WHAT ABOUT ENERGY? Burning fuel or moving electrons? — Fossil vs Future

Our lives are intertwined with energy. It comes in many forms and, while it can never be lost, it can be converted from one form to another to do useful work. The energy transition is the process of shifting energy production away from sources that release greenhouse gases and towards sources that emit little or none.

In this episode, James and Daisy explore all things energy. What exactly is energy? What does a good energy system look like? And how do fossil fuels compare with green energy?

SOME RECOMMENDATIONS:

Ember (2025) – The annual slide deck from Kingsmill Bond and the Ember Futures team unpacks how electrotech is rewriting the economics and geopolitics of energy. Electrotech is around three times more efficient than fossil fuels. Around 80% of the world’s population lives in fossil-fuel-importing countries, with more than 50 countries importing over half of their primary energy as fossil fuels. In contrast, 92% of countries have renewable energy potential more than ten times their current demand.
Our World in Data – Data, visualizations, and writing relating to energy. This article explains primary, secondary, final and useful energy – the four stages of the energy chain – and why these distinctions matter.
BloombergNEF (2025) – Michael Liebreich makes the case for a pragmatic climate reset, showing what happens if clean energy outgrows energy demand by 3% per year for the next four decades.

OTHER ADVOCATES AND RESOURCES:

John Elkington (2025) – A blog on ‘How—And Where—To Channel Our Energy?’
Cleaning Up (2025) – A visual showing how much energy Egypt can buy for $1m, comparing oil, LNG, solar, wind, and nuclear.
RMI (2024) – Today’s fossil energy system is incredibly inefficient: almost two-thirds of all primary energy is wasted during energy production, transportation, and use, before any useful work is done. That’s over $4.6 trillion per year, nearly 5% of global GDP and 40% of total energy spending, effectively lost to fossil fuel inefficiency. Around 45% of total shipping demand is for transporting fossil fuels, with roughly $42 billion per year spent on fossil fuels to ship other fossil fuels.
Xlinks – A 2,500-mile subsea cable to bring renewable energy from Morocco to the UK.
Sulfurcell – A German company founded in 2001 to develop and produce thin film solar cells based on copper indium sulfide (CIS) technology. The company went into administration in 2012.
NESO – ‘Energy 101’ by the UK’s National Energy System Operator.
Our World in Data (2021) – Energy sources are often reported using different metrics. This article explains how primary energy is measured. A typical coal plant in the US has an efficiency of 33% – only one-third generates electricity, while the rest is lost as heat. Gas performs slightly better, at around 45% efficiency. In popular datasets, coal and gas are reported in primary energy terms (the fuel going into the power plant), while renewable electricity – such as solar and wind – is reported based on electricity output.
Ember (2025) – China’s wind generation was 992 TWh in 2024, accounting for 40% of global wind generation.
Ember (2026) – India is electrifying faster and using fewer fossil fuels per capita than China did when it was at a similar stage of economic development.
Ember (2025) – Solar and wind outpaced the growth in global electricity demand in the first half of 2025, resulting in a very small decline in both coal and gas compared to the same period last year.
BBC (2025) – The price of silver hit a record high ahead of an expected US Federal Reserve interest rate cut, driven in part by strong demand from the technology sector.

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Music: “Just Because Some Bad Wind Blows” by Nick Nuttall, Reptiphon Records. Available at https://nicknuttallmusic.bandcamp.com/album/just-because-some-bad-wind-blows-3

Producer: Podshop Studios