For this week's session, we were thrilled to welcome back Rob West. Rob is the lead analyst at his own firm, Thunder Said Energy. Rob had a career in research at Redburn and Sanford C. Bernstein before leaving to start Thunder Said in 2019 and first joined us for COBT on January 4, 2022. He has immersed himself in the technology details of the energy transition and brings a unique "how are we going to accomplish all of this" perspective to all of his analysis. Even though there are immense chall...
Nov 23, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 156
We are excited to share today's episode featuring Joseph Sigelman, Chairman and CEO of Atlantic, Gulf & Pacific Company (AG&P). Joe and his team focus on downstream LNG import and distribution, engineering and construction across Southeast Asia, stretching from India to the Philippines. He joined us from Jakarta and we were thrilled to visit with him about everything he and his company have been seeing during his eleven plus years at AG&P. As you will hear, the "on the ground, energy...
Nov 16, 2022•53 min•Season 2Ep. 155
Today we had a fantastic guest join us, Ted Nordhaus. Ted is the Founder and Executive Director of The Breakthrough Institute and a co-author of " An Ecomodernist Manifesto" as well as " The Death of Environmentalism." Ted has spent his career advocating for technical solutions to environmental problems and is a thought leader on energy, the environment, and global climate. We covered a lot of territory in our time together and were thrilled to visit with him! The Breakthrough Institute is a glo...
Nov 09, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 154
For this week's COBT, we had the pleasure of hosting Sasha Mackler, Executive Director of the Energy Program at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). The BPC is a Washington, DC-based think tank that prioritizes one thing above all else: GETTING THINGS DONE. That's a mission we can all stand behind. The team at BPC work on what they've defined as critical policy issues for the US including health, immigration, and infrastructure to name a few, by bringing together all relevant stakeholders and fin...
Nov 02, 2022•56 min•Season 2Ep. 153
Today we had the pleasure of connecting with NJ Ayuk for an Africa-focused energy discussion. NJ is the founder and CEO of Centurion Law Group, a Johannesburg-based energy-focused law firm, and the author of "Billions at Play: The Future of African Energy and Doing Deals." In this capacity, he is among the leading energy dealmakers on the African continent. He is also the Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber, a non-profit dedicated to promoting the continent's full potential across a...
Oct 26, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 152
We have had a really interesting two days in our nation's capital. With the help of Anne Bradbury (CEO) and Liz Bowman (Vice President, Communications) of the American Exploration & Production Council (AXPC), we spent time in Washington DC on Monday and Tuesday talking to think tanks, energy specialists, Congressional and Senate staff, and other energy players here, trying to get a feel for the current sentiment and future direction around energy. We capped off the experience with a sit-down...
Oct 19, 2022•59 min•Season 2Ep. 151
For today's COBT, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright. Chris is a fascinating energy mind - his background includes MIT and UC Berkeley mechanical and electrical engineering degrees as well as a broad-based life-long passion for all forms of energy. He was an early shale pioneer and today is Chairman and CEO of Liberty. Chris also dedicates a significant amount of his time talking to policymakers globally about what he feels are the choices society should be ...
Oct 12, 2022•44 min•Season 2Ep. 150
Today it was our pleasure to host James West, Senior Managing Director and Partner at Evercore ISI. James heads Evercore's oil service, equipment and drilling research team as well as the sustainable technologies and clean energy team and has an extensive research career covering the OFS sector. As you will hear, we had a hard time wrapping up the discussion as the scope of what James sees, analyzes and discusses daily covers a broad range within energy, across the globe, and across a broad swat...
Oct 05, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 149
Today we had the pleasure of hosting Jigar Shah, Director of the U.S. Department of Energy Loan Programs Office (LPO). Jigar is a long-time entrepreneur and founder of Generate Capital and SunEdison before leaving the private sector in 2021 to join the LPO. In his current role, Jigar is responsible for leading and directing the organization's focus on connecting low-carbon technologies that are ready to scale with commercial financing. The LPO is the largest private debt fund in the energy space...
Sep 28, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 148
We had a fantastic session today with Neil Mehta, Managing Director and Head of North American Natural Resources Research at Goldman Sachs. Neil oversees research coverage for oil and gas, utilities, midstream, metals and mining and clean technology and also leads coverage for large cap energy equities. Neil's coverage and knowledge breadth allowed for a fascinating range of topics. Our conversational tour of today's energy world included background on Goldman's energy research team, how Neil wo...
Sep 21, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 147
As we all kick off Climate Week, we are beyond excited to share this Special Edition COBT! Late last week, we traveled to Woods Hole, Massachusetts to meet Dr. Peter de Menocal, President and Director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), a leading independent non-profit organization founded over 90 years ago with a nimble and entrepreneurial approach to science. Peter was elected as the 11th President of WHOI in October of 2020 following an extensive 30+ year career at Columbia Un...
Sep 19, 2022•43 min
Today we had the opportunity to visit with Armond Cohen, Co-Founder and President of the Clean Air Task Force (CATF). Armond co-founded the CATF over 25 years ago with a mission to decarbonize global energy systems through modeling and systems analysis, technology innovation, and policy advocacy with a focus on diversification of energy sources. For today's session, Armond joined us from London and first shared a few timely thoughts on the energy supply volatility in Europe and the value of dive...
Sep 14, 2022•53 min•Season 2Ep. 146
We hope you had a safe and restful Labor Day weekend. For this week's COBT, we had the pleasure of hosting Katherine Blunt, Renewables and Utilities Reporter for The Wall Street Journal and Author of recently-released "California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric and What it Means for America’s Power Grid," published just last week. Katherine was quickly thrown into covering the PG&E story in 2018 as the Camp Fire erupted three days after she started. Since then, she has investig...
Sep 07, 2022•53 min•Season 2Ep. 145
We had an exciting field trip today to tour the new Deloitte Greenhouse facility in Houston. While there, we had the opportunity to visit with Amy Chronis, Vice Chair, US Oil, Gas & Chemicals ("OG&C") Leader, and Houston Managing Partner. Amy has twenty years of experience as a Partner at Deloitte and leads the strategic direction of Deloitte's OG&C practice and Houston office, a group of over 5,000 professionals. The Greenhouse tour was fascinating, and we had a wonderful time with ...
Aug 31, 2022•44 min•Season 2Ep. 144
Late last week, we traveled to Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania to spend the day with our friends from Westinghouse Electric Company. While there we met key members of the team, toured the facilities, saw full scale mock-ups of traditional nuclear reactors, visited the prototype workshop for the eVinci Micro Reactor, and also had a one-hour sit-down with President and Chief Executive Officer Patrick Fragman. It was an absolutely fantastic experience and we can't thank the Westinghouse team enoug...
Aug 24, 2022•44 min•Season 2Ep. 143
We had the honor of visiting with Ambassador David Satterfield, who recently assumed the role of Director at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. Ambassador Satterfield's extensive foreign service career includes over four decades of diplomatic and leadership experience in the United States and overseas in the Near East and Europe, notably serving as Ambassador to Lebanon and Turkey and Charge D'Affaires in Iraq and Egypt. We had the unique opportunity to host the discussion in S...
Aug 17, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 142
Today we had a fantastic guest for our COBT discussion, Dr. Karl Meeusen. Karl serves as Director of Markets, Legislative and Regulatory Policy at Wärtsilä. His career in electricity markets and energy policy has included four years at the California Public Utilities Commission and most recently nearly ten years at California ISO. Now at Wärtsilä, Karl advises policy makers and market participants on power system modeling requirements and resource capabilities. There are many layers to the compl...
Aug 10, 2022•59 min•Season 2Ep. 141
We had the good fortune of visiting with Dr. David Victor today for an engaging discussion on climate, policy, and in particular, problem-solving structures that feature "experimentalist governance." Dr. Victor is a Professor of Innovation and Public Policy at UC San Diego and Co-Director of the UC San Diego Deep Decarbonization Initiative. He has published over 200 articles and books on climate change and the "transition from a high emissions energy world to a low emissions energy world." Today...
Aug 03, 2022•57 min•Season 2Ep. 140
Today's subject is something we have wanted to study for some time now: global population growth. We were lucky enough to find a leading expert to join us and today had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Darrell Bricker. Darrell is a Senior Fellow in Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, the CEO of Public Affairs at Ipsos (the world's leading social and public opinion research firm), and the Co-Author of "Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline." All of us here at ...
Jul 27, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Season 2Ep. 139
We have an exciting Special Edition episode to wrap up the week! We had the pleasure today of hosting Darren Peers, Equity Investment Analyst at Capital Group. Darren has 25 years of investing experience, the recent 8 plus with Capital and prior to that NWQ and Putnam. He is a great friend and we very much respect his highly analytical mind and overall approach to investing. It was fantastic to visit with him and get his perspective on issues we are all thinking about in today's volatile market....
Jul 22, 2022•1 hr 7 min
We had the great opportunity today to host a friend and longtime auto industry entrepreneur, Henrik Fisker, CEO of Fisker Inc., for our first electric car-focused episode. Henrik is a leading automotive designer and some of his creations include the BMW Z8, Aston Martin DB9, Viking motorcycle, Fisker Karma, and Force 1, to name a few. He also previously held executive positions at Ford Motor Company and Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd. Simply put, his impressive career is something us car nerds can onl...
Jul 20, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 138
Today we had the honor of hosting Governor Mike Dunleavy of Alaska for an exciting and informational episode. Governor Dunleavy is a Scranton, PA native and as a young man moved to Alaska in 1983 where he had an extensive career in education serving as a teacher, principal, and superintendent before his 5-year term as an Alaska State Senator from 2013-2018. He became Governor in 2018 and is up for re-election this November. We had a fantastic time visiting and walked away from the discussion imp...
Jul 13, 2022•56 min•Season 2Ep. 137
We are continuing India Week with a great friend and industry leader, Monte Dobson. Monte is the CEO and Lead Country Manager of ExxonMobil India and was appointed to the role in October 2021. Prior to his current adventure in India, Monte led technology development for unconventional resources in Exxon's upstream solutions business and was extensively involved in developing Exxon's Permian oil position. We were thrilled to have the opportunity to visit with him and hear about his experience in ...
Jul 01, 2022•1 hr 2 min
We are focusing on India this week at Veriten and are excited to study the country, their needs, their challenges, and their opportunities. Today we were delighted to welcome Sunita Narain, Director General of the Center for Science and the Environment (CSE). Sunita is a 40-year environmentalist, political activist, and author; her work includes in-depth research on the governance and management of the environment. She is the editor of " Down to Earth" magazine and the author of " Conflicts of I...
Jun 29, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 136
We had an exciting and informative session today with Michele Della Vigna, Managing Director and Head of Energy Research for EMEA (Europe, the Mideast, and Africa) at Goldman Sachs. In his extensive research career, Michele has spent over twenty years at Goldman covering strategy and content across the global equity energy and natural resources teams. He is the also the creator of Goldman's Carbonomics research program which looks at the economics behind a transition to net-zero emissions. In ou...
Jun 22, 2022•56 min•Season 2Ep. 135
Today, we were delighted to host David Firestein, President and CEO of the George H.W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations (the Bush China Foundation). His multi-decade experience immersed in China (and Russia) provided balanced perspective and historical context to a whole set of complex geopolitical issues. The conversation ranged from David's perspective on how/why the US-China relationship has changed, how that change impacts China-Russia relations, how the Chinese people perceive the U...
Jun 15, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 134
Today we had the pleasure of hosting Meredith Angwin, Energy Analyst and Author of " Campaigning for Clean Air: Strategies for Pro-Nuclear Advocacy" and most recently " Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid." Meredith is a passionate advocate for abundant, affordable, clean energy and has also been an early advocate for nuclear energy. In her extensive career, she has headed research projects on pollution control for fossil fuels, corrosion control for nuclear plants, and ...
Jun 08, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 133
We're starting the week with a Special Edition COBT with a great friend of the firm, independent energy and climate thinker, and former COBT guest, Michael Shellenberger. Michael is the Founder & President of Environmental Progress, Author of " Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All" and most recently " San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities." He is currently running for Governor of California as an Independent and is passionate about the future of his home state. Sho...
Jun 07, 2022•52 min
We are excited to share a Special Edition COBT with you today! We had the opportunity to visit with former guest Alex Epstein, Author of " The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels" and Founder of the Center for Industrial Progress. Alex recently published a new book, " Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas - Not Less." We appreciate his tenacity for swimming against the current tide and are always interested to hear from him as he is at the center of the ene...
Jun 02, 2022•1 hr
Today we had the pleasure of hosting our good friend Dr. Scott Tinker, Chairman of Switch Energy Alliance and the Director of the Bureau of Economic Geology at The University of Texas at Austin. Scott's work is focused on addressing major societal challenges in energy, the environment, and the economy. He has co-produced two documentary films exploring energy across the developing world, " Switch" and its sequel " Switch On." It is always fantastic to visit with Scott and we appreciate his frien...
Jun 01, 2022•59 min•Season 2Ep. 132
