As geopolitical competition intensifies and threats to critical energy infrastructure grow, nations are pursuing divergent paths to achieve energy security. Some are expanding the use of clean energy, others revisiting nuclear production, upgrading grid infrastructure, or leveraging traditional hydrocarbons.
What impact will these differing strategies have on global energy demand and on those looking to secure reliable energy for the long term?
At Davos 2026, leaders argued that energy security is being redefined by geopolitics and an accelerating “age of electricity.” IEA’s Fatih Birol noted electricity demand is rising nearly three times faster than overall energy demand, driven by AI data centers, air conditioning, and EVs: “There is no AI without electricity.” He expects incremental demand to be met largely by renewables, natural gas, and nuclear, while warning that energy security now deserves “the level of national security.”
Meghan O’Sullivan described intensifying great-power competition over resources, shifting from pure “access” to concerns about “who develops” assets, while producer states exercise greater leverage through resource nationalism. Majid Jafar argued Middle East energy remains advantaged on “scale and affordability,” and may diversify via AI by pairing capital with low-cost gas. BHP CEO Mike Henry highlighted a looming copper constraint: demand could rise ~70% over 25 years as deposits become “lower grade, deeper, more technically challenging.” Birol added the bottleneck is often processing, with one country holding roughly “three fourths” of refining capacity.
AES CEO Andrés Gluski emphasized speed and grid optimization: batteries, dynamic line rating, and AI can unlock capacity faster than new gas or SMRs. Panelists converged on Birol’s “three golden rules”: diversification, predictability, and cooperation—because in energy, “if you choose the wrong partner… it is very difficult… to get divorced.”
We're hoping that we can have ten minutes for questions at the end. So that will give you an opportunity to, be able to, put your core and burning issues onto the agenda. But in the meantime, what I'm going to do is turn around to this great panel. I've got Fatih Birol on my left, executive director of the International Energy Agency, I think known to everyone. Here Megan O'Sullivan, who's director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Brings extensive experience as well in US government on energy policy. Majid Jafar, the chief executive officer of Crescent Petroleum which is UAE based energy company, but now, the largest, producer, at least from, the Iraqi region from the north, right down to the border. So, somebody who can brings great knowledge on the Middle East as well to this panel. Mike Henry, chief executive officer of BHP, world's largest miner by market value. And somebody who's going to bring that other dimension into this energy security conversation with his deep knowledge of minerals, and the global megatrends that these are connected with. And then we've got Andres Gluski, chief executive officer of AES in the US, the largest US based, power company, has a very diverse generation fleet, really, from LNG, renewables, hydro, energy storage and coal. So again, somebody bringing another perspective into the energy security dimension. How do we make sure that we can get that energy to homes, to people and to businesses. So welcome all to this panel. Fantastic to have you with us. I'm going to start off with you. Exponentially. We have AI compute, requirement, which seems to be moving certainly by the new, World Energy Outlook report that you gave moving constantly up the scale. I suppose my very obvious question to you is how is this demand going to be met? Because our sense of who's winning on energy security, obviously is going to be influenced by.
It. The past. I mean, think about two big energy insecurity crisis in 1970s, the oil crisis. Yes, the oil prices went up and the most of the countries in the world suffer high prices, inflation and so on. But the at that time, 70s, the share of oil in the total energy was more than 50%. And today it is less than 30%. People switch from oil where they can switch to other sources. So there is a reaction to that. Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Yes, Europe suffered a lot as a consumer, as a client, but Russia does suffer as well because they lost the biggest client ever. According to our numbers, Russia's oil and gas revenues before war and today declined by 30%. Big decline. So I think the energy is security and the crisis. They don't have very obvious winners. Energy demand is growing, definitely, but we have to be a bit careful while oil and gas will be with us for years to come. What grows the most very impressive is the electricity demand. As IEA says, we are entering the age of electricity. Electricity demand grows almost three times higher than the total energy demand. In addition to the usual drivers of electricity demand, there are three additional new drivers. One is that you mentioned, Robin, the AI data centers, one data center, medium sized, consumes electricity as much as a ton with 100,000 households, and you need 24 over seven electricity. There is no AI without electricity. This number one. Number two air conditioners. This is a big driver of global electricity consumption around the world. And the third one, the additional one is the electric cars. Okay. Today, one fourth of all the cars sold in the world are electric. So they pushed electricity demand growth. And it will be met by mainly three things renewables, natural gas and nuclear power. They will be met. And now, what I see, Robin, to finish my two minutes, I deal with the energy issues long term. This is my 19th. 19th. Davos. And if I can tell you something, energy and geopolitics were always interwoven, but I have never, ever seen that the energy security risks are so multiplying. And the dark and long shadow of geopolitics and energy sector overall. So therefore energy security in my view, should be elevated to the level of national security today. And I can understand that many countries prefer a to generate their own energy as much as possible, which gives a boost to nuclear power, renewables or other other energy sources. And two, when they make energy trades and deals and contracts, they not only look at how many dollars, how many euros, how many yens, they also look who is my partner? Can I rely it in the long term to this partner? This comes as a topic as well.
Thank you and thank you for laying it out clearly and in very precise timing. I think it's a perfect segue. Megan, over to you. If this is a period where geopolitics are interfering or at least eliding with this huge increase in energy demand, it means a new scramble potentially, does it not for influence, for possession, for control. Each country trying to make sure it has access to that energy security over time. What what's the kind of shape that you're seeing that's changing? Which parts of the world are being acquired the most and which are being most acquisitive? And you know, where I'm leaning a little bit in that question.
I feel you're being delightfully diplomatic here, Robin. So good morning, everyone. Certainly looking at the landscape today, and I agree with everything that Fatih said, it's easy to draw historical analogies to maybe the 19th century 19th century scramble for resources in Africa, or even post-World War Two in the Middle East. And I would say there's no question that the intensified geopolitical competition between great powers is playing out in more competition for energy resources, particularly as the energy system becomes more complex. I mean, obviously, I think many of us have Venezuela on our mind. There's lots of reasons we can point to why the Trump administration may have been motivated to take the action. It did, against Maduro and in Venezuela earlier this month. But at least one of them certainly points not just to oil and a desire to control oil, whatever that means specifically, but a desire to control who develops Venezuela's oil. So a real perception that Venezuela's oil trajectory and who controls that or develops it is part and parcel, part of dominating the Western Hemisphere. So there's a desire not just for physical control, but a desire to ensure that others don't control resources. In Venezuela, I think really did up the game, obviously by using military force into the equation. But this is not this is not new within the last year or two or even three years. We can look back at China's energy strategy over decades, really, and see that there's been a concerted effort to focus on the ability to control or have access to resources. And we look at China's approach in Africa beginning in the 1990s. First, that was, you know, actually having ownership over resources. And as China has become more sophisticated and as the energy system has become more complex, China's strategy has diversified and it's moved away from trying to own oil resources in Latin America or Africa or other parts of the world, to a place where it is looking to ensure energy access by building infrastructure through the Bri initiative, by having contracts, looking at the DRC and other places for critical minerals. This is a a long term strategy of China. So I would say, yes, we're seeing an intensification. It's not entirely new. What is very different from any of the historical analogies that we might have looked upon in the past is that producer countries, the countries with these resources have more agency. Now, you know, I won't say they're unequal footing to some of the great powers, but they certainly know better how to try to negotiate better contracts. And we see a wave of resource nationalism, you know, whether it's in Chile or in Indonesia, where policies like banning the export of just, you know, raw nickel, is a way of exerting more control over a country's resources. So, it is more positive in that way, but it certainly opens the door to more resource competition ahead.
Thanks very much. Very clear on the point. And an interesting contrast between the United States current Trump administration's approach, which seems to emphasize control, certainly hemispherically in a very particular way. And the China move to access and dominating the poses of access, and then making that producer in a way dependent on getting the stuff to you.
Yeah. And it's actually a flip the US up until I would say a month ago, you know, our focus has been on access to energy, not control. You look at us interventions in the Middle East to the extent that they were about oil, which I think is less than people think. But to the extent they were about oil, it was about access to oil, not about owning oil. And China has flipped the other way.
Very interesting.
Very interesting.
Margie, let me come to you. I mean, I think I got to ask you the big question. How do you think these geopolitics are affecting the Middle East role as a central hub of global oil and gas production? When whenever people said geopolitics and oil and gas, everyone meant the Middle East in the past. But at the moment, we seem to be looking just about everywhere else. Obviously, there are worries in the Middle East. You're well aware of them. But just can you connect today's geopolitics and how it's changed with the position of the Middle East?
Yeah. So I think that geopolitical instability reinforces, if anything, our region, the Middle East's role as a supplier that has scale and affordability, and the availability and of course, some of the lowest carbon, reserves and of course, the geographical location. And in this US-China global, friction, the Middle East is managing to remain on good terms with, with both sides as far as the US role, at least what we've seen as a private sector player, in the Middle East now over 50 years. We've we were I was wondering, does America first mean America only? Is it just going to be pushing us LNG exports and focusing on on domestic energy? That's not what we've seen actually. We've seen incredible engagement and a global messaging on the importance of all forms of energy, including renewables. But but natural gas in particular, which is an area that we very much focus on. Now 80% of our production is natural gas. To give an example, one project that we've just completed in the Kurdistan region north of Iraq, which received US Development Finance Corporation, support, is achieving 24 over seven electricity there. So enhancing stability, political and socio economic and big carbon emissions savings as well. So whether it was through the Trump administration, Biden administration, now through the Trump administration, and enhancing Iraq's energy independence, it was all aligned. So that's been very good to see from our point of view on the point of AI. And I think this is interesting also for our region in the past, you know, diversification was about moving away from energy, trying to find other sectors and with mixed results or some might say, poor results across the region as a whole. Now suddenly there's a diversification that's based on energy, because AI needs, energy in huge amounts. I mean, looking at one, people don't appreciate the extent to which it does. You look at your ChatGPT and your phone every search. There is ten times what a Google search used to be. You make a one minute video. It's about an hour's youth use of electricity for an average Western household, which is, you know, ten times or more of an average African household or Indian household. And then you take a data center and it uses more electricity than a fairly large town, and then you multiply that by a millions of servers and billions of people, and it's going to be staggering. So a region like the Middle East that has the energy resources, that has the capital, and I would say the, the leadership impetus and the agile, policymaking, there's a real push in this space. And I think that bodes very well for competitiveness in this space and the nexus between AI and energy going forward.
So, in a way, if the Middle East can keep a lid on some of the security risks that continue to, affect it, actually, the upside in this geopolitical environment are quite extensive. Would be my takeaway from your remarks. Mike, let me come to you. I mean, we've got a as I said, the CEO of the world's largest miner by market value up on here, because you are right at the Nexus, both of, huge amount of demand, but also producing a lot of the minerals that have been required for the renewable energy transition in particular. So I'm particularly interested to hear, how do you think of energy security and how it's changing? Megan mentioned something about export controls being imposed on various types of minerals and commodities that are put out there. The whole definition of energy security is shifting as well. How do you see this?
So so it's an interesting place to be as a miner. You know, if I go back ten years, not that many people wanted to talk to miners. Yeah. Where all of a sudden the focus on critical minerals has exploded. You see, policy makers in all the major capitals focused on it. Markets have become disrupted through through export controls, tariffs and other mechanisms. But overall I think it's a positive for mining. You know, this is something we've been been championing of course for, for for for decades. None of this happens without the input of metals and minerals. And there's a kind of a new kid on the block when it comes to energy commodities and it's copper. Fatty made the point that electricity demand is growing at three times the growth rate of primary energy, and that is super copper intensive. You need it for the wires. You copper data centers are very copper intensive. Renewable energy is copper intensive. So we're expecting a near doubling about 70% increase in copper demand over the next 25 years. But that happens against the backdrop of where it's becoming harder and harder to find new copper deposits. And the ones that are being found are lower grade, deeper, more technically challenging. They have more surface risks. And so there's a real conundrum out there as to how this demand is going to be met. It'll be met. But policymakers, private or capital markets and private companies need to be working together to ensure it's done in as seamless a fashion as possible. And that requires policy reform. It requires a real focus on the part of capital markets, on the economic opportunity at hand, and it requires companies to be operating in a way that makes them welcome in some of these countries. And, you know, I might disagree with fatty on one point around who's winning in the in this, world of increased focus on energy security. And I'd say it's South America, possibly, or on the cusp of it because it's a copper rich region and with increased focus on the importance of copper to to ongoing economic growth, to the energy transition, to the digital transformation, I think there's an opportunity there for them now. How does it impact the companies specifically like BHP? We need more energy to drive our operations and that can be electrification of our trucks, our locomotives. That's very energy intensive, and we're trying to do that through deployment of of large amounts of renewables in our iron ore business alone. To electrify that business is going to require five times as much electricity as we use today. So this is no small task. We need more reliable, low cost energy to power the smelters that are required to smelt things like copper. And then finally, of course, we focus on what the big trends are in terms of, of energy demand. And then we read through from that to what that means for metals and minerals, because that then drives our our thinking around the portfolio and some of our big, big investments.
Fantastic. And it is good to have the mining voice on these kinds of panels. I remember before mining companies kind of hid behind the oil and gas companies and let them take the flak. But thank you for stepping up and and being at the front of it. And maybe that could be said even more, Andres, for you and for the energy generating world. In a way, power production was something a little bit hidden behind the, the scenes, but really the kind of surges of electricity demand that we've seen these recent years have really put your sector right front and centre of definitions of energy security, quite often national, but sometimes also cutting across borders as well. So I suppose my question to you is, you know, how does a company like AES and how does your sector think about energy security? How are you delivering it? What's the kind of mix between grid, input storage? Just tell us how you're thinking about energy security.
Okay. Well, first a clarification. We're not the biggest energy company in the state. We're the biggest seller of renewable energy to corporations in the world. We're also the inventors of lithium ion batteries for for grid stability. So Mike is one of our big customers in Chile. And we had a very successful many years of greening, the Chilean copper mining, but also the Chilean grid as well. So thinking about energy security, I'll complicate it a little bit because I think there's not like one answer fits all. And they're very different circumstances in different countries. US is one particular case. Other countries are very different. We're seeing somewhat of a divergence because there's for example, in renewables you're having access to very cheap Chinese equipment outside the states. So for example, it's very difficult to compete today with solar plus batteries and most of the world, most of the developing world. Whereas in the States you have a greater reliance, for example, on natural gas. So I think that there's too much sort of a politicization rather than a technical talk. I also think that when we're addressing this issue, we have to think about technologies. So I think a lot of the problems when people say there's not enough, say, transmission to go, it's thinking about using the transmission as we use it today. So here we're installing these massive data centers, and we're operating the grid basically like the 1950s. So things like for example, dynamic line rating can really free up a lot using batteries. So batteries are turning out to be like a hammer. You can use batteries to use the transmission lines at their real capacity. See realize we build the whole distribution network to peak load. Peak load may be one hour a day so you have excess capacity. But the problem is how do you get that? Well, by using batteries you can transmit electricity on off peak hours and this saves you a lot of time. Now there's a problem with the business models. You know transmission companies make more by investing more. So there are a lot of technical solutions today. You know using the existing infrastructure smarter which will help. Then when we think about AI in the states, it's an enormous demand outside the States, it's not as a huge factor. And the fact is, in the States, we're not used to growing. In the States, we're growing 3 to 5% because of data centers. In part, it's not only data centers. We operate in Vietnam, which is traditionally grows at 10% a year if you think of China. So it's the problem in the state. So I think, yes, in the states we have to really use every electron we want. It's not only a question of how many megawatt hours you can produce, it's when you can produce them. It's a problem of dispatchable energy. It's a question really, of having the capacity. And there are problems there because if you want to build a new gas plant today, it's going to take us 5 to 7 years. So you know that that's a problem. So how do you what I see is the problem of time. I think Fatih mentioned really indirectly elasticity. So you have short term elasticity where you can't do many things but you have a lot greater elasticity in the long run. So I also agree with Mike. You know, we're not going to run out of things because people will adapt. That's one thing we've seen. You know you substitute you know cobalt became expensive in the batteries. Well you substitute it for manganese you know. So we get a lot of things. And the last thing I think that's very interesting is AI is part of the problem. It's also part of the solution. We can operate the grids much more intelligently. When you talk about electric vehicles, those are really mobile batteries. But what you need is the intelligence to charge them up at the right time and discharge them. And then there's a problem of the business model, you know, how do you make it really work optimally. So I think the technology is there. I find that a lot of the thinking is politicizing. It's like, you know, either 100% renewables or you're against renewables. This makes no sense whatsoever. You know, with today's technology, you have to combine the two. In the future we can delay it. And and the other thing, there's a lot of noise sometimes on Wall Street, especially like, say, nuclear. I'm a great believer in smrs small modular reactors. But I think it's going to be a decade at least before we have them. And so, you know, you have to think about the whole supply chain. Who's going to build them? Where are we going to build dozens of nuclear reactors in the states? Where are the factories? Where are the people who are going to build these? Where are the people who are going to operate them? So I find that there's a lack of talk about the supply chain. So overall, I don't think this is a zero sum game. You know, the title of this talk is a little bit who's winning implies somebody is losing. Actually think that more secure a a region is on its energy will free up resources for other regions. So I think it's you know, who's doing better perhaps.
Thank you very much. Thanks for the points. And you're right, I should have mentioned the largest US based global power company on the other way around. But, very interesting the way you were therefore able to compare, the different experience of the United States and some of the other markets that you operate in. Fatih, let me come back to you. And just to remind everyone, I'm going to try in about ten minutes, come to the audience for a for a few questions. So moving quickly through this great panel here, energy security is often associated with with high prices. In other words, the worry is if the price is too high, we're not going to be able to get access to the energy. And yet the weird thing is, with all of this increasing demand we've discussed so far, the price of oil and gas at least seems to be relatively, relatively low. Please explain the conundrum.
Perfect. Before that, just two small remarks we talk about. At least I talk too much about the numbers. But there is one number I would all of us to understand, to understand the age of electricity. Even with the current pace of electricity demand growth globally in the next ten years, we need to add about 10,000 terawatt hours, which is equal to one US, one Europe, Japan and Canada today put together. It's huge. Even with the current pace. This is the age of electricity and how we are going to meet this. This is number one I want to mention. Number two mining is very important. Yes. But when we come to the critical story, as much as it is important, maybe more important is the refining and processing. We should talk about this. This is the today one country in the world accounts, three fourths of the global refining capacity of the critical minerals. So this is key issue. Mining is important with all respect to Mike and others. But this is critical. The refining and processing, which is a very cumbersome story, dirty story, capital intensive story, dirty meaning, the dirty water and all of these things. So this is I want to put this together critical minerals that on the mining refining. Now coming back to question now, I am sorry to tell you, but, in terms energy agency was perfectly right how we see the oil, gas and copper markets last year. I said three things here. Oil markets, oil demand is slowing down and the loss of supply is coming from American quintet US, Canada, Brazil, Guyana and Argentina. Therefore, oil prices will go down. And some people said, I was saying because climate change, net zero zero rubbish oil prices are 20% down compared to last year. We are perfectly on second natural gas and this is happening, as you said, Robin, in a world we have Iran, Venezuela and the Palestine, many other issues. Second, natural gas colleagues, a lot of gas is coming to the markets. We shouldn't forget this LNG from United States, from Qatar, from Australia, from Canada this year, 50 bcm next year, 80 bcm coming addition to the markets, what is 80 bcm, 80 bcm next year. Just additional growth is equal to more or less the Japan imports of gas. Just one year. We said gas prices will come down. They come down. And the last one copper, I said in a big meeting with lots of presidents, I said copper prices will go up because of the demand of electricity. Electricity means copper. Plus the investments are not keeping pace. And I remember I remember the the president of Peru, she came and kissed me. I hope you are right, she said. And today copper prices are 45% higher than last year. Again, we were spot on and I told this to Mike as well. I mean, we make reports, Mike makes money, so this is the difference. So we were perfectly right on all these three topics. And the reason is Robin, lots of supply is coming. It will not be forever, but at least 3 or 4 years. We may well see downward pressure on the oil and gas prices because of the huge amount of supply coming from the United States, first of all, but some other countries.
So you are able to say you are right on last year, you've just made, I think, a prediction for next year. So we'll be able to test you on that one at the next Davos. Pleasure. You heard it here. Megan, let me come to you because I think an interesting point on this. We have a US administration that's talked very proudly of wanting to pursue energy dominance. But I'm I think I understand that maybe you can explain a little bit what you think the administration means by dominance, because obviously that makes everyone else feel rather insecure on the energy side. And yet prices weirdly. Do you think the president wants low prices, but low prices mean then companies may not invest as much? I mean, many people are a little confused or I'm confused.
Well, I'm confused on the same point as so, but let me say a couple of things about what energy dominance means. And of course, this phrase and this approach has been consistent from the first Trump administration to the second Trump administration. But I think there's actually some very critical differences that we see evolving in the second administration around the same concept of energy dominance in the first administration. It ended up being probably more rhetoric than action. There was a very domestic focus and a focus not exclusively but primarily on fossil fuels. And the idea is just to build up America's capacity to be a producer and an exporter of fossil fuels, to expedite infrastructure, these types of things. And under the first Trump administration, of course, the US continued to augment its energy prowess and became US president. Trump at the time really doubted that America was the largest exporter and producer of oil and gas. This, of course, was as much about technology and about global markets than it was about actually Trump administration policy. There was a new dynamic in the first Trump administration where energy became in intertwined with like commercial deals and tariffs and trade deals and buy more American oil and gas as a way of addressing the deficit. So that was a new element to it. But now moving to the the second Trump administration, I think we have all of that combined with three additional things. I'd say they're sort of emerging. The first is, a more, aggressive approach against renewables, which I think in the first term it was just sort of neutral on renewables. Renewables were still able to flourish. Now we see that there seems to be more ideology in it.
Not just your politics, not the China dominates renewables. Therefore we we mustn't depend on them.
I think I think, you know, many analysts would say if we're thinking about American dominance, it's not just fossil fuels, it's American innovation. And that renewables should be part of an American energy dominant strategy. And there's a more ideological approach there. Secondly, there's this focus on price. And the president is very explicit about this. And as you pointed out, Robin, you know, $53 oil is actually not consistent with high American oil production. So there's a tension there, undoubtedly. And of course, American companies feel that acutely. But then thirdly, and I think maybe most interesting, and this is kind of a supposition at this point, is that in the first term we were thinking about or the Trump administration was thinking about using, American energy prowess as a foreign policy tool. So trying to, you know, affect things in the globe by using American energy prowess, which turns out to be difficult. Now it looks as if the Trump administration is thinking about using American foreign policy tools, which include diplomacy, but also military force, to enhance its energy prowess, to enhance its control or influence over global energy markets. And I think that will have some significant long term implications. Just, you know, Fatih mentioned the American, quintet and all the investment that was made in the Western Hemisphere. If we have a different approach by the Trump administration, by America in the Western Hemisphere towards resources where foreign policy tools like military force are used to secure ownership, this is going to, I think, quell investment rather than enhance it.
Interesting. Very interesting point. I've got to keep moving around because otherwise I'd love to come back on some of these points. We have time. Let me bring you in here as well. I've got two questions I think I'm going to focus on, on one in particular, which is the diversification taking place in the Middle East of its economy, trying to move towards, you know, not being just the energy producers, but obviously being, also key players in this AI transition. Now, is that making, you know, the Middle East are potentially a winner in energy security? Are they knitting themselves into global markets? Are people going to be dependent on the Middle East in a new way, through its capacity to be a key player in the AI revolution, being able to mix up its domestic capability? What do you think?
Yeah, so I said, as I said, I think it's playing to its strengths.
As a region because of the availability of the capital, and the energy. But it's very much doing it through partnerships, not through the competition. And those partnerships are really going in all directions, a lot with the United States with, with big tech, including with the US government on policy, but also with, with Asian companies. So it's I think it's it's going in all directions in can.
They, can they square the China-U.S. dynamic because the Middle East is certainly playing both sides of that coin.
There are there are I mean, it doesn't see it as playing both sides. It sees it as doing what's in its own interest, which is having good relations with both. Okay. They're they're obviously pressures that come this way and that way. But but overall I would say yes, they are able I mean ultimately energy security is about resilience. It's about resilience of fuels as well as resilience of grids, resilience to geopolitical shocks and market driven, shocks. And that resilience needs to come from responsible investment. That's not ideological. And I think we've unfortunately we have seen that, you know, five years ago investment in oil and gas was down by 40%. And there was this view of the world that if we starve the supply, while the demand continues to grow, that we're going to solve climate change and the world will be fine. We ended up losing on all three elements of the so-called trilemma the availability, affordability and the sustainability. And that is the priority order, by the way, for consumers and especially voters, rightly or wrongly, because it's the order of urgency. If you lose power today, it's a serious crisis. If you have a big bill at the end of the month, that's something else. If it's one degree higher temperature for the planet by 2100, that's again a different set of priorities. We ended up failing on all of them because developing countries who don't all have LNG import facilities burnt more coal. So emissions were going up and we had price shocks, supply shocks. Yes, we all remember the winter of 2022 in Europe, but actually only last month in Europe. We had a 10% jump in gas prices. So that volatility is still there. So this new outlook on responsible investment across all the forms of energy, is I think what's really important, if we're going to achieve that resilience.
And sticking with resilience. Mike, back to you. How do you see supply chain resilience from the mining company standpoint? One of the very important point that it's one thing having access to the minerals is another thing processing them. I have no idea where, BHP is on, on that particular journey or how you tie it into your market strategies.
So supply chain resilience obviously increasingly in focus starts with being able to get more resources out of the ground more and more quickly. And that's no easy task in this world of heightened community concern. Bigger regulatory burden in many jurisdictions. But a number of governments, you see this in the US, you see it in Canada, Australia, Argentina and elsewhere are really focused on streamlining that that regulation, which should make that easier. You then have processing that is absolutely right. It's you know, you can get more out of the ground, but you have to be able to smelt it and refine it to turn it into a useful metal. And in in today's world, there's an increasing focus on how you go about developing more smelters and refineries closer to end markets. But that requires low cost energy, requires availability of energy, and it requires people willing to invest in something that in our sector tends to be a lower returning part of the of the value chain. And that's one of the key reasons things have migrated to to to China is because they have had low cost energy and they've had people willing to invest in these things. But you're seeing growing focus on that and on the part of other governments as well.
Andreas, last question to you on this front. You talked a lot about, storage as a key dimension of security. Could you say something a little bit more about that? And then I'm going to open up and get just literally 2 or 3 questions, and they'll give you all a chance. A last word.
Well, when we started, lithium ion batteries for grid stability 15 years ago were the first sort of commercial application. You know, we've really seen prices drop, like, by 80% plus. So now it's like a hammer. You could use it for many things. So you talk about data centers. Well, actually inside the data center you have a lot of spikes. So you can put batteries inside to make the data centers better. You put them outside, you know, to manage their needs to interconnection for the grid. So I guess my message here is that we have to apply more intelligence because, you know, if you could shave like 1% of data center demand on peak hours in the States, it's extraordinarily valuable. We have the technology to do it. The question is, do we have the business models that make that possible? So I think in any situation, you know, even take the states, are we going to use our gas plants more? Well, you put batteries on them so you can run them technically efficiently. So I think it's it's a key technology. I also think that you know the battery composition has been changing. We're going to get better. You're going to go to solid state batteries. And that's going to be a dramatic change. So the way I see it something like AI that we've talked about as a problem, it's also part of the solution. It will help us come up with better chemistries. It will help us manage the grids better. And to leave a sort of provocative thought. I think that and the initial phases, AI may actually increase the productivity of some of the, developing countries more because what is it? It's like human capital. So just think of in these countries where you don't have many engineers, you don't have many doctors having access to that. The marginal improvement for them could be dramatic. So what I see is that we need to really make it easy to apply these new technologies and not just try to win yesterday's war.
Thank you very much. Right. We've got literally five minutes. So, I'm going to take literally I'm sorry. The first thing I saw go up. You've got 30s each. Yeah. Jane, you're in the front row. And then the two people behind. So whichever order doesn't matter. One, two, three. No, there's a microphone. You're going to be lost. Go ahead. Start. Start there.
Okay. Thank you very much.
You have the last word. Go ahead.
I represent 50 million industrial workers, mining workers and energy workers. My question is there's little debate on how the workers are going to win on the transition, especially for Henry, but also for the rest of you. How can we make workers part of the winning culture?
Thank you very much. That question pass in front of you gentlemen there. One more.
Jason Bordoff, I lead the center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. Probably for Fatih or Megan. How the basics of how we define energy security today, the IEA was created in the wake of the 1970s oil crises, with the idea that more interconnection and cooperation helped with energy security. An interconnected global oil market could efficiently allocate supply or a more interconnected LNG market. Countries today seem to want self-sufficiency. If you're the US and you're the biggest oil and gas producer in the world, what are we buying all this clean tech from China for? If you're in China, you want coal and renewables and EVs. So it's disconnection, independence and self-sufficiency that people seem to think gives them energy security. And I'm curious if you agree with that.
Thank you.
Jane Harman, former member of US Congress. Nuclear is was barely mentioned. Why aren't small nuclear reactors a game changer for the entire world? Is the problem technology or is the problem politics?
And I think we had a couple of mentions of it, but it'd be great. Now let me come back in reverse order. Quick answer to the questions you may want to bring in there. Andreas. The point on Smrs as well.
I like the.
And then at the end, who's winning?
Okay, I like the question about the labor force. I think a lot of these new technologies make labor better. We we're we've invented a robot AI enabled robot to build solar farms, but we did it in conjunction with the union because lifting £65 solar panels in the Mohave Desert, 120 degrees is a rough job. You can only work one shift. You can work three shifts if you're supervising a machine. So we I think that's key is bringing in and we've shut down a significant number of coal plants. We've retrained all the workers who wanted a new job. Just quickly on the second one, the nuclear. The problem is that there's a lot of talk about nuclear, but how are you? Where are we going to permit them? Where who's going to build these United States doesn't have the manufacturing capacity to build what we would need, say, 50 nuclear plants a year. Where's the fuel going to come from? So we don't have the workers, the welders, we don't have the people to work it. So I think I believe in it. It might be a game changer in 10 to 15 years, but it's not a game changer today. So I think, you know, it's a little bit people are getting ahead of their skis on this one.
Thank you Mike as well.
So I'm going to comment only on the question about workers. And I have to be careful because mining is a very big wide industry. And in the face of supply shortages, higher prices, you see a lot more artisanal mining, illegal mining. And in those cases, workers are exposed to, to to real risks. But for the big players in the industry. So for any credible companies out there, we're seeing retraining of workers in coal mines, for example, as coal mines deplete or is or is or is there shut, you see retraining of workers. And certainly we're investing that in one mine that we're closing New South Wales currently for a lot of our other mines, you're actually seeing an expansion of the workforce due to the need for more mining activity. And not only is the workforce expanding, you're seeing safer practices being deployed in part through the advent of new technologies. And workers are being, afforded jobs that are more intellectually stimulating as well because we're able to apply technology in their jobs. Now, that's a broad statement. It's certainly something that's in focus for us. But I also recognize that the industry isn't uniform in its practices. And I think that capital markets and policy makers need support companies that are adopting good practices.
Thank you. Mike. Any last comment? And if you don't need to answer the questions, but if not, you'll have to ask one of the answer, one of the questions, who's winning on energy security? Go for it.
Well, I think the Middle East and the United States.
I like a nice clean answer. Middle eastern US is we're in 44 seconds. Megan, you may want to take a little bit of Jason's question along with fatty, but you also have to join Majid in answering the difficult question of who's winning.
Okay, so on Jason's question about the drive for self-sufficiency is interesting because it's a reaction to the increased focus on energy security. But as your question suggests, it also, it doesn't relieve countries of having to worry about energy security. It just it transforms what they need to worry about because it is generally going to manifest itself in more electrification. And that, of course, means a lot of focus on critical minerals, copper and the other things that we've been talking about. So it's a a morphing of the concept and of the concerns rather than eradication of it. Quick question. Answer to your question. Us winning in the short term, China winning in the long term.
Okay. That's a neat answer. Fatih, last word to you a little bit on Jason's question. And then you don't get to dodge the difficult.
One either. No, I, I see that I have only one minute left so I can tell you energy security said I have three golden rules one, diversification. Even if you're an exporter or importer, just diversify your client or where you get the energy from. Don't put all the eggs in one basket. There are many historical examples to that, which ended with a lot of pain. This. Number one. Number two, predictability. Energy investments are capital intensive investments. Unit predictability stop and go is a killer for the energy investment. Energy investors are like butterflies. They fly away when they see the predictability. The third one and the last one. Cooperation and partnership. Choose your partner right? Especially in energy. If you choose the wrong partner, it is very difficult in energy to get divorced. It is.
The countries who make the right decisions are the winners.
That will do. And I don't need to push you as head of the IAEA any more on that last question. So can you please join me in thanking a great panel? Great way to kick off the Starbucks. Thank you.
Thank you. Good. Good to see you. Thank you. Sorry. You're running up against that breakfast this morning.