0:01

Hello, and welcome to the Energy King.

0:04

A discussion show about the Fast Changing World of

0:06

Energy. I'm Ed Crooks.

0:12

People talk about loosening permitting

0:14

restrictions in general. Usually,

0:17

go straight to the transmission point. And, yes,

0:19

the transmission is the stuff we need. My

0:21

feeling is you can do that a lot more effectively

0:24

if that actually is the goal by having direct transmission

0:26

legislation.

0:27

As we build out our supply chains of the future,

0:30

our energy resources of the future, geopolitics

0:33

of this are gonna be a big, big player.

0:35

As we think about the security of the supply chains,

0:37

the security of the energy resources, and

0:40

the types of trade offs we are willing and

0:42

able to

0:42

make. On today's show,

0:45

making it easier to build infrastructure in America.

0:47

What we've learned about energy security since

0:49

Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago and some

0:51

exciting developments in the world of batteries.

0:53

I'm joined again by Melissa Lot, who's the director

0:56

of research of the Centrum Global Energy Policy

0:58

at Columbia

0:59

University. Hi, Melissa. How are you? Head,

1:01

I'm doing great. It's a foggy morning

1:03

where I am. I'm on the road, but I'm

1:05

excited about the fog because it reminds me

1:07

of living in Monterrey, California when my

1:09

dad was stationed there. But also,

1:12

spoiler person joining us

1:14

today is a classmate of mine from graduate school

1:16

fifteen years ago, so I'm really excited

1:19

about this conversation.

1:20

Absolutely a great to have you back.

1:22

It's a great pleasure to welcome back, Emily Gruber,

1:25

who is an associate professor of sustainable

1:27

energy policy in the Kiyo School

1:29

of Global

1:29

Affairs. The University of Notre Dame in

1:32

Indiana. Hi, Emily. Many thanks for joining

1:34

us again.

1:34

Absolutely. Pleasure to be here and always a pleasure

1:36

to catch up with Melissa. Exactly always nice

1:38

to be hosting a class reunion. So

1:40

you're on the show last year. What

1:42

have you been doing since

1:43

then? What are the big things you've been working on? Yeah. That's

1:45

an interesting question, mostly moving,

1:48

but really starting to think a lot more

1:50

about what it means to actually

1:53

transition to a decarbonized world

1:55

in what that means in the building

1:56

sector. We were saying just before we came on that you've

1:58

been working in the building trade

2:00

in very practical way for the weekend. Right?

2:02

That's right. I think up drywall.

2:04

Yes. We had our waterline pulled a few

2:06

months ago, and I finally got around to patching the wall.

2:08

It's very it's it's always a great thing to do.

2:10

think if you can combine that, you know, the theoretical

2:12

knowledge with practical

2:13

billions. It's great. You know, the two things

2:15

inform each other in very useful ways I find.

2:17

have to confess, I didn't reinolate the patch.

2:21

So

2:21

disappointed. So disappointed. It's

2:23

alright. Yeah. Well, it's

2:26

alright. We'll keep that quiet. You your secret

2:28

safe with us. I'm sure you're a lazy people. Realistic.

2:34

So now look, the important thing also to mention

2:36

is that you've also got a role an adviser

2:39

to the Department of Energy right now. But just to

2:41

be absolutely clear, you're speaking

2:43

here in a purely personal capacity. Right?

2:45

Absolutely. You're an academic speaking as an

2:47

academic, not in any sense. Spoke to person

2:49

for the department. And very importantly,

2:51

any opinions we hear from

2:52

you, they're very definitely your opinions. Nothing

2:55

to do with what the federal government thinks

2:57

I can promise to give my own opinions. Fantastic.

3:00

But now we've cleared that up. Let's

3:02

get on to our first topic. The thing

3:04

I wanted to talk about, first of all,

3:06

on the show, it's a very, very long

3:08

running song. It's something we seem to have covered

3:10

many times before on

3:12

the energy gang. But there's

3:14

good reason, I think, to come back to it again

3:17

today, which is these plans

3:19

for permitting reform to make it easier to

3:21

build infrastructure projects in the US.

3:23

As I say, if you were listening to show last year, you probably

3:26

heard us several times talk about these

3:28

attempts to build bipartisan support

3:30

for

3:30

reform, came up in Congress, never

3:33

really went anywhere.

3:35

Now we have a new Congress, and the Republicans

3:37

have control of the House of Representatives, and apparently,

3:39

they're making their own attempts to deliver a form.

3:41

They've been talking about a

3:43

proposed bill, which they're calling, and this

3:46

is hilarious. I always enjoy the way people

3:48

try to name bills. This is the building

3:50

United States infrastructure through

3:53

limited delays and efficient

3:55

reviews act. Look at what that

3:57

is. Builder Act. The builder. Exactly.

3:59

It's the builder Act. Yeah. So that's very

4:01

nice. Anyway, and the point being, again,

4:04

rather like the attempts at reform we saw

4:06

last year, it's gonna be reform that

4:08

will make it easier to build stuff and it'll

4:10

make it easier both to build fossil fuel projects

4:12

like oil and gas pipelines, LNG

4:15

terminals and also hopefully

4:17

make it easier to build low carbon energy

4:19

infrastructure, including lightly

4:21

needed power transmission in particular.

4:23

It's been interesting to see the

4:26

sort of alignment of views on this and the coalition

4:29

building to support it. Garrett

4:31

Graves, who is the congressman, who's

4:33

proposed this legislation sponsoring it in

4:35

the House. He's Republican from Louisiana,

4:38

and he said I've got a quote from him here. He said

4:40

there are trillions of dollars recently appropriated

4:43

to various infrastructure efforts. But

4:45

when you take supply chain, inflation, labor

4:47

costs and add the increased cost of bureaucracy,

4:49

we aren't going to be able to build anything, and

4:52

that's essentially why he says

4:54

we need reform. And then you have Jason

4:56

Drummonde, who is the CEO

4:58

of the American Clean Power Association, which

5:00

is the big. Renewable Energy Industry Association.

5:02

And he said recently, if we don't actually

5:05

think honestly about the time frame, not only

5:07

are we going to fail to spend this money,

5:09

but begin to fundamentally fail to use it

5:11

in the way that's necessary to solve the

5:13

climate problem. So,

5:16

as I say, although this

5:18

effort has not gone anywhere yet, it

5:20

does still feel like there is a substantial

5:22

base of support for it. So

5:25

I'm interested in your thoughts, basically,

5:27

really, first of all, about what

5:30

you make in this new initiative how

5:32

hopeful are you that there will actually be

5:35

reform coming out of Washington? Melissa,

5:37

what do you think? Do you think now we're at last,

5:39

we're gonna see real progress on permitting

5:41

reform? I mean, I think there's a good chance that

5:43

we see something substantial this

5:45

year. Now, the question of if

5:47

it's real or not, I would actually define that

5:50

on if it's sufficient for accomplishing

5:52

the different goals we have in terms of reducing emissions.

5:55

Because that's really what we're talking about. How do we

5:57

get reform in place to refine that

5:59

balance, where we can build up infrastructure that

6:01

we're talking about when it comes to reducing emissions.

6:04

Yeah. And definitely, from my reading

6:06

of the text, as it's just being proposed,

6:09

it definitely is not

6:11

so angled towards support for renewables

6:13

as the previous versions

6:16

were. If you compare with bills, Jay mentioned,

6:18

brought to the Senate last year, which

6:20

had special provisions in for Power Transmission

6:22

and seemed very much angled towards

6:25

encouraging Power Transmission projects

6:27

and working out ways that the administration could

6:30

facilitate and accelerate power transmission

6:32

projects. The new

6:34

version doesn't do that at all. It's

6:37

but what kind of general -- Yeah. -- in

6:39

terms of what it hopes its

6:41

effects will be. And as you say, so it's

6:43

going to be very interesting to see how the negotiation

6:45

goes and to see if they are gonna try and build

6:48

bipartisan support for it. What

6:50

changes they have to make and how much, I guess, they

6:53

might have to accommodate

6:55

a more renewable friendly version

6:57

of the bill. Emily, what do you make of it? What what have

6:59

you seen so far? Yeah. I think the

7:01

whole permanent conversation as it relates to due

7:03

to carbonization is a particularly interesting

7:06

one because as Melissa and you both point

7:08

out. It's not that just making permitting

7:10

easier automatically results in decarbonization.

7:12

It may actually do the opposite. I think

7:14

one of the real tricks with a lot of

7:16

the deep decarbonization stuff is that

7:18

it's so many more

7:20

individual permitting decisions just because

7:23

you think about a power plant, like a wind farm or solar

7:25

farm is generally smaller than kind of

7:27

a historic large centralized power station.

7:29

So you might have you know, ten or

7:31

fifteen permitting decisions for

7:34

the same amount of ultimate

7:36

capacity in some cases depending on how big

7:38

those facilities are. Some advantages to this

7:40

distribution and some advantages to smaller

7:42

facilities, but it does mean you have to make a permitting

7:44

decision more often. Similarly with the

7:46

transmission line, maybe it's all one project,

7:48

but you have many, many landowners. And so you

7:50

end up in situations, I think, a lot of the time

7:52

where an easier permitting process

7:55

facilitates incumbents with small

7:57

numbers of projects much more than it facilitates

8:00

newcomers with big numbers of projects

8:02

even though individual permitting decisions might

8:04

be easier. And

8:05

this is something I wanna pick up on real quick

8:07

that Emily said that when you're talking about permitting

8:09

decisions, as in there are many,

8:12

as in there are lots of steps, The federal

8:14

conversation absolutely matters, but

8:16

state and local decisions and those processes

8:18

matter a lot too. And so within all this, I

8:20

don't know if you all caught. I think it was in the spring

8:23

of twenty twenty one, Aspen Institute, the

8:25

energy environment program put out that final

8:27

report. I think it was called building cleaner faster.

8:30

And it talked about state and local conformity.

8:32

So if you have some kind of accelerated federal

8:34

process, you still need to figure

8:36

out how you get things through state permitting

8:39

processes and through local permitting

8:41

processes.

8:42

And so to be clear about what you're both saying, is there

8:44

some version of federal that's actually

8:46

worse than nothing that could be

8:47

counterproductive. Yeah, absolutely. Especially if

8:49

we're talking about permitting reform as a pathway to

8:52

deep decarbonization because Again, if you

8:54

just have something that kind of makes projects in general

8:56

easier, there's not a lot of reason to

8:58

believe that that wouldn't favor incumbents, at

9:00

least from my perspective. I think in

9:02

general too, like, with both the federal

9:04

and the state and local conversations, figuring

9:06

out how to do permitting reform in a way that doesn't

9:08

completely steamroll host communities and

9:11

doing it in a way that makes that participation

9:13

easier and makes it easier to come to actual

9:15

project changes that make people happy with the

9:17

project as opposed to just kind of trying to move

9:19

it as quickly as possible. There's gonna

9:21

be a lot of, I think, ultimate

9:24

backlash to those projects, and things can stop

9:26

later even if they have a permit

9:27

to. The last thing I will say on

9:29

top of what Emily is saying is that when I

9:31

talk to project developers, what they want is

9:33

predictability. What they wanna know is

9:35

when something can get built, when they will have an approval.

9:38

When they will have a thumbs up, thumbs down,

9:40

or some kind of feedback. And so in this

9:42

reform process, making sure

9:44

that everything is clear and transparent and

9:46

predictable. We know what the timelines are, all

9:49

of that. We could make that better or

9:51

worse depending on how we pass

9:52

reform. Howard Bauchner: That's also a really interesting

9:55

context. Point when talking

9:57

to developers and people that are trying to get projects

9:59

down. A question I really like to ask is would you

10:01

rather have a process that's faster, but gets you

10:03

to know faster as well, or would you

10:05

rather have a process that's only faster

10:07

if it gets you to do the project that you actually want?

10:10

And I think It's interesting when people are

10:12

like, you know what? I'd rather have the no quickly,

10:14

and then we can go back and start it over. Some

10:16

people don't feel that way. But I think when we

10:18

talk about permitting reform, solution

10:20

isn't really to try to make sure that every

10:22

single proposed project gets a permit.

10:25

And that's, I think, something that kinda gets lost

10:27

in the reform discussion sometimes. Really

10:29

important

10:30

point.

10:30

And what do you think about the significance of

10:32

the National Environmental Policy Act here? Neepah,

10:35

this is the sort of bedrock environmental

10:37

law people didn't signed into law actually

10:39

by president Richard Nixon back in nineteen

10:41

seventy, think first of January nineteen seventy.

10:44

And that governs a lot of things that happen

10:46

in terms of environmental permitting

10:49

and approvals and so on. And it was

10:51

very interesting to notice in this

10:53

text of the builder out the Republican plan

10:55

that it says very explicitly the first few sentences,

10:58

this law is a reform of nipper

11:00

and changes nipper in variety of

11:02

ways. What do you think about that? Does

11:04

it make sense to be thinking about

11:06

reforming nipper? Does nipper operate

11:09

in ways that are counterproductive

11:11

sometimes, do you think? Think this is another one of these

11:13

cases where reform isn't really a

11:15

binary. It's a really directed thing. Like, there are

11:17

a lot of things about the nipa process that I would

11:19

change if I had the opportunity to do

11:22

so I don't think they're necessarily the things that people

11:24

that are writing these bills want to

11:25

change. Okay. Fair enough. Totally take a

11:27

point. But then what I do wonder about

11:30

is the question of

11:32

whether the status quo that we have at the moment

11:34

is really unsustainable in

11:36

the sense of that. If we keep things as they are

11:38

right now, we're just not gonna

11:41

get the pace of change

11:43

that we need. And so it's really important.

11:45

As you say, has to be the right reform, but we do

11:47

definitely need some reform. I was

11:49

looking very interesting piece in the

11:51

York Times the other day. New

11:54

York Times, they hear the numbers that they

11:56

cited. They said that as the end

11:58

of twenty twenty one. There were more

12:00

than eight thousand one hundred energy projects

12:02

and the vast majority of those being low

12:04

carbon energy, wind, solar, and batteries

12:07

waiting for permission to connect to the grid.

12:09

And that was up from

12:12

five thousand six hundred the year before.

12:14

So This huge growth, enormous

12:17

excitement in investment in clean

12:19

energy and the grid

12:21

emerging as a real choke point.

12:24

And as I say, those numbers from the end of twenty

12:26

twenty one. Now we've got the Inflationary Production

12:28

Act, very fundamentally changing

12:31

the economics of investment in

12:33

wind and solar and storage, other

12:35

forms of low carbon energy. It's

12:37

presumably going to bake even more of a difference

12:40

and gonna create even more pressure on

12:42

the grid. And there was a very interesting study

12:45

I saw recently was being talked about.

12:47

It was actually published last year, but was being discussed

12:49

again. Recently, this worked by Jesse

12:51

Jenkins, Princeton University and

12:53

a team he had. And their

12:55

calculation was, okay, let's look at the inflation reduction

12:57

act, look at the potential for decarbonization that

13:00

it creates, and let's look

13:02

at the demand on the grid. And

13:04

their calculation was that the total

13:07

high voltage transmission capacity of

13:10

the US needed to grow by

13:12

about two point three percent a year that as we

13:14

were in terms of sort of gigawatt miles

13:16

of capacity for power transmission.

13:19

That needs to grow by two point three percent a year

13:21

for the next ten, twenty years

13:24

out of the future, that is

13:27

double the rate that we've

13:29

achieved over the past ten years, actually more than double.

13:31

I think it's been growing at about one percent a

13:34

year in the past decade. That

13:37

does suggest, doesn't it, that as I say,

13:40

that fundamental point, the

13:42

status quo is

13:42

unsustainable, something really does need to

13:45

change. Is that right? The transmission

13:47

question, I think, is always a particularly interesting

13:49

one. Because when people talk about loosening

13:51

permitting restrictions in general, usually,

13:55

we go straight to the transmission point. And like,

13:57

yes, the transmission is the stuff we need.

13:59

My feeling is you can do that a lot more

14:01

effectively if that actually is the goal by having

14:03

direct transmission legislation. We

14:05

may not get that, but think that there's a bit

14:07

of a tendency to conflate all permitting

14:09

with something that's going to result in normative

14:12

transition if we actually do

14:14

want this normative transition toward decarbonization,

14:16

think really having to move

14:19

into space supports that is kind

14:21

of a prerequisite for good permitting reform.

14:23

So doing permitting reform for everything

14:26

without decarbonization law or

14:29

doing kind of general permitting

14:31

reform and not specifically targeting

14:33

transmission, I don't think is actually going to get us

14:35

the results that we are looking for here. But

14:37

you could intervene on the transmission side

14:39

directly. I will also say that we've grown

14:41

really fast, really close-up to

14:43

transmission and decarbonization or power

14:45

and decarbonization. But

14:48

let's roll back a couple of years. And

14:50

so we rewind for a minute in our minds.

14:52

And I wrote this piece with a colleague

14:54

of mine at the San Diego 1G policy David Hill.

14:56

Where we talked about the things was

14:58

around four point six trillion dollars

15:01

over the next decade that was gonna be

15:03

needed to update the country's infrastructure

15:05

period. So to Emily's point, you know, we can focus

15:08

on transmission, but I'm thinking

15:10

about roads drinking

15:12

water? Yes, solar and wind projects,

15:14

also natural gas pipelines. Like, there's

15:16

just ton of stuff that when you

15:18

look at the American Society of Civil Engineers

15:20

estimates of like where the gaps are, this

15:22

is way beyond just power

15:24

lines, just power and

15:27

actually extends beyond a decarbonization

15:29

question. Of course, that's we're focused on here.

15:30

As a civil engineer can't

15:32

disagree with any of that, but they do.

15:35

Certainly, whether the permitting reform is really

15:37

the piece that's preventing us that. I mean, kind of to

15:39

Ed's framing point in the beginning where people are

15:41

talking about delays in projects

15:43

because of supply chains and costs and inflation.

15:45

That's not really permitting issue. And

15:47

so think that as we have these discussions being

15:50

super, super clear about what is actually permitting

15:52

issue and what isn't kind of helps us

15:55

to figure out where that reform is actually

15:57

needed. Because again, I do think that there are types of permitting

15:59

reform that could be counterproductive in this situation.

16:01

And Melissa, what do you think about that idea of a

16:04

family of them, which is that essentially, if

16:06

we want more transmission, that's what the legislation

16:08

should focus on. And we actually want to

16:10

make that very explicit and pass legislation

16:12

that says we're gonna make it easier to

16:14

build power transmission rather

16:17

than these kind of broad based permitting

16:19

efforts. I mean, I'd take your point in my head, what you've just

16:21

been saying about there is actually a need for

16:23

more infrastructure of all kinds, but

16:26

just to ensure that we do

16:28

focus the effort on

16:31

transmission because it is so absolutely

16:34

critical to everything happening in the

16:36

electricity system

16:37

that it should be kind of singled out

16:39

for special treatment. mean, I absolutely don't

16:42

disagree in any way that we need

16:44

to figure out how to build transmission. I mean,

16:46

we publish our report with NYU's Institute

16:48

of Policy Integrity back in December

16:50

twenty twenty. Two of the authors on the report

16:53

actually are now in the General Counsel's Office at

16:55

the Department of Energy, but the report was focused on

16:57

building a new grid without new legislation.

16:59

I feel like it's that song from middle

17:02

school. It's a song that never ends. It just goes on and

17:04

on my friends, which is Yes. Ideally,

17:06

I would have a policy that really

17:09

targets the thing that

17:11

I wanna target but we're

17:13

making legislation. We're making

17:15

laws. We're making rules. We're making processes

17:17

in a country with fifty states in a

17:19

bunch of territories, but a bunch of different interests

17:21

a bunch of different goals and bunch of different priorities

17:24

and a bunch of different metrics about what is

17:26

needed. And so if

17:28

the only thing that was needed was transmission authorities

17:30

and we had a viable political pathway

17:32

to passing targeted transmission policies.

17:35

That would be great and that would be a process

17:37

that we could move forward on, but I I think

17:40

back to how we got the IRA passed,

17:42

like as a country, how that happened. And

17:44

I don't think any of us would disagree

17:46

with the statement that it was a compromise, it was

17:48

a process, and there were lots of different voices

17:51

involved. And what came through is by no

17:53

means the most economically efficient

17:56

way or efficient way period

17:58

to get decarbonization done, but it is

18:00

the path that was before us that we could all get

18:02

onboard for. So I

18:04

agree and also just

18:06

would put that practical layer on

18:08

it. So question, supposing it

18:10

doesn't happen. As you say, supposing it's

18:13

not possible to build that kind of

18:15

support in Congress bipartisan

18:17

support it's gonna have to be because the Republican

18:20

control has representatives. And

18:22

suppose you don't get legislation through

18:25

that specifically supports electricity

18:27

transmission, maybe not, but changes

18:29

permitting at all. And as you

18:31

say, there's still these other obstacles

18:34

and issues to be taken into account and the way

18:36

that state and local policies work

18:38

the way that electricity regulation works,

18:41

the way that local communities have

18:43

the ability to stop infrastructure

18:46

development and so on, what

18:48

then? And is there a

18:50

point where you have to say, okay,

18:53

we're gonna need to think about a very different

18:55

future for the electricity system, which

18:57

is essentially one that doesn't rely

19:00

on a lot more transmission being built out,

19:03

and is one, I guess, that thinks about

19:06

citing generation much

19:08

closer to where the demand is that thinks about

19:10

presumably much more distributed energy

19:13

resources of various kinds, distributed

19:15

generation and storage, and

19:17

demand response may be playing a bigger role

19:19

and so on. And

19:21

as I say, we have to kind of fundamentally reconfigure

19:24

our thinking about what a

19:27

low carbon energy system looks like

19:29

long term for the United

19:30

States. Is that a possibility? How do you think about

19:32

that? No. I'm kind of AA1 note singer

19:34

on this one, but this is partially why

19:36

I think in a lot of energy supply spaces,

19:39

I always start talking about deep building efficiency.

19:41

And people are kinda like, okay, we're not talking about demand

19:43

side right now. But when you start talking

19:46

about the way that this grid is getting built, we

19:48

are talking about the demand side because I think when

19:50

you look forward to a fully decarbonized

19:52

world a couple of decades from now or whatever

19:55

that might be, the

19:57

grid that we're looking at might be

19:59

in the United States. We have about a terawatt of

20:01

installed capacity right now. If we're looking at

20:03

full electrification, all of the stuff that

20:05

talk about with sustainable aviation fuels, DAC,

20:08

that kind of thing. We're maybe looking at six

20:10

or seven terawatts of capacity in

20:12

the next thirty years. That's seven times

20:14

as much stuff as we have in smaller units.

20:16

So this is partially why this is such a big problem.

20:19

If you then actually look at

20:21

things that kind of fundamental instruction really

20:23

reduce peak such as having

20:26

people's houses be incredibly energy

20:28

efficient and kind of able to ride through temperature

20:30

shifts, things like that. You get massive safety

20:32

benefits, first of all, through climate change, which

20:34

I think is really important, both in heat waves

20:37

and in cold snaps that people might not be as

20:39

used to and are therefore more dangerous, these types

20:41

of things. But also you get the ability

20:43

to not have this massive coincident load

20:46

a couple days a year where everybody needs

20:48

to turn their heater on it. It's all electric. That

20:51

just in addition to reducing the total

20:53

amount of energy people are using, it massively

20:55

reduces the peak load. You know, I'm

20:58

still working on this, don't have the numbers out, but maybe

21:00

you're talking about three terawatts instead of

21:02

seven terawatts. That's still a

21:04

massive thing. And I'm not trying to

21:06

say that we don't need any transmission, but the

21:08

amount of transmission and the amount of supply

21:10

side resources we have are really fundamentally

21:13

connected to that overall structure

21:15

of what the demand looks like. People are always

21:17

like, well, you know, building efficiency is really hard.

21:19

I'm not sure it's harder than building seven terawatts

21:22

of capacity with all of the intended

21:24

transmission?

21:25

Yeah. That's really interesting, and I do think that's

21:28

a very compelling argument. It's

21:30

gonna be very interesting, obviously, to watch

21:32

how this reform evolves in Congress

21:35

over the the weeks and months to come. There's talk about

21:37

trying to get a vote this month on it,

21:39

which seems pretty unlikely to be. And I think

21:41

certainly that was sort of the pressure from Republicans.

21:44

I heard Democrats saying, well, hang

21:46

on. Hold yours is a bit. Maybe

21:48

later in the year, maybe over the summer when

21:50

we've had proper time to negotiate over

21:52

this and to work out some kind of a compromise

21:54

plan, then we'll get to it. So

21:57

it may not be anything happening very,

21:59

very soon, but still yet it's gonna be really

22:01

interesting one to watch over the months to

22:03

come and definitely something I'm sure we'll be coming

22:05

back to on the energy going in the future.

22:07

I wanted to move on to

22:10

talk about our next topic, which is

22:12

the question of energy security.

22:15

It has, of course, been little

22:17

over year since Russia invaded

22:20

Ukraine in late February

22:22

of twenty twenty two. And

22:25

it's really striking, I think, if you look

22:27

at some of the big energy markets,

22:29

how things seem to be kind of getting back to

22:31

normal. If you look at where The oil

22:34

market is now, Brent crude is trading at

22:36

about eighty five dollars a barrel. That's

22:38

actually lower than where it was in

22:40

early twenty twenty two. If you look at Natural

22:42

gas prices in Europe, which you remember

22:45

absolutely went sky high last

22:47

year. Natural gas on the

22:49

main European benchmark now for delivery

22:52

next month is trading at about fourteen dollars

22:54

per million British thermal units, which is

22:56

still kind of elevated, but it's down

22:58

from nearly a hundred dollars per million

23:00

British thermal units. At its peak last August.

23:02

That's drop of about eighty five

23:04

percent. So in some ways, as

23:07

I say, it feels like the turbulence

23:10

in energy markets has subsided.

23:13

But clearly, our ideas

23:15

about energy security, the way we think about it's been

23:17

shaken up very profoundly by

23:20

the events of the last year. And

23:22

I think some of those changes, unlike what's happening

23:24

in energy markets, are not

23:27

gonna be transient. They're gonna be

23:29

permanent. I think people are gonna have,

23:31

in the long term, some pretty different

23:33

ideas about energy

23:36

security. But I'm interested

23:38

in in both of your thoughts on that really. I mean, when

23:40

you think about energy

23:42

security and the way you understand that term,

23:45

Do you think you think differently

23:47

about it now because of the events of the past

23:49

year? How many maybe you first

23:52

done this? What do you think? Yeah.

23:54

I don't really I think that what we

23:56

saw over the last year was obviously

23:58

really challenging and really tragic for a lot

24:00

of people. The form it took was unpredictable. The

24:03

kind of thing that it was, I think, is something

24:05

that people have been talking about in energy security

24:08

spaces for a really long time. Like, we did

24:10

not know it was going to happen then in that way,

24:12

but I think part of the reason why people

24:14

are interested in domestic energy supplier,

24:16

things like this, does tend to

24:19

reflect the notion that some supplies are not

24:21

necessarily super secure. I think

24:23

one thing I'm really interested in is

24:25

how much people kind of look at the way

24:27

the gas prices are changing again

24:30

now, like you just said, much, much lower than they

24:32

were in August and kind of assume everything's okay.

24:34

I'm not hundred percent convinced it's not just because

24:36

it's not winter anymore, frankly. But

24:39

I think that when we look at

24:41

a lot of the kinds of concerns people have had

24:43

about the geopolitics of fossil fuels in particular

24:45

for a long

24:46

time, this is one of the types of outcomes

24:48

that has been on the table. Yeah.

24:50

And as you say, to your point about not winter

24:52

anymore, they've also been very

24:54

lucky with the kind of winter they had, generally

24:57

very mild weather, Yes. It was warm

24:59

winter. The Russians, of course, always famous,

25:01

he used to talk about general winter as being

25:03

a very important contributor to

25:06

their strategic effort. It's kind of been

25:08

the other way around in Europe. A warm winter

25:10

has really helped and it's meant that they haven't

25:12

needed to run down stocks

25:15

of gas. They have lot of gas and storage

25:17

that's created these relatively benign

25:20

market conditions they've got right now. But

25:23

this is not going to be the last winter when there

25:25

are going to be tensions between Europe

25:28

and Russia. There's going to be another winter

25:30

to get through and another one and another

25:32

one after that. And as you say, the Fed

25:34

perhaps you could say they've been lucky this

25:36

year doesn't necessarily tell you anything very

25:38

much about the long

25:39

term. Melissa, what do you think? This

25:41

is a tough one. So when it comes to the geopolitics

25:44

of all this and the winters, so

25:46

I'm thinking about all the rabbits that were pulled

25:48

out of hats. And the winners and losers

25:50

during this last winter to make sure that

25:52

Europe did have that gas. So how many cargoes

25:55

were diverted? What countries did not

25:57

get the guests that they were going to.

25:59

And, you know, Western Europe

26:02

had a lot of capital, very

26:04

rich part of the world that they could spend

26:07

on this. Other regions do not.

26:09

And so as we go into the next oneer

26:11

and the next oneer and the next oneer,

26:14

I wonder how many rabbits are left of that hat.

26:17

And I think, you know, we have very few

26:19

tools to actually, you know, sort

26:21

this out. And so I think as we go into next whenever

26:23

we're gonna be hoping it's mild again.

26:26

And I you know, that's just that's

26:28

just where it is. And when it comes to

26:30

the geopolitics of this transition, there's

26:32

a couple different things on my mind. One,

26:35

there's this conversation that keeps

26:37

popping up about how if we get to the

26:39

end state of all this, there will be no

26:41

geopolitics. I mean, it's

26:43

a gross journalism of it, but I'm like

26:46

two things. That is a decarbonized

26:48

future has different geopolitics. Not

26:52

a lack of them. And also the road

26:54

to the future is a very, very

26:56

bumpy one. And geopolitics and

26:59

security are at the heart of that conversation. But

27:01

I think I agree with a point that and

27:03

Emily, tell me if I'm misinterpreting what you said.

27:06

But that point of actually what

27:09

happened brought to light

27:11

things we knew, you know,

27:13

intentions we already knew were there. We already

27:15

knew were problems. And when you think

27:17

about security, my mind goes to Poland

27:20

and continuing to burn coal. Why?

27:22

Concerns over security and

27:25

concerns over being too reliant on pipeline

27:27

gas from particular countries. Zoom

27:29

into Latin America. You'll see parallel stories.

27:32

You know, on and on and on. When we talk about

27:34

the transition, we can't ignore security.

27:36

And so we had this idea that

27:38

perhaps it was lower in the rank

27:41

order. I know of important things,

27:43

and the weighting was perhaps different. And

27:45

this is bringing it into the forefront that actually

27:48

you have to think about security. Security

27:50

is the core of getting emissions

27:52

down. And so how do we address that? And

27:55

I think what is happening right now with a bunch

27:57

of different countries and United States

27:59

has made clear statements on this with the

28:01

IRA and other things. That

28:03

as we build out our supply chains of the future,

28:05

our energy resources of the future, the

28:07

geopolitics of this are gonna be a big,

28:10

big player. As we think about the security

28:12

of the supply chain, the security of the energy

28:14

resources, and the types of trade offs

28:16

we are willing and able to

28:18

make. Yeah. I think that's really interesting

28:20

and that's a great opportunity to bring in

28:22

this quote that I wanted to use.

28:24

So that was very interesting. This was from

28:27

Jens Stoltenberg is the secretary general of

28:29

NATO, and he was talking about

28:31

the subject recently, the subject of energy

28:33

security said here we go. Not so long ago,

28:35

many argued that importing Russian gas

28:37

was purely an economic issue. It is not.

28:39

It's a political issue. It's about our security.

28:42

Because Europe's dependency on Russian gas

28:44

made us vulnerable, so we shouldn't make the same

28:47

mistakes with China and other authoritarian

28:49

regimes. Which seems to

28:51

be making exactly the point that you're

28:53

talking about, Melissa, which is that there

28:56

are going to be new issues of energy security

28:59

raised in the energy transition and

29:01

perhaps in the same way that Russia is a global

29:03

superpower in oil and gas.

29:06

We're now looking at China as the global

29:08

superpower in solar

29:10

panels, battery storage, processing

29:13

for battery raw materials, and

29:15

so on. Do you think that raises energy

29:17

security concerns do you think having

29:19

any critical step in your supply

29:22

chains, whether it's the production of minerals, the taking

29:24

those minerals and turning it into the precursor

29:26

things you need to actually create the end

29:28

thing you need, whether it's a battery or

29:30

a solar panel or something else.

29:33

If it's all concentrated in one country

29:35

or two or even three,

29:37

and especially if none of it is

29:39

local, that's a trade off. You're choosing.

29:41

And so there are risks associated with that. And

29:44

and it's not just geopolitical risks. It's,

29:46

you know, okay, I've got to ship something across an

29:48

ocean, what's going on with the weather. It's

29:50

there's a lot of different risks and so the questions we

29:52

have is how diversified do

29:54

our supply chains need to be for

29:56

us to feel like we're in

29:59

a state that we are okay with. And again,

30:01

this goes back to trade offs and choosing your trade offs.

30:03

Every single one of these choices has trade

30:05

offs. So which ones are the ones that we're gonna accept

30:07

based on our priorities? It's

30:09

interesting in light of what we were talking about

30:11

before because I think one of the things that

30:14

still kind of continues to shock me is how

30:16

much of the conversation about minerals

30:18

and particular revolves around, like, China

30:20

is controlling all of this. Like, China is

30:22

doing a bad thing by controlling all of this.

30:24

When the kind of core issue is that we

30:26

just haven't developed any of those resources because

30:28

we don't care to here. And that's

30:31

not on China. Right? And I think that

30:33

when we talk about, like, what is it actually

30:35

that we're committing to this starts to

30:37

become a question of geopolitics, but also a question

30:40

of justice just in terms of if you are going

30:42

to be demanding these kinds of materials, how

30:44

are you getting them? And who is responsible for getting

30:46

them to you? So I don't know. I think

30:48

that this it's kind of a twin conversation

30:51

of, like, oh, you know, we've neglected these

30:53

ply chains for long enough that we're not pretty

30:55

dependent on

30:56

imports, but that's not necessarily

30:58

because there's only one place where you can find

31:01

sand. I mean, we can develop

31:03

these things if we want to. But again, that goes

31:05

back to the trade offs of it. So, you know,

31:07

for a while, in a lot of these supply chains, we've kind

31:09

of ignored the fact that in significant

31:12

parts of the world. Minerals are being pulled out of the

31:14

ground with child labor, paid fifty

31:16

cents or a dollar a day. All of

31:18

these things and, you know, that's part of

31:20

our supply chains right is that gonna be

31:22

something that we will support in the future? But then

31:24

also in the trade off, the cost

31:26

of developing in a different way. One thing I

31:28

will say when it comes to the choice to develop

31:31

and if we are gonna choose to develop whether it's mines

31:33

or other parts of supply chains, you know,

31:35

the whole whole value chain from

31:38

soups to nuts is where

31:40

will we develop it? And who

31:42

will not only experience

31:45

what it hope will be minimize negative

31:47

impacts of that development. We've learned a lot on how to

31:49

get things out of the ground in a way that is more environmentally

31:51

and health related to a safer situation.

31:54

But on the flip side who actually gets the opportunities

31:56

that are developed with it. So not a precursor.

31:58

We're gonna dig us out of the ground and great. We'll build a

32:00

school, but we're actually going to invest

32:03

in community in a different way there's going

32:05

to be a share of profits. And I know we had

32:07

a very interesting discussion

32:09

with tribal indigenous communities

32:11

from North America Africa. Predominantly, it was the US

32:13

and Canada in this case for this particular event

32:16

at the center. But it was talking about the

32:18

opportunities to share in the ownership of

32:20

infrastructure. Structure, you know, having a fifty percent

32:22

stake in a new transmission line and a new

32:24

power project, but then how you finance

32:26

it and make sure that whether it is

32:28

a indigenous community in Canada or

32:32

a tribe in the United States. How

32:34

do they have the financing for it? How do they have access

32:36

to enough capital to actually be able to

32:38

access that ownership and that asset

32:40

that will produce money over

32:41

time. It's a multilayered complex

32:44

conversation. Right. That's very interesting.

32:47

That initiative very clearly fits

32:49

with the strategy that

32:51

we're seeing from the administration right

32:53

now, which is all about repatriating these

32:55

supply chains. And as you say, working out all

32:58

the various different ways that

33:01

you can bring capacity into

33:04

the United States and you can

33:06

develop all the elements

33:08

in the supply chain that you need for these critical

33:11

clean energy technologies and thinking about what you

33:13

need to do in terms of, as you

33:15

say, building support with communities, getting

33:18

financing in the right ways, creating

33:21

the right economic incentives and so on.

33:24

I wanted to take that conversation slightly

33:26

different direction though and to think about

33:28

some that occurs to me about all this, which is

33:30

the global

33:32

implications of what's going on

33:34

here. In terms of this sort of

33:36

intensified competition now between

33:39

economies to

33:41

secure these global supply chains

33:43

for themselves. And it's clearly partly

33:46

economic competition, right? And it's there's a sense

33:48

that these low carbon technologies are the

33:50

technologies of the future and the economies that

33:52

succeed here are going to be

33:54

the ones that have long term economic

33:57

success. And

33:59

so the inflation reduction act

34:01

has had this strong response in

34:03

many other parts of the world, particularly in Europe,

34:05

people have sort of first been protesting

34:08

and then working out ways that they can emulate

34:10

what the inflation reduction act is doing. One

34:13

of things I wonder about this is

34:15

what it means for kind

34:18

of global climate policy and the sense

34:20

that the world is trying

34:22

to work together, for

34:24

instance, through technology transfer

34:27

and diffusion

34:29

of best practice and

34:31

also diffusion of investment and

34:34

capital in order to be able to reduce

34:36

emissions, whether that

34:38

kind of global cooperative effort is being

34:40

then undermined by this

34:43

intense international competition to

34:47

build these industries. Is there something in that

34:49

you think or am I imagining

34:51

that? It definitely feels to me like there's attention

34:54

there. Emily, what do you think? It's interesting.

34:56

I I haven't thought about it in those terms

34:58

before. And to some extent, I think it's

35:00

a little too soon to tell because

35:02

I have a tendency to do this too, but I think a

35:04

lot of us kind of talk about the transition

35:06

as being farther along than it really is.

35:09

We've made enormous progress in some

35:11

ways but also, you know, we're not

35:13

really in a situation where most of the world

35:15

is half decarbonized even not

35:17

even close to that in most cases. So I think

35:19

that there's a lot of

35:22

attention to these issues that kind of

35:24

maybe isn't quite a problem yet. I think the

35:26

one place where there is a bit of attention

35:28

that I think is going to continue to be really challenging.

35:31

And this is the the resource extraction

35:33

background coming out. I But when

35:35

we think about a lot of the mineral supply chains

35:37

in particular, the mismatch between

35:39

how quickly some of these new technologies are

35:42

developing and are developing associated with

35:44

different chemistries or to avoid or to

35:46

use certain kinds of materials, that's

35:49

pace and that sort of general decision

35:51

about which batteries are the best or which,

35:53

you know, magnet architectures are the best

35:55

or whatever are not necessarily in

35:58

freight lock with the fact that it takes fifteen

36:00

or twenty years to develop a big mine. And

36:02

even if we're able to minimize the amount of mining

36:04

we have to do to support all of this kind of thing, we

36:06

do have to mine the right things. And that

36:08

time mismatch, I think, is gonna continue to be

36:11

challenging, is partially why there is competition

36:13

across countries that may have a better deposit

36:15

of one thing or

36:15

another. But this timing goes back to the critical

36:18

point that we were talking about at the start of this discussion,

36:20

which is, what is

36:22

the goal? If the goal is to reach net

36:25

zero by mid century. Clock's

36:28

ticking. I think math I'm looking at twenty

36:30

seven years, not even. And so if it takes

36:32

me, fourteen fifteen,

36:34

much less twenty years to permit a mine.

36:37

That's the direct tension. I mean, I'm just gonna

36:39

put that way. That is huge tension. And

36:41

so as we look at what we're trying to accomplish

36:44

and then what we would need to do to

36:46

get there, which is to accelerate all of

36:48

these processes about building stuff.

36:51

And then back to the trade offs, what you were asking

36:53

at the beginning, Ed, you know, what are we

36:55

willing to do to actually reach that

36:58

timeline. If the ultimate goal is

37:00

reaching net zero by mid century, everything

37:02

else kind of trickles in from there. So we

37:04

only have so many years to develop different chemists reasons,

37:07

figure out which ones are gonna be front runners, you

37:09

know, for that mid century goal. Now I'm

37:11

gonna put the caveat in of net zero doesn't end

37:13

twenty fifty. There's an entire, you

37:15

know, future beyond that that we think about.

37:17

But in terms of minimizing those human health impacts,

37:19

it's a really important timeline to keep in

37:21

mind. And so right now, that

37:23

average time to open a mine in the teens

37:26

of years does not work.

37:29

Unless we're willing to accept a trade off

37:31

of giving up control,

37:33

of those parts of our supply chains to whatever

37:35

countries are willing to accelerate

37:37

their processes. Howard Bauchner: Right. So let's

37:40

think about some good news on that front though because

37:42

I mean, as you say, those challenges

37:44

clearly are very real

37:47

and very significant and really

37:49

need to be addressed. But to

37:52

that point, you put it, I believe which

37:54

batteries are the best. I do

37:56

think there's been some really fascinating progress

37:58

just recently on that front. People

38:02

may or may not know that batteries

38:04

in terms of the batteries you've find in everything

38:06

from your laptop to your phone to

38:09

EVs. Traditionally, they've been these

38:12

lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide

38:14

batteries, often known as NCA. And

38:16

cobalt, in particular, of course, has been very,

38:19

very controversial issues

38:21

in particular with human rights

38:23

abuses, the use of child labor and

38:26

supply chain has raised huge

38:28

concerns and it's

38:30

definitely something that needs

38:32

to be addressed. And

38:34

certainly the question of whether in

38:37

moving towards lower carbon technologies,

38:39

we're exacerbating human rights abuses

38:42

It's a very, very important one. It's something

38:44

that really needs to be addressed. But

38:47

what's been happening in the past two or three years

38:49

or so is that we've had

38:51

this huge shift in prevailing

38:53

battery chemistries and batteries that don't need

38:55

cobalt at all are

38:58

starting to become really important for EVs.

39:00

Though it's what they call lithium ferrous phosphate

39:02

batteries, that's LFP. They

39:05

are typically lower cost and

39:07

safer than the NCA batteries. They've

39:09

typically also had lower performance. But

39:11

what's happened just recently is that technology

39:14

has been advanced quite a bit.

39:17

And now they still

39:19

don't have quite such good performance as

39:22

the NCA batteries, but

39:25

for shorter range EVs,

39:27

they're actually perfectly good. Tesla

39:30

revealed a number last year, they

39:32

said that in the first quarter of

39:34

twenty twenty two, almost half the vehicles

39:37

they sold had these LFP batteries.

39:39

And there was an announcement from Ford, just

39:41

recently Ford's building a huge new

39:44

battery plant in Michigan. In

39:46

association with the Chinese company using technology

39:49

from the Chinese company, CATL, and

39:51

that's gonna be building LFP batteries.

39:54

And there was interesting comment Tesla had

39:56

its Investor Day last week, and

39:58

Elon Musk was talking about

40:00

different battery chemistries, and he said,

40:03

got the quote here. He said you only need

40:05

nickel, meaning nickel batteries

40:07

for basically aircraft, for long range

40:09

boats, and for very long range cars or

40:11

trucks. The vast majority of

40:13

the heavy lifting for electrification will

40:15

be ion based cells, in other words,

40:18

LFP. And as he pointed out,

40:20

iron is actually the most common

40:22

element on earth. So

40:25

what do you think, Melissa, is this something you're

40:27

encouraged

40:27

by? I'm certainly encouraged by

40:30

innovation and the the thought of

40:32

we can use a lot of different stuff to accomplish

40:34

the goal. I mean, no offense to

40:36

lithium or cobalt

40:38

or anything else. Like, they're kind of

40:40

nifty if you like, you know, studying

40:43

those things and if are part of the Jackson School

40:45

Geosciences that Emily and Maison will

40:47

moderate. You probably really

40:49

enjoy studying them for themselves. I'm

40:51

much more focused and a lot of them focus

40:53

on, you know, what is this gonna do for me?

40:56

Like at the end of the day, I don't really care

40:58

about the battery. I care about mobility. I

41:00

care about getting from a to b when I wanna get

41:02

there. That's what matters. So I'm thinking

41:04

about couple of different things. Innovation

41:07

and then concentration of resources. So

41:09

When you look at oil and gas, for an

41:11

example, and you look at the percent of

41:14

production that comes from, let's say,

41:16

the top three countries, for oil,

41:18

you know, that would that be US, Saudi Arabia,

41:21

and Russia. And I'm looking at numbers

41:23

before everything that's gone that's happened in

41:25

the last year. Actually, let's zoom

41:27

back to kind of right at the beginning of COVID

41:29

numbers. So that was about those three countries

41:31

represented something like forty five percent.

41:34

Of the production of oil around the world.

41:36

Natural gas, you'd have the US, Russia, and

41:38

Iran, and that would be around the same

41:40

numbers, around fifty percent. And then

41:42

you zoom into platinum, ninety

41:44

percent coming from three countries, South

41:46

Africa, Russia, Zimbabwe. Lithium,

41:50

eighty five or so percent

41:52

coming from three countries, Australia, Chile, and

41:54

China. And so I'm wondering how much

41:56

it goes back to the earlier

41:59

conversation with how quickly we're gonna move down

42:01

this road, those supply chains, the

42:03

production of those things, it's been important

42:05

but it hasn't been at the forefront of our

42:07

minds. And if we are actually committing to an accelerated

42:10

transition to try to meet some mid century

42:12

goals, how will those

42:14

numbers change? You know, will we

42:16

drive it down as a world to

42:18

a place where eighty ninety percent, okay,

42:21

that drops to forty five percent like

42:23

with oil is coming from three countries and actually

42:25

there is a lot of production coming from other

42:27

countries as

42:28

well, like how will that change in tandem

42:30

with actually the development of alternatives. That

42:32

can be developed in, again, a larger diverse

42:35

group of countries. I think

42:37

in general, it's kind of

42:39

always the thing that I come back but having

42:41

a directed transition, I think, is so critical

42:43

to this because as you say, like, we've seen a number

42:45

of these kinds of things where we realized that

42:48

there was a problem with some material that we were using.

42:50

So cadmium and solar panels being another

42:52

pretty good example. And actually,

42:54

we're early enough in the commitment

42:57

phase to kind of play with that and try

42:59

to change it. To Melissa's point, you can only do

43:01

that so many times before you're kind of committed

43:03

to a pretty significant in path. And because

43:06

we're so early, this seems like it happens

43:08

more than it probably will over time.

43:10

But we do know that because we're

43:12

still so early. We can make some of those choices

43:14

and we can't innovate around some of those constraints. But

43:17

I think the constraints need to be in place for us

43:19

to really feel great about moving towards

43:21

something. So if we just decide, like, we're

43:23

not doing child labor, like, which we

43:25

should, then that's something that

43:28

we can actually eradicate

43:30

in a way that's not necessarily associated with the

43:32

mineral. But there's other kinds of things that are maybe

43:34

more mineral attendant like the things.

43:36

So that's really interesting when you talk about a

43:38

directed energy transition. What

43:41

do you mean by that? I mean, because, I mean, it's not

43:43

as if the sort of governments

43:46

of the world are saying

43:48

we have to stop using cobalt. And therefore,

43:51

the industry moved away from cobalt, it was

43:53

about presenting people with a certain set

43:55

of economic incentives and different

43:57

companies, technologists, scientists

44:00

and engineers worked out ways

44:02

to find the innovations that were necessary

44:05

in order to get away from cobalt. So

44:08

isn't this something more that happens

44:10

kind of organically and

44:13

through essentially operation of the market

44:15

and private companies being able to innovate

44:17

rather than being directed by

44:19

governments. I mean, I'd rather not be

44:21

in a situation where companies are making a voluntary

44:23

choice on whether or not to use child labor.

44:25

But, you know, I'm I'm a little more of a commended control

44:27

person than most people, but I think that In this

44:29

case, again, it's not really cobalt.

44:32

That's the problem per se. It's

44:34

the way we're mining it. Those are the

44:36

kinds of things where regulatory frameworks

44:38

have a way that you can really deal with

44:40

it. I think in the directed energy transition,

44:42

this kind of comes back full circle to the conversations

44:45

about permitting too, though. If the

44:47

goal is actually we

44:49

need to be at net zero by mid century,

44:51

that's a really different context in which

44:53

to be doing any of this than one where it's

44:55

kind of a voluntary thing that some people are interested

44:58

in. This is really hard to do. Obviously,

45:00

like having normative transition in a

45:03

extraordinarily diverse

45:05

world in terms of who's actually trying

45:07

to do what is actually something

45:09

that's pretty challenging. But if we kind of think

45:11

about there is really a justice

45:14

implication here. There are a whole kinds of

45:16

other big implications for why

45:18

we don't want climate change to get a lot worse

45:20

than it's already going to be. I think

45:22

we don't succeed unless we actually decide

45:24

that that's the goal. If that's not the goal, we're not going

45:26

to get

45:27

there. Howard Bauchner: Yeah, when we talk about how

45:29

cobalt or lithium or nickel

45:31

or copper or how any of the stuff is gonna

45:33

be pulled out of the ground, refined, turned the thing

45:35

we want. We also need to

45:38

overlay this with what is

45:40

the process we're trying to develop, which isn't just

45:42

a straight shot where we increase the amount of lithium

45:44

we produce every year. Forever.

45:47

It's actually a concept of blending

45:49

in circularity. So how do we recycle all the

45:51

stuff? So let me put some numbers against it.

45:53

When you look at twenty twenty production of

45:55

lithium versus twenty fifty. If we go with

45:57

existing technologies, I'm just gonna lock in

45:59

the net zero study from the IAA ad just for

46:01

the time being. But if you go with those numbers, we're

46:03

looking at a four hundred and fifty times

46:05

increase just over that of

46:08

annual lithium production. And then on

46:10

the flip side, when you talk about copper, which is

46:12

not, you know, the headline grabbing number,

46:15

it's still an eight times increase in

46:17

annual production. And that's off of

46:19

a much, much larger base. So like

46:21

twenty million metric tons per year, I think,

46:23

is the current production numbers. And so with

46:25

this, how do we make sure that as we develop

46:28

all of the different things we need, the

46:30

minds, the processing, all of it,

46:32

to actually support if that is our goal

46:34

net zero by mid century for the United

46:36

states and for the globe as quickly as

46:39

possible right around there. How do we make sure

46:41

we're not locking ourselves into producing that every year

46:43

forever, but actually starting to recycle

46:45

it. Actually, creating that circular economy

46:48

concept is gonna be so so important

46:50

if we just don't wanna result in an entire

46:53

other set of massive trade offs that we're

46:55

having to

46:55

manage. Which is a huge advantage in the sense that

46:58

a lot of the things we're talking about are not

47:00

operational consumption types of minerals.

47:02

So something like coal, you have to keep burning forever.

47:04

Exactly. Always. These kinds of things

47:06

are not necessarily, but I think that that point

47:09

and also something that I've been really

47:11

excited about, but Thoria Franco's and

47:13

Melissa Kendall and her team and some other folks at

47:15

UC Davis recently put out thing

47:17

through the climate and community project really talking

47:19

about how you think about structurally

47:21

reducing demand for these minerals by making

47:24

choices about how we're going to make

47:26

mobility happen. So, like, more buses

47:28

are closer together, kinds of things, more

47:30

walkability, these types of things. We have a lot of

47:32

choices kind of the same way with, you know, deep

47:34

building energy efficiency dictates the size

47:36

of the grid, like how we do mobility dictates

47:39

how much lithium we

47:40

need, and those kinds of questions I think are

47:42

also where some of the policy and direction comes

47:44

from. Yeah. And I I couldn't agree

47:46

more on how important this piece is

47:48

right here. We have known that

47:50

public report that

47:52

actually, you know, providing mobility not

47:54

just through personal cars, expanded forever and ever and

47:56

ever and all the roads and infrastructure with them. Has

47:59

so many other positive impacts.

48:01

This is just one more. And so

48:03

I feel like back to our earlier conversation,

48:06

we've known that these issues

48:08

are there, but now the urgency of them and

48:11

our understanding of how big they could get if

48:13

we don't address them is just

48:15

even sharper in our

48:16

focus. Yeah. Those are great points, actually.

48:18

That's a really fascinating set of issues

48:20

that you raised that is definitely something we should come back

48:22

to on another show, I think.

48:24

But unfortunately, I think we do really

48:27

have to park it there. I think we should

48:29

quickly do our free electrons, personal

48:31

items that we brought in, interesting things that

48:33

we've senior that have happened to

48:35

us. Emily, what's yours? So this

48:37

week, the river that is right outside my

48:39

house has actually reached flood stage for the

48:41

first time since we moved here, and I work a lot

48:43

on hydropower. And one of the things that comes up in

48:45

that context a lot of the time is that dams aren't just

48:47

for power production, but really seeing the

48:49

little dams on this River managing the

48:52

flood has been pretty interesting firsthand

48:54

for

48:54

me.

48:54

And you've had then what relatively good

48:57

rainfall, snowfall this Yeah.

48:59

We got six or eight inches a couple of

49:01

days ago, so it's all melted now. I'm going

49:03

back into the river, so I guess this is part of why they're

49:05

splitting.

49:06

Yeah. No. Fantastic. That's

49:08

good to see. Melissa, what about you?

49:10

Oh, Ed, it's always which ones do I talk

49:12

about? I'm so

49:14

choosing from the list is really, really

49:17

tough. So I've got two rabbit holes I've

49:19

been going down lately. One is actually

49:21

a rabbit hole around winter in Europe and

49:23

actually trying to understand something

49:26

completely outside of my field, but very

49:28

much impacts my field and all

49:30

of our field, which is how we think about weather.

49:32

So somebody made a comment to me

49:34

that we weren't expecting the winter in Europe

49:36

to be so mild because we've never had more

49:38

than five mild winters in a

49:41

row and this was the sixth one. And this got

49:43

me going down a path of like the actual

49:45

variability year on year on the severity

49:47

of summers and winters because I know we

49:49

talk about averages and Texas a lot and

49:51

the average is about the same to the extremes or more.

49:53

So I'm trying to figure out what actually historic

49:56

weather data can tell us about what we might

49:58

effect in Europe this coming winter. I'm sure lots

50:00

of people are doing this. I'm just kind of the armchair

50:02

scientists this time. But

50:04

then overlaying that with what we know about the

50:06

changing climate and how they could've what

50:09

was a historic norm, something we'd expect

50:11

over the last fifty or one hundred years versus what we'd

50:13

expect in the next fifty hundred years.

50:15

The other thing that I'm looking at is

50:18

Actually, I so my specialities

50:20

are largely around power, definitely around

50:22

decarbonization, public health. I can talk to you

50:24

a lot about air in chemistry and how to affect

50:26

our lungs and our hearts and our bodies. What

50:29

I can't tell you is much about without

50:31

the help of some of my colleagues and our global

50:33

energy policy is investing in oil and

50:35

gas train resources and infrastructure

50:38

and how that can play into a net zero future.

50:41

And so I actually have been really diving into this

50:43

piece by my colleagues, Gautam Jane and

50:45

Louisa Pelazios talking

50:47

about what it means to actually

50:49

keep flies where they need to be in the

50:51

near term without creating a bunch

50:53

of assets in very real way that we

50:56

won't need in the same way in

50:58

a net zero world. And They published

51:01

something this last week, a commentary

51:03

that dives into some of issues I know I've been

51:05

thinking about for a while, and their backgrounds

51:08

in finance investing in oil and gas.

51:10

I mean, gives them a depth to

51:12

insights in that that, you know, I wouldn't have

51:14

for my own

51:15

background, so I'm diving into this. I'm trying to

51:17

understand the nuances. Yeah. I noticed that

51:19

report on your website. I thought it looks really fascinating.

51:21

Haven't actually looked at it yet, but it's definitely on

51:23

my reading list, certainly one I'm gonna be checking

51:25

out. Mine, I just very quickly, I have to

51:27

to share this. And Emily, I I particularly wanna

51:30

get your views on this because it's related

51:32

to buildings and efficiency, which

51:34

is that I've been relying on a heat

51:36

pump for the past couple

51:38

of weeks for heating and and

51:40

pretty low temperature So we have

51:43

what we've got is a heat pump and also

51:45

baseboard heating, but the baseboard heating failed.

51:48

And so now we have just

51:50

for heat pump for heat in our home.

51:52

And there's been a lot of discussion about do

51:55

we pumps kind of work in cold weather?

51:57

Are they gonna be good enough? And

52:01

it got down I mean, I think at night, it was kind

52:03

of about twenty five degrees. What is that if

52:05

you're using British for Europeans, Canadians?

52:08

think it's about minus four centigrade.

52:10

And I would say it was okay.

52:13

It was sort of It

52:16

was cool, I would say, inside, and we

52:19

did actually get a little electric space agent

52:21

to use as well to back it up. But

52:23

it was not bad in in pretty challenging

52:25

conditions as I say, it was certainly absolutely

52:28

livable inside using

52:31

just that heat pump. And so I was kind

52:33

of encouraged by that. And as I say, that's

52:35

my small contribution to the debate

52:37

about our heat pumps, good enough for

52:39

heat in cold conditions. I would say

52:41

for me, kind of, almost

52:44

just about good enough. I don't know. I mean, what's your

52:46

what's your take Emily on? Kind

52:48

of heat pumps everywhere for everyone?

52:51

I think building envelope improvements and

52:54

heat pumps together can do a ton.

52:56

And so, yeah,

52:56

like, when you've got a heat pump working in less challenging

52:59

conditions, it's gonna work better. Emily,

53:01

by the next time you come on, hopefully,

53:03

we will have sorted out the insulation and everything

53:05

else we need in terms of the physical

53:08

infrastructure of our home to make sure that

53:10

everything's okay. And as you say, we've addressed

53:12

those issues. So we do unfortunately have

53:15

to leave it there.

53:16

Mehdi, thanks Emily for joining us today.

53:17

Great to be here. Thank you.

53:19

And, Mehdi, thanks, Melissa.

53:21

Thanks, Ed. Good to see you, and Emily, great to

53:23

have this conversation. Many thanks

53:25

to our producer, Toby Begin Skilcrest and

53:27

to our production assistant, Alan Miskin, and

53:29

above all, many thanks to all of you for listening.

53:32

As you know, we're always keen to hear your thoughts,

53:34

your praise, criticism, comments,

53:36

complaints, whatever it might be.

53:38

We're very keen to hear ideas

53:41

for future shows as well. If there's anything you think

53:43

we ought to be covering, just let us know. You

53:45

can find us on Twitter at at the energy

53:47

gang. And I'm at ed underscore

53:50

crooks, and I'm also on mastodon as

53:52

at ed crooks at mastodon dot

53:54

energy. So please do keep

53:56

those ideas and thoughts coming, and

53:58

we'll be back again in two weeks time. For all

54:00

the latest news and views, on what's next

54:03

for the energy transition. Until then,

54:05

goodbye.