If you're crazy and don't know it...

This week has been one of abundance in energy news. There’s the Paris Motor Show, which gave us valuable insight into the state of the European car industry, there were the latest monthly reports from OPEC and the IEA, with a bonus from the IEA about the upcoming Age of Electricity, and there were also a few choice progress reports on the transition that didn’t know they were progress reports but are such nevertheless.

Let’s talk cars first. If the transition was a disease, which it is, the Paris Motor Show was the image of a febrile industry. We had Renault’s CEO declare “We are here to fight” what the FT cited one commentator as dubbing “an EV winter”, although Renault itself seems to be “fighting” by letting go of the EV pedal and stepping on “Hybrids” instead. We also had two other CEOs make odd remarks suggesting they are either developing cognitive conditions or about to develop some.

Stellantis’ Carlos Tavares was one of these CEOs. Previously vocal about the many shortcomings of the planned EV revolution, Tavares this week suddenly changed the tune. Before, he warned against rushing into EV adoption by mandate. Now, he tells us EV adoption needs to be sped up because prolonging the transition would compromise it.

Before, he said that “What has been decided is to impose on the automotive industry electrification that brings 50% additional costs against a conventional vehicle. There is no way we can transfer 50% of additional costs to the final consumer because most parts of the middle class will not be able to pay.”

But that was back in 2021. Now, Tavares appears to have changed his mind about all that. “Making a transition for [EVs] longer is a big trap,” Tavares said this week. “When you make a longer transition, in fact, you don’t replace the old world by the new one. You add up the new world to the old.”

I personally see absolutely nothing wrong with addition but for Stellantis, which by the way has the stupidest name ever, and that’s in a world that contains a company named Equinor, this addition would mean losses. So would the transition: in order to make EVs sellable, carmakers would need to shoulder the cost of making them cheaper. Or, as Tavares put it just last week, “In a system that cannot absorb more price because the consumer does not want to pay more, we are inserting 40 per cent more cost.” It’s a situation that could easily trigger excessive stress that affects mental health.

Then we have a senior VW executive who seems to have caught an infection from the IEA’s Fatih Birol because he’s contradicting himself in two consecutive sentences. “Customer demand and political regulations are in sync,” Das Auto’s Martin Sander said at the Paris Motor Show. He then followed with “I hope that we’re going to see clear commitments and signals from politicians that the future is electric. And then I’m convinced we also see customer demand picking up.”

It’s either a disease or a talent and I’m no longer sure which it is when you make two mutually exclusive statements in the space of seconds. It could be both.

If we ask DJ Fatih B himself, the future is totally electric. In fact, he this week proclaimed an Age of Electricity that will, apparently, do some very strange things to energy commodity demand and prices.

“In the second half of this decade, the prospect of more ample – or even surplus – supplies of oil and natural gas, depending on how geopolitical tensions evolve, would move us into a very different energy world,” Birol said in a new report released on the heels of its monthly oil market update because the good people of the IEA work hard for their pay.

Then he went on to the strange part. Per Reuters, because I don’t trust myself to do him justice: “Surplus fossil fuel supplies would likely lead to lower prices and could enable countries to dedicate more resources to clean energy, moving the world into an "age of electricity."“

Okay. Right. So. Lower demand for oil and gas will lead to cheaper oil and gas. So far so good. But then cheaper oil and gas would lead to even lower demand for them, stimulating investment in wind and solar. That’s a bit like saying you can switch direction in your digestive tract and have the bottom end eat the food and the top end relieve you of the undigestables, and you know what? I believe that’s exactly what our dear DJ Fatih B has accomplished.

Meanwhile in the state of Denmark, something is rotten again. National treasure Ørsted has quietly shelved a number of green hydrogen projects to focus on its primary business of building wind turbines and operating them. Per reports, the company withdrew from something called “Green Fuels for Denmark” and pulled the plug on a joint green hydrogen project “that planned to demonstrate how offshore wind can be used for green hydrogen production at a site near Copenhagen. “

Apparently, the demonstration did not go well because a company executive said in a statement that the companies involved had “decided not to continue the project since a sub-scale demonstration plant like this no longer has a relevance in the current market.” What a polite way to say wind-to-hydrogen doesn’t make financial sense.

Rot is settling fast in the corridors of UK power, too. After winning an election with the promise of lower energy bills, Labour promptly proceeded to cancel fuel payments for 10 million pensioners (because they’re rich enough to afford their bills, the justification went), raise taxes for oil and gas operators, dedicate tens of billions to transition projects that may or may not work, and raised the ceiling on household electricity prices.

After a busy summer, the Starmer government is now demanding that energy providers share the burden by making electricity cheaper for consumers since the government itself doesn’t know how to do it because it is suffering from a severe form of detachment from reality. The DSM-5 calls it depersonalisation/derealisation disorder and it’s no joke at all — as those 10 million British pensioners can attest.

“Companies are exploring a number of steps, including offering direct financial assistance, debt repayment holidays and energy efficiency measures, according to people familiar with the matter,” the FT tells us and I would bet money that Octopus Energy would be superhappy to pay part of its customers’ bills or forgive parts of their debt. That’s why it’s in this business — to help people. Under certain conditions, probably, such as, I don’t know, demand adjustments to follow supply.

Speaking of helping people, this week I learned something new. Did you know that “Numerous studies have found that [hallucinogenic] substances may be useful in the treatment of mental-health conditions, including anxiety and depression? No? Well, neither did I, so we all learned something new this week.

Hallucinogens are apparently great at making people feel “more connected to nature and [demonstrate] proenvironmental behavior.” They also appear to induce “antiauthoritarian sentiment or prosocial behavior”. There’s an awkward part, however, because “some Neo-Nazi figures have admitted to the substances inspiring them.” I hear a “What the hell?” from the back seats, so let me explain.

The above quotes come from a report on something called PsychedelicNewsWire that covers something called Psychedelic Climate Week, during which many events and panels were held, one of them “focusing on how psychedelic experiences could spark shifts in consciousness and help inspire behaviors that were more climate friendly.” Events included “a rag wrestling collective, several climate-themed discussions, meditation and dancing.”

According to the founder of something called Psychedelics for Climate Action, “the use of these drugs under the right circumstances could promote mindfulness and relieve stress.” Not only that, but they could also help executives “think outside the box, especially on climate and social issues.” Did anyone said “Soma”? Because I certainly thought it. “A gramme in time saves nine.”

It is always a profound experience to see fiction turn into reality. What I would like to know is why it is always the crushing dystopias and not the zombie apocalypse fiction that turns into reality.

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude,” Huxley wrote in his seminal work. I don’t know about you, but I’d take Max Brooks’ zombies over this any day.

Clap your hands.