The Energy Gang

On the last Energy Gang we looked at the impact of record temperatures on the energy sector. This week, we discuss another impact of climate change: its effect on human psychology. We discuss how the way we talk about global warming affects how we respond to it.A recent study in the journal Global Environmental Change argued that scientists and media organizations need to rethink the way they talk about climate change. The study’s authors called on the media to emphasise potential solutions to rising temperatures, rather than focusing solely on the dire consequences. This shift towards solutions-oriented thinking could help prevent a pervasive sense of fatalism: the idea that humans can do nothing useful to mitigate climate change. Doomerism, as it is sometimes known, seems to be creeping more and more into the conversation. Is it an inevitable consequence of the way we talk about climate change? One point that researchers have found is that using the term “climate emergency” reduced the perceived credib

New challenges for our power supplies in a warming world.Global temperatures have been breaking records this summer. On some estimates, the earth is the hottest that it has been for about 125,000 years. In Phoenix, Arizona, temperatures have consistently reached over 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and people are being hospitalized with severe burns after falling on the ground. The heat is bringing other threats, including the wildfires that have been burning out of control in parts of southern Europe and Canada.  Extreme heat inflates the demand for energy, particularly power for cooling and air conditioning, putting new strains on the power grid. In the US, electricity demand has been shattering records in Texas and Phoenix, and it's on a similar trend in other arts of the world, too. India's power demand, for instance, has been hitting new record highs due to the scorching temperatures and a steadily expanding economy.To explore the impacts of the extreme weather we’ve been seeing, host Ed Crooks is join

Bidenomics’ is the new buzzword that the US administration is using to brand its industrial strategy. What does it mean for energy in the US, and around the world?Last week, President Joe Biden spoke in South Carolina about his economic vision: a strategy that he is calling “Bidenomics”, with the energy transition is right at the heart of it. By “turning the climate crisis into an opportunity”, the White House says, the US can create good-paying jobs in clean energy while also bringing down consumers’ energy costs. When the president and his administration talk about their energy policies, the focus is generally on jobs, investment, and the international race to lead in the technologies of the future, not the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.The Inflation Reduction Act was the legislative core of this plan, with its array of incentives for low-carbon-energy, and for US-produced equipment in particular. As we approach a year since it was passed, there is plenty of evidence that it is contributing to upt

This year’s climate talks have already drawn widespread criticism. Can they make progress?COP28, this year’s Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is still five months away, but the discussion around it is already intense. The conference is being held in Dubai, a choice that has drawn criticism because the United Arab Emirates is one of the world’s leading oil-producing countries. Last year’s COP27, held in Egypt, was widely considered a failure. There was a lack of new commitments to cut emissions, and many analysts have concluded that the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees C is now slipping out of reach. Environmental groups have warned that the influence of fossil fuel producers could mean that COP28 marks another year without real progress.On the other hand, there is an argument that the effort to tackle climate change has to be global, involving every country in the world, even if not every country makes the same

The north-eastern US has taken on a post-apocalyptic appearance recently, blanketed by smoke from wildfires in Canada. Host Ed Crooks and regular guest Melissa Lott, Director of Research at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, are both based in New York and saw first-hand the extent of the fires that have been burning in Quebec. In recent years we have seen huge fires up and down the west coast of North America, in Siberia, in central Greece, to name just a few regions that have been affected. The gang discuss the implications of the fires for human health, for the energy system, and for our understanding of climate change.The big news from Washington has been that the US has averted a global financial crisis, thanks to Congress and President Joe Biden coming together to make a deal over the ceiling on the country’s national debt. The agreement suspends the debt ceiling to January 2025, meaning the US can avoid defaulting on its debts, at least for a while. The legislation also had some impor

More money will be invested this year in the solar industry than in oil production. So said Faith Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, last week. Amy Harder, executive editor of Cipher, attended the Cleanpower 2023 event in New Orleans and experienced at first-hand what it means for the Big Green energy industry to be rivalling the scale of Big Oil. The event has been dubbed the ‘Coachella of clean energy’ and as Amy recounts walking the half-mile long hall, full of clean energy businesses looking to capitalise on the booming industry, that comparison certainly seems appropriate. Amy Myers Jaffe, director of NYU’s Center for Global Affairs, is also on the show this week. She says that what was once seen as a huge divide between the high-carbon and low-carbon energy industries is now being bridged. But she argues there is still an important role for governments in supporting the growth of newer energy technologies that would otherwise find it too difficult to break into marke

The excitement around ChatGPT and other large language models has put AI firmly in the spotlight in recent months. Public perception is that we’re entering a new age of AI; it is a brand-new technology that promises to change our lives. In the world of energy, though, AI is not a new concept. GE was developing its AI capabilities more than a decade ago. BP invested in an AI company in 2017 to support oil exploration and production. And so far, although you can see the impact of AI in many parts of the world of energy, it has not exactly transformed the fundamentals of the industry. So when people get excited about AI in energy today, and expecting revolutionary change, are they just buying into some well-orchestrated hype?Amy Myers-Jaffe is Director of the Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab at New York University. She joins Ed and explains the real-world benefits of automation and AI for electricity networks. Automating home energy use and business operations in conjunction with power supplies cou

On the Energy Gang this week, Ed Crooks is joined by Dr. Melissa Lott, the Director of Research at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, and Amy Duffuor, who is a General Partner at Azolla Ventures, a climate-focused investment firm.  In this week’s episode, the gang start of by discussing the recent outcry over the possible impact of offshore wind development on whales. Although there is no evidence connecting the wind industry’s activities to the rise in whale deaths, people are worried that there could be a link. It’s an example of the broader issue in energy investment: there can often be tensions and conflicts between what we need to do to tackle the threat of climate change and the interests of local communities and eco-systems. The transition to a low-carbon energy system means building a huge amount of stuff, from wind farms to power lines to lithium mines to flood defenses. The industry is under intense scrutiny to show that it can develop the infrastructure we need in

It’s a special edition of the Energy Gang this week. New York University’s 2040 Now event is an initiative focused on addressing the challenges posed by climate change, and this week the Energy Gang joined in. As part of the week of exercises, talks, exhibitions and discussions, regular Energy Gang member Amy Myers-Jaffe led a workshop on building energy transition scenarios, looking for ways to deepen our understanding of the present and strengthen our predictions about the future. The Energy Gang was there to record live in the Kimmel Center for University Life at NYU. Scenario analysis is particularly useful for analyzing the energy transition, because its trajectory is still uncertain, and a large number of variables can influence outcomes. Some of the most important of those variables are qualitative rather than quantitative, making them hard to analyze in a computer simulation such as an energy systems model. Thinking about a wide range of scenarios is a vital tool for testing assumptions and highl

Alternative sources of power are moving into the spotlight.As the share of dispatchable power in our electricity system declines, with coal-fired plants giving way to variable wind and solar, maintaining reliable supplies to keep the lights on becomes more complex. Investment in wind and solar is still vital for making progress towards net zero emissions, but other sources of low-carbon power are also moving into the spotlight. Those can include nuclear and hydrogen generation, as well as wave and tidal power, but there’s another source of renewable energy that’s been attracting a lot of attention recently: geothermal.   Today geothermal accounts for just 0.5% of renewables-based capacity for electricity generation globally, but some think it could play a much bigger role in the future. In the past few years there has been growing interest in geothermal energy, driven by some exciting innovations. Quaise Energy, for example, is developing a millimeter wave drill that they say could enable them

It has been a turbulent month in the financial sector, which could have big implications for the world of energy. Mobilising capital is vital for achieving international goals to curb greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of global warming. As the global banking system shudders from the blow of Silicon Valley Bank collapsing, is long-term climate investment being pushed further to the fringes of the agenda?  The latest Assessment Report from the IPCC has delivered what’s been called a “final warning” on limiting global warming to 1 .5 degrees C, saying we are on course for about 3.2 degrees C of warming by the end of the century. The report, which aims to bring together and summarise the state of the world’s scientific knowledge on climate change, warns that flows of investment, especially to developing countries, “fall short of the levels needed for adaptation and to achieve mitigation goals across all sectors and regions.”  As we learn more about the climate crisis, are we

Will permitting reforms make it easier to build infrastructure projects?A group called the REPEAT Project at Princeton University calculated last year that to unlock the full emissions reduction potential of the Inflation Reduction Act, the US needed to increase its total high-voltage transmission capacity by about 2.3% a year. That is more than double the pace achieved over the past decade. In Washington, reforms that could make it easier to build all kinds of energy infrastructure, including the grid connections vitally needed for wind, solar and storage, are back on the agenda. Attempts to build bipartisan support for reform in the last Congress failed, but with Republicans, who have control of the House of Representatives, now launching a plan of their own, a window for bipartisan agreement on permitting reform may be opening. Are these the steps needed that will unlock all the investment in renewable energy projects that the US needs?   Also on the show: the impact on energy markets from t

The energy industry influences climate change, and climate change also influences the energy industry. Understanding the consequences of a warming world is essential for making the right decisions as trillions of dollars are invested in energy production around the world. While we work to mitigate climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions, we also need to adapt to the changes that we cannot prevent. On the Energy Gang today, Ed Crooks and Melissa Lott are joined by Dr Sarah Kapnick from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The NOAA collects data from a fleet of satellites, buoys, weather stations and balloons, and uses the information to try to understand our changing world. Its data and modelling on global warming and its impacts is increasingly being used to inform decisions on renewable investment, emergency planning, technology and more. Melissa also works on these issues in her role as Director of Research at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. Ho

The US Clean Energy Boom: What Might Stop It?The US Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden last August, has transformed the outlook for low-carbon energy in the US, because of the array of tax credits and other policy support that has been put in place.Over at Wood Mackenzie we do regular forecasts for the outlook for renewable energy investment in the US and as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act, we have raised our forecast of new solar capacity installations in the US over the coming decade by 50%, and our forecast for wind power installations by 84%.So, things looks really good for low-carbon energy in the US. Arguably better than they have ever looked, in fact. But we can’t just leave it there, with everything seeming right with the world. We need to talk about the barriers that could stop or slow down that boom in low-carbon energy investment.Robbie Orvis, Senior Director of Modelling and Analysis at Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology LLC and Amy Myers-Jaffe, Dire

What’s led the world to restart the stalled atomic engine?2022 was a year of important milestones for nuclear power. The most significant piece of climate legislation in US history – the IRA – included tax incentives and investment for the nuclear industry. A $15 per megawatt-hour tax credit for production to keep existing plants competitive, as well as $700 million to build a domestic supply chain for modern reactors, was a statement of intent from a government seeking to increase energy security. There is a resurgence of interest in nuclear power around the world. From the support for nuclear power in recent legislation in the US, to the plans for new reactors in France and the UK, to Japan’s commitment to a new generation of advanced nuclear technology. Soaring prices for natural gas and concerns about energy security following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have prompted renewed interest in reliable sources of supply. And at the same time, the international pressure to address climate change has n

The Energy Gang is back. We’re only a couple of weeks into the new year but already so much has happened. A mild winter so far in Europe has sent wholesale gas prices falling, but there’s still a long way to go. Natural gas is expected to trade at 77.11 Euros per MWh by the end of the quarter, down to pre-Ukraine war levels. With prices down 50% since the December peak, what is that going to do for the rest of the world? It’s just one question we have as the gang looks ahead to 2023 and discuss the opportunities or challenges that may await the energy industry.  Melissa Lott, Director of the Centre on Global Energy Policy, is joined by Amy Myers-Jaffe – Director of the Energy, Climate Justice & Sustainability Lab, and research professor at NYU. Together they look forward to the next 12 months: we’re approaching a year of war in Ukraine but how much longer will it continue? What will that do for energy prices and investment this year?  Environmental action in 2023 will also be put

2022 has been a very eventful year in the world of energy. From January to December there has been an ongoing war, a European energy crisis, billions of dollars in funding for clean energy in the US and a Twitter takeover. It’s the last episode of the year so we’re bringing you a special edition of the Energy Gang. Join host Ed Crooks and recurring Energy Gang guests, Amy Harder of Cipher, and Melissa Lott of Columbia University, as they wrap up the year by highlighting important moments in the energy transition, month-by-month. As always, check out our Twitter to let us know your thoughts and any future topics you want us to discuss. We’re @TheEnergyGang. Today's episode of the Energy Gang is brought to you by BlockEnergy autonomous community energy systems.Renewable, reliable residential energy at scale is not a thing of the future. BlockEnergy is providing resilient energy to communities NOW. Much more than solar-plus-storage, the modular and scalable BlockEnergy residential microgrid s

The year is quickly coming to a close and there’s a lot going on in the world of energy. On this episode of the Energy Gang, host Ed Crooks is joined for the first time by Jackie Forrest of the ARC Energy Research Institute and returning guest Robbie Orvis of Energy Innovation. The gang starts off the discussion by answering the question, what does a split US Congress mean for the energy transition. Under the current administration, a lot of progress has been made in the advancement of meeting our clean energy goals with the implementation of The Inflation Reduction Act. Now that the Republicans have taken control of the House what does this mean for US energy policy over the next couple of years? Will it now fall on individual states to implement reform, like California passing their ZEV mandate?The Inflation Reduction Act includes significant incentives for companies to establish clean energy manufacturing, which has motivated companies in other countries to pressure their government to make similar ad

The COP27 climate talks have been held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. It’s a popular tourist destination, but the negotiators discussing ways to limit global warming and to address the harm done by climate change have not been able to relax. The talks have been pretty hard going.Recurring Energy Gang guests Melissa Lott of Columbia University, and Amy Myers-Jaffe, who has just got a new job at New York University, join host Ed Crooks to discuss the progress that has been made, and where there is still more left to do. Both Melissa and Amy have had colleagues attending the summit, and we hear what they have been working on. The gang discusses the prospect of meeting the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5˚C, the steps taken since COP26 in Glasgow a year ago, and the issue of how to compensate poorer countries for the loss and damage caused by climate change. We discuss how this is where the rubber really hits the road in climate talks: when negotiators tackle the critica

With just a few days until world leaders and policy makers meet in Egypt for COP27, two returning Energy Gang members join host Ed Crooks to discuss what is expected from the latest round of international climate talks.As the UN warns that there is “no credible pathway” in place to limit global warming to 1.5 °C, arguments about climate justice are rising up the agenda for international negotiations. Amy Duffuor of Azolla Ventures, and Shanu Mathew of Lazard Asset Management, kick off the discussion by explaining the idea of climate justice, and then go on to explore what it means for the future of energy. Although it might seem like quite an abstract concept, considerations of climate justice can in fact have direct practical significance for decisions by businesses, investors, governments and NGOs. The gang discusses some of those implications, and looks at how they could shape the effort to tackle climate change in the future.Next, we shift our focus to the shipping indus