Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change

• Is Geothermal The Future For Oil & Gas? Ep207: Jamie Beard

  Geothermal seems to have found new favour under Donald Trump's presidency, but can it ever live up to its potential? Will the oil and gas industry reinvent itself before becoming obsolete? And how might geothermal energy change the global energy landscape?This week on Cleaning Up, Bryony Worthington talks to Jamie Beard, founder of Project InnerSpace, about why geothermal energy has never lived up to its hype, and whether it has the potential do so.  Currently generating less than 1% of global energy, Beard believes that geothermal could become a game-changing technology that can leverage existing drilling expertise from the oil and gas sector to provide 24/7 energy.Beard breaks down the technical and economic challenges facing geothermal energy, exploring its potential to provide stable, clean power and heat across different global regions. From the United States to India, she outlines how next-generation geothermal technologies could offer a more consistent renewable energy solution.This conversation was recorded live at Geothermal House, as part of San Francisco Climate week.Leadership Circle:Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live.Discover More:• The Sierra Leone Special: https://youtu.be/z-5QjSfy2SM• Project InnerSpace: https://projectinnerspace.org/• Brony’s episode with Cindy Taff of Sage Geothermal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3I2fn9_atE• The Department of Energy’s Next-Generation Geothermal Power Commercial Liftoff: https://liftoff.energy.gov/next-generation-geothermal-power/

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• Uniper Rising: Can Germany's Gas Giant Go Green? Ep206: Michael Lewis

  When Russia unleashed its illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, gas prices in Europe spiked by a factor of 10, driving a wave of bankruptcies and restructurings of European energy companies. Uniper was one of those. Uniper is one of Germany's largest energy companies. It is active across more than 40 countries and has 19.5 GW of power generation capacity to its name. It was one of the funders of the built-but-never-used Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that connects Russia to Germany and, for most of its history, was heavily reliant on Russian gas. So when the gas taps from Russia were turned off, Uniper reported losses of $40 billion — the highest losses in German corporate history — and was subsequently nationalised by the German government. The company has since returned to profitability under its new CEO, Michael Lewis, our guest this week on Cleaning Up. Michael Lewis joins Michael Liebreich to discuss the company's rise from the ashes, and how it plans to reach its climate targets and overcome the dunkelflaute.Leadership Circle: Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live. More from Cleaning Up:The Sierra Leone documentary: https://youtu.be/z-5QjSfy2SMEp164 — Leonhard Birnbaum, CEO of EON: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa-DHuPNEDgEpisode 175 — Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl-cRh35Hm4Episode 190 — Lord Adair Turner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxTngGxpeW0 

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• Trump vs The Transition, The Pope’s Climate Legacy & The High Price of UK Electricity — Ep205

  In 100 short days, the world has transformed. Since the reelection of President Donald Trump, US federal climate policy has largely been abandoned, with the government seeking to reopen coal-fired power plants and lower environmental standards. An escalating trade war and global tariffs has sent the rest of the world reeling and threatened the global financial system with collapse. China has come under particular fire, but the US has also targeted its closest allies and neighbours — Canada, Mexico and the EU — with tariffs. Any sense of certainty has been thrown out of the window as a more inward looking US seeks to reshape the global order. So what does all this mean for the energy transition, and plans to reach net-zero? Michael Liebreich and Baroness Bryony Worthington join forces for the opening episode of Season 15 of Cleaning Up to discuss. Leadership Circle: Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live. Discover more: Cleaning Up’s Sierra Leone Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-5QjSfy2SMCleaning Up’s interview with Mark Carney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtA5ufMzKAUEmber’s Global Electricity Review: https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-review-2025/Michael’s AI Update on Deepseek: https://mliebreich.substack.com/p/ai-data-centre-power-and-glory-anMichael’s retreat inside an old millhouse: https://lemoulindabondance.com/

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• We Built a Solar System That's Saving Babies’ Lives — Ep204: Project Bo, Sierra Leone

  In Sierra Leone, a 20-minute power cut can be the difference between life and death for newborn babies. In 2013, an extraordinary doctor called Dr Niall Conroy set up a neonatal intensive care unit at the Bo Government Hospital, in Sierra Leone's second largest city, and set about training the staff to give the best possible care to the desperately vulnerable babies who were admitted. But there was one problem he couldn't solve: electricity. Babies need warmth, and that means electrically powered incubators, and they need oxygen, which means oxygen separators, and the nurses need light in order to work. However in Sierra Leone, there are power cuts almost daily. They can be a few minutes, they can be hours, or they can last days. In 2017, Michael Liebreich heard about this problem and put together a group of friends and supporters to create Project Bo. Since then, the neonatal intensive care unit has had a solar system and batteries installed, and hundreds of babies’ lives have been saved due to a reliable electricity supply. Eight years on, Michael visits Project Bo for the first time to see how the system is performing, meet the medical professionals working there, and find out if there's anything else that we can do to improve it.Watch on YouTube:Find the full documentary on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMxJzLNc214Help Support Project Bo:More About Project Bo: https://www.projectbo.org/Our Campaign to Raise $100,000: https://www.gofundme.com/f/projectboOther Organisations Electrifying Healthcare:Eki Foundation ⁠⁠https://fundacioneki.org/en/Don Bosco Solar School In Bo⁠: ⁠⁠⁠https://donboscosolar.org/Powering Healthcare Hub (Sustainable Energy for All): https://www.seforall.org/programmes/powering-healthcare-hubWe Care Solar: https://wecaresolar.org/Resilient Power | Power for Health: https://www.directrelief.org/issue/resilient-powerKids Operating Room: https://www.kidsor.org/Leadership Circle:Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live. Credits:Presented by Michael LiebreichWritten by Oscar Boyd & Michael LiebreichFilmed, Produced & Edited by Oscar BoydGraphics by Jamie OliverLogistics: Jo Jagger & Alexandra McInerneySpecial thanks to Dr Niall Conroy, Nurse Juliana Conteh, Nurse Columbia Samuella Bull, Mohammed Kargbo, as well as to the team at Bo Government Hospital, and the mothers who spoke with us for this documentary.

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• What Happened to Google's Climate Ambitions? | Ep203: Kate Brandt

  Google has one of the most ambitious climate targets in the tech world, but what happens if it falls short of its goals? How does the company balance innovation with environmental responsibility? And can AI really help reduce emissions? This week on Cleaning Up, Bryony Worthington sits down with Kate Brandt, Google's Chief Sustainability Officer, to unpack these critical questions. Brandt offers an insider's view of how one of the world's most influential companies is tackling the climate crisis, from tackling its own emissions to the impact of misinformation on its platform. Brandt has a fascinating background, having spent time in both the Pentagon, and advising President Obama on energy security and sustainability issues. In her current role, she oversees the team working to reduce Google's environmental impact. Google has set itself an ambitious company-wide climate goal of halving their 2019 emissions by 2030 but their latest sustainability report showed that they were off track, as the company has grown and increased their investment in energy-hungry artificial intelligence. As providers of curated information at a global scale, Google has a unique intersection with the climate problem. Primarily, their impact comes from the electricity they buy, but they're also able to guide customers' decisions through the provision of information and through their parent company Alphabet. They've made some pretty bold investments in innovative, disruptive companies, so measuring their impact is arguably more than the sum of their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Nevertheless, missing a clear target can't be very comfortable. Brandt discusses the company’s ambitious yet challenging emissions reduction targets, the transformative potential of AI in environmental solutions, and the innovative clean technologies that might just help us reimagine our energy future. From predicting floods and reducing aircraft emissions, to molten salt batteries and grid optimization technologies, this conversation reveals how Google thinks about innovation and the climate.Leadership Circle:Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live. Go deeper:2024 Environmental Report - Google SustainabilityGoogle XHow AI Can Speed-Up Climate Action | BCGThe Year Energy Woke Up To AI — Audioblog 14: Generative AI – The Power and the GloryMalta Inc.

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