Advertise on podcast: New Energy Chinwag

In this new guest episode, Charley Rattan talks to Nadim Chaudhry, founder of the World Hydrogen Leaders network about various aspects of hydrogen: where it is, how it might develop and what some of the truths and myths around the topic are.

Across the various clean energy topics we track and talk about, a common theme has been emerging recently - a focus on the importance of particular geographic clusters. So we spend forty minutes chatting about why this might be: why clusters matter, what the advantages of clustering might be and how they might emerge within the clean energy landscape.

The UK has big plans for offshore wind, but the past few weeks has seen a few headwinds - unwanted ones! High leasing prices, leasing round delays and planning permission court battles - all these have raised their heads recently, to the consternation of some industry observers. We round up some of the key developments and analyse what they might mean for the industry. Are these bumps in the road or evidence of a change in route? Is it right to worry, or do some of these outcomes simply reflect the success of a fast-growing sector?

There is much talk at the moment about 'hard to decarbonise' areas of the economy: those which must be tackled too, in the race towards zero carbon targets. But what are they and what might be the options? In this first podcast of 2021, we cover the broad scope of topics in trying to make sense of this current discussion.

In our final episode of 2020, we both brought along three 'picks' from this year's clean energy activity.  They don't necessarily reflect the stories that made the biggest headlines or even the most exciting individual news items. Instead we arrived at an eclectic mix of items, some important in themselves but, more interestingly, all exemplify some of the fundamental and disruptive changes that we are seeing in the energy landscape. They range from India to the Gulf of Mexico and from grid balancing to floating wind.  We hope you enjoy the listen, and the holiday season ahead. See you next year!

This week the UK Prime Minister announced a bold vision for the future of UK energy; one with potentially transformative impacts on not only energy but on the country's wider economic activities too.  We cast our eye over the various points and targets it contains, discussing whether they are surprising or not, what might be new and how the plan may progress and turn out in reality.

In the excitement over electric vehicles, hydrogen and other 'hot' topics in decarbonisation, it can be easy to overlook the role that biofuels have played in replacing fossil fuel usage. Not without controversy of course, the political and perceptual fortunes of the sector have varied over both time and geography.  In this episode we talk to Ryan Lamberg, an alternative fuels and transportation consultant who has worked as a sustainability and technical consultant with the National Biodiesel Board (a trade association of U.S. Biomass based diesel producers) for over a decade. In a fascinating discussion, we talk about sustainability, scale, competition and various other issues - in particular based on the US experience in this still-important sector.

In this episode we have a fascinating chat with Gavin Catto, founder of Green Cat Renewables (a specialist renewable energy consultancy focused on driving down the costs of project development). From the UK to North America and from wind power to ammonia, batteries and grid congestion, we cover our usual varied ground. In particular we hear the views of someone with long experience in the renewables sector, at a variety of project scales and focused very much on developing projects and business cases that make sense on the ground. The sound quality may be a little more Internet-affected than normal, but we hope you find that the content certainly isn't!

Ammonia production consumes lots of natural gas and is a big contributor to global carbon emissions. So decarbonising that production by using clean hydrogen sources is one obvious way forward. But what about some of the other ideas that are discussed with regards to ammonia: using it as a hydrogen transport method or as a fuel in itself?  In this latest chinwag, we compare some of these issues, discuss some of the pros and cons and try to untangle if, how, where and when ammonia might play a role in the ongoing clean energy transition.

If there's a subject that's bound to either delight or dismay people - often with little in between - it's nuclear power.  Still, we never shy away from any topic - and are always open to learning something new. So this week we invited along Brian Matthews, a guest with in-depth knowledge of the subject.  Brian helpfully answered a whole variety of questions and thus enabled us to bring you a highly informative podcast covering technologies, financial challenges, geopolitics and a whole lot in-between.  Enjoy!

This week, the UK's Prime Minister promised to 'build, build, build', referring to housing and infrastructure. There have been statements about 'coming back stronger and greener'. So it's no surprise that industry sectors from hydrogen to carbon capture to EVs and more are busily lobbying to grab a share of whatever money eventually proves to be available. So this week, we chatted through some of the issues: where should that money go? What will be the priorities? WIll short-term recovery always be in line with long-term sense? Could small firms lose out to the lobbying power of the biggest ones?

Many people are talking about the hydrogen economy at the moment - indeed UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson specifically referred to it as he outlined the UK’s recovery proposals this week.   Very few a have actually delivered hydrogen projects though, and even fewer have created a ‘hydrogen economy’.  In this chinwag podcast we are joined by Jon Clipsham, who, together with myriad stakeholders, has done just that on Orkney, which can claim to claim to be the global leader in the creation of an island hydrogen economy; enjoy!