Another BONUS Podcast Episode! The electricity file has been popping, especially in Alberta, where on a weekly basis a clash of worldviews on the future of electricity generation is on full display. About Our Guest Blake Shaffer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at The University of Calgary. He works on electricity markets, climate policy, and energy transitions, and frequently provides policy advice to governments at various levels.  Show Notes (00:02:44) AB’s new...

New BONUS Podcast Episode Canada's consumer carbon tax policy has been getting a lot of press attention of late, especially following the $15/T increase that took affect on April 1, 2024. Much has been said about it across the political spectrum, some of it accurate, and some of it just plain wrong. David's away this month, so it's just Sara and Ed talking all things carbon tax with special guest Mark Jaccard.   About Our Guest Mark Jaccard has been a prof at Simon Fraser University since...

Dr. Simon Evans, Deputy Editor & Senior Policy Editor at Carbon Brief join co-hosts David, Sara, and Ed, to tease apart EV fact from fiction.  About Our Guest: Simon Evans is deputy editor and policy editor at Carbon Brief. Simon covers climate and energy policy. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from Bristol University and previously studied chemistry at Oxford University. Show Notes: (00:02:01) – Factcheck: 21 misleading myths about electric vehicles (00:04:59) – Electric vs. Gas Cars:...

Co-hosts David, Sara, Ed, and energy/environmental economist Dr. Andrew Leach of the University of Alberta unpack the past, present and future of Canada's oilsands. About Our Guest: Andrew Leach is an energy and environmental economist and is Professor at the University of Alberta, with a joint appointment in the Department of Economics (Arts) and the Faculty of Law. His research spans energy and environmental economics. His most recent book is Between Doom and Denial: Facing facts about...

Overview: What does the history of energy tell us about energy transition? Can we learn from the past or will we repeat the same mistakes? What do people get wrong when trying to extract lessons from the history of energy? Co-hosts David, Sara, and Ed are joined by guest, Dr. Petra Dolata, to discuss data on historical transitions, including lessons of deindustrialization in the Ruhr region of Germany on Season 5, Episode 8 of Energy vs Climate. About Our Guest: Petra Dolada is Associate...

What is the role of literature in the climate policy and technology discussion? How does the genre allow us to explore uncomfortable climate scenarios, including those to do with heat death and direct action? While ultimately successful, the path laid out in the book is very bumpy, volatile, and rife with violence – strikingly different from the smooth and orderly transition often offered up by politicians and techno-optimists. On S5E7 of Energy vs Climate, David, Sara, Ed, and New York...

Published each year, the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Outlook (WEO) is a leading source of scenario-based analysis of global energy demand and supply. This year, as the global energy crisis shows signs of calming, the WEO finds a peak in fossil fuels before 2030 across all scenarios. The result has been met with skepticism by some politicians in Canada, with Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith going so far as to question the credibility of the organization.  A follow-on...

We are excited to bring you a special live taping of Energy vs Climate  from November 22, 2023 at the Ampersand in Calgary.  Energy vs Carbon Removal is a dive deep into this still relatively new climate mitigation pathway. The IPCC and other bodies increasingly view Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) as a critical tool to reduce CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and bring warming back down to 1.5C by century’s end.  It seems like new carbon removal start-ups are springing up weekly. But the...

What matters - and really doesn’t matter - when it comes to Building for Sustainability? David, Sara and Ed answer that question in a live episode of Energy vs Climate recorded on November 5, 2023 to kick off the Building for Sustainability symposium in Canmore, AB. EPISODE NOTES @00:3:30 Carbon sink and low-carbon building materials @00:5:30 Keeping The Heat In - Section 8: Upgrading windows and exterior doors @00:10:03 Spring Creek Mountain Village receives green energy...

Long distance and interregional transmission lines promise to increase reliability, mitigate the impact of extreme weather events, and provide electricity consumers with access to low-cost resources. They are an important piece of the energy transition puzzle. But despite the well documented benefits of long-distance transmission, to date there has been limited progress in building out interties across North America. What lessons can we draw from the early days of renewable development that...

Hey everyone, Ed here.   David, Sara and Ed will be back next week with an episode about electricity interties in the clean energy system. Until then we’d like to share another podcast with you that we think might be of interest, called Challenging Climate. Hosted by Jesse Reynolds and Pete Irvine, Challenging Climate tackles tough questions about the science, technology, economics and politics of climate change. Their topics range from climate modelling, persuasive narratives, national...

Since the Paris Agreement coming into force in 2016, world leaders have increasingly emphasized the need to keep warming to the 1.5°C target by the end of this century, in order to avoid more dangerous impacts from climate change. Yet temperature readings around the globe show that the world has already warmed by roughly 1°C on average above pre-industrial levels. Many models suggest we will very likely exceed 1.5°C of warming, possibly in the next 5-10 years, in the absence of aggressive...

On our first episode of Season 5, Sara and Ed speak to Dr. Melanee Thomas of the University of Calgary about her survey research into Albertans' attitudes to the energy transition, the oil and gas industry, coal and climate change. David wasn't able to join us for this one, but he'll be back live for Episode 2. EPISODE NOTES @00:49 If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it: how the public’s economic confidence in the fossil fuel industry reduces support for a clean energy transition  @2:16 Great...

[Rerelease] David, Sara, Ed and author Jeff Goodell discuss the impacts of heat on humans, the topic of Jeff’s new book. From heat-wave deaths, to reduced ability to learn, to the economic effects, who will suffer the most, and what does it mean for the politics of the energy transition? EPISODE NOTES B.C. heat wave leads to 11-hour ambulance wait time, spike in sudden deaths The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson review The Water will come: Rising Seas, sinking cities and...

Hi Everyone! We've got a favour to ask. We're doing a survey to help us understand what you like about Energy vs Climate, and how we can bring you more of that! We would be extremely grateful if you took just a few minutes out of your summer schedule to complete the survey. Your feedback will help us as we plan for Season 5. Thanks! We look forward to coming back in September. energyvsclimate.com @EnergyvsClimate

On a special summer episode of Energy vs Climate, we’re addressing the record-setting wildfires that Canada has been experiencing this summer. We're joined by molecular paleoecologist Allison Karp to examine how fire has changed across geologic timescales and how much of this year's wildfires we can attribute to climate change. EPISODE NOTES @1:23 Allison Karp, paleoecologist at Yale and Brown University @11:04 Earliest evidence of wildfire found in Wales 430 million years ago, BBC,...

No, we didn’t forget to fill in the pod title after Matt Ferrell’s name. On Still TBD, aka the Still To Be Determined Podcast, Matt and his brother Sean discuss electric vehicles, renewable energy, smart technologies, and how they impact our lives. And this week we have a special treat for you: a bonus episode with Ed, Sara, and Matt, who also happens to be host of the massively popular Undecided YouTube channel.  Matt's team reached out to us about collaborating and we loved what he was up...

On the final episode of Energy vs Climate Season 4, we’re covering the basics of solar geoengineering. We're joined by The Right Honourable Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister of Canada, to unpack the debate over the role of further research, the place of these technologies in the global climate toolkit, and the role for Canada in research and governance. EPISODE NOTES @1:36 Right Honourable Kim Campbell, Canada's 19th and first female Prime Minister @2:56 Solar geo-engineering...

On Season 4 Episode 9 of Energy vs Climate, David, Sara, Ed and special guest Dr. Blake Shaffer of The University of Calgary, dig into the how and why of Canada's big bet on electrification in the 2023 Federal Budget. EPISODE NOTES: @0:44 Blake Shaffer, economist and professor at the University of Calgary @3:59 Blake Shaffer: Technical Pathways to Aligning Canadian Electricity Systems with Net Zero Goals Report @11:14 Electricity 101: Generation capacity vs. Energy generation @27:39...

On Season 4 Episode 8 of Energy vs Climate. David, Sara,  Ed, and special guest Dr. Chris Bataille, Adjunct Research Fellow at Columbia University’s Center for Global Energy Policy (CGEP) and researcher with the Institut du Développement Durable et de Relations Internationales (IDDRI.org), discuss contracts for difference policy and and how can it help industrial decarbonization.  EPISODE NOTES: Dr. Chris Bataille, Adjunct Research Fellow at Columbia University Centre on Global Energy...

“Just Transition” is making headlines again in Alberta with the Provincial government pushing back against the yet to be tabled just transition legislation the Federal government first promised in 2019. Part of the debate is political, but underneath is the reality of the energy transition and the impact it will have on Alberta communities. How do we separate the politics from the policies when it comes to transition? What can we learn from coal communities that have already started to...

You may recall that we sipped Annex Ale Project's Easy Answers Pale Ale when we recorded our Crypto vs Climate episode back in Season 3.  Little did we know that would be the start of a fun and productive relationship with the good folks at Annex Ales.  And now the beer is here, we're proud to introduce our very own Energy vs Climate Session Ale, the beer that remembers to turn off the lights when it leaves the room. To celebrate, we made a bonus episode taking you behind the scenes of...

On Season 4, Episode 6 of EvC, Sara, David and Ed tackle the thorny and always controversial topic of carbon offsets, live at Avatar Innovations at The Energy Transition Centre in downtown Calgary. An offset in principle is paying someone else - a company, or a country - to reduce emissions that you yourself cannot, or simply will not reduce. What is the role of offsets in helping the world to avoid dangerous climate change? What's 'additionality' when it comes to offsets, and is it...

David (just back from Egypt), Sara, Ed and special guest Adrien Abécassis, Chief Policy Officer of the Paris Peace Forum and former Advisor to the French President (also just back) unpack COP 27 and what it means for Canada and the world going forward on Season 4 Episode 5 of Energy vs Climate. EPISODE NOTES @1:31 Adrien Abécassis, former senior advisor to the French president, and the Chief Policy officer of the Paris Peace Forum @7:55 Key outcomes of the COP27 @9:28 $750 billion a...