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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: August, 2020
Aug 31, 2020

The oil and natural gas sectors have been reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating impact on demand for fuels, and that includes liquefied natural gas. U.S. LNG exports fell from a record high of 8 billion cubic feet a day in January to 3.1 BCF a day in July, prompting some new projects to postpone final investment decisions.

Among them was Tellurian, a Houston-based company co-founded in 2016 by a U.S. LNG pioneer, Charif Souki.

In this episode of Columbia Energy Exchange, host Bill Loveless is joined by Charif to get his take on this latest challenge for the U.S. LNG sector. After all, he’s seen this business grow from the start, having founded Cheniere Energy, the largest U.S. LNG exporter, back in 1996, before moving on to Tellurian.

Bill and Charif talked about the circumstances leading to the decline in LNG trade this year and the outlook for a recovery. Interestingly, Charif acknowledged that he’s been surprised by some developments.

They also touched on the fundamental changes in LNG trade, especially involving how the commodity is priced now, as well as on the implications for LNG of the closer scrutiny that natural gas is getting because of its greenhouse gas emissions.

Tellurian’s proposed Driftwood LNG project near Lake Charles, Louisiana, would cost more than $27 billion, including pipelines to deliver natural gas to the export facility. The project has all the required permitting to begin construction, but Tellurian has put off a final investment decision until 2021 in light of the market turmoil this year.  

Charif is the executive chairman of Tellurian’s board. He also serves on the advisory board of the Center on Global Energy Policy. He received a B.A. from Colgate University and an MBA from Columbia.

Aug 24, 2020

2020 has been a historic year in energy markets, with a dramatic price crash caused by a collapse in economic activity resulting from the pandemic. In recent weeks, major oil and gas companies around the world have been reporting their worst quarterly results in history and seem to be positioning themselves for prolonged pain still to come. Yet we have also seen several companies reaffirm commitments to a net-zero carbon future by 2050, and we continue to have rising concern and evidence of the tangible impacts of climate change around the world. This all raises the question of whether the pandemic will be an accelerator or decelerator of the energy transition, and how leading oil and gas companies are responding to today’s uncertain and challenging environment. 

In this edition of Columbia Energy Exchange, host Jason Bordoff is joined by Mario Mehren, who leads the largest independent oil and gas company in Europe. 

Mario Mehren is the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Wintershall Dea. He was previously responsible for the company’s activities in Exploration and Production in Russia, North Africa and South Africa. Before joining Wintershall, Mario worked as a specialist adviser in the BASF Group’s Corporate Finance Department before becoming the Head of Finance and Accounting at BASF Schwarzheide and later its Managing Director of Finance and Administration. Mario studied business administration at Saarland University in Saarbrüken. 

Aug 17, 2020

Politics is critical to understanding the development of climate policy in the United States, particularly the interest groups influencing the process and the feedback that new laws and regulations experience once they have been enacted.

That’s what political scientist Leah Stokes tells us in her new book, “Short Circuiting Policy,” whose subtitle is “Interest Groups and the Battle Over Clean Energy and Climate Policy in the American States.”

In this episode of Columbia Energy Exchange, host Bill Loveless talks with Leah about her book and its look at climate policies in different states. The discussion is particularly timely now in the aftermath of a scandal in Ohio, one of the states she writes about in the book.

Bill and Leah delve into the situation in Ohio, where an FBI investigation involving a state law providing aid to struggling nuclear and coal power plants led to the arrest of a prominent state legislator and others in an alleged bribery scheme.

They also discuss the ebb and flow of climate policies in states as utilities and other interest groups vie over proposals to implement policies that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

Leah is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and affiliated with the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management and the Environmental Studies Department at UC, Santa Barbara.

She completed her PhD in public policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and a master’s degree from MIT’s Political Science Department. Before that, she earned an MPA in environmental science and policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the Earth Institute, as well as a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology and East Asian studies at the University of Toronto.

She’s also worked at the Canadian Parliament and the think tank Resources for the Future.

Aug 10, 2020

Despite much progress in meeting the ambitious goal of attaining universal access to sustainable and modern energy, nearly 800 million people still lack access to electricity. Even more lack access to clean cooking fuels. This has serious health, gender, economic, and climate consequences -- and those are especially evident during this pandemic when access to basic health and safety protocols, medical services and clean water is hampered in many parts of the world. 

In this edition of Columbia Energy Exchange, host Jason Bordoff is joined by one of the world’s leaders responsible for addressing this crisis, Damilola Ogunbiyi. She is CEO and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of UN-Energy.

Special Representative Ogunbiyi previously served as the first female Managing Director of the Nigerian Rural Electrification Agency. In a prior role, Damilola worked in the Federal Government of Nigeria’s Office of the Vice President as Senior Special Assistant to the President on Power and Head of the Advisory Power Team. Damilola was also the first female to be appointed as General Manager of the Lagos State Electricity Board. She first entered public service as the Senior Special Assistant to the Lagos State Governor on Public-Private Partnerships, and prior to her appointment, she was a consultant for the United Kingdom Department for International Development on public-private partnerships. 

Aug 3, 2020

Young people around the world are speaking out increasingly about the dangers of climate change and taking actions, too, to reduce the risks of global warming in their lifetimes.

In this edition of Columbia Energy Exchange, host Bill Loveless talks with Akshat Rathi, the editor of a new book called "United We Are Unstoppable," a collection of essays by 60 young people about their determination to save the world from climate change.

The book is a stirring collection of stories about the impacts of climate change that are already taking place or are likely to do so in the future from activists, many of them from developing countries where the results of global warming often go unnoticed.

Bill and Akshat discuss this new book, the message it sends and its significance at a time when the risks of climate change loom large, especially for generations that will live through it this century.

Based in London, Akshat writes for Bloomberg about people and their ideas for tackling climate change. Previously, he was a senior reporter at Quartz and a science editor at The Conversation. He has also worked for The Economist and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Akshat has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Oxford and a degree in chemical engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai. He was a 2018 participant in the Columbia Energy Journalism Initiative, a program at the Center on Global Energy Policy that helps energy journalists deepen their understanding of complex topics associated with energy and environmental issues. 

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