Episodes

Is the key to clean energy the heat beneath our feet? Could advances in the fossil-fuel extraction industry hold the key to providing 24/7 clean power? And can a Texan CEO and former oil exec bring geothermal to the masses? T...

What will it take for electric vehicles to truly dominate the transportation landscape? Can traditional automakers adapt quickly enough to the EV revolution, or will new players seize the opportunity? And how close are we to ...

As climate impacts mount, pressure is building on policymakers to find ways to alleviate the crisis. One controversial option being explored is geoengineering - direct human interventions to cool the planet. But can we safely...

Germany is one of the most bullish countries in the world on clean/green hydrogen. The home of the Energiewende is not just one of the most committed countries in the world to reaching net zero, it is of course a highly indus...

How does a startup become the largest provider of electricity in the UK in less than a decade? What is locational pricing and how could it encourage more renewables? And is it possible to achieve a zero-carbon electricity sys...

In the final episode of Season 12, hosts Michael Liebreich and Bryony Worthington reflect on the key conversations and developments in the net-zero transition over the past three months.

The solar industry has experienced a meteoric rise over the past two decades, growing from a small cottage industry to one of the leading technologies in the energy transition. It’s not been a smooth ride, and there’ve been p...

Who are the merchants of doubt and how can their narrative be countered? How much money does it cost to get someone to take action on climate change? This week on Cleaning Up, Bryony Worthington is joined by John Marshall, th...

This week on Cleaning Up, Michael Liebreich sits down with mechanical engineer and YouTube creator Dr Rosemary "Rosie" Barnes to discuss the critical role of engineering in addressing climate change. Rosie shares insights fro...

Electric vehicles are finally becoming more mainstream, but this hasn’t stopped a flood of negative stories and political attempts to scare people away from making the switch to better, more cost efficient vehicles. So is the...

With the UK general election tomorrow, the Cleaning Up team sits down with Dr Simon Evans of Carbon Brief to run through each party's manifesto, and what they say about UK climate and energy policy. With Labour widely predict...

As the world transitions away from fossil fuels, one of the biggest challenges is decarbonizing industrial processes that require consistent, reliable sources of energy to produce high-temperatures. Typically these processes ...

Depending on who you ask, methane is either a useful transition fuel to a low-carbon future, or a super polluter. The science of methane says that for natural gas to have a lower climate footprint than other fossil fuels, par...

Has science cracked the code on mass producing realistic meat substitutes? Or are lab-gown alternative proteins an impossible dream? In this week's episode of Cleaning Up, Baroness Bryony Worthington sits down with president of the Good Food Institute, Bruce Friedrich, to explore the future of food…

As everyone knows, battery prices are plummeting and manufacturing volumes are soaring, whether for EVs or for grid-connected storage. And everyone knows there's a problem: only 5% of lithium-ion batteries are recycled. The rest go to landfill, right? Wrong. This week's guest on Cleaning Up is the …

Last week the leading lights of Europe's electricity industry gathered for the annual Eurelectric Power Summit at the Lagonissi Beach Resort just outside Athens. The conference - under the hashtag this year of #lights on - lasted two days and covered the key issues facing Europe's and the world's p…

China's policies that direct capital towards cleaner industries have been game changing, and this week we're continuing the China theme, sharing two conversations Bryony had earlier this month at a conference at Xiamen University in Fujian Province. China's role in the clean energy transition could…

In this week's episode of Cleaning Up, we find how much and how much more governments would have to spend for hydrogen to live up to its hype. This audio blog is adapted from a piece Michael wrote at the end of last year for BloombergNEF, entitled "Clean Hydrogen's Missing Trillions", which estimat…

Up this week is Simon Holmes à Court, the Australian investor and philanthropist with a passion for using data to change the world. In 2022, the federal elections in Australia delivered an upset, as around a third of the electorate turned their back on the established parties and voted in seven…

How can we build a more united climate movement? What should be the role of geoengineering? And how can indigenous voices be brought into the climate conversation? Bryony puts these questions to model, actor, director, ambassador and businesswoman, Lily Cole.

Welcome to Season 12 of Cleaning Up! If you want a sense of the trajectory of climate action, you have to understand China, and you have to understand finance. There is no one better to share insights on both than Dr Ma Jun, Founder and President of the Institute of Finance and Sustainability in Be…

Bryony and Michael round up the eleventh season of Cleaning Up this week. They explore the themes running through the episodes, from theories of change to innovation, and discuss the things that surprised them, the moments they liked (or didn't) and reasons for optimism for the transition.

Michael chats with Saul Griffith, Australian-born engineer, inventor, advisor, author and 2007 MacArthur "Genius". He specialises in clean and renewable energy technologies, and has founded a dozen technology companies across 20 years in Silicon Valley, as well as authoring 3 books, including `Elec…

Bryony speaks to two fascinating guests, both specialising in methane emissions, their causes and impacts: Dr. Sebastien Biraud and Sharon Wilson. Dr. Biraud is a biogeochemist, leading the Climate Sciences Department. Sebastien's work has taken him to the tropical rainforests of the Amazon, the…