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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: March, 2019
Mar 25, 2019

Innovation, digitalization and distributed energy solutions are driving major shifts in the energy market, putting power in the hands of the consumer and fundamentally changing their relationship with energy. 
 
On this special edition of Columbia Energy Exchange, host Jason Bordoff is joined by Iain Conn, Chief Executive of Centrica, a multinational energy and services company supplying electricity and gas to businesses and consumers across the UK, Ireland and North America. Recorded at Innovation Agora at CERAWeek, they discuss the trajectory of the energy transition in relation to thoughtful policymaking and technological transformation.

Iain Conn served as chief executive of BP’s Downstream division from 2007 to 2014, overseeing production and sales for BP’s fuels, lubricants and petrochemicals businesses. Since being appointed CEO of Centrica in January 2015, he has helped the company navigate low oil prices, grow new business sectors and shift toward a more consumer-focused model.

Innovation Agora is an open marketplace for the exchange of ideas on energy innovation, emerging technologies and solutions to our energy challenges. It is a part of CERAWeek - an annual event that brings together 4,000 industry leaders and policymakers from more than 75 countries.

Mar 18, 2019

The U.S. economy kicked into high gear in 2018, and the results were evident in nearly every energy sector including overall demand, power generation, energy prices and carbon emissions. So, what does this mean for the movement to sustainable energy?

In this edition of the Columbia Energy Exchange, host Bill Loveless talks to Lisa Jacobson, the president of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, a coalition of companies and trade associations representing the energy efficiency, natural gas and renewable energy sectors.

Every year, the council along with Bloomberg New Energy Finance puts out “Sustainable Energy in America Factbook,” providing annual information on key trends in the U.S. energy sectors. The 2019 edition of the report, the seventh compiled, illustrates the extent to which the U.S. energy picture is changing and what it indicates for the nation’s economy.

Lisa has headed the Business Council for Sustainable Energy for about 15 years, after having worked on Capitol Hill as a congressional aide. She is a member of the Department of Energy’s State Energy Efficiency Steering Committee, the U.S. Trade Representative’s Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee, and the Gas Technology Institute’s Public Interest Advisory Committee.

She has represented energy industries before the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and testified before Congress. In fact, she had just appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee regarding the 2019 factbook when she and Bill spoke at her office in Washington.

They talked about the latest findings in the various energy sectors as well as a couple of questions the report raises about energy productivity in the U.S. and the absence of federal policy on climate change.

Mar 11, 2019
The U.S. is undergoing a boom in energy production as oil, natural gas and renewable energy set records for output, and electric utilities increasingly shift to cleaner fuels for power generation.
So, what does this mean for jobs in energy sectors that are flourishing as well as some that are not?
 
In this edition of the Columbia Energy Exchange, host Bill Loveless talks to David Foster, the author of the newly released “U.S.
Energy and Employment Report 2019.” It’s the product of the Energy Futures Initiative, a Washington-based think tank headed by former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, and the National Association of State Energy Officials.
 
The report, previously compiled by the U.S. Department of Energy, looks at employment in 2018 in five sectors: fuels; electric power generation; transmission, distribution and storage; energy
efficiency; and motor vehicles. And it compares those numbers with those of the previous year.
 
As Bill and David discuss, the findings are generally positive, showing, for example, that employment in the traditional energy sectors, like fuels, electric power, and transmission, distribution
and storage, as well as energy efficiency, increased 2.3% in 2018, adding almost 152,000 jobs, nearly 7% of all new jobs nationwide.
This comes as the U.S. energy system continues to experience an evolution in which market forces, new technology, tax policy, and declining federal regulation affect the changing profile of the
energy workforce.
 
David Foster is a distinguished associate at the Energy Futures Initiative, and previously was a senior adviser to Secretary Moniz from 2014 to 2017, where he designed the report when it was
done at DOE.
 
Before that, he was the founding executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a partnership of unions and environmental organizations, and director of a United Steelworkers district covering
13 states. Now, he also sits on the boards of Kaiser Aluminum and Oregon Steel Mills.
 
The talk is timely as Washington and the rest of the U.S. grapple over the best way to address climate change, with the Green New Deal attracting so much attention.
Mar 4, 2019

On this episode of Columbia Energy Exchange, host Jason Bordoff is joined by Lord Adair Turner, Senior Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, and former Chair of the UK Parliament's Climate Change Committee. In November 2018, the Energy Transitions Commission published a report entitled ‘Mission Possible: Reaching net-zero carbon emissions from harder-to-abate sectors by mid-century’. The report outlines the possible routes to fully decarbonize cement, steel, plastics, trucking, shipping, and aviation – which together represent 30% of energy emissions today and could increase to 60% by mid-century. Lord Adair Turner and Jason discuss the report in detail – its findings, recommendations, and implications for the energy transition. We also hear Lord Adair Turner's thoughts on an array of issues, including climate change, the proposed Green New Deal, and the broader role of government in the energy transition.

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