterparties? Did PPA provide good hedges to...

Everybody wants to buy 24/7 green electrons, but until recently, it has proven quite difficult. Most buyers of Green Energy are currently purchasing their electrons on a yearly basis, and furthermore with little regard for the location. At the same time, last century thinking has gripped regulators with frantic proposals of price caps and tentative market reforms around nodal pricing. This flurry...

Happy new year 2023 to all our listeners. In this Episode, it is Nostradamus vs. Cassandra all over again: Laurent and Gerard review their 2022 predictions (Episode 65) and look forward to the future. How accurate were our two co-hosts’ predictions for 2022? 1) The Energy Transition is not going to be a smooth ride 2) The Hydro and water crisis 3) The decade of geothermal 4) High Energy Prices 5)...

Another year of explosive growth for the Solar Industry: production above 300GW, +45% yoy. What’s behind this staggering growth? How are the supply chain evolving? What are the “Fab four” and what new technology are they pursuing? Why are the prices not going down? How can the development of ESG in supply chain be assessed? How will the industry look in 5 years? So many questions for this booming...

The biogas/biomethane industry is now one of the promising segments of the Energy Transition: security of supply, renewables sources, local jobs, round the clock dispatchability; the industry ticks all boxes. Biogas can basically be made from any organic material, so the three big sectors are: 1) agricultural wastes (manures and slurries, crop residues) 2) food waste (from the processed food indus...

Geopolitics and Climate disasters have shown how fragile Energy flows and infrastructures have become. Moving electrons or molecules is becoming an ever-greater challenge in the drive to decarbonisation, affordability, and security of supply. Politics are always in the background, and the recent US Midterms elections have signaled the end of a full Democrat Congress which has been very active in f...

The war in Ukraine has triggered a dislocation of Energy markets, especially in Europe. This has led to a point a few months ago when governments had to bail out all Utilities which were caught on the wrong side of Energy Trades. Trillions of derivatives threatened to trigger a “Lehman moment”. How did we get there? Are the Energy markets the culprits or just the symptoms? Are they beyond repairs...

Offshore Wind was one of the great development successes of the past decade, growing in 10 years from a few pilot projects to a real industry. Two zones have been at the fore front: the North Sea (with 30GW as of 2021) and China (with +20GW). Better tech, burgeoning supply chain and infrastructure, and a dramatic fall in cost have created tailwinds for this industry. Offshore Wind is now a technol...

Decarbonising the shipping industry seemed very aspirational until recently. Lofty goals are out there: “The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has set an ambition to reduce the carbon intensity of emissions from shipping by at least 40% by 2030, and 70% by 2050, compared with 2008 levels. To achieve this, the shipping industry needs to unite in taking urgent action.” While a lot of talks a...

In the past two years, we’ve seen a remarkable renaissance of the carbon markets. Some markets are of a “compliance” type - like in Europe - heavily regulated but limited in geography and scope; but there is limited prospect for an overall Cap & Trade worldwide as carbon markets were ignored in the US IRA - the largest Climate bill ever. So, what happens when a sector or a company is not covered b...