Ep. 96 – Featuring Rob West

For our first COBT episode of 2022, we had the great pleasure of hosting Rob West, Founder and Lead Analyst at Thunder Said Energy. With the ongoing crisis in European gas markets and the tense uncertainties over Russian troop deployments along Ukraine's border, it was rather fitting that Rob joined us live from Estonia for our global energy and energy transition discussion.

Rob shared the background story on how and why he founded Thunder Said Energy in 2019. One of his main objectives is to identify and track already-existing technologies that could realistically decarbonize the global economy at acceptable cost in coming decades. Then he estimates the optimal mix to accomplish that goal and shares his findings with his clients. To that end, he presented some of the core cost and risk findings from his year-ahead outlook, published yesterday: "Energy crisis: ten themes for 2022?". It was a fantastic and timely conversation and one we know you will enjoy as much as we did!

To start the show, Mike Bradley provided a substantial overview of key energy themes for 2022 and reviewed this week's developments in OPEC+ governance and oil production strategy. Matt Portillo shared the TPH Research outlook for natural gas and crude oil in 2022. Colin Fenton bended our minds with a journey from how the multiverse plot device in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) franchise is starting to shape other cultural conventions (including energy policy) to yesterday's data on Tesla vehicle inventory currently in stock within 200 miles in Boston. (The punchline is the inventory is scarce, very expensive, and mostly located in New York and New Jersey).

As you all likely know, my official last day at TPH is this Friday, January 7th. My experience at TPH has been a once-in-a-lifetime endeavor and I thank all of you and our past and present TPHers who made it possible. TPH is a special organization and I expect it to continue to thrive.

As of this Friday, we are spinning out COBT into a new business called Veriten, taken from "veritas" and energy to represent "truth in energy." This new energy information platform will have one key mission: to improve the quality and purpose of current debate around the future of energy and the environment. Like you, we want to see a meeting of the minds on climate, economic development, national security, and technology that is as productive and civil as the issues are serious.