Real Talk Ryan Jespersen x EvC

David Keith: Canada has to win economically. Canada has to deal with its long slump in productivity. Canada has to figure out a way to to realize that as a relatively small country with lots of natural resource assets and educated population, it kind of underperforms in lots of ways. 

Ed Whittingham: Hi, I'm Ed Whittingham and you're listening to Energy Versus Climate, the show where my co-host, David Keith, Sara Hastings-Simon, I debate today's climate and energy challenges on October 31st, David, Sara, and I were guests on Real Talk with Ryan Jespersen.

Real Talk is a live talk show based out of Alberta. It covers news, politics and pop culture. Ryan had us on to discuss a variety of climate energy topics, including the G seven critical minerals, carbon capture and storage, and oat milk, cream liquor. Well, admittedly, that last one is not a climate energy topic, but if you listen, you'll get what I'm talking about.

It was a wide ranging discussion that covers a lot of ground. So for those of you who missed the chance to hear it live, here's a replay. Happy listening. 

Ryan Jespersen: This is one of those ongoing conversations, not just on this show, but I think, uh, at an individual level, at government levels, if there's one conversation that really never ends, uh, and it never gets any easier, it's the one sitting square at the squarely, at the crossroads of energy in the environment.

Politicians and policy makers are forever trying to square the circle. How do you keep energy reliable and affordable, while also cutting emissions, protecting ecosystems, and preparing for the next climate driven disaster? Uh, they're doing it all under the pressure of an economy in transition. Voters that are demanding action, and again.

Affordability and industries that simply don't turn on a dime. Uh, so this week those questions are taking center stage on the world stage and Canada's hosting the G7 Energy and Environment, ministerial in Toronto. Uh, this is a gathering of some of the world's most powerful countries, hashing out how to make good on the promises that their leaders made right here in our home province of Alberta back in June, uh, in beautiful Kananaskis country on the agenda over the next, uh, day or so, energy, security, innovation, resilient communities and protecting fresh water and ocean ecosystems.

In other words, uh, you know, everything that will not only define our economy, uh, but also our quality of life for generations to come. And the stakes couldn't be higher between wildfires rising costs a global race to net zero. Uh, the question is not whether Canada can lead. Uh, it's whether we're truly.

Ready to, and that's why we've tapped three of the sharpest minds in the country. To break this down, David Keith is a professor and founding faculty director of Climate Systems Engineering in initiative at the University of Chicago. Uh, David's the founder of Carbon Engineering, formerly a professor at Harvard and the University of Calgary.

He splits his time between Canmore and Chicago. Sara Hastings-Simon, a familiar name for anybody following energy transitions across Canada and around the world. That's where she's at. Policy Business Technology, uh, a policy wonk, if you will, a physicist turned management consultant, a professor at the UFC where she teaches in the energy science program and co-leads the Net Zero Electricity Research Initiative.

And Ed Whittingham is a clean energy policy, finance professional, um, specializing in renewable electricity generation and transmission. Carbon capture, carbon renewal and low carbon transportation. As a public policy forum, fellow formerly the executive director of the Pembina Institute, of course, a national clean energy think tank, and our guests also collaborate on the popular Energy versus Climate podcast.

It's nice to see you all today. Thank you so much for making time for us for this real talk round table. Ed, do I see you wearing your Toronto Blue Jays Blue this morning? 

Ed Whittingham: Absolutely, Ryan. I mean, it's a big day today. It's, uh, game six. I was in Toronto for the three games in la. Uh, it was really quite something.

And, uh, I even after the, uh, the forum that we'll talk about, I hosted a, a private watch party. 

Ryan Jespersen: Oh, wow. 

Ed Whittingham: I had a bunch of folks, not just from Canada and the US but from Europe coming to watch as well, and for some of the Europeans, they called it an anthropological sporting event. Yes. For them. But yeah. Yeah.

Pretty, pretty exciting to be in Toronto this week. 

Ryan Jespersen: Yeah, no kidding. So go Jays and, uh, of course Toronto also home to this G seven Energy and Environment ministers meeting. Uh, we're gonna get into a ton today. I wanna encourage all three of you to speak freely, treat it like we're all just out having coffees together.

But Ed, why don't you tee it up? Wh why, why are you hoping that, you know, every single Canadian and certainly everybody that's gonna catch this podcast is focusing on what's happening in Toronto. And I'm not talking about the baseball game. 

Ed Whittingham: Yeah. Nor Halloween, like it is a big day. It's a huge day, but it's also, it's the last day that G seven Energy and Environment ministerial in Toronto.

You know, there's so many things going on, Brian, that it might require an oat milk, cream, lcu. End, 

Ryan Jespersen: nicely played End today. E well played. 

Ed Whittingham: Yeah. How do you like that? Shameless plug for your sponsor. 

Ryan Jespersen: Very well done. 

Ed Whittingham: So, I mean, what's happening is Canada is hosting a couple major events in Toronto and one is that G seven Energy and Environment Ministers meeting.

It's co-hosted by the Minister of Energy Natural Resources here in Canada, Tim Hodson, and then the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. And that's Julie Dereon. Uh, but at the same time, um, there also, Julie Reson in particular is hosting a Ministerial on Climate Action. And that includes G seven reps, but also officials from China in the European Union.

And so given everything that's going on, you know, we've got so many things happening. We still have wars going on. You have the, you know, the trade tensions across the world. You have, you know, the latest, uh, you know, excitement that's coming out the United States. It really is a good time to be talking about energy and environment.

And as you say, I mean, ultimately the, it's, it's the how do you turn policy, uh, how do you turn what they talk about into policy and how do you turn it into action? And I can tell you it's a little easier to do the former. Then to do the latter, as we know with governments. 

Ryan Jespersen: Yeah, no kidding. 

Ed Whittingham: Yeah. Lot, lot, lots of chin wagging in Toronto this week.

Ryan Jespersen: Absolutely. And, and Sara, I think a lot of people that saw Mark Carney win the liberal leadership and then win this election, albeit with the minority government, uh, immediately started to wonder how he was gonna manage, uh, relationships with the provinces. For example, premiers that were looking for different political policy, Alberta's Premier in particular, um, looking for the lifting of restrictions or hurdles that would stand in the way of a new pipeline.

Um, some within the liberal caucus are starting to whether or not wonder whether or not Carney will respect, um, Canada's international commitments in past. Uh, I, I mean, it's not easy for any political leader, and of course you've got 40 million people watching to see what's gonna happen next. 

Sara Hastings-Simon: Yeah, and I think people are, I think, starting to be a little bit disappointed honestly, with the pace of Kearney's action on climate.

You know, we've really seen, uh, I would characterize it as a move backwards on a number of the climate policies that the previous liberal government put in place. Obviously famously, the, the consumer facing carbon tax, but not just that, there was a pause put in on the policies around electric vehicle adoption.

There hasn't been any move forward, and there's talk about a move backwards on the, um, oil and gas emissions cap, which really is, is about holding the sector to, uh, the. The types of targets that they had proposed previously. So, you know, in some sense, I think we're seeing a lot of, it's, it's fair to characterize it as delay on climate, which, you know, we really can't afford.

Um, obviously we're, we're all waiting to hear what the sort of next budget will come out with and what the climate policies will look like there. But the ones that have been floated, like, uh, natural gas with CCS and a focus on hydrogen, again, you know, it kind of feels like we've gone back to the. Two thousands with some of the failed climate policies there.

I'm, I'm wondering whether I should break out my Nokia brick phone and my iPod, uh, click to, to, uh, be talking about these. 'cause it, it really feels like that time. 

Ryan Jespersen: Well, nice references there. By the way, uh, David, you as mentioned, you split your time. Uh, you've clearly got life figured out, splitting your time between two of the great communities on planet Earth, Chicago, and Canmore.

Uh, well done there. W what in your estimation does Canada need to prove, if anything, uh, to its G seven partners right now on, on energy, on innovation, on climate? 

David Keith: Canada both needs to actually keep doing something to cut emissions. But also Canada has to win economically. Canada has to deal with its long slump in productivity.

Canada has to figure out a way to, to realize that as a relatively small country with lots of natural resource assets and educated population, it kind of underperforms in lots of ways, uh, in, in business terms. And to do that, I think we need a different way to make decisions that are essentially kind of industrial policy.

We just don't do well. Uh, picking up on what Sara said, this kind of, uh, a throwing outta these kind of half bake, we're gonna vaguely do something on hydrogen with no clear strategy. I think this happens again and again. I would say the. Previous government, the Trudeau government, uh, uh, had a climate policy that was ambitious, but also had a thousand complicated little tidbits in a way that, uh, really never focused on anything.

And that's just not a policy that can get some. Kinda world leading Canadian firms, Canadian clusters of firms that can actually compete in a global market. To do that seriously requires a lot of effort in just a few places. And what I'm hoping for with Kearney, but I don't think I've seen much of yet, but also maybe they haven't got there yet, is the willingness to really encourage a kind of focus and to bring, uh, industrial experts and academic experts together to make some hard decisions about what we're actually gonna focus on the business of the kind of endless triangulation politics of say this to make this group happy and that to make that group happy, which then means you don't focus on anything is a recipe for not competing in a global economy that's increasingly hard competitive.

Ryan Jespersen: Okay. So David, let's stick with you and then I'll invite Ed and Sara to just jump in. But, but what would like, when it comes to actually making that happen, when it comes to your wishlist, like if you were calling the shots, what would be the end result? 

David Keith: I actually don't, I don't, I have some ideas, but I think to do that right requires more.

This is a very process answer, requires a process that can make some hard decisions and zero out some things. I mean, the US famously had a successful process for closing a bunch of military basis, a kind of base closing commission. And I think on a bunch of these climate and energy, uh, topics, we need to be clear that there's some things we're just not going to do and there's a limited set of things we want to do in a way that really could, uh, uh, work in an international stage.

Um, I think it's conceivable that there's stuff on CCS we could do. It can't be across the board. And I'm actually quite skeptical that it's just doing CCS from the oil sands. 'cause I don't think that's kind of sellable elsewhere. Um, it's conceivable there's stuff we could do on nuclear, it's conceivable there stuff we could do on critical minerals and batteries.

Uh, but you can't do all those things and you need to have a way to really put weight behind a few of them. 

Ryan Jespersen: Ed, Sara, what, what jumps out at you from, from what we're hearing there? 

Ed Whittingham: Yeah. Uh, so maybe I'll just give a little bit of insight from having been in Toronto and prior to the G seven, uh, the government of Canada, together with the International Energy Agency or the IEA hosted an energy innovation forum.

It included representatives from many of the G seven country delegations that'll be attending the G seven and, and here. So they've given a snapshot, and this was co-organized by the I a but with Natural Resources and Energy Canada really kind of driving content behind the scenes. And they had three breakout sessions, and these were themes throughout the day that I think signal what Canada is particularly interested in.

And one is AI powering clean tech innovation. Um, and, you know, minister Hodson when he got up, he's the, the Natural Resource Energy Minister talked about. You know, this is the next industrial revolution. We've heard that before. It's about the integration of data industry and climate systems. The other was how to accelerate removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Uh, you had mentioned David is, is the founder of Carbon Engineering, uh, one of the leading tech companies that is doing that in the world. Sorry, another shameless, in addition to oat milk flavored liqueur, shameless plug for David's past 

Ryan Jespersen: Ed. If you keep delivering these so seamlessly, you can just keep it up.

We've got no problem with it. 

David Keith: I, I, I told Ed I'm really marshing the cherry liqueur that that oat milk wasn't doing it for me. 

Ryan Jespersen: Yeah, I mean, and the, and the good news is guys, is that Hansen's Hansen Distillery has a little something for everybody. 

Ed Whittingham: Well, there you go. There you go. Something. 'cause I'm gonna stay away from that cherry look here.

I'm gonna run screaming for the exits. Okay. But the, so the third one, and this is the real big focus and there's actually announcement on it this morning, and that is tech for critical mineral supply. And that is something that just kept coming up again and again. And I think what you're seeing from the Kearney government and from, uh, energy Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodson, is we in Canada really want to be part of that supply chain for lithium, for nickel, for cobalt, and all those rare earths that are presently mostly being mined and processed by can, uh, China.

And for a bunch of strategic and geopolitical reasons and economic reasons, we want to be a bigger player than we are right now. 

Ryan Jespersen: Uh, 

David Keith: maybe, 

Ryan Jespersen: yeah, go ahead. 

David Keith: Jump in on this kind of like, weird way that governments just follow little trends. I think both Sara and I might have something to say about this, like, idea that AI is gonna magically transform clean tech revolutions.

I think I, I think AI really can help us design complicated molecules that are, uh, kind of drugs or, uh, um, well, drugs or very high expense, um, plastics or other materials where structure really matters and when you pay tens of dollars a kilogram. But I think for the kind of commodity things in energy, it's much less likely.

AI plays a big role. Hmm. 

Ryan Jespersen: Sara, do you agree? 

Sara Hastings-Simon: Yeah. Oh, and just, just to add onto that, I mean, I would broaden that to say, I think that Canada falls into the trap that happens with industrial policy, where you follow too much what your industries, what your major industries want you to do. And I think we see that happening across the board.

You know, whether you're talking about Ontario and the vehicle manufacturers, or Alberta and the oil and gas industry, and in both of those we're really not in the country taking enough of a global picture to see what's happening. You know, you, you go to China and you see that they're at, you know, at last year almost 50% of the vehicles sold in China, where EVs, a lot of those Chinese EVs are, uh, for sale now in European countries, we haven't really felt that here in Canada, we've basically prevented them from, from coming here and being sold.

Um. But I think that that can go only go on for so long before, you know, we really almost replay the, the story with the, the Japanese entering the vehicle market that we kind of went through, um, a number of decades ago. And then similarly on the oil side as well too, you know, the, there are many countries around the world that are China included, that are making big efforts to change the amount of oil that they import, um, as, uh, you know, broad, um, broad energy strategies for their countries.

And so, you know, we're, we're a little bit, I think, too much head in the sand around where things are going and trying to optimize around, you know, the near term five year future for, for Canada's productivity in Canada's industries and not enough thinking about how are we gonna compete in this very transformed world.

Ryan Jespersen: Sara, I want to stick on that for a second. You know, we, we've here. You know, I mean, we will hear consistently, um, in conversations around, you know, whether it's a carbon pricing or emissions caps, um, or even critical mine mineral strategy like this. Uh, you know, people say like, you know, CA Canada's economy is disproportionately or at least heavily reliant on oil and gas or, uh, Canada's emissions or, but a pittance of China or India's emissions, or you'll, you'll hear the qualifier based on, uh, either where our revenue, uh, is generated or the size of our population or the size of our land mess.

Um, how realistic in this context is international cooperation? Like, what do you say to people that say, well, Canada's, you know, you know, emits, you know, less than 2% of global emissions. You know, this is a drop in the bucket. Whatever we do here isn't gonna do didly squat. You've heard it a million times.

Sara Hastings-Simon: Yeah, and I think there's, there's two parts to that, right? One is just the responsibility part and you know, yes, this is, the emissions of the world can be divided up into smaller and smaller pieces. And uh, if you did that with all of them, you would never touch any of them, right? So we certainly have a responsibility to contribute and I think Canadian.

You know, as a, as a, people are not one to back down from a challenge to say, we're gonna let everybody do the work and, and we're gonna sit back. But, but more and more fundamentally than that, I think it's really, uh, the rest of the world is moving on. There are many countries in the world that do not have the kinds of oil and gas resources that we have in Canada.

And so they are working hard to reduce their dependence on oil and gas, which also reduces emissions. But by the way, it reduces their need for the product that we're selling. And so, you know, even if you set aside the climate piece for a minute, the economic piece says that we really need to figure out what to do when you know, this, this decades and even centuries long increasing demand for oil globally turns around.

And I think it's hard to wrap our heads around it, but it really, you know, I, I would put serious money down saying that we are going to see this peak in decline in oil, uh, you know, in the next, uh, in the next decade. 

Ryan Jespersen: Well, yeah. Fossil fuels though. And, and this is, this is where the three of you have more expertise than I do.

So, pardon the, the entry level nature of my question. But, you know, you'll hear from people that'll say, you know, there's still gonna be global oil demand for, for 30, for 40, for 50 more years. Uh, in, in your estimations your professional opinion, ed, what's the truth? 

Ed Whittingham: So yes, you'll see demand, but I think what we're seeing now is a looming peak, a plateau, and a slow decline, decline of oil demand, and it's really being driven.

So there are a bunch of pressures, uh, that are just driving a reconfiguration of just, uh, energy production and consumption generally. One of the big ones is that now 50% of vehicles rolling off of assembly lines in China are electric. And you're seeing that's four wheeled you're seeing, that's two wheeled.

And what you're seeing is that Chinese demand for oil has really peaked and you're not seeing other emerging economies like India picking up that slack. In fact, the nature of of, uh, India's economy is very different. We actually have an energy versus climate show that will drop in a week or two. Doing a deep dive on India.

And so for the first time, I think you're seeing a real, like in, in a genuine outline of what, uh, peak demand for oil is going to look like. And then in a case like that, you have to ask Canada, well, what does Canada do? How does Canada compete, uh, in a market in which. The supply, uh, the demand is peaked and therefore you get downward pressure on the price.

Now that's, that's oil. One of the pressures that we're just facing generally is that trade fragmentation, like the, we call it the re globalization. It's not deglobalization, but it's re globalization. So the trade fragmentation that we're having from the Trump administration throwing tariffs on everyone and her cousin is now meaning that nations, they have to build more energy and industrial capacity.

And for them now, industrial policy really equals energy policy, and that's gonna play out in oil and gas as well. So you're seeing the Chinas of the world, not only is their demand going down, but it's partly because they don't wanna be so reliant on expensive foreign oil that they don't produce much of themselves.

David Keith: I'm sure there'll still be substantial oil production in 2060, but it'll be a long way down. And the point is, in a market that's declining the value added, the amount of real new money you can attract is just not that big. As an Albertan, I wanna keep a bunch of oil operating for a long time, extracting the most money we can to pay for it.

'cause that's part of what drives the Alberta economy. I'm no dummy, but we need to use it to build something else that can win for our kids. We can't just think we're gonna sit on that declining asset forever. 

Ryan Jespersen: So 

David Keith: David, what does that 

Ryan Jespersen: mean? Like, are you talking like. 

David Keith: S So I think critical minerals are a really interesting thing because what, what skills do oil and gas have, oil and gas in Alberta are, are, are made up of people with huge, first of all, kind of the, the blue collar, the trade skills, which are amazing, but also the big engineering firms, the EPC firms that are amazing in Alberta.

Those skills are exactly the kind of skills you need to build a globally competitive business to do processing of critical minerals. But it's not just gonna happen. That would require a real strategy, real money, and it requires you to get some strong competition going. Part of the reason China's been so successful in cars is they've got like wild west capitalism that we and the supposedly capitalist side have forgotten how to do.

They've got this enormous number of companies competing viciously and a bunch of them are fail, but that's how they'll build up really strong supply chains and build some strong companies to win. And if you want, if you were serious about doing that, you could build from the foundations of the skillset that Alberta has in terms of these EPC companies in terms of the skills that people in Alberta, you could build on that.

But you can't do that with like one little program among 20. You'd have to do that as one of the couple of national things you were focusing on. 

Ryan Jespersen: Sara, does the energy transition, uh, play out differently for Alberta versus the rest of the country? 

Sara Hastings-Simon: Yeah, I think it does based on what are the skills that we have, as David said, I mean, good industrial policy takes what you have, what the resources are, whether those are natural resources in the ground or the resources of the people and the, the skills and knowledge that they have, and turns that in a new direction.

And this is not just, you know, pie in the sky stuff. In fact, this is exactly what we did before in Alberta to create the oil sands. The, you know, some of my research looked at the role of government. When we talk about industrial policy, really what that means is, you know, government spending money, quote unquote picking winners, uh, and, and investing heavily.

Into opening up new sectors of the economy. And that's exactly how we ended up with the processes that extract oil. Uh, from the oil sands underground, the SAG D process, the first tests and pilots of SAG D were 100% government funded, uh, in Alberta under the law. He government, you know, later, uh, oil, um, companies sort of bought in to those retroactively.

But this was a really great example of industrial policy. And so the key is, as, as David said earlier, is really being bold and, and picking some winners. And, you know, government is not gonna get it right a hundred percent of the time. If they did, then private industry would've done it. So the fact that, you know, sometimes industrial policy fails is really not an argument that you shouldn't do it.

Um, but you gotta do it carefully and you gotta do it in a way that benefits the people. Uh, and, and you know, broadly and it. It's not just throwing a bunch of money at private industry, um, to do the things that they wanna do. It's really government taking a leading role on the basis of the kind of skills that we have.

Ed Whittingham: Ryan, I, I might be a little more. Pessimistic than my two podcast co-hosts about Canada's ability to compete in critical minerals. And I say that if there's one sort of dominant theme that I took out of the, the meetings I attended in Toronto for sure, it's this emphasis on critical minerals and it's, it's partly, and, and Canada just this morning, like they announced a new critical minerals production alliance that that Canada will play a leading role in across the G seven.

And it's definitely a direct response to the export restrictions that China has been putting on its dominance of processing and all of these concerns that China's dominance has raised in terms of every country's supply chain vulnerability. However, when you look at where Canada is right now in terms of.

You know, producing the things that we need, like lithium and nickel and COBAL and Copper Canada doesn't really register yet as compared to Australia and Chile, Argentina, of course, China, Indonesia, the Philippines. We've got a bunch of other countries that are really far ahead. So while I agree, and I think, David, you said on it and, and, and Sara picked up on it, that we need to be more streamlined and we need to be more selective of where we're going to compete and how we're going to compete.

I just think Canada's starting blocks and critical minerals are so far behind these other countries, and that's on mining alone, let alone processing. I have a tough time seeing us catching up anytime soon. 

Ryan Jespersen: It feels like a bit of a punch in the gut Ed. Not gonna lie, but Canadians love a challenge. Uh, and, and we're gonna pick up this conversation in just a second.

That's, uh, ed Whittingham, joined by Sara Hastings. Simon and David Keith. We're hanging out with, uh, three of, uh, Canada's foremost energy policy experts. Uh, Dr. Sara Hastings. Simon is joining us, uh, ed Whittingham, uh, and David Keith as well. They're all co-hosts of that Energy Versus Climate Podcast. And, uh, Aurora Astra is in our live chat, powered by Park Power, says, uh, CCS, carbon capture and storage will never be 100% capture.

Uh, there are diminishing returns with increased capture. 75% capture is to mitigate impacts from CH four generation. Should that, that should be the goal, says Aurora. Uh, perfection is the enemy of progress. Uh, not everybody's on the same page, uh, with carbon capture and storage. It's safe to say there's some healthy cynicism around it.

Um, the Prime Minister himself when he was on this show on September 10th, referenced the Pathways Alliance initiative. And, and, and I know that the liberals have some faith in that. Uh, but I'd be, uh, grateful for, for the three of your honest, uh, and courageous assessment, uh, of this, uh, plan, which I know this technology, Alberta has big plans for.

Sara Hastings-Simon: I definitely have a lot of skepticism around it. I'll, I'll say two things and then hear what David and Ed have to say too. But I mean, one is that the, um, federal, uh, oil and gas cap that we're hearing so much pushback on industry, um, about is. Based on Pathways original commitment, if you look into the details pathways, uh, back when they were sort of first announced, put out a plan that included an interim 2030 target and that target is act was actually slightly more aggressive than what the oil and gas cap is based on.

So I think that, you know, there, there is a lot, we're hearing different things from industry about the willingness and ability to, to reach those targets. And then I'll say even more fundamentally, the second thing and the challenging thing about carbon capture and storage is that unlike. Other clean technologies.

We talk about EVs, for example, or solar, where they may start out as more expensive than the conventional or higher emitting alternatives. There is a pa, there is a pathway, no pun intended, to get to, uh, lower costs so that you could have an electric vehicle cheaper than a conventional vehicle. Or you could have solar power cheaper than power coming from fossil fuels.

Carbon capture and storage, by its very nature, is always gonna be an add-on to your existing process. So it's always gonna come at an additional cost, which means that it's gonna really require, uh, government policy that drives that, that requires that to happen. And so, you know, I think we've seen. Um, a lot of pushback on, on government policy that's adding, uh, costs.

Um, and so I have a skepticism that comes not so much from necessarily the the technical side, but from really the economic and policy side is, is it possible to impose those costs on top, uh, and as industry gonna sort of stand for it? 

Ryan Jespersen: Jill's in our live chat, let me toss this into the mix. Uh, Jill says, CCS carbon capture and storage reminds me of recycling water bottles.

Uh, he says there's no business case to recycling those materials, and most of it ends in landfill even if you bring it into the recycling centers. Jill's calling for aluminum cans. Uh, is he onto something? 

David Keith: Uh, on cans maybe. Uh, and, and the earlier caller on perfect enemy the good. Absolutely. But I wanna push back on my friend Sara, because her, her, basically Sara said CCS doesn't work because, uh, it's not, uh, it's not the cheapest thing to do.

And, um, we should rely on things that the cheapest thing could do was her implication. If we really had no subsidies or policies at all for clean energy, people would keep doing fossil fuels for a very long time because the atmosphere is a free waste dump. And, and a bunch of the development we've seen of clean energy has been driven by the idea that we need to make people pay for using the atmosphere as a free waste dump.

And in a world where we do that, which is how we solve environmental problems, then CCS in some cases will be the cheapest way to manage it. And I think what's important is to break away. The idea of CCS in general from this kind of tie to Alberta oil Sands. I, as people who long time listeners to our program will know, I'm really skeptical about Pathways Alliance and about whether it makes sense to do a big oil sand project.

In fact, that's too polite. I just think it's a political boon dog. But I think there are lots of places where CCS might make a lot of sense in the global economy. To decarbonize one of the most obvious ones is cement. It's six or 7% of global emissions. Uh, making cement inherently makes CO2. It's very hard to see that there are path there.

It hard to imagine pathways that beat CCS is a way to make cement with low carbon. And there are a bunch of other examples like that. And from what we see now, the costs today of doing many of those things are cheaper than the costs of buying EVs today in lots of countries. If you do the math, honestly.

Ed Whittingham: Okay, I'm gonna plus one, uh, on David on, uh, its use case in cement. And, you know, you've got post combustion aiming technology that's off the shelf. And in fact, Ryan right there in Edmonton, you've got Heidelberg materials with its Edmonton plant that has been for a long time developing a CCS project that would have a very high capture rate.

I think over the life cycle they could actually decarbonize 95% of the emissions. So, you know, with cement, other pathways, electrification of kilns or sort of theoretical chemistries. But it really does come down to, to CCS as being the big hammer you can use. And I will also plus one, and this has been a theme on energy versus climate, and I know I, I, Sara shares, I, I feel comfortable saying share.

Sara shares that skepticism in the oil sands, that it's very expensive. And even if you had the government of Canada write a blank check. To the producers and say, we will cover all your costs. But you know, ultimately on the CapEx side and with the investment tax credit, and I worked very much on that investment tax credit.

You'll have already producers getting 50 cents of every dollar they spend back in their jeans in the same taxation year, even if you then covered a hundred percent. It's still hard to imagine shareholders saying, we're gonna anti up our share, even if it's small, because those shareholders have to think the world is gonna get serious on climate change and therefore it justifies the ante, the share that the companies themselves have to put in.

And I don't think shareholders feel that right now in this political and investment climate. Now I say that the massive caveat is I've talked to people in the know who are. You know, privy to the negotiations between the Pathways Alliance and the Canada Growth Fund, and by extension, the Kearney government, who feel actually quite cautiously optimistic that a deal is going to happen.

Um, but I just, for me, I don't think it's a good use of our public dollars. 

Ryan Jespersen: Uh, I wanna let our audience know that we will be talking to James fan, uh, who's the, uh, the big cheese over the, the, the CCCs Knowledge Center. Uh, people can check out ccs knowledge.com. Uh, for more on that, he's gonna join me Monday, right after we talk to Sapr dti.

Uh, so that interview with James Fan is coming up Monday at nine 15. Um, I'd be grateful, uh, if the three of you as fellow podcast producers and co-hosts would give me a focused question, a fair focused question to ask James on Monday. Uh, does one immediately come to mind? 

David Keith: Yeah. Um, how much will this really protect the ability of us to extract money from the Alberta oil business to fuel whatever's next in Alberta?

I mean, at some level, let's just come down to it. Let's forget about the environment. This is being done from the point of view of the industry to protect the industry. Can we think, can you really talk about how much it's actually going to make Alberta Oil sell more? 

Ryan Jespersen: David? We will clip that and I will play it for him, uh, verbatim and I'll be curious to see what he says.

People can check out that interview, uh, Monday at nine Boom, Shanker X and our live chat is absolutely correct in stating electricity generation is going to be a big deal, uh, over the next five to 10 years and, and look no further than if I say the tiff between Alberta and the Feds. You would say, well, which one?

Uh, but there's been one ongoing around Alberta's electricity generation and coal versus natural gas. And uh, obviously I don't need to lecture this panel, uh, on that. Um. Can Canada have both low emissions and affordable energy? Uh, is, is that still a trade off, like, Sara, take us into this. 

Sara Hastings-Simon: I would say yes, 100% it can.

Um, we have to do it in a smart way. Um, there's a lot of misinformation around some of the policies going around. We're not necessarily talking about a net zero, um, electricity sector by a specific date when it comes to the federal policies. But the keys to having a low carbon, affordable electricity sector are building out a lot more of the, uh, electricity production that you're showing on the screen now.

A lot more, um, solar, a lot more wind. It's building out transmission lines to be able to connect and trade and share electricity so that when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, uh, we can be using electricity here in Alberta, that it comes from hydropower and other provinces. And when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing as it does better in Alberta than than, uh, in our neighbors, we can be selling them our energy in that form.

And then we also need to be smarter about the ways that we are using that electricity. There's a lot that can be done on the so-called demand response side, which basically means right now as electricity users in the household, we don't think a lot about when we use electricity and, and that's reasonable.

Most of the things that historically we've used electricity for are things that we want done at a certain time. I can't decide to cook dinner five hours later just because there's gonna be a lot of wind power then. But once I park an electric vehicle in my garage, once I start, um, heating my hot water with electricity, I have a lot of ability to shift when I'm doing those things.

I don't care whether my car charges at 5:00 PM at 10:00 PM at 1:00 AM as long as it's charged when I get up in the morning and I need to go somewhere. Similarly, I don't care when the water that I'm using for my shower gets heated as long, as long as it gets heated and stored. And so we have to, um, make all of these changes across our electricity sector.

And if we do all of those, then yes, not only, you know, can it be reliable and affordable and low carbon, we can even, in some cases, reduce the cost compared to what we would be paying for electricity that comes with more carbon emissions. 

Ryan Jespersen: Did either of you want to add to that? 

David Keith: Sara? Nailed it. 

Ryan Jespersen: Okay, perfect.

I want to, I want to, there's, there's a million things we can talk to and I'm gonna respect the three of your time. Um, if it's cool with you, we'll go another 10 minutes 'cause there's some, some, uh, subjects that we haven't explored yet. Um, is that all right with all three of you? I know we're taking you into overtime here.

Okay. If you need to bolt, just bolt Ed, you look like you maybe have a, a, a world series party that you need to get to. He's, you're still dreaming about the oat milk liqueur. 

Ed Whittingham: I'm still dreaming by the Oak Milk liqueur. I might have to break it out before game time. That's not a bad idea. I'll say a good friend here in camera.

Paul McKendrick actually got the outdoor projector movie projector equipment that the town has. Yeah. And he's setting it up in his cul-de-sacs on another shameless plug for all you camera rights listening, go over to, uh, woodlot Lane and check out the big outdoor screen that Paul McKendrick set up. 

Ryan Jespersen: Do you wanna maybe give his phone number?

If anybody has any questions about the party that they can call, I might come down to Canmore for the party. Uh, as long 

David Keith: as they very welcome Brian. Very welcome. As long as they bring oat milk cure, it's all good. I'll 

Ryan Jespersen: bring it. I'll bring a box. 

David Keith: Ill be happy with that. 

Ryan Jespersen: I'll bring all of Hansen's fantastic offerings.

Uh, a comment here says, uh, the, the United Conservative Party, obviously, Alberta's government has completely undermined the confidence of investors, uh, with the stupidity, uh, around the renewable energy moratorium. Uh, that's what I think they mean by that. Do they mean something else? REM. REM, renewable energy moratorium and the renewables cost.

I think that's, that's what they mean. 

Ed Whittingham: Oh, and 

Sara Hastings-Simon: also actually a, a new market designs as well too. 

Ryan Jespersen: Okay. Uh, did, did that do, I mean, it was, what was it, it was six or eight months. I mean, it was pretty wild to watch. Uh, did it do irreparable harmed? 

Ed Whittingham: It did. So I remember that day because I actually went to see Oppenheimer with David and his wife and a couple other friends, had a great film.

David's got this amazing personal connection to, uh, to the, the growth. Well, from his, his University of Chicago ties. We walked out and then suddenly I turned my phone back on. It had blown up with the news of that moratorium, and it really has done damage. It was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. If you'll pardon me, the analogy, and I take the government, in this case, the, you, you can't even Peter Lockheed a, a little history lesson.

Peter Lockheed in the early two thousands thought we actually needed to pause. Uh, oil Sands developments to let our environmental management systems catch up because clearly the pace of development was exceeding the management systems, their capacity to deal with the impacts. He was laughed outta the room.

The great venerable Peter Lockheed. What are you talking about? They would never do that to the oil and gas industry needlessly. They did that to the renewable electricity industry. It was about eight months. They've come out with some pretty restrictive new requirements, and it really had to do with Daniel throwing some red meat to not the voters who made her premier, but the UCP base that made her leader of the UCP in the first place.

And the Emin Institute. My old outfit has some good data to show the billions of potential investment capital that has now gone on walkabout. It's now gone away. That is now looking at investments in other jurisdictions because the last thing you want is to have this kind of uncertainty and dealing with what is clearly antagonistic government toward renewable electricity development.

Premier Smith says. Solar belongs on rooftops. It doesn't belong on the ground. Meaning go ahead homeowners and put up your little four kilowatt systems. I have one. Instead of building like, you know, uh, 300, 400 megawatt, uh, industrial scale, utility scale solar. And I think that's just the wrong decision.

David Keith: Laughable, when you think about it in context of the us even in the Trump administration with all the talk about oil and gas, there's a huge boom in solar builds. And, you know, I think it's not completely unfair to think of Daniel Smith as a kind of mini Trump. And, uh, Trump didn't go, there's just no bans on solar, uh, installations here.

Ryan Jespersen: Ed, you're, you're, you're an an expert, uh, you know, talking about business in the environment. How do you, how do you, uh, how do you get private capital, I guess, to move faster, um, on solutions like this, on climate solutions? What, what's the key? What would, what would an intuitive progressive business and climate friendly government manifest?

Ed Whittingham: Well, I think the government was heading in the right direction. And if we take just renewable electricity, and to be clear, like solar is very much an Alberta story. If you look at, in all the things that Sara was talking about around, uh, adding more electricity, uh, Canada overall it's solar. It's gonna play much less of a role than it's playing in other countries in the world.

Uh, a shameless plug for energy versus climate. We had a show a few weeks ago called the Great Energy Showdown. Solar Takes All, and in it we talk about the very bright future of solar around the world. That future is less bright in Canada, which is still dominated by wind, hydro, and combined cycle natural, natural gas, but you want that investment capital to come in.

I was involved. I worked with Green Gate Power on a few projects like the Traverse Solar, uh, uh, projects, 460 megawatts, uh, at the time, the biggest solar project in Alberta. And they brought in the Copenhagen investment, uh, infrastructure partners as part of that. And why? Because they had a great project.

They got out their pencils, they shaved the numbers, but at that time you had real regulatory clarity and certainty. And most importantly, on something like this, you had A-P-P-A-A purchase agreement from from Amazon and other tech companies. So you had guaranteed offtake if you provide certainty. Then you can show the investor in capital that you've got a market for your product, whether it be energy or oat milk, laur, then you're gonna be able to bring in that, that capital.

Ryan Jespersen: Dwayne in our chat here says, uh, Jim p Prentis. Um, as the last Alberta progressive conservative premier, uh, wanted coal fired power plants decommissioned in Alberta and for, for pollution reasons, uh, says that he wanted more wind power, uh, and more solar power, uh, for Alberta. That from Dwayne into our live chat are, do the three of you think, uh, Sara, you look like you have something that, let me get the question out and then I'll go straight to you.

Did are, are politicians to, we talk about election cycles and that mindset, now it can be down, it, it's rarely good for anybody except politicians to be thinking in three to five year cycles. Um, are politicians too short term for that reason, job survival, uh, in their own thinking to manage a decades long energy transition.

Sara Hastings-Simon: Yeah, that is a, that is a real challenge, I'll say. I mean, in the end, Jim Prentice did get his wish. We, we no longer have coal fired power generation in Alberta. In fact, it happened much, uh, faster than the regulation ended up requiring. We had a 2030 coal phase out, and I'm losing track of the years, whether it was the beginning of this year or last year, uh, that, that saw our last coal-fired, uh, power, um, here in Alberta.

But it was, it was one of the two, which is interesting too, because it was, you know, you go back to the discussions that were going on around that coal phase out, and there was a lot of talk, um, about how it wasn't possible and it couldn't be done. And we were gonna, the lights were gonna go out. And of course, um, you know, I think.

Most people probably don't realize that we're not burning coal anymore because nothing really happened in terms of how it felt, uh, to, to people using electricity. And so I would say, you know, politicians, they struggle both with the, the sort of maybe mismatch of timelines for some of these things, especially when we talk about, um, economic policies that are delivering really growth and, um, jobs.

Uh, and, and building up new industries, that takes time. But there's also the challenge of, uh, losing capacity in government and, and losing sort of knowledge. And so, you know, who do you trust when there are a bunch of industry folks saying the lights are gonna go out if we don't have coal-fired power?

That's, that's pretty scary. Nobody wants to be responsible for, um, making the lights go out and, and ruining the electricity sector. And yet it turned out, hey, it actually was completely technically possible. Uh, and so that's a real challenge for politicians and a real reason that, you know, governments need to have internal capacity, um, so that they can have an understanding of, of, you know, where the truth lies when they're hearing different messages from different sides about policies that they wanna put forward.

Ryan Jespersen: Canada's home to like a fifth of the world's fresh water. Um. Do you think that we're taking that resource, and you might say that responsibility seriously enough?

Ed Whittingham: I, that's, that's a really tough question to answer. What, putting it back to you, Ryan, or, or the questioner, what is, what is taking that responsibility, you know, taking it importantly enough? I don't know how to define that. 

Ryan Jespersen: Yeah. And, and, and I don't know either. Uh, you know, I, I, I think like as we're talking about here, if you want to talk about like, you know, the economy and the environment, there's obviously economic potential, uh, with the natural resource that is water.

I think when all of that 51st state business, uh, was happening with, with Trump and he was sort of like big dogging Canada and talking about the imaginary line, referring to the border and, and like based on feedback we are getting to the show, a lot of people took that as like a direct threat to our fresh water resources.

Um, and, uh, we have. People that are writing into the show, talking about in certain communities, in particular Alberta communities where they're saying that the, the water levels are down, uh, they've not seen it, uh, like this in a long time. Um, it's, it's hugely significant, obviously to the ag industry. Um, there's a, I think more Canadians, more Albertans are aware of what Selenium is now than anybody was five years ago before these coal leases and the Eastern slopes were brought to light.

Like it did just feel like there's a lot of, you know, there's, there's big new subdivisions and communities that are drawing off water resources and, and out of river shes, and I dunno, I feel like I should stop talking, but it just, at a, at a civilian level, that's what's on my radar. 

David Keith: It, it, it's sure important and, and I absolutely felt that kind of Trump push in a really ugly way.

Um, but I think to give you kind of a professor, big picture perspective, which I suppose is my job, um, water pollution overall is something that the western world and Canada have done really well on, and things are generally cleaner than they were. And I don't see an acute crisis, uh, air pollution we've made progress on, but there's lots more to do if you kind of look at direct measures of like the ways environment is harming human health, air pollution is far more important than water pollution and there's lots more work to do.

And if you look at just. If you just care about protecting the environment to have a, have nature, um, I think it's better to think about intact ecosystems and protecting large blocks that, of course, go along with water than thinking about water alone. And finally, of course, one of the biggest things that's gonna change water availability in Canada is climate.

So then we've gotta think about how to stop climate change. So I, I, of course, water matters, but, and I don't quite know where the question was coming from, but I think it's probably more effective to think about managing climate change, managing big intact ecosystems, managing air pollution, kind of letting the water take care of itself that maybe is too glib.

'cause of course, the, the fact, the reason water's cleaned up, because we have all sorts of regulations and technologies in place. 

Ryan Jespersen: I wanna ask the three of you a que Oh, go ahead. Sara. You look like you have something. 

Sara Hastings-Simon: I was just gonna say, it sounds like, sounds like you should have one of my colleagues from the faculty of Science at UCal on, 'cause I know that they're doing some great work on, uh, water management and, and what we should be doing here in Alberta.

Ryan Jespersen: Would you put us in touch? I, that'd be great. 

Sara Hastings-Simon: Will do. 

Ryan Jespersen: We'd love to do that. The sign of a good round table is when it begats other round tables, you know what I'm saying? Uh, two questions to close. Uh, we'll wind up, uh, not to put a pit in everyone's stomach, but with natural disasters and climate change.

And, and, and I just wanna sort of make sure that we, that we touch on that. But we do have a question. I Mark Doran's watching us right now, uh, from the Polluter Pay Federation. He's a fan, uh, or at least he's an audience member, uh, of energy versus climate. And, uh, he checked out your most recent episode.

I'm showing it right now, drill and dash, the Oil and Gas Liability Crisis, uh, with Martin Hinky from the University of Calgary is smart fella. Uh, Mark's feedback. He says, the problem with a recent Energy versus Climate podcast about unfunded oil and gas liabilities about orphan wells, essentially is the guest Martin essentially threw in the towel on making polluters pay.

Mark says the price tag per person is too big. Uh, what would the three of you like to see happen with Alberta's orphan Wells in these environmental liabilities? 

Ed Whittingham: That 

Sara Hastings-Simon: that is, yeah. In short, I like to see action that requires companies to be taking some of the profits that they're making and, and putting it back to cleaning up what they said they were gonna clean up while they still have those profits.

I think we have an opportunity now, uh, to do so. Um, we, you know, the, the sector is quite profitable now, um, and now is the moment to make sure that we are not as Albertans, uh, left with the full bill to pay 

Ed Whittingham: Ed. Uh, I was just saying like minutes before we jumped, uh, on the Zoom, Ryan, I provided an intro, uh, to, uh, for, to Martin.

Martin Osinski, who you mentioned to the folks of the Pluto Pays project. So clearly it's buzzing. They'd reached out to me and said, Hey, could you hook us up? And, uh, so happy to hear that. I would just completely echo what Sara said. We need. And, and you know, the, the last time Ryan I talked to you, it was, I had resigned my position on the board of the Alberta Energy re regulator, if you remember that.

Sure. That's going back number of years now. Yeah. And, uh, and that by the way, that interview after that and, and the front page article on the globe. Boy did I have a fun media day that day. But thanks for being the one to, uh, well, thank you giving book me first. 

Ryan Jespersen: Thank you for giving us the exclusive. We appreciate it.

Ed Whittingham: We really need the sheriff in town, which is the Albert Energy regulator, to take this issue more seriously. And I won't go into too many of the details at plus one, exactly what Sara said, but until the Albert energy regulator is really gets that message. From its political boss saying, you must take care of this issue.

I think we're just gonna continue, unfortunately, to nip at the edges of it and nothing serious will get done. 

Ryan Jespersen: Uh, I wanna wrap with, uh, anecdotally, uh, a friend of, uh, Johnny and Mine, uh, his name's Casey g Grable. He is a, he's a hospitality entrepreneur. You owns bars and restaurants and BC and Alberta. Um, and he did a really in informative, uh, post, kinda like a, you know, just a selfie video just talking about what it's like to run restaurants and bars in Kelowna right now.

And he said one of the biggest changes that they've had to adjust to is losing, you know, four to eight weeks or however long of their busiest summer season, uh, due to wildfires. And he says that they've seen huge dips, um, in visits, uh, to that beautiful region of bc. He says they've seen huge revenue dips.

He said that impacts how many people they can employ. I don't think I need to continue with the anecdote. People understand what's at stake here. Um, how do you prepare communities? How do you prepare? Average Canadians, um, let alone, you know, big policy. That's the context of why we're talking here today.

But how do you prepare people for a future where extreme weather events are? Like, they're not the exception, they're the norm now. 

Ed Whittingham: Yep. Well, I'll tell you one quick story. The, uh, the Jasper fire happened, and I wanna say it was late June, 2024. And of course, you know, it was terrible. A third of the structures lost.

Many people lost their homes. That happened on a Monday night, a few days after I had a beer with Ken Morris, mayor Sean Crowser, who just got reelected to another four year term. Uh, he is a, is he gonna 

Ryan Jespersen: be at the watch party? 

Ed Whittingham: Uh, you know what? Very possibly 

Ryan Jespersen: Yes. 

Ed Whittingham: That's a good reminder. I gotta ping him and get him down to Paul Mc Hendrick's cul-de-sac.

Ryan Jespersen: Yes. 

Ed Whittingham: Yeah. For the watch party. But they, the, the, the town had this plan, well, the province had this plan to put in massive fire breaks, and it was on the shelf, wasn't getting attention. He said the morning after the Tuesday morning, after the Monday night, you know, fire that hit Jasper, he got a call from the province saying, how much money do you need?

And that's, so that's the right response. It wasn't right that they'd sat on this report, uh, sort of this plan, but the right response, just take it seriously. And now as David and I saw when we were out hiking a couple months ago, there are massive fire breaks being put in around Kamar. Absolutely massive fire breaks if you're a mountain biker.

And on Johnny note, you like to ride on Johnny's trail to all the locals. It is a completely different trail because you know, you're going through the what's, what's like a clear cut that is the right response. And you need governments to take it seriously. You need homeowners to take it seriously. And just on a personal note, after Jasper, I reached out to my insurer to check in my rebuild value under my policy.

Realized it was too low. Ah, it took me a year of back and forth, back and forth. But finally they upped my rebuild value. So you gotta take care of things personally. And then the government response has been pretty good so far. 

David Keith: So I'd say, I'd say that was the right immediate response. But what I don't see is anything that's a kind of strategic response saying this is gonna be a long-term problem.

And thinking regionally. So I know all the ways. It's much hard for people in BC and Alberta to talk to each other. But in the kind of Intermountain West, there's a set of fire problems that are gonna get worse that requires long-term. Thinking about forest management and about developing firefighting assets that work better and protect firefighting crews.

And I don't see a kind of systematic approach between the two promises to do that and to put the resources in to think of that. This is a long-term problem, uh, and we need it. It needs to be integrated with weather forecasting. So when we do prescribe birds or plants sperms, we do that in a way that minimizes smoke to people.

There's a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be thought through that. I just don't see people kind of admitting that this is a long-term thing that requires long-term management. 

Sara Hastings-Simon: And in so many places, right? You talked about fires. You can also talk about the impact to people and the need to really think about building cooling, air conditioning, which used to be kind of a luxury nice thing to have in a place like Calgary, is increasingly becoming, uh, a need, um, for, for some days in the summer, particularly for those that might be faced with other, um, health challenges.

And so that's a responsibility of municipalities and others to put in place rules that require, for example, landlords, um, to make it possible for tenants to keep buildings at safe temperatures. It, it's, the list goes on and on and, and I think, as David said, it's, it's challenging because it requires so many different levels of government, so much broad coordination across different groups.

Um, and it really then I think also should, I hope, uh, although I'm not really seeing signs of it, but, but you know, I think it should make us double down on our efforts. To reduce emissions and prevent future warming because the disasters and, and warming that we're seeing, um, is coming from the warming that's that we've had so far.

It's only going to get worse if we do less. And you know, in the, if you go back kind of 10 years ago, um, and, and previously there was a lot of pushback. You know, we can't afford to do climate action. Uh, we can't afford to reduce our emissions because it's gonna cost a certain amount. And that was really looking at just the cost side of the ledger for emissions reductions.

And a lot of those calculations left out, the cost of not reducing emissions that we're starting to see come into place now. So I think, you know, certainly we need to really walk, chew gum on this. We need to be, um, building more resilient infrastructure, but we need to be doing so in a way that also allows us to reduce emissions as well at the same time.

Ed Whittingham: Brian to close the loop on G seven, the G seven Leaders Summit, uh, in Kananaskis in mid-June. There actually was some pretty good discussion and statements that came out around G seven and working on wildfires. Now to your earlier point, will that turn translate into policy and translate into action? We will see, but they're also just on a material consideration.

The G seven organizers were def like deathly worried about the place being filled with smoke, or moreover having to evacuate the leaders from the G seven, including President Trump. How a wildfire sparked up. This is now like a very serious material consideration that anyone hosting, sing a meeting in Western Canada especially, uh, you know, has to consider at, uh, certain months of the year.

Ryan Jespersen: You know, it's, you're, you're talking Sara about like. You know, more people are gonna need or gonna require, uh, air conditioners. And you, and you think of like the elderly, you think of people with medical conditions, like you said, with COPD or whatever the case is. Um, and then I'm just thinking, you know, and, and, and the point has been recurring.

There's been kind of an ongoing, uh, conversation around EVs in our live chat while the three of you have been speaking with us. And people are talking about the, you know, our grid's not prepared to, to manage like an influx of EVs. And I'm thinking of how much more draw there will be on, on Alberta's electricity grid, on, on grids across Canada and around the world with more air conditioning.

And then you think of how we're generating are the electricity. And if you're not doing it in a climate and you realize like just this, the, the whole thing is so cyclical, right? Like everything we're talking about is so cyclical and, and, and, you know, it always kind of returns back, um, to where I think.

Uh, the three of you have, uh, beautifully positioned, uh, your podcast, uh, and your webinar. Uh, and I just want to thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. I've been looking forward to this one for a long time. Uh, three smart folks like you, giving our audience, uh, something tangible, something real, something at a level where lay people can understand it, uh, and also advance our understanding of, of where all of this goes beyond policy into practice.

Um, so David, Keith, uh, Sara Hastings-Simon, uh, Ed Whittingham, co-hosts of the Energy Versus Climate Podcast. Thank you so much for appearing on this special episode of The Real Talk Roundtable and be well. 

Ed Whittingham: Thanks for listening to Energy vs Climate. The show is created by David Keith, Sara Hastings-Simon and me, Ed Whittingham, and produced by Amit Tandon.

Our title in show Music is The Windup by Brian Lips. This season of Energy versus Climate is produced with support from the North Family Foundation. The Consecon Foundation. And you are generous listeners. Sign up for updates and exclusive webinar access at energyvsclimate.com and review and rate us on your favorite podcast platform.

This helps new listeners to find the show. Next up on EvC is a show about energy transition in India. It features special guest jundee of the Center for study of Science, technology and policy, an independent Indian think tank. See you then.