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Topic: Hydrogen

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[Episode #252] – Steelmaking in the Mid-Transition

Jun 18 2025

Mini Episode

On April 12, the British government took control of British Steel under an emergency authorization in order to prevent its last blast furnace from shutting down. Blast furnaces produce primary steel from iron ore and account for about 93% of global primary iron production, but they also generate large amounts of CO2. Alternative, low-carbon technologies are expected to replace them as the energy transition proceeds.

But retiring a technology—especially one as critical to national security as steelmaking—and replacing it with another is a process that should be conducted carefully and deliberately…not on an emergency basis.

This kind of "mid-transition" problem is one our guests have studied in depth. Emily Grubert is an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame who previously joined us in Episode #185 to discuss the mid-transition. Joshua Lappen is a historian and engineer working as a postdoctoral research associate with Emily at Notre Dame.

In this conversation, we review the facts of the British Steel takeover, including why letting the blast furnace shut down was deemed to be an unacceptable risk. We examine the options for decarbonizing steelmaking that will eventually displace blast furnace technology. And we consider what impact Trump's global tariff war may have on the transitioning of steelmaking, and what some of the geopolitical implications of that may be for the steel industry in Britain, and the world.

Guest #1:

Emily Grubert is a civil engineer and environmental sociologist who studies how we can make better decisions about large infrastructure systems, particularly related to decarbonization of the US energy system. Specifically, she studies socioenvironmental impacts associated with future policy and infrastructure and how community and societal priorities can be better incorporated into multicriteria policy and project decisions. Grubert is an Associate Professor of Sustainable Energy Policy and, concurrently, of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame.

On Twitter: @emilygrubert

On the Web: emilygrubert.org

Guest #2:

Josh Lappen is a historian and engineer who studies the growth, collapse, and political economy of infrastructure. In particular, his research focuses on how energy networks shape and are shaped by local environments and political institutions – entanglements that can suggest ways to better manage those systems for just and rapid decarbonization. Josh completed his PhD at the University of Oxford, and is currently a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Notre Dame.

On Bluesky: @jlappen1.bsky.social

On the Web:  https://pulte.nd.edu/people/faculty-staff/josh-lappen/

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-lappen-9a3a76112/

Geek rating: 7

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[Episode #242] – IEA Outlook 2025

Jan 29 2025

Mini Episode

What important trends are shaping the energy transition today? And what is the outlook for oil and gas demand?

In this conversation, Tim Gould of the International Energy Agency (IEA) returns to discuss key insights from the agency’s flagship annual report, the World Energy Outlook 2024. We consider the enormous implications of IEA’s view that global demand for all fossil fuels will peak and begin a slow decline within the next five years. To explore this, we take a closer look at the state of the oil and gas industry, comparing its expectations to what climate science and energy system modeling tell us about the future of fossil fuels. We also consider how the energy transition could reduce overall demand for fossil fuels, creating excess supply imbalances that reshape global markets and trade geopolitics.

Our discussion also touches on the IEA’s forecast that low-emission electricity sources like solar, wind, and nuclear will account for more than half of global power generation before 2030. Further, we explore the rising energy demand from data centers, shifting expectations for hydrogen, and the investments needed to keep clean energy growing at a pace that meets our climate targets.

Guest:

Tim Gould is co-head of the World Energy Outlook series at the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA). He designs and directs the work together with the IEA’s Chief Energy Modeller and contributes to the Outlook as a principal author. He also oversees the Agency’s analysis of energy investment and finance, including the World Energy Investment series. Tim has been at the IEA since 2008, and joined initially as a specialist on Russian and Caspian energy before going across to join the World Energy Outlook team under the (then) Chief Economist, Fatih Birol, who is now the IEA’s Executive Director. Before IEA, he worked on European and Eurasian energy issues in Brussels and also spent ten years working in Eastern Europe, primarily in Ukraine. He studied at Oxford University and Johns Hopkins SAIS.

On Twitter: @tim_gould_

On the Web:  http://www.iea.org

Geek rating: 7

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[Episode #241] – Evolving the UK Energy System Part 2

Jan 15 2025

Mini Episode

This episode is the second in a miniseries about how the UK is transforming its energy system. If you missed Part One, featuring Adam Berman discussing the UK’s decarbonization progress, you can find it here.

In this conversation, Luke Ames Blackaby from Ofgem, the UK’s electricity and gas regulator, joins us to discuss how the agency is supporting technology development to meet the UK’s 2030 clean power and 2050 full decarbonization targets.

We explore a wide range of critical topics, including flexible electricity tariffs, cost-effective expansion of the transmission system for renewable energy, and adapting gas networks for hydrogen. Additionally, we cover integrating heat networks, leveraging electrified rail as a flexible demand asset, and using storage to manage variable renewable generation. Finally, we examine how regulations can evolve to accommodate emerging technologies like demand flexibility and optimize existing infrastructure.

Guest:

Luke Ames Blackaby is the Head of Ofgem’s Innovation Hub. The Innovation Hub is responsible for delivering Ofgem’s innovation support services, in the form of a regulatory sandboxes and bespoke advice to innovators, and for managing the delivery of Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF). The Hub is also leading on the policy development for network innovation within RIIO-3, the price control setting process for gas distribution, and gas and electricity transmission, licensees for 2026-31.

On the Web: Ofgem Innovation Hub

Geek rating: 7

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[Episode #236] – Zero Carbon Industry

Nov 6 2024

Mini Episode

The energy transition is making good progress on several fronts. Renewables are displacing fossil fueled electricity generation. Heat pumps are decarbonizing space heating. Electric vehicles of all sizes are replacing oil-powered cars.

But the world's industrial decarbonization is really just getting started. Industry generates roughly one-third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, so solutions for this sector are critical for the energy transition.

We have made faster progress in decarbonizing electricity, transportation, and heating because it’s easier to replace a handful of dirty technologies with clean alternatives. Decarbonizing industry, however, is a far more complex task, involving thousands of materials, processes, and end products. That’s why they used to be called “hard-to-decarbonize” sectors.

Fortunately, there are clear starting points. More than half of industrial emissions come from steel, cement, and chemicals—which we know how to decarbonize. And there are solutions on the horizon for the rest of industry too.

In this conversation, Jeffrey Rissman, Senior Director of Industry at the San Francisco based think-tank Energy Innovation, walks us through each of the industrial sectors and the solutions for each one. Jeff is the author of a recent book titled Zero-Carbon Industry: Transformative Technologies and Policies to Achieve Sustainable Prosperity, and after listening to this episode, you’ll know just about everything you need to know about industrial decarbonization.

Guest:

Jeffrey Rissman is Senior Director of Industry at Energy Innovation, where he leads the company’s work on technologies and policies to eliminate industrial greenhouse gas emissions. He is the author of Zero-Carbon Industry: Transformative Technologies and Policies to Achieve Sustainable Prosperity (2024) and coauthor of Designing Climate Solutions: A Policy Guide for Low-Carbon Energy (2018). In 2024, Jeffrey was appointed by Sec. Jennifer Granholm to serve on the Department of Energy’s Industrial Technology Innovation Advisory Committee.

Jeff is also the creator of the Energy Policy Simulator, an open-source computer model that quantifies the effects of various energy and environmental policies in combination, predicting outputs such as fuel use, pollutant emissions, financial cost or savings, electric vehicle deployment, power sector structure, and more. Versions of the simulator have been developed for an ever-growing list of countries and regions, in partnership with in-country government agencies or NGOs, accounting for more than 60 percent of the world’s emissions.

Previously, Jeff worked on policies supporting R&D for clean energy and efficiency technologies for the American Energy Innovation Council, where he led a survey of 17 R&D leaders investigating trends, opportunities, and challenges to unleashing private sector energy R&D.

Jeff holds an M.S. in Environmental Sciences and Engineering and a Masters in City and Regional Planning, both from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was a Research Fellow for the University of North Carolina Institute for the Environment, where he studied aircraft emissions for the Federal Aviation Administration. Jeff also holds a B.A. in International Relations with honors from Stanford University.

On the Web:  https://www.jeffreyrissman.com

Geek rating: 9

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[Episode #235] – China, India and Australia 2024 Update

Oct 16 2024

Mini Episode

The energy transition in China is a complex picture. China is both the world's largest annual greenhouse gas emitter and the largest market for electric vehicles. It’s the largest user of coal, and it deploys more wind and solar every year than the rest of the world combined. It’s both the largest worry in terms of rising CO2 concentrations, and the biggest hope for curbing emissions.

But in syndicated media, this complex reality tends to be boiled down to old tropes, generalized and unhelpful characterizations, and correct but irrelevant data, instead of any useful context and synthesis.

So you might be forgiven for not knowing that power sector emissions in China actually fell in the second quarter of 2024, and China’s CO2 emissions could be close to a peak in its CO2 emissions, which means the world probably is too.

The reporting on India and the rest of Southeast Asia is even worse, if not nonexistent.

So we are very pleased to welcome back Australian energy analyst Tim Buckley to the show. We sat down in person in Sydney for an hour and a half conversation about the trends and the data in all of those countries, as well as their trade relationships with Australia. And we begin to explore the potential for Australia to use its abundant and cheap wind and solar resources to produce green hydrogen, then use it to upgrade the ores and other materials that it exports to Asia and beyond.

After listening to this episode, we hope you’ll have a much better idea of the reality of the energy transition in Asia and Australia.

Guest:

Tim Buckley is the Founder and Director of Climate Energy Finance (CEF), a Sydney-based think tank established in 2022 that works pro-bono in the public interest on accelerating decarbonisation in line with the climate science.

Tim has 35 years of financial market experience covering the Australian, Asian and global equity markets and is a influential energy finance commentator. He has written more than 100 reports on the global energy transition, and the roles of finance and policy in accelerating critical decarbonisation trends.

Tim was previously the Australasian Director of the global Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, 2013-2021. Prior to this, Tim was a top-rated equity research analyst, including Head of Equity Research in Singapore at Deutsche Bank, Managing Director, Head of Equity Research at Citigroup for 17 years, and co-Managing Director of Arkx Investment Management P/L, a global listed clean energy investment start-up jointly owned with Westpac.

Tim started his career as a lecturer in Finance and Market Regulation at the University of Technology, Sydney before moving to Macquarie Group in 1988 to work in equity research. Tim has a Bachelor of Business majoring in Accounting and Finance from UTS (1985-87), the US SEC Series 7 (General Securities Representative Qualification Examination) and Series 24 (General Securities Principal Qualification Examination) qualifications.

On the Web:  https://climateenergyfinance.org/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-buckley-0a654313/

Geek rating: 7

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[Episode #224] – US Hydrogen Tax Credits

May 15 2024

Mini Episode

Clean hydrogen is expected to be an essential pathway to decarbonizing the economy. The US Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 offered a generous tax credit known as “45V” for clean hydrogen production, but left it to the US Treasury Department and the IRS to define the rules for earning the credit. So they sought input on the rules by issuing an RFI (Request for Information), and aspiring hydrogen industry players, think-tanks, policy advisors, and the public submitted their guidance. After the proposed rules were issued, tens of thousands of additional comments were filed. A final comment period on the rules ended on May 10.

Eric Gimon of Energy Innovation, a San Francisco-based clean energy think tank and a major contributor to the 45V discourse, previously discussed their guidance for the IRS in Episode #192.

In this episode, Eric rejoins us to discuss the proposed final rules, and their team’s comments on them. On the whole, they are optimistic that the rules will spur robust investments in the burgeoning US green hydrogen sector. With potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits on the line, it’s important to get the details right, so we explore them in depth in this 90-minute discussion—which earned a rare off-the-charts Geek Rating of 11. We also address concerns and criticisms raised by prospective hydrogen producers whose projects may not align with the new regulations.

Guest:

Eric Gimon consults as a technical expert, research scholar, and policy adviser with Energy Innovation, where he works with the Electricity team to develop innovative thinking on policy solutions for clean, reliable, and affordable electric power in the U.S. More specifically, Eric works on questions of renewable energy integration, both in the context of today’s challenges as well as for future pathways

On Twitter: @EricGimon

On the Web: Eric’s writing on Power Sector Transformation at Energy Innovation

Geek rating: 2

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[Episode #216] – COP28 and the Outlook for Oil

Jan 24 2024

Mini Episode

Following from the December COP28 climate summit, we find ourselves at a pivotal juncture with the world’s governments clearer than ever about “transitioning away from fossil fuels.” Now, what is next for the oil sector and for all of us—the consumers of oil? Is COP’s sweeping announcement setting a ceiling for the global ambition on climate, or merely a floor?

As oil is phased out sector-by-sector, how can the electrification of vehicles handle demand for road transport? And what about the sectors where substitutes are still a work in progress, like petrochemicals, aviation and shipping? Is it really feasible to phase out oil completely, as we discussed with the IEA in the previous episode?

In this episode, we explore these questions with Anand Gopal, the Executive Director of Policy Research at Energy Innovation, an energy transition think tank based in San Francisco. We review the findings from several of Energy Innovation’s recent reports, we discuss the outlook for oil demand, and we get Anand’s first-person observations from this year’s COP.

Geek rating: 9

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[Episode #210] – Transportation Transition Update

Nov 1 2023

Mini Episode

Are EV sales about to hit an inflection point and rapidly take majority market shares for new vehicles?

And if they are, does that portend a peak in global oil demand before the end of this decade?

The transportation team at BloombergNEF certainly thinks so.

In this data-packed, two-hour conversation, team lead Colin McKerracher walks us through their latest report, Electric Vehicle Outlook 2023, published in September. We explore the outlook for EVs, plug-in hybrids, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in all vehicle classes. We consider the differing trajectories of EV adoption in various parts of the world, and especially the rapid uptake of two- and three-wheeled electric vehicles in Asia. We discuss the looming need for more charging infrastructure and the implications of increased vehicular demand for the utility industry. We review the changing competitive landscape for the world’s major automakers, and see which ones are leading and which ones are lagging, and why. And we revisit the question of whether the world can produce enough key minerals to keep EV production growing.

Geek rating: 6

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[Episode #205] – Rebuilding the Grid from the Bottom-up

Aug 23 2023

Mini Episode

A tsunami of distributed energy resources (DERs) is starting to arrive on the grid. Customers are adopting millions of EVs, rooftop solar systems, battery backup units, and other devices that can dynamically respond to grid conditions. But most utilities are not engaging with this wave proactively. Instead, they’re being reactive, slow, and even resistant to allowing these devices to connect to the grid or participate in transactions.

As we rebuild and transform the grid in the course of the energy transition, we really need to think about how to accommodate DERs. There are manifold reasons to build a decentralized grid from the bottom-up, instead of keeping the conventional, top-down, hub-and-spoke architecture based on the large centralized power plants that we have relied upon in the past. So how do we do it?

Lorenzo Kristov has been agitating for this new architecture for years, frequently issuing white papers and expert testimony to get regulators and others thinking about what the future grid should look like. And his ideas are being taken seriously, because he was a lead designer of the locational marginal pricing (LMP) market on which California’s wholesale power system operates. He has deep expertise in wholesale market design, DER participation in wholesale markets, coordination of transmission-distribution system operations, distribution system operator (DSO) models, distribution-level markets, microgrids, energy resilience strategies, and whole-system grid architecture, among other things. And he has been walking us through his vision for the decentralized grid in previous episodes of our show: #10, #94, and #150.

In today’s episode, Lorenzo rejoins us to build on our previous conversations and share his latest thinking about how to make the new energy transition grid architecture happen. We discuss market design, architecture, procurement, regulatory issues, and related topics, making this episode deserving of a Geek Rating of 10.

Geek rating: 10

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[Episode #202] – UK’s Green Day

Jul 12 2023

Mini Episode

On March 30th, in what some have dubbed its ‘Green Day,” the UK government released a package of plans to advance its action on climate and the energy transition. A centerpiece of the package detailed how the government’s plans will achieve the emissions reductions required in its sixth carbon budget.

In this episode, Dr. Simon Evans, Deputy Editor and Senior Policy Editor of Carbon Brief, rejoins us to review the highlights of the new policy package. Comprising over 3,000 pages across some 50 documents, the plans covered a wide range of incentives and objectives, including a new energy security strategy, guidelines for funding carbon capture and hydrogen projects, a revised green finance strategy, carbon border taxes, sustainable aviation fuels, mandates for clean cars and clean heat, major infrastructure projects, and much more.

After listening to this two-hour interview, you’ll know just about all there is to know about the state of climate and energy transition policy in the UK!

Geek rating: 6

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