Happy New Year and welcome to Season 14 of Cleaning Up. From the future of nuclear to growing tensions between China and the USA, we’re off with a bang with a conversation between hosts Michael Liebreich and Bryony Worthington.
They reflect on the key trends of 2024, and looking ahead to what might be on the cards in 2025, from China’s rapid electrification to political upheaval in the US. Bryony and Michael get stuck into the challenges and opportunities around the build out of nuclear power, the potential of biofuels in aviation, and what we might expect from COP30 in Brazil later this year.
Leadership Circle:
Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live.
Links and more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSzF7QChxcw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB_WmXgFxtg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwfysBnTxEw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYdVAI5zozs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2LpMpkrP1w&pp
• Paper on Curtailment of Nuclear Power Output during Heatwaves: https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/05104543/nuclear-power-output.pdf
Chapters:
00:00 – Intro
00:45 – Growth of Electricity in China
05:05 – Tribe or No Tribe?
07:05 – US Climate Reversal
14:00 – Policy Flip-flops
19:10 – Electrostate vs Petrostate
24:20 – Trump’s Appointees
27:09 – All of the Above
32:05 – Nuclear Excitement
35:44 – How Expensive is Nuclear?
40:12 – Why We Need Nuclear
51:45 – Brazil, Biofuels & Aviation
56:30 – Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
59:20 – Outro
source
Happy New Year from the Cleaning Up team and welcome to Season 14! We've got tonnes of great guests in the pipeline, and a few very special projects coming up. Tune in every Wednesday at 6pm for new episodes. For all the latest from the show, subscribe to our newsletter at https://cleaninguppod.substack.com
www eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_b
Americans will still be using fossil fuels when the Chinese are teleporting. 😂
A great conversation as always…I so enjoyed the 'exchange of views' on nuclear😂 have a great break on 'Cleaning up' plus all the subscribers.😊
it is nice to hear two people with differing view actually listening to each other.
The US will rather ignite WW3 than allow China to succeed in the transition (or anything for that matter). Or better … they already are doing it.
It is not just about oil vs electric. Look at how China has progressed in the last 30 years. Ie; Chinese trains travelling at 200+ mph and US? And for that matter UK. It is Regan and Thatcher who called then a backward looking economy.
38:47 'If that happens everyone is pulling in French nuclear'. No! France simply doesn't have the nuclear capacity to support all the others countries, especially not in winter! In fact, at that time of the year, it doesn't even have enough nuclear power to serve its own demand!
Winter is the time of the year, where the 'Dunkelflaute' is most likely going to happen! In many winters, German coal plants have been switched on to provide France with surplus power!
It's myth to believe France has helped Europe to get through the recent 'Dunkelflaute'. The missing power came from gas and coal!
How could an energy system relying on 10-20% nuclear be resilient? The missing portion would still have to come from somewhere. Even if one raises the percentage to 60%. The only way to achieve resilience with nuclear power is to consequently overbuild it to >100%! But the same holds true for battery, wind and solar with a little H2 – being a lot cheaper!
I'm with Michael on nuclear. All speed to the governments LDES project and their plan for 22 GW of storage fy the end of the decade.
Min. 40:25: 'Sorry Miss Worthington, you are spreading coplete meyths! Germany still has got enough conventional generation capacity to be completely independent! There is absolutely no need for polish coal to come in!
However! Gas and coal is expensive! And nearly always it is cheaper to get electricity from somewhere else – mostly Scandinavia! Polish coal just like german coal is subject to limitations by European CO2-certificates and cannot be cheaper than german coal.
21:30 Australia is a completely oil importing dependent country. Aussie dollar is falling. Making oil more expensive. Its a great time to own an EV in Australia, because ive decoupled from the oil pump, and get my fuel for free off my solar panels.
The idea of a pro-climate conservative is wild to me.
Just look at the world around you.
People are not denying climate change because there is no evidence or the topic is complex or because of the price of freedom.
It is because of a concerted propaganda and disinformation effort by big oil.
Dems are in their pockets too. But Republicans?
They will gladly kill us all to make line go up.
😂😂😂😂
Imagine thinking "drill baby drill" is about inflation or energy security
Prices act by supply and demand. Do you know how to make the American gas cheap and secure? PUBLIC TRANSIT, TRAINS
Drill baby drill is about keeping demand and production up. It is about the shareholders and nothing else.
Capitalism will kill us all
40:00 Geothermal is not dependent on weather. 3:00 About US blocking AI chips export to China. There is already a Chinese AI chip that is pretty close to NVidia's. Also, China has not countered with its own export bans yet but it produces 75% of the high-purity silicon needed to make chips. China & Russia produce 72% of the Titanium sponge. China produces 98% of the Gallium. The US banned companies with government contracts from using Huawei chips but it also has issued an exemption to the US Army every year because there is no other source of the chip that the army needs. So the US's ban on exporting AI chips to China will only last as long as the Chinese government allows it.
The Australia nuclear "policy" isn't to repower coal, it's building a new one nearby. It explicitly at the expense of renewables because it's way off in 2040-something, but investment is retarded today. Taxpayers pay for the nuclear that's late. Consumers pay for a lack of supply until the nuclear is built.
Re The mood turning against the 'Green Movement' – I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I think the mass media, partly want you to believe that, but also 'EV explodes', will sell way more papers/get more views than 'Petrol is really flammable, leading to vast majority of car fires- Boffins say!' In recent elections, the Green Party in Ireland were wiped out at the polling booth (as has always happened to the smallest party in our coalition govts.), but those voting for the bigger parties, who had just spent five years in govt., with a Green Party in coalition, their voters also felt not enough had been done for the climate. So, the pressure to do more, is not always easy to spot.
Did I get my wires crossed? No one in Australia is talking about repowering. The coal generators are so old they would have to be essentially rebuilt anyway. I would be shocked if repowering was more cost effective than just building new nuclear. And building new nuclear is expensive enough already.
And round and round we go. Great debate but! Nothing changes I think think Xi and Putin have had the best effects 🤔 Isn't that funny 🤔 🎉
And now LA is on fire 🔥 again, but don't let that stop you. Keep on debating 🤔
Strange that the Musk/Tesla phrase "machine that builds the machine" isn't more of a global discussion. Machines that use electricity to build renewable electricity generators that lower the cost of electricity and manufacturing vs. Fossil fuel extraction machines that only get more operationally expensive as cheapest producing fields dry up, exploration costs go up as new sources get harder to find and extraction machinery manufacturing costs go up.
Electrostate vs. Petrostate is well put.
The best reason to do nuclear is because that's how we develop nuclear power stations and undirected or lightly directed research is how we improve science and technology. But we should clear up some of our planning issues in the UK though without compromising safety. I don't see an reason to build any nuclear station as long as it is expected to be an incremental improvement over previous reactors.
This was one of THE best discussions I ever heard about nuclear and while comparing it the talks in German election battles seem like kindergarten sandbox fights.
I personally switched from being opposed to nuclear and now regret the German reactors were turned off far before their EOL – at the same time I have to agree to Michael's position here: Nuclear isn't the best approach to manage Dunkelflaute as we are talking about a few weeks/year here. Which reactor can run economically at that load percentage?
For Germany we would need another 40 GW of nuclear even if we still ran our 20 GW reactors from 2010. (we had about 15 GW max hydro + biomass, and max load 75 GW in 2024). Most of them would run in load follow though and would have to compete against the currently planned 160 GW large scale batteries most of the time.
I doubt if Merz really plans to put 2 back on line, his party could have done this while they were in power up until 2021, right now it looks like some election strategy.
But to end this on a positive note: The Efuels position lost ground in the discussion (subjectively) – I heard it less and less. Many people fell for using HVO instead though :/
China … nuff said.
5:11 the emotional ones are the Democrats. They are also very autocratic in their nature, suffering from a superiority complex.
34min in where is the Uranium going to come from for the West for all these Nuclear power stations as I believe Iran is the only country with good reserves?
Renewables are the ONLY long term solution to energy! EU should invest in North African States and build interconnections and even a gas line??
To save Australian wildlife habitat I would be happy to pay a premium for small footprint nuclear, but not for the other 'green' alternatives.
South America even riper to transition to 100% renewables than Africa as it has food surpluses but great for Hydro, Solar & Wind with battery storage!
B9th sid8sm is a favorite red herring. Lazy
Michael should have a glass of red with every episode 🙂
Thanks guys, great debate. I agree totally with Bryony Worthington. She has a very comprehensively well thought out position. Michael's position is too much based on unsupported opinions. Claiming we can fully compensate for dankelflaut by demand adjustment is simply moving deficiencies in energy generation costs to users. Productivity and the economy as a whole would suffer.