Speaker 1: With Laurent Sagoland from London and Gerard Reed from Berlin.
Speaker 2: This is Redefining Energy today.
Speaker 3: On Redefine Energy, Jard, we are releasing the excerpt of
Speaker 3: a John conversation we had with our friends at Open Circuit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great conversation. They actually inspired us to
Speaker 1: set up the podcast in the first place.
Speaker 3: Yea absolutely Open Circuit is the new name of the
Speaker 3: old Energy Gang that they have recreated with the original
Speaker 3: team Cigar Shah, Katrina Milton. Once Jigar left the DOE
Speaker 3: because when he was working for the government he could
Speaker 3: not come. And Katherine's charm and wit and Gigar's laugh.
Speaker 3: It was a great conversation but lasted like an hour plus,
Speaker 3: which is much too much for us. So I've just
Speaker 3: selected excerpt.
Speaker 1: And don't forget Steven Stephen ac right, No, but I
Speaker 1: said it. No, No, you didn't mention Steve. I'll er
Speaker 1: the other two.
Speaker 3: Okay, Stephen Lacy organize everything. He's a great producer. We
Speaker 3: love them a lot. Okay, let's listen to the tape.
Speaker 2: From Latitude Media. This is Open Circuit. We'll revisit the
Speaker 2: new dual Order with a European twist. As America dismantles
Speaker 2: the post World War two global security order and leans
Speaker 2: into its role as a petro state, how will Europe respond.
Speaker 2: We'll look at how security is reshaping the EU's role
Speaker 2: as an emerging electro state. I'm Stephen Lacy. I'm the
Speaker 2: executive editor at Latitude Media.
Speaker 1: Welcome.
Speaker 2: I'm joined as zolways by my two co hosts, Katherine
Speaker 2: Hamilton and Jigger Shaw. Catherine's the co founder and chair
Speaker 2: of thirty eight Norse Solutions. Hey, Catherine, Hey, so excited
Speaker 2: to be doing this. Indeed, Jigger is the co managing
Speaker 2: partner of Multiplier and former director of the doees Loan
Speaker 2: Program's Office. Hey, Jigger, Hey, this week we have special
Speaker 2: treat We have not one, but two leading European energy
Speaker 2: investment experts here with us. Laurent Segolen and Gerard Read,
Speaker 2: the co hosts of the Redefining Energy podcast. Laurent Segolen
Speaker 2: founded megawatt x, a London based energy transition investment platform.
Speaker 2: He's been trading and investing billions of euros and clean
Speaker 2: energy for over two decades. Laurent, welcome, Well, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for having us. You know it's a very
Speaker 2: emotional moment for us because the Energy Gang, the origin
Speaker 2: Energy Gang, was our inspiration when we set up our podcast,
Speaker 2: and we are getting very emotional. So I just have
Speaker 2: to say one thing and then I'll let you speak.
Speaker 2: Times of change and times are strange. Here I come,
Speaker 2: but I ain't the same Mama. I'm coming home. What
Speaker 2: a good way to start the show. I love it, Gerar,
Speaker 2: can you beat that?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? What can I say?
Speaker 4: Jared also going to sing yes, I have definitely, But
Speaker 4: I do want to say he's dead right because myself
Speaker 4: and Laurent, you know, we're in a pulp one night
Speaker 4: having some beers and we were talking about your podcasts
Speaker 4: and we think of taxis.
Speaker 1: We could do something Simna couldn't we so we did.
Speaker 1: And it's so great to be with you guys here today.
Speaker 1: It's brilliant. Really looking forward to this exchange.
Speaker 2: Excellent well. Jared Reid is a founding partner of Alexa
Speaker 2: Capital and an expert on commodities and energy and mobility transitions.
Speaker 2: It's really good to see you.
Speaker 1: Great to be here. Great to be here.
Speaker 2: Let's move on to a much bigger story about European
Speaker 2: energy security. So back In April, we had a conversation
Speaker 2: about a report from the investment firm Carlisle called the
Speaker 2: New Dual Order, which argued that global investment flows and
Speaker 2: clean energy would be more influenced by security and localization
Speaker 2: of supply than decarbonization, and we asked are we leaving
Speaker 2: the net zero era into the energy security era? And
Speaker 2: one of the precipitating factors of all this was America's
Speaker 2: changing role in the Gloe stage. As the US leans
Speaker 2: into its role as a dominant petro state and pulls
Speaker 2: back on its post World War Two security commitments to
Speaker 2: protect supply routes, countries are reevaluating their energy security and
Speaker 2: creating what Carlisle's Jeff Curry says is peak trade of
Speaker 2: fossil fuels. So a sequel to that report is out
Speaker 2: is focused squarely on Europe. It looks at Europe's defense
Speaker 2: imperative as America pulls away, and the plan argues so
Speaker 2: that Europe needs to spend nine trillion euros over the
Speaker 2: next decade to build a very different economy, one with
Speaker 2: electrons and local supply chains at the center, largely for
Speaker 2: security reasons. And this pairs really nicely with another analysis
Speaker 2: from two Columbia University scholars arguing that we're in the
Speaker 2: middle of this split between two fundamentally different economic models,
Speaker 2: the petro state versus the electro state. And petro states
Speaker 2: like America, Saudi Arabia, Russia control energy through scarcity through
Speaker 2: dominance of choke points, power through barrels and pipelines, and
Speaker 2: electro states, particularly China and Europe, build abundance through manufacturing,
Speaker 2: advantages through technology and generate value through innovation rather than extraction.
Speaker 2: It's a very simplified way of looking at things, but
Speaker 2: I think that's how you sort of define the difference
Speaker 2: between petro states and electro states. So America is now
Speaker 2: really leaning into, as I said, the petro state strategy.
Speaker 2: And the question is can Europe join China as a
Speaker 2: leading electro state and increase both its security and competitiveness.
Speaker 2: And as it does, what can we learn from Europe's
Speaker 2: malinvestment in renewables that was clearly pioneering but also very
Speaker 2: very costly. Firstly, Laurent, do you agree with the assertion
Speaker 2: that security is becoming a more powerful force for Europe's
Speaker 2: energy transition than decarbonization. How is that unfolding?
Speaker 3: Yeah, everything changed so nothing changes. It's still EESG EESG
Speaker 3: except now. And I quote Liam Dinning from Bloomberg. ESG
Speaker 3: means economic security and geopolitics, So that's the new ESG.
Speaker 3: The second is the Jeff Curry Report was delivered in
Speaker 3: person by Vice President Jig Evans at the Unique Conference
Speaker 3: and jah the what you in Munich, I mean the
Speaker 3: message was kind of loud and clear.
Speaker 5: Well, the message was loud and clear, which is the
Speaker 5: future is fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: Right, That's what we got from the US. And I
Speaker 1: think what I.
Speaker 5: Would say is Europe's in a sort of a difficult situation
Speaker 5: because at the end of the day, we outsourced our
Speaker 5: energy future to Russia. That hasn't worked out, and now
Speaker 5: we're very dependent on the United States, but we're also
Speaker 5: dependent on Saudi Arabia, etcetera, etcetera. And with sort of
Speaker 5: the geopolitical situation, you're in a present just so they say, oh,
Speaker 5: what can we do, Well, there's only one thing we
Speaker 5: can do, and let's move towards energy independence. And the
Speaker 5: only way you can do that is to electrify. Now
Speaker 5: that's the big picture, Stephen. So I think we're all clear,
Speaker 5: that's what we have to do. It's not clear whether
Speaker 5: Europe is going to do that or not. That's what
Speaker 5: I just want to say to here. It is clear
Speaker 5: that China has gone that route, and we do need
Speaker 5: to go that route. Geopolitics are difficult. What I mean
Speaker 5: by that is the geopolitical situation is that Europe's very
Speaker 5: very tied into the United States, and to break away
Speaker 5: from the United States means also breaking away from fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: That really gonna have happen. I'm not one hundred percent sure.
Speaker 1: I hope it does.
Speaker 5: And what I would add though, is that the way
Speaker 5: forward is definitely We have examples of the way forward
Speaker 5: in Europe, and it's called the Nordic countries because if
Speaker 5: you're Norway, Denmark, Sweden, these countries have electrified their economies.
Speaker 5: Already France to a certain extent as well, but particularly
Speaker 5: the case of Sweden. Sweden was totally unimpacted by what
Speaker 5: happened with the Russians cussing off the gas to Europe.
Speaker 5: The reason was because they don't use gas, they use
Speaker 5: minimum amounts of it. So it's very clear that is
Speaker 5: the way going forward. But I would say the bottleneck
Speaker 5: and all of this is Germany because germany strategy was
Speaker 5: always to integrate close to the Russians, and industry has
Speaker 5: been really.
Speaker 1: Badly impacted by the fact.
Speaker 5: So then I take an expense of LNG and and
Speaker 5: I've got, you know, the German economics ministry who wants
Speaker 5: to go and build more and more.
Speaker 1: Gas power stations, which sort of doesn't break the addiction. So,
Speaker 1: as I said, definitely, we know the path forward, and
Speaker 1: we hope that Europe goes this down this road, but
Speaker 1: it's not clear where we're going to go down there.
Speaker 5: Now. Lauren might have a different opinion on this, but
Speaker 5: I certainly don't think it's clear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, it's a change of paradigm. And if you
Speaker 3: look twenty years ago, the registration in the US and
Speaker 3: Europe was absolutely the same. Were literally importing molecules. And
Speaker 3: if you look at the price of power in the
Speaker 3: US twenty years ago, it was above Europe. When people say, oh,
Speaker 3: the price is crazy now in Europe, no, if you
Speaker 3: just take the price of power twenty years ago, you
Speaker 3: had inflation, this is the price you get now. So
Speaker 3: the price has kind of followed inflation. But in the
Speaker 3: US ECOTT was above sixty twenty years ago. If you
Speaker 3: add inflation, that's one hundred dollars on the price is
Speaker 3: around middle thirty. So in fact, in the US, the
Speaker 3: price of power has gone down. In factor three, the
Speaker 3: reality is, and it's all because of racking and the
Speaker 3: Permian and everything, there's been an energy divergence, and of
Speaker 3: course the politics follow, and the politics is. The reality
Speaker 3: is now our interests are not aligned anymore because you
Speaker 3: enjoy energy dominance, and you know, we're left holding the
Speaker 3: bucket like morons. Yeah, of course we're going to do
Speaker 3: something about it now. The allans with China. Yeah, we
Speaker 3: take a lot of Chinese batteries or Chinese panels. There's
Speaker 3: no tariff, no problem. Look, at some point you need
Speaker 3: to bring answers. They're not pretty, but that's what it is.
Speaker 2: Certainly, historically, Europe, more than in the US, has been
Speaker 2: motivated in its energy transition for environmental reasons. And I'm
Speaker 2: wondering how you think security plays into Europe's motivations now
Speaker 2: compared to environmentalism and climate action. So are we seeing security,
Speaker 2: urgency and ownership of supply chains becoming the dominant force
Speaker 2: like this report suggests.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, security after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Yeah,
Speaker 3: of course it changed everything, all of a sudden change everything.
Speaker 3: And then you add AI and all those types of things.
Speaker 3: The two twenties are harder, they are more digital, they
Speaker 3: are more disruptive, and people who stick on their two
Speaker 3: tense software view of the world with kumbaya, let's go
Speaker 3: to cup let's de carbonized, let's all be friends. This
Speaker 3: area is done. It's gone. The all ESG thing, which
Speaker 3: was basically you build a portfolio of shares, you go
Speaker 3: long tech, short oil, and then you say, oh, look,
Speaker 3: ESG is so profitable, that was not true. So we
Speaker 3: had a bit of a series of shock and we're
Speaker 3: adapting to those shocks.
Speaker 6: I think the part of the story that people miss
Speaker 6: is that the United States coming out of World War
Speaker 6: Two really had extraordinary amounts of manufacturing capacity, and we
Speaker 6: were able to use a lot of that manufacturing capacity
Speaker 6: to make planes and tanks and all sorts of other stuff,
Speaker 6: and then you know, when peace time came, we turned
Speaker 6: it into an engine for the world. The reason our
Speaker 6: defense was so strong, though, was it was less than
Speaker 6: five percent of the supply chain, so most of it
Speaker 6: was used to make a civilian equipment and five percent
Speaker 6: of it was used to make defense equipment. Today, our
Speaker 6: defense supply chains are used only for defense, and they
Speaker 6: are horribly mismanaged today. I'm not even sure we could
Speaker 6: make a carrier if we wanted to. That is how
Speaker 6: bad our ports are in our shipbuilding capacity is right,
Speaker 6: and so one of the things that Europe has to
Speaker 6: figure out how to do is to avoid some of
Speaker 6: the problems that the United States is in today. So
Speaker 6: it needs to make sure that when it increases its
Speaker 6: budgets to five percent of GDP to defense, which many
Speaker 6: European countries have done, that it is based upon civilian
Speaker 6: supply chains, not based on defense supply chains, because defense
Speaker 6: supply chains are horribly corrupt and horribly inefficient, and so
Speaker 6: it's just one of those things that you just cannot
Speaker 6: build a modern society on pure defense supply chains. In
Speaker 6: the US is falling off a cliff because we've ended
Speaker 6: up there. That takes real planning. And that's the part
Speaker 6: that scares me the most. Right is that when you
Speaker 6: look at what Japan has done around its industrial strategy,
Speaker 6: it has done things through these corretzus right in Koreas,
Speaker 6: through the Kybals, and these are major industrial powerhouses that
Speaker 6: play both roles.
Speaker 1: So you start to.
Speaker 6: See conversations around VW taking some of their factories and
Speaker 6: turning them into defense facilities. That makes sense. They know
Speaker 6: how to manufacture stuff at scale at very low cost.
Speaker 6: But if VW starts getting eighty percent of its revenues
Speaker 6: from defense, you will see VW becomes sclerotic, which is
Speaker 6: what's happened to many of the supply chains in the
Speaker 6: United States. And so I just think that people have
Speaker 6: to be careful. We have this extraordinary opportunity in front
Speaker 6: of us to use technology that have largely been invented
Speaker 6: in the West and scale them up in these places.
Speaker 6: The other thing I would say is the European experiment,
Speaker 6: which is this sort of you know, EU hybrid but
Speaker 6: each country sort of runs itself. Has sort of led
Speaker 6: to the fact that you don't have this transfer capacity,
Speaker 6: for instance, between countries and the transmission grid. It has
Speaker 6: led to a lot of these other challenges. But one
Speaker 6: of the other opportunities that it presents is there are
Speaker 6: many low cost areas of Europe. So whether it's Hungary
Speaker 6: or Serbia or some of these other places, you can
Speaker 6: manufacture stuff really dirt cheap there even today. So the
Speaker 6: question becomes, how do you get the place polytical consensus
Speaker 6: across all of these countries to actually manufacture things in
Speaker 6: places of low cost in Europe, because right now Europe
Speaker 6: really still operates as if France needs to manufacture its
Speaker 6: own stuff and Germany needs to manufacture its own stuff,
Speaker 6: and other people need to have their own companies that
Speaker 6: are dominant in their countries, and that's not really the
Speaker 6: lowest cost approach. That's one of the benefits of the
Speaker 6: United States is that you don't need a passport to
Speaker 6: cross state lines. You have this ability to just do
Speaker 6: stuff in Georgia, or do stuff in Florida, or do
Speaker 6: stuff in Wyoming. And so one of the big challenges
Speaker 6: with the EU experiment in this moment is that they're
Speaker 6: going to need to figure out whether this moment is
Speaker 6: the time where they tighten up the coordination across all
Speaker 6: of the countries or they still operate as a confederation
Speaker 6: of independent countries.
Speaker 2: Geraud lent, what are Europe's advantages or disadvantages in scaling
Speaker 2: up manufacturing, specifically in energy and clean energy? What do
Speaker 2: you make of them?
Speaker 5: Well, let's maybe talk about the difficulties that we have right,
Speaker 5: and then we can talk about the advantages. So the
Speaker 5: difficulties that we have are really geopolitical, which is, remember
Speaker 5: we outsourced our energy to Russia, We've outsourced our tech
Speaker 5: to the US, and we've now exported our industrial technology
Speaker 5: base to China. And we're stuck in the middle between
Speaker 5: these three nations. That are these three countries that we've
Speaker 5: precarious relationships with each of them. And that's the real
Speaker 5: big challenge for us going forward is how do we
Speaker 5: manage the relationships between these three countries going forward. I
Speaker 5: don't know what the answer to that is, but it's
Speaker 5: the critical challenge because we don't have the technology.
Speaker 1: You know, well ry on Microsoft, Google, etc. Etc.
Speaker 7: If you want to talk about electric vehicles for example, sorry,
Speaker 7: the best electric vehicles in the world are Chinese.
Speaker 5: Are bid without a doubt. That's a challenge for the
Speaker 5: automobile industry in Europe. So that's the challenging environment we have.
Speaker 5: Now let me talk about the advantages. What we have
Speaker 5: is in certain industries we are still we're leaders. So
Speaker 5: if you take the case of wind, Vestus is still
Speaker 5: the biggest wind turbine manufacturer in the world. We've got
Speaker 5: incredible grid companies across Europe, whether it's a Semens or
Speaker 5: an ABB or you know, if you want to build
Speaker 5: power cables or something like this again, Prismium, all these words.
Speaker 5: So we've got great advantages there and I think the
Speaker 5: other area that we've got strength is is the whole
Speaker 5: area of controls and actually power controls, whether they be
Speaker 5: semiconductors or whether they be software. That's the strength that
Speaker 5: Europe hasn't so we have to build on that. But
Speaker 5: that requires us to change our attitude a little bit
Speaker 5: to realize that this and we're not necessarily going to
Speaker 5: be the biggest in the world at something, and maybe
Speaker 5: we need to partner up with China, maybe we need
Speaker 5: to partner up with the US, you know. So there's
Speaker 5: a thinking change that's also need in Europe. But we
Speaker 5: definitely still have industries in the energy space where we're leading,
Speaker 5: and that's the advantag still health we.
Speaker 3: Were absolutely amazed when the IRA came out, and this
Speaker 3: is really rich people luxury and analyzing the IRA, probably
Speaker 3: from your open point of view, fully Persent, made absolutely
Speaker 3: no sense because you are so profiligate, which unfortunately we
Speaker 3: can't do. And now you're back to reality, and they
Speaker 3: going to take all the subsidies, and you know, and
Speaker 3: that's it. You know, we're a mature industry. Okay, so
Speaker 3: read the band aid and do it in one go
Speaker 3: and go with it. And the price of power is
Speaker 3: going to go up in the US. It's a very
Speaker 3: tough moment. But look, I count on your animal spirit
Speaker 3: and you'll get through it. A lot of things are
Speaker 3: going to be done by reaction. The advantage we have
Speaker 3: compared to the US is much more compact. You know,
Speaker 3: everything is two hours flight from where we are, and
Speaker 3: you know, people speak different language, but they think the
Speaker 3: same way. And when we see Russia, we see your administration,
Speaker 3: we see China. I can tell you people understand very
Speaker 3: fast whether interest is so we'll moddle through that, not brilliantly,
Speaker 3: but we'll get through it.
Speaker 2: Catherine, we've talked in multiple episodes, in our most recent
Speaker 2: episode with Kim Zoo about how a lot of investors
Speaker 2: from around the world and in the US are looking
Speaker 2: to Europe. How do you think Europe might benefit from
Speaker 2: America's current retrenchment and clean energy.
Speaker 8: Well, I don't think anybody in the globe benefits from
Speaker 8: retrenchment from clean energy. But I would say that the
Speaker 8: US spends thirteen percent of our federal budget on the military,
Speaker 8: and that sounds terrifying, except that the military is also
Speaker 8: the source of a lot of innovation that has big
Speaker 8: impacts on civilians, not just from a military standpoint. So
Speaker 8: for example, DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, of
Speaker 8: course famously help inspired ARPA E, which is the Department
Speaker 8: of Energy. And that's kind of like startup technologies because
Speaker 8: the Department of Defense can take a little more risk,
Speaker 8: you know, they can say, you know, we're willing to
Speaker 8: try this experiment if it's going to help us somehow
Speaker 8: deploy what we need to deploy, and if it has
Speaker 8: other benefits, that's great. We also, of course have a
Speaker 8: system where the private sector is very very involved, so
Speaker 8: it's not like state owned technologies state owned resources. But
Speaker 8: the other big piece is the Defense Production Act, and
Speaker 8: so this is a fund that does go to private
Speaker 8: sector companies based on national defense emergency response essential goals
Speaker 8: and services that are declared by any president as being
Speaker 8: a crisis. And it doesn't have to be a wartime crisis.
Speaker 8: It could be any crisis. So for example, during a
Speaker 8: Biden administration, he said, we have a climate crisis, so
Speaker 8: how what are we going to fund through the Department
Speaker 8: of Defense. So they funded critical minerals, heat pumps, electronics components.
Speaker 8: They're still funding like workforce, mining, geological, environmental engineering, metallurgical,
Speaker 8: all this workforce that we need because we need so
Speaker 8: many critical men les right now no matter what we do.
Speaker 8: Fabrics they've done, aluminum battery materials has been a big thing.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 8: The President Trump now has said our emergency is for
Speaker 8: energy supply and infrastructure. Well, that could be mean transmission.
Speaker 8: It doesn't necessarily have to mean coal plants. I think
Speaker 8: he would like for it to mean coal plants, but
Speaker 8: supply chains, et cetera. So we can put our Department
Speaker 8: of Defense to work on things that are considered important
Speaker 8: from a national security standpoint that are also from an
Speaker 8: energy security standpoint, and work our innovation through that. So
Speaker 8: we see my companies sees the folks that we work
Speaker 8: with that are really always interested in non deluted funding
Speaker 8: and programs to the federal government. They see them drying
Speaker 8: up on the civilian side in a lot of ways,
Speaker 8: but then on the defense side, they see those growing.
Speaker 8: And I think that's something to keep in mind. Is
Speaker 8: like our Department of Defense does a lot more on
Speaker 8: innovation than we necessarily think about when we think about security.
Speaker 6: The one thing I would say that the Carlisle piece
Speaker 6: focuses on is supply chains, and I feel like that
Speaker 6: is something that Europeans never care about, and it's something
Speaker 6: that they're going to have to care a lot about.
Speaker 6: I'll give you an example. The Europeans love getting solar
Speaker 6: panels for nine cents a lot right now from China.
Speaker 6: There are so many solar panel manufacturers that can manufacture
Speaker 6: in Turkey, in Jordan, in Ethiopia, in India at thirteen
Speaker 6: cents a lot instead of nine cents a water that
Speaker 6: is more expensive. I get it, But they should want
Speaker 6: the diversification of the supply chain for a technology that
Speaker 6: they depend on to decarbonize their grid, and I think
Speaker 6: that they will need to be very vigilant around not
Speaker 6: getting addicted to China. Like it is not good for
Speaker 6: them to have eighty percent of their supply chain coming
Speaker 6: from one country. It is important for them to strategically
Speaker 6: invest in other regions in the world, especially where USAID
Speaker 6: is taking a step back out of the United States,
Speaker 6: and like the Europeans can play this critical role in
Speaker 6: being the off take agreement for other countries building up
Speaker 6: their manufacturing base in their countries, and the Europeans have
Speaker 6: all of the expertise that they can share with those
Speaker 6: countries and help them to industrialize their countries. But I
Speaker 6: think we're in this weird spot where the US has
Speaker 6: always been focused on this, and I think even the
Speaker 6: Trump administration is focused on this, but it's not clear
Speaker 6: to me that the Europeans are focused on this, and
Speaker 6: that I think is what scares me the most. Around
Speaker 6: what the Carlisle Group has talked about is if the
Speaker 6: Europeans decide to just say, you know what, China's so
Speaker 6: good at scaling the stuff up, like, let's just do
Speaker 6: that and we'll do the finished products over here in
Speaker 6: Hungary or some other place like that would be a
Speaker 6: huge mistake on their part.
Speaker 5: I'm going to say it's game over and Solar so
Speaker 5: I'm not even going to try and compete with the Chinese,
Speaker 5: and solder makes zero sense. The technology leaders, they have
Speaker 5: the scale, complete waste of capital. However, there's one area
Speaker 5: which is not and that is batteries, because batteries is
Speaker 5: critical not just for our power system but to the
Speaker 5: future of the automobile industry, which is critical for Europe.
Speaker 5: But there's an issue there as well, which is China
Speaker 5: is leading in the technology as well. The biggest battery
Speaker 5: manufacturers and technology leaders are all in China.
Speaker 1: So how do you compete.
Speaker 7: I actually think you cannot compete by trying to go
Speaker 7: on a loan.
Speaker 1: We've tried this in Europe.
Speaker 7: We have Northfolk complete another disaster, ten billion put into
Speaker 7: it and nothing out of it, So we have no
Speaker 7: choice but to compete with the Chinese.
Speaker 1: You probably go, okay, if we're.
Speaker 7: Going to do that, then we really need to cooperate
Speaker 7: intensely with the South Koreans of the Japanese.
Speaker 1: That's one possibility.
Speaker 7: Or the second possibility is you say, affect that we're
Speaker 7: going to actually cooperate with the Chinese in a different
Speaker 7: way what we did with them thirty years ago, where
Speaker 7: we went into joint ventures with them.
Speaker 1: You do the exact same.
Speaker 7: Thing here, So my view would be very very different.
Speaker 1: Yet, if you're going to try and.
Speaker 7: Beat the Chinese, you have to beat them at their game,
Speaker 7: and that means cooperate with them firstly and then learn
Speaker 7: from them and then see if you can leave prog them.
Speaker 2: I want to wrap up with this petro state versus
Speaker 2: electro state framing once again, and we visit this. You
Speaker 2: flag this piece for us on this dynamic and the
Speaker 2: split between electro states and petro states. Do you think
Speaker 2: this is a helpful framework for looking at the world
Speaker 2: and do you think Europe will emerge as a powerful
Speaker 2: electro state.
Speaker 3: So first of all, let's give credit to who coined
Speaker 3: the term and explosate. That's our friend Kingsley Bond. I
Speaker 3: think it's a very valid framework to have a different view,
Speaker 3: and sometimes you need those meta systems. And I remember
Speaker 3: the first time I read the prize by Jogin when
Speaker 3: it was the Great Yogin. Now today I'm not that sure,
Speaker 3: probably past you date, but when I read the price,
Speaker 3: it's the first time I understood that oil at the
Speaker 3: we find the twentieth century. So that framework is very useful.
Speaker 3: Now you can come and say, oh, what about Canada,
Speaker 3: what about Brazil? What about Norway which are exporting fossil
Speaker 3: fuels and are big on hydro and you'll be absolutely right.
Speaker 3: But Gerie speaking, it's a very interesting framework. Now Europe
Speaker 3: will tag along. I disagree with GGR and I give
Speaker 3: you three examples. Child, and I have invested in the
Speaker 3: company who was installing solar hoftop in Germany. Yeah, we
Speaker 3: bought all our panels from Ginco or gsolar, but that
Speaker 3: was only two thousand euro per roof the rest of
Speaker 3: the value, say twenty thousand yo, was all European value.
Speaker 3: It was our advance, it was our systems, it was
Speaker 3: our invertos, it was our workers, the job we created.
Speaker 3: Right now, I'm investing in batteries. I use COTL LEFP cells,
Speaker 3: but just the cells. The rest all the battery is
Speaker 3: made in Europe. And by the way, the Chinese cont snooping.
Speaker 3: There's no kill switch because there is a cybersecurity low
Speaker 3: in Europe, or all the software do in Europe. So
Speaker 3: whenever I buy a system of battery, let's say three
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars piece, the value of Chinese equipment is
Speaker 3: less than ten percent, so I create ninety percent value.
Speaker 3: And my third example, and somebody who want to salute
Speaker 3: here is Greg Jackson. So Greg Jackson has created an
Speaker 3: empire in less than ten years. Atoperc Energy based on
Speaker 3: digital is now the biggest retail in the UK, starting
Speaker 3: from zero and is the first person who has done
Speaker 3: a bundle retail power and vehicle to grid, but he
Speaker 3: has done it with BYD and so it's a full
Speaker 3: package your car power zero. And then when people charge
Speaker 3: at home, he has access to the bid batteries and
Speaker 3: he does a demand response with all those batteries. So
Speaker 3: these are three examples where we leverage on the part
Speaker 3: of the supply chain where Chinese are really good and
Speaker 3: we build value locally around it.
Speaker 2: Well, let's wrap up and get each of your quick
Speaker 2: takes on the role of Europe as a counterbalance to
Speaker 2: the United States. So we are seeing more investative interest
Speaker 2: in Europe. Europe is starting to talk about taking supply
Speaker 2: chains more seriously. The US's role in the energy transition
Speaker 2: is shifting and we are increasingly focused on fossil fuels.
Speaker 2: So will Europe emerge as a strong counterbalance to the
Speaker 2: US in the clean energy transition? Gerard, you want to start.
Speaker 1: Without a doubt because we have no choice. In the
Speaker 1: United States. You have a choice, and the choice.
Speaker 7: Is you've got lots of fossil fuels already, so you
Speaker 7: can actually just stay with them. We have a geopolitical imperative,
Speaker 7: simple as that, and we also have businesses in this
Speaker 7: area where we have a competitive advantage. And if I
Speaker 7: do look at the United States in the energy space,
Speaker 7: there's only a handful of businesses that I can think
Speaker 7: of that are actually international leaders in the space.
Speaker 1: If I look at Europe, I go whole part of leaders.
Speaker 7: And I'd also go and actually look at our utilities
Speaker 7: as well, because again there's not one US utility in Europe.
Speaker 7: There's a whole part of European utilities in there. So
Speaker 7: we've got a lot of competitive advantage in the space
Speaker 7: and we have to change simple as that.
Speaker 5: So I'd be very positive about our future because the
Speaker 5: imperative is there.
Speaker 6: I think the Europeans have a golden opportunity today. As
Speaker 6: Catherine suggested, I think we've spent the better part of
Speaker 6: fifteen years spending a ton of money on innovation, and
Speaker 6: all of that money has resulted in sixteen hundred companies
Speaker 6: that Kim Zao and others are tracking out of London,
Speaker 6: and so we actually know exactly which companies they are
Speaker 6: and which ones need saving and how to save them
Speaker 6: and all that stuff. But one of the big challenges
Speaker 6: of Europe is that a lot of these programs have
Speaker 6: been led by government regulation, feed and tariffs, top down
Speaker 6: sort of approaches. For Europe to succeed in this moment,
Speaker 6: they're going to need a lot more large corporates to
Speaker 6: step up and actually say that they want these things
Speaker 6: to be in Europe. And so we'll see whether they
Speaker 6: do that. But right now we are in a critical
Speaker 6: moment where it can't be the governments that lead. It
Speaker 6: has to be the private sector that leads.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm not really willing to seed clean energy to
Speaker 8: fossil fuels in the United States. I'm still pretty bullish
Speaker 8: on clean energy. We've already started a lot of manufacturing here.
Speaker 8: We have deployed like mad and my biggest concern is
Speaker 8: that we are isolating ourselves such that Europeans do not
Speaker 8: want to invest anymore here, and you know, we're looking
Speaker 8: to what happens in Europe.
Speaker 6: I do think it's an opportunity for Europe.
Speaker 8: I just would hate to seed everything in the US
Speaker 8: that we've tried to get done. So I'm going to
Speaker 8: keep fighting to make sure that we stay on the
Speaker 8: clean energy train and that we continue to try to
Speaker 8: do business with Europe as we can.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I started by a song I'm going to close
Speaker 3: by a song, Kathy, I said as we bordered the
Speaker 3: Greyhound in Pittsburgh, Michigan seems like a dream to me now.
Speaker 3: It took me four days to reach out from Saginaw,
Speaker 3: and I've come to look for America, for European America.
Speaker 3: These our cousins are brethrens and seeing America at the
Speaker 3: UN Security Council voting with Iran and Noskoia and Russia
Speaker 3: against us, where have you gone?
Speaker 2: Many of us asked that question every day.
Speaker 3: Russia is our enemy. I don't want to secede from America.
Speaker 3: This is nos Atlantic, this is our Marinostrom, this is
Speaker 3: who we are. And I hope you know you'll come
Speaker 3: back to census. And of course we need to take
Speaker 3: more responsibility and not rely on other people. But you
Speaker 3: know where we need together. We only represent twenty five
Speaker 3: percent of the world population at best, but with the
Speaker 3: best universities, the best resource Chano, we are bound to
Speaker 3: do that together. So that's my final words.
Speaker 2: Amen, brother, Yes, I think the three of us feel
Speaker 2: that very deeply, and a lot of Americans do as well,
Speaker 2: and that's part of the reason we wanted to have
Speaker 2: this conversation. Thanks to both of you. This was a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. Thanks for your podcast and also keeping
Speaker 2: us informed. Gerard Reid and Laurent Segelen are the co
Speaker 2: hosts of Redefining Energy. You can find their show the
Speaker 2: same way you find this one anywhere you download podcasts,
Speaker 2: or you can click the link in the show notes
Speaker 2: and you can get to their page. Gerard, really good
Speaker 2: to talk to you. Likewise, Laurent a pleasure.
Speaker 3: Thank you guys, We love you.
Speaker 8: Thank you all. This has been so much fun in
Speaker 8: it to win it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Redefining Energy.
Speaker 5: Don't forget to rate the show and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
Speaker 5: or the platform of your choice.