A break in the wall, the challenge of energy communities interview with vision and pure shapes, Episode 73. What does it take to build the energy transition? Usually the question is phrased like this, the energy transition is about deploying the right technology. But with this framing, we lose sight of the more important element in the energy transition. It is the people that build communities to support the new technologies, behaviors, and educate others. So these are the people creating the real energy transition. Welcome to the My energy 2050 podcast where we speak to the people building a clean energy system by 2050. I'm your host Michael LaBelle. This week we speak with vision pier six, resident businessman and local campaigner on the island of Kirk in Croatia. As you hear our vision is not a usual guest for this podcast. But then, I don't know who is. All I can say is that vision joins the eclectic mix of interviewees who really have interesting stories. And, as you'll hear, vision has really an interesting background and why and what led to his involvement to community activism that is now pushing for energy and nice energy community on the island of Carrick. So the overall story for today is how the island of Carrick is building a more sustainable ecosystem, moving from recycling to energy communities, and what they're doing there is really building a more self sustainable and self sustaining Island. And as you hear a vision paints us a colorful and vivid picture of what growing up and Kirk and Yuka Slavia under Tito was like how Pink Floyd Rubik's Cube and even visions of passive houses in 1980 set the stage for environmental campaigners to block there was this idea of a of Soviet and then a Russian plan to build an oil pipeline from Russia, to the Adriatic. And vision was really a leader in this movement to stop that from happening. The interview is essentially divided into two parts. The first is about vision, his background, upbringing and early environmental activism. And the second half we discuss energy, democracy and energy communities. Before listening, it'll be helpful for you if I paint a picture of our meeting, at least I'll try a little bit. We met in his home on the island of Kirk on a rainy, cold December day, the island was relatively deserted, in my opinion, although vision as you're here corrected me on this. But really, there wasn't too many people there, there was only a few cafes open. But it was what you would expect in the Adriatic in December. But it was beautiful to be there. And I'm really happy that vision opened up his home for this really in depth and insightful conversation. For me, both visions personality and his stories provide a greater context of the people making the energy transition happen. I interviewed him at the end of traveling, as you've heard from other podcast episodes throughout Europe and a range of countries from Romania, to Estonia, to Finland, off to Poland. And really, these are the people that are building with their own hands, the buildings like the physical houses, and the infrastructure necessary for a zero corporate and world world to happen. And their experiences are very important to listen to. So this is, like I mentioned not a typical, say policy orientated podcast, but I really think is from the ground up. And I really embraced and I really enjoyed my time with vision because he is reflecting what the ground level looks like in a country in an island in a country where there it's certainly ripe for renewable energy to be deployed. But there's a lot of political and social challenges at play. Certainly, the Croatian government would probably object to some of his statements, I'll just put that there. But as a social scientists, we learn to listen to people and really take their opinions into account and we assess the policymaking process and assess how companies are operating and how does that feed into understanding what the energy transition is really about. And in the topic of energy communities. I think this ground level perspective, it is even more important to understand and to listen to, then I would say maybe some policymakers that that use the words like energy community or energy democracy, but what does that mean actually on the ground? So I've come away even more from these interviews. Some have been published so far others will be rolled out in January and February of next year. But I'm not slightly slightly pessimistic, but maybe I won't go there too much. Because much can be made of the current high energy prices driving change. But from talking to people on the ground and seeing the changes in regulations and legislation really seems there's the political leads, and certain companies, certainly not all companies, companies are central for this energy transition, let me say that. But the entrenched dominant companies really are pushing for and trying to maintain the strong, strongly centralized energy system, with little investment into demand reduction, like energy efficiency, Smart Energy Systems, distributed generation, these are all kind of put to the side. And this centralized system still seems to be the dominant mode of thinking. So the concept of energy communities still runs counter to how governments and I would say, big companies see and want the energy transition to unfold, making version point of view, really important to listen to. And as he points out, giving him the power to produce his own electricity would make him a free man, we talk about energy, democracy, and I really enjoyed this part of the conversation. And this is not what the politicians that companies want. I'll let you listen now. So I'll shut up. And you can judge for yourself the views expressed expressed by Virgin, and whether his experience is unique or a common occurrence. And before we move on, for housekeeping notes, I just want to remind and kind of put a plug there for our repowering leadership and energy and food summer school, we're hosting at Central European University, as part of the Central European University summer university program, as part of the Open Society, university network. And applications are open until February 14. So what I can say is, if you liked this episode, you should definitely apply because I think this is one of the key areas that we'll be talking about is energy communities, politics, geopolitics of the energy transition, and how this interacts also with food and security as well. A final note, this interview was done for my current role as an open society University Network Senior Fellow at Chatham House, which I think by the time this is released, I'm no longer that funding was generously provided to produce the podcast. And I'm really happy and fortunate and grateful that the money was there. Because now I've got all these fantastic podcasts, which are very useful for research and for teaching purposes. So certainly the money we'll be living on and the output from this project we'll be living on and now we'll have time to write. So that's the most important. And now for this week's episode.