Issue 09: Countries to Diversify Away from ‘Unreliable’ Fossil Fuels
Welcome to the ninth Cleaning Up newsletter of 2026.
The old criticism of solar and wind for their supposed lack of reliability is being turned on its head, two months into the Iran War. Now, the unreliable tag is being pinned on oil and gas, amidst the tightening squeeze on supplies and prices arising from the Hormuz blockage.
Both Jennifer Granholm, energy secretary under Joe Biden, and the International Energy Agency’s Fatih Birol have addressed this in recent days. For Granholm, speaking on episode 254 of Cleaning Up, fossil fuels are now “something that you’d want to diversify away from” (see Show Snippets below). For Birol, “the vase is broken, the damage is done” (see Our Alumni Network below).
The Cleaning Up team are tracking the twists and turns of the evolving energy crisis, via the interviews conducted by Michael Liebreich and Bryony Worthington, and events such as last week’s ‘Moving Fast and Making Things’ discussion during San Francisco’s Climate Week (see News on Cleaning Up below).
But first let’s catch up with the most recent episodes…..
Show Snippets: Thomas Pellerin-Carlin and Jennifer Granholm
Episode 255: Thomas Pellerin-Carlin MEP
Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, a France-born former energy analyst and now Social Democrat member of the European parliament, was Michael’s guest on the 29 April edition of Cleaning Up. Pellerin-Carlin made an intimate link between decarbonisation and the Ukraine War:
“What is the thing that in Russia, if you remove it, everything collapses? And that thing is the capacity to turn Russian oil and gas into money. We need to take that away from them. That’s the only way to achieve peace in Europe. And that means doing not only a European but a global clean energy transformation. And we need to take that fight, which also happens to be a climate fight, to the rest of the world, because we in Europe will be safer when India will rely more on electric cars and wind power than on Russian oil and gas.”
He also argued that what he called “electro democracies”, in Europe but also elsewhere in the world, would want to limit their dependence on China for clean energy equipment:
“I think building a clean tech industrial base in Europe is good for Europeans, but it’s also good for anybody who believes in the free world. There are elements that are too important for us to give up on – the car industry, offshore wind, battery….For PV inverters, I would say that [too], but not for the modules.”
Episode 254: Jennifer Granholm
Jennifer Granholm, US secretary of energy in the Biden administration, was the guest on the 22 April episode of Cleaning Up. She told Michael about the volte-face in US policy towards clean energy and transport since Trump’s inauguration: “This is something that’s so distressing to me. Can you imagine? I mean, Xi [Jinping] and his advisors in China are probably thinking, Can you believe this? The United States was starting to creep up in its competitiveness globally on manufacturing these products. And all of a sudden, Trump comes in and eliminates that and says: ‘Here on a silver platter, you can take dominance in batteries and electric vehicles.’….It has been a disaster.” However, ironically in the short term at least, there is a surge in deployment of solar and batteries in her country, for projects that have reached ‘safe harbor’ in time to qualify for incentives.
Asked about the impact of the Iran War on countries’ energy choices, Granholm said:
“It’s interesting, Michael, that the United States is, you know, the petrostate and China, the electrostate and all of that. And we’re trying to push fossil fuels on the rest of the world. But our behaviour internationally, in addition to the fact that fossil fuels are so unreliable now, not just from the Middle East, but the volatility of the price, that’s a volatility that makes fossil fuels unreliable and certainly something you’d want to diversify away from.”
News on Cleaning Up
Cleaning Up hosted a live recording and breakfast reception on Monday 20 April, at the start of San Francisco Climate Week (see photos below). The event was held in partnership with Octopus Energy and the British Consulate General in San Francisco, and started with welcome remarks from Tyrone Jue, director of the city’s environment department.
The agenda included a discussion on stage between Michael Liebreich and Bryony Worthington. This will form a Cleaning Up episode to be released in the next few weeks, so I am not at liberty to reveal too much right now.
Suffice it to say that Michael and Bryony ranged over the medium- and longer-term impact of the Iran War on global energy, the peddling of “fake solutions” for energy challenges, and the serious bottlenecks in building AI data centres.
Bryony spent a few days last month in China, where she says she heard surprisingly little talk about energy crisis, perhaps reflecting that country’s high level of inventories. She could not help being struck by China’s “extraordinary” penetration of electric vehicles.
Reflecting on that visit, she posted in April that other countries used to be no alternative to dependence on imported fossil fuels, but that now they do: “Chinese manufactured electro tech is an enabler upon which a huge amount of value will be created. We can try to catch up where it makes sense and we can benefit from the freedom and relative security it provides.”
Upcoming
Michael will be in Singapore in late May for Ecosperity Week. His involvement is scheduled to include a keynote presentation for the Asia Investment Group on Climate Change, or AIGCC, on 18 May, and the following day moderating a panel on ‘AI with intent’.
Also on 19 May, Michael will be guest for a ‘fireside’ chat with Mark Hutchinson, chief strategy officer for the Future Energy Storage and System Integration Alliance (FESSIA), on the theme of ‘designing resilient power systems: storage, flexibility and ASEAN’s energy transition’.
On 20 May in Singapore, Cleaning Up will be holding an early evening networking reception, in partnership with leadership circle member, Arup, and the Energy Transitions Commission. For further information, please contact team@cleaningup.live.
Cleaning Up will be in Australia towards the end of this month. On 27 May, Michael will be giving the keynote presentation and joining a fireside chat with Luke Menzel, chief executive of the Energy Efficiency Council at the organisation’s national conference in Sydney.
News from Our Network
Our Leadership Circle
Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners released a report on 23 April entitled ‘Charging Ahead – A Roadmap for an Electrified, Competitive and Resilient European Energy System’. One of its 16 policy recommendations was: “Use targeted tax and tariff reforms to make electrification the economically attractive choice, including higher fossil taxation or lower electricity taxes and more supportive grid tariff structures.” Another was: “Remove grid fees, double charging and other network-related charges that distort market signals and undermine the flexibility value batteries provide to congestion management and security of supply.”
A Eurelectric statement, published on 14 April, estimated that between EUR 800 billion and EUR 1.2 trillion of clean energy investment will be needed per year for Europe to reach “climate neutrality”. It added: “Yet current investment levels fall significantly short: as much as EUR 500 billion annually is missing, putting at risk both electrification and decarbonisation objectives.”
Octopus Energy said on 23 April that it had seen a 177% surge in demand for used electric vehicles in March 2026 versus the same month in 2025, as more affordable second-hand models came onto the market. It gave as examples leasing for a one or two year-old Dacia Spring “is available from just GBP 176 per month compared to GBP 239 new, saving around 26%. A Tesla Model Y comes in around GBP 366 per month used versus GBP 433 new (15% less), while BMW i4 comes in at GBP 470 per month compared to GBP 668 new, saving around 32%.”
Wärtsilä announced on 23 April that it had agreed to provide an off-grid energy power plant for a new data centre under construction in Texas. The 790MW unit will operate with 42 Wärtsilä 50SG engines running on natural gas. The company said that the AI build-out had “an urgent need for power that the grid cannot currently adequately provide.”
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said that its environmental and chemical engineering unit completed two contracts for the improvement of core equipment at waste-to-energy plants in Japan, according to press releases on 22 April. One was at the Hokubu municipal solid waste incineration complex in Kagoshima City, and the other at the Matsumori plant in Sendai City.
Our Alumni Network
Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency and guest on episode 253 of Cleaning Up (April 2026), told The Guardian in an interview on 24 April that the Iran War would hit confidence in fossil fuels for years to come. He said: “The vase is broken, the damage is done – it will be very difficult to put the pieces back together.”
Hannah Ritchie, deputy editor of Our World in Data and guest on episode 223 of Cleaning Up in September 2025, received the Publishers’ Association’s Unwin Award on 21 April at a ceremony at the Royal Institution in London, for her body of work (Not the End of the World and Clearing the Air). She donated the GBP 10,000 prize to the Against Malaria Foundation.
Tom Steyer, the investor, candidate for the election for California governor and guest on Cleaning Up episode 81 in March 2022, took part in a forum in Sacramento on 14 April and a CBS debate on 28 April. His message on the stump is “I’m the billionaire who wants to tax other billionaires.”
Varun Sivaram, chief executive of Emerald AI and guest on episode 249 of Cleaning Up in March this year, said that his company has been chosen as one of the TIME 100 most influential companies of 2026. Emerald is listed in the ‘innovators’ category, for “reframing AI’s energy problem”.
See You in a Fortnight!
The next edition of the Cleaning Up newsletter will be on Monday 18 May. 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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