[Episode #152] – No Limits

Aug 4 2021

Mini Episode

Are there fundamental limits to the energy transition that will slow it down, or prevent us from decarbonizing our energy systems? Critics and skeptics of the energy transition have pointed to issues like the problems of producing key minerals, or the costs of renewable energy, or path dependency in emerging economies. Some have questioned whether renewables resources even exist in sufficient quantities to displace the existing energy system, or whether there is enough land to site the requisite new wind and solar capacity.

In this show, we tackle these questions one by one, and explain why there are no fundamental limits that will bring the energy transition to a hard stop in the decades ahead. Quite the opposite, in fact. The safest assumption now is that renewables will continue to grow exponentially, and we should be thinking about the implications of that, rather than asking how the current system can struggle to persist. We’ll also explain why the transition will actually encourage economic growth, rather than restrict it.

Our guide for this discussion is Kingsmill Bond of the Carbon Tracker clean energy think tank based in London. We review several recent reports that he and his colleagues at Carbon Tracker have produced which specifically address these questions, and show how incredibly large our resources of renewable energy and key minerals really are. We’ll also discuss why emerging economies are more likely to leapfrog over the older conventional energy systems and go straight for the new technologies of the transition.

Finally, we share a number of exciting announcements about the future direction of this show and some new features we’re making available to annual subscribers!

Geek rating: 6

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[Episode #151] – Best of ETS Vol. 1

Jul 7 2021

Full Episode

We are taking a break from our usual podcast production schedule in July 2021 while Chris prepares to focus on Energy Transition Show full-time. In lieu of a regular interview, we are offering this lagniappe episode. Episode #151 is a compilation of nearly three hours of material that was previously available only to our paid subscribers, excerpted from five of our most popular conversations during the past two years.

We look forward to resuming our regular interview schedule in August, with a refreshed brand and some exciting new features for our members!

Guest #1: Dr. Glen Peters has been a Senior Researcher at the CICERO Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, Norway, for nearly ten years. His current research focuses on the causes of recent changes in carbon dioxide emission trends at the global and country level, and how these changes link to future emission pathways consistent with global climate objectives. He is particularly interested in how emission scenarios are created, interpreted, and used, and how this relates to ongoing policy discussions. He has a background in mathematics and physics.

On Twitter: @Peters_Glen
On the Web:

CICERO home page
Google Scholar page
Blog at CICERO

Guest #2: Dmitrii Bogdanov is a researcher and doctoral student at the Solar Economy Laboratory at LUT – the Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland. For the past 5 years he has worked on renewable energy systems and energy transition. His focus is on optimal transition pathways and the role of the emerging technologies (PtX, battery storage, HVDC, electric vehicles) and new concepts (prosumers, vehicle-to-grid) in energy transition. At the Solar Economy Laboratory, he is responsible for study methodology and model development, regional studies, and global studies along with his colleagues and their professor, Christian Breyer.

On the Web: Dmitrii’s page on ResearchGate

Guest #3: Mark Lewis is Head of Climate Change Investment Research at BNP Paribas Asset Management. Previously, he was Head of Research and Managing Director at Carbon Tracker, a non-profit company based in London which publishes research on the financial aspects of climate risk. Prior to Carbon Tracker, Mark was Managing Director and Head of European Utilities Research at Barclays (2015-18), Chief Energy Economist at Kepler Cheuvreux (2014-15), and Managing Director and Global Head of Energy Research at Deutsche Bank, where he worked for 14 years until 2013. In addition to his experience as a sell-side financial analyst, Mark spent one year as Deputy Head of investor relations at E.ON at the beginning of the Energiewende, and two years as a credit analyst covering the European utility sector at Standard & Poor’s. In total, Mark has over 20 years’ experience as a financial analyst covering global energy and environmental markets.

On Twitter: @MCL1965
On the Web: Mark’s page at BNP Paribas

Guest #4: Kingsmill Bond is the Energy Strategist for Carbon Tracker, a London-based clean energy think tank. He believes that the energy transition is the most important driver of financial markets and geopolitics in the modern era. Over a 25 year career as an equity analyst and strategist at institutions such as Deutsche Bank, Sberbank and Citibank, he has researched emerging markets, the shale revolution and the impact of US energy independence. At Carbon Tracker, he has written about the impact of the energy transition on financial markets, domestic politics and geopolitics, and authored a series of reports on the myths of the energy transition, looking at the many arguments made by incumbents to deny the reality of change.

On Twitter: @KingsmillBond

On the Web: Kingsmill’s page at Carbon Tracker

Guest #5: Jeffrey D. Sachs is a University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed the Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development. He has been advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

On the Web: jeffsachs.org

Geek rating: 5

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[Episode #150] – Resilient and Reliable Power

Jun 23 2021

Mini Episode

As areas like California and Texas struggle amid wildfires, extreme freezes, high winds and other challenges, and take measures to keep the lights on, it’s worth pausing to consider what “resilient” and “reliable” grid power means from the perspective of grid planning. What, specifically, should the operators of the bulk power system do to make their grids more reliable? Do wholesale power markets need to be reformed, to internalize the costs of power shutoffs and send price signals that project developers can respond to? How can new technologies, like demand response systems and microgrids, play new roles in making grids more resilient? And at an even more fundamental level… who is the grid for, anyway? Does the grid exist to serve people, or do people exist to serve the grid?

Energy Transition Show regular Lorenzo Kristov, a grid architect of over 20 years’ experience, has been thinking deeply about these questions and shares his thoughts with us in this episode. Inverting the usual logic of grid planning, he suggests that more active participation by customers and distributed energy resources can help improve both grid resilience and reliability, while democratizing grid power and grid governance. This thoughtful, heady interview will leave even veteran grid experts with more than a few new ideas to consider!

Geek rating: 9

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[Episode #149] – Green Hydrogen and Carbon Prices

Jun 9 2021

Mini Episode

We’ve all heard about the potential of “green” hydrogen — hydrogen produced from carbon-free sources — to help decarbonize the ways we use energy by making variable renewable power from wind and solar available on-demand. The European Union is counting on green hydrogen to meet its carbon reduction goals under the Paris Agreement.

But the cost of green hydrogen is still considerably higher than the “gray” hydrogen made using fossil fuels, which currently dominates global hydrogen use. If truly carbon-free green hydrogen is going to reach price parity with its dirtier cousins, two things need to happen: production costs must fall, and some form of carbon pricing will need to increase the price of gray hydrogen, leveling the playing field.

But what carbon price can serve this purpose, and how much will the cost of producing green hydrogen need to fall? And when do these repricings need to occur for Europe to achieve its carbon reduction goals under the Paris Agreement?

Our guest in this episode, Mark Lewis, Head of Climate Change Investment Research at BNP Paribas Asset Management in Paris, shares his answers to these questions with us, using the European Emissions Trading System (ETS) as a basis.

Also in this episode: We make several exciting announcements, including announcing that host Chris Nelder will now be working full time on the podcast!

Geek rating: 5

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[Episode #148] – Energy and Emissions after COVID

May 26 2021

Mini Episode

What trajectory of global energy consumption and carbon emissions can we expect as the world starts to recover from the COVID pandemic in the years ahead? Will we go right back to our activities and travel habits as they were before the pandemic? Or have structural changes already taken place that put us on a different path?

In this episode, we speak with the co-head of the World Energy Outlook series at the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), who helps design and direct the construction of their energy scenarios and their guidance to the world’s governments. We discuss three major reports that IEA has issued over the past six months on energy demand and emissions as a result of COVID, and have a look at how much energy demand dropped in 2020, how the fuel demand in various sectors and countries changed, and what the world might expect in 2021 and beyond.

Geek rating: 4

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[Episode #147] – Hydrogen Innovations and Applications

May 12 2021

Mini Episode

Hydrogen projects are under way around the world, and some of them are aiming to achieve real commercial scale. But tracking this rapidly-evolving sector is challenging, because it’s happening everywhere at once. So in this episode we build on the foundation we laid in Episodes #142 and #143, in which we surveyed the entire hydrogen sector, to focus in on some of the notable commercial projects that aim to expand hydrogen production and bring down its costs, as well as some potential applications for hydrogen. We also try to identify a bit more specifically where it has any clear advantages over other technologies.

With the help of senior hydrogen advisor Gniewomir Flis of Agora Energiewende, a German energy transition think-tank, this episode offers a look at some significant projects that are underway to expand green hydrogen production capacity, especially in Europe and the Middle East, as well as projects that aim to deploy hydrogen in everything from shipping to power generation.

Geek rating: 4

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[Episode #146] – Why Local Solar Costs Less

Apr 28 2021

Mini Episode

Conventional wisdom in the energy transition has long held that public investment should be directed toward utility-scale projects, because they’re cheaper than rooftop solar systems, kilowatt for kilowatt. Being cheaper, utility-scale systems would clearly deliver more bang for the buck.

Our returning guest in this episode, energy modeler Christopher Clack, says according to his recent modeling, the opposite is actually true — that investing more into local solar will deliver more public benefits than investing in utility-scale projects. And even more surprisingly, he says that building rooftop solar and distributed storage systems will actually result in more utility-scale solar as well, plus bring greater societal benefits such as more jobs, increased economic development, increased resilience, and more equitable access to the benefits of renewables. By modeling a dizzying set of factors simultaneously, Clack is able to show that combining many factors leads to synergistic effects that have been heretofore undiscovered in the literature… factors that we will attempt to describe in this extremely deep dive into energy modeling.

Geek rating: 9

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[Episode #145] – A Slow Take on the Texas Blackout

Apr 14 2021

Mini Episode

In the middle of February 2021, an Arctic cold front wreaked havoc on Texas, causing a blackout that plunged more than 4 million customers into darkness and cold during single-digit temperatures. The crisis led to the deaths of nearly 200 people and an estimated $50 billion changed hands, saddling millions of customers, including ones in neighboring states, with unexpected excess costs.

What happened in Texas is an incredibly complex story involving many factors, from a simple lack of weatherization, to flaws in the state’s electricity market structure, to failed governance. And untangling that story, and identifying ways to prevent such a crisis from ever happening again, is a complex task. To help us with it, we invited several Energy Transition Show alumni—journalist Russell Gold of the Wall Street Journal, professor Emily Grubert of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and legal scholar Ari Peskoe of Harvard Law School—to join us in a four-way conversation that explores all the angles.

Geek rating: 8

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[Episode #144] – Investing in Energy Transition

Mar 31 2021

Mini Episode

We have a very special guest for you in this episode: Jeremy Grantham, the legendary investor who co-founded GMO, a Boston-based institutional money management firm, more than 40 years ago. With more than $60 billion in assets under management, GMO has produced steady returns for its investors through market booms and busts, largely thanks to the steady hand of Grantham and his investing philosophy, which holds that sooner or later, most valuations return to the mean.

In this interview, we talked about Grantham’s investing philosophy; the history of investment bubbles; how he values investments; what’s happening in the markets as new retail traders using the Robinhood app and participating in Reddit-based trading groups drive stocks like Game Stop wild; what the Fed should do as the world recovers from the pandemic; his views on the massive expansion of the US national debt; how the world’s governments are responding to the challenge of climate change; the role of venture capital in energy transition; and his outlook for energy transition in general.

Geek rating: 5

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[Episode #143] – Hydrogen Economy 2.0 Part 2

Mar 17 2021

Mini Episode

This is part two of our three-hour interview with Dr. Simon Evans of Carbon Brief about their extensive survey of the developing hydrogen economy.

In part one of this interview, which we featured in Episode #142, we discussed the current expectations for the hydrogen economy, the various projections for hydrogen production and use; the different methods of producing hydrogen and the names we use to refer to them; the state of the global hydrogen business today; the potential roles that hydrogen might play in tackling climate change; and the questions around what hydrogen costs today and may cost in the future.

In this second part, we’ll talk about the various potential applications of hydrogen sector by sector and by use, and attempt to start sorting out where hydrogen might really have an edge, and where it might be just a potential application that might never become a commercial reality.

Geek rating: 3

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