The Rethink Energy Podcast complements the Rethink Energy weekly strategy bulletin, as we dive deeper into the dynamic factors of the energy market. We discuss the week’s key issues, while providing insight into our own research and forecasts to give clearer direction of where momentum is building through the energy transition.
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In this week’s episode the team discusses:
-First Solar CEO Mark Widmar’s warning that Chinese manufacturers are significant beneficiaries of the Inflation Reduction Act’s 45x incentives, effectively making the US itself another location hosting downstream Chinese solar manufacturing.
-A startup has demonstrated 10-year lifespan for its SOEC electrolyzers, which are more efficient and cost-effective than ALK and PEM in theory, but have more technical hurdles to address.
In this week’s episode the team discusses:
-The new polysilicon factory ($1.3 billion, 100,000 tons, 40 GW) which is under construction in Oman, and who is likely behind it.
-Airbus’s head of ZEROe hydrogen demonstrators, Mathias Andriamisaina, has stated that the company will need to make a choice between hydrogen combustion and fuel cells by some time in 2026 to 2027.
In this week’s episode the team discusses:
-The scale of solar manufacturing in 2023, with Chinese outputs up by 67% to 622 GW at the wafer level, while its wafer exports – almost the sole supply source for all solar cell manufacturing in the rest of the world – up by over 90%.
-Multiple delayed green hydrogen investments and negative coverage may open a space for blue hydrogen, while still only representing a temporary problem for the scale-up of electrolysis-based hydrogen technologies.
ESS Inc’s European Director Alan Greenshields joins us to talk about the role long duration energy storage has to play in the energy transition, and LEAG’s major shift towards decarbonizing Germany’s coal fleet with green power and batteries.
In this week’s episode the team discusses:
-Europe’s hydrogen strategy is taking a turn towards blue hydrogen with several projects including new announcements in the UK and the Netherlands.
-Andrew Garrad and Henrik Stiesdal, two very august figures in the wind industry, have called for a halt to the proliferation of ever-larger wind turbine sizes.
In this week’s episode the team discusses:
-“When should your business open a hydrogen refuelling station?” – a question prompted by a slew of cancelled and closed hydrogen stations in California.
-China’s pumped hydro boom continues, even as Western pumped hydro developments stagnate.
In this week’s episode the team discusses:
-The Australia Solar Manufacturing Roadmap, which advocates heavy incentives beyond even those of the IRA, while eschewing trade barriers.
-Germany’s €16 billion tender for 10 GW of hydrogen-capable gas power plant capacity.
-Ascent Elements’ hydro-to-cathode battery recycling method which promises an immediate 49% carbon footprint reduction, with a 90% goal for 2030.
In this week’s episode the team discusses:
In this week’s episode the team discusses:
In this week’s episode the team discusses:
-An interview with Tandem PV CEO Scott Wharton, focusing in the issues of degradation, module size and efficiency in the lead-up to commercialization
-EU investigators’ arrival in China, where they will investigate automakers BYD, Geely, and SAIC to determine how much government support they are receiving
-Oil tanker company Frontline’s investment in a new fleet of not-green-enough ECO VLCC ships