Energy Evolution

Electric vehicle demand is expected to skyrocket worldwide and that could require a lot more minerals than currently being supplied today for the necessary batteries.

S&P Global Market Intelligence expects sales of passenger plug-in electric vehicles to increase from just over three million units in 2020 to over 11 million units by 2025. Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency recently suggested that government action will be needed to ensure adequate supplies exist of nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements given the "looming mismatch" between expected demand and planned investments in supply.

This episode features interviews with Nikit Abyankar, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and David Wooley the executive director of the Center for Environmental Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. The team also spoke with S&P Global Market Intelligence metals analysts Jason Sappor and Alice Yu, and Payal Sampat, the mining program director at Earthworks.

Energy Evolution co-hosts Dan Testa, Allison Good and Taylor Kuykendall are veteran journalists with broad expertise covering the utility, oil and gas and mining sectors. Subscribe to Energy Evolution on your favorite platform to catch our latest episodes!

The UK's hydrogen production landscape is littered with big natural gas-based CCS projects – why is this, and what does it say about renewable hydrogen's immediate prospects? S&P Global Platts Zane McDonald, Jeff McDonald and Henry Edwardes-Evans discuss projects, prices and policies with a little help from Ryse Hydrogen's Jo Bamford.

The world is moving closer to mining the deep sea to accommodate surging demand for battery metals needed in the global energy transition, but opposition to the practice is also mounting.

After years of review, the International Seabed Authority, or ISA, is nearing completion of regulations that would allow entities to begin collecting lumps of metal from the deep ocean. While some tout the process as a greener alternative to terrestrial mining, several ocean scientists and environmental groups are urging caution.

This episode features interviews with: Douglas McCauley, a professor of ocean science at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Matthew Gianni, co-founder of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition; DeepGreen Metals Inc. CEO Gerard Barron; and Jeffrey Drazen, a professor at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.

Energy Evolution co-hosts Dan Testa, Allison Good and Taylor Kuykendall are veteran journalists with broad expertise covering the utility, oil and gas and mining sectors. Subscribe to Energy Evolution on your favorite platform to catch our latest episodes!

The recent plans announced by China's Tsingshan to convert nickel pig iron (unsuitable for batteries) into nickel matte (an intermediate for the production of battery-grade nickel sulfate) has shaken the market, causing nickel prices to pull the brakes on its bull run. The price uptrend was driven by the widespread belief that nickel demand for batteries would boom shortly, while supply of battery-grade material would not increase at the same pace. Tsingshan's plans, however, could completely change the supply-demand landscape for battery-grade nickel, but not without a significant environmental cost that automakers might have to assimilate. In this Platts Future Energy podcast Henrique Ribeiro discusses these developments with independent nickel specialist Lyle Trytten, Platts clean energy senior analyst Michael Mccafferty, and Platts metals pricing director Scott Yarham.

In the latest S&P Global Platts Future Energy Podcast, Roman Kramarchuk, Head of Future Energy Outlooks, is joined by Dan Klein, Head of Future Energy Pathways, to talk about the main takeaways of Platts Future Energy Outlooks Annual Guidebook, a comprehensive study that includes Platts oil, gas, and overall energy reference cases, along with long-term outlooks for global crude, regional crude and product markets, and regional natural gas markets. Discussion includes analysis around scenarios with emission levels consistent with limiting global warming to 2 degrees.

The February winter storm that crippled the Texas power grid left millions of residents without light and heat for days, and drove natural gas prices to record highs. So how did this happen? What does it mean for the future of the energy industry?

Joining the discussion are Jay Hakes, an author and former administrator of the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Emily Grubert, a professor at Georgia Tech, International Energy Agency analysts Keith Everhart and Gergely Molnar, and Shayle Kann with Energy Impact Partners.

Energy Evolution co-hosts Dan Testa, Allison Good and Taylor Kuykendall are veteran journalists with broad expertise covering the utility, oil and gas and mining sectors. Subscribe to Energy Evolution on your favorite platform to catch our latest episodes!

Ground is due to be broken on the UK's first battery gigaplant, built by Britishvolt, in summer 2021, with the plant due to start producing batteries at scale by the end of 2023. The gigaplant is an important step in shortening the UK's battery supply chain and helping ensure that UK automakers comply with the Brexit agreement's rules of origin standard, which dictates that at least 40% of the value of the parts in a finished vehicle originate in the UK, or face paying export fees.

In the latest of S&P Global Platts Future Energy Podcast, EMEA metals senior pricing specialist Jacqueline Holman speaks to Britishvolt's Chief Strategy Officer Isobel Sheldon, and Chief Technology Officer Allan Paterson about the company's planned gigafactory in Blythe, Northumberland, and the UK's battery supply chain. They are joined by Mark Mozur, lead analyst of energy transition at Platts Analytics to provide insight on EV demand and whether there will be enough batteries produced domestically to meet this demand.

Explore now: The Platts Atlas of Energy Transition, your map to the sustainable commodity markets of the future

President Joe Biden moved quickly to return the United States to the Paris climate. He is likely to take major steps forward on climate policy that could impact the energy transition as the world heads to the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference later this year. However, the United States also faces a credibility problem on climate change issues after the Trump administration withdrew from the agreement.

During this episode, we hear from multiple guests on the U.S. returning to climate talks, and what the implications could be for on the energy transition already underway: Christine Todd Whitman, former New Jersey governor and EPA chief; Eric Usher, the head of the United Nations' Environmental Program Finance Initiative; Jonathan Elkind, a senior research scholar at the center on global energy policy at Columbia University; Amanda O'Toole, global portfolio manager and clean economy strategy manager with AXA Investment Managers; and Paul Baiocchi, senior investment strategy advisor at SS&C ALPS Advisors.

Energy Evolution co-hosts Dan Testa, Allison Good and Taylor Kuykendall are veteran journalists with broad expertise covering the utility, oil and gas and mining sectors. Subscribe to Energy Evolution on your favorite platform to catch our latest episodes!

During the Trump years, the US issued an Executive Order to ensure the local development of critical minerals, but no material production was established after that. During his campaign, president Joe Biden stressed the importance of promoting clean energy, which is directly linked to the supply of key battery metals. What will the new US administration bring in terms of policy and strategy around lithium and other battery metals? In this Platts Future Energy podcast Henrique Ribeiro talks to renown lithium guru Joe Lowry and Editor in Chief of Platts Metals Daily Anthony Poole to answer this and other questions.

Hydrogen is generating a lot of buzz in the U.S. energy world, but what might look like a nascent technological revolution is not going to occur overnight, according to several experts interviewed on this episode.

But while hydrogen has received its fair share of hype in the past, this time may be different as the growth of sustainability-driven investments, rising pressure to act on climate change and shifting economics are increasingly favoring hydrogen technologies.

Energy Evolution co-hosts Dan Testa, Allison Good and Taylor Kuykendall are veteran journalists with broad expertise covering the utility, oil and gas and mining sectors. Subscribe to Energy Evolution on your favorite platform to catch our latest episodes!