Featuring Benedikt Franke, CEO and Vice Chair of the Munich Security Conference, this episode highlights how energy security has evolved from crises like the 1970s oil shocks to today's geopolitical challenges, including Russia's invasion of Ukraine and growing tensions with China. Franke discusses the weaponization of energy, the strategic dominance of China in critical minerals, and the role of international organizations like the Munich Security Conference in addressing these global issues. If you're interested in how energy security shapes geopolitics and impacts the global energy transition, this episode offers deep insights into these critical topics.

How do the plans for further oil exploration of the Norwegian government fit with recent reports of the IPCC that we are on a path well above the Paris goals of 2° centigrade? Why is drilling in the Arctic pushed by the Norwegian government, despite not only environmental concerns but also substantially higher predicted extraction costs? And why are strongly needed renewables so highly taxed in Norway? These questions and more asked Julius to Andreas Bjelland Eriksen who is the state secretary in the Norwegian Ministry for Petroleum and Energy during Andreas' visit to Trondheim last week for the NTNU Energy Transition Week. If you want to know the answers, check out the episode.

High energy prices and a reduced supply of natural gas are pressuring the European economy. What possible impacts will this have on Europe's climate ambitions? Already we have seen a shift back to coal, and with the current war in Ukraine as a backdrop, it is little wonder that many raise concern.

To help us ponder this question, we've brought along Taube van Melkebeke for this week's episode. She is a Policy Advisor on EU Politics and Climate Governance at E3G - an independent think tank whose aim is to steer the global transformation at the pace our planet requires. Before joining E3G, Taube was an attaché at the Permanent Representation of Belgium to the EU.

Connie Hedegaard was the EU Commissioner for Climate Action between 2010 and 2014 and continues to be a strong climate action advocate. Since she left office, she continued to work with a number of non-profit organizations, and is also active on corporate boards of companies such as Danfoss, Volkswagen, and Nordex. In this episode you will learn how policy is made in the EU, and while we talk mostly about the formal ways we will also touch upon the informal ways, and what happens behind the scene. Additionally, you will learn how Connie experienced the rather unsatisfactory COP 2009 in Copenhagen, what lessons she learned from that for policy making at large and we also talked briefly about current major EU policy initiatives such as Fitfor55 and RePowerEU.

How can governments support renewable electricity technologies? What's being done, and what does the future look like? And why were these policies needed initially, to give such technologies traction? What's needed, if we are to reach Europe's ambitious goals for transitioning to renewable energy?

Today's guest is Dr. Pablo del Rio. He is the head of the Environmental Economics Group (GEA) at the Institute for Public Goods and Policies at the National Research Council of Spain (CSIC) and has spent more than 20 years looking particularly at the policies for renewable energy.

This episode comes out on day eight of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. War, destruction and death have been flickering across our TV and mobile screens in recent days. These actions in themselves are terrible, and we realize that this war is likely to turn the tide on European energy policy.

In this episode, I am joined by Thijs van de Graf from Ghent University. Thijs is Associate Professor of International Politics at Ghent University in Belgium. He shares insights into how dependent Europe is on Russian fossil fuels, and we discuss what kind of implications this geopolitical crisis may have on European energy policy.

EU just unveiled that it plans to label investments in natural gas and nuclear projects as sustainable if certain criteria are met, a controversial move that raises concerns about greenwashing and divides member states. If a majority backs it, it will become EU law, coming into effect from 2023. The taxonomy - a labeling system that incentives investing in green solutions - is a part of the strategy to make the 2050 net-zero goal.

Kira Taylor (@KiraTaylor15), an energy and environment journalist for Euractive stationed in Brussels, is our guest in this episode. We talk about the taxonomy's effect and people's reactions. How does this labeling system work? What are the advantages of a taxonomy like this?

If you find this interesting, please consider registering for the workshop: "The Future of Nuclear Energy" at the upcoming NTNU Energy Transition Week 2022.

Sources referred to in this episode:

1. The first climate delegated act

2. Remarks by Commissioner McGuinness at the press conference on the EU Taxonomy Complementary Climate Delegated Act

3. Kira's article: The Green Brief: An EU taxonomy fairytale

The CO2 is all around us, can't we just collect and store it safely? Today's guest is Jay Fuhrman. He is a postdoctoral researcher at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Joint Global Change Research Institute. He received his PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Virginia in 2021. Jay’s research uses integrated assessment models to understand the transitions required for deep climate mitigation, including the large-scale deployment of carbon dioxide removal technologies, their potential side-effects, and co-benefits.

Christopher Jones is a Professor at Georgia University of Technology and has been working on direct air capture (DAC) technology since 2008.

Direct air capture is a process that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in order to reduce the negative impacts of climate change. In this podcast episode, Jones discusses the importance of this technology in reversing the paradigm of emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for the past 100 years and how it can be used as a waste management solution to clean up the excess CO2 we have released. He also touches on the shift in discourse surrounding DAC, the increasing prevalence of this technology in media, and its importance in the energy transition and climate change mitigation.

Sasha Mackler is the director of the Energy Program at the Bipartisan Policy Center - a Washington, DC-based think tank. He has spent over 20 years in this field, including 10 years in the private sector working on carbon capture and biomass fuel supply. Mackler has managed a number of energy policy projects on topics such as tax incentives, federal RD&D, finance, workforce transition, carbon capture and storage, low carbon fuels, cap and trade, climate impacts and adaptation, and geoengineering research.

Policies play a crucial role in defining the environment in which technologies, such as direct air capture (DAC), can thrive or struggle. Several policy measures have been implemented in the United States in recent years to support DAC. One such policy is 45Q, a section of the US Internal Revenue Code that supports carbon capture and was enacted in 2008. The Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) is another policy measure, initially implemented in California in 2007, which aims to drive the use of clean fuels and includes DAC as a qualifying pathway for decarbonizing fuels. The Energy Act of 2020 authorized new programs for the US Department of Energy to support the demonstration and commercialization of advanced energy technologies, including DAC. Recently, The Inflation Reduction Act, adopted in August 2022, provides incentives for carbon capture, utilization, and storage projects.