Energy Evolution

U.S. utilities are responding to growing demand for electric vehicles by forming new coalitions to build charging infrastructure for their consumers. Energy Evolution spoke with two leaders in the utility space to better understand the trend. This episode features interviews with Badar Khan, the U.S. President of National Grid and Matthew Forck, the vice president of community economic development and energy solutions for Ameren Missouri. The team also spoke with Kara Kockelman, a professor of transportation engineering at the University of Texas Austin and Amanda O’Toole, a specialist in clean economy investing and portfolio manager for AXA Investment Managers. 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!

Evolving choices around EV battery composition have altered price dynamics in the lithium market, with the two main forms, hydroxide and carbonate, now moving independently to each other, reflecting different use cases and trading patterns. LFP was considered by many industry participants to be a lower priority in the upcoming EV boom. This started to change with the gradual removal of Chinese EV subsidies, which lowered the incentives for local automakers to target only long-range EVs and increased the pressure to reduce costs. Moreover, improvements on the pack design, through the cell-to-pack approach, allowed a bigger portion of the battery pack to be filled with cells which significantly increased energy density. In the latest S&P Global Platts Future Energy Podcast, Platts Pricing Director of Metals Scott Yarham speaks to Tianqi Lithium’s Sales Director Ron Mitchell and Platts Pricing Specialist Henrique Ribeiro to unpack these new trading patterns and what is emerging in the market.

China has laid out some lofty goals for its climate action. In September 2020, it pledged that it would peak its carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and hit carbon neutrality before 2060. This was followed in December 2020 by an announcement to enhance its nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement for 2030, including increasing the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 25%. Earlier this year, it issued rules for its emissions trading scheme for the power sector and carbon trading is expected to begin in late 2021.   How realistic are these goals? How can China's climate policy align with its economic and social goals? And what is the role for fossil fuels in a carbon neutral China?   These questions are more are addressed on this episode of Future Energy Podcasts, with S&P Global Platts Editorial Team Lead for LNG and Energy Transition Eric Yep, Platts Analytics Lead for Global Coal Matthew Boyle, Platts Senior Writer Oceana Zhou, and Dr. Philip Andrews-Speed, senior principal fellow at the National University of Singapore's Energy Studies Institute   Dr. Andrews-Speed has 38 years of experience in the field of energy and resources, and his current research focuses on the low carbon energy transition in China and Southeast Asia as well as on the governance of nuclear energy. He is the author of the book China As A Global Clean Energy Champion, which looks at the institutions of governance that are shaping the trajectory of China's low carbon energy transition.   Get access to the Annual Guidebook mentioned on this podcast: Platts Future Energy Outlooks

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