Spark Club Podcast Podcast Por Grant McDowell arte de portada

Spark Club Podcast

Spark Club Podcast

De: Grant McDowell
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Spark Club brings entrepreneurs in the energy field together with a common objective, to build energy businesses. We draw on each others experience to support, learn and grow energy businesses. The podcasts are hosted by Grant McDowell and are recordings of our Fireside chat with leaders in the energy transition.Grant McDowell Economía
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  • Australia missing out on China's $120b global investment blitz - Tim Buckley Ep66

    Australia missing out on China's $120b global investment blitz - Tim Buckley Ep66
    Mar 23 2026
    Grant McDowell is in London and Tim Buckley is in Sydney recording the Spark Club Podcast on the 23rd March 2026 Highlights – Draft AER Default Market Offer Brilliant to see the Australian Energy Regulator has today flagged draft default market offer (DMO) electricity pricing down ⬇️ 1% to ⏬ 10% for residential consumers, and between ⬇️ 8% to ⏬ 21% for small business consumers The DMO sets an efficiently priced safety-net for households and small businesses on standing offer electricity plans and acts as a reference price to help consumers compare market offers. This is the draft ruling, with the final ruling released May 2026 for effect for the 12 months starting 1 July 2026. This is consistent with Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO)'s quarterly energy dynamics highlighting Australia hit a record high 51% RenewableEnergy share in the 4QCY2025, and wholesale electricity prices fell by >40% yoy as a result. Highlights – PRRT reform - Petroleum Resource Rent Tax - Dodge The ACTU this week is calling for a flat 25% tax on Australian LNG to replace the entirely failing PRRT, to capture the wind fall war-profits being generated, and to then use the massive tax revenues of up to $40bn to fund energy poverty relief across Australia. Highlights – CATL CY2025 results highlight their global leadership and scale Nothing short of staggering to watch the rise and rise of China's CATL to supremacy in battery manufacturing. Their speed & scale of technology innovation is amazing to see. 🔋 a ⏫ 42% yoy jump in net profit to Rmb72.2bn (US$10.4bn) before one-off items, on sales ⏫ 17% yoy to Rmb424bn. 🔋 a ⏫ 39% yoy lift in sales volume of lithium-ion batteries to 661GWh 🔋 CATL has a massive home market advantage. China is the world's largest EV & BESS market. China's EV industry continued to grow sales nearly 30% yoy to >16 million units. 🔋 CATL sold 541GWh of power batteries, ⏫ 41.9% yoy, propelling the company to a new all-time high in global market share. 🔋 CATL employs >23,000 R&D personnel, investing Rmb22bn in CY2025, +19% yoy (5.2% of sales). CATL stands as the sole battery industry firm selected for the "Top 100 Global Innovators." Total number of domestic & foreign patents owned and applied for by CATL reached 54,538. Lowlights The AFR is running a Minerals Council of Australia line that the Albanese government will ignore their super majority and leave the $11bn annual subsidy for high emissions super expensive imported diesel fuels in place. Claiming now is not the time. Tim disagrees. We need to learn from the current crisis and put in place Main Story – NEW CEF REPORT: CHINA'S $120bn INVESTMENT BLITZ INTO GLOBAL CRITICAL MINERALS LEAVES AUSTRALIA EXPOSED Climate Energy Finance report warns Australia's dig-and-ship economy faces a clear and present threat as China systematically diversifies away from Australian supply across lithium, iron ore and critical minerals New report released 19th March – Raw Power: China locks-in global dominance of critical minerals and metals with $120bn outbound investment surge – finds that China's accelerating outbound resource investment program is reducing China's supply chain risks and locking-in its global dominance of key materials as it diversifies away from its dependence on Australian exports. This presents a clear and present economic risk to Australia, particularly as we have yet to find a structure to allow our world leading mining sector to move meaningfully beyond "dig-and-ship". CEF's report finds that: Australia holds world-significant reserves of the critical minerals and strategic metals that underpin the zero-emissions economy – bauxite, copper, nickel, rare earths – and is the world's #1 exporter of both lithium and iron ore, with China the overwhelmingly dominant destination for both. Yet Australia fails to process onshore, as a result ranking 105th of 145 countries on Harvard's Atlas of Economic Complexity, behind Botswana and Côte d'Ivoire, with manufacturing accounting for just 6% of GDP.CEF has tracked China investing more than US$120bn around the globe into mining and upstream processing since 2023 – building lithium supply chains across Africa and South America, anchoring the US$23 billion Simandou iron ore project in Guinea, and increasingly developing in-country processing capacity across partner nations. This is starkly illustrated by Simandou, which delivered its first shipment to China in January. Once fully ramped up by 2029, it will make Guinea the world's third largest iron ore exporter, producing high grade ore suitable for green steel. It is the centrepiece of China's explicit strategy to reduce its 80% reliance on Australian and Brazilian iron ore supply, directly threatening Australia's long dominance.In lithium mining, China's own domestic production now outstrips Australia's, where as recently as 2023 Australia had a 50% global market share. The absence of new Chinese ...
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    46 m
  • Local Content Push - 20% for wind towers in Australia - Tim Buckley - Ep65

    Local Content Push - 20% for wind towers in Australia - Tim Buckley - Ep65
    Feb 22 2026
    Grant McDowell & Tim Buckley– Spark Club Podcast 19 Feb 2026 - Hi and welcome to Spark Club podcast. I'm your host Grant McDowell. We are recording this podcast on the Garigal lands of the Eora nation and pay our respects to elders past and present. Welcome. And welcome Tim Buckley. Highlights Domestic firmed RE deployment The Clean Energy Council's 4Q2025 Investment Report demonstrates a rebound in large-scale renewable energy and storage investment across Australia. The quarter delivered record commissioning outcomes across generation and batteries, strong financial close activity. Five renewable generation projects (1.2 GW) and 5 storage projects (1.1 GW) reached FID during 4Q2025, with total capex >$4 billion across generation, storage and hybrid assets. newly commissioned renewable and storage projects. Nine generation projects were completed totalling 2.1GW of new. 4 storage projects (1.9 GW / 4.9 GWh) became operational, beating records broken in Q3 2025, reinforcing Australia's accelerating energy transition. The forward pipeline remains robust. There are currently 81 generation projects (13GW) and 75 storage projects (13 GW / 35GWh) either financially committed or under construction. This month started with NSW awarding contracts to six huge 8-hour battery projects, including one of the biggest in Australia – the 300MW and 3,500 megawatt hour Great Western BESS, All are due to be completed by 2030, and some are supersized above eight hours of storage. 1.2 GW and 12 GWh of long duration storage, massively further undermining the role of methane and PHS. This week also saw NSW announce an extra tender for more firmed renewables capacity to fill looming coal gap under Long-Term Energy Service Agreements (LTESAs) to leverage the fast to deploy BESS and solar leveraging infill opportunities across NSW and importantly, leverage the Battery boom to get more zero emissions generation into the mix. CBAM KEY TO GREEN COMMODITY OPPORTUNITY: JOTZO REVIEW Professor Frank Jotzo's Carbon Leakage Review Report to Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen is finally public. https://www.dcceew.gov.au/about/news/carbon-leakage-review-final-report We agree with the review's finding that measures additional to the Safeguard Mechanism "may be required and desirable over time, for specific commodities at high exposure to carbon leakage risk in domestic markets…. A border carbon adjustment would be the most suitable option in these cases… [to] support the emergence of green commodity production in Australia, harnessing this country's opportunities to be a major contributor to global industrial decarbonisation through exports." It is clear that we need a price signal to drive decarbonisation of trade-exposed Australian industries through the extensive buildout of renewables infrastructure at speed and scale. Critical to all of the above is a price on carbon, leveraging and enhancing our domestic actions so as to provide a stronger signal for development of carbon pricing in international trade, and building on the price signal of the EU CBAM with an Asian CBAM, as we argued in our 2025 report. This would help catalyse investment into industrial decarbonisation at a speed and scale commensurate with the climate emergency and the green economy opportunity. GM - I'd like to pick up on minor issue relating to the design of the REGO in Australia replacing the LGC. The calculation mechanism for the Australian REGO is out of sync with the global standard. The REGO certificate is limited to the 1MWh per certificate rather than down to the watt hour per trading period. Sounds trivial but the REGO has a fundamental flaw as it requires the excess to be rolled over into the next trading period. This volume won't be accepted in the EU, meaning there will be small amounts of energy volume which can't be counted for every half hour trading period for the year. This flaw creates numerous problems as a global energy matching standard emerges in a number of forms; CBAMs in EU and AsiaGreen product standards - green hyrdogen green steel.and likely changes to GHGP Scope 2 in 2027. This minor flaw is annoying and with a minor change to the REGO now we can save Australian exporters a world of pain for years to come. Middle Powers Highlight As the Middle Powers are a big topic for us this year, was there anything that jumped out to you since our last conversation? EV Buses in India Tim - KKR investment in electric buses in India. EV busses in India are now 30% lower total cost of ownership relative to diesel alternatives. The 30% cost advantage was enough to get KR over the line to put capital into rolling out EV buses in India. Australia risks being wedged. Australia must be open to international trade with all nations and avoid being wedged between China and the US. Lowlights Whyalla The SA Government has shelved their green hydrogen plans last year, and now the SA Treasurer has overtly flagged their ...
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    33 m
  • Setting the Stage for 2026 - Tim Buckley Ep64

    Setting the Stage for 2026 - Tim Buckley Ep64
    Feb 3 2026

    Quick 2025 retrospective

    We see the Climate Energy Finance's role as to provide a narrative difference to the mainstream media, and to try to leverage global / non-US developments to better inform Australia's understanding of the energy system transformation, the threats and opportunities for Australia.

    Our three main pillars of conversation in 2025 were;

    China
    BESS - Batteries were likely to surprise, and they certainly did, even CEF's most bullish expectations.
    Australia's opportunity to go faster with some wins and many frustrations.
    And
    Carbon peaked emissions in 2024, flat to down in 2025 – despite 5% GDP growth.

    Big themes 2026 – From Grant McDowell

    • In 2025 we discussed the rise and rise of China. In 2026 I think we'll see the rise and rise of the middle powers.
      • New world disorder is opening up opportunities for China to collaborate with the middle powers, and beyond. China has learned from the mistakes of the Belt Road Initiative and seeking to collaborate.
      • China's EVs are displacing over one million barrels of oil demand a day. The middle powers are moving from molecules to electrons for clean electricity and transport.
      • Middle powers are tired of being lumbered with decades long expensive fossil generators are now leaning into many small and cheap. See Ethiopia's ban on petrol and diesel vehicle imports.
    • Carbon trajectory – EU CBAM helps set a new market for world trade and carbon polluting countries. So once again we'll be following the work of Ember and Lauri Myllyirta.
    • And our conversations will naturally include Australia. I'll be watching our energy transformation closely as we face a chicken and egg problem. As coal generation is extended investors are reluctant to back utility scale wind and solar projects. Which then allows the coal generation to extend. Utility scale batteries will play a role, however wind generation is key and every effort should be made to deploy, deploy, deploy.

    Lets review each of those in turn. - Tim Buckley

    1. China's "Small and beautiful", a positive reframing of the BRI to a more win-win-win approach.
      1. Mark Carney's middle powers speech, the India-UK FTA, and countries across Africa et al embracing electrification and energy independence,
      2. Small and beautiful, a reframing of the BRI to a more win-win-win approach.
      3. CEF has tracked >US%210bn of OFDI in cleantech since 2023.
      4. CEF has another major report pending on this, looking at China going global in resources and resource-value-adding over the last 3 years.
    2. Carbon trajectory - 100% agree.
      1. China will spend the next 2 years expanding their national ETS by 50% to cover major industrial sectors, and then when ready, they'll starting talking about international alignment with the EU CBAM. Meanwhile, they will get ready.
      2. Japan's GX-ETS strategy includes carbon pricing being launched from April 2026, covering 60% of national emissions, a floor and ceiling price out to 2035, by 2030 A$18=46/t, then doubling again by 2035.
    3. Australia electricity generation problems - True
      1. The CIS has to move from a lot of large scale announcements through to delivering projects into FID and construction, at speed and scale. Jury still out.
      2. AEMO 4QCY2025 Scorecard confirms this – strong growth in the pipeline across Australia, but not enough generation getting through FID.
      3. We are making progress. Great to see this week AEMO QED 4QCY2025 talk about RE being >50% for 4QCY2025 and the result was a near halving of electricity prices.
      4. And a lot of the media framing of the heatwaves of the last few weeks in South East Australia was how CER and solar is increasing grid resilience and providing power when most needed. A very positive reframing.

    Other CEF priorities in 2026:

    1. Fuel Tax Credits
      1. Re FTC - In December 2025, Battery-electric heavy duty trucks crossed 50% of new sales in China. That is profound for accelerating the electrification of everything story (think passenger EV adoption, energy independence, a $50bn pa onshoring on energy supply into Australia) and for CEF's work in diesel fuel rebate reform, give we need to embrace this, rather than keep providing an $11bn imported diesel fuel subsidy headwind to decarbonisation of mining and trucking.
    2. Safeguard mechanism review
    3. Green metal exports
    4. Government capital deployment still too slow

    And it wouldn't be a talk with CEF without talking about China, again and again!
    The new installs out for December 2025 this week are mind-blowing, again.
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    45 m
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