There aren’t enough cables to meet rising electricity demand: Bottlenecks Series

Zero: The Climate Race

Bloomberg

Technology, Business, Science

4.7 • 219 Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

High-voltage electricity cables are in huge demand around the world, so much so that a lack of cabling has become a bottleneck throttling the clean energy transition. So why are cable manufacturers so hesitant to expand? Also, how are these giant cables made? And is China about to eat everyone's lunch? Claes Westerlind, chief executive officer of cable manufacturing company NKT, joins Zero to discuss. This is the third episode in Bottlenecks, a series exploring the lesser known obstacles standing in the way of our electrified future.

Explore further:

Previous episode in Bloomberg Green’s Bottleneckes series:

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd. Special thanks to: Jess Beck, Sommer Saadi, Mohsis Andam and Siobhan Wagner. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an IHeart podcast.
0:04.1	I'm a creator.
0:05.5	Ideas hit fast.
0:06.9	I have to keep up.
0:07.9	I'm a gamer.
0:08.8	If I'm lagging, I'm losing.
0:10.6	I'm a student.
0:11.6	Cramming's my cardio.
0:12.9	I own my business.
0:14.4	I run numbers and the room.
0:16.9	Only Lenovo lets you build a PC that fits your grind.
0:20.1	Choose the power, memory, storage and graphics at Lenovo.com slash customize
0:24.2	because only you know what you need and you won't find it better anywhere else.
0:28.8	Get free shipping at Lenovo.com slash customize.
0:35.3	Welcome to Zero. I am Akshadrati.
0:38.1	This week, cables, cables everywhere.
0:52.4	Have you ever thought about how electricity gets from where it's generated to your home or to your office?
0:58.8	How, when you flick a switch to turn on the lights, the electricity just works.
1:04.6	It's a form of modern day magic.
1:08.2	That electricity runs through a series of cables.
1:12.7	The ones in your home running from your bedside electricity socket into your phone are thin, just a few millimeters thick. The ones
1:18.6	connecting your building to a nearby transformer a little bit thicker, and the ones connecting
	...

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