What are the biggest barriers to accelerating the energy transition and is it a barrier to be operating in the US?
Tim Lord: In terms of constraints, the first one is grid. I think we’ re making real progress, not just in the UK but more widely. It’ s really hard to build an electricity system on this scale while decarbonising and while fundamentally changing the nature of it. And that’ s clearly going to be a key constraining factor. The second is supply chains. Do we have the scale and volume in those supply chains?
A lot of those supply chains take decades to build up. And what we’ re trying to do here is to kind of replicate that, but in 3, 5, 10 years. But for many of these supply chains, there are fundamental differences. They need different port infrastructure, they need different financing solutions.
Saleh ElHattab: More often than not, we work with corporations, not with governments. And so for me, the biggest challenge that I have to overcome is mostly cognitive. Sometimes it’ s literally just a bad word. The word decarbonisation in the US, depending on what state you’ re in, will immediately make anything you say thereafter be unheard by the recipient.
114 November 2025