Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change30 Huhti 2025

Uniper Rising: Can Germany's Gas Giant Go Green? Ep206: Michael Lewis

When Russia unleashed its illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, gas prices in Europe spiked by a factor of 10, driving a wave of bankruptcies and restructurings of European energy companies. Uniper was one of those.

Uniper is one of Germany's largest energy companies. It is active across more than 40 countries and has 19.5 GW of power generation capacity to its name. It was one of the funders of the built-but-never-used Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that connects Russia to Germany and, for most of its history, was heavily reliant on Russian gas.

So when the gas taps from Russia were turned off, Uniper reported losses of $40 billion — the highest losses in German corporate history — and was subsequently nationalised by the German government. The company has since returned to profitability under its new CEO, Michael Lewis, our guest this week on Cleaning Up.

Michael Lewis joins Michael Liebreich to discuss the company's rise from the ashes, and how it plans to reach its climate targets and overcome the dunkelflaute.

Leadership Circle:
Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live.

More from Cleaning Up:

The Sierra Leone documentary: https://youtu.be/z-5QjSfy2SM
Ep164 — Leonhard Birnbaum, CEO of EON: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa-DHuPNEDg
Episode 175 — Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl-cRh35Hm4
Episode 190 — Lord Adair Turner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxTngGxpeW0

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(278)

The £60 Billion Plan To Rewire Britain | Ep227: John Pettigrew

What does it take to rewire a nation’s energy system? Can we make the grid cleaner, smarter, and more resilient — without driving up bills? And how will the explosion of AI data centres reshape the fu...

8 Loka 20251h 1min

What India Gets Right About The Energy Transition | Ep226: Dr Arunabha Ghosh

What does it take for India to deliver electricity to hundreds of millions while simultaneously building a fast-growing clean energy system? Can it overcome its fossil dependence to secure its energy ...

1 Loka 20251h 11min

Can We Save the Great Barrier Reef? | Ep225: Dr Katharina Fabricius

Why should we care about coral reefs? What happens when they collapse? And is there still hope for their survival?In this episode of Cleaning Up, Bryony Worthington sits down with coral reef ecologist...

24 Syys 202557min

Audioblog 16: The Pragmatic Climate Reset, Part II — A Provocation

The election of Donald Trump to a second term as President marked a turning point in the politics of climate action – not just in the US, but around the world.The airwaves are suddenly awash with comm...

22 Syys 20251h 6min

Less Doom, More Data: Debunking the Biggest Climate Myths | Ep223: Dr. Hannah Ritchie

Is the future of clean energy and climate solutions brighter than we think? In this episode of Cleaning Up, Michael Liebreich welcomes back Hannah Ritchie — Deputy Editor at Our World in Data, researc...

17 Syys 20251h 10min

Malcolm Turnbull: Clean Energy Culture Wars and The Race To Build More Storage | Ep 222

What happens when cheap solar flips the script on climate sceptics? Can pumped hydro really deliver the long-duration storage we need? And is “hope” a dangerous comforter in the race to net zero?In th...

10 Syys 20251h 12min

Cleaning Up Redux: A Magnificent Woman And Her Flying Machines - Bonny Simi

This episode was originally broadcast in February 2024Bryony returns with Bonny Simi, President of Operations at Joby Aviation, where she's working on bringing to market a new civilian electric VTOL (...

27 Elo 202558min

Cleaning Up Redux: From Free Solo to Free Solar — Alex Honnold

This episode was originally broadcast in April 2022Alex Honnold is one of the world’s best rock climbers, famous for his free solo ascents of big walls, including his 2017 first free solo of El Capita...

20 Elo 20251h 2min