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- [00:01]
A
The energy industry is changing faster than ever. So to make sure we're helping you stay on top of every development, we'll be adding some extra shows to the schedule over the coming weeks. First up, we'll be at New York Climate Week speaking with leaders in clean energy, finance and policy and partnering with our good friends at NYU for a very special panel discussion with some big names from companies including Nvidia and Amazon. That episode will be out on Friday, September 27th, so mark your diaries now and we'll also have lots of extra shows throughout the week of September 22, so make sure you're following the show wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to the Energy Gang, a discussion show from Wood Mackenzie about the fast changing world of energy. I'm Id Crookes, and for this last episode of 2024, we're going to be looking back at the year that's just ending. We're going to be looking at what we predicted at the beginning of the year and how those predictions held up. We're going to be looking at personal highs and lows of the year and we're going to be looking back at our favorite episodes of the Energy Gang that we took part in during the course of 2024. And to review the events of the past 12 months, I'm joined by two of our favourite people on the Energy Gang. I'm joined by Melissa Lott, who is the Partner General Manager for Energy Technologies at Microsoft. Hi, Melissa, how are you doing?
- [01:16]
B
Well, Ed, I'm really excited about sitting down with you and Amy today. This is going to be fun indeed.
- [01:21]
A
I'm very much looking forward to it too, as usual. Of course, we have to mention your standard disclaimer. Anything you say on this podcast about the year 2024 or indeed about anything else, reflects your own personal views and not those of Microsoft Corporation. And it's also a pleasure to welcome back Amy Myers Jaffe. Amy's the director of the Energy Climate justice and Sustainability Lab at New York University. Hi, Amy, how are you?
- [01:42]
C
I am great, Ed. And it's so much fun to be reunited, the three musketeers here to review the entire year because we've all been busy and traveling and you had so many shows, wonderful shows from Azerbaijan. So great to be back, the three of us.
- [01:57]
A
Yeah, very much so. I don't like to say the Core three because I feel that makes everyone else who appears on the show feel bad and I don't want to do that. But we kind of are. The core three aren't We.
- [02:10]
C
I feel that way.
- [02:11]
A
Yeah, I feel that. I feel that.
- [02:13]
B
I love the Three Musketeers. You saw my face, like, light up when Amy said it. It's always so much fun to talk through these things with y' all and it's always like, it's like coming back home for a good nerd out chat. I love it.
- [02:24]
A
Anyway, so as I say, one of the things I want to do on this show and I think a good place to start is with our predictions for 2024. Three of us were all on the show we did right back in January, where we looked ahead to what we thought was going to happen during the year to come. What we did was we chose people and regions and technologies to watch and we're going to look back at those and see what did in the end happen to them in that year that's just passed. So the person I picked to be person to watch in 2024 was Wang Chuanfu of BYD. He's the founder and chief executive of that company. And our producer, Toby, I think, is going to play a short clip of what I said back then. There are predictions that really when Chinese automakers get into the European market properly, they could take a very, very significant share of the European EV market. Wang Chunfu of BYD is one of the absolutely key figures in that, has been very, very personally instrumental in building that company, making it a competitor. And he's definitely going to be someone to watch, someone to keep a close eye on in 2024 and beyond. So that was me talking about Wang Chun Fu, who's the founder and chief executive of byd. I'm, as I say, feeling pretty pleased with myself about that. They had a fantastic year. It looks quite likely that, that they will have sold something like 4.25 million cars in 2024. It's quite possible they will have sold more this year than Ford or than Honda. They sell something like 1 in 3 of all the EVs in China. China, of course, absolutely booming market for EVs. About 1 in 5 of all the EVs sold worldwide. It's a company that's very much kind of stepping out onto the world stage. Particularly impressive for a company that didn't exist at all 20 years ago.
- [04:22]
C
I want to remind the listeners that when you made your prediction, which I agreed with, I mentioned that I had a student a year ago in my clean technology class who'd done his final project on EVs in China and had really highlighted how BYD was going to overtake Tesla, which then of course happened, we were all laughing in the class that we should have listened to him and bought the stock. So I just want to throw it out there that this year I'm just finishing up the same class as a fall semester class. And brilliant presentation by a student who's from Dubai on India's EV sector. He highlighted ola, the two wheeler electric company and their increased export plans. I feel like Ola might be, you know, in that category of I have a student who picked a market we don't all watch and made a brilliant presentation. And so just putting a pin in Ola and maybe Tata Motors too, which he also mentioned.
- [05:28]
B
Yeah Ed, so I'll say around this, just the broader conversation around energy storage and batteries and electric vehicles has really been on my mind. I was going back to your predictions and just thinking about what where I have seen electric vehicles going within the United States. We saw the highs and the lows and the electric vehicles, they're going out of style and nobody likes them and then everybody loves them. And you know, we've talked a lot about EVs over the year and I just will say I am optimistic and I'm going to hold this until we do our 2025 projections or predictions. I'm optimistic about where things are going to go. But I will say, you know, and I talked about this on the show, I just had to buy another vehicle again and so I got to touch the entire electric and plug in hybrid and internal combustion engine space really personally again didn't expect to do that for a few years but you know, as they go. And I was excited by how many options were out there. And just in the time from when we bought our Tesla to now, how many more things were on the playing field for me to look at including around our unique set of circumstances which is we tow and we live in a very cold environment and you know, how do we actually manage those things? So the progress is has been really real. And I thought back to your predictions when I was going through it.
- [06:42]
A
Yeah, I agree that is really interesting. And of course I guess one option you would not have had at all buying an EV in the US is buying a byd. Okay, so who's got another prediction that they made?
- [06:52]
C
I'm going to weigh in because we're talking about EVs and that has us thinking about California. So I made a more controversial prediction and I don't know if Toby wants to play what I said before. I say that I have only a mixed defense of that prediction. Go ahead, Toby. I'm thinking that 2024 might be the year, the actual year of hydrogen, and that it's not hype. I'm feeling like this might be the year where companies need to think seriously about whether they're committing to a 10 year or 15 year profile to doing new projects for liquefied natural gas and whether they actually need to be shifting to something that's hydrogen related. Okay, so we heard what I said and I understand there's all this things that didn't go right. The tax credit from the federal government was slow to get launched. It's still confused. People are worried that Trump is going to change it yet again or kill it altogether. But what I'm hearing swirling around in the sort of, you know, who is in and who is out in Trump world is that they're still seeing hydrogen as important and for reasons that might not be so obvious to people, and that is that there's a new class of drones that's required now for security, for international security, and undersea drones. And when you run them with a battery, it's very inefficient. And so people are experimenting and doing tests of trying to build these drones, undersea drones using hydrogen, which again could also be used for other kinds of aerial drones. And so, you know, why am I mentioning that? Number one, that's another thing I got right, because I have this giant paper saying that undersea cable wires between the Baltics and Europe are going to be under siege by Russia as the Baltics go to think about disconnecting from the Russian grid. That's really, I mean, articles this week in several newspapers about that challenge and that these drones being part of the way to patrol those cables. So just throwing that out there. But, but in the end, I think it's going to be hard for the Trump administration to turn its back on the hydrogen hubs. I know what Ed's thinking. He wants me to list all the hydrogen startups that went bankrupt this year. So I'm going to do that. I'm going to admit that Hyvea, or Hyvia, however you pronounce it, which is the JV between Renault and Plug Power is near bankruptcy. That obviously was still too early to sell fuel cell vans and that their plan to ramp up this coming year is not going to happen. Teco of Norway, that was going to try to put money towards hydrogen for maritime, also doing really badly, maybe also Universal Hydrogen, which was one of the aviation companies already bankrupt, went through all its cash that it got from investors, but ZeroAvia is still running. They're still backed by Airbus, United and American Airlines. They have a recent series C of $116 million. Right. So, but you know, poor plug power. They were such a darling in the boom of 2021. They've since their stock has since fallen 90%. Apparently the deal they have for forklifts with Amazon has not been as profitable as hoped because of price volatility. Fortescue, which had a very ambitious hydrogen target for Australia for 2030, is also kind of waffling. So I get it. Maybe I was still early, but the hydrogen hub in California for trucks still seems like it's all stations go. California's supporting that network which is supposed to have 60 hydrogen heavy duty truck and port fueling stations. You've got the Lancaster plant, waste to hydrogen. Looks like it's still going to go forward. You've got Hydrogen City down by Corpus, which is supposed to be a sort of a green ammonia exporty kind of aviation fuel experiment also seems to be going forward. And then of course you have a lot of other governments that are supporting hydrogen hubs like Chile's far along and you know, in UK and so forth. So I'm not giving up. I'm not going to say it's 100% wrong prediction, but I still think there's momentum, but maybe it's still early.
- [11:39]
A
Yeah. And I think you are absolutely right to say that you've anticipated a lot of the criticisms I was going to raise and the points I was going to raise about the difficulties the hydrogen industry has faced, particularly in the second half of this year. Maybe we'll call this one a draw, but I don't feel like it's been a great year for hydrogen. Actually.
- [11:58]
C
I want to make a distinction between what might eventually happen and hard to abate. Right. Versus Hyundai or Toyota, whoever's trying to get the cars off the ground. I think the cars are going to have trouble.
- [12:13]
A
Yeah, agreed. I think that's really hard to do. And I don't also want to step on the show that Melissa and I were on. We've recorded one already which is kind of in the can, which is going to be broadcast early next year, where we go deep into this and talk in great detail about a lot of issues in the hydrogen industry, including a lot of the challenges it faces now. And in particular, one of the things we talk about a lot there is exactly your question of what is going to work and what isn't going to work in terms of applications for hydrogen. And I Think that distinction is becoming really important.
- [12:42]
B
Ed, can I do a quick, slight spoiler preview for that discussion? I think y' all asked me, y', all the. We won't reveal who y' all is, but you were there. Ed asked me if I was optimistic about hydrogen. And Amy, what I said was, I am actually optimistic, but not in the way you think I'm optimistic because I feel like practical conversations are now happening. And so it's one thing to say hydrogen could do all these things, and it's like, no, if you want that to be a tool in your toolbox, what practically needs to happen to build up those supply chains, to build up the systems. And I get really encouraged and optimistic about not the final amount we may use of a fuel, but just about the ability to use a fuel when we get down to brass tacks, like, what's it going to take? And then are we going to do that? The second thing I wanted to say real quick is, is anyone else surprised this year about how much natural hydrogen came out out of all the rainbow and all the colors?
- [13:36]
C
Oh, yeah, that's what that was a bit. I was on that one in my mind, because, I mean, the oil industry, which we'll talk about when I talk about my favorite show, the oil industry is out there. When they get lumped into Evil Empire, you kind of miss the nuance of things that they could do. And natural hydrogen, the potential that's being talked about now versus, like, the first minute it was raised is seeming to get bigger and bigger every time someone talks about it. And I think it's like, actually, honestly, I think it might be more attractive than even, you know, the sort of geothermal drilling, because it's what they do. It's a resource, and then you have to move it somewhere or use it. So I think for companies, it's attractive.
- [14:23]
B
Yeah. I guess my surprise, it wasn't natural hydrogen has been interesting to me for a while. You know, it's been one of those things. It's been a bit of a sleeper topic. It's not out there in the front. I was like, ooh, intriguing. I just was surprised by how much that entered, like, the common lexicon and the news cycle this year. I would not have predicted that last year if that had been, like, on my list. Well, it wasn't on my list because I didn't predict it because I just didn't think it was going to happen. So I'm glad it wasn't just me who was like, wow, this is louder and bigger in the conversation than I thought it would be at this stage. I would have picked a different color of the rainbow. The third thing I'll bring up because I don't want to forget the third thing because I listed 3ed. Just very quickly, within. This is all right. My family is maybe not the average Joe or maybe this. We all have our common topics we talk about. In my family, we talk a lot about electric vehicle charging stations and also the entire network of infrastructure that supports, like, RV and trailer life. That's just a thing we talk about. People listening to the show know this, so I'm not kidding. This week, my father texted me. You guys can see my phone right now. A picture of two things from Lordsburg, New Mexico. So, a, thanks, Dad. I love these nerdy texts. They make me so happy. But one of them was he was excited because he was showing me a picture of basically a truck. Electric vehicle. Truck. So electric trucks, charging station. So he was like, look at this. Can you imagine the wires behind it? It's in Lordsburg. And then he went, as I'm sitting here having lunch, oh, my goodness. Look what just went past. It's a pilot. Flying J. Hydrogen gas. It says compressed hydrogen gas on the side of it. Refueling tanker. And these things look like little baby shipping containers or, you know, when you do the U haul, you buy, like, the box and you fill it up and then they take it to the next place. Things. That's what they look like. Way more sophisticated than that. They're not, you know, wooden crates, but that's what they look like. And he was like, this is the epicenter of energy futures and transitions, I think, where I'm sitting right now. And I was like, you're not wrong, dad. Like, that's pretty awesome. But I just thought that was interesting because I have spent plenty of time on the show talking about the decisions I have made based on certain parts of my life that make certain technologies not quite ready in certain circumstances, et cetera. And to see all of that coming together at what is for people who put a lot of miles on the road, you know, Heart center, the Flying J pilot, That's a big thing in it. It's really interesting to see. Really interesting to see.
- [16:44]
A
Yeah, that is very cool. And as you say, just that point about none of these technologies can work in isolation. They all have to be part of an ecosystem 100% to have the engines. You need the filling stations. And so the fact that the ecosystem is growing is actually really significant. Yeah. Point taken. Anyway, much more of this next year. When we finally broadcast that show on hydrogen coming back to 2024, Melissa, what was your prediction for this year?
- [17:10]
B
Yeah, so when we were talking about what we were watching this year, I mentioned a lot about geothermal and how excited I was to follow that tech. I think Toby maybe can bring up what I said earlier this year. Oh man, I wonder if Tim Latimer is going to hear me say this and cheer as he hears it. I'm watching enhanced geothermal. I am watching it from the tech perspective. I'm really interested. You all know I don't need to go down the line about firm dispatchable power and you know what we're figuring out. And I'll put a comment about nuclear and some heartbreak I had towards the end of the year on that one. You know, I'll put that on ice for just the moment. I talked a lot about geothermal and how enhanced geothermal was something I was just watching. And it came down to, I mean, fundamentals, right? If we want a reliable, resilient, increasingly clean going towards net zero grid, we had to get firm power. And how many tools are in your toolbox when it comes to firm dispatchable power? That's stuff that can run anytime you need it. And so you can look at drop and refuel replacements, you can look at different technologies that are already in the system like nuclear or big hydrogen. We can think about carbon capture. But enhanced geothermal was one I was watching and we saw some big milestones happen. So I think Fervo took top of the headlines at least. But we saw progress across a bunch of different companies and some of the big permitting issues for the new facility in Utah, etcetera, they got sorted out this year. So I'm intrigued now. I will drop it in the show notes. Maybe we can put it up, you know, for folks as they're listening to this. But some of the publications that come out about, you know, drops in drilling costs and drilling timelines to actually get this stuff on board was a big deal that came out towards the early part of the year. I didn't know it was happening, I didn't know that was going to be published. But that came out pretty early. And then later in the year, all these permitting things about geothermal, enhanced geothermal, particularly on federal lands, these were big movements forward. So I think a, I'm still keeping my eye on it as we go into the next year, but progress has been made, especially here in the United States. That's where I saw a lot of like the different pieces of the conversation Coming together. I don't know. What do y' all think?
- [19:08]
C
Let me give you a kudos. Like a lucky kudos. Like, I could have been so right about hydrogen if Kamala Harris had won the election. Just saying. Because Trump picked Christopher Wright as Secretary of Energy and he's very pro geothermal. There's some tailwinds for geothermal now that the Secretary of Energy is going to be a fan.
- [19:32]
B
And I think this is a really interesting piece of the enhanced geothermal pie. When we talk about the workforce that is needed for the energy transition to get these new technologies online, like enhanced geothermal. How did we get there? A big piece of it was learning how to do horizontal drilling. Why were we doing that? Not for geothermal, for fracking, for other things, for getting natural gas out of the ground. And so you have a lot of people who kind of get how this works. Not to simplify it, it's still extremely tough. There's a lot we need to learn. There's room to move to, get it scaled up. But you're not going from 0 to 100 or 60 or whatever car aficionados go to when they speed up. You're starting from somewhere in between. You've already got some good momentum and tailwinds will help.
- [20:11]
A
Yeah, 100% agree. I think it's something that's been really interesting in 2024. Just going back to something you said, Amy, earlier, though. You said, oh, maybe natural hydrogen is going to turn out to be a bigger deal for the oil and gas industry than geothermal. Really?
- [20:26]
C
I mean, you know, I think so. I do. I do, because I see the oil industry looking at it and they've already seen it. They've had some accidental fines that they didn't think were important. And Fervo is not. I mean, there are people who know a lot about drilling, but the oil companies themselves are not locking down on geothermal, but the oil companies themselves are thinking about natural hydrogen. So I think that's a distinction that's significant.
- [21:02]
B
Well, and Amy, I'm going to summarize what I think I've heard you talk through on this one before. And please tear it apart. Tell me where I missed it. But when you are an oil and gas producer or you know, how to get stuff out of the ground and how to move it around, you know, international. A global market. Right. And so natural hydrogen actually plays to the current business setup of those companies in a way that enhanced geothermal doesn't as much, or enhanced geothermal plays at parts of it. Again, the Skill sets, what I just talked about. But I think that is a fair summary of what you said in the past. Did I get it right?
- [21:40]
C
The oil industry is already a big player in hydrogen. The United States is one of the biggest hydrogen producers in the world. Second is China. They already have businesses moving it around. They already have businesses moving around ammonia. So it's a business they're already in. So the question is, as regulations change, whether it's the cbam, you know, the carbon border adjustment mechanism in Europe or other things, and there's an incentive to have different kinds of hydrogen than the hydrogen they're currently making, it's already a business they're in. Whereas to me and Melissa, I don't want to contradict you because, you know, Fervo is kind of an interesting player and so forth, but to me, the big play in geothermal is one that I don't see the oil companies doing, which is actually in buildings. Right. So can I build buildings where I run water underground? I use a very closed loop system to use heating and cooling by running water up and down through different systems to heat the water or cool the water. And then I connect it to an H vac or I connected to some other kind of industrial application for a building. You're seeing, we had experimental buildings like that when I was at UC Davis. BU has buildings like that. But I think in places where you're going to have more regulation, whether that's California or the Pacific Northwest or even, maybe even in New York City, it's kind of like a tool in the toolbox for real estate development and for LEED certification and so forth that I think is going to become increasingly popular and experimented with, and the oil industry is not going to get involved in that.
- [23:24]
B
Yeah, Amy, with geothermal, I don't disagree. So I was watching the tech, and when we talked earlier this year, I was watching it from that firm dispatchable power place because, man, this crunch idea of, okay, there's been a lot of investment through the Inflation Reduction act. There's a lot of excitement about getting more electrification in the system, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, how are we backing that up with firm power? But geothermal for buildings is fascinating. I mean, there's so many opportunities there. And I think, I mean, Ed, we've talked about it when it comes to your own personal journey with what can I actually put into my own home and my own building? But I know this has come up with companies around the world, including here in the United States, where they said we've made these commitments. What are the tools available for us in our toolboxes? And geothermal is one of them to use on a different scale. I'll say. So I think the entire spectrum of geothermal is interesting. That was just the one I was focusing on at the beginning of the year.
- [24:15]
A
Indeed, indeed. So let's move on then. Let's talk about our highs and lows of 2024. I don't know who wants to go first on that. Melissa, I can see you're pulling a pained face. Go on then, hit us with it.
- [24:30]
B
Let's just see if we agree on a low this year. COP was a low for me. Yeah, it was a low for me too.
- [24:36]
A
For me too. Yeah.
- [24:38]
B
And I will say, since we've talked about COP and that episode went out, I've gotten a lot of reach out from a bunch of my colleagues, long term, you know, I've worked with them for decades type of things, folks. And they've been sharing their on the ground engagement and feelings and the conversations that were had behind closed doors and just kind of the more we talk about it, the more, the more, you know, it's okay after this holiday. Need to regroup, refill cups and then see how we can run up to the next COP with a lot of energy, enthusiasm. But yeah, you're nodding. I think that was a low for both of us.
- [25:12]
A
Yeah, absolutely. That was the low that I'd picked as well. Just really the failure to agree. A big number for climate finance flows from rich countries to poorer countries. It calls into question, I think, a lot of what's happening now in the UNFCCC process and where that goes from here and I think starts to raise, in a really important way questions about what else do we do, how else do we think about tackling climate change globally in ways that don't rely on that UN process? That's where it's left me.
- [25:50]
B
Yeah. And a few different thoughts on that. I do keep coming back to Morgan Bazillion's comments. So cop, a year ago when we were sitting there and he was talking about the importance of the process and how that had been communicated to him by some people when he'd gotten frustrated with the COP process and when I've been going through it in my head, I agree, the process of making sure that everyone comes together and that this issue stays top of mind on the table is very, very important, Very, very important. So the idea of is COPA success. I've said it time and time again, it is a success to bring people together and make them focus on this thing for a period of time. And then all the run up into it. This one was tough. I think we knew it would be tough. There were so many headwinds in so many different forms. But it still was hard. You have that, that hope that it'll be easier than you thought. But you know, what I saw was a lot of people working very hard but in a situation where there was only so far that they could go with those discussions. And you know, we saw that play out on the global stage. But it's still, it was, still was a moment, still was a low point for me this year. And so the question of where does it evolve to next is really big. I completely agree with you.
- [26:58]
C
And I would add to that a teaser to another show, right, is that the COP was followed by a big meeting again, UN organized meeting in Busan, South Korea, trying to finalize, which was supposed to be done this December, the Global Plastics Treaty and same problem. They were trying to have a universal, you know, consensus of all the 175 countries involved and they could not get a consensus even on some kind of a cap to future global plastics production. The countries you would, would imagine the oil producing, exporting countries were against having any kind of cap on production. They couldn't even agree on certain unbelievably toxic components in plastics to eliminate some of the most toxic plastic production. And everybody was sort of in favor of recycling. But as we'll go into, you know, it's a very small portion of, you know, plastics today is recycled. And it's the same kind of issue, the pollution of all this dumped fashion, all the dump water bottles, all of that that the west Western economies and industrial economies enjoy winds up in the global South. And so it's the same kind of, you know, unfairness issue where the problem like loss and damage is not in the places where the most pollution is produced.
- [28:28]
A
Yeah, good point. So let's get all of our low points out of the way first and then come on to the highs to be a bit more positive. What was yours, Abby? What was your low of the year?
- [28:37]
C
You know, Ed, I always say that I'm going to focus on other things like electricity and tech and that I don't want to write about geopolitics anymore. I find it depressing. But this year it was really depressing. And I would say one of the big lows was the Venezuelan election, which everybody was so hopeful about having there be a change in Venezuela and having that turn out so against the interest of all the people who came out and tried to make a statement with their voting and, you know, other things, the conflict in the Middle east, which just, you know, seems to just stay in the front of the headlines with death and destruction. And so I would say geopolitics this year was really a low point for me.
- [29:26]
B
Yeah, Amy, as you were talking about that, I gave a TEDx talk, oh, maybe 15 years ago, and I said, I don't study electricity because, I mean, I find the electrons pretty nifty. But I do. I focus it on it because of the services it provides me. And I keep trying to walk away from it and get myself a new job, and then it keeps pulling me back because it's like, nope, nope, still way too much tough work to be done here. We're not done here. Come back to this problem and geopolitics. All of my colleagues and friends, including you, who work in that space, there's just a lot that happens this year. And, you know, we needed people and we need people to help translate that for us. What does it mean? Where are things going? But it was not a calm year at all.
- [30:09]
C
That's proven to be true.
- [30:10]
A
Come on then, let's be more positive now. What were our highs of the year? Who wants to go first on Melissa? What was yours?
- [30:17]
B
One of my highs is how many announcements were made and made into reality for major auto manufacturers about putting their cars on the broader supercharging network in this country. So when I bought my Tesla, you guys know, one of the big reasons I did it, and we talked about this at length, was because I was very confident I would have a robust network for moving around the country. And now with my new plug in hybrid that I replaced my full internal combustion with a plug in hybrid a couple weeks ago, I have access to the supercharging network. So I just have a little adapter and I can go in. I have to like update my app and make sure my credit cards in there, but otherwise I'm good to go. And this trend is really exciting to me because it's the idea of, okay, more access points for more people making it less complicated to get on a system. It's decreasing those hurdles. And those things came to a really real point this year, especially in the summer and fall, as some of the major auto manufacturers were able to transition on the system and officially say, you're good to go now, just get the adapter and you're good. So that was an exciting high point for me. I thought that was interesting.
- [31:20]
A
Amy, what about you?
- [31:22]
C
Well, you know, Ed, having written a book called Energy's Digital Future, all the progress that was made in AI, but with a caveat where all of a sudden people woke up, ding. This is a national security issue. We have to have the electricity in the United States to be able to use all this AI, which we need to as a national security issue. And therefore everyone all of a sudden, Melissa having pivoted and now being like a novice, but an educated novice at electricity, having already done the whole, hey, how is AI and digital going to interact with energy networks and ecosystems? So it was like a moment where it's like, okay, everybody gets it. It doesn't matter who wins the election. I can give the same talks that somebody commissioned me to give. And it doesn't matter what the election outcome is, because I'm going to tell you something on US national security and energy and AI that is going to be true no matter who is president, like forever anyway. So that was my high to have been on that topic early and on that topic early with a book. So feeling very smart. You.
- [32:38]
B
Well, you are very smart, Amy, and you were very smart to write that book. And I'm just trying not to laugh. I love these chats with y'.
- [32:46]
A
All.
- [32:46]
B
I love going through these topics. But around this, I will say pivoting with that was also the recognition of the importance of electricity and how we're in a new era in the United States, but in other parts of the world too. And it's not just because of any one thing. The idea of, oh, EVS are slowing down, therefore we don't have to think about building more power plants, thinking about upgrading transmission. No, no, no, no, no. Too many different trends came together this year and brought awareness to this topic of we are transitioning to a new era and efficiency. Yes, we want it, but it's not going to change the numbers. It's not just AI, it's not just electric vehicles, it's not just electrification homes. It's not just re industrialization. It's so many things altogether that has flipped us into this new era. And that is really exciting, especially to someone who has been talking for a lot of years about how much investment is needed in our grid to allow it to be the backbo. Any type of long term economic success. So that was really exciting. But sorry, Ed, share us good news. Let's go. I love the synergy.
- [33:44]
A
Yeah, I do 100% agree with you though, that that, as you say, is a really positive thing. And politics aside, whoever's in Congress, whoever's in the White House, that acknowledgement that investment in electricity is really important and we need more of it, that's got to be a good thing. And so I do agree with you. That was definitely a high of the year.
- [34:06]
C
Vice President Elect actually talked about transformers and the importance of having enough transformers. I was like, eh, finally electricity was in the debates.
- [34:15]
B
I mean we talked about on the show, Ed. This was like this is a big thing indeed.
- [34:19]
A
J.D. vance, as you say, Vice President Elect talked about Transformers on the Joe Rogan show. No show almost as popular as this one. It makes me think perhaps I'm just a bit worried. Obviously if that becomes a full time energy podcast, that competition is going to be a bit intense. But yeah, so my high point of the year, somewhat related to that, it is the spread of low carbon energy technologies around the world in a lot of markets where you might not necessarily have expected them to be growing. And a couple of great examples of this I think are Pakistan, which has had an absolute solar boom this year. Pakistan up, don't know if the figures are confirmed yet, but may well turn out to have been the third largest solar market in the world. Sales of solar modules, a lot of them imported from China, absolutely booming there. Not particularly for climate reasons. Just the case that solar is the most competitive, cheapest possible source of electricity for a lot of people, provides a very valuable source of power during the day, which is when demand tends to be highest, particularly in the summertime when everyone's running their air conditioning. So it's a great fit for the demands on the electricity system in Pakistan. So that's been really amazing watching what's been happening there. And then the other one just found out about from a colleague of Wood Mackenzie last week is what's happening in Saudi Arabia, which I don't know if you've been following this, but it's absolutely booming as a market for battery storage. And Saudi Arabia, they have very, very ambitious plans to invest in wind and solar power as well there. And to support that and to provide stability on the grid, they're also going to be investing massively in battery storage. And if you look at the numbers on the Saudi government's projections, Saudi Arabia is going to be the third largest market in the world for investment energy storage over the coming decade. Now it's possible not all of that will actually end up happening, but even so, very, very big market, huge changes going on in that country's energy system again somewhere that's kind of unexpected. Obviously one of the world's Largest oil producers, big natural gas producer, a power system at the moment that's very heavily dependent on natural gas and a little bit on coal as well. So to see these huge changes happening there, very, very interesting and significant, I think. And that point about COP 29 being a low point, when I think about what is the way forward for the energy transition, what is the way forward for decarbonization, it's finding those markets and opportunities and places where the low carbon solution is the better solution for other reasons as well, for reasons of energy security, cost, reliability, local pollution. And I think those are going to be all the things that will really drive the growth of renewables and storage EVs, I think as well, other low carbon technologies. So even when things don't look great at that top level of high politics, international agreements, everything the UN is doing, there can still be an enormous amount of change and innovation and investment. And a lot of that is very exciting, I think.
- [37:44]
C
And I would really emphasize the point you're making, which is national security. Going back to why I think hydrogen could find its time again is that countries, especially after the Ukraine war and what happened in energy markets, and that was not just in oil, it was in lng. More significantly, countries want to know, especially with intense weather like heat waves, that they can provide stable services. And you do have these technologies that are coming and everybody has renewable energy. No matter what country it is, there's renewable energy, different kinds of renewable energy and waste energy, and a lot of countries have nuclear energy. So thinking about how to combine those things to ensure that you have reliable electricity without being influenced or negatively impacted by geopolitical issues which seem off the charts for risk, has really propelling a lot of different new technologies as being superior. And the cost will come down as more countries say, well, we don't care about that much about the cost of this or that because we just need to make sure we have electricity, maybe even because of AI, Right, so, so my point to you is things starting to win. And you're going to see, in my opinion, the things that you mentioned. But that also means that I can for trucking or some other vital sector, even my military, I can make green hydrogen. I don't have natural gas resources, whatever. I can make green hydrogen at home and then it's a domestic source, right? And same thing with using virtual power plant, right? I can have these micro networks for vital hospitals and other kinds of facilities and really protect people. So that's why I think they'll be considered superior technologies. And then of Course, as costs come down, which they are coming down, they're going to be more and more attractive regardless of what the COP process is saying.
- [39:46]
B
And this is a really important point that has been coming up a lot in conversations where, yeah, it's the phone a friend time, Amy, you know, people calling me and saying, hey, what does this election mean? What does that election mean? What does these results mean? What does this statement mean? And when I'm talking to them, it's one of those conversations where it's complex. There's a long series of shows we could have as the years go on on this topic. But I'll summarize one thing I've been saying to a lot of them, which is we're in a fundamentally different place than we were for eight, 10 years ago when it comes to the cost of these technologies, the maturity of the supply supply chains, the established nature that they have in a solution set, and absolutely way further to go if you want to get all the way to net zero in a way that protects human health and the environment. And not dismissing that in any way. But this is not the same conversation we have. If you go on the US Election cycle just a couple of election cycles ago, it's a very different place we're in and we're seeing that play out around the world. And those elections matter. They influence how this will all develop. No doubt, but not in the same way that we would have been concerned about 10 years ago, eight years ago, four years ago.
- [40:55]
A
Yeah, I definitely think that's right. Now look, let's move on then to other high points of the year in episodes of the Energy Gang and what we thought were our favorite episodes that we have either taken part in or just ones we might have heard. Amy, you haven't gone first yet. Do you want to go first? What was your favorite episode of the year?
- [41:16]
C
Well, because I already revealed my. Not to say I didn't really enjoy all the guests that came on with me this year, but I just love being you and I and Melissa. And so my favorite show because I know our listeners like it. Ed, when I argue with you, you know, Melissa and I are technologists and so we often truly, deeply agree. But Ed, you and I often don't have the same perspective. So I liked the Energy Transition show. That was my favorite show of the year. And I had all these things I had to come up with good arguments about how there is an energy transition. So I might have mentioned in the show that I was doing this study where I was clocking down the data for all M and A. And we had looked at both asset acquisitions and M and A. So we didn't do GREENFIELD because that's a whole different data set. But we use data like Bloomberg and Pitch Deck and that kind of data to look at investments. And I just want to share with the listeners some of the final numbers, because the paper is out. We clocked $56.6 billion of investments by the largest oil companies and the largest US Refiners. Most of a lot of that went into biofuels, but there was still a lot of wind and solar and other kinds of innovations. And then we compared that to what I call the big eight. So that's the big energy impact partners, SOSV, MCJ, Climate Capital, Collaborate, Prelude, et cetera. They invested 90.6 billion. So my point to people was we all know about Prelude and Energy Impact Partners and sos Fee, what great players they are in the interesting picks they're making and successes they're having. But how many people know that the oil companies are investing? You know, not as much, but not that far apart from that investment. And one of the big warning bells, though, from that study, even though we're having, you know, a lot of investment going into these startups especially, is that it's been pro cyclical. And so I believe that there's a. Well, you know, President Trump already declared his, his prediction for where oil prices are going to go or energy prices in general. Right. But I do think there's a lot of headwinds to oil prices right now, barring some geopolitical catastrophe. And so if that does, that could be very bad for clean tech, because what we found was that it's pro cyclical. When oil prices are low, people invest less than cleantech. And then when oil prices are very high, you get the geopolitics and the public sentiment about worrying about oil prices and fuel prices. And so we found that the big times when the most money goes into cleantech is during things like the stimulus package ARRA in 2009, 2010, or something like the IRA. So if the Trump administration is not going to be oriented towards having that kind of stimulus, it could be a bad signal for staying the course on all this money that's been going into cleantech.
- [44:39]
A
Yeah, that is a very good point. And I think that show was in April of this year, wasn't it? And the title is There an Energy Transition? And as you say, we talked about this question of whether, given the dominant role that fossil fuels continue to play in the global energy system and will continue to play for a very long time to come, certainly decades to come. Is it really right or sensible to talk about there being a transition at all? In fact, I noticed someone from the incoming Trump administration. I can't remember who it is now, but one of the officials who's going to have a senior role in the new Trump administration said there is no energy transition. This is not the right way to think about what's going on. I have to say I had some sympathy with that view. I think that show actually changed my mind and I think persuaded me to think that even if the transition is slow, which it currently is, it still makes sense to think about us being on a journey towards a lower carbon energy system. And it's fine. Just as shorthand for that to say the energy transition.
- [45:40]
C
Correct.
- [45:40]
A
Anyway, Melissa, what is your what was your favorite episode of the year?
- [45:44]
B
So following up from Amy, I actually appreciate that because now I'm going to eliminate ones where the three of us were together. I'm going to go from. I picked top three. Okay. Ed, fine. So we're just going to do it fast. Okay. So starting with my third favorite one we had recently, which was with Brian Janis talking about the rise of AI, surging investment, electricity supply. I flagged it as a high for the year. Just this whole conversation, I really enjoyed that discussion with him. Number two was our episode on Transformers that was just interesting and engaging and just going through it and I have so many threads I still want to pull and rabbit holes. We only got through the first three steps and you want to go deeper, but that was a great discussion. But number one for me, Joseph Mashkit from csis, thank you so much for making us do a book club. And Brett Christopher is, when we talked to him, that was also a great episode, but it was really set up by the discussion with Joseph and when he came to both of us and said, hey, can we look at these two books, the Price is Wrong and then Climate Capitalism and Going through that and it just was thought provoking and engaging and I just really learned a lot from it. But also I thought it was a fascinating and fundamentally important discussion. And so not to issue the challenge again, but I'm really hoping that we engage in book clubs this next year because that was great. I really enjoyed it.
- [47:07]
A
Yeah, agreed. It was absolutely fantastic that show. And it was then fantastic getting the chance to talk to Brett Christophers himself, the author of the Price is Wrong, which is also really interesting. My favorite episode then is one Amy, that you were really responsible for it was the episode we recorded during Climate Week in September at your class at NYU with the cleantech entrepreneurs. Marisa Beatty is the founder and CEO of a company called Turnover Labs. Apol Sinner is the founder and CEO of a company called Carbon Upcycling. And they're both working on ways to take carbon dioxide as a waste product and turn it into something useful, into chemicals, cement, building materials and so on. And it was just really interesting to hear them talk about their stories and the journeys they'd been on. And also just very inspiring to see people who had good ideas and they turned them into businesses and they were raising capital and they were actually doing something and they were making things happen in, in the world and maybe their ideas will work and they'll build huge billion dollar businesses out of them, and maybe they won't. But still, I thought it was fantastic to see people actually kind of engaging with the world, not sitting on the sidelines, criticizing, not talking about them on podcasts, you know, all those things that I do at times. So thank you very much, Amy, for inviting us to your class. Also have to say great questions from your students as well. Really fantastic participation, really interesting engaged group we were talking to there. So just the whole thing was an excellent experience.
- [48:43]
C
Well, I will say I have a close friend who's a wealthy retiree and she's funded a lot of organizations that do actual climate science. She's very concerned about climate change and she came to me after she came to the show that day in the class and afterwards she told me that she was renewed her vigor, that she's always going to these meetings and it always sounds so terrible. And it was just again, very exciting to hear people coming up with solutions. And then also, Ed, we had the same discussion of solutions with the wonderful event we did with Woodmack that evening with Carolyn Golan from Google and Kate Gordon on the whole data center question and the electricity situation. So again, I think that was just a great sequence of shows that week for Climate Week.
- [49:36]
A
Yeah, that was also a fantastic show. If people want to go back and listen to those shows, they were published during Climate Week back in September. So we do just about have to wrap it up there. Then before we go though, time for holiday gifts. Now, what is becoming an energy gang tradition, we're going to be giving, I think, unfortunately, imaginary presents to each other. But I have got some quite good ones here for the pair of you, which I'm pleased and excited about sharing with you. And I think you've got Gifts for me as well. That's very exciting. Okay, shall I go first now with mine? Because I'm very pleased with what I've got and I'm excited to talk about these. So for you, Melissa, I know you're always looking for reading recommendations and certainly I would recommend to anyone out there who hasn't read it already, but Brett Christopher's book the Price is Wrong Action, Rathi's Climate Capitalism, both of those are excellent and well worth a look. A couple of books, though, that I thought you might want to read. Melissa, Five Times Faster by Simon Sharp. Do you know that one? Have you. Hope you haven't got it already.
- [50:39]
B
I don't think I have. No, I don't. Tell me about it.
- [50:42]
A
Doing the unwrapping, the book. Simon Sharp is a former senior UK climate diplomat and he was very much involved in COP26 when it was held in the UK and he's written this book. So basically the idea is again going back to that question about the energy transition. It is happening, but it needs to be happening five times faster to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and so on. And he raises questions about climate diplomacy and ways that that could be done better and again to this point about kind of getting beyond the COP process and how you can really make international climate diplomacy work. He talks about climate economics and the flaws in that, and he also talks about flaws in climate science. And that is the part I thought was the most interesting in a way, which is I guess, the sort of a reverence we all have for science and the fantastic work that climate scientists do. But there are also legitimate questions and concerns that you can raise there. One thing that he's doing in terms of, as it were, the practical usefulness of climate science. And that's also relevant to the other book which I've been looking at, which also seems fantastic. I don't know if you know the one predicting our climate future, what we know, what we don't know, what we can't know. So. Oh dear. So you've got that already. So that's. That's. It's a bad. It's a bad gift.
- [52:00]
B
No, it's fantastic. No, no, I can gift it on just. I will gift on the one I have and keep yours.
- [52:05]
A
Well, exactly. Give it back to me then, because I haven't read it. I was looking at it, I thought it was. Looked fantastic. But you would recommend it, would you? Absolutely, yeah. Terrific. Excellent. No, I'm very excited to read that one. Well, that's, as I say, the Best kind of present, the one you end up with yourself. Anyway, so now I'm feeling bad about this because although that's what I got for you, that's let's say $50 worth of books for you. For Amy, your present is about $5,000 worth. So I feel bad about the kind of the inequality here, but it is very exciting product. It is the portable solar EV charger. Have you seen this thing? No, you can't actually buy it yet, but it's going to be available, they say early January or February of 2025. And it's a kind of a folding kind of thing that you put on the roof of your car and then you unfold it out. So it goes, you know, right down to the front of the car, the front bumper and right down the back to the back and the. So that whole area then is covered in solar panels and it will generate a bit of power and get you going. And they're saying you can get up to 30 miles of range off it, more likely kind of 10 to 20. But again, for that sort of the range anxiety problem, what do you do if you happen to run out of juice when you're driving somewhere and you get stuck by the side of the road and your car becomes immobile? This is a way to reassure yourself you've got the solar panels there. You can always just charge up and get that little bit of extra juice there to get you to a charging station. Providing it's during the day, of course, so it's not perfect. But anyway, I thought you'd. Because I know you're always worrying about it.
- [53:40]
C
Right. My husband will be very pleased, Ed, because the other day we were in the car, the EV car, and he said, you know, I really love this car, and then he listed all its virtues and he said it really doesn't matter. You know your obsession about the charging stations that work and don't work. It doesn't matter. It's the perfect car. So.
- [53:59]
A
So this is. This.
- [54:00]
C
He's cut. So when I tell him this, it'll like really, you know, just absolutely lock it down.
- [54:04]
A
So this gift would make it even better. Right, so go on then, Melissa, what have you got for us?
- [54:09]
B
So I have one energy book and one non energy book for you. And actually the energy book is. I'm not going to say oldie, but goodie.
- [54:17]
A
You can let me, let me unwrap these. There we go. So fancy. Well, thank you very much. What is this? You've got me.
- [54:25]
B
I did a fantastic wrapping job. There were Bows on it, the whole deal. So have you guys read Michael Weber's book Power Trip?
- [54:32]
A
I have indeed, and he just was.
- [54:35]
C
Awarded some giant prize. Well deserved.
- [54:37]
A
Yeah. I can turn my head and look at my copy on my shelf right now.
- [54:40]
B
It is a book that. Well, both of those books I rediscovered this year because I was getting all these new books in, you know, all the books I'd wanted to read, and then I found myself going back to some sections of some oldie goodies. And those were two of them. And so I just will say that as a gift, let's rediscover those on our bookshelves this year because so much of it still very much resonates and goes to some of these essential challenges and understanding, you know, where we are and what we're trying to manage. So just those two. The other one, the Non energy book, is one that I've mentioned a few times on the show, but I don't think y' all have read it. Have you read it? The Tyranny of Merit?
- [55:17]
A
Oh, no, I have you talking about it. I thought it sounded really interesting. Yeah.
- [55:21]
B
So this is a book that now, over the course of this year, since mentioning that I was reading it and I'd kind of gotten maybe 40 pages in and then hadn't, you know, gotten the rest of the way because another book jumped to the top of the stack and people kept mailing me books this year, which you want to bring joy to my face? Mail me a good book and you will. But I finished it. I finished reading the book. It's fascinating. And when we think about all the stuff we talked about in our highs and our lows, about where things are in different discussions and negotiations and like, understanding how society is developing and where we are in a conversation with each other about how we're going to develop our energy systems, the backbone of our societies in the future. Like, I just thought this was a great book. I just really, really, really enjoyed it and I'm glad that I finished it. You know, we've all had those books. You don't have to nod and agree, but we all have had those books that you just don't get through. Even if it's a great book, you just. Something happens in life. And this is one that I'm glad I. I'm glad I turned to the last page. I'm glad I got through it. So really interesting. I'm not saying I agree with all of it or disagree with all of it. I'm saying I keep thinking about it and I Keep quoting it to people as just like thought provoking bits that absolutely relate to what we talk about every day. So that's my second one. So of course it's books. So here's some books. Rediscovering and then discovering new.
- [56:39]
A
Well, thank you very much for those. That sounds fantastic. What about you, Amy? What are you giving?
- [56:43]
C
Okay, I am giving you both a special gift. A streaming service.
- [56:50]
A
Oh, yes. Ooh.
- [56:52]
C
Okay, Ed, I'm giving you Paramount plus and that is so you can watch the new Taylor Sheridan show, the Landman.
- [56:59]
A
Oh, yeah. Which I've been desperate to see. Yeah, I have just not got around to watching it.
- [57:03]
C
Yeah, so I've started watching it. It's apparently even higher numbers than Yellowstone. It's breaking all records. Hard to understand because the dialogue on this show in some parts is just, you know, over the top, stupid. But what's very authentic is that Christian Wallace's podcast, which I went back, you know, I was having trouble with it, so I went back to listen to the podcast on which it's. Which I highly recommend to all our listeners.
- [57:33]
A
All right, what is that called, that Po Coast?
- [57:35]
C
It's called Boomtown. Right. It was done with Texas Tribune. Wonderful, wonderful 10 part series that introduces these sort of personalities. Christian Wallace himself grew up in Andrews, Texas, and he kind of brings you to that community and it's really makes it come alive. And so some of those characters are derived into this show. And it's for me, as a person who actually lived 25 years in Texas, it's like Hollywood's idea of Texas, which I don't find 100% whatever. But it is definitely an entertaining show. I think you'll like it. And you know, just know that everybody's a drug lord to Taylor Sheridan. So it kind of like pieces that into the oil industry. So you have to suspend a little disbelief like you do when you watch Yellowstone, because of course all ranchers are not murderers. So saying. But I think you'll enjoy the show.
- [58:32]
A
It does look great. It'll be something for me to watch over the holidays and we can talk about it next year. I'm looking forward to discussing it with you.
- [58:38]
C
And then, Melissa, I have an unusual gift for you which it's gonna sound offensive at first glance, but then when I explain it to you, you're gonna know why I'm recommending it.
- [58:51]
B
I can't wait. I'm in. Let's go.
- [58:52]
C
I'm telling everyone like you, the strong women I super respect to, I'm giving them Netflix. You're getting a Netflix subscription so that you can watch the Martha Stewart documentary. Now, let me tell you. Now, let me tell you. You know, I mean, I am actually a pretty good baker. I imagine you are too, right? My turkey came out really well. We've talked about my prime rib for Christmas, my new thermometer in the oven. People wrote me about that. But the reason this documentary really, really struck me is that people don't realize she was the first woman to become a billionaire in the United States. And the documentary kind of shows you not just what happened to her, but how she reinvents herself and how resilient she is, how she transfers that to other people when she's in jail. And it really makes the point that we women have to stop apologizing for who we are. You are who you are, right? And if there's some man out there who runs a bank or some other kind of company and he, you know, yells at a person once in a while, it's no big deal. But when a woman does it, you know, she winds up in jail. So my point to you is it's a well worth watching. Power to you, Martha Stewart. I've started following you on Instagram because the documentary really inspired me to push on and be a woman being myself, which, you know, we know from the listeners, they don't mind it. So. All good. So, Melissa, it's my gift to you for Christmas.
- [60:36]
B
I love it. I love that we are all ourselves on the show. When we chat through things, it makes the most interesting and genuine discussions. If we had highlights of this last year that were not energy related, Ed, I probably would have said the moment I realized that Martha Stewart and Snoop had become unofficial hosts of the Olympics. And I was like, what? And Amy, when you're talking about reinventing, like, I'm. I'm excited. I'm gonna watch this documentary. We're gonna talk about it offline, like, fascinating, fascinating to see how people go through and navigate these things. But thank you. Thank you both.
- [61:07]
A
I have actually watched it. Amy is absolutely right. It is a fantastic documentary. Very, very highly recommended. I would also like to say, I don't know if I was included in this. I'm not a bad baker myself. My pumpkin pie, I have to say, for Thanksgiving, was a pretty big hit.
- [61:21]
B
Well done.
- [61:23]
C
Well done.
- [61:23]
B
Do you blind bake your crust?
- [61:25]
A
Yeah, blind bake the crust.
- [61:27]
B
Soggy pies. We don't do soggy bottoms. None of those. None of those. Oh, goodness. I love it.
- [61:35]
A
So, unfortunately, we do have to leave it there and that's all for us from the Energy Gang for this year. Many thanks, Melissa. Been great talking to you on this show and through the year, of course.
- [61:44]
B
Absolutely. It's been great talking with both of y'. All. Where did 2024 go? Wow, that was fast. Look forward to seeing you all in the new year.
- [61:52]
A
Exactly. Getting faster every year, as you say. And likewise, looking forward very much to seeing you next year. Thanks very much to you, Amy. Also been great to share all the events of the past year with you.
- [62:01]
C
Always a pleasure, Ed. Really one of my highlights of my time every time we get together.
- [62:06]
A
Always great, always great to do it. Thanks to our producer, Toby Biggins Gilchrist, and thanks to all of your colleagues as well at the podcast guys for all of their great work through the year. And above all, many thanks to all of you for listening. We've really valued your support and your feedback through the year. I hope you all have a great holiday season, whatever you're doing or not doing. And we'll be back next year with a look ahead to what's bound to be another eventful year in the energy transition. Until then, goodbye.