Welcome to Episode 282 of the Energy Talks podcast. I'm energy and climate journalist, Markham Hislop. This is the electric century, and as we rush to electrify economies, the capability of the power grid becomes a limiting factor to the doubling or tripling of electricity generation and distribution. We can't have electric vehicles, and they're electrically heated and cooled homes, and electric industrial processes, and clean alternative energy like hydrogen, made with electricity if we can't get the power from where it's generated to where we need it. Rethink Energy has released a new report that addresses some of these issues on a global basis, and I'll be talking to Bogdan Avramuta, director of market research, about them.
So welcome to the interview, Bogdan.
Hi, Maritiam. Thanks, thanks for the invite. Happy to be here. Always, pleased to to talk about the global energy transition and our views.
Well, that is the basis for my journalism. So you can imagine how, excited I am to have you on the podcast.
Sounds ideal.
I think the taking a global perspective at it, in North America so we're talking about, United States, Mexico, and Canada.
Mhmm.
And the United the Americans are busy reengineering their grid. This you know, especially with the introduction of the inflation reduction act now, there's a lot of money that that, is being spent on it. It really did need to be to be upgraded and modernized. It's I would say, from what I've been told by other experts, that it's quite a bit behind. It wasn't the the grid wasn't as modern as as Canada's.
Canada has doesn't have interconnected, grids. It has basically 10 provinces, and each one of them has their own for the most part, There are a couple there's one exception, maybe 2, but they have crown government owned utilities that manage the grid in that province. They're like little islands, Ten little islands strung together with a few winter ties, and that's basically the Canadian grid. But it's 84% zero emission because it has a lot of hydro, it has a lot of nuclear, some wind, and solar, and so Canada has been very complacent. I mean, it it had a clean grid.
It was low cost, reliable. There wasn't the same impetus to move quickly as there was as there is in in in the US, but that's beginning to change. Canada's starting to wake up, and I think, Mexico, will be a little behind this as as as an emerging economy. But my thesis here is that the electric technologies we're talking about, and I mentioned some of them a minute ago, are now on the s curve, past the inflection point for the most part and are economic. They're competitive in the marketplace.
They're starting to push out, you know, coal. They're starting to push back on gas because they are the low cost alternative. Is that true across the the globe that we're seeing wind and solar in particular be adopted because it's just the best way to go.
I mean, yeah, you you touched on a couple of things there. So, I mean, we we can unpack all that. But to to first, you know, answer your question, first of all, I don't I don't think that all the technologies that you mentioned are a positive inflection point on the s curve. Some of them are still early days, hydrogen being one of them. I think, there's a big difference between waking up to the thought that you need to upgrade your grids and actually putting those plans into fruition and actually changing your grids and upgrading them.
And, so it's all it's all good that Canada is waking up to it. The the report that we we we recently released at Rethink Energy, mostly touched on on the United States, and and not just and not, Canada. So on top of North America, we we mostly talked about the United States. The the problem is really when when you talk about the when talking about the United States is that permitting takes ages. For the report, I spoke with somebody who's been involved with one of those, weird projects for the last 20 or so years, and it took them that long to get the the project from paper to actually construction and the real thing.
So that's really the biggest killer when we're talking about reeds reed upgrades in, North America.
So I I hear that all the time, and I I I did an interview, maybe a year or 2 ago about someone who had developed an app that would streamline the permitting process. I I don't think it's made much of an impact. I see, policy makers all the time calling for, you know, streamlining of the permitting process. What are some of the the key issues in the US, that are making, permitting such a drawn out process?
Yeah. So so some of the major issue with permitting is really the different types of permits they need to get. So if you if you think about, you know, the grid and what it entails in terms of infrastructure, you're talking about 100 of miles worth of pylons and copper wires and, right, so infrastructure, really, to the largest degree. Nothing compared to, you know, a a gas power plant or a solar farm or a wind farm. Right?
So then when you have such large scale infrastructure spending over a number of states, then you encounter a lot of land permit problems. Right? You have obviously, if if your transmission line crosses over 3 states, you need approvals from all 3 states. Right? If you're only transporting energy from state number 1, state number 3, but wanna go to through state number 2, then state number 2 is gonna say, well, what am I getting out of this?
So that's extra complications. Then you run into problems with private land. You know, people are not gonna give up their land that easily. They don't really necessarily want a transmission line to go through their backyard, so to say. Then you encounter indigenous land problems, so extra permits over there.
If you're also crossing through some military, land, then there's military permits and so on and things easily rec rec, rec up. But that's that's the that's the main problem. That's the main slowdown with permitting in the US.
That's interesting because, I've been watching China with great interest, and they are adopting solar in amazingly large quantities. It's really something. And not only is it a utility scale, I think I did an interview with about, 20 episodes back with someone about the, China building these huge solar farms out in the Mongolian desert. You know, it's been 255 of them. And that that they're so far away from the population centers, they're gonna require a lot of transmission.
And I guess, you know, they run rough shot over, you know, anybody who's, you know, landowners or or, you know, communities that might be in the way. But is there a different approach or different issues as we see countries like China and India, Malaysia, Vietnam, as they adopt wind and solar, expand their grids, are they running into the similar kinds of problems?
Well, you you you basically you basically said it, in the question. If the Chinese government realizes that,
you know, we need a transmission line from a
to b, that's gonna happen. And this, you know, having to, you know, change my business or my, you know, private land to accommodate for this, you know, project of government importance. So things just simply, you know, don't run as as they do in in the west. And, you know, the west can cry about it, but that's just the reality. This is why China's moved so fast on, high voltage grid capacity from, you know, the the early 2000 until now.
They've taken the lead. And that's why exactly why China is, like you mentioned, building, solar for fun at the moment. 90 plus percent of global manufacturing capacity is in China at the moment.
Yeah. It it's really something. And, next week sorry. In 2 weeks, I'll be giving a talk here in Parksville, along with Sandy Garasino from the National Observer, about China and its role in the in the global energy transition. And one of the points that I've made over and over again is that, you know, China began investing in these technologies in the late nineties.
And it's accelerated now, and they've scaled up the manufacturing of the equipment on the technology side, but they've done something that their the Chinese version of what the Americans used to do, which is use their large domestic market to leverage, you know, to provide the a demand pull for the supply push that they were doing on the manufacturing side. So the 2 work together. And and, the fact that they can overcome these infrastructure, hurdles is a huge advantage for them as they scale it up, quickly. So I I read a speech by, an American politician in was given in 2022, and she said, look. In 2020, we we here in the US, we woke up.
We realized that in in the early days of the pandemic, how vulnerable we were to Chinese supply chains. And that gets to your comment about how much to the extent to which China dominates manufacturer of these technologies. And she said, that's why we introduced the infrastructure act, the chips act, the the, inflation reduction act, which is, who knows? I mean, we'll see in 2032, but it could be a a 1,000,000,000,000 or 2, dollars that is spent. I argue that that essentially kicked off a global clean energy arms race between China or Asia Pacific more generally, Europe, and North America.
And the grid is at the heart of that because they're electrifying their economies, building manufacturing capacity to build that equipment. Is that a a fair argument from your point of view?
Yeah. I think a lot of hap a lot has happened, since 2020. Right? So COVID 19 pandemic, the, you know, Russian invasion of Ukraine. A lot has happened in the last couple of years that really put a lot of strain on the global supply chains, which affected energy prices, which obviously affected consumers, which then affected governments.
So governments had to act and had to change something and, you know, energy independence and safety when it comes to supply chains and, you know, places we you we gain your energy from or energy sources. And, you know, reducing volatility was clear. I agree with that. It's a bit, sad or unfortunate that it took this long and it took such big events for the west to wake up to those realities. You know, Emmanuel came mentioned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
It officially started in, 2022 early 2022, was it? But then, Russia had a tendency in 2016. Right? So the story is not new. But we, you know, Europe decided to act in 2022 with sanctions and everything and then, you know, avoid reliance on natural gas from from Russia, etcetera, etcetera.
But, yeah, to to answer your question, yes, a lot has changed since 2020. It's a bit it's a bit late to look it back to the so the grid, reference. A lot of this is dependent on greed upgrades. Right? We have massive queues of wind and solar farms not being able to gain to go past final investment decisions simply because they don't have a guaranteed grid connection point because the capacity is running out.
So there's a lot of strain on the grid to upgrade, which is why there's, you know, I mentioned to you in in the the small small talk that we had before before we started pressing record, this global transition is one big puzzle, and you really need to to to be pragmatic and have a a very thorough holistic view of the whole thing in order for, you know, for this to work. We need to start. Governments need need need to start thinking, okay. The goal here is literally the survival of our race. Right?
We're talking about climate change and raising temperature and uninhabitable sections of the world. Anything that's the goal. And to possibly, stop thinking about money that much, but, obviously, unfortunately, we'll even a world dictate it by money.
Well, I the reason I brought up, where the clean energy technologies are on the s curve, and I would agree with you. I, hydrogen is not anywhere close to its inflection point at this at this point. So I'm at the more of the electric technologies as opposed to the clean fuels, sustainable fuels that are made with clean electricity. And the the point on that is that from my where I sit, climate policy now is not so much about are we going to adopt wind, solar, batteries, EVs, and so on, It's how faster we're gonna do it. And that's that's the policy now dictates pace, not economics.
The the, economics are basically self sustaining. They're competitive. And for the for the most part, we can always think of it as exceptions. So having said that, we're we're we've talked about China. So China doesn't have the permanent problems that we see in in North America, because Canada has, you know, essentially the same problems as the US.
A lot of nimbyism, you know, people worry about their own backyards. What about Europe? Does Europe, can Europe expand electrify with the existing grid, or is it going to have to build a lot of infrastructure?
You know, Europe is in especially in the same in the same spot as the US in terms of, you know, lagging behind, necessary capacity. You know, the queues that I mentioned for wind and solar in in, you know, even in China. They they exist even in China. Those are present in Europe as well as well as the as well as the as well as North America. So so Europe very much needs to employ the same type of strategies as the US when it comes to, you know, grid upgrades.
What the US sorry. What what Europe is doing is is putting a lot of reliance on interconnections and, like I said, taking more of a holistic approach of the whole continent, taking, you know, the the different countries and try and come up with efficient plans of, you know, transporting electrons from a to b from point of generation to point of of usage. But, yes, to to link it back to what you said in in a couple of moments ago about China supplying, you know, pushing pushing supply, pushing demand at the same at the same point. And and touch on on policy, I agree with you. There's there's plenty of policies being the the necessary policies are set in place in the west.
It's just a a question of clarifying them. Right? In order for companies and businesses to take advantage of those policies and the incentives that the policy is promoting, you need a, a legal framework that's clear and that's set in place. Right? So there's one thing for the US to come out with the IRA and the EU to come out with the green deal and say this is, you know, this is the the policies that we can offer.
This is the incentives that they were bringing up. But there's a a totally different ballgame for communist to actually, you know, actually, benefit from those and apply those and and make the changes to their businesses according to those policies in order to take the incentives.
Yeah. I I I mentioned Alberta earlier, they're going through some you know, in the last 2 weeks they've introduced the policy to restrict renewables. Last Wednesday, they came out with a policy to enable industrial players to self generate, store with batteries, and then sell into the grid. On Monday, they came out with a a document that will guide the restructuring of their electricity markets. And I've so I've spent the last week or so interviewing a fair number of experts about about that.
And at the subnational level, that Alberta seems to illustrate your point because it's clear, I think, that there is no consensus, there is no vision, there is the leadership is lacking, and so not everybody's clear on where we're going, why we're going there, how we're gonna get there, what what my role is, what your role is, what so and so's role is, and he you know, it's a bunch of people in a dark room bumping heads, And you can see now the impediment to progress that that kind of uncertainty, policy uncertainty, political uncertainty, leads to investment uncertainty, and how how it impedes progress. And so it's almost like a little case study of how not to do things. And I would imagine that there are countries in the EU and states in the US where it's being done really well, where you where you have this vision, everybody's pulling in the same direction, and then you have jurisdictions where it's being done poorly. Is that fair to say?
Yes. Very much. I mean, I was, I was actually reading about, something about the inflation reduction act in the US and, about some of the, perhaps less, you know, the section and the incentives, that were perhaps less under the spotlight, right, everybody was talking about, you know, green hydrogen subsidies and the, you know, the 1,000,000,000 spend on on on fuels and and and reassuring, manufacturing and supply chains. But then I was reading a section on, it was quite a bit of money put forward for, increasing, building efficiencies. Right?
Building, efficiency in terms of temperature and and heating and heat pumps and and and things like that. And, actually, states of Florida, Kentucky, South Dakota, and there was one more, refused, to gain any money from it because they didn't wanna probably, you know, the congressman and the, senators, you know, in in charge of the states probably didn't, didn't want their feathers to be to be rattled too much, by changing, the way they build the buildings because, I don't know. They probably had some real estate links or something like that. So, yes, very much just a case of, some countries are doing and or some states are doing better than others, when it comes to, you know, getting us all the way to net 0?
It's, you know what? I I don't, I I always look for the simplest answer. And I don't think it's economics or financial self interest on the part of the policy makers and and other, you know, movers and shakers in those particular states so much as it is ideology. I mean, there are still, a very large percentage of, the population in the west. It varies by country and and by state, I suppose.
But who, you know, who, really don't believe in climate change. They think it's Mhmm. You know, I know I know people in Alberta who are convinced that it's just a manufactured crisis to, you know, basically a business model of Greenpeace, you know, that kind of approach. So they they they don't want anything to do with with policy or more than they have to. And and, you know, they don't see it.
They don't see the energy transition in economic terms to in Alberta. And I keep you coming back to Alberta because that's where I do a lot of my journalism, but, you know, but Yep. The point the point here is that they see it as an ideological and political conflict, one that can be can be fixed by electing the right politicians as opposed to the rise of a new form of energy, which is a competition a competitor to fossil fuels. And when you see it as a, a competitor that is disrupting your business model and you have to respond, whether you're a company or you're a jurisdiction, then you take you you treat the transition very differently. You know, you you understand that you are essentially in the position of being Kodak or, or blockbuster.
If you don't respond to disruption, you will eventually be pushed out of the market. You'll fail and and with, you know, all of the consequences that come with that. And and I I we follow enough enough American politics up here in Canada that those particular states that you mentioned, you know, the Ron DeSantis in, in Florida, and South Dakota's got a couple of wacky senators that are just really out on the fringe, but they're thought leaders. They're thought leaders. This is the problem.
The thought leaders are wacky. They haven't done their work. They see this all in, you know, some grand, you know, a culture war that's going on, but that then becomes a real impediment to change. And is that a fair observation?
Yeah. I mean, I I agree with that. I think there's there's plenty of politicians who really make fresh decisions, and the UK is another great example of this. Our prime minister is is really turning, you know, which whichever, way the wind is blowing. And by the wind, I mean, you know, the lobbies.
And, by blowing, I mean, you know, whatever whispers they and they whisper in in his ear. You know? So one week he's, pushing nuclear. Another week he's pushing the natural gas for our power plants. Unfortunately, neither will see the the UK reach net 0 by 2050.
So, it's it's very much a case of a lot of countries, a lot of economies being, you know, the victims in some cases of, leaders, making rash decisions. You know, the US, obviously, is under the microscope at the moment due to the election that's going to happen later this year and all the potential uncertainty that's, already gathering. The the feeling that I'm that I'm hearing from the industry and, from the people that, you don't need to sign off on the big money checks, so, you know, investors, banks, etcetera. When they're looking at the US today and the potential involvement in US for the next couple of years, the potential, you know, presidency of Donald Trump is, you know, not to get too political, is gathering quite a bit of uncertainty. So people are wary of that.
Yeah. I think it is fair to say without being overly partisan that, changes in policy can lead to changes in investment patterns and and perceptions of uncertainty and where people put their money. Bogdan, before I let you go, I wanna address an issue that arises over and over again when I talk to experts about, you know power grids and and that is the extent to which new technologies are disrupting them and well, I mean, making them better. You know, it had Gerhard Schlage, who's the chief technology officer from Hitachi Energy on, about 17 or 18 episodes ago, and he was talking about, storage, power electronics, and digital controls as being 3 key technologies that utilities and systems operators are integrating into their grid so that they can, they can adopt a higher percentage of intermittent power generation into those grids. And and then on top of that, there's all kinds of other technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning and and materials and goodness gracious.
I mean, it it's a a very disruptive period in what is usually a very staid and conservative industry. You know, the power sector just doesn't change that quickly. And I'm wondering the extent to which those technologies and that disruption are affecting grids, outside of North America. In Europe, in China, in Asia Pacific, emerging economies. We mentioned, Brazil.
Like, are they taking do they see that as a problem, or are they going, you know, hey. This is terrific. We can use these technologies to now get you know, carry more power in our grid. We can do more things with it without spending a lot of money, and and they see it as a a a way to leverage the transition for economic gain. What's the the take on that, at a global level if you can?
Yeah. I think Europe is really leading the way in terms of you mentioned AI and grid digitization is one big thing that's that that's going to improve the grid efficiency, significantly, from now on until 2050 and and hopefully beyond. And when you when you really think about it, you know, this is something that, that we we mentioned in in the report that Everything Energy published. Is really talking about virtual power plants and redid redigitization. This essentially means when you have, you know, a couple of solar panels over here, a couple of wind turbines over there, couple of energy storage, systems, in between, and, you know, your usual nuclear and gas and and and whatnot.
If you can have a a digital tool that's aware of the generation potential and the demand, curve on a daily basis, on a, you know, hour by hour basis or, you know, even minute by minute basis, he can effectively move electrons from a to b, you know, using storage as well. You know, it's not over saturated grid in order to to to, supply all the demand, effectively and efficiently. So that that that really is the future, and and I see that as having huge potential. And and Europe is is leading the way at the moment when it comes to that.
Again, I wanna get back to Alberta because they passed some legislation. It's called bill 22, to enable exactly the thing you're talking about. So in the because Alberta with a small population of 5,000,000 people, but it has more industry in Canada than any other province. You know, petrochemical plants and refineries and the oil sands are a huge you know, one of the world's largest industrial, industrial sites. But here's where you hit the point I'm getting at.
In the the way the government sees this is if big industrial players can self generate using wind and turbine, but maybe even gas, store the electricity on-site using batteries or compressed air or whatever technology they decide to do that, they then remove some load off the grid so that as demand expands, there's less, less demand for more transmission infrastructure. They they see it as a a way to, reduce the the pressure that's on the existing grid, and I think that's a great idea. I think that's part of something we've talked about here with experts, quite a number of times. The problem is, even though it's a good idea, it's not integrated into this larger vision for the economy and for the power grid itself. It's like it's off this they, you know, they listen to the lobbyists for a couple of couple of years and went, well, that's a good idea.
Let's let's draw up a bill and enable that thing. Now how that's gonna work with the rest of the grid or how that's gonna work with, you know, how that's gonna affect prices for the ones that remain on the grid, You know, none of that got thought through, and I it's like another little case study of good intentions, trying to do the right thing, a good thing, but getting it wrong. Mhmm. And then that raises the the the question of what happens down the road, you know, 5 years from now when the consequences of getting it wrong become apparent, and it's and it's causing problems. And you said, earlier in this interview, it's about it's like putting a a puzzle together.
And some some jurisdictions will be good puzzle, players, and some will be not so good puzzle players. And so kinda you introduce the human element back into the transition, and that will, to some extent, anyway, determine the winners and losers.
Yes. Which which is why, I guess, you know, being, being from Europe makes me feel a bit better because I feel like there's there's been more cohesion in Europe even though we're talking about different countries, right, compared to the, to the states where you have the same country but different states. That that's a bit, counterintuitive. Because I I think that, you know, is this, because you mentioned lobbyists, I think, you know, positions lobbyists and then people need to to move away from the old ways of, oh, okay. We we have extra demand.
Let's just build another power plant and, you know, keep ranking up the power output, put it on the grid, move it from a to b to the industrial side, get the, you know, economic output up. You know, the world is changing. It's, when you when talking about energy storage and assets and and, you know, greed that needs to be managed and effectively upgraded and, you know, everything takes, takes and requires a lot of money, and you have all those different fuels and there's different, you know, outlets and so on and so forth. It's just, you know, things are are more complex. So, we need to live up to those challenges.
Another case study from Alberta. I have some, some of our energy media readers are in a little town, in Southwest Alberta. It's very windy. It it was the site of the first wind turbines in Alberta back in the in the late 19 nineties called Pincher Creek. It's a town of about 3,000 people.
And these these folks are fairly forward thinking, and they understand the transition, and they the the the key point here is they understand that that wind resource can be further harnessed, and it can produce abundant, low cost, clean electricity. That's a huge competitive advantage. Now they have other competitive disadvantages, you know, the size of their community and their their, their distance away from large metropolitan markets. Fair enough. But they're they've been talking to me about, well, Markham, you know, what could we do in Pincher Creek that would you know, if we put up some more wind turbines, could we build a clean energy industrial park, you know, where where companies could get really cheap, renewable energy, and they would locate their plants here, and and then they would create jobs and economic activity in in our community.
That kind of thing. And and here's the point I wanna I wanna get to. For them, it's not so much about the grid supplying electricity to all of the province. It's about how do I take that electricity that's generated locally by renewable assets and do something locally with a microgrid, with an industrial park that has a microgrid? How do I leverage these technologies to make me to make our community more competitive in this global, in the global economy.
And I'm just wondering the extent to which that kind of conversation takes place in the US. It takes place in Europe. It takes place in Asia. Is that a a a big part, a little part, growing part of this conversation?
Well, I'm gonna tell you the concept that you just that you just brought up, but I'm gonna I'm gonna move it from the community level to the, economy level, right, the country level. Because if you have a a a location on the globe with favorable wind or solar conditions, which will obviously increase the amount of electricity you produce. So will will effectively decrease the the the cost per unit of electricity you you then sell. You wanna leverage that. So this is where the concept of, decentralization comes in.
Right? This is why Europe is is pumping a lot of money into into Africa and building wind and solar farms and hydrogen, plants and green ammonia plants, which comes from hydrogen into Africa because they can get it, cheaper. So, to your point, yes, small communities who are blessed with such, you know, resources, natural resources, should definitely they can to, sort of attract and bring, in their communities, you know, industrial sites or, any sort of output, that they can, generate to help the global energy transition.
Yeah. That makes perfect sense to me. And, and it's I mean, let's let's briefly talk about distributed energy resources because this is something that is front and center, in the American conversation, because, you know, I've I've the department of of energy, the loan program has got, Jigger Shaw, you know, out evangelizing for virtual power plants. You know, they wanna put a lot of money into them, and they want to and and that's his job is to sell people on on on putting these in so that they can amalgamate, all of the, you know, residential storage, presumably later down the road, electric vehicles when we get, you know, EV to to grid integration figured out, all of that, they wanna they wanna maximize the value and the utility of those assets, those storage assets. So that's just one example.
And and we're seeing opportunities come, like the, LA LA Hydrogen, Hydrogen LA, you know, where there's a bunch of actors coming into around Los Angeles, including the city, and they wanna use the LA's cheap solar to make hydrogen, store it. And then when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, then they would feed it into their old, gas power plants that have been fitted out with turbines that can, you know, run on dual fuel, that kind of thing. I mean, there just seems this technology seems to be really suited, this DER technology, to decent not just decentralized energy production, but decentralized economic production, and economic opportunities. And I'm wondering the extent to which that idea permeates the conversations that you're having with people in different countries.
No. It's very much the case. It's very much the case, you know, when you need to switch from you know, traditionally burning coal, burning, natural gas, you're talking about energy per, you know, per weight, per kilogram, or per liter, per, you know, things energy density. And now when you're talking about, wind and solar, you're talking about really energy per, square meter. Right?
You're talking about buying the land first, which is hectares, and then building solar farms. So when, when size becomes a constraint and you you wanna, you wanna make that very efficient and, if you can put it on because this is basically how it how it all started. If you can put a solar panels on people's roofs close to the source of demand, then that makes sense, which is why, you know, virtual power power plants and grid digitization and and things that I mentioned before, all makes sense. But, yes, the entire globe is aware of that and, is banking card on on distributed assets.
You know, we talked a lot about, about Canada, about the the US, and some about about Europe. You brought up some examples, but, I will we'll close out the interview with with this discussion, Bogdan. Last fall, there was a lot of talk, about the OPEC slow energy transition narrative, and it it came out, the the modeling that supported that narrative came out in October, I think it was. And, you know, in the world, the oil, oil world oil outlook 2045 is the title of the the report. And one of the key assumptions in that report is that emerging economies like Africa will not electrify.
That they will stick with fossil fuels because they they have abundant resources, they have a lot of the infrastructure already built, and so the, you know, the rest the OECD come countries will electrify, and the non OECD countries, like the ones in Africa, will stick with fossil fuels. But if I'm sitting there in Africa and I've got this amazing, you know, solar resource, And now that the you know, we're getting to the point where the marginal cost of, you know, electricity will be 0, we're getting close to that. We can kinda see it in the not too distant future. I'm looking at that and going, man, that's an economic opportunity. And and I don't need to have a huge centralized power grid to take advantage of that opportunity.
And I'm wondering the extent to which the emerging economies think like that.
Yes. I mean, you know, some degree of, political corruption and and, associated hurdles aside when it comes to the African continent and, you know, energy being always linked with politics. I, I agree with you. It does make sense. And like I mentioned, Europe is investing heavily in Africa.
And, a lot of those a lot of those part those partnerships and those deals are not stopping with we wanna use your, you know, lens to build a solar farm and then just try you know, convert that into hydrogen and then put it on a ship, send it back to Europe, and we don't care about anything else. A lot of those partnerships do extend to to take into account the the socioeconomic factors of the, community as well. So if, if they can build a bit of extra infrastructure, which is, you know, nothing compared to the cost of, you know, the big industrial partners that that that they're trying to build in Africa and, thus help the community and help, countries and economies and, developing economies like you mentioned in Africa, electrify, and, create additional sources of demand for clean energy, then, that benefits everybody.
Gotcha. Well, Bogdan, thank you very much for this. This has been a very interesting conversation, and I think that we don't put enough emphasis so we don't pay enough attention to the ways in which the, this new these new technologies and, are going to be disruptive and and change the the economy in which we we work and make our living and the way the internal combustion engine and petroleum did a 100 years ago. I think we're kind of headed in that direction. We and we're we're having trouble seeing how, you know, this might lead to the rise of Africa as an economic power or the rise of India or Bangladesh, something like that.
But that's kind of the direction we're going, and it looking at this through the global lens is a is a fascinating exercise. We've done some of that today, and I really appreciate your insights. Thank you very much for this.
Thank you for having me, Marham. Always good to talk to, fellow, people about the scopics.