Energy vs Climate: How climate is changing our energy systems

Latest Episodes:

The Nuclear Option: A Canadian Reality Check with Jason Donev Apr 30, 2026

Show notes

Nuclear is having a global moment. But the story in Canada is a lot more complicated.

David, Sara, and Ed sat down with Prof. Jason Donev of the University of Calgary for a full, unsparing look at where nuclear fits in a rapidly growing and electrifying Canadian grid.

Jason is one of the clearest thinkers on energy systems in the country. He's also someone who started out opposed to nuclear and changed his mind.

We set this episode up to tackle two questions. First, what is the case for new nuclear right now, given rising electricity demand from electrification, industry, and AI. And second, why Canada, despite decades of experience, has struggled to build new projects beyond Ontario and New Brunswick.

A few things you'll hear about:

Canada had a nuclear accident in 1952. Jimmy Carter helped clean it up.
“Small” modular reactors can be up to 300 megawatts. A CANDU is closer to 700. “Small” is a relative term.
Darlington’s BWRX-300 is a closely watched test case for Western SMRs. Will costs fall with follow-on units, or will nuclear repeat its Achilles heel and get more expensive?

It turned into a lively and wide-ranging conversation on costs, timelines, small modular reactors, and the deeper issue that keeps coming up with nuclear. The physics may be solved, but the politics and institutions are not.

About Our Guest:
Prof. Jason Donev is a tenured professor teaching Energy Science and Physics at the University of Calgary. He leads EnergyEducation.ca, the world’s largest and most widely used energy resource for adults.
Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction
(02:20) Jason's journey from nuclear skeptic to advocate
(06:53) A brief history of nuclear in Canada
(12:39) Canada's nuclear accident record — what really happened
(17:56) The global nuclear resurgence: 40 countries, tripling by 2050
(20:27) SMRs: hype vs. reality
(22:58) Is nuclear being used to delay climate action?
(30:09) Why Western nuclear costs are "a joke" — and what to do about it
(31:57) Nuclear waste: real problem or political football?
(36:06) Why nuclear needs BOTH big business AND big government
(52:07) What should Canada actually do?
🔗 Related Episodes:
⚛️ The Nuclear Debate with Elizabeth May (S1, Ep. 10)
🔄 Turn the Tables
Full References & Notes

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The Hosts in the Hot Seat: Turning the Tables on Ed and Sara Apr 16, 2026

Show notes

EvC Superfan and fellow energy nerd Robert Tremblay turns the tables on Sara and Ed — asking the questions the podcast usually doesn't: how EvC started, the energy transition over the 7 seasons of the show, what's changed, and whether any of it is working.

They get into their backgrounds, the EvC origin story (are the rumours about Danielle Smith true?), how the show has evolved, and what they actually think about Canada's climate trajectory. Plus a rapid-fire round... well, at least as rapid-fire as EvC gets.

Topic Timestamps

00:00:20 — Intro and episode setup

00:01:07 — Hosts' backgrounds before the podcast

00:07:09 — Origin story: how EvC came to be

00:12:56 — How things have changed since 2020: energy data and political landscape

00:23:04 — Is the Energy vs. Climate premise still relevant?

00:30:35 — Alberta/Canada focus vs. international scope

00:34:30 — Can Alberta lead the energy transition?

00:38:48 — Climate targets: useful or counterproductive?

00:43:00 — Rapid fire questions

About Our Guest Host:
Rob Tremblay is Policy Manager at Energy Storage Canada, where he leads policy analysis and advocacy efforts across Alberta while contributing to federal and technical policy initiatives nationally. He also Co-Chairs the Board of the Calgary Climate Hub. He's passionate about advancing the energy transition and is a frequent Energy vs Climate listener and questioner.

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EvC BONUS | Fire Weather: John Vaillant on the New Era of Extreme Fire Apr 02, 2026

Show notes

Energy vs Climate X Climate Books Reviews

This week we're sharing an episode from Ed's other podcast, Climate Book Reviews, co-hosted with Dr. Roger Thompson of Arizona State University.

Their guest is John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast. (US and International - Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World)

Many listeners will know Vaillant from his earlier books The Golden Spruce and The Tiger, both gripping works of narrative nonfiction. In Fire Weather, he turns his attention to the massive 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire and what it tells us about the new era of extreme fire.

In this episode:

How the Fort McMurray fire burned for a week straight — and why traditional firefighting was useless
The concept of "fire weather" and why wildfires are now generating their own atmospheric systems
The oil industry's early awareness of climate change and the shift to deliberate misinformation
Attribution science: can we prove a specific wildfire was caused by climate change?
What hope looks like in the face of an altered climate

Chapters:
00:00 Cold Open: When Firestorms Become Unstoppable
01:00 Welcome & Introducing John Vaillant
03:00 The Fort McMurray Fire: Inside the Inferno
09:00 Writing Fire — Craft, Research & the Book's Structure
17:00 Community Heroes & Local Response
20:00 We've Altered the Climate: A Shift in Consciousness
23:00 Fire Tornadoes & Australia's Black Summer
28:00 Attribution Science: Proving Climate Change Caused This
33:00 Fire Weather: The New Physics of Wildfire
35:00 The Oil Industry Knew: The Greatest Betrayal
40:00 The Rising Wave of Wildfire Literature
42:00 Finding Hope in the Age of Fire

References & notes

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From Straits to Stoves and Tankers to Tables: Iran, Oil and Climate Trade-Offs in a Crisis Mar 19, 2026

Show notes

The Iran war and the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz have triggered a major shock to global oil and LNG markets.

Roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day normally move through Hormuz. The IEA says nearly all of that has been disrupted.
Oil and gas prices have surged sharply; and the disruption extends well beyond oil as Qatari LNG exports have been largely severed. Asia is especially exposed, since most Gulf energy exports flow there.

This isn’t just an oil story. It’s a “can people cook dinner” story, a reminder that geopolitics gets real once it enters the kitchen.
In this episode, David, Sara, and Ed unpack what this shock means for global energy markets, the climate, and the pace of the energy transition.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:17 — Welcome & episode overview
01:54 — How the Iran War is disrupting oil & gas markets
07:28 — 30x induction stove sales in India & accelerating tech adoption
09:38 — AI forecasts say EV sales are rising because of the war?
13:00 — The coming LNG whipsaw: glut or shortage?
16:21 — How much wilder could this get? Escalation risks
17:07 — Global recession risk from tariffs + oil shocks
17:30 — Has the Iran War accelerated peak global emissions?
19:36 — Data centers, energy demand & geopolitics in the kitchen
26:54 — What the war means for Canadian oil, gas & LNG exports
29:49 — Federal-Alberta MOU & pipeline politics
30:52 — The war's legacy: will it help or hurt the energy transition?

References & Notes

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The Hidden Power Bill of Artificial Intelligence with MIT's Vijay Gadepally Mar 05, 2026

Show notes

Vijay Gadepally joins Ed and Sara to break down the real energy footprint of AI—and why most people (and companies) are getting it wrong.

They discuss:

How "agentic" AI systems use an order of magnitude more energy than ChatGPT.
Whether efficiency gains can keep pace with exploding usage (spoiler: not yet).
The one simple change that could cut AI energy use by 80%.

Vijay is Senior Scientist at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Supercomputing Center and Co-Founder of Bay Compute and Radium Cloud. He studies what's actually happening under the hood of AI systems—and has the data to back it up. If you've been wondering whether AI is derailing the clean energy transition, or whether smarter software design could keep energy use in check, this is the conversation you need to hear.

🎙️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00:00 - Introduction & Cold Open
00:01:17 - Welcome & Guest Introduction
00:02:59 - Agentic AI: The New Energy Problem
00:04:10 - A Brief History of AI: From Expert Systems to LLMs
00:08:43 - Agentic AI vs. LLMs vs. Reasoning Models Explained
00:10:00 - The Energy Reality: One AI Node = 10-15 Homes
00:14:13 - Why Energy Consumption is Unpredictable
00:16:02 - The Big Flip: Training vs. Inference Energy Use
00:26:22 - What Does "Efficient AI" Actually Mean?
00:29:37 - Are Tech Companies Optimizing for Energy or Market Share?
00:36:20 - The Low-Hanging Fruit: Cutting AI Energy Use by 80%

Full notes & references

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Understanding China's Energy Transition: Experts Weigh In | Andrew Light, Jeremy Wallace, Christina Pan, and Hong Li Feb 19, 2026

Show notes

This episode is different. We're tackling China's energy transition, and instead of David, Sara, and Ed just talking about it, they went out and interviewed different experts on the subject.

Why China? Because it's arguably the most important energy story on the planet right now. China is the world's largest emitter. It's also the world's largest investor in clean energy. It manufactures the lion's share of solar panels, batteries, and now electric vehicles in the world.

Functionally, what happens there determines whether the world has any real shot at meeting long-term climate targets.

David spoke with Andrew Light, distinguished professor at George Mason University and former Senior Climate Official in the Biden administration.

Sara talked with Jeremy Wallace, professor of China Studies at John Hopkins and Christina Pan, a PhD candidate at Cornell researching renewable energy in China.

And Ed interviewed Hong Li, a professor at the Institute of Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and an expert on battery chemistry.

Three different perspectives followed by David, Sara, and Ed trying to make sense of it all.

🎙️ TIMESTAMPS
00:13 - Intro: The scale of China's ambition
01:44 - David Keith interviews Andrew Light
03:33 - How China took over the Solar industry
04:55 - The massive Nuclear build-out: "Too small?"
11:08 - US vs. China: The clean energy arms race
15:30 - Sara Hastings-Simon interviews Jeremy Wallace & Christina Pan
24:48 - Will China's emissions peak before 2030?
29:48 - State Control vs. Ruthless Competition: What drives the growth?
40:11 - Ed Whittingham interviews Hong Li: The view from inside China
48:34 - EvC Roundtable: What can the West learn from China's speed?

Show notes & references on episode page.

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Alberta’s Energy Transition: Economics, Emissions, and the Hard Trade-Offs (LIVE) Feb 05, 2026

Show notes

Recorded live at the Energy Transition Centre in Calgary, David, Sara, and Ed took on one of the toughest questions in Canadian climate politics: what does energy transition actually look like for Alberta?

They dug into emissions, economics, diversification, and the uncomfortable trade-offs that tend to get glossed over in public debate.

It's a fun conversation with an extended Q&A from the live audience.

Just a note, unfortunately we had some mic issues so apologies for any audio hiccups you might notice.

🎙️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00:00 - Introduction & Welcome to Calgary
00:04:00 - Alberta's Hard Truths: Oil Dependence & Petro State Reality
00:10:00 - EV Growth & Peak Oil Demand by 2030
00:19:00 - China's Energy Bet: Lucky or Strategic?
00:22:00 - Alberta's Path Forward: What Should We Bet On?
00:25:00 - Can We Bend Emissions Without Breaking the Economy?
00:33:00 - Economic Diversification: Beyond Oil & Gas
00:42:00 - Oil Sands Resilience in a Disordered World
00:49:00 - Audience Q&A: Heavy Oil & Emissions Intensity
00:59:00 - Q&A: China and Climate Politics
01:11:00 - Q&A: Should Climate Be on Alberta's Election Agenda?
01:16:00 - Rapid Fire Q&A: TMX, Renewables vs Fossil Fuels, Carbon Tax
01:22:00 - Closing & Credits

Thanks as always to Avatar Innovations for being such gracious hosts.

🔗 LINKS

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Aviation vs Climate: Can Sustainable Flight Take Off? with Sebastian Eastham Jan 22, 2026

Show notes

Can we have guilt-free flying?

David, Sara, and Ed chat with Sebastian Eastham, associate professor of sustainable aviation at Imperial College London, about the climate impacts of aviation and what we can actually do about it.

The conversation covers immediate levers like contrail avoidance and operational changes that don't require waiting decades for new tech—plus the real potential (and limitations) of sustainable aviation fuels.

It's a lively and at times blunt conversation, with sharp audience questions and limited patience for climate cosplay. You'll get the cosplay bit once you listen...

🎙️ TIMESTAMPS
00:18 - Introduction
01:15 - Webinar Start
46:00 - Audience Q&A

🔗 LINKS
Full show notes
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About Our Guest

Seb Eastham is the Associate Professor for Sustainable Aviation at Imperial College London. An atmospheric scientist and aeronautical engineer, he seeks to understand what the true environmental impacts of aerospace activity are and what we can do about them. He develops and applies novel numerical models of the atmosphere, ranging from the scale of a single exhaust plume up to the global Earth system, to provide new understanding of those impacts and guide the development of new solutions to support a growing and sustainable aerospace sector. One of his current focus areas is to find robust strategies to reduce (or eliminate) the climate impacts of condensation trails, currently thought to be responsible for up to half of aviation's contributions to climate change.

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Ask EvC Anything 2025 | David Keith, Sara Hastings-Simon, and Ed Whittingham Dec 31, 2025

Show notes

You asked — David, Sara, and Ed answered.

We're wrapping up the year with our annual Ask EvC Anything episode, touching on topics that pair well with New Year's bubbly: We talk about whether Canada’s climate targets are quietly slipping out of reach, the practicalities and prospects of direct air capture, what a net zero electricity grid in Alberta might actually look like by 2050, whether shiny new materials like metal organic frameworks are breakthrough solutions or just the latest carbon hype cycle, and why we call the show Energy vs Climate.

References & Show Notes available on episode page.

About Your Co-Hosts:

David Keith is Professor and Founding Faculty Director, Climate Systems Engineering Initiative at the University of Chicago. He is the founder of Carbon Engineering and was formerly a professor at Harvard University and the University of Calgary. He splits his time between Canmore and Chicago.

Sara Hastings-Simon studies energy transitions at the intersection of policy, business, and technology. She’s a policy wonk, a physicist turned management consultant, and a professor at the University of Calgary where she teaches in the Energy Science program, and co-leads the Net Zero Electricity Research Initiative. She has a particular interest in the mid-transition.

Ed Whittingham isn’t a physicist but is a passionate environmental professional. He is the founder of Advance Carbon Removal, a coalition advancing demand side solutions for carbon removal in Canada. He is also the former CEO of the Pembina Institute, Canada’s widely respected energy/environment NGO. His op-eds have been published in newspapers and magazines across Canada and internationally.

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Energy Past vs Energy Future with Energy Innovation's Robbie Orvis Dec 11, 2025

Show notes

A look back at the biggest energy stories of 2025 and some crystal ball gazing about what to watch for in 2026.

David, Sara and Ed chat with Robbie Orvis, Senior Director of Modeling & Analysis at Energy Innovation, an American Think Tank.

The show was set up to do two things: First, to sort out what genuinely shifted in 2025 and what didn't. Second, to build a 2026 energy and climate watch list that helps separate real transition signals from the noise and the hype.

It's a lively conversation with great audience questions - a sign that people are trying to make sense of a confusing year.

References & notes available on episode page.

About Our Guest:

Robbie Orvis is Senior Director, Modeling & Analysis at Energy Innovation. As a specialist in energy and climate policy, Robbie routinely works with federal and state policymakers in the U.S. as well as international policymakers to analyze legislation and regulation and to provide insights on how to achieve climate goals. He has helped develop and deploy Energy Policy Simulator models in more than a dozen countries, including Canada, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, and to analyze decarbonization pathways in each region.

Robbie is the lead author of Designing Climate Solutions: A Policy Guide for Low-Carbon Energy and frequently provides insights to decision-makers on how to design policies to achieve deep decarbonization. His research is regularly cited in the nation’s top news outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico, Bloomberg, and the Los Angeles Times, and he is a regular contributor to Forbes.

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