A message from Insider Energy: We’re going on hiatus

Hello! Unfortunately, I have to share some bittersweet news: I'm leaving Insider, and so the newsletter is going on hiatus.

Of course, I'll miss working with the talented team of writers and editors here including Zach Tracer, our energy editor. Thanks for subscribing to Insider Energy and for sharing feedback. It means a lot!

If you'd like to keep up with Insider's journalism, you can subscribe to a weekly newsletter featuring our best business reporting, curated by one of our top editors, Matt Turner.

For better or worse, I'm staying in journalism, and I'd love to keep in touch. You can find me on Twitter and LinkedIn. Oh, and feel free to share your pet photos with me through my personal email. Jumi will miss the spotlight.

Ending on a high note, we hosted a lively panel with four top energy execs on Monday. See more on that below.

4 top energy execs dish on Big Oil's reputation, the breakthrough tech we need, and why surging oil prices are actually good for clean energy

We hosted a live panel with executives from Shell, Facebook, Oliver Wyman, and buzzy battery startup Form Energy. The video and transcript are available on-demand here.

The highlights: Soaring oil prices won't slow the clean-tech boom, according to Shell and Oliver Wyman. In fact, they could accelerate investments in transition technologies.

• "This near-term price of oil actually accelerates us to be able to speed up the transition," said Elisabeth Brinton, EVP for renewables and energy solutions at Shell.
• Money is pouring into ESG funds, which has made the investment case for clean-energy projects comparable to oil and gas, said Francois Austin, partner and head of energy at Oliver Wyman.
• Facebook is run on 100% renewable energy, as of last year. The key to getting there was partnering with utilities, which are also trying to reduce their emissions, said Urvi Parekh, Facebook's head of renewable energy.
• Electrochemical batteries are the cheapest and most feasible solution to the issue of intermittency, according to Form Energy (Form is developing that very technology).

A happy ending: We ended the panel by asking all four executives if they believed the world would realistically reach net-zero by 2050. Optimisim is in their job descriptions, but it was still nice to here the responses.

• "Yes, if we get started right now. We really can't afford to waste any more time. Not another five, not another 10 years. It's got to get going right now," said Mateo Jaramillo, the CEO and cofounder of Form Energy.
• "Yes, because we are firmly focused on it and I believe people are good, have passion, and the capital is pouring in the right direction. But we have to put the pedal to the metal," Brinton said.
• "This is the decade for the corporates to really step up and really put the shovels in the ground and build the infrastructure," Austin said.
• "Yes. I've seen social and political will aligning around climate change in a way that's unprecedented, and so I think that's going to carry us a long way," Parekh said.

Click here to read the full transcript or watch the event.

That's it for now. Have a great week, and please keep in touch!

- Benji

Ps. Jumi is indifferent to my career (assuming his treat supply is uninterrupted).