Growing up in New Zealand somehow turned into mud logging the Aussie desert, rigging up deepwater tech in the Gulf of Mexico, geosteering off Scotland, helping figure out nuclear waste storage in Swiss clay, and finally landing in subsurface risk and insurance where “nothing moves without coverage” starts to make way more sense. Jacob asks the dumb questions, Rodney Garrard from Arch Insurance International answers with real world stories, and the conversation ends on a pretty grounded idea: energy realism beats wishful thinking.

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0:00 Zurich check in + quick disclaimer
01:10 Rodney’s origin story in New Zealand geology
03:55 Mud logging in the Cooper Basin desert days
08:00 Houston and early deepwater Gulf of Mexico work
10:30 UK offshore, Rosebank, and geosteering life
14:20 Rotations, family life, and Norway years
17:00 Switzerland nuclear waste storage in clay, granite, salt
24:00 Pivot into insurance and subsurface risk work
27:00 What “energy insurance” actually does, CCS examples
37:10 Europe’s energy realism and the grid wake up call
40:50 Writing, energy density, and “Energy Transition 2.0”

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