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With laurents segal and from London and
Gerard Read from Berlin. This is Redefining

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Energy Minutes, Episode one hundred and
twenty one and job, do you have

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a number this week? Actually,
I think one hundred and twenty one is

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a great number. I can't believe
we've done one hundred and twenty more podcasts

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plus ninety eight plus the nine year. But I mean it's amazing, amazing,

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it is amazing. So you give
me your number the week I just

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gave you mine fifty one euro paton
to the cabon price collapse. It did.

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The cabin price lost thirty six percent
since the beginning of the year.

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I didn't know. That's just a
guest, tell me why something? My

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god so round. Sometimes it's just
these are really important things and you don't

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keep up with them. Oh my
god, I can't believe I missed that.

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Okay, and bally Gunda was really
a vet down off the cabin market.

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I remember I had a debate within
more than twenty ago. Is targeting

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thirty five euro metric done by the
end of the year. Look, the

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reason is pretty simple, and we're
going to talk about data. But look,

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it's a question of supply and demand, and there's been a lot of

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renewables in the market, much less
gas and the cold bound and that's what

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you get. Well, I suppose
actually that's probably a good place to start,

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because actually we are let's start to
talk about Europe, and I think

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we wanted to talk a little bit
about the Ember Report, which really talks

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and gives a huge amount of great
data in and around what's going on in

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the electricity markets in Europe. And
I suppose that's the starting place, right

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because that's when when you look at
their numbers, you understand why calm price

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that makes sense to me now or
m there for those listeners who don't know.

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Is NGO run from the UK by
a very talented team led by Dave

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Jones. So the publish of all
the fuels, all the emissions, all

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across Europe, and I think the
growing fantastic organization, fantastic report and the

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great thing it goes out within weeks
at the end of the year, and

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not the report we used to have, which came like in August, so

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you know, people dropped the ball. The main takeaway are well, the

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first one is the power consumption is
down, which is not really the case

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in the US where it's still growing, and of course China and the rest,

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everybody hopes that the power consumption is
going to go up. The power

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sector emissions also are down nineteen percent
last year. Coal power is down twenty

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six percent, gas is down fifteen
percent. Renewables account for forty four percent

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of all power. A new twenty
five absolutely amazing. I'm interesting. Look

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in terms of record solar and wind
editions last year, that's what you had

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across Europe, I suppose when I
reflect on it, I'm not surprised.

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We also had a new nuclear power
plant that obviously went online up in Finland,

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and yeah, the new French nuclear
plants are back as well well.

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So yeah, that means omission to
sound. But the interesting one for me

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though, actually is is electricity demand. So the question is what's driving that

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electricity demand. You know, we're
in a world where we're digitalizing everything.

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We're talking about huge increases in data
center demand. The electricity demand is down,

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so it must be just industrial,
right, Yeah, I really demand

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destruction and the big question is what
is temporary? And we'll come back once

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the you know, Ukraine thing is
going to finish, hopefully, because it's

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been two years and the poor Ukrainians
have been suffering too much or is it

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structural and that demand will never come
back? And yeah, that's a question

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everybody's asking. We need to see
our consumption go up for evs for heating,

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Yeah, exactly, so you would
expect the power de man going forward

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is going to go up significantly,
right. But what we are saying,

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whether we like it or lumpet,
is we are saying the d industrialization of

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let's say heavy industry in Europe.
And you might say that and come back.

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I don't believe it'll come back.
I don't believe we have a competitive

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advantage in those industries anyway, so
why should they come back? But that

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doesn't mean the electricity demand won't increase, because what you said is we have

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to electrify heat, and we're going
to electrify more and more of industry,

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and we're going to transport and we've
got the digitalization of our world. So

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yeah, it seems to be a
no brainer that demand increases going forward,

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the spite efficiencies, the spite efficiencies
you talk about ivy industry. If you

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look at the price of gas and
Texas right now, it's one point five

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dollars and METU, which is a
giga jewler one point five is the cheapest

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energy you'll never have. Yeah,
so it just acts as a magnet for

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all the big ivy industry. And
there's nothing you can do, even if

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the price of gas in Europe has
really come down recently to almost pre war

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level. Just compete, you can't
compete. But what I will say,

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what's what we need to get our
head around? Well, okay, we're

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not going to do this here in
our little recording, but it is artificial

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intelligence, and I just know,
I don't know if you've just seen it.

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Microsoft recently just to announce a two
and a half billion euro investment in

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artificial intelligence infrastructure in Germany without a
subsidy, right, And why are they

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doing it? Because they realize the
opportunity is huge and they sort of have

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a view that continental Europe is very
important for all of this. Anyway,

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I say that because that all requires
electricity. And when we talk about data

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centers, they're done to megawatts.
That's how you measure the size of them.

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It's not the speed of them.
We don't talk about the capacity in

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terms of bites that can be stored. We talk in terms of megawatts the

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power they use, so that that
that talking about reports, of course,

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we have to mention the what is
the second edition, But what's going to

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become the best seller every year is
the Ballard slide deck. Two hundred slides,

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no table of content, no executive
summary, in no conclusion. But

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he managed to coalesce all the data
coming from all over the place, whether

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it's Bloomberg, New Energy Finance,
some from Ember, some from Moodies,

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and it delivers you everything you need
to know about energy climate in two hundred

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slides. And look, I'm not
going to go into each of them.

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We'll put the link in the show
notes. Okay, so there are the

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slides about climate change, temperature,
renewables, energy efficiency, the investment into

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energy transition. We reach one point
eight trillion last year and this is great

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green investment. So that there was
an interesting slides saying green investment is half

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the default rate of conventional infrastructure investment. I like those stats. Have you

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seen the album? I have,
of course, and I really like it

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every year and it's it's I think
it's becoming the bible for anybody who just

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wants to get an overview of what's
going on in the whole energy world.

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What I I know, I'm sorry. Back to data centers and AI.

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What I found very interesting was the
slightly had on which he calls what hours

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per request. So if you take
a Google search, you know you're down

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at whatever, maybe zero point three
watts what hours per request every time we

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go go through. If you go
into AI powered Google search, then you're

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at nine what hours per request.
So just to give you an idea of

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the scale, right, and that
goes back to electricity demand. It's telling

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you where it's going, right,
I mean, that's the reality. That's

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the world we're going into. Right. There are certain slides which I learned.

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Something I found the phenomenal HCC.
You have got the capex cost and

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the impact of interest rates on capex. That was really brilliant. One very

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surprising but spooky is slide one O
two. It's the hydro capacity diminution over

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the years, and it's all across
the globe and you see the effect of

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climate change on lower capacity in hydrol
Page one seventy five. The carbonization of

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steel cement chemical summarize everything in terms
of hydrogen cyes and so so look,

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I will put the link. I
encourage every people working in our business to

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have a look at those two hundred
slides. Well said, well said,

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and before we go the last report. But that's more for me and for

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people working in batteries. You have
the deck of the Volta Foundation and that's

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even bigger, something like two hundred
forty or two hundred and fifty slides,

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and it's brilliant. Everything you need
to know about batteries right now. It

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is absolutely phenomenal. You have all
the industry, all the tech who produce,

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what, what are the costs,
what are the chemicals, what are

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the application? What's the R and
D? Where's the policy? I mean,

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it's it is. If you're into
batteries, you have to look at

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this guy. Oh my god,
it's so good. Okay, job,

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all right, my friend, wish
your good week. Talk to you next

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week. Cheers. Thank you for
listening to Redefining Energy. Don't forget to

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rate the show and subscribe on Apple
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