Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change
For those interested in a podcast about everything related to the energy transition, new technologies in this sector, and its financial aspects, “Cleaning Up” is an exceptionally strong podcast. The two hosts, Michael Liebreich and Baroness Bryony Worthington (unsurprisingly from the UK), manage to invite experts with academic, business, scientific, and/or political backgrounds to each episode (± 1 hour). While the baroness has a background as an environmental activist and played a key role in the UK Climate Change Act, Michael complements her with his expertise as an engineer and entrepreneur at New Energy Finance, now known as BloombergNEF. The podcast already has more than 250 episodes, featuring interviews with well-known figures such as Tony Blair and Ban Ki-moon.
One of their latest episodes, “AI Has An Electricity Problem,” featuring Michael Liebreich and Arshad Mansoor, president and CEO of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), featured an interesting debate between the two. While other podcast hosts sometimes hesitate to challenge their guests too much, Michael frequently took a stance opposite to Arshad’s and consistently posed incisive questions. Although there is also a brief discussion about whether the hyperscalers’ massive investments in AI are justifiable, the episode mainly focuses on the (predicted) electricity consumption of data centers, whether the grid can handle it, and the importance of grid flexibility. The hyperscalers’ investments in Small Modular Reactors (SMR)—which seemed to dominate the headlines a while back—are also briefly discussed here, along with their role in this context.
My number one takeaway from this episode: According to Arshad, the biggest bottleneck in the AI and data center race will be public opposition to these massive investments. We’re seeing more and more articles about fears of job losses, water and air quality issues, and so on, all stemming from AI and its associated developments. He draws a parallel to the initial resistance to electricity, railroads, and cars—which also sparked all sorts of concerns back then—something I hadn’t immediately considered myself. Interested in listening to the full episode? You can find that (and others) here:
Switched On
Another, more business-oriented and informative podcast that also discusses current climate, energy, and transportation topics is “Switched On, ” which regularly features analysts from BloombergNEF. For me, this is a “I’m on the go and want to catch up quickly” podcast, with episodes ranging from 20 to 30 minutes that delve a little deeper into a specific topic each time. A new episode is released online every few days, and they regularly reference BloombergNEF’s research. Interested in the latest news from the energy and climate landscape? Listen to the podcast here:
