Energy vs Climate: How climate is changing our energy systems

Decarbonization usually means addition: more wind, solar, EVs. But a real transition also means taking something away.

We talk about decarbonization like it's a shopping list: more wind, more solar, more EVs, stacked on top of whatever's already running. But a real transition means something also has to come off the list. Fossil systems have to shrink at the same time clean systems grow, and for a good stretch in the middle, both have to serve the same demand at once. Neither one can do the job alone, and each ends up constraining the other.

Civil engineer and environmental sociologist Emily Grubert (University of Notre Dame) calls this overlap the mid-transition, and it's the subject of a paper she co-wrote with Sara. Ed sits down with both of them to work through what the concept actually means once you get past the label.
Some of what's in this one:
Why refineries and coal plants can't just wind down smoothly to zero, and where the "minimum viable scale" wall actually sits
What Alberta's coal phase-out got right, what it missed, and why the coal companies got compensated a lot faster than the communities did
Whether the oil sands could shrink one asset at a time, or whether losing one piece, a pipeline, an upgrader, takes more of the system down with it
The uncomfortable question at the centre of it all: is a slow, managed phase-out actually the safer path, or just a longer runway for incumbents to extract concessions on the way out.

0:00 Intro
0:35 Cold Open
2:00 What Is the Mid-Transition?
4:36 The 80/20 Rule: Are We Already In It?
5:55 Decarbonization Means Subtraction Too
8:50 What Each System Forces on the Other
12:38 Refineries and the Limits of Ramping Down
15:46 Alberta's Coal Phase-Out, Explained
20:52 Managing Coal Decline in the US
24:11 Fast Payouts for Companies, Slow Support for Communities
27:58 Can the Oil Sands Shrink Smoothly?
35:13 Long Mid-Transition or Short? The Band-Aid Question
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Octopus Energy paid its UK customers collectively over £100,000 during a recent heat wave, not through new infrastructure, but a text message and a price signal offering demand flexibility. That caught our attention.

In this episode, Ed and Sara (David sits this one out) talk with Eric Davids, Head of Strategy for Octopus Energy's US business, about redefining utility-customer relationships, how approaches in the UK stack up against North American utilities' much blunter "please conserve" grid alerts, and what happens when consumers get real price exposure and it doesn't go well.

🎙️ TIMESTAMPS
0:50 – Episode intro
1:54 – Welcome Eric Davids
5:55 – What is demand flexibility?
7:38 – Inside Octopus's £100K UK heat wave response
9:49 – Alberta's grid alerts vs. Octopus's incentives
22:09 – Guardrails against price exposure risk (Winter Storm Uri)
28:19 – Is this just another hype cycle?
35:43 – Equity and the energy transition
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They say there's no growth without feedback. This season, you've given us plenty of it.

In this episode, David, Sara, and Ed do something most podcasters shouldn't do: they read the comments. Out loud and on purpose.

Some feedback was positive. Some was additive. Some fell into the category we're calling "strongly suggestive." 

If you've ever left a comment on an EvC clip wondering whether David, Sara and Ed actually saw it: they did. This is what they had to say back.
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Ed's new project, Critical Mass, starts with a deceptively simple question: if Canada decides it wants more nuclear power, can it actually deliver it? The answer turns out to be complicated.

As part of the project, we're hosting four live town halls across the country. The first was recorded at Toronto Climate Week on June 5, featuring Todd Smith (former Ontario Minister of Energy, now VP at Candu Energy) and Brendan Frank (VP of Policy at Clean Prosperity). Together they work through the project's core tensions - cost, democratic legitimacy, and standardization - with the kind of honest talk you've come to expect from EvC.

Thank you to Geoff Burt and The Consecon Foundation for helping make the evening possible. 
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The aftershocks of the Iran war are reshaping energy markets, investment decisions, and climate politics in very different ways around the world.

David, Sara, and Ed sat down with Vijay Vitheeswaran, Global Energy and Climate Innovation Editor at The Economist and 2025 Energy Writer of the Year, to discuss the shock rippling through energy markets since the war in Iran began. 

On one side are forces accelerating the energy transition like electrification, EV adoption, solar deployment, and rapidly scaling clean tech. On the other are forces pushing toward deeper fossil fuel lock in: energy security fears, coal expansion, oil investment surges, and persistent fossil fuel subsidies. Which force is actually winning?

The conversation covered a lot of ground — from samosa vendors in Delhi packing up because cooking fuel tripled in price, to what a potential OPEC collapse could mean for the oil sands.

This show's a great listen, especially if you're trying to make sense of a world where the energy transition and fossil fuel lock-in are happening simultaneously.

About Our Guest:
Vijay Vaitheeswaran is the Global Energy & Climate Innovation Editor of The Economist. He has produced numerous cover stories and won awards for his reporting. He is an accomplished public speaker and his three books have created a stir, with accolades ranging from lengthy reviews in The New Yorker to shortlisting for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year prize.  The Financial Times has declared him to be “a writer to whom it is worth paying attention.”
Vijay is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He serves as an advisor on innovation to the World Economic Forum/Davos, and has taught at NYU Stern Business School and Northwestern University. Vijay is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

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