This is the third episode of a five-part series exploring the European energy crisis in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If you haven’t listened to the first two episodes, we recommend you start there.
Even with a plan to phase down fossil fuel use, Poland still gets 70% of its electricity from coal. Can a country so dependent on coal make the transition to green energy effectively—and quickly?
In this episode, we explore the consequences of Poland’s historical reliance on coal. It’s a story that begins at COP24 in Poland, where a coal miners marching band welcomed climate negotiators from around the world in 2018. From there, we visit a historical coal mining town in southwestern Poland, where we meet a man who digs for coal to sell on the black market in the wake of the Ukraine invasion.
Then, we take a look at the energy source that could help Poland cut the cord with coal: nuclear power. In an effort to gain energy security and reduce emissions, Poland is building its first reactors. But with Russia controlling much of the nuclear supply chain, is Poland trading one dependency for another?
So far over this season we've traced the global lithium-ion battery supply chain from mining to processing to manufacturing. And we've put it all into a geopolitical and economic context.
China has been the world's biggest battery manufacturer for over a decade. By 2022, according to the IEA, China manufactured 76% of the world's batteries. But that's changing.
Batteries can replace gasoline in our cars, or diesel in our generators with electricity. But batteries and petroleum-based fuels share something in common: they both rely on energy-intensive processes to turn extracted materials into something useful.
To produce enough batteries to reach global net-zero goals, the International Energy Agency says we'll need to increase production of critical minerals by six fold by 2040. It's a monumental task.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin prepares to visit China, the proposed Power of Siberia 2 natural gas pipeline is likely high on his agenda.
The European Union (EU-27) is a globally significant trading bloc focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including by seeking to impose its own environmental standards extra-territorially on its...
One of the enduring mysteries of the European gas market landscape has been the relative lack of recovery in industrial gas use following the 2022 global energy crisis.