Energy Evolution

Hosted by S&P Global Commodity Insights

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374

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Oct 2026

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About the show

Interviews, analysis and reporting from S&P Global Energy on energy and commodities' transition to a cleaner future. Host Eklavya Gupte speaks with policymakers, industry professionals and S&P Global Energy in-house experts worldwide on topics related to decarbonization, climate, emerging fuels and energy sources, and the outlook for commodity markets from oil to power to metals. The Energy Evolution podcast merged with the Platts Future Energy podcast in January 2025.

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60 recent

October 27, 202630 min

Challenger chemistry: One start-up's bullish take on sodium-ion battery storage

Lithium-ion batteries dominate today's rapidly expanding global market for energy storage systems, fueled by hyperscalers and utilities scrambling to bring online new flexible capacity. But alternatives to lithium ion are fast emerging, perhaps none as quickly as its close cousin sodium ion. This episode features a recording from the American Clean Power Association's RECHARGE energy storage conference in Aurora, Colorado, where Platts senior reporter Garrett Hering moderated a fireside chat with Landon Mossburg , CEO and co-founder of Peak Energy, a developer of sodium-ion battery storage systems. Mossburg makes a case for why market observers may be underestimating the ability of sodium ion to rise from a fraction of the market to a meaningful market share in just a few years.

October 20, 202639 min

How much new gas capacity does the Texas grid need?

The Texas grid experienced record electricity demand in summer 2026 while posting some of the lowest power prices in nearly a decade. That might be good for customers, but it makes for a tough investment environment if you want to build a gas plant. And with surging demand projections and increasingly extreme weather swings, many believe Texas needs significant new dispatchable generation, mainly gas, to prepare. So how do we think about the reliability of the Texas grid? And how much are policy mechanisms like the Texas Energy Fund loan program helping? Where do renewables and storage fit into this? And how does Texas compare to other competitive power markets trying to encourage new dispatchable generation? This episode features a recording from the Gulf Coast Power Association's fall conference in Austin, where Dan Testa hosted a live discussion on these issues with guests: David Dardis , chief external affairs and growth officer at Constellation Energy; Elaina Ball , chief strategy officer at CPS Energy, the municipal utility for San Antonio; and Mason Lester , a principal analyst on the North American power team at S&P Global Energy.

October 13, 202643 min

Inside CBAM's first year: what traders, importers and policymakers learned

In this week's episode of Energy Evolution, host Eklavya Gupte takes stock of the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism nearly a year into its definitive phase, and asks a pointed question: Is it working? To answer it, he is joined by Alwyn Hopkins , director and sustainability leader for Industrials and Energy at EY UK; Dan Maleski , director at the EY Global Tax Center of Excellence; and Irina Breilean , senior carbon price reporter at Platts, part of S&P Global Energy. Together, they examine how punishing default emissions values are rewriting the economics of steel, fertilizer and other carbon-intensive imports, how traders are building proxy hedges to manage exposure to volatile EU carbon prices, and why 2027 will mark a decisive shift from compliance accounting to live cash flow pressure. The episode also looks beyond Europe, tracing how CBAM is accelerating the development of carbon pricing regimes from India to Brazil, and what the UK's own version of the mechanism, launching in January 2027, means for global trade flows.

October 6, 202615 min

AI's power boom tests Big Tech's net-zero promises

In this week's episode of Energy Evolution, host Camilla Naschert turns the spotlight on Big Tech as part of S&P Global Energy's annual series examining how the world's largest companies are faring on their paths to net-zero emissions. The AI infrastructure boom has driven the sector's energy appetite to new heights, and its carbon footprint is rising in tandem. Tech reporter Stefan Modrich of S&P Global Market Intelligence surveyed the top 30 IT companies by market cap, tracking targets across scopes 1, 2 and 3. He found genuine ambition sitting uneasily alongside a commercial race to secure power at any cost. Senior reporter Karin Rives completes the picture from the utility side. Five years into her survey of the 30 largest US electric utilities, she found two-thirds are either not on pace to meet their climate goals, have delayed them or have scrapped them entirely. Some companies cited reliability and affordability as justification, while others are pressing ahead with new gas capacity to keep pace with a surge in electricity demand.

September 29, 202627 min

AI-powered threats put Europe's power system on high alert

Europe's increasingly digital power system faces a rapidly evolving mix of cyberattacks, physical sabotage and supply-chain vulnerabilities, with artificial intelligence amplifying both the risks and the defenses. Host Camilla Naschert speaks with Eurelectric CEO Kristian Ruby and European Initiative for Energy Security Executive Director Albéric Mongrenier about how utilities are responding to AI-enabled threats, state-backed and non-state actors, and attacks on critical infrastructure. They examine whether Europe's regulatory framework and security investment are keeping pace, how operators should approach equipment and vendor risk, and why stronger civilian-military coordination will be essential to keep the lights on.

September 22, 202622 min

Checking in on US offshore wind: Lease buybacks and legal blowback

The US offshore wind sector is facing a new front in its battle with the Trump administration: lease buyouts. In this episode of Energy Evolution, renewables reporter Noah Schwartz tells host Camilla Naschert about federal deals that allow offshore wind developers to cancel leases in exchange for fossil fuel investment commitments and government reimbursement. S&P Global Energy offshore wind analyst John Murray explains the financial and regulatory pressures facing developers, while former Bureau of Ocean Energy Management head Liz Klein discusses the legal challenges, state-level opposition and national security arguments surrounding offshore wind.

September 15, 202632 min

AI demand is intensifying the race to build advanced nuclear reactors

Dozens of North American private startups and established companies, state agencies and academic institutions are racing to develop and commercialize an advanced nuclear reactor. Whether these companies, and the advanced nuclear sector at large, can succeed depends on numerous factors, including the capital plans of large tech companies, favorable federal policy and the strengths of individual reactor designs. So which companies are currently winning the race to commercialize an advanced reactor design? In this episode, Dan Testa discusses the state of the advanced nuclear sector with contributor and S&P Global Energy reporter Abbie Bennett . Bennett also interviews Craig Bealmear , CFO of advanced reactor developer Oklo Inc., to get an inside view of the industry.

September 8, 202632 min

War and decarbonization: Rewriting the UK and Europe's refining future

By most conventional metrics, the European refining sector is in rude health. The Middle East conflict has driven key fuel price benchmarks to unprecedented heights, and refiners are running flat out to plug supply gaps left by disruptions to key Gulf exporters. In this episode, host Eklavya Gupte speaks to Kelly Norways , senior editor at S&P Global Energy Platts, who explains why the current boom has so far failed to shift many refiners' thinking about the long-term competitiveness of Europe as a fuel production hub, and why that disconnect threatens both the region's energy security and its ambitions for investment in low-carbon technologies. They explore how governments across the continent are responding to a wave of refinery closures that predates the conflict, whether the crisis has genuinely changed the political calculus in the region, and what it would actually take to unlock the scale of capital spending the sector needs to survive and decarbonize. We also hear from Elizabeth de Jong , CEO of Fuels Industry UK, a trade association representing the country's downstream sector. She sets out the industry's case to be included in the UK's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, explains why record refining margins represent a temporary distortion rather than a structural fix, and warns that without a decisive government signal on carbon costs and competitiveness, Europe risks emerging from this crisis in a weaker position than when it began.

September 1, 202625 min

Why protesters want to slow America's data center boom

Alongside a surge in data center construction, a growing protest movement has emerged in the US, with locals voicing concerns over electricity and water usage. Protests have put around 12 gigawatts of data center capacity at risk, analyst John Murray from S&P Global Energy tells the Energy Evolution podcast. To address concerns, tech firms need to improve transparency and deliver clear local benefits, said Darrell West , senior fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation within the Governance Studies program at think tank Brookings. To answer questions on sustainability and power consumption, host Camilla Naschert is joined by Aaron Tinjum of trade association Data Center Coalition. The news clip featured in this episode is from ABC News, July 19, 2026.

August 25, 202632 min

Europe's electrification challenge: Can ambition meet reality?

The EU wants to nearly double its electrification rate to 46% by 2040, a transformation that would slash fossil fuel imports by hundreds of billions of euros annually. In this episode of Energy Evolution, host Eklavya Gupte examines the EU's Electrification Action Plan and assesses whether Europe can realistically achieve it. Coralie Laurencin , director of European gas, power and carbon policy at S&P Global Energy CERA, and Andreas Franke , editorial lead on European power markets at S&P Global Energy Platts, unpack the formidable challenges: stubbornly high electricity costs, taxation and subsidy structures, and massive grid investments needed to support surging demand. The conversation breaks down which sectors will electrify fastest and which face steeper obstacles, from Germany's industrial power subsidies to France's nuclear-backed power contracts. As geopolitical instability threatens global supply chains, electrification has emerged as the EU's answer to energy security, climate ambition, and industrial competitiveness, but only if Brussels can make electricity both abundant and affordable.

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