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Columbia Energy Exchange

Columbia Energy Exchange features in-depth conversations with the world’s top energy and climate leaders from government, business, academia and civil society. The program explores today’s most pressing opportunities and challenges across energy sources, financial markets, geopolitics and climate change as well as their implications for both the U.S. and the world.
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Now displaying: May, 2018
May 28, 2018

On this episode of Columbia Energy Exchange, host Jason Bordoff sits down with Richard Rhodes, a Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author, and author of newly released book, Energy: A Human History, to discuss what history can tell us about our current energy transition. 

In the book, Richard takes us on a journey through the history behind energy transitions over time—from wood to coal to oil to electricity and beyond – by looking back on five centuries of progress, through such influential figures as Queen Elizabeth I, Benjamin Franklin, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, and others. 

Richard and Jason discuss this history and more, including the successes and failures that led to various energy innovations, the threat of climate change, and how to provide affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy for a growing global population.

May 21, 2018

The list of controversial energy issues in Washington is a long one. But none may be as complicated to understand and difficult to resolve as the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a U.S. mandate that gasoline and diesel fuel contain specified amounts of ethanol and other biofuels.

In this edition of Columbia Energy Exchange, host Bill Loveless sits down with Dr. Jim Stock to discuss this complex policy and its future. Jim is the Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University, a former chair of the Harvard Economics Department and a non-resident fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy. Jim also served on the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2013 to 2014, where his portfolio included the RFS.

Bill and Jim spoke just days after a May 8 meeting at the White House where President Trump, senators from Iowa, Texas and Pennsylvania, and the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture reached a tentative deal that would resolve a longstanding dispute between oil refiners and the biofuels industry, especially producers of corn-based ethanol. But the devil’s in the details, as Jim says on the podcast. And as Bill and Jim met, the Trump administration had not yet explained how it would follow up on the meeting. 


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For related reading, we invite you to check out Jim's recent paper, “Reforming the Renewable Fuel Standard”, published in February 2018 with the Center on Global Energy Policy.

May 14, 2018

On a new episode of Columbia Energy Exchange, host Jason Bordoff sits down with Dr. Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), to discuss key issues influencing the global energy sector.

Dr. Birol previously served as Chief Economist and Director of Global Energy Economics at IEA. He also spent the early part of his career as an oil market analyst at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Vienna. He is the Chairman of the World Economic Forum’s (Davos) Energy Advisory Board and serves as a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on ‘Sustainable Energy for All.’ Forbes Magazine has named him one of the most powerful people influencing the world’s energy scene today.

Fatih and Jason spoke in front of a live audience at CGEP's 5th annual Global Energy Summit in New York City. Among many topics they discuss, several include:

  • Decarbonization efforts around the world
  • Peak oil demand and the role of electric vehicles
  • China's push to shift away from coal
  • The outlook for natural gas
May 7, 2018

On a special episode of Columbia Energy Exchange, Jason Bordoff and Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, Dan Brouillette, discuss energy policy under the Trump Administration. This conversation took place in front of a live audience at the Center on Global Energy Policy's fifth annual Global Energy Summit in April. 

Deputy Secretary Brouillette has three decades of experience in the public and private sectors. He served as Senior Vice President and head of public policy for USAA, and Vice President at Ford Motor Company where he led the automaker’s domestic policy teams and served on its North American Operating Committee. He served as Chief of Staff to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, and he was Assistant Secretary of Energy for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs in the George W. Bush administration. He is also an Army veteran.

Jason and Deputy Secretary Brouillette covered a range of topics including the outlook for nuclear energy, shifts in natural gas markets and U.S. energy exports, as well as what "energy dominance" and "energy realism" mean to this administration and how they are guiding policy.

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