With laurents segal and from London and Gerard Read from Berlin. This is Redefining
Energy Minutes, Episode one hundred and twenty one and job, do you have
a number this week? Actually, I think one hundred and twenty one is
a great number. I can't believe we've done one hundred and twenty more podcasts
plus ninety eight plus the nine year. But I mean it's amazing, amazing,
it is amazing. So you give me your number the week I just
gave you mine fifty one euro paton to the cabon price collapse. It did.
The cabin price lost thirty six percent since the beginning of the year.
I didn't know. That's just a guest, tell me why something? My
god so round. Sometimes it's just these are really important things and you don't
keep up with them. Oh my god, I can't believe I missed that.
Okay, and bally Gunda was really a vet down off the cabin market.
I remember I had a debate within more than twenty ago. Is targeting
thirty five euro metric done by the end of the year. Look, the
reason is pretty simple, and we're going to talk about data. But look,
it's a question of supply and demand, and there's been a lot of
renewables in the market, much less gas and the cold bound and that's what
you get. Well, I suppose actually that's probably a good place to start,
because actually we are let's start to talk about Europe, and I think
we wanted to talk a little bit about the Ember Report, which really talks
and gives a huge amount of great data in and around what's going on in
the electricity markets in Europe. And I suppose that's the starting place, right
because that's when when you look at their numbers, you understand why calm price
that makes sense to me now or m there for those listeners who don't know.
Is NGO run from the UK by a very talented team led by Dave
Jones. So the publish of all the fuels, all the emissions, all
across Europe, and I think the growing fantastic organization, fantastic report and the
great thing it goes out within weeks at the end of the year, and
not the report we used to have, which came like in August, so
you know, people dropped the ball. The main takeaway are well, the
first one is the power consumption is down, which is not really the case
in the US where it's still growing, and of course China and the rest,
everybody hopes that the power consumption is going to go up. The power
sector emissions also are down nineteen percent last year. Coal power is down twenty
six percent, gas is down fifteen percent. Renewables account for forty four percent
of all power. A new twenty five absolutely amazing. I'm interesting. Look
in terms of record solar and wind editions last year, that's what you had
across Europe, I suppose when I reflect on it, I'm not surprised.
We also had a new nuclear power plant that obviously went online up in Finland,
and yeah, the new French nuclear plants are back as well well.
So yeah, that means omission to sound. But the interesting one for me
though, actually is is electricity demand. So the question is what's driving that
electricity demand. You know, we're in a world where we're digitalizing everything.
We're talking about huge increases in data center demand. The electricity demand is down,
so it must be just industrial, right, Yeah, I really demand
destruction and the big question is what is temporary? And we'll come back once
the you know, Ukraine thing is going to finish, hopefully, because it's
been two years and the poor Ukrainians have been suffering too much or is it
structural and that demand will never come back? And yeah, that's a question
everybody's asking. We need to see our consumption go up for evs for heating,
Yeah, exactly, so you would expect the power de man going forward
is going to go up significantly, right. But what we are saying,
whether we like it or lumpet, is we are saying the d industrialization of
let's say heavy industry in Europe. And you might say that and come back.
I don't believe it'll come back. I don't believe we have a competitive
advantage in those industries anyway, so why should they come back? But that
doesn't mean the electricity demand won't increase, because what you said is we have
to electrify heat, and we're going to electrify more and more of industry,
and we're going to transport and we've got the digitalization of our world. So
yeah, it seems to be a no brainer that demand increases going forward,
the spite efficiencies, the spite efficiencies you talk about ivy industry. If you
look at the price of gas and Texas right now, it's one point five
dollars and METU, which is a giga jewler one point five is the cheapest
energy you'll never have. Yeah, so it just acts as a magnet for
all the big ivy industry. And there's nothing you can do, even if
the price of gas in Europe has really come down recently to almost pre war
level. Just compete, you can't compete. But what I will say,
what's what we need to get our head around? Well, okay, we're
not going to do this here in our little recording, but it is artificial
intelligence, and I just know, I don't know if you've just seen it.
Microsoft recently just to announce a two and a half billion euro investment in
artificial intelligence infrastructure in Germany without a subsidy, right, And why are they
doing it? Because they realize the opportunity is huge and they sort of have
a view that continental Europe is very important for all of this. Anyway,
I say that because that all requires electricity. And when we talk about data
centers, they're done to megawatts. That's how you measure the size of them.
It's not the speed of them. We don't talk about the capacity in
terms of bites that can be stored. We talk in terms of megawatts the
power they use, so that that that talking about reports, of course,
we have to mention the what is the second edition, But what's going to
become the best seller every year is the Ballard slide deck. Two hundred slides,
no table of content, no executive summary, in no conclusion. But
he managed to coalesce all the data coming from all over the place, whether
it's Bloomberg, New Energy Finance, some from Ember, some from Moodies,
and it delivers you everything you need to know about energy climate in two hundred
slides. And look, I'm not going to go into each of them.
We'll put the link in the show notes. Okay, so there are the
slides about climate change, temperature, renewables, energy efficiency, the investment into
energy transition. We reach one point eight trillion last year and this is great
green investment. So that there was an interesting slides saying green investment is half
the default rate of conventional infrastructure investment. I like those stats. Have you
seen the album? I have, of course, and I really like it
every year and it's it's I think it's becoming the bible for anybody who just
wants to get an overview of what's going on in the whole energy world.
What I I know, I'm sorry. Back to data centers and AI.
What I found very interesting was the slightly had on which he calls what hours
per request. So if you take a Google search, you know you're down
at whatever, maybe zero point three watts what hours per request every time we
go go through. If you go into AI powered Google search, then you're
at nine what hours per request. So just to give you an idea of
the scale, right, and that goes back to electricity demand. It's telling
you where it's going, right, I mean, that's the reality. That's
the world we're going into. Right. There are certain slides which I learned.
Something I found the phenomenal HCC. You have got the capex cost and
the impact of interest rates on capex. That was really brilliant. One very
surprising but spooky is slide one O two. It's the hydro capacity diminution over
the years, and it's all across the globe and you see the effect of
climate change on lower capacity in hydrol Page one seventy five. The carbonization of
steel cement chemical summarize everything in terms of hydrogen cyes and so so look,
I will put the link. I encourage every people working in our business to
have a look at those two hundred slides. Well said, well said,
and before we go the last report. But that's more for me and for
people working in batteries. You have the deck of the Volta Foundation and that's
even bigger, something like two hundred forty or two hundred and fifty slides,
and it's brilliant. Everything you need to know about batteries right now. It
is absolutely phenomenal. You have all the industry, all the tech who produce,
what, what are the costs, what are the chemicals, what are
the application? What's the R and D? Where's the policy? I mean,
it's it is. If you're into batteries, you have to look at
this guy. Oh my god, it's so good. Okay, job,
all right, my friend, wish your good week. Talk to you next
week. Cheers. Thank you for listening to Redefining Energy. Don't forget to
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