Energy Gang

Host Ed Crooks brings you the second of two special episodes recorded live from Wood Mackenzie’s Hydrogen Conference. In the rapidly changing energy landscape, hydrogen has become a hot topic. For some, it represents a beacon of potential for meeting global net-zero ambitions. For others, it is a costly and ineffective blind alley. As the clean energy transition advances, hydrogen has seen a surge...

Host Ed Crooks brings you the first of two special episodes recorded live from Wood Mackenzie’s Hydrogen Conference Industry leaders and energy analysts gathered recently for the second annual Wood Mackenzie Hydrogen Conference, where they debated the potential of hydrogen in the global energy mix. Join host Ed Crooks in the first of two special episodes from the conference, with part two coming o...

What’s Next for US Energy Policy? As part of Climate Week in New York, The Energy Gang recorded a special edition in partnership with New York University: an expert panel discussing the future direction of US climate policy and its implications for the energy transition. Amy Myers Jaffe, a regular contributor to The Energy Gang and director of the Energy, Climate, Justice, and Sustainability Lab a...

Direct air capture and carbon sequestration – is it viable, and scalable? The U.S. Department of Energy announced in late August that it would be investing $1.2 billion in two direct air capture or DAC facilities. Direct air capture technology, which uses either chemical media (such as a liquid solvent or solid sorbents) or physical processes involving filters to remove C02 directly from the atmos...

It’s a little over a year since the US Inflation Reduction Act was passed into law. Solar was one of the main beneficiaries, thanks to an extension and expansion of the tax credits available to the industry. So why has the sector fallen out of favour with investors recently? August was a difficult month for the markets in general, but companies including First Solar, Sunrun, Sunpower and Sunnova (...

On the last Energy Gang we looked at the impact of record temperatures on the energy sector. This week, we discuss another impact of climate change: its effect on human psychology. We discuss how the way we talk about global warming affects how we respond to it. A recent study in the journal Global Environmental Change argued that scientists and media organizations need to rethink the way they tal...

New challenges for our power supplies in a warming world. Global temperatures have been breaking records this summer. On some estimates, the earth is the hottest that it has been for about 125,000 years. In Phoenix, Arizona, temperatures have consistently reached over 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and people are being hospitalized with severe burns after falling on the ground. The heat is bringing other...

Bidenomics’ is the new buzzword that the US administration is using to brand its industrial strategy. What does it mean for energy in the US, and around the world? Last week, President Joe Biden spoke in South Carolina about his economic vision: a strategy that he is calling “Bidenomics”, with the energy transition is right at the heart of it. By “turning the climate crisis into an opportunity”, t...

This year’s climate talks have already drawn widespread criticism. Can they make progress? COP28, this year’s Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is still five months away, but the discussion around it is already intense. The conference is being held in Dubai, a choice that has drawn criticism because the United Arab Emirates is one of the world’...

The north-eastern US has taken on a post-apocalyptic appearance recently, blanketed by smoke from wildfires in Canada. Host Ed Crooks and regular guest Melissa Lott, Director of Research at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, are both based in New York and saw first-hand the extent of the fires that have been burning in Quebec. In recent years we have seen huge fires up and down...

More money will be invested this year in the solar industry than in oil production.  So said Faith Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, last week. Amy Harder, executive editor of Cipher, attended the Cleanpower 2023 event in New Orleans and experienced at first-hand what it means for the Big Green energy industry to be rivalling the scale of Big Oil. The event has bee...

The excitement around ChatGPT and other large language models has put AI firmly in the spotlight in recent months. Public perception is that we’re entering a new age of AI; it is a brand-new technology that promises to change our lives. In the world of energy, though, AI is not a new concept. GE was developing its AI capabilities more than a decade ago. BP invested in an AI company in 2017 to supp...

On the Energy Gang this week, Ed Crooks is joined by Dr. Melissa Lott, the Director of Research at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, and Amy Duffuor, who is a General Partner at Azolla Ventures, a climate-focused investment firm.   In this week’s episode, the gang start of by discussing the recent outcry over the possible impact of offshore wind development on wh...

It’s a special edition of the Energy Gang this week. New York University’s 2040 Now event is an initiative focused on addressing the challenges posed by climate change, and this week the Energy Gang joined in. As part of the week of exercises, talks, exhibitions and discussions, regular Energy Gang member Amy Myers-Jaffe led a workshop on building energy transition scenarios, looking for ways to d...

Alternative sources of power are moving into the spotlight. As the share of dispatchable power in our electricity system declines, with coal-fired plants giving way to variable wind and solar, maintaining reliable supplies to keep the lights on becomes more complex. Investment in wind and solar is still vital for making progress towards net zero emissions, but other sources of low-carbon power are...

It has been a turbulent month in the financial sector, which could have big implications for the world of energy. Mobilising capital is vital for achieving international goals to curb greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of global warming. As the global banking system shudders from the blow of Silicon Valley Bank collapsing, is long-term climate investment being pushed further to t...

Will permitting reforms make it easier to build infrastructure projects? A group called the REPEAT Project at Princeton University calculated last year that to unlock the full emissions reduction potential of the Inflation Reduction Act, the US needed to increase its total high-voltage transmission capacity by about 2.3% a year. That is more than double the pace achieved over the past decade. In W...

The energy industry influences climate change, and climate change also influences the energy industry. Understanding the consequences of a warming world is essential for making the right decisions as trillions of dollars are invested in energy production around the world. While we work to mitigate climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions, we also need to adapt to the changes that we cann...

The US Clean Energy Boom: What Might Stop It? The US Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden last August, has transformed the outlook for low-carbon energy in the US, because of the array of tax credits and other policy support that has been put in place. Over at Wood Mackenzie we do regular forecasts for the outlook for renewable energy investment in the US and as a result...

What’s led the world to restart the stalled atomic engine? 2022 was a year of important milestones for nuclear power. The most significant piece of climate legislation in US history – the IRA – included tax incentives and investment for the nuclear industry. A $15 per megawatt-hour tax credit for production to keep existing plants competitive, as well as $700 million to build a domestic supply cha...

The Energy Gang is back. We’re only a couple of weeks into the new year but already so much has happened.   A mild winter so far in Europe has sent wholesale gas prices falling, but there’s still a long way to go. Natural gas is expected to trade at 77.11 Euros per MWh by the end of the quarter, down to pre-Ukraine war levels. With prices down 50% since the December peak, what is that going t...

2022 has been a very eventful year in the world of energy. From January to December there has been an ongoing war, a European energy crisis, billions of dollars in funding for clean energy in the US and a Twitter takeover.  It’s the last episode of the year so we’re bringing you a special edition of the Energy Gang. Join host Ed Crooks and recurring Energy Gang guests, Amy Harder of Cipher, a...

The year is quickly coming to a close and there’s a lot going on in the world of energy.  On this episode of the Energy Gang, host Ed Crooks is joined for the first time by Jackie Forrest of the ARC Energy Research Institute and returning guest Robbie Orvis of Energy Innovation. The gang starts off the discussion by answering the question, what does a split US Congress mean for the energy tra...

The COP27 climate talks have been held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. It’s a popular tourist destination, but the negotiators discussing ways to limit global warming and to address the harm done by climate change have not been able to relax. The talks have been pretty hard going. Recurring Energy Gang guests Melissa Lott of Columbia University, and Amy Myers-Jaffe, who has just got a ne...

With just a few days until world leaders and policy makers meet in Egypt for COP27, two returning Energy Gang members join host Ed Crooks to discuss what is expected from the latest round of international climate talks. As the UN warns that there is “no credible pathway” in place to limit global warming to 1.5  ° C, arguments about climate justice are rising up the ag...