0:00

Wood McKenzie's online future-facing commodities forum

0:02

is back for its third year.

0:05

Join us online on March 27th for

0:07

an open discussion with our experts on

0:10

renewables, EVs and advanced battery technology. There

0:12

will be two events on that date, one during the day

0:14

in the Asia Pacific region and one during the day in

0:17

Europe and the Americas. So you should be able to find

0:19

a time to suit you wherever you are in the world.

0:22

At either one you'll be able to get

0:24

insights from our unparalleled integrated coverage of

0:26

the renewables, battery and electric vehicles value

0:28

chains. You'll be able to

0:30

hear our industry leading analysts unpack

0:32

their forecasts for key future-facing commodities,

0:34

including lithium, nickel, copper, aluminium and

0:37

rare earths. Learn how

0:39

technology, geopolitics and regulation are transforming

0:41

the metals markets as we build

0:43

an electrified future. To register

0:46

go to go.woodmack.com/FFCF

0:48

2024. You can

0:50

find the details in today's show notes. Hello

0:58

and welcome to The Energy Gang. I'm

1:00

Ed Crooks. Today on the show

1:02

we're going to be talking about AI. We're going to

1:04

be talking about the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. And

1:07

we're going to be talking about the brutal weather currently

1:09

hit in the US. You may even

1:11

be able to hear the icy wind howling around our

1:13

building right now as I'm talking to you. To

1:16

discuss those topics it's a pleasure to welcome

1:18

again Julio Friedman, who's the Chief Scientist at

1:20

the Carbon Management Company Carbon Direct. Hi, Julio,

1:22

how are you? Delighted to be

1:24

here. Thanks again for having me. Great

1:27

to have you. And from the snowy mountains

1:29

of Switzerland, we're joined by Melissa Lott, who's

1:31

the Research Director at Columbia University's Center on

1:33

Global Energy Policy and a Professor at Columbia's

1:35

Climate School. Hi, Melissa, how are you? Doing

1:38

great. Looking forward to the conversation. It has been

1:40

a week, but we'll get into that. It's been

1:43

an exciting week. Yeah, absolutely.

1:45

I want to talk about that some more. You're in

1:47

Davos for the World Economic Forum meeting, which we're keen

1:49

to talk about later in the show. But

1:51

before we do that, I want to start off

1:53

by talking about what you've been doing, Julio, recently,

1:56

which is you've been talking about a very interesting

1:59

report on... artificial intelligence for

2:01

climate mitigation. It was published

2:03

last month by an organization called Innovations for

2:05

Cool Earth Forum, which is backed by the

2:07

Japanese government, among other things. And

2:10

you were one of the co-authors of this report. So

2:12

perhaps just in case, I don't know if you

2:15

heard the show last year where we talked about

2:17

AI, but just for a bit of background, when

2:20

we talked about it before, essentially I was

2:22

a skeptic on some of

2:24

the claims being made about AI for energy. I took

2:26

the view that the latest iterations of

2:28

AI that we're seeing, chat GPT and so

2:30

on, they could have huge

2:33

implications for some of the knowledge industries,

2:35

for journalism, marketing, the law, software engineering,

2:37

teaching and so on. But

2:39

I was fundamentally skeptical that they'd make much of

2:41

a real difference to most

2:44

of the energy industries. So,

2:46

Julio, as I say, you've got this interesting

2:48

report out. It seems like you think

2:50

I'm wrong, and actually AI is gonna be

2:52

very significant for energy. Why do you think

2:54

that? So first let me agree

2:57

with you on one point. AI

2:59

is not moving molecules. I

3:01

know that this is part of your concern. We

3:03

are moving fuels, we're moving electrons, we're doing all

3:06

this actual work in the energy system, and AI

3:08

doesn't do any of that. So

3:10

as a consequence, I understand the skepticism.

3:13

But first of all, AI

3:15

has already delivered substantial benefits

3:18

in terms of energy applications

3:20

and decarbonization. It

3:22

has already delivered substantial insights into

3:25

climate science, and we've only

3:27

started scratching the surface. There's

3:30

two particular ways that I want you to think

3:32

about the application of AI in energy and climate.

3:35

One of them is a broad efficiency play. So

3:39

you can think about things like

3:41

optimizing manufacturing, optimizing traffic flows, integrating

3:44

electricity onto the grid, in particular

3:46

clean electricity. All of those

3:48

are actually very difficult, complicated optimization problems. AI

3:50

can do a great job with that. The

3:53

second way, which is less obvious, is

3:55

that AI can sort of jump the

3:57

curve on a bunch of energy applications.

4:01

So think, for example, about novel

4:03

materials for batteries or

4:05

novel building materials, novel materials for

4:07

carbon capture or hydrogen production. This

4:10

sort of material discovery aspect, again,

4:12

is a place where AI has real

4:15

strength. And just this

4:17

week, there was an announcement of a

4:19

discovery of a new battery material done

4:21

in a partnership between Microsoft and Pacific

4:23

Northwest National Lab that was discovered through

4:26

AI. Now, discovering a material is

4:28

not the same thing as putting it into practice. I

4:30

mean, you still have to manufacture it

4:32

and produce it and all these other things. But

4:34

this is the kind of opportunities that

4:37

we're seeing emerge. Right.

4:39

But it is still then kind of out

4:41

there in the, this is what could

4:43

happen. This is what we

4:45

expect we might be able to do with

4:47

AI, really, isn't it, rather than things

4:50

that are actually being delivered right now? I mean,

4:52

you said at the beginning some of these optimization

4:54

type problems are being solved by

4:56

AI already. Do you have any

4:58

examples of that? So I've actually got

5:00

something we've been diving into here in Switzerland this week,

5:02

and I will refrain from going into

5:04

the meeting in detail, Ed, so don't worry. But I'll say

5:06

AI is a hot topic. And it's

5:09

interesting because I'm meeting with a lot of energy folks and

5:11

a number of people, including in

5:13

more traditional energy production businesses, have

5:16

been talking about how AI has

5:18

been something they've used for a

5:20

while to optimize their processes for

5:22

finding reserves, for actually extracting those

5:25

reserves, thinking about predictive maintenance, for

5:27

optimizing all the different processes of turning into

5:29

the products we finally use. And it's

5:32

really interesting to hear, one,

5:35

people use AI very loosely in

5:37

conversation sometimes. So the definition of

5:39

what we mean is really important.

5:42

But also to hear different groups say, look, there's

5:44

different parts of AI that we should dive into.

5:46

You're saying this AI. You mean this. You're saying

5:48

this AI. And that's something I've actually used to

5:50

optimize my processes in the field for a long

5:53

time. And so that's just one

5:55

point I want to bring up, which I thought was

5:57

interesting. AI is being used really loosely in a lot

5:59

of conversations. Yeah,

6:01

so actually this is a good opportunity

6:03

for me to tell people we just did

6:05

a webinar on this with the Center on

6:07

Global Energy Policy at Columbia. That

6:09

will be broadcast very shortly. You can go to

6:12

the CJEP website at Columbia and find it there.

6:14

One of the things we do is we start at the beginning

6:16

by saying, what are we talking about with AI? And

6:19

they do mention sort of large language models, which

6:21

is how people get excited all

6:23

of a sudden with chat and tipteam stuff. But

6:25

there's many different kinds of AI. And

6:28

at their core, they're basically using learning

6:30

data sets to optimize around

6:32

an objective function. That's really

6:34

the core benefit of it. An example

6:36

of one that's being used right now into

6:38

carbonization that people don't automatically think of is

6:40

satellite monitoring of methane. And

6:43

in fact, a public called KAROES uses

6:45

AI today to find methane leaks

6:47

and detect them. Right.

6:50

Okay. And that's a

6:52

good one. I can see that some of

6:54

these innovations are interesting and useful. Going

6:57

back to your point, though, as you say, in terms of

7:00

what companies have been doing in the energy

7:02

industry for quite a while now, certainly probably

7:04

10 years, maybe a bit longer, people have

7:06

been talking about AI type

7:09

techniques, often calling them machine

7:11

learning. Right. I

7:13

think you mentioned this in your report, Julio, that a

7:15

lot of the time people have been using the

7:17

expression machine learning to mean what nowadays is being

7:19

called AI because AI is kind of hip and

7:21

fashionable and everyone wants to talk about it. It

7:24

seems to me that those machine learning

7:27

techniques, so for instance, this would be

7:29

something like optimizing the operation of a

7:31

power plant, making it run in the

7:33

most efficient way possible, going

7:35

beyond what human

7:37

operators are able to do in terms

7:39

of adjusting settings and so on

7:42

to make that run in the most efficient way possible,

7:45

letting the machines optimize that

7:47

and they can achieve better performance.

7:50

It's not transformational, though, right? I mean,

7:52

definitely people have been able to achieve,

7:55

you might get 5% better performance or

7:57

10% better performance from the companies who

7:59

sell these. of solutions talk about this a

8:01

lot and we'll be pitching to

8:03

their customers, hey, look, we can do

8:05

this much better for you than what

8:07

you've been doing before. And clearly,

8:10

if you're running one of these power plants, that's worth having.

8:12

That's not a bad thing. 5% or 10% is a significant

8:14

improvement for you. It

8:19

doesn't change the world, though. And that's, as I

8:21

say, when sometimes you hear AI

8:23

being talked about, and when I talk about

8:26

the fashionability of it, being a kind of

8:28

a vogue for AI excitement

8:30

right now, you get the

8:32

feeling that some people are saying, this is world

8:34

changing. And that's where I feel like

8:36

I'm still at the stage of, show me,

8:39

explain to me, tell me what is really

8:41

changing the world, as opposed to

8:43

making these kind of incremental improvements. I

8:46

wouldn't even just say the comment, this is going to change the

8:48

world. I run into

8:50

the conversation of this is going to change

8:52

the world tomorrow, it's going to fix it

8:54

all tomorrow. And so the timeframe is the

8:56

thing that I push back on in conversations.

8:58

It's like, is AI ready to, quote

9:01

unquote, solve all these problems? And we don't

9:03

need all these other actions anymore, because we

9:05

have AI. And so

9:07

I want to put that in there too, Julio, just to

9:09

get your responses to it on the timeline part of that

9:12

statement. So for the audience, AI is

9:14

not the mission. AI is

9:16

not the capsule. AI is not the

9:18

rocket. AI is the booster rocket.

9:20

We will be able to do all kinds

9:23

of things better, faster, and so forth. And

9:25

to your point about is it transformational?

9:28

There's sort of a canonical number out

9:30

there around the optimization stuff. And so if

9:32

we push all the optimization stuff out there

9:34

economy-wide, we can get 10%. That's

9:36

a heavy lift, but 10% is also a

9:38

big prize. That's five gigatons. That's really big

9:41

stuff. Second, the thing

9:43

that I would point to is the opportunity

9:45

to do things we haven't done yet that

9:47

could deliver bigger savings. So

9:49

for example, half of liquid fossil fuels

9:51

today for transportation are lost in

9:53

traffic. You can just optimize

9:56

traffic that's bigger than 10% benefit. And

9:58

same thing with grid integration. Right

10:00

now we're worried about reliability and stuff. If

10:02

we can load way more renewables onto the

10:05

grid and have more stability using AI, that

10:07

can be a larger and faster application. And

10:10

then last, those curve jumping applications that I've

10:12

talked about before. Things that

10:14

give us a real breakthrough on

10:17

manufacturing, on carbon

10:20

capture, on hydrogen production, on any number

10:22

of other things that can yield

10:24

larger than just 10% savings. That

10:27

is to be seen, and to Melissa's point, we'll

10:29

see how long it takes those things to happen.

10:32

We make very specific recommendations

10:34

in the report about what government should

10:37

do today. And

10:39

we really focus on workforce development,

10:42

not necessarily coders, but like everybody in the world

10:45

is gonna be using this stuff. You better have

10:47

some literacy. We

10:49

better train in an equitable way

10:51

so that everyone has access to this. We better

10:53

make sure people in the global south have access

10:55

to these tools and these capabilities, and that problems

10:57

are focused on their world. Bias

11:00

is a risk that we are

11:02

very concerned about. Last but not least,

11:04

every government agency that deals with climate should be

11:06

doing something where they are. They

11:08

should staff it, they should have an office, so

11:11

that they can start taking advantage of these things.

11:14

This is not gonna be one of those

11:16

deals where just industry itself delivers, primarily because

11:18

you need access to the data. If

11:21

you don't get access to the good data,

11:23

you can't make these transformational changes. And there's

11:25

real concerns about the propriety and the confidentiality

11:27

of data that needs to be managed. Those

11:30

are also government tasks. Okay,

11:32

so I think that's all very important, and I

11:34

do absolutely take your point on all of that.

11:37

Another issue I wanna raise, we've been

11:39

talking about the benefits,

11:42

the actual benefits and the potential benefits

11:44

of AI, but what

11:46

about the costs in terms of,

11:48

in particular, power consumption? There's now

11:50

a lot of interest in how

11:53

power demand, particularly in the United States, I think people

11:55

have been talking about this, but this is a conversation

11:57

that is starting to spread around the world. Power

12:00

demand in developed countries has been broadly flat

12:02

and was expected to stay flat for a

12:04

long time. Suddenly, it looks like it's on

12:06

an upward trend. There's a lot of companies,

12:09

grid operators, utilities talking about

12:12

much stronger expected demand growth in the

12:15

future because of various things

12:17

going on. But one of the key

12:19

things is data centers being built to

12:21

handle the increased demand for computing power.

12:24

And a big part of that is the massive

12:26

increased demand for AI services.

12:30

So how much of a concern is

12:32

that? I mean, as I say, if you're putting the negative

12:34

spin on it, you could say, well, look, we've got these

12:37

kind of modest benefits,

12:40

theoretical, putative, possible, larger benefits

12:42

set against very real costs

12:45

in terms of increased power

12:47

demand. Right. And people

12:49

have in their mind the recent experience

12:52

with Bitcoin, that Bitcoin suddenly led

12:54

to an explosion of dirty energy

12:56

and consumption and so forth. So

12:59

a couple of things. First of all, we

13:02

studied this in the report. And the answer that we

13:04

are key finding is we need better data. We

13:07

don't have all the answers of what we need. But

13:09

it looks like today, AI is

13:11

much less than 1% of demand globally.

13:15

It's just not as big an energy draw

13:17

as people think. And even with exponential

13:19

growth, we're seeing improvements in

13:21

the efficiency of servers, the efficiency of

13:23

chips. We're seeing the companies

13:25

that are building AI really focusing on

13:27

green power procurement for 24-7

13:29

applications. For the

13:32

low latency applications, you can put them in a

13:34

place like Iceland, where there's

13:36

an abundance of clean energy

13:38

supply. So these sorts of things are

13:40

out there. This is not likely

13:42

to be the big problem. Quite the

13:44

opposite. But the

13:46

conclusion is that the savings far outweigh the potential risks,

13:48

but we should have better data and keep an eye

13:51

on it. Melissa, where do you come down

13:53

on this? I mean, I think it's

13:55

interesting how I think about it. Yeah. So

13:57

need more data. We'll see how it grows. it.

14:00

Back when I was at the International Energy Agency

14:03

and Department of Energy and all of our models,

14:05

we had that category called other that, you know,

14:07

included a lot of widgets and things we did.

14:09

And we were like, Oh, streaming services. Um, anybody

14:12

else remember when the IEA put out a fact

14:14

checking piece on like what streaming was doing to

14:16

like Tracey demand? Do you

14:18

guys remember this? Um, yeah, yeah, yeah.

14:20

And it's one of those, Hey, when we

14:22

have the data to evaluate it, let's evaluate

14:24

it. In some cases, we might find that

14:26

this actually leads to those efficiency gains. And

14:29

so the net result is yet consumes electricity

14:31

to get electricity savings. So, or

14:33

energy equivalent savings. So maybe it all works

14:35

out. I don't know. We'll see how it

14:37

goes. It's still early days. Um, but

14:40

I can't wait to see the data is the bottom line on

14:42

this for me. And Julio, you

14:44

were just talking about what the world needs

14:47

to do, what governments need to do in

14:49

particular in policy terms, just

14:51

thinking about that balance between the

14:53

costs and the benefits of AI.

14:55

How do we maximize the benefits

14:58

and minimize the costs and the risks that are

15:01

associated with it? What more needs to happen? Yeah,

15:03

we really focus not so much on the cost

15:05

because we think in general, this will deliver cost

15:07

savings, but we do think about the benefits versus

15:09

the risks and there's

15:11

risks of misapplication. There's

15:14

risks of bias. There's

15:16

risks of data leakage and cyber

15:18

incidents. There's all kinds of risks.

15:21

Uh, the number one step is getting people smart. Spend

15:24

some time, learn about this, uh, really think

15:26

about it in your enterprise. The same way

15:28

that medicine is thinking about AI, the

15:31

same way that journalism is thinking about AI,

15:34

like the same way that lawyers are thinking about

15:36

AI, people involved in climate and energy need to

15:38

do that. We think there's a premium on

15:41

actually connecting people who do the computational work

15:43

with the climate people and the energy people.

15:46

They're not talking enough right now. They don't

15:48

really know what's possible. And we

15:50

really do think that governments need to

15:52

put some money into staffing, into human

15:54

capital development. And last but not

15:56

least, they can tackle the tough data problems. Um,

16:00

I think that, for example, grid is

16:02

a great application for AI, but

16:05

suddenly making all of the grid data

16:07

public is an incredible risk. It's

16:09

a risk to the companies, it's a risk to consumers, it's

16:11

a risk to the nation. You got to manage that for

16:14

real. So I don't want to be cavalier about the risks

16:16

either, but we see all of it as manageable. And

16:19

I'll say around AI period, back

16:21

to so many things that we

16:24

have been discussing here in Switzerland. See, I didn't

16:26

mention the meeting yet, Ed. We'll wait till we

16:28

get to that discussion. We've

16:30

been talking a lot about workforces and workforce development.

16:32

I go back to that thing we were discussing

16:35

months ago, which was just what

16:37

can AI do for us? And if it's a personalized

16:39

tutor that provides education for

16:42

someone's entire life, as they

16:44

maybe pivot between careers or gain skill sets where

16:46

you don't have as much local access to information

16:48

about those skill sets. Yeah,

16:51

it'll be really interesting to see where we

16:53

manage, but also where we look for new

16:55

opportunities with a tool. So,

16:58

yeah, let's come on to talking about Davos Malistra and

17:00

what you've been doing there. Just before we get off

17:02

the subject of AI, though, I want to

17:04

pick up on something you were saying, who

17:06

do you think is absolutely right, which is

17:08

it's important for everyone to be informed about

17:11

this, to think about it, to think about

17:13

how we're going to use these AI

17:15

tools, what the risks are, what the

17:17

potential benefits are. And I do think

17:19

reading your report actually is a great start. And so do

17:22

everyone go to the website and check that out. And

17:25

we'll put a link on social media and

17:27

things around this show so that people

17:29

can read that for themselves. So,

17:31

Melissa, as I was saying, you've been in Davos

17:34

meeting the World Economic Forum this week. AI,

17:36

you were saying, is one of the things you've

17:38

been talking about. What are

17:40

you doing there in general? What's the

17:43

purpose of your attending this event? And what have

17:45

you been talking about? One

17:47

comment before I entered into that, Ed, you remember

17:49

what you were talking about? Is this your first

17:51

COP? Is this your first COP? Is this your

17:54

first COP? This is my first Davos. I've never

17:56

been to the World Economic Forum events, even on

17:58

the outside of the Six Years' End. So

18:00

I've been absorbing a lot about what these

18:02

meetings look like when you're here in person versus reading

18:04

the headlines. So what I haven't been doing is reading

18:06

headlines because I have had absolutely no time to read

18:09

the headlines coming out of Davos in the past few

18:11

days because man, I've had

18:13

my run and shoes on. Because climate

18:15

and energy is hugely on the agenda.

18:18

There's an entire section about nuclear. There's

18:21

just all types of conversations

18:23

about finance and trade and

18:25

how we accelerate to reach

18:27

these different targets around nuclear

18:29

deployment, renewables deployment, grid improvements

18:32

down the line. Just so many, so many

18:34

conversations. So I'm

18:36

here moderating conversations between

18:39

different folks. Today I was moderating

18:41

one on green hydrogen. I

18:43

talked about the colors in the rainbow, Leo, from our

18:46

episode back in the day on the big switch. It

18:48

came up. I didn't bust into song

18:50

though with the ministers in the room and a

18:53

bunch of CEOs. I know I should have, but

18:55

there you go. I

18:58

am talking and helping educate and communicate around

19:00

what it means to have an equitable transition, the

19:02

speed and scale of the transition that we see as

19:04

needed when we look at the data and the analysis.

19:07

Breaking that down for people who, energy

19:10

and climate was something they thought about

19:13

in terms of price of the pump for

19:15

gasoline, especially in election years or other pieces

19:17

of it that used it, but it wasn't

19:19

top of mind and they're trying to dive

19:21

into it. I

19:23

think I'm up to, I don't know how

19:25

many talks. I'm not even going to try to count them at this point, but

19:28

it's been really, really interesting. And

19:30

so the people you're talking to, the

19:32

people, kind of people who go to

19:34

Davos is typically sort of CEOs, business

19:36

leaders, leaders from the financial industry, politicians

19:38

and so on. I mean, it's kind

19:41

of, I'm trying to avoid using the words

19:43

of global elite, but you know what I mean by this.

19:45

I mean, it's that those

19:47

are the people, leaders in

19:50

various different fields from all around

19:53

the world, right, who you're getting to talk to. Yeah.

19:55

So I mean, absolutely. You can, I

19:58

Do know about some of the headlines I Imagine. There

20:00

because I heard helicopter flying kinda draft.

20:02

Ask them some fancy people in Chino,

20:04

security got up in some areas and

20:06

all those things. So yeah it is

20:08

an elite group of people, but there

20:10

are more voices that I might have

20:12

expected. having only read headlines before says

20:14

one example. I spoke in the open

20:16

forum so they do events with in

20:18

the town so that. Anyone around

20:21

can just a tendon listen, engage

20:23

in your speakers like Jane Goodall

20:25

getting on the stage and others

20:27

and but we did a panel

20:29

on air pollution including climate solutions

20:31

When from the their place and

20:33

and sitting to my last was

20:35

this woman Hamelin from Mongolia who's

20:37

one of the Fifty West Global

20:39

Shapers and that they have in

20:41

addition to the Young Global Leaders

20:43

program who was at the annual

20:45

Meeting and who is speaking at

20:47

the annual meeting in the a

20:49

parrot as. You know, listening and

20:51

contributing to the conversations that are going on. And

20:53

so I know my way more about those programs

20:56

that they have now that I've been here and

20:58

been involved in these had that activities. but it

21:00

is a limit a group it's the same thing

21:02

is cop who gets a ticket to go in.

21:04

The blues on who gets badge. You know there's

21:07

only so many badges the go around. And

21:09

eight and in terms of don't abuse of

21:11

your time and a worthwhile it is for

21:14

you to go with what the crucial thing

21:16

the you're getting to talk to. Different

21:18

audiences. You're suggesting people who are

21:20

generally. Interested. In or

21:22

closely following. Climate. And energy

21:24

issues or is it about. You. Getting

21:26

to hear other people's perspectives or both of

21:29

those things? Was it worth your time? Still,

21:31

it is a few answers to that that

21:33

I could get. There's a lot of reasons

21:36

I think it's viable am adding valuable to

21:38

be in these conversations. You know. What?

21:40

The reality as of them. Because

21:42

being in the room and having his

21:44

conversations asking those questions and you're like

21:46

why it or is this what we're

21:48

going towards But also there's a hundred

21:50

and fifty. Experts here, so there.

21:52

was an expert's mock him dinner so i know

21:55

there are one hundred and fifty of us because

21:57

that's what we're told her brought in to baseline

21:59

conversations So I get into conversations

22:01

and in a conversation I was in today,

22:03

it's just one example. We were talking about

22:06

how you get big projects built and the

22:08

idea of stakeholder engagement versus

22:11

having communities be equity partners in

22:13

projects and all of that. And

22:16

I brought up, I said, hey, there's this

22:18

book that's literally titled How to Get Big

22:20

Things Done. There's this other book, Speed of

22:22

Trust. And in the first one, they have

22:24

a database of thousands of huge projects. And

22:27

they talk about what gets them done and

22:29

what doesn't. And they talk about this engagement,

22:31

community, inclusion, equity piece of it. And

22:34

so instead of a conversation not

22:36

having that foundation, I'm able to

22:38

help set the foundation based on

22:40

here's what the evidence tells us, here's what we know and what we don't

22:42

know. And that is a really,

22:45

I think, valuable piece to add to these

22:47

conversations. If they didn't have it, the conversations

22:49

would start in a very different place. The

22:52

second thing that I'll mention, and I won't go down the

22:54

whole list, is yeah, I'm learning

22:56

and learning from a lot of people that

22:59

I don't spend a ton of time with. Not

23:02

on the daily, because it's very, very

23:04

rare that you have this group of people in one

23:06

place. That's why people follow it

23:08

and track it. I'm just walking down

23:10

the hallways today and I see Paul

23:12

Ryan and the governor of Georgia and

23:15

other people and the equivalence in so

23:17

many countries. I met governors equivalence in

23:19

Korea, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,

23:21

from different provinces and different countries all

23:23

over the world. How

23:26

often do you get that chance to have a

23:28

conversation and chat about a topic? Not

23:30

much. So what about you, Julio? Did you

23:32

have a view on the World Economic Forum? Do you have Go to

23:34

Davos? I have not yet gone

23:37

to Davos. So I

23:39

was like Melissa last year, still a bridesmaid. In

23:43

this regard, hot and cold on Davos,

23:45

it seems like some years are more consequential than

23:47

others, again, which is, I think,

23:49

a reasonable expectation. They

23:52

can't all be great. It is a

23:54

place, like Melissa says, where specific kinds

23:57

of conversations can happen that don't happen

23:59

elsewhere. So. As an example,

24:01

there was a story earlier this week. That.

24:03

Said that only three percent.

24:06

Of. Shareholder Movements on Climate this

24:09

year succeeded. Which. Means ninety

24:11

seven percent didn't. Haven't.

24:14

Governments and company leaders talking about

24:16

that is useful. Why?

24:19

Did they fail? What was the change?

24:21

Is it economic headwinds? Is it a

24:23

change in history stance? Are there ways

24:25

to work together to have more consequential

24:28

outcomes? Are. Things were that

24:30

shareholder movements can support government options or

24:32

the opposite. Like both kinds of conversations

24:34

are very infrequent and rare in Davos

24:36

is a good platform for them. I

24:39

will also say that a lot of criticism

24:41

around Davos Ethic is bill focus like that.

24:44

The. Jet planes for people flying their i'm like.

24:47

Come on, that's like not even one sporting

24:49

event. Get over it like this. Sick. If

24:51

it's are, they will be talked about this

24:54

before. but the a weekend at Wembley Stadium

24:56

is gonna have a larger emissions footprint than

24:58

dollars. But I also think that it is

25:00

an echo chamber. People who

25:02

are there. Really know

25:04

what manufacturing is? Don't actually

25:07

know what energy systems are?

25:09

Having. Experts in the room to baseline is a great

25:11

way to counter that. But. A lot

25:13

of the stuff needs to be sorted, anchored in

25:15

the reality. Of Energy Systems.

25:18

And. So I would see.again as an

25:20

opportunity to build it the World Economic

25:22

Forum. To. Think about not just

25:24

haven't gone global. Leaders come in. But.

25:27

Also thinking about. Maybe. Some study

25:29

tours where people who are important in Davos

25:31

we will apartment in the circles. Visit.

25:33

Facilities talk to experts more frequently.

25:36

So. That that means can become more consequent.

25:39

Cannot say some of the discussions are

25:41

having. I gave a talk on this

25:43

means a zillion area that. It's

25:45

it's. big, lots people come by and all that,

25:47

and there's only so many chairs I gave I.

25:50

When I say energy, what am I mean talk

25:52

like, what am I mean I want to talk

25:54

about Internet Zero. One. Of the bucket the

25:56

things we do and I had Ceos sitting

25:58

on these that I called. Mushroom chairs to

26:00

be little pod soft things in of kind

26:03

of like eclectic area just like listening and

26:05

than asking me questions after and i was

26:07

really. Glad. For that. but as

26:09

you say like the education piece of this is

26:12

actually come up in a ton of discussion that

26:14

than apart as witches I talk to these people

26:16

and they had no idea what I do and

26:18

then I'm talking to them this is come up

26:20

to and I'm talking to them and obviously have

26:23

an agenda because I run a company so like

26:25

how do we get more students educated no matter

26:27

where they go just haven't be educated and how

26:29

these different pieces energy system works to they can

26:31

have that awareness and whatever application they're. Doing with

26:33

their career and is a good question to

26:35

the asking into it and put a you

26:37

was just mentioning some of his criticism of

26:39

doubles from the World Economic Forum. As I'm

26:42

sure you know it has quite a weird

26:44

reputation in some of the. Other. Corners

26:46

of the internet was assholes. That of. Conspiracy

26:49

theory thing about how. This.

26:51

Is very sinister with it's sort of. The.

26:54

Instrument Of Global Control and all the rest

26:56

of it. Which. I

26:59

think fundamentally is very city a to some

27:01

of it's quite sinister as well as a.

27:03

Believer. That if this I don't think

27:05

everyone needs to give. A too

27:08

much attention to this stuff. But. There

27:10

is an interesting. Fundamental. Issue

27:12

I think it raises which is the question

27:14

or. As you say,

27:17

Melissa sort of exclusivity, inclusivity. And

27:19

in a when you get all these

27:21

leaders from. These different. Fields.

27:24

From all around the world, getting together,

27:27

And talking to each other and

27:29

the great majority of the population

27:31

of the world is excluded. And

27:34

people can exchange ideas and have

27:36

conversations, some of which are able

27:38

to the public in some ways.

27:40

But Ludwig Jones. Naturally, that kind

27:42

of raises suspicions and inevitably some

27:44

people I got out of rubber

27:46

those suspicions and David much too

27:48

far. And can greatly

27:50

exaggerated be. Influence.

27:52

An impact that some like World

27:54

Economic Forum can have. as

27:57

as a present there's a real issue there is a you

27:59

mention this because you about groupthink and everyone basically

28:01

getting together in a room and agreeing with each

28:03

other and coming out with a certain set of

28:05

ideas that don't reflect

28:07

enough diversity viewpoints, don't

28:11

reflect really the spread

28:13

of opinions that there are in the

28:15

world. And that

28:18

then creates tensions and

28:20

problems in terms of when

28:23

people leave Davos and go and try to actually

28:25

make change in the world, it

28:27

makes it harder for them to do that. Who

28:29

do you think? So for starters, I

28:31

think it's adorable that people believe that there

28:33

will be some like conclave

28:36

of Illuminati who govern

28:38

things like, like,

28:40

like, if you see these people for

28:42

real, you'd immediately realize how

28:45

silly that notion is. Although

28:47

it is exactly why Kim Stanley Robinson made

28:49

like a point in his book, Mystery of

28:51

the Future of like rounding up these people

28:53

to Davos and giving them a five day

28:55

socialist teach in like, that's

28:57

part of like why these things happen. It's

29:00

always hard to find the right balance. I don't want to

29:02

make it sound like this is sort of easy to do.

29:05

Let's be clear, most of the world doesn't

29:07

actually have an opinion about sustainable aviation fuels

29:09

and wouldn't necessarily know how to make them

29:11

real. Right? So there are

29:13

aspects of the conversation where you want

29:16

business leaders, government leaders, and experts working

29:18

on corners of the problem that they

29:21

can make progress on. I

29:23

do think though that it's

29:25

not so much about groupthink, but that the echo

29:27

chamber, it is easy to think that ideas that

29:29

are hatched in that place

29:31

are automatically born good. And as

29:33

we've seen, that's not always true.

29:36

If ideas are going to come out of Davos and

29:39

they should, they need to be proved against

29:41

the real world in real ways. And

29:43

that should include more inclusion of voices from the

29:45

global south. That should include more

29:47

perspectives from civil society of all

29:50

kinds. But even then, I

29:52

hope that the people who come to those

29:54

conversations have a workman like sensibility about it, but

29:56

they don't just appear to vent, they appear

29:59

to to assist. I

30:01

feel like we've raised a generation of inquisitors. Everybody

30:03

wants to hold people's feet to the fire I'm

30:05

like hold everybody's feet to the fire. Nobody

30:07

walks very far. We got to figure out how to get

30:09

to yes and to get things going to Melissa,

30:12

what do you think so I'm here with

30:14

two members of the Center on global

30:16

energy policy team and so Jason Bordoff

30:18

our director and Jocelyn on his team

30:20

who has been incredible support

30:22

all week and My

30:25

goodness couldn't have done stuff without her. She's amazing

30:27

But I find it

30:29

very interesting and valuable that Jason and

30:31

I have both been in a full-out

30:33

run going between meetings because he's a

30:35

geopolitics and national security expert around energy

30:37

and climate stuff and I'm engineer policy

30:39

some economics You know, it's like I'm

30:41

the other end of the pie or

30:43

other slice of the pie Whatever I'm

30:46

we complement each other in our backgrounds

30:48

And this is one of the few

30:50

places where both of those voices that

30:53

are quite different really In

30:55

terms of our approaches and the ones we apply to it are in

30:57

the room And that's just an

30:59

interesting reflection. I've been kind of ruminating on in

31:01

the last few days So now

31:04

look you have been in the

31:06

snow in devil's But you haven't

31:08

needed to go to Switzerland to

31:10

get snow this week What

31:13

I want to move on to talk about now

31:15

is the snow we've had across the US absolutely

31:18

brutally cold conditions I think at one point there

31:20

were a hundred million people in the

31:22

US under Alerts weather

31:24

alerts for extreme cold. There

31:26

was snow falling as far south

31:28

as Mississippi and Louisiana And

31:31

I want to just think about some of the implications

31:33

of that for energy one of the things in particular

31:36

But there's been a lot of focus on has been

31:38

Texas, of course, obviously Note this

31:40

very well, but winter storm hurry in 2021 There

31:43

were blackouts that lasted for days and hundreds

31:45

of people died But over

31:47

the past few days as of time for recording and

31:50

touch wood on this Hopefully this will remain the case

31:52

but things seem to have gone a lot

31:54

better They've been so far no major power

31:56

failures in Texas and I saw Greg

31:59

Abbott The state. They're gonna talk about this.

32:01

He said that the great performed flawlessly,

32:03

never failing. Sir.

32:05

Who. Question. Interested

32:08

in your takes on what happened

32:10

in Texas? I mean. I. Think

32:12

Greg Abbott has been saying that over

32:14

the grids perform better now because the

32:17

changes we introduced and then more power

32:19

generation on the great and winter Ization

32:21

protections against cold weather have been better

32:24

and occult as more tools to help

32:26

keep the great stable. What's.

32:28

Your. Take on this melissa

32:31

of the he lives in Texas. You

32:33

follow this very closely. What? Do

32:35

you think's been happening? How man thou.

32:37

And first thing I'm gonna say

32:39

is I love my home state.

32:42

In a proud tax and

32:44

many generations deep. I did

32:46

live in a lot of places going

32:49

out but I am proud and I

32:51

they're great people on the state and

32:53

so I lived to organise how

32:55

many major blackouts like all your favorite

32:58

sub he finished up paton the past

33:00

while I when I was a graduate

33:02

student interested texas at Austin and

33:04

and trying to anyone during and uncovered

33:07

we were living in Austin and actually

33:09

and mention the pack I do three

33:11

Columbia that expect that clear resigned and

33:14

talk about hydrogen that season one. And

33:16

that entire. Show. It's

33:18

like him a hobby to com has electricity, but it's

33:20

actually done against the backdrop as. Much.

33:23

As Army or a where we lost our

33:25

for a week for the A we were

33:27

recording a podcast. You remember I was like

33:29

on a hot spot in my car cause

33:32

that was the only place and I had

33:34

a beanie on and a huge jacket because

33:36

I was like trying to minimize someone feel

33:39

I use because we didn't know what was

33:41

going to happen and is pretty crazy so

33:43

I think we've gotten pretty lucky. I think

33:45

if you read their work done by an

33:48

ally great taxes based researchers at University taxes

33:50

not just make letters group that including my

33:52

quivers. Grew up there on but other

33:54

universities around the state and outside the

33:56

state of looked into it and. I'm

33:59

glad. Powers on for the

34:01

most part because it. Is.

34:04

Keeping people safe. I'm and that's great.

34:06

There have been some blips but yeah

34:08

it's been pretty lucky and that's that's

34:10

great and I hope it continues. I

34:12

really do. I am absolutely not confident

34:14

that we have solve the underlying issues

34:16

that have led to some really dangerous

34:18

situations in the past. Amla, That's just

34:20

looking at the evidence of like what

34:22

we will mean. Look at not just

34:24

the one that happened a few years

34:26

ago with one apple as a grad

34:28

student. my chest is a few more

34:30

years than that. Go on M. We

34:32

had the same kind of findings. Are. Big

34:34

for portals, other stuff and. Those

34:37

investments haven't happened yet and as we look to

34:39

electrify more and more things and were depending on

34:41

it more and more. I think about it now

34:43

that I'm an electric car and I was sitting

34:45

in the diesel car during the blackout and that

34:48

tank of fuel had a lot of ways to

34:50

give on literally. In some cases where a gay

34:52

gay people heat and say spot so. So

34:55

much weight on these conversations, man. But far

34:57

the evidence goes, I don't see that the

34:59

investments have been made in both the technical

35:01

parts of the system but also the market

35:03

structures. The race, racism, etc. encourage the things

35:05

that we need. To actually have that

35:08

be the stronger, flexible backbone that we need,

35:10

I am very curious with both of you.

35:12

Think about it as non Texans who don't

35:14

have the. The. Ties Mass

35:17

Effect. To. This day where you know you

35:19

proud of the state man that power grid is

35:21

not doing yes not doing well. So.

35:25

Let me start by talking about the fact that

35:27

we don't say the words bombs I Clone anymore.

35:29

Thank God for that! But. Certainly.

35:32

I'd forgotten that and all right now that

35:34

we called it a bomb site called idea

35:37

right? I'd I'd blocks that went out and

35:39

the sorry. Please continue to our but these

35:41

kinds of events are both predictable and predict.

35:43

When we start talking about calamities twenty years

35:45

ago, these kinds of events will predict. saw

35:47

it on what people think this is some.

35:50

perverse anomaly the will ever happen again quite

35:52

the opposite happened twenty twenty one episode three

35:54

to have twenty two three happened twenty four

35:56

it's more so i do think that we

35:58

have managed to dodge bullet again.

36:01

We're getting better at paper

36:03

oiling these things, but we haven't made the

36:05

big investments in infrastructure we need to to

36:08

really solve the problem. In

36:10

fact, quite the opposite. What we've

36:12

seen coming out of this storm is

36:14

in fact a real spike in electricity

36:16

demand for

36:19

heating, for heat

36:21

pumps, for electric vehicles, for all these

36:24

things. People are actually using way more

36:26

electricity during these times. In

36:29

the past, we have ramped up coal. We

36:31

have ramped up other kinds of things to

36:33

make up that shortfall. It's harder to

36:36

do that these days because the coal plants

36:38

are shutting down. We've actually just decommissioned a

36:40

whole bunch of plants this year. The

36:42

reliability is going to continue to be an

36:44

issue. We haven't built out the transmission that

36:46

we need to. Air cot

36:48

remains separated from the rest of the grid, so it's still

36:50

more vulnerable than the rest of the grid, but the rest

36:53

of the grid needs help too. Maybe

36:56

AI can help at some point. We'll find out.

36:58

I do want to draw

37:01

one other story

37:03

recently about how the UK is

37:06

really falling down on transmission build-out

37:08

and how that's jeopardizing their economic

37:11

growth. A number of people were saying, watch

37:13

this space. That's going to be the story

37:15

this year in the US. As electricity

37:17

demand is growing, as these shocks

37:19

are coming, we're going to need

37:21

to put more money into the

37:23

grid. Every week is infrastructure week,

37:25

my friends, for the next 30

37:27

years. The Texas situation

37:30

today, again, I think we've

37:32

dodged a bullet, but we haven't solved the fundamental problems.

37:35

One way that I describe it, and then Ed, I really

37:37

want to hear what you think about this, especially

37:39

because Julio just brought in the UK as well.

37:42

Around this, it's like the

37:44

house has a foundation issue. We're

37:46

redoing the kitchen and we're adding a bedroom, but

37:49

the foundation needs some shoring up. It's not that

37:51

it's not fixable. It's absolutely fixable. We know how

37:53

to do it. We got the contractor on speed

37:55

out. We can get it done next week. In

37:58

this case, it would take longer than that because this is huge. infrastructure

38:00

projects. But it's

38:03

the Achilles heel. It doesn't matter how pretty the

38:05

paint is or how great the tile is. If

38:07

you don't fix that foundation, you're going to have

38:09

cracks and they're going to come at very inconvenient

38:11

times. But I'm really curious for your

38:13

thoughts. So I 100% agree

38:16

with what Houdya has been saying about

38:18

transmission and the absolutely vital importance of

38:20

getting more transmission built. Actually,

38:22

there were a few encouraging steps

38:24

that were made last year. Projects

38:27

getting final investment decisions, projects getting

38:29

approved and so on in several parts of the

38:31

US. So it looks like there's

38:34

some activity going on clearly not

38:36

enough though. And definitely more need to happen

38:38

as you say more need to happen around

38:40

Texas in particular to help Texas. I do

38:43

think that's part of the solution, although not

38:45

the whole solution. One of

38:47

the things I'm interested in your thoughts

38:50

on is the question of the measure

38:52

the Texas adopted last year. Substantial

38:55

public vote in favor of this, which was

38:57

essentially a scheme to subsidize

38:59

gas fired power generation to

39:01

encourage more gas fired power generation to be put on

39:03

the grid, which people have said is this

39:05

is going to be the answer. And this is the

39:07

thing which will make the

39:09

grid more reliable and enable

39:11

us to cope with these kinds

39:14

of extreme conditions. And if

39:16

we have a shortfall in renewable

39:18

generation in particular, do

39:20

you think that measure makes sense? Melissa, what

39:22

do you think? I'm

39:25

actually curious what Julio thinks first on this. I've

39:27

got such an insider's view in Texas. I have

39:29

very strong opinions, but Julio, what do

39:31

you think? Okay, yeah, you go first. I

39:34

think that virtue signaling through this kind of

39:36

stuff is just nuts. You know,

39:38

natural gas can help, but they haven't

39:40

weatherized. They haven't weatherized natural gas plants

39:42

enough. They haven't added the balance of

39:45

system that you need to make sure that those things are doing. So

39:47

adding gas doesn't solve the problem. It is

39:49

a kind of political posturing and it drives

39:51

me crazy. The Same could be said if

39:53

they pass something, but we're going to have all

39:56

renewables. The Fact that these are complicated, nuanced issues

39:58

that are being exploited for political. The aim

40:00

and in the short term is. Really?

40:02

Awful. The. Core

40:04

problems remain the core problems.

40:06

Saying we should subsidize natural gas.

40:09

Maligned. Some pockets will add some plants,

40:11

but once solve the problems and we know

40:13

what the problems are. There's no mystery about

40:15

that and the reason. That

40:18

we built the system fifty years ago.

40:20

Or hundred years ago. That first phase

40:22

and bout ruff numbers fifty years Elite.the

40:24

second life. we can't be building or

40:26

goods for the past which is what

40:28

we have. Done. We need to

40:30

build it for not just the future.

40:32

we need to go there for the

40:34

reality we're seeing today, but we should

40:36

build it for the features that it's

40:38

able to supply us with. reliable, affordable,

40:40

and clean power moving forward and. We.

40:42

Have the technologies to do it. It.

40:45

Is a process that? That's the thing is,

40:48

it's not a headline tomorrow it's a thoughtful

40:50

and pension all process of building thing that's

40:52

really encouraged by and say it is the

40:54

first. Time. I've written Energy and

40:56

Taxes. That during the crash don't

40:58

build outs and that was like some

41:01

Kevin Costner builder. they will come type

41:03

situation things and so I'm incursion. I

41:05

think that the state can do it

41:07

again, but it's about practical conversations. On.

41:10

The evidence. Yet. And they're gonna

41:12

have to spend some money for real to in

41:14

the hard stuff shoring up a foundation. I.

41:16

Love that analogy. Melissa and. Of

41:19

the problem is like people to live in

41:21

the foundation, People live in kitchens, People living.

41:24

In look at the paint. The you

41:26

have to spend this unglamorous money on

41:28

this unglamorous thing. right? Yeah,

41:30

no that's a great point on. Certainly

41:32

an issue with to the buzzer was

41:34

over the past on the show when

41:36

I know will be returning to because

41:38

it is just so important and in

41:40

the meantime we'll be watching Texas very

41:42

closely to hope that conditions remain good.

41:44

I'm of the power amyloid stay on

41:46

for everybody. Over the next few

41:49

days will the so brutal weather continues. To.

41:52

Avoid you. we do have to live with a video

41:54

and or you've gotta run just before a let's go

41:56

very quickly. Becomes. you are free electrons

41:58

these posts no items that brought in.

42:00

I have one, Melissa, especially

42:02

for you, which I'm very pleased to share with

42:04

you. Houdo, do you

42:06

want to do yours first? What's your free electron? My

42:09

free electron is, my

42:12

parents need additional attention these

42:14

days. I was visiting

42:17

my dad, and among other things, saw

42:19

an incredibly good-looking recipe for braised lamb

42:21

shanks, which is what I'm making this

42:23

weekend. For real, it's going

42:25

to be fantastic. But the

42:27

reason I bring this up is that there

42:30

is a real risk in my parents'

42:32

home about them forgetting and leaving the

42:34

stove on. That is a real challenge

42:36

that needs to be managed. A friend suggested,

42:38

well, maybe you should throw in an induction

42:40

stove. Maybe that would solve the problem and

42:42

it would avoid the fire risk. I'm like,

42:45

yeah, I don't think that's the core problem, but sure,

42:48

maybe. We'll see if that's the thing. Very

42:51

interesting. Presumably, with an induction stove and electric appliance,

42:53

it ought to be easier to make it smart

42:55

as well, so you could see from your phone

42:57

whether it's switched on or not. Man, I never

43:00

want to be watching my phone to figure out

43:02

if my folks are cooking suits. That's just not

43:04

talking to spend my days. I

43:06

don't know. I think some people could find that useful. I

43:09

see your point. Melissa, what's yours? Oh,

43:11

man. I don't know where to start, but

43:14

the cooking comment actually has me thinking about

43:16

the incredible... I know it's

43:18

not going to sound exciting, guys, but the

43:20

boulogne, the broths that I've been having here

43:22

in Switzerland have been amazing. I don't know

43:24

how much of it is like, food's amazing

43:26

when you get it because you were running

43:28

too long. It's cold and

43:30

it's this warm, salty thing and you're

43:32

also probably a little dehydrated because you've been

43:34

just running through the

43:36

Alps. Not to evoke

43:39

the sound of music, but I keep enjoying

43:42

those meals and now Julio has me thinking about it. My

43:45

serious free electron is

43:47

actually a request if I can. Do you remember

43:49

how I was telling you about my books that

43:51

I was going to be reading in

43:54

the next little bit? Okay, I

43:56

had February planned out because Ernie

43:58

Scheider's book... was coming out and

44:01

then I was going to get Michael Weber's book

44:03

midway through February. And so I was reading Michael

44:05

Mann's book. Well, I don't,

44:08

I know they listened to the episode because they

44:10

reached out, but I actually, between the time we

44:12

recorded and then the time they heard the episode.

44:14

So they tell me, I got

44:17

copies of my two February books. So now

44:20

I have a problem because I definitely started

44:22

reading them, which is what am

44:24

I going to do? Probably like the second

44:26

week of February. What book should be next?

44:28

I've got a lot of contenders, but I

44:30

actually want to ask for

44:32

help to pick one. And I'm not going to

44:34

give a list. Like what's the favorite energy and

44:36

climate book you've really enjoyed lately? It can be

44:39

fiction or nonfiction. Anna

44:41

Unrutko and reached out on Twitter with

44:44

one of hers or whatever, X with

44:46

one of her favorites, but I want suggestions. And if you have

44:48

one, I want to know. I need to know. Yeah.

44:50

And I do funny. You should say that.

44:53

Because there's a climate book, but I've literally just been

44:55

looking at that. I was going to mention it as

44:57

a free life for myself, but I thought I couldn't

44:59

do that really until I read it. It's

45:01

a book called Not the End of the World by Hannah Ritchie.

45:04

Have you heard of this? I've heard of Hannah Ritchie, Not the

45:06

End of the World. Let me look at that. Yeah.

45:08

Yeah. So she's quite a well-known

45:10

data scientist and just

45:12

reading the review of it here. So she's

45:14

lead researcher at the groundbreaking, Our World in

45:16

Data website run out of Oxford University. And

45:19

essentially it's a book about,

45:21

I guess you might call climate

45:24

realism and against climate doomism

45:27

and saying, yes,

45:29

climate change is a very serious problem. Yes,

45:32

it's something we need to address and tackle,

45:34

but you shouldn't think

45:36

that we're all doomed. You shouldn't

45:38

think that there's nothing people can

45:40

do to avert the

45:43

most catastrophic futures. You shouldn't think

45:45

that we've made no progress at

45:47

all. It looks like

45:49

a really interesting and well-argued book,

45:51

well worth checking out. That is

45:53

Not the End of the World by Hannah Ritchie. So

45:56

I would say that's definitely what I recommend.

45:59

I'm looking at it. Right now add an and

46:01

this looks perfect. Thank you for that.

46:03

Still asking for more suggestions? Please reach

46:05

out And since men on whatever platform

46:08

you like the dislikes, this looks really

46:10

cool. I'm I'm excited to see how

46:12

and and huckster it like I'm sorry

46:14

I'm I'm reading that this. Is I

46:16

got a close the tab? yeah I've

46:18

to The classroom result is a city

46:20

of let let's move on to the

46:23

internet points a game does a mugger?

46:25

a really interesting argument definitely will with

46:27

as a good thing concerned with I'm

46:29

looking forward to reading. So. Other

46:32

missing my free electron, then Melissa,

46:34

something I've thought about specifically for

46:36

you. Because. It's something

46:39

I've read this week, which really kind

46:41

of some took me aback a little

46:43

bit which is a story about Cop

46:45

Twenty Nine was reading in the Guardian.

46:47

So. You know I'm top. Twenty Nine can

46:49

be held later this year in November. In

46:52

Azerbaijan. And the story

46:55

the Garden was pointing out that was an

46:57

organizing committee for Cook Twenty Nine. Which.

46:59

Has twenty eight men on it

47:01

and not a single woman. And

47:04

I thought, Melissa: in light of some

47:06

of the things you've been talking about

47:08

in terms of representation of women, In

47:11

climate policy, the importance of gender balance,

47:13

and so on. This. Is

47:15

something which is. Well.

47:18

It kind of shocked me. presumably.

47:22

This is something that you will have

47:24

views on. Yeah. Yes,

47:26

and totally. Which is when you

47:29

have a good opens salts and

47:31

you know that as a world.

47:33

Yeah, there's something that. Is

47:36

perhaps common with roughly fifty percent of us

47:38

as members and none of that isn't around.

47:40

I should go back to the point you

47:43

made about diverse. It's like you're missing perspectives

47:45

and the outcome will be affected by and

47:47

we'd have so often about how you get

47:49

solution said, have problems and by having a

47:52

diversity of opinions as site you actually get

47:54

a more robust solutions like you get to

47:56

more workable solutions and. That's

47:59

nice. disappointing, I guess I'll say

48:01

in short. And I

48:04

wish I could be a fly on the walls, the

48:06

second thing I'll see behind the

48:08

discussions that led to that group. I'd

48:11

really like to understand kind of how they chose the

48:13

group and it led to a certain mix

48:15

of folks and you know, what was the reasoning behind that?

48:18

You know, how did it end up going that way?

48:20

I'd really love to understand that. That would be an interesting

48:22

one. I don't know if they'll ever publish that in a

48:24

newspaper, but if I could be a fly on the

48:26

wall and some kind of, that would

48:28

be, I would like to understand that. Yeah,

48:32

absolutely. I think one thing I think

48:34

about this is that I wonder if that'll

48:36

last given that it's now become

48:39

public, it's attracting a bit of international

48:41

scrutiny, people are talking about it. That

48:44

feels like an unsustainable position. That

48:46

feels like something that you

48:48

can't continue with really having

48:51

that kind of all male

48:53

committee making all those key decisions for

48:55

the COP. So we'll see, but I

48:57

suspect it'll change. So

49:00

hello, this is Ed again, speaking from

49:02

a couple of days later in the

49:04

time between we recorded that show, we

49:07

were talking about this free

49:09

electron of mine, the government of Azerbaijan

49:11

actually announced that they were adding 12

49:13

women to that organizing committee for COP

49:15

29. So I was saying at the

49:17

time, I thought it was unlikely to

49:19

stand that they would be having this

49:22

all male committee, so it is proved. And

49:25

I think certainly in terms of

49:27

what we've just been talking about,

49:29

the points Melissa has been making about

49:31

viewpoint diversity and so on, we

49:33

can definitely say that's a good thing that

49:36

they have decided to widen the

49:38

group in that way. Now back to

49:40

the show. And my hope on that

49:42

is that they took a look at who else isn't

49:44

in the room. Because I can't imagine

49:46

it's just a gender dynamic that maybe wasn't

49:48

considered. Because that's one that is maybe the

49:50

first one people think about in many cases.

49:52

So it's like, what else isn't in the

49:55

room? Because again, you want to get to

49:57

the richest possible outcomes as different perspectives are

49:59

really helpful. to make sure you're

50:01

not having these massive blind spots that

50:03

you could avoid by just having a diverse set of voices

50:06

in a room and making sure that each one of them has

50:08

a space at the table, as it were. So

50:10

I hope they not just consider the gender

50:13

dynamics but take a hard look at the

50:15

diversity of the group as a whole, but

50:18

we'll see, we'll see how it goes. I hadn't seen

50:20

the headline, as I told you, Ed, I've been just

50:22

running, I have not read much news this week. Yeah,

50:25

so I have to catch up on the plane back, but

50:27

I've got these books in my bag that I wanna finish

50:30

because I got halfway through and now I gotta finish

50:33

them. So we'll see. Indeed, indeed. Now we

50:35

ought to wrap it up in just a

50:37

moment before we do that, just on

50:39

your point about viewpoint diversity and the importance

50:42

of that, I have, I think, a fantastic

50:44

anecdote from my own household. So

50:46

my wife is completely addicted to the spelling bee in the New

50:48

York Times, you know, the thing where you get a kind of

50:50

a, you get sort of like a hexagon pattern of

50:52

letters and you have to make as many words as you can

50:54

out of it. And she's really

50:57

great at it and, you know, it gets

50:59

to kind of genius level, whatever, every time.

51:02

But just occasionally she

51:04

will say, I'm kind of stuck on this, can you take a

51:06

look and help me out on it? And

51:08

I take a look and then maybe I'll

51:10

find one or two words that she hasn't seen.

51:12

And so kind of between us, we can get

51:14

to genius level when she couldn't do that on

51:16

her own. If I ever have to do it

51:18

on my own, I'm absolutely terrible. And I don't

51:20

get, I get kind of extremely poor

51:23

level. So it's not that

51:25

I'm better at it than her, but

51:28

the pair of us combined with

51:30

our different perspectives and

51:32

ideas and backgrounds of knowledge and

51:34

so on are better than

51:36

either of us doing it on their own. And

51:40

I thought that was a really neat little parabola about, as

51:42

you say, the value of diversity and

51:45

why it's important to bring together different perspectives because

51:47

you'll get to a better outcome that way. Prepare

51:50

for it, y'all. I'm about to bring in a

51:52

high school antidote in a second. So today we

51:54

say teamwork makes the dream work, right? I mean,

51:56

seriously, you could lift heavier loads and there's multiple

51:58

out of hands. All those things. So here's

52:00

the high school thing. My

52:03

coach, when I was growing up,

52:05

my water polo coach, he said,

52:07

together everyone achieves more. And

52:10

so that's a team. And I know

52:12

I'm terrible at that. At the spelling bee, I'm

52:14

absolutely terrible at it. I'm never close to genius.

52:17

I don't even know if phoning a friend would

52:19

help. I need a genius friend to help me

52:21

out. But yeah, when it comes to

52:23

all of these things, it's just a continuous thing. Having

52:26

a team and having a diverse team, you

52:28

can accomplish more for sure. Very

52:30

true. So we do have to make it there. Many

52:33

thanks Melissa for joining us. Thanks Ed.

52:35

Julio, this has been fun again. Really enjoyed

52:37

it. It has indeed. Many thanks to you, Julio.

52:40

What a great pleasure. I look forward to hearing this log.

52:43

Absolutely. See you again soon. Thanks to

52:45

our producers, Sam Nash and Toby Biggin-Skilchrist.

52:47

And above all, many thanks to all

52:49

of you for listening. Please do keep

52:51

your feedback coming on whatever social

52:53

media platform makes sense to you. I

52:56

just want to give a quick mention to

52:58

Rod Adams of Atomic Insights who left a

53:00

long and very thoughtful comment

53:03

the other day on X slash

53:05

Twitter, platform formerly known as Twitter,

53:07

raised a lot of interesting issues

53:10

about our coverage of nuclear

53:12

power on the Energy Gang with

53:14

some suggestions for things we should be talking

53:16

about. All those points are well

53:18

made. And we hear what

53:20

you're saying and certainly we will be coming

53:23

to some of those issues in

53:25

the future and thinking about them further in

53:28

the weeks and months to come. Same

53:30

goes for everybody else. Please do get

53:33

your points in. Tell us what we're

53:35

doing wrong, what we're doing right, what you'd

53:37

like to hear more of and so on. And

53:40

we'll be back in two weeks with all the

53:42

latest news and views from the Energy Transition. Until

53:45

then, goodbye. you