Energy in Conversation Season 2 continues with ‘the silent tsunami’

This season on the EI’s podcast, it’s all about the future. Every episode discusses a different perspective on the possible future of the industry, and how energy will change between now and 2050.

In low-carbon technologies like carbon capture and storage, in established but evolving sectors like the electricity grid, or in enabling fields like finance, each episode explores an area of energy from a unique vantage point – that of Generation 2050: today’s young energy professionals, 2050’s energy leaders.

The Generation 2050 ‘takeover’ of the podcast means that in addition to exploring some of the newest advances in different areas of energy, each episode features early career professionals discussing their energy journeys and what they hope the world will look like in 2050.

And they do not shy away from today’s most difficult energy issues. On our most recent episode, they discuss an energy challenge that is often overlooked but is crucial for many climate and development goals: clean cooking.

It is a climate problem, it is a gender problem, it is a health problem

For 2.8 billion people around the world, clean energy means something quite separate from simply ending our use of oil and gas. On the most recent episode of Energy in Conversation, we hear from professionals working across Africa and south-east Asia to clean up cooking. Former Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), Dr Kandeh Yumkella, is joined by Rebecca Wentworth of BURN Manufacturing, and Amey Bansod of iDE Innovation Lab, to discuss the ‘silent tsunami’ of dirty cooking fuels. For the people they work with, many of whom depend on open fires or inefficient stoves and fuels to cook their food, this issue has immediate as well as lasting environmental and health impacts.

4 million annual deaths is quite a staggering number… far too many people’s lives are impacted just because of the lack of cleaner alternatives

This often overlooked aspect of access to energy is central to achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 7: providing access to affordable, reliable, sustainable modern energy services for all. It also touches many other UN SDGs, such as good health, gender equality, protecting life on land, and of course climate action – listen in for a globe-spanning look at this important issue.

Energy in Conversation is available on all major podcast streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music and Castbox.

You can also listen directly on YouTube or the EI website. And if you like what you hear, please spread the word! www.energy-inst.org/podcast