WEBVTT - The Iran war shows why clean energy is the more secure choice 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:04.920 Welcome to zero. I am Akshatrati this week, entering the 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:21.360 mid Transition. We're constantly told that clean energy is now cheaper, 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:25.160 and yet the transition away from fossil fuels is proceeding 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:29.480 at a glacial pace. Why is that. One answer might 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:32.040 be that we are living through what some experts call 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:37.000 the mid transition. Everywhere you look, you see the coexistence 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.879 of two types of technologies, one that runs on fossil fuels, 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:45.800 the other that runs on electricity from clean sources. Now, 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:50.040 both these systems have advantages and disadvantages, and there is 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.080 an ongoing struggle between the two, a tug of war 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:57.600 between two very different futures. But having these two systems 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.720 run in parallel comes with costs, which makes this mid 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:07.600 transition more expensive and more politically fraud. This is all 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:12.039 true before you add the uncertainties that come from geopolitical 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:15.000 events such as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:18.840 My guest today is Emily Krubert, a civil engineer and 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:22.640 an environmental sociologist currently at the University of Notre Dame 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:26.000 in the US. She studies the mid transition, and so 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.960 I wanted to ask her how can countries successfully navigate 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:34.400 this mid transition to the benefit of their populations. Among 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.600 the four largest carbon polluters, we are already seeing climate 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:40.760 action slow down in the US, and there are signs 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:44.200 of much lower ambition in India and China. So the 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:48.200 answer to managing the mid transition matters more than ever before. 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:51.520 If you have feedback, questions or guest suggestions for the show, 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.120 please get in touch at zero port at Bloomberg dot net. 0:01:54.600 --> 0:02:00.880 Now here's my conversation with Emily Kruber. Emily, welcome back 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:01.320 to Zero. 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:03.960 Thank you so much for having me so among your. 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.640 Many research areas you look at this idea of the 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:10.000 mid transition. But let's just start at a high level. 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:12.160 Define what is the mid transition? 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:15.359 Yeah, I think this is actually a really important thing 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:19.200 to define upfront, because it's not necessarily clear when you're 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:21.160 in it. But what we talk about is the mid 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.320 transition is a period where you have a fossil based 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:25.560 system and a non fossil based system that are both 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:27.799 big enough to constrain each other, which I think is 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:29.600 kind of a critical point with a lot of the 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:33.520 oil stuff that's going on, particularly, but also small enough 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.000 that they can't provide all necessary services that we get 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:37.880 from the energy system. And this is sort of the 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.200 tricky period between two stable end states where you have 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.239 a mostly fossil based system and a basically non fossil 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:46.320 based system on the other end, they're both easier to 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:47.560 manage than this middle period. 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:51.080 And is there a clear example or two where we 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:52.840 can see that tension play out. 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:54.920 Yeah, I think where we see it most clearly right 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:57.640 now as in the electricity sector. And my co author 0:02:57.680 --> 0:02:59.640 Sarah Hytink Simon and I had kind of thought about 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.720 when you you can sort of heuristically determine whether you're 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:05.120 in the mid transition and kind of determined it's probably 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:07.720 around when you have twenty percent penetration by the new system. 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:10.160 So we see that more in electricity than other places. 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.960 But as examples, solar coach element because you have a 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.320 hard time ramping back gas or coal or nuclear plants 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:19.919 or something is one version of this. Similarly, really really 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.000 high ramp rates for gas plants to accommodate solar coming online. 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.400 Those kinds of given takes and sort of constraints on 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.880 each other are pretty characteristic of what we're talking about. 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.320 But then some grids around the world, I mean, I 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:33.960 live here in the UK, and last year something like 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:37.560 sixty five to seventy percent of the electricity came from 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:41.600 zero carbon sources, not only renewables because there's nuclear in 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:45.280 the mix. But are those beyond the mid transition then. 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.040 I don't think so. So it's funny because we hadn't 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:50.120 really set out to make this a twenty eighty problem, 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:52.320 but it probably is kind of a twenty eighty problem. 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:54.400 I think if you have a system that's sixty five 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.560 percent non carbon, which as you say, is not quite 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.000 the same as a brand new system, because you're still 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.640 working with things that basically follow the old rules, like 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:05.960 a nuclear plant behaves a lot like a fossil plant. 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.480 Hydroplants have been forced to sort of behave in ways 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:10.800 that are consistent with the way that we've handled systems 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:13.800 in the past, and so those ones do kind of 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:16.600 reduce the constraints that you have with the changing system. 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:19.120 But that said, like if the zero carbon system can't 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:22.960 actually handle everything yet, that's where we would consider that 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:24.760 to not quite be fully all the way through yet. 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:27.719 So on the grid itself in the UK, there is 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:30.560 a particular challenge, but I think this will show up 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:34.280 in many other places, which is the UK has some 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.360 of the highest prices of electricity in the world for 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:40.240 many reasons, but one of the reasons is the mid transition. 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:44.120 It has invested in all this cleaner energy generation, mostly 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:47.240 offshore wind, which is fairly expensive even now, but it 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:51.200 has to maintain this fleet of gas power plants, and 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:53.200 it has to build out this grid that will move 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:57.560 electricity longer distances because a lot of the offshore wind 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:00.880 is in the north in Scotland are whereas a lot 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.560 of the consumption is in the south, in the London area, 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:08.680 and so you are getting a more expensive energy system 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:11.960 and it's causing a whole bunch of political problems at 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:15.440 a time of cost of living crisis, inflation, another energy shock, 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:20.360 and so people are blaming the transition. People are blaming 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:21.880 net zero. Are they right? 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:24.280 It's a really interesting question. I'm glad you brought this up, 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.160 because I think one of the things about mid transition 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.760 that gets so complex is that there's a reason that 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:30.279 you want to get through it as quickly as you 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:33.880 possibly can. I think people misinterpret my work sometimes to say, oh, 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:36.799 like this is going to be hard, therefore we should 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:39.479 slow down, and actually we're kind of making the opposite point, 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:41.560 You should try to get through this as quickly as possible, 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:43.880 because on the other side things look better. But like 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.880 you're saying, I would argue it's not the fault of 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:49.760 the new system that things are expensive, but it is 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:51.839 true that during the mid transition you're having to pay 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:55.240 for duplicative resources. You essentially have to maintain all of 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:57.960 the fixed costs associated with both the fossil system and 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.720 the non fossil system until the fossil system can be retired. 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.400 But because of that, we do expect some cost reductions 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:06.520 once you actually have completed that transition, because you no 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.719 longer have to maintain the pipelines, the safety infrastructure, the 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.680 inspection infrastructure, all these kinds of things. I think there 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:14.960 is a lot to be said for being honest with 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.200 people that the transition is going to be tricky, and again, 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:19.880 this is why you would like to get through it 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:21.640 as quickly as possible. And I think we do have 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.479 a really really strong set of evidence that the other 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:26.799 end of this is going to be cheaper, better for people, 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:28.799 better for public health, and all those kinds of things. 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:33.200 But I think the hard thing I suspect this is 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.320 true in the UK, it's certainly true. In the US, 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:39.520 we have allowed our institutional structures to exist such that 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:42.599 much of the fossil system actually needs really substantial remediation 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.400 once it closes as well, which is not necessarily something 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:51.520 that's easy to extract from the companies that are currently 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.400 responsible for those systems, just because of the intensity of it, 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:57.240 and because of the way that we've sort of avoided 0:06:57.279 --> 0:06:59.160 having to do that in place, And so the notion 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:00.920 that there might actually be a lot of back end 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:03.160 closure costs is also something that I think we need 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:04.640 to be fairly clear right about. 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:07.600 So you're saying it would be useful if we get 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:12.080 through it quickly, because these costs are doubling up our 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:14.360 maintenance of these two systems. 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:14.640 Yeah. 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:16.360 Now, the war in the Middle East and the closure 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:19.080 of the strait of hormones again sort of showed, you 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:23.679 know that the fossil system has its own critical vulnerabilities, 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:27.880 let alone the external impacts on climate change. Do you 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:32.560 think the case for countries to then accelerate the transition 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.679 to a cleaner energy, more electric future is just now 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:38.840 much much stronger as a result of the war. 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:41.080 I wouldn't say much much stronger because I think that 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.760 case has been extraordinarily strong for quite a while. I 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.400 think it is a good illustration of why we think 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:47.920 that this transition is so important. 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:48.200 Though. 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:51.320 But it's really funny for me as an American because 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.120 I feel like so many people have talked about renewables 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.560 as a way to enhance energy security because they're sort 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:01.200 of inherently domestic, and so now what this conversation at 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:03.440 least here turn into, well, we have to redouble our 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.600 efforts in a while to enhance our energy security. It's like, really, 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:10.600 it's an interesting take, but yeah, the transition is something 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.760 that we expect is going to make countries more dependent 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.120 on domestically accessible resources that can't be blocked. There's some 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:20.040 questions about manufacturing capabilities for the machines needed to do 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.080 the conversions, but for the most part, you're not really 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:24.600 reliant on a fuel anymore. 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.680 So we are starting to see signals from countries that 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.520 depend on importing fossil fuels that they would like to 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.280 speed this up. There was an announcement from France that 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.920 they are going to double down on electrification of homes, 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.040 on heat pumps, on electric cars, and they're putting in 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:43.880 a bunch of subsidies toward it. We've seen movements in 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:47.920 Asian countries to try and accelerate the deployment of renewables. Again, 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:51.680 those are countries that have been very dependent on importing 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:54.760 fossil fuels, and in a fossil fuel shock that those 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:59.240 kinds of moves makes sense. Then there's the countries that 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:02.440 are fossil exporters, like the country you are in, which 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.280 is just less and there are a bunch of those countries, 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.640 like about twenty percent of the world has enough fossil 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:12.960 fuels for itself and then to export it. Why is 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:16.760 the case for speeding up the mid transition for those 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:20.920 countries for the exporting fossil fuel countries also one that 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:22.280 should be speed up. 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.560 Yeah, I think fundamentally it is really just about this 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.400 point that we need to do this, and the end 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:30.080 state is going to be much more stable than the 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.040 middle state. I think one of the things that we 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.320 talk about, even beyond costs and beyond the fact that 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:36.920 you're paying for two systems at once, is just the 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:39.440 reality that when you have these two systems that were 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.160 really designed to work together and would both probably function 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:44.480 a bit better if they didn't have to accommodate. The 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:46.840 other one is just that you're exposing yourself to a 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:49.760 whole suite of risks that we haven't really thought about before. 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.480 It's really interesting and also kind of tragic watching some 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.560 of the after action reviews for big power outages or 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:00.200 other kinds of issues that we see emerging, where it's like, 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:04.120 in retrospect, this could have probably been predicted, but we 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:06.280 haven't really spent the time to do that. And I 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:10.600 think that really, even just beyond the fuel security risks 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:13.000 that are becoming, I think clearer to people that don't 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.839 think about this all the time, what's interesting is there's 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:20.400 so many other good reasons to accelerate this transition, cost 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:22.640 being one of them, risk management being one of them, 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:25.440 and just actually getting to a place where you're reaping 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:28.080 all of the benefits of having transitioned, so again, public 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:31.679 health benefits, climate benefits, all sorts of things like that. 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:35.400 But yeah, it's true that the exporting countries are in 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:39.240 a bit of a different mindset, I think if you're 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:42.480 only looking at global demand processes rather than some of 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.440 the reasons why we want to transition. But I don't 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:46.480 think that's a reason not to. 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:50.400 And so are there economies countries that you think are 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:54.040 navigating the mid transition On the well side. 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:56.679 It's so funny. I think I am one of the 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:59.360 people that probably would argue that we're less in the 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.720 mid transition and then most which is funny. I'm so 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:05.640 happy that this term has resonated with people, But I 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:08.120 think my caution a lot of the time is we're 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:10.480 barely in it. Like you said, I think there are 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:13.960 some electricity systems around the world that are in the 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.400 sort of early to middle stages of this, just managing 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:19.679 inverter based resources as things that we haven't really had 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:22.360 to deal with before. But for the most part, like 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.000 with transportation, I don't think we've entered this stage yet. 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:27.280 I think most of the challenges that we're seeing are 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.000 sort of inherent challenges of the fossil system as opposed 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:33.840 to being real challenges of transition. I do concede that 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.040 I think there are some places where people are making 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:40.560 some anticipatory choices that are reflective of the expectation of transition, 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:43.400 but we're not necessarily really in the place that's going 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:46.319 to be hard. What's nice about the anticipatory stuff is 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:49.080 it's my pretty firm belief that if you plan for this, 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:52.840 you can really not eliminate but reduce the risks and 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:56.679 reduce the added costs quite a bit. And so that's encouraging. 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.679 And can you give examples of these countries that are 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:02.040 taking on the anticipatory moves already? 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:04.800 Yeah, so I won't give you a country example, but 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:06.840 just one that I've been working on a lot lately 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:10.120 is refining in California, which is sort of country scale. 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.640 So I'll let this example maybe slide a bit, But 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.240 what we're seeing in California is about a ten percent 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:20.200 penetration by zero emissions vehicles as light duty vehicles at least, 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:23.280 which is bigger than you see in most places, but 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:27.760 is still not dominant by any means. So oil demand 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:31.199 is declining, It's not declining that fast, but it is declining. 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.840 But we're starting to see refineries announcing their exits in 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:36.079 ways that are creating a bit of a scramble to 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.760 figure out how to manage this where supply is dropping 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:43.120 faster than demand. What makes this example so interesting and disclosure, 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:45.120 I've been working with the California Energy Commission on these 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:47.679 topics for a bit now. But what makes this conversation. 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:52.480 So interesting, I think is the recognition that actually, refinery 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.640 exits are consistent with state policy goals, and they are 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:58.960 consistent with what the broader trajectory is, but they're misaligned 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.160 with how demand is changing. And so I think California 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:04.520 is doing a reasonable job recognizing that this is a 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:06.920 problem and trying to think hard about what happens next, 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:10.160 but they too aren't quite in it yet. I think 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:12.400 there's a couple of other situations around the world where 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:15.040 you see sort of similar things, where there's just an 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.640 expectation that things are going to change. What gets complicated 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:22.839 about that is that just because like a government might 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:25.640 be pretty committed to seeing those kinds of transitions happen, 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.760 doesn't mean that companies in particular believe it. And I 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.040 think that that's the pattern we see more frequently actually, 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:33.720 is people sort of playing chicken a little bit and saying, well, 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:35.640 you say this is going to happen, I don't believe you, 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:37.080 and so I'm not going to do very much about 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:38.920 it until I have to. And then you end up 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:42.880 with these very very tricky situations where you're essentially really 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:47.760 enhancing market power of particular firms. You're really putting countries 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:49.959 in a bit of a bind about losing critical services. 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:52.360 This is not a fossil fuel example, but the UK 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:54.719 just went through this with steel, and I think that's 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:56.600 not the only example we've seen of this recently. 0:13:57.160 --> 0:13:57.439 Well. 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:00.800 Another way is where the country is plunged into a 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:03.360 crisis and then it has to act. So we saw 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:07.760 in Spain last year that the blackout that you know, 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.160 many people blamed on renewables, but it was a whole 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:14.240 system wide problem of not just being able to manage voltage, 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:18.800 not particularly a problem that renewables was causing. And so 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:21.440 they are now. You know, I have had number of 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:23.800 reports come out and a number of policy changes that 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:28.000 have happened as a result, and that ought to be 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.360 something that the rest of European grid is going to 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:33.480 learn from as well, because one of the report comes 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:38.720 from and so E, which is the European Wide Transmission Authority, 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:42.360 and they are taking on the lessons of automating certain 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:45.560 changes that happened in the grid that were being made 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:48.600 physically at that you know, required people to be present 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:50.720 at a particular place that really don't need to be. 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.360 You could automate these things that are now being deployed. 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:57.520 Another one that I don't have as close and understanding 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:01.280 is the blackouts that have happened in Texas. What have 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:04.720 been the outcomes of that, because Texas itself, at least 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:07.320 on the grid, is kind of toward the mid transition, 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:10.640 just given how much renewables and batteries that's added to 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:11.160 the system. 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:13.720 Yeah, absolutely, and they are as you know, their own 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:15.800 system essentially, and so they are having to kind of 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:17.160 manage this on their own. 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:17.640 Yeah. 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.000 What's interesting about the after action on the gas system 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.040 in Texas, I think is that without those blackouts, a 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.240 lot of it was around gas deliverability. This is something 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:28.640 that I'm frankly personally kind of obsessed with and have 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.160 been for a while. It was obviously a very tragic event, 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.440 and the illustrations that it gave us, I think are 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:39.800 really instructive. Not necessarily because of the degree of transition 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.760 that they were in. There were other issues there, and 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.000 there were some previous cold snaps that they hadn't really 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:50.240 implemented recommendations. From that said, I think one of the 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:52.520 things that we see a lot in deep decarbonization models 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:54.400 is this assumption that the gas system is there to 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:59.480 catch you always and that doesn't necessarily acknowledge that the 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.160 times when you're expecting in a model the gas system 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.920 to catch you are actually the most challenging operational conditions 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:09.040 and the most challenging deliverability conditions. Whereas with Texas you 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:11.480 have a lot of questions about does gas go directly 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:13.640 to people's heat or does gas go to the power plant? 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.000 Is the line frozen? Did you bother to recognize that 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.800 this was actually critical infrastructure now? But I think one 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:21.800 of the things, sort of like we were talking about 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:25.680 before the mid transition, poses these new risks that you 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.640 don't necessarily see. And I think that illustration is actually 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:32.080 really important because in the Texas situation, people just sort 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:33.880 of assumed that the gas system would be ready for 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:37.680 this without informing those assets that they needed to be 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:40.280 the backup in this kind of a situation. That's not 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:42.440 totally fair. I think some of them probably had been 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.760 informed into an act that said there were these new 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:48.120 conditions where people sort of assumed things would be fine 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:51.440 and they weren't. And those types of outcomes are again, 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:53.640 I think, predictable when you look for them, but can 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:55.960 catch you really off guard in really dangerous ways if 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:56.560 you don't. 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.160 After the break more of my conversation with Emily Grubert. 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:06.919 If you're enjoying this episode of Zero, please take a 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.680 moment to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:13.080 and Spotify. It makes the algorithms happy and helps more 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:27.200 people find this podcast. A lot of the conversations so far, 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.879 we've looked at sort of rich country examples, you know, 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:34.920 Europe and the US, which are energy systems that are 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:38.959 not really growing right now. Okay, the electricity system might 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:40.800 be growing a little bit faster than it has, but 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.800 overall energy consumption has been declining in Europe for a 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:50.360 long time now, whereas in developing countries energy consumption all 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:54.240 across the board is rising. Is the mid transition faster 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.679 to go through if you have a growing energy system, 0:17:58.800 --> 0:17:59.240 I think. 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:01.360 It is, and especial if it's a situation where you're 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:03.800 not really expecting to have to retire a bunch of stuff. 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:06.960 It's funny because I think that the sort of long 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:11.119 term industrialized countries are in a bit of a different 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.240 situation here, just because we have the advantage of having 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:16.800 pretty old infrastructure, so you don't really need to worry 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:19.840 about amortization and stuff like this once you start really 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:22.760 looking into transition, that's a challenge, I think with countries 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.359 that are still growing their systems in a fossil reliant way. 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:28.399 This is I think an interesting callback to a lot 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.000 of the conversations about leapbrogging that happened many many years 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.360 ago when people were starting to look at distributed systems. 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.919 But the notion that you might actually have utility scale 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.199 systems that can leapfrog and just skip the need to 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:42.280 actually retire your fossil assets in some cases not all, 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.320 And obviously I think there's a there's a higher benefit 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:50.440 to providing people energy services at basically even if that's 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:54.119 fossil based for a pretty significant proportion of what is 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.000 actually still needed. That said, the more that you can 0:18:57.040 --> 0:18:58.959 avoid building stuff that you know you're going to have 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.719 to retire, I think, the easier this transition becomes. So 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:05.200 you're right, just the fact that they are growing without 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:07.920 necessarily also having to shut down a bunch of stuff 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:10.680 I think does change the situation. But like to the 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:13.480 broader point, even the long term industrialized countries, if you 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:17.119 do assume that electrification is happening, we're still talking about 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:19.240 at least in the US, I think the statistics are 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:21.600 mostly that our electricity capacity might need to grow by 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:24.959 a factor of two to six or so to accommodate 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:28.640 a lot of the just primary energy sifts over to electricity. 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.399 So still huge growth environment, but with this added challenge 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.240 of closing things. That looks a little different in countries 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:38.800 that either have not really provided modern energy services widely, 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:43.639 or have done so but have brand new fossil based systems, 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:45.679 and I think those two conditions are also quite different. 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:48.400 Yeah. So in the case of the UK, for example, 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:50.920 the core power plants are already aging, and yes, maybe 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:52.840 some of them had to be retired maybe a few 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.359 years early, but it wasn't too much of a problem, 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:59.320 not fifty years early exactly, Whereas in places like Indonesia 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:02.480 or China or India where they're even now building coal 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:06.560 power plants for them, the lifetime is fifty years, and 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:08.760 so if you're going to have to retire them to 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:11.400 three decades early, that's going to be a hefty cost. 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.800 So yeah, so in a way, then the point you're 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:17.960 trying to make is that given how complex the energy 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:21.720 infrastructure is and how long the different parts of it exist, 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:26.040 changing it requires a lot of good planning a lot 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:32.080 of future thinking, and that requires a lot of political stability, 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:36.240 which there isn't around most countries. So let's come to 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:40.520