hello everyone. a warm welcome to talking business weekly with me aaron heslehurst. let's take a look at what is on the show. europe's energy crisis has green governments turning to fossil fuels. so, whatever renewable happened to renewables? why are solar, wind and hydrogen power not the answer governments turn to when they stop buying gas and oil from russia? i am going to be discussing all of that with these two, there they are. mike lynch from the energy policy research foundation. and professor dorte fouquet from the european renewable energies federation. also on the show, how did private health care do during the pandemic and how are they doing now? i have got the global boss of bupa talking covid, staff, brexit and the future.

wherever you arejoining me from around the world, once again a big hello and warm welcome to the show. you know, it has been a record—breaking few weeks for temperatures in europe. wildfires have raged across mediterranean countries like spain, portugal, italy and greece. here in the uk, we had our hottest ever day on record. and yet, it is the coming winter that has been focusing minds, in particular how western europe and other parts of the world are going to keep warm amid the rising oil and gas crisis? following the russian invasion of ukraine and heavy sanctions on russia's oil and gas exports, which are to come in at the end of the year. president biden in the last few weeks was in saudi arabia and the middle east. while he didn't secure more oil from the country many think trying to do so was one of the reason for his visit. and in europe, the european

commission has set out plans asking countries in the union to cut their gas consumption by 15% until the spring. the plan was quickly endorsed by germany's economy minister, robert habeck. translation: i want to clearly stand behind the commission. i it is a good proposal and it is the right proposal and the solidarity that we want to show among ourselves is also tied to everyone doing their part to save energy. and despite being from the country's green party, robert habeck also said that germany will be burning more coal to meet its energy demands. translation: in addition to black coal, which has i already been taken out of the reserve, we will also act to vate the brown coal reserves as of october the 1st to save gas by converting brown coal into electricity. so, energy rationing and using more fossilfuels looks like the strategy that western europe is going to take to tackle energy shock this winter. so, what does that mean for business?

were we caught up with foreign with florian bockermann who owns a microbrewery in northern germany. this crisis is even bigger than the covid crisis, the second crisis in a row. the packaging prices for example, they rose and increased 200%. the buying prices increased by 30%, gas prices increased by 100%. so, we see a big increase in every part of our business. at the moment we have a big reduction in our margin. we tried to keep the prices as long as possible in that area that we are in now. but i think, there will be the time in the next month where we have to raise prices, up to five to 10% to survive. but, here's the question. where in all of this is renewable energy? with oil and gas supplies being an issue, why a country

is turning to fossil fuels, which is against their own climate policies, instead of wind, solar and hydrogen, which of course are all better for the climate? in 2020 just over 1/5 of energy came from renewable sources. but consumption was low that year because of covid. and the eu admits that its target of 32%, or a one third of energy to come from renewables by the end of the decade will require massive transformation. so is that transformation possible? how long will it take? let's find out, because i have been speaking with a distinguished fellow from the energy policy research foundation. mike lynch, a pleasure to have you on the show. let's start with this, why are renewables not more of the conversation, or the solution in this current energy crisis? the big problem is that renewables are very expensive and they are not dispatchable.

you cannot call up a wind turbine and say, give us more power, that power is either there or it isn't. so, when you want to have a surge capacity it is not going to be renewables because generally they operate all the time when they can. and if they are not operating it is because they can't. let me just clarify, what we are talking about it is an issue of capacity and the cost of storing renewable energy? yes, the cost of storing energy is phenomenal, people don't understand that. a battery, a a0 kilowatts battery costs about $5,000 and has about as much energy in it as $100 barrel of oil. this is why you do not have wide spread adoption of battery storage in utilities around the world. i am wondering is the problem of capacity likely to linger? i'm wondering won't investment in time and ambition, all of which politicians

in europe and america say they have a renewable, won't that mean that it will solve these issues soon? well, you need back up because when the wind is not blowing, the sun is not shining you need another source of energy and storage, if it was cheap, everybody would be doing it. what they have been doing for years is using gas or coal plants, if you need more power you can turn it back on. as you have now in europe with this shortages of gas. but, when you add wind and solar, they're not going to be sitting idle in case of an emergency. they are going to be operating full time if they can. we face a current short—term shortage now but we are also facing a long—term problem, aren't we? climate change, what we are calling the climate emergency. surely, we have to solve these issues now. no, we don't need to solve them now. we have to make progress. people think of it is not solved instead it is more, are we reducing emissions?

the problem is a lot of the plans are sort of, 0k. in 20 years we will have done all this. when we say, what you doing now? as we are saying, people want cheap energy and so what happens is people turn back to coal or gas. instead of saying, well let's spend $50 or $100 billion to add some more when term by and solar panels. and mike i am holding up my smartphone in this little phone can do much as a computer, which used to fill the entire room. why don't we think renewable technology won't progress on the same path? because electronics and chemistry are different in terms of what you can achieve. if wind turbines had advanced the way that computer chips had, you would have an inch high wind turbine that would power an entire city. but it doesn't work out that way.

the car battery in a conventional car is 30% better than 20 years ago but the computer is like 3 million times better than 30 years ago. and our generation is very different to the younger generation, they are growing up with a climate sensitive attitude that would surely, surely that would make a difference in the long run, won't it? i think it'll make some difference but you are not finding a lot of people saying i want to spend 50% more on electricity to save the planet. this is a big problem and our was told that all nuclear power will solve all the worlds problems and out not to be true. and mike, i am wondering are the current goals if we look at europe, europe says it wants to save 32% energy from renewables by the end of the decade, may even more. are those goals realistic? i don't think so. the energy required would be enormous, the land use

and the money. plus if we were to accelerate the buys of renewable equipment, you are going to drive the cost up. political goals usually have a half life of three or four years. as people start to realise they're not coming close to meet them they tend to revise them down or push them out into the future. we have been seen at the decade is an energy policy and environmental policy and many others. let me end on this, there is a lot of invested interest from traditional power companies, to current industry that would agree with you. is their power the thing that is holding back the renewable push? i don't think so for the most part. it varies by country and by industry but the point is you have a huge amount of investment in existing capacity, and when you say let's just tear that apart, knock it down, put in new capacity, new power lines and so forth.

that is a lot of money and you get consumer distance and that is well from the utility industry. thank you very much for your time. i will check in with you soon. take care. a sceptical view there from mike lynch, but what is the view from the renewable energy sector with the director of the european renewable energy confederation. —— of the european renewable energy federation. thank you so much for your time, appreciate you coming on the show. let's start with this, we have seen a german economy minister from the green party say that they are going to burn more coal. why aren't renewables the answer in this current crisis? thank you for having me having me, it is a pleasure. my answer would be it is false what is the government is at that the movement doing is in crisis mode. naturally we, i am representing their renewable energy sector.

we think the argument and logic should be turned around and say that we want much more renewables. and i would explain briefly that that was done as well. in order to get out of the crisis and show our backs to putin, we might for a very short period continue with these damaging energy sources. the ministerfrom the government came up with a package that is indeed increasing and giving a lot of momentum for more renewables. more wind, more power from solar power and etc. it is a line that is going ahead, but it is in line with the european agenda. i am wondering, is part of the problem technology, it is more difficult and expensive to store renewable energy than it is to store coal or gas, so when you have an emergency like we are having, you can burn more coal but stored

renewable energy. there needs to come from batteries, which are expensive? yes and no. first of all, the better the interconnection of regions and i'm not talking only within germany within europe, the interconnection of places which have different sort of renewable energies is already helping to balance the safety of the grid. that is the issue number one. on top, we need some storage and then you have to decide for different types. so we will have heat pumped into the earth and stored there, we will have the pumped storage, with the partitions. but in a modern form. an online reactive hybrid storage system. and we will have other types of storage.

but the best storage is our battery, is our grid, sorry. and it is also when we have more electric cars, they are the storage. so they are all over. when you park the car, you can use the battery for storage. the storage issue is not hindering us. we know we have seen a lot of political talk and ambitions to renewable energies. for example, the eu says it wants 32% of power from renewables by the end of the decade. even suggesting it may raise a target to a0%. but surely, we are a long way away from that, aren't we? yes we are a long way away from that, aren't we? yes we are still. to push them ahead is a really difficult struggle. and that is due to several reasons. the industry not wanting to change. it is a lot of mix of things. but we also have this good example of countries who have had good education legislation and have had private and good planning.

in that they are not ideal. for example, my government, for my country we have eight years, when we didn't do enough. that is changing now. i think the most important thing now is clear legislation and clear rules. and also helping the industry and the citizens to do as much and hard vesting the renewable energy as a hospital. do you see that seriousness of purpose when you talk to the authorities, planning regulators, etc. do they get it? yes, they get it. but sometimes they are in a squeeze between the interest

of the renewable energy developer and between nature protection organisations which have sometimes gone a bit overboard. that is why i like it that we have in the new legislative package, with europe, as you said, discussing the new renewable energy directors. but rolling out renewables is of extreme public importance. it might overrule some concerns from other part of interest. but that does not mean that would be for eternity, i could imagine a wind park in a nature protection zone in eight years. this means we should do it differently. but first of all we have to roll out if we do have planning permits, structures all over europe, which can foresee a certain tack to it, saying first of all, you can roll out but we might have to review it. do you think a new, younger generation, who are more

focused on the climate emergency, do you think they will hold politicians to account? yes. we need them. i am an olde trooper here and i can say that we need them to invigorate and to say, please deliver. we have them on board and that is good. i have to ask you this, what do you say to the sceptics who say this is just too difficult, changes you are suggesting or talking about are so radical that they just won't happen? it is not radical. it's really not radical. it is already happening. who would invest in anything else than renewables as a fund, as an energy? i can tell you that if i have the figures for germany, i'm bad with numbers so i look at the last numbers. we do have now the share of renewable energy in the energy consumption is at 20% and in electricity it's over a0%.

and we have no blackouts or anything and we don't have a lot of extra storage. in europe we do have 22% of the european union energy consumption already covered by renewables. and as we said within the european union. at least, it's getting there and some people have missed the boat. they are stubborn in clinging to fossil technology. that is a business model that they should have foreseen that it will not fly for much longer. i am wondering, the russian invasion of ukraine, has that helped or hindered the push towards renewables? it has created a difficult situation. i would rather not have putin shooting at innocent people and invading territories which are not russia in order to get renewables

off the ground. that is why i have problems in answering that question. but the answer, we have the sanctions, 0k, we need them. but the answer is all we have to tell him, just go packing with your fossils. and i think now we pay a lot, we pay the storage. but there is an end to it. and the faster that we get renewables off the ground, especially in the lazy bones countries, the better. on that note, dorte fouquet thank you very much for coming on the show. i have loved to check in with you soon. i have loved to check in with you soon-— if we ever needed a reminder about the importance of health and health care, the pandemic certainly provided it. bupa, a uk—based private company providing insurance

and care for the elderly. it has 31 million companies in a range of companies from australia to turkey. so, how did it cope with the pandemic? staffing to supply to ukraine? i caught up with the big boss of the group. a pleasure having you on the show, let's start with the war in ukraine, because within ten days of the russian invasion of ukraine, you announced it was ending all relationships with russian businesses. and you were one of the first global corporate is to make such an announcement. yes, thank you for saying that because it is true. we believe big corporations need to have a voice and express that voice. it is what we did. but it's not the only thing that we have done. we have also, for example, set up a complete health

pathway for ukrainian refugees in poland. the invasion was on a wednesday and on the friday our centre that we prepared to support ukrainian refugees was already handling one 100 calls. we have completed 180,000 procedures coming from 100,000 refugees in 250 clinics in poland. we have also in our hospitals, we have already done 160,000 procedures or 100,000 ukrainian refugees. on top of that we have hired 165 ukrainian health professionals to take care of their own refugees. we have declared, we are very happy to do this. we will be here until we are not needed. all that treatment you gave the refugees, is that free of charge? it is free of charge for them. that is being funded by us. let's talk about covid, so many businesses were affected. beyond that, you are a health business, so adapting

to the pandemic was obviously core to what you do. i am wondering, which country was the hardest hit for how you had to adapt your services? probably spain and poland because in spain and poland we had a lot of provision services like hospitals and clinics and in both countries we were declared as part of the solution for covid. so probably in those two places, we could have learnt a lot, as you can imagine, through these years. for me, the uninitiated, just briefly explain, how did you adapt your services? what took place? for example, in spain what we did is we campaigned in hospitals in our parking slots, the whole thing was to have two avenues.

it's called the clean avenue, people without covid, and the covid avenue, for people with covid. and if our patients needed to be, to stay in the hospital, there was a specific pathway for them to go into the rooms. some of the rooms were blocked only for covid purposes. the idea here was to preserve all of the other people that had existing episodes, existing illnesses that we had to take care of. this was just one example, we have a few. we know we continue seeing a global staff so shortage all across the world in all industries. where are you most feeling the pinch in terms of staff shortages? we are suffering all of these inflation pressures. translated into staff shortages, and also the fact that there is staff shortages because of covid.

so, we suffered as any other industry dead. thanks god, today, we are in a much better place. this morning i was talking to our ceo in the uk who was telling me the numbers of infected patients is still going down. it's a much lower number than it was in the past. so we are still there but thanks god we are seeing better numbers now. and as we know, britain, where your headquarters are, left the european unionjust a few weeks before the first covid lockdown in 2020. what impact has that had on staffing here in the uk? we have had a bit of an analysis. now this is nothing comes very clear, to be honest. we thought at the beginning we were going to lose nurses. but we haven't lost that many, to be honest. but in a written submission to the uk parliament bupa said it had long—standing workforce challenges which were before the pandemic, so things were tough pre—covid

and pre—brexit. do you think ultimately, this might apply worldwide, that may need to find a technical solution to staffing shortages? even suggested use of robots. staff shortages, probably we are suffering that and we suffered this before and today. but if you asked me whether the main reason is brexit i would, i can't say that. it's probably more because of inflation costs and also people have been sick. the robots thing, today in health, robots are being used for some surgeries. there is a robot that we have in many places that can can with many different things.

today we do not have robots substituting people providing service. not today. do you see a future in that? while we are always checking what is happening so, if there is a point where that makes sense, but we don't see it happening very soon, to be honest. well on that note, inaki ereno, thank you so much for your time. much appreciated, good luck with everything and see you soon. thank you for having me. that is it for this week so don't forget you can get all the updates on the war in ukraine and the impact it is having on our economy on the bbc website or smartphone app. you can also follow me on twitter. you can get me at bbc aaron. thank you for watching, goodbye.

hello, there. of course, july 2022 will be remembered for the first time the uk saw temperatures widely in excess of a0 degrees. however, it's also been a very dry month — and in southern england, it's been the driestjuly on record — those records date back to 1836 by the met office. now, anywhere in the brown has seen below—average rainfall, but the darker brown's way below the average rainfall totals for this time of year, and 1—2 stations along the south coast have not seen any measurable rain. now, if you can see over the next few days, we won't see any rainfall either across the far south and east. the heaviest of the rain will be out to the north and west — that's because you're closest to an area of low pressure that's moving in at the moment. the isobars squeezing together, it'll turn pretty windy, and it will be quite wet as well. so that means it could be a pretty damp start for the commonwealth games in birmingham, but quickly

brightening up by lunchtime, so an improving story. and that will be the story generally across the country. some heavy bursts of rain across northwest england and wales drifting their way steadily eastwards. the rain never getting as far south, really, as the south midlands, and then behind it, brightening up with 1—2 showers. a strong south—westerly wind as we go through the day — so blustery, but from a very warm source. it'll feel once again quite humid across the country — 2a celsius in eastern scotland, highs of 30 celsius perhaps in southeast england — that's the mid—80s fahrenheit. now, as we go through the evening and overnight, there's another frontal system that will sink its way south, just really a band of cloud and a few scattered showers, can you see, stretching from hull down to the bristol channel. again, it stays very warm, so a humid start to wednesday morning. that frontal system — a weak affair, a band of cloud, a few isolated showers — continues to sink south. but behind, it's introducing fresher air as the winds here come round to a northwesterly. so more showers being driven in by that northwesterly wind, and temperatures

down a few degrees. not so in the far southeast, as that fresher air hasn't quite yet arrived, but it will do so. the northwesterly wind direction continues to dominate for a few days. high pressure then builds in from the west, quietens things down. so, over the next few days, it's dry, settled, and sunny, but just that little bit fresher.

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