Issue 05: War Boosts Case for Energy Security, Electrification
Welcome to the fifth Cleaning Up newsletter of 2026.
The world finds itself in the middle of yet another energy crisis as a result of the war between Iran and the US and Israel. It should not be controversial to say that the dangers of dependence on imported oil and gas have been highlighted for the second time this decade.
Only just over a week into the conflict, Iran’s attacks on Gulf states and the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz have shaken the region’s economies, and those further afield. The price of Brent crude has touched levels above $100-a-barrel, and the European TTF natural gas price has almost doubled.
Michael Liebreich and Bryony Worthington discussed the impact of the war in a special podcast, published on Friday 6 March. They suggested that this energy price spike may not be as sharp as that in 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, and that the crisis may well “simmer down” in weeks or months, not years. But Michael said:
“It will feed inflation, it will impact prices at the pump in the US, it will definitely hit Asia because that is where most of the oil through the Strait of Hormuz would have gone, and it will hit Europe through natural gas prices and feed through to its electricity prices.”
Energy security and, linked to that, electrification, are certain to rise even further on the political agenda in many countries around the world. Both will be major topics for the work of the Cleaning Up team in the weeks ahead, and for the weekly interviews conducted by Michael and Bryony.
Upcoming
On Tuesday 17 March, Cleaning Up will host a breakfast in Brussels around the topic of electrification. Panellists include Adrian Hiel, director of the Electrification Alliance, and senior representatives from the industry, transport and heat sectors. Hiel is one of five authors, including Michael, of the newly released Electrification Staircase, highlighting the parts of the energy system that are ready for early conversion to the use of electricity, and those that will take longer or remain “speculative”. Based in Brussels? Let us know by sending us a message.
Bryony is busy planning a trip to China in April (taking full advantage of the new visa free status for the UK). She’ll be in Beijing attending a conference co-organised with Tsinghua University, looking at how new technologies can help decarbonise China’s massive dependence on coal for power and heat.
On the morning of Monday 20 April, Cleaning Up will be doing a live recording and hosting a networking reception during San Francisco Climate Week. Mark it in your calendars!
News on Cleaning Up
On 1 March, Michael pulled together thoughts from his three-day immersion trip to Ottawa, including a presentation to the Canadian Climate Institute. His conclusion was that Canada had everything to gain from playing a leadership role in climate and the energy transition (see image below).
Excerpt from Michael’s presentation at the Canadian Climate Institute. Michael was the guest on a leading Canadian political podcast, ‘Herle Burle’, in late February. He told the host, David Herle, that he does not accept the claim that the energy transition involves a sacrifice:
“There has been a lot of investment [in clean energy] in Canada, but then you don’t spend on fuels – invest, then have lower operating costs. Which means that finance is absolutely critical.”
Canada is very good at insurance, banking, pools of capital: skills that projects around the world are desperate for, he added.
Bryony wrote an opinion article in her capacity as chair of Ember, published on 25 February, discussing February’s interactions between the US administration and the International Energy Agency. She said:
“The reason why so many people still rely on traditional biomass (for roughly 5% of global energy) is because – despite having over a century to lift people out of poverty, provide higher living standards and drive economic growth equally around the globe – fossil fuels have failed.”
She went on to argue that there is now an alternative to traditional biomass that is also very widely distributed and regenerating and affordable: “Enter solar plus batteries.”
Show Snippets: Hilde Tonne and Laurent Segalen
Hilde Tonne, chair of Arup, the UK-based engineering and design company and one of Cleaning Up’s Leadership Circle members, said in the 4 March interview that data centre companies contributing to sharp increases in electricity demand should pay more towards the cost of the concomitant grid enhancements.
“There is a need for that,” she said. “You need to pay for back-up, you need to pay for the extreme cost of accelerated services, and the balancing of the grid. It’s so costly in the new world.”
Tonne, who is also a non-executive director of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, was bullish about prospects for floating offshore wind in Europe: “I believe we are in the middle of a technology development on floating, which will take [costs] down immensely.” Asked by Michael if she thought that floating wind would become cheaper than fixed-bottom offshore wind, she said: “Bottom-fixed, depending on depth and how far from shore, still has the potential to go down. Floating will have to go down [in cost]. We see that.”
The 25 February interview was with investor and energy strategist Laurent Segalen, co-host of the Redefining Energy podcast. Segalen told Bryony about his vision for a 5,000km-long interconnector between Canada and Western Europe:
“The supply chain is not really a problem, bizarrely, because when you talk to National Grid, when you talk to the cable guys, they all say, oh, yeah, long, yeah, deep, yeah, you know, I’m not blowing their minds. So they say: OK, fine, we need each section, we can do 200 kilometres and then, you know, come the second guy, the second boat and, you know, we link them together and boom.”
Segalen added: “I kind of know how to do it. The next work we’re going to do now is building a revenue model, where the two sides from a legal regulatory point of view are going to converge.”
He spoke of how east-west cables are the ones that make money, because of the ability to transfer power across time zones to meet peak demand periods. “North-south cables don’t make money because you don’t take advantage of the rotation of the Earth,” Segalen said.
News from Our Network
Our Leadership Circle
On 2 March, Eurelectric announced that it had sent a letter to European Union heads of state and government, calling for regulatory stability and reaffirming the merits of marginal pricing in Europe’s electricity market, ahead of an EU Council meeting later this month. It warned that reopening a market reform only recently concluded could damage energy investment.
The same day, National Grid and four partners said that their live trial of AI technology that adjusts the power needs of data centres in response to real-time signals showed that this can be done “without disrupting critical workloads”.
EDP said on 24 February that it is part of the European ‘Leonardo’ project to test the energy flexibility of the industrial sector, first of all at sites in Italy, Austria and Greece/Bulgaria. The idea is for industries to “take on an active role in reducing consumption peaks and integrating renewable energy sources”.
On 18 February, Octopus Energy announced that it had launched “a one-stop shop for all businesses looking to electrify their fleet operations”. Called Octopus Fleet, this will encompass everything from home chargers for drivers to fleet payment tools and solar and battery installations.
On 14 February, Actis said that it held an event to mark the safe connection of the first phase of its giant MTerra solar and battery project in Luzon, the Philippines. So far, the project has 1.3GW of solar and 622 battery units installed, with an initial 85MW of “constant power” due to be exported in the second half of February.
Our Alumni Network
Two Cleaning Up alumni, Johan Rockström (guest on episode 49) and Zeke Hausfather (guest on episode 242), were among the 16 co-authors of a paper entitled AI-Assisted Scientific Assessment: A Case Study on Climate Change. The conclusion was that most of the AI content produced was retained in the final report, but that “expert additions were crucial to ensure its acceptability”.
Cindy Taff, chief executive officer of Sage Geosystems, and guest on episode 179, has been receiving heavy traffic for her TED Countdown talk ‘How to Power the World 24/7 – Without Oil’. She argues that geothermal energy, using the same fracking technology developed by oil companies, can deliver what solar, wind and fossil fuels can’t: clean, always-on renewable power.
See You in a Fortnight!
This newsletter began with the possible implications of the Iran War. One of the early certainties is that there will be a lot of collateral damage to economies that are not belligerents. In the West, the cost of energy will go up, but also there will be an inflationary impulse and a hit to GDP growth. For a time at least, there will be higher borrowing costs than would have pertained otherwise. Investment decisions, including some in energy, may be postponed.
We would love your feedback and ideas for the Cleaning Up newsletter or for the show. Please send them to team@cleaningup.live.
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