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So much is happening that it’s hard to drink from the firehose of US executive orders on energy and crazy chaos orangutang screeches on presidential letterhead, UK debates about growth versus climate, and parsing the statements of tech broligarchs to the only people left who can hold them accountable – their investors during earnings calls this week.

And that’s before we get to Heathrow and a Scottish court ruling that the Rosebank field was unlawfully given permission because it ignored carbon emissions – which I’m sure peaked the interest of lawyers for the 16 Just Stop Oil protestors facing some of the longest sentences ever handed down for non-violent protests.

So we’ve got a mega-episode for you this Friday the last day of January. 

We’ve got climate comedian and UCL academic Matt Winning, along with climate journalist and BlueSky maestro Dave Vetter to help make sense of all of that. And we’ve got Adam Grant Bell of the UK consultancy Stonehaven, who after decades in and out of government has a pretty good sense for these things, setting some odds on what’s going to happen this year in getting enough renewables built to achieve the UK government’s goals of hitting clean power by 2030. And he thinks the UK government might this year finally move away from a national price for electricity and to a system where cheaper electricity from things like wind and solar will be reflected locally, something Octopus’s Greg Jackson and others have been calling for and could radically change decisions about where power gets generated and where you site things like factories that will use it.

And because we can’t ignore that chaos orangutang with nuclear weapons, US-based Financial Times journos Amanda Chu and me aul mucker Jamie Smyth of Energy Source join us.

00:13 Government's Role in the Chaos 

00:18 Trump's Impact on Renewable Energy 

00:45 Weekly Recap and Upcoming Topics 

01:11 Elon Musk

02:31 Climate and Energy Policies

04:37 Interview with FT Journalists 

05:49 Tracking Executive Orders 

09:41 Impact on Renewable Energy Projects 

10:29 Texas and Clean Energy Growth 

12:48 Energy Policy and Executive Authority 

13:49 Challenges in Renewable Energy Development 

15:58 Geopolitical Factors and Market Dynamics 

20:11 Future of Renewable Energy Auctions 

36:55 Enhanced Geothermal and Government Policies 

37:31 Small Modular Reactors and Long Duration Storage 

38:22 Chancellor's Speech and Planning Reforms 

39:30 Environmental and Climate Change Debates 

40:37 Rosebank Ruling and Oil and Gas Projects 

42:48 Interview with Dave Vedder and Matt Winning 

44:34 AI Advancements and Energy Implications 

53:46 Heathrow Expansion and Sustainable Aviation Fuel 

01:04:43 Closing Thoughts and Upcoming Events

All the Tunes

If you’re enjoying the tunes, check out the whole outro playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2AWvHdqqNAUCJcByQEokut?si=2f56f6d68d2c4bff

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