With Laurent segel And from London and Gerard Reed from Berlin. This is redefining
energy minutes minutes one nine and Jad, I think we're going to focus around
China because Europe then even recently and you started truing videos about how we in
that reason, everybody start freaking out. Well, they started freaking out for
lots of reasons. One is because in particular the American side of delegation,
they were coming out of saying all right, well, we need to go
an in source all production Tea into North America and Europe. We need to
really break our dependency on China on solar panels and we shouldn't be buying electric
cars from them. And then on the European side, I had a regulator
in Europe saying, yeah, what we need to do is we need to
go and put excise taxes on Chinese evs going forward and support our industry.
And I was sort of I decided not to go into the discussion because I
didn't wanted to get too political. We actually had Chinese in the room and
I avoided it. But it really just stuck at me, and what struck
me really more than anything else Lurana is it's very difficult for Europe because we're
stuck in the middle between the China. I could also say between Russia and
North America. It's really difficult for us. Yet, if we're smart,
we need to take the best of all worlds. We need to take us
gas and we need to take Chinese solar. And look, I'm going to
give you an example because I think that sometimes we are fighting the wrong fights.
I see those European declaration we need forty percent of our panel done inside
Europe. Oh they forgot to say, oh, we need forty percent of
our smartphone producing Europe. Well, guess what, ninety nine percent of our
smartphone they come from China. Okay, there's nothing wrong about that. The
interesting is how much value do we put on batteries or do we put on
panel? And I'm going to give you an example. And you know as
much as I do, but probably our listeners don't. Is whenever the company
we have invested in put the solar panel on the top of a roof,
they're going to charge roughly twenty thousand yoo. But inside there's only two thousand
of Chinese material. So we are creating ninety percent of extra value with European
jobs around the energy transition, and okay, we have ten percent of Chinese
panel and matt pea with that. Oh no, no, I'm totally chlone.
I have the exact same view and all of this, and I think
what I take out of it is and I just think this is for our
listeners to hear this is that what China does is China is dominating not along
the production of all of these different technologies, whether they're solar or wind turbines
or evs, they're also dominating the implementation of these technologies in their systems.
That's what they're doing. Half the world's solar panels are actually installed in China
to day, you know what I mean. So they're putting their money in
where the mouth is. Yeah, And it's one of the few industrial policy
has been functioning well because trying to have local components for everything. I mean,
we've seen that in India, we've seen that in Brazil. Now we're
seeing it in the US. Never really worked, now I can understand.
And if you go really to the reptilian the reptilian brain of those people in
the US, it's simple. It's drill baby, drill. In Europe is
regulate, baby regulate, and in China is build baby built. That's how
I see it. I like Laurent, I like it. You're right,
Europe regulate, baby regulates. You're absolutely right. Oh my god. And
by the way, that's why I can see a regulator saying we need to
regulate to actually stop these Chinese cars coming in. What's very interesting is is
to hear the reaction of the the BMW and Mercedes CEO which said the exact
object which we can do that, and the reason is is because they're exporters
and they know that you're in a global export market and the only way to
beat the competition is to be as good as them or better than them.
And if you get subsidies and impose import taxes on your competitors, well guess
what they do. It means that you will lose market share in the rest
of the world. Maybe not in Europe, but in the rest of the
world. Right now, let's be clear, there are some industry that we
can sell deem strategy and needs to be protected. I have no problem with
that, but that this government needs to be clear about it. And the
cost is going to take still okay, fine, stell is going to be
decarbonized, not because of the carbon market or the target still is being decarbonized.
Because if you are Salo Mitail and you go to Belgium and say I
want a billion euro for a new plant, and the guys say, okay,
you got it, and then Spain's going to propose you know one point
two. That's fine with me, but at least it's clear. I think
it's important to protect our wind industry because it's a very powerful ecosystem. I
think it's important to protect our auto industry. But for the basic components,
I have no problem having cattle batteries and you know BMW, which is by
the way, what they are doing, and they're very successful, by the
way. That's the way, whether we like it lump. My view would
be regards to China is that we have to cooperate and compete with them at
the same time. That's how you do it. But the second you don't
cooperate with them, you just set at a disadvantage. Because the reality is
I saw a statistic the other day which was that China, in terms of
patents in the whole clean energy space, battery, solar, wind etcetera.
They have three times the level of patents compared to the United States and Europe
combined. So that's the reality of it. They are leading technologically in a
lot of these areas, and for one reason and one only in my personal
opinion, it's called twelve million barrel of oil imported per day, whereas the
US is self sufficient. Look, if you have an oil industry, if
you have gas at one dollar and metu, I understand you don't want to
put Chinese solar panels and you're going to dismiss the carbon effects of burning gas
because you know you're swimming in gas and it's very cheap, thank you very
much. But not everybody's the US. I'm sure if we're the permium basin
in the middle of Europe, we probably would not have been so cozy with
Russia or push for hun wabbles. But there are geographical realities that people countries
who have to import energy guess what they want to go greener. I like
what you said, and there's no doubt that the European perspectives are saying because
we're also important in the EU, probably in barrels all right, So six
six, okay, all right? Important outside. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
So you got is two very big importers of energy because we didn't c
gas etcetera, etcetera in that and we have the same motivations. So I
understand that. What I don't understand is why Europe has no joint of industrial
policy. You can have all the industrial policy you want, but if you
end up having an INDUS health policy on hydrogen, which is stupid and corrupt,
at some point, you need entrepreneurs, You need human capital, and
if you put your human capital in hydrogen, you're going to go nowhere because
that is just a fuel that's too expensive. You can say, oh,
I want twenty new nuclear plants within ten years. Guess what, you don't
have the human capital to put twenty nuclear plant in next ten years. So
you can write all the targets you want and ambitions and conferences and pledges and
blah blah blah, if you don't have the human capital and also the financial
markets to back them and the price signal to back them. If you're tweaking
with prices all the time, you can write all the power points you want,
you will get nothing. I agree with you, my friend. That's
my rant. That's my rant. And I'm not going to disagree with you,
but I tell you what, we do need to dig in more into
it because sometimes the statistics that come out of China are really unbelievable. And
I give you a very simple example was that last year there was more solar
installed in China than the wars in the world the year before. Whether that's
right or not, I don't know, but you know where coming from it.
And then I look at the beginning of the year and I was looking
at the estimates for China and like the consultancy firms were like fifty percent the
same evs. So I sort of look at this and go, yeah,
we need to dig into it more, is where I'm coming from, right,
Yeah, So we will invite a great China expert to have a show
with us in the coming weeks, and we'll be able to really understand what's
going on, if we need to fear China, if we need to emulate
China. But I think people are getting a bit hysterically here, so it's
good to have a good conversation with somebody who know what he's talking about.
I'll look forward to it. Holauren, Okay, what you laugh at at
is and you're saying, is Jared, you haveing a clue what you're talking
about. That's what you're saying. That's all right, we get an expert
in right. I'm glad to hear that. Okay, John, great talking
to you. Took next week, look forward to it. Thank you for
listening to Redefining Energy. Don't forget to rate the show and subscribe on Apple,
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