7. Transport, Technology & Transition: The Future of Clean Mobility with Sara Sloman

Not electric or hydrogen. Electric and hydrogen. Building a transport system fit for every journey.

Transport is one of the biggest challenges on the road to net zero. While electric vehicles dominate headlines, there are many sectors where batteries alone may not provide the answer. In this episode, Sara Sloman discusses how hydrogen can complement electrification, the importance of customer experience, infrastructure, policy and innovation, and why the clean transport transition will require a portfolio of solutions rather than a single winner.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

People talk like it's electricity versus hydrogen. But is that the wrong question? As transport isn't a one-size fits-all. Are there places electricity simply won't do the job? Does hydrogen have a role? Can it be scaled fast enough to be in the mix? I'm here to ask honest questions without the jargon. If hydrogen is part of our clean energy future, we should all understand how and why. I'm joined by Sarah Sloman, Chief Strategy Officer for Paythrough, for putting drivers first with a charter of smoother EV charging payments. Sarah has had 20 years of experience in the sustainable transport sector with a particular passion for clean energy and zero admission mobility. Welcome, Sarah, and thank you for coming in and joining me today for a chat. My absolute pleasure. I didn't realise we had so much history. Yes, absolutely. So tell me a little bit about how you ended up in sustainable transport and what your passion is for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Passion just stems from when I was really young, realizing that transport really genuinely touches everyone's lives. And as a career path, I just thought, how do I get involved in this? How can I build sustainable transport networks? How can I transform my education into a real meaningful job? And it really started for me in local authorities, and I climbed the ladder up to where I am now, C-suite, at a global payments company, making that EV payment bit easier. But why I was so intrigued about your podcast and so happy to come on is you're offering that balanced view, hydrogen, EV, what else in between?

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Is it electricity versus hydrogen? Should it be just all electric or should it be does hydrogen actually play anything in this?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

I have to say it's about balance for me. It is a frustration of mine, in life in general, really, that it has to be so black and white. This is a blend. We're after net zero. The clue is in the name, net. There's gonna be lots of things in that net. Net zero. And for me, the main argument is about clean air, and the fastest way to get there is to help people out of passenger cars and into electric cars. Then you move through to the vans, and of course, we're seeing a rise in EHTV as well, electric heavy goods. Now, that in itself has received so much attention and so much funding, and so has hydrogen. Now, they're very different beasts in a way. One is a completely separate drive chain, one is very similar to our old refueling days. So I think that's something that people have to think about is their own use case, their own budgets, their own availability for depot or yard recharging, their own availability of electricity and grant funding. And you've only got to go to amazing shows like the Road Transport Expo that happens every year, sometimes in Scotland, sometimes in England. And they are there to present the future of what heavy haulage looks like. And the the majority there now are electric, with of course diesel and other alternative fuels. And we are working closely with Iveco. Iveco have backed electric for a long time. They're also cognizant of the fact that people want CNG. So no, it's not hydrogen V electricity. But you can't deny electric seems to be winning in the UK at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah, absolutely. Although I'm quite aware of a number of hydrogen projects that are going on. Uh there's High Hall are putting in uh refueling stations for hydrogen for HGV, which will be running 300 trucks, I believe, uh, along that M4 corridor. Um so that will be an interesting one to see. Um is it just that hydrogen's perhaps a little later and and we don't have the supply, or what what makes it electric is it seems to be winning that battle?

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Yeah, I get your point. I don't think it's that way round. If anything, if I remember back to going to Sen X, which is the big exhibition down at Milton Keynes, Proving Ground, hydrogen was really a hot topic then, more so than EV actually. But because those hydrogen fueling stations are uh, well, very difficult to put in, as is electric charging hubs, actually, there's always a logistical time frame associated with any large hub. But what struck me about hydrogen, and I watched a demonstration about how if you could just put one major hydrogen refueling station in a very strategic location, that can power hundreds and hundreds of miles worth of hydrogen trucks. Whereas we know you do need more regular fueling stations for EV trucks. However, one of them has been backed heavily by funding and the other one not so much. So I have watched that with deep interest. So what is the government backing and to what volume and what are the hauliers saying and what's the experience like, and what's the total cost ownership of these vehicles, and what do the drivers think? And I I learned even just today on our EV Cafe webinar this lunchtime that um a hydrogen truck still has very similar parts to it that have a 10-year lifespan, whereas we're seeing longer lifespans on the electric truck. So again, it's the maintenance and the the rideability, the drivability, the high-tech nature of it, the volatility of it, the resale value of it, and more than that, just the popularity of it.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Yeah, but so um, you know, it may it may come win through. Who knows? There's so many different options. Um, what about other transport though? Um there's planes, there's boats, there's uh train. What you know, it's planes, trains, and all sorts of things. Yeah, there's a movie in there somewhere, you're quite right.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

But that is the absolute key here, I think. It's the transport hierarchy, it's everything. I think there was a time where friends and family thought that their next sort of family car was going to have to be hydrogen. Um, but actually there's very few models of those available, whereas we've got nearing thousands of electric vehicle models available. So if you can't walk or cycle or get public transport, then of course you're going to drive. And I always ask, please make sure that's electric. Now, the vans, there are hundreds of models of electric vans available and not so many of hydrogen, a handful in comparison. And the same is true of the trucks as well. But it's a really interesting question because I'm just using a UK lens there. If we were to go to the rest of the world, they wouldn't be graced with the same electricity systems as us, the same fiscal stimulus as us, the same governance of us, and also our incentives that have really pushed electricity forward. So I have every sympathy for it. It's about your use case. What are you using it for? And which country are you from and what fits?

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Yeah, absolutely. Um, and we know I was just talking earlier about um mobile technology and the fact that uh, you know, in Thailand they it was really hard to get a telephone, a landline. Um, but of course, uh along came mobile and it just opened up their world. Um, you know, you could have farmers up in the north of Thailand who were able to use that. And it's kind of the same where, you know, perhaps it works well in one place, but it works much better to have something else in another country. So yeah, I totally agree. Um so do you think that uh there are cases where hydrogen would make sense in the transport sector?

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Of course. And with you know, the trials that you speak of and that you've seen and that we know are happening here in the UK alone are proving that if that is the chosen methodology, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And scientists do back hydrogen as an excellent option. We've seen some fantastic case studies in Scotland with buses, and I'm pretty sure there was a passenger ferry that was using green hydrogen. And for people that don't understand what that is, it's different types of hydrogen. The one that gets the good press is the green hydrogen. So it's it's made, let's call it made, from renewable energy in the first place. And somewhere like Scotland often has an abundance of renewable energy. So instead of wasting it, use it to make green fuel like green hydrogen. But that is kind of crazy at the same time, because if that were to be used instead to be through the transmission network put into batteries for storage, and that would help a fleet transition as well. So it's horses for courses, but I've seen great studies with ferries, with trucks, with buses, and so hydrogen is already playing a major part. The funny thing about heavy haulage is that it's one of the lowest mileage on the transport hierarchy and yet the biggest emitter of pollution. And of course, the lifeblood of our country, our continent, our globe. So anything we can do to decarbonize heavy transport, I'm all for.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yeah, I mean I've seen um buses uh running on hydrogen down in Swansea, um, and also there's a fleet of taxis down there that are running rising uh running on hydrogen.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yes, I have another Welsh example for you. We did uh the EV Rally of Wales was so proud to host that incredible week where we invite fleets and people and dignitaries to come and just see if EV is for them. And we invited a hydrogen company to come along too, and they were absolutely killing it because whilst we were often about finding our refueling with EV, they had already pre-planned all of their journeys to go to hydrogen depots and were proving that their range far outlasted ours up on the the ups and the downs and the hills. Our EVs didn't have any problems with the ups and the downs. It's such an old-fashioned myth that EVs can't cope on hills. But we have seen that the hydrogen did perform well because they had a network, and I think that is the crux of the matter. If you know you've got a depot that has hydrogen and you know you're going to another depot that has hydrogen, there are not many hydrogen refueling stations apart from depots. So let's think about community. Can we see brands joining together to sell one's hydrogen to another company without the brand wars that goes on behind the scenes? If they need the fuel and they're willing to pay and you've already got a depot that has it, will they start to share fuel?

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yeah, well, maybe, you know, then that could be the could be the future. And of course, um, you know, uh some people ask me why would you even create hydrogen um when you've got renewable electricity? So um but that's of course around storage and the fact that you once you produce the hydrogen, it's still there. Electricity, it dissipates off the network. So it's not um as efficient in terms of storage. So there there must be cases where that would make sense uh as opposed to perhaps electricity.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Yes, there's a fantastic diagram you're gonna look up by their national grid. And part of their sort of DSO framework is that they're open about how much energy losses there are. And the common misconception is that we can't generate enough power for all the EVs. Well, it's simply not the case. We're often generating far too much power in this country. It's our transmission network that means you can't get the renewable energy to where it needs to go, i.e., my battery. So it's not so much that it loses power as it travels around, it's that we can't get it to where it needs to be. When of course hydrogen is different, it's half-life is different. It doesn't lose itself whilst it's stored on site. It's also very dangerous to store. Of course, if there's any issues like a fire, well, EV fires are a big debate, but I wouldn't like to see a hydrogen fuel side fire either.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

No, that's an interesting one. I'm uh coming from um, you know, talking to people who are in the hydrogen sector, um, it's always the question that comes up is that safety? We're humans, we're scared of everything. I'm glad to see safety as a concern. Absolutely. And and and as it should be. But you know, uh petrol is combustible. Um Thank you. You know, we've seen electric cars having issues with um battery technology, uh, you know, lithium batteries particular, a lot of problems with fire. So, you know, uh does that really make sense when we talked about hydrogen?

SPEAKER_01 11:27

No, it doesn't. And again, I always urge people to look for data, not newspaper headlines on this. And again, there's been some really amazing independent reports released about the number of EV fires versus combustion engine fires. And the one that gets everyone is when there's a truck with EVs on the back and the thing's on fire, but it's not even AI adapted, and you can see that it's the front of the truck that is on fire, that is the diesel component part of the photo. So it's it's just a bad rap game. And I know hydrogen gets a bad name, it always, always does. And it cruelly, we play a game called Hydrogen Bingo. So even if you're doing an EV-related thing, it's how long will it be till someone says EV's rubbish and hydrogen is the future? And that's why I was so drawn to your show, is because I knew it wasn't about one or the other. It's about the merits of both.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Absolutely. And it's about understanding where that fits. And that's what we want to do here is try and cut through some of the some of the myths and the uh jargon. Yeah, the jargon that's out there and you know, all the hype that we see, and understand where where we really should be looking at these different alternative fuels and when they make sense. What are the limitations for electricity in transport? Is there anything that's still um stopping it from going further?

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Again, it needs to be broken down a bit. With the electric passenger cars, we're seeing just infinite performance. They just go up and up and up, so does their popularity. And I do love the fact that there's now green strips shown on the licence plates because the vehicle themselves just looks like any other car, but with the green strip you can quickly identify how many of them are actually electric under the hood. With the other stuff, like we mentioned buses, it's good that they put it on the side. You know, First Bus is a really proud electric bus user and hydrogen user, and they put it on the back and front and side so we can see that. And those visual cues are everything. Now, limitation-wise, I think it's about innovation. You and I are both in an innovative background and our brains work differently. We see opportunity in problems, whereas a pessimist would of course see problems in opportunity. So I love to look to different countries and see how they're handling. I love seeing the thoughts crossing people's minds. Well, this city used to have trams. Is there anything we can do to sort of remove that and instead put in a cutenery system for buses instead? Or bring trams back, which we've seen. Bristol's always deemed itself as a tram-worthy city, but there's again limitations with every idea. But in terms of electric adoption, I've been so blown away. It's been exponential. And we put our first charger into Bristol in 2010. It's a very, very long time ago. And the project has just evolved since then. Even here in Bath today, there's plenty more choice than there was back then. Um, and that's all due to the popularity of it. Once you build things, people use things and then they tell their neighbours about things. And then before you know it, they're speaking to the MD of a company who thought, well, maybe that's what I need to be doing. And before you know it, it's on the ESG agenda. The social governance is a part of it, the environmental is everything. And CFOs are talking about this. The chief financial officers of any organization now understand that going EV is a better way than sticking with diesel or petrol. And that's not just about the ownership model of the vehicle, that's about the lifespan of that company being appealing to other companies because they've nailed their colours to the mast about their environmental credentials. That wins tenders, that gets repeat business, that gets headlines.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Yeah, absolutely. I was talking uh uh on one of my other um podcasts to the lady from Kerfilly Council who was looking at that. And, you know, she her point was it's very much about what makes sense for the people that live in that area. Um, and so uh what's your thought about where we should uh where people, you know, who are on the ground who don't understand all this technology that we're talking about, where should they be looking and what should they be pinning them their um badge to? Or is it something where they should be looking at lots of different um alternatives uh around the energy source and energy security as well.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Energy security is really interesting. I I've long since been involved in projects um where you utilize the electric vehicle itself as an almost mobile home battery. So whilst you can drive around it in a normal passenger car, you can benefit from its sort of power takeoff capabilities to power your home whilst the grid is expensive and busy. You can alleviate that pressure by using your own power and then be rewarded by very cheap renewable energy going back into your battery overnight whilst you sleep. That's good. That's brilliant. That works really well in depots, in yards, on driveways. But if you're somebody in the population who lives in a flat or doesn't have access to a driveway, you're more limited to your energy security needs there. Now, consumers are fickle beasts. You know, we're very drawn. Billions are spent on vehicle design every single year to make sure that the next car that people buy, lease, or own is one they love, is one they like the look of, the one they'll be proud of, the one that outperforms their best mate's car. These are all triggers for people. Is it the safest car? Is it the quietest car? Is it the one with the best environmental credentials? What's the crash-safe score on this thing? You know, those are the decisions that we need to tap into to help people feel they can go hydrogen or electric, but as long as it's not diesel or petrol.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Yeah, absolutely. We want to we want to move away from those. Um, and so have you got any thoughts around the other transport sectors like marine? What's your thoughts around marine? Because I'm always intrigued by this. I mean, we've got all these cruise ships flying around, we've got flying cruise ships. Yeah, I want to see. Well, okay, maybe sailing around. No teas, yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Yes, we're in the West Country here. We've got Avonmouth docks. It's one of the biggest import-export docks in Europe. And it's fascinating to see if you go over the Avonmouth Bridge at night and how many lights are on there, you realise it's the ships are one thing, but the dry side operations are quite something else. And I'm really proud of the Bristol Port Authority and their forward views on how to reduce that. It's the same with airports. Whilst you won't see necessarily today an electric or hydrogen, probably cruise ship anytime soon. You will see electric vehicles buzzing around the ports. You will see battery storage to power the lighting, you will see messages everywhere about their net zero goals and uh wind turbines on site to sort of offset that impact that they know they're having. So dry side operation is where it starts. They're huge energy consumers. They often have their own huge, like grid-worthy stations built into their facilities because they have to have that energy security of their own. So they're they're doing the right thing. If you if you land on a plane at Bristol Airport, the first thing you see is we are committed to net zero. The bus you get on is electric. There are chargers on site which you get to see your bus being plugged into, and it just puts that message across to the consumer that we're doing it, and so should you.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Yeah, absolutely. And I know down in um Exeter they're doing trials with um hydrogen vehicles for um landside, which is uh is exciting.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

I heard that near to Exeter there is also a movement for very small at this stage, but nonetheless, electric passenger planes. Have you heard about this?

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Oh, no.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Little type of plane called the Pipestrel, which is sponsored by Octopus Energy, and it's owned by Aerovolt. So Aerovolt are putting in, again, landside charging for aircraft and vehicles. So that particularly sort of starting with those shorter flights, you know, and thinking to Scotland or to Geneva or to somewhere that's a short haul, those can be done by pure electricity.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

So would we see an electric plane going to Australia, do you think?

SPEAKER_01 19:05

In time, potentially. Um but without the study, I couldn't tell you. I know they are looking to sort of at the moment it's kind of 90-minute flights, but anything more than that, I don't think we've cracked it yet. There's another one in Kemble in the Cotsworlds called Vertical Aerospace. Looks like a giant drone, but I'm not sure what classification of vehicle it is. But they're getting bigger and bigger every year.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

So I wouldn't like to put it past the that that's that's weird because I had this vision the other day about um drones that were actually um carrying people. So a a people ver uh drone. That is what it looks like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And I was thinking, well, that's got to be possible, but what is it? Well, what's a user case for that? You know? Well, I wouldn't mind cutting the congestion in my drone. We've seen lots of map vehicles over the years, you know, innovations in our blood. Um, and we have seen loads of weird and wonderful single passenger type um uh crafts, but the whole drone is you know really taking off. So maybe we we can see you know that short commute with your with your drone.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Maybe. And I think about thinking about the transport hierarchy again. Let's just get as many vehicles off the road as we possibly can. You know, we live in a post-COVID society where most interactions and meetings are done digitally. That's a massive improvement.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

We're looking at flexible working so it's not all the cars on the road at the same time, like it used to be at the start of my career. I actually ride a full electric motorbike. I got my licence quite some years ago now because I wanted to continue to ride motorbikes, but I didn't want to have to ride a petrol one because that's all there is available. And I just love that because it reduces congestion, it gives me a focus, and it's pretty special to know that you know I haven't polluted anywhere. And just to go there, the data on that, of my own riding, it's about one to two pence per mile. Now, my diesel car was about twenty pence per mile, and my electric car is somewhere between 15 and 20 because I don't have a home charger. So the cheapest option by far is two wheels.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Oh, excellent. Yeah, I'm I'm not a big fan of two wheels, I must say. Very scary. From the danger perspective, because there's too many four-wheels on the on the roads. But if we can get rid of them, then maybe maybe we can all go we can all be on scooters or electric, electric powered. We've talked a lot, um, Sarah, about electricity. What other energy sources should we be looking at? Should people be thinking about in the whole mix? Because you said it's a net, it's a lot of different options. What are the other areas that people should be looking at?

SPEAKER_01 21:36

If you're really thinking about whole liers, then there is a popularity for LNG and CNG, so gas essentially. And a lot of the reasons for that is the the math and the science goes behind that is you don't need to change the vehicle itself very much. You don't need to adapt the vehicle very much in manufacturing to make that happen. So a lot of that embodied carbon stays where it should be, and the manufacturing cycles much quicker. Therefore, the design costs are lower and the manufacturing costs are lower. So you can get a rather affordable, more net zero compliant vehicle. But it just feels to me like those are stop gaps towards electricity. When that network is up and running, we are seeing just such an improvement. So I think haulage is the hardest nut to crack at the moment. Funnily enough, the vans, the LCV community, they've got so much choice that the costs are stacking up in favour of electric. But the problem isn't the vehicle or the fuel, it's the refueling, as with hydrogen. So whilst we've got thousands of charge points, they're not all accessible to vans.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Absolutely. I was watching uh I don't know what the program was, but it was about um the Japanese market. Of course, they have um a lot of uh high-rise um buildings to live in um rather than places where you can do the charging. And they were doing um battery swapping on vehicles.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah, it's a complex thing. We we've seen I've seen some impressive robotic arm swapping. Because I do think people visualize a very sweet sort of image of somebody removing a battery like on a bike or a moped. That works. That's that's proven many times. There's literal battery banks. You go and take your battery out and pop it into the machine. But the weight of a battery in a in a van is is a robot game. It's not something you can easily simply do. Um and I do think remote charging, as in you have to help someone at their home, is really a last resort. It's much more important to build destination charging that people can actually get the vehicles into. And it's not just that, it's the standardization of things like where is the port on the charger going to be? Because some of the vans have it at the front, some are the side, some are the back. Well, that's like playing Jenga, trying to get your van into a into a tight space. So you may have to block charging bays, and it causes problems for the driver to have to do that. Um, and more than that, it blocks the opportunity for the charge point operator to be using the second bay whilst it's been need needing to be blocked by the van. So it seems like a simple sort of measurement game. But of course, land is money, so it's not particularly popular to have to do extra wide spaces. But if you think about the accessibility piece, if we had more wide spaces, more people of all needs can access those spaces. So really I'd love to see that. Any hubs going in in the future just be cognizant of people who have pushchairs or shopping or a large car or somebody who has disability access needs or are indeed in a van.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Yeah, absolutely. Um, and what about charging times on EV? Because um that's one area where you know uh it's been talked about with me uh that hydrogen makes sense. Um, because it's it's you can refuel in the same way as you might refuel um a petrol car today.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

That is a great point. It's a very quick refueling time on hydrogen. Definitely. You can't deny that. And for the number of miles you get for the speed of which you refuel absolutely hands down. I think what's happening in the truck and van world though is the whole sort of forced break tachograph situation. So there was a really interesting movement where it was, if you were refueling, that was considered work, but that's terribly frustrating because you might be there for 30 or 45 minutes just refueling and then be forced to take a taco break as well, which is really bad for operations. So that has been changed, and now you are able to refuel whilst you're having your taco break.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

So, what about uh with um batteries? So um, you know, there's a lot of technology in a battery, there's a lot of um maybe less positive um items in that battery that makes it with metals, etc. Is that sustainable with us making so many um batteries and then what happens to them afterwards?

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Yeah, the whole life cycle of a battery is a fascinating thing, and it's much nicer to be in the EV industry now than it was ten years ago, just for the pure advances that have been made by the question being asked. That's why I love a bit of a challenge, because ultimately, if that question wasn't asked, we would still have batteries that contain a significant proportion of rare earth metals. But again, it's a wonderful misconception, and I went on mining.com to kind of sense check myself, and that's where you can see what is being mined and for who. And uh they were very sort of depressed in their article because they were saying that much less cobalt is now being used in electric vehicle production, but they thought it was going to be more back then, so they're disappointed that less and less and less is being put into electric vehicles. Most of it still goes into smartphones and laptops, and we are we on our side of the fence are moving away from those rare earth metals and reusing them where possible, recycling the battery in its component part.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

No, I was thinking more about the vehicles that are part of the mining. Oh, the heavy.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Well, JCB and Caterpillar are really trying. Like they're doing amazing electric versions. Um, we've got mines all across the UK. If you go down to Mendips, they're trialing, I'm sure they were trialing hydrogen, you'd know more than me. But again, it's just fantastic to see, much like our dock example, our airport example, and our mining example. We all need these things, but let's just try and shave off as much as we can from the pollution.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Yeah, absolutely. To make it uh so that we do get that circular economy, uh everything gets reused, and also um we make sure that by creating one thing that is net zero, we're not creating another problem, which is always so the you know, the academics I work with, that's what they're always looking at is you know, what's going to be the next issue that comes up? It's like electric uh the um power saving electric light bulbs. Um so I know that a survey was done with um Southampton University, did a bit of research, and they said that uh actually they found that they were using more energy. And the reason so sad. Why? Because people were leaving the lights on.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Oh, because they felt like they had permission. That's very interesting. We do know that when people switch to electric, we have to be careful that they don't then do more miles because they feel good about that. But then again, that's where governance comes in. You've still got congestion zone charging, even if you're in an EV. And I think that's quite even though it's a hard pill to swallow a bitter pill to swallow, sorry, it's it's definitely one that stops people from driving everywhere all of the time. So interesting. I was thinking about your sort of social element to the mining as well. If we think about some of the mines in particularly Australia, is the one I know the most about. That is a massively culturally significant employer. There are families who have raised mostly men to go into the mines. My my one of my best friends from school now lives near a very big mining community. And it's exactly that. You you're you're part of a huge way of life because you work in the mine. And if that suddenly stopped or shut, I'm not sure what would happen.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

No, no, no. I I I worked uh not work. I was uh friends with a guy in Australia. I got to go to one of the mines, that was gold mining. Oh wow. Um they didn't let me near the gold, which was pretty much. It's a shame. Massive, massive pieces of equipment there. Um I think Lieber were one of their main um producers of those vehicles because he was very excited when he came and saw that I had a Lieber fridge. Wow. Yeah, that you can get them. They make they make mining equipment and they also make fridges.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Isn't that the great thing about innovation? Is these companies are filled with people with strategic brains who are thinking how can we turn our skills to net zero?

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Yeah, absolutely. And that's what we need. We need definitely need that. So let's let's just finish thinking it a little bit um about uh government. You know, what can government do to ensure um that we find the right solutions for for this um energy uh transition that we need to um renewable energy. What can they do and what should they still be doing both in the electric, hydrogen and and other sectors?

SPEAKER_01 30:04

No, I have such empathy for people in central and local government. I think of the 22-year career, twelve of them have been spent either in, as in employed by or working for as a consultant, local authorities and central government. And the reason for that is they don't have the time to always listen to what people need. They need conduits and bridges, people who can translate what people are saying through to what needs to be written and done. And the phrase carrot and stick gets used a lot because government can be accused of far too much stick and not enough carrot. Well, I can't say that for EV. That's been a big incentive on EV for a long time, and it's been that push that we needed to prove the model and see if it could work across industry in all sectors.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

And having the open policies to allow for either to come through and work for whatever makes sense for those particular sectors.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Yeah, it's not going to happen overnight either. Just because, say, a large company has chosen a certain thing, that can also very quickly become evidence inverted commodities that one's better than the other. And that's very frustrating to me because they've only looked at the next three years plan, not the 15, 20-year plan. So I can assure you that company will be looking at a 20-year plan, but the headlines only catch that first step.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Yeah, absolutely. And and we're putting some uh messages out here, but hopefully some truths out there around these um different energy markets, alternative energy markets, um, through this podcast, which is great. Um but you know, of course, the media, we do like to hype things and we like to we like to cut people dead as well. So um it's it's it's getting the right balance and people knowing where to find that information.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Yes, and choosing people that have lived it, breathed it, worked it. That's where you find the truth.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much, Sarah, for joining me today. A really pleasure to talk with you and understand a little bit more about where the electricity market is going.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Yeah, anytime. Thank you for having me on.