In this final episode of the four energy stages, I look at the final cost of energy, where price, risk, and responsibility ultimately end up.

This episode focuses on the delivery stage of fuel and why it is one of the most expensive and risk-heavy parts of the energy system. Transport adds another layer of cost, security, and exposure before fuel ever reaches the user. What looks like simple logistics quietly reshapes the final price of energy.

Before fuel is used, it has to be stored in tanks, terminals, ports, and infrastructure that quietly consume energy and carry risk. This episode explores fuel storage as a hidden cost of the energy system, where price, infrastructure load, and environmental risk accumulate long before consumption.

Before energy can be stored, it has to be transformed. This stage consumes enormous amounts of energy, creates emissions, and quietly raises costs long before fuel reaches anyone. This episode looks at the part of the system most people never see and always pay for.

This episode examines the energy required to extract energy. Oil, gas, and coal are analysed through economic logic and the consequences this creates over time.

This episode explores how modern energy systems stay alive not by being redesigned, but by being constantly protected from failure. As backup becomes permanent, complexity, losses, and costs quietly grow, turning resilience into an expensive mode of endurance rather than efficiency.

Infrastructure is reinforced for industrial demand long before society feels it. That weight stays embedded in grids, rivers, ports, and systems even after demand moves on. This episode explores how industrial load reshapes public infrastructure and why society keeps paying for the cost of that memory.

Electricity keeps getting more expensive, even when energy itself is not. This episode explains why the real cost is not energy, but stability. We look at civil energy infrastructure and the price of keeping the grid ready at all times.