As half the world heads to the polls, how important will the results be for efforts to cut emissions? Over half the world lives in a country that will be holding an election this year. The votes come at a time when resistance to the energy transition is building in many parts of the world, as concerns around energy security grow and some of the challenges of decarbonization come into focus. In the US, a finely-balanced election offers voters two sharply differing visions of the energy...

Big power users are getting together to accelerate the development of advanced clean energy technologies. The hottest topic in energy right now is the expected surge in demand for electricity. Data centers for AI, new factories, and electric vehicles are driving power consumption higher in the US, after about 15 years of stagnation. Solar and wind power can meet some of that increased demand, but many users, including data centers, want clean electricity round the clock. So there is a new...

AI isn’t just threatening to take our jobs, it’s also draining our electricity. Data centres centers used to have power demand measured in the tens of megawatts. Now they are in the hundreds of megawatts, and the new ones that are being proposed have demand in the thousands of megawatts: gigawatts. At the Distributech conference in Feburary, Harry Sideris of Duke Energy said it used to be a big deal when they had a customer wanting to add 10MW or 20MW of load. Now they have several planned...

This bonus episode of Wood Mackenzie’s The Energy Gang is our third from the Distributech conference in Orlando. Distributech is the leading event for the electricity transmission and distribution industry in North America. It gave our host Ed Crooks a fantastic opportunity to talk to many of the leading figures from the industry, including those who provide technology for moving and managing electricity, and those who use that technology to serve their customers. In this episode, Ed is...

On this episode of Wood Mackenzie's The Energy Gang: what the history of innovation in solar power and batteries can teach us about the right ways to support clean energy breakthroughs. As the world moves towards a more sustainable energy future, government support is essential for research to develop new technologies, and for investment to deploy them at scale. But policymakers often seem to be blundering in the dark, grasping for policies that they hope will have the outcomes they want. So...

When most people drive electric cars, what does that mean for the grid? This bonus episode of Wood Mackenzie’s The Energy Gang is our second from the Distributech conference in Orlando.  Distributech is the leading event for the electricity transmission and distribution industry in North America. It gave our host Ed Crooks a fantastic opportunity to talk to many of the leading figures from the industry, including those who provide technology for moving and managing electricity, and those...

What AI means for the energy transition in the electricity industry Welcome to a special episode of Wood Mackenzie's The Energy Gang, recorded at the Distributech 2024 conference in Orlando. Distributech is the leading event in North America for the electricity transmission and distribution industry. It provides a fantastic opportunity to talk to the companies that provide technology for moving and managing electricity, and to the utilities and other companies that use that technology. The...

There are no two ways around it: 2023 was a difficult year for low-carbon energy investment, and 2024 has so far carried on in very much the same vein. Rising interest rates, fears around future energy policy, cost inflation in some sectors, and perhaps a correction to some earlier over-exuberance, have meant that shares in clean energy companies have generally under-performed the market. To take a couple of high-profile examples, Tesla shares have fallen about 55% from their peak in 2021,...

The US is the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), super-cooled to about -160 °C (or -260 °F) so it can be shipped in tankers. An investment boom means export capacity will soar over the next few years. But last month the Biden administration signaled it was putting the brakes on future growth, announcing a “pause” in new approvals for LNG plants to export to nations that don’t have a free trade agreement with the US. This decision is expected to stall future US LNG...

The World Economic Forum held its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last week, bringing together leaders from business, finance, politics, academia and culture. Regular Energy Gang guest Dr Melissa Lott was there, talking about one of the meeting’s central themes: long-term strategies for the climate, nature and energy. On this week’s show, she shares with host Ed Crooks and guest Julio Friedmann – who’s chief scientist at the carbon management company Carbon Direct – what she learned...

Ed Crooks is joined by Amy Myers-Jaffe and Dr Melissa Lott to look ahead to 2024. They explore the people, places, and technologies that could have a big influence on energy this year.  Amy kicks things off with a look ahead to the US elections in November. The results of that vote will have big impact on policy in the US, and there are several other elections coming up around the world that could also have significant consequences for energy. COP28 in Dubai may be only just behind us, but...

Further conversations from this year’s summit. COP28 was the largest climate talks to date, with global industry leaders, governments, analysts, journalists and climate activists converging on Dubai for the summit. The Energy Gang's schedule was packed, and host Ed Crooks was joined by many interesting and influential people from the world of energy across 6 full days. In this episode, we bring you three new conversations that we couldn’t fit into the regular schedule. Kevin Kariuki is...

As 2023 comes to a close, the Energy Gang reflects on the events and trends of 2023 that provided grounds for optimism about the transition to a lower-carbon world. On this week’s show, Ed Crooks is joined by Melissa Lott and Amy Myers-Jaffe as they share their reasons to be cheerful this holiday season.  Ed chooses the precipitous drop in the cost of solar modules, making solar power ever more competitive against fossil fuels, and driving the adoption of solar energy on a global...

The gang assess the outcome of the climate talks in Dubai. This year’s COP went to overtime, as countries argued over the wording of the concluding statement. They had to carry on the negotiations all through the night to do it, but finally they emerged with what was described as a “historic” agreement. For the first time, the need to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels has been put on the record in a concluding statement from a COP. In our final show on COP28, the Energy Gang...

Nuclear energy has been in the headlines more in Dubai, than at any previous COP. Nuclear power has had more prominence at this year’s climate talks than at any previous COP. In fact, some people have even been calling it “the nuclear COP”. That’s partly because the hosts, the United Arab Emirates, have been a pioneer of nuclear power in the Gulf region, building four reactors to meet 25 per cent of its electricity demand. At this year’s COP, 24 governments set a goal to triple worldwide...

On day 9 of the climate talks, what do the experts think? As Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UNFCC, said today, it’s go-time for governments at COP28 this week. To examine the latest stories Ed Crooks has assembled a panel of energy experts: regular Energy Gang guest Melissa Lott, who is Director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, Morgan Bazilion, Director of the Payne Institute for Public Policy and professor of public policy at the Colorado School of Mines,...

An interview with Kristen Siemen from General Motors  On this bonus episode recorded live from COP28, Ed Crooks meets Kristen Siemen, Chief Sustainability Officer at General Motors. She sits down with Ed to discuss the current state of the EV market, GM’s plans for the industry and the key takeaways from the conversations at the summit.  Subscribe to the show on your podcast platform of choice so you don’t miss any of these special episodes coming live from COP28, and join the conversation...

What are the barriers to cheap green hydrogen? As COP28 debates the future of fossil fuels, many people think low-carbon hydrogen could replace them for some uses. But, hydrogen has plenty of problems of its own: water use, public resistance to building infrastructure and above all, its cost.  Ed Crooks talks to three leaders from politics and business, who are trying to find ways to cure these headaches.  Michelle Lujan-Grisham, Governor of New Mexico has launched an initiative to provide...

At the halfway point of COP28 the focus is still on fossil fuel abatement. Ed Crooks is joined by Dr Melissa Lott, Director of Research at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and Professor at the Climate School, and Michael Webber, the McKetta Centennial Energy Chair at the University of Texas. Together they examine the biggest themes that are dominating debate at COP28. The arguments and discussions are still going on, but as Melissa says, they’re not at the core of what’s...

At the halfway point of this year’s climate negotiations at COP28, the focus is still on the proposal that the world’s governments should commit to phasing out fossil fuels. Discussion on the best way forward is still going on; fossil fuels are responsible for the majority of human-induced climate change, and so the world has to stop using them. But as concerns over energy security continue, some say that the debate should not be around fossil fuels v renewables, but rather low-emissions v...

The insight and debate from the Climate Co-Lab event at COP28 In 2009, developed countries jointly pledged to mobilise $100bn per annum to support climate action in developing countries. This target has never been met and the pledge will expire in 2025. It is estimated that approximately $5 trillion is required annually, just to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.  The New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) intended to replace this pledge, is currently under negotiation, due to be...

Part one of our coverage live from the conference Ed Crooks is joined by Amy Harder & Bill Spindle from Cipher, the publication supported by Breakthrough Energy – the clean energy network founded by Bill Gates. Amy and Bill have been in Dubai since the start of the conference, and they analyze the big stories to come out of the first few days. The loss and damage fund is the main focus; a few hundred million has been pledged to help developing nations deal with the impacts of climate...

COP28, this year’s Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, started in Dubai on Thursday November 30. The Energy Gang will be there, bringing you all the latest news from the negotiations and explaining what it all means. As the climate talks get under way, Ed Crooks sits down in New York with Energy Gang regulars Dr Melissa Lott and Amy Myers-Jaffe to look ahead to the talks. On the show today, they explore the four key items on the agenda: The Global...

Thanksgiving is a special time in America when families across the country get together and argue. In honor of that tradition, host Ed Crooks and regular Amy Myers-Jaffe are joined by Danny and Toby Rice, two brothers who have both had very successful careers in energy but have gone in somewhat different directions.  Toby Rice is president and chief executive of EQT, the largest producer of natural gas in the US. He is an advocate for the benefits of exporting liquefied natural gas, and...