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Michael talks with Jason Dion, the Mitigation Research Director at the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices all about the safe bets and wild cards when it comes to decarbonizing our electricity grid.
Michael is on a quest to get his environmental footprint as low as humanly possible. So he built his own off-grid Tiny House. But downsizing and minimizing weren’t enough. He had to take more drastic measures, altering his lifestyle in some extreme ways, all in the name of saving the planet. But when it comes to his goal, he still feels in over his head. He doesn’t know if all the downsizing, minimizing, reducing, reusing, recycling, and sacrificing make a difference. It’s time to bring in the experts.
Join Michael as he sits down with scientists, policymakers, industry leaders, and environmental experts to figure out how to effectively reduce his footprint in all aspects of life. From food and fast fashion to cars and caskets, he gets into what the worst culprits really are and how we can all make more informed choices when it comes to the impact we have on the planet.
If you have feedback or would like to be a guest on In Over My Head, please email: info@inovermyhead.com
(00:01):
Well, I'm in over my head. No one told me trying to keep my footprint small was harder than I thought it could be. I'm in over my head. What do I really need? Trying to save the planet over someone, please save me, trying to save the planet over someone. Please save me.
Michael (00:24):
Welcome to get over my head. I'm Michael Bartz. My guest today is Jason Dion. Jason is the mitigation research director at the Canadian Institute for climate choices. Jason's work has focused on carbon pricing, environmental risk and financial assurance and sustainable infrastructure. He serves on the board of the Canadian association of professionals and climate change, and as a graduate of the ma economics program at York University. Welcome to you over my head, Jason.
Jason (00:52):
Thanks for having me.
Michael (00:55):
So our target is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 45 to 50% by 2030. And to be net-zero by 2050, a 2021 report from the Canadian Institute for climate change choices, identify non-emitting electricity and electrification as safe bets on the path in net-zero, the report outlines, safe bets and wild cards when it comes to decarbonization. And I love this way of framing. It's like a high-stakes game of poker, a casino Royal or something. So tell me about these safe bets and wild cards.
Jason (01:23):
Sure. So maybe I can start by explaining kind of what we did in this major study. So we, it was a big modelling analysis, lots of reviews, lots of review of the literature and other modelling studies talking to experts, but at its core, what it was, was a scenario analysis. So we looked at over 60 different ways that Canada could get to net zero. Now all of these were kind of different in terms of how they looked, but they were all theoretically possible. And rather than spending a lot of time digging into every single scenario and possibility what we did is sort of zoom out and look across all of them, to ask, well, you know, regardless of how this plays out, what stays the same, what's always there no matter what, and where are the differences and where there are differences, what are the drivers of those differences?
(02:05):
And what we observed was there is a set of solutions that shows up in every scenario. They are critical for driving reductions and they're always there. And they are actually in many cases, things that are already there commercially available today, it's just a matter of scaling them up. So we call these the safe bets. And so that it's familiar things, it's things like non-emitting electricity. So wind and solar electrification, which is a shorthand for things like heat pumps in buildings like electric vehicles instead of internal combustion cars. Then they're really important for making a lot of headway to that 2030 target. And then on to 2050, the wild cards are those things that are maybe they're earlier days, demonstration stage technology, or there might be some questions about how scalable they might prove to be, but they're the things that might play a big role, but in some scenarios, they might not. And what's sort of really important here is to recognize that we need both the safe bets and the wild cards. We need the safe bets to play a driving role in getting those emissions down. But we also want to pursue the wild cards for the deeper cost-effective reductions. They can unlock in time to get us down to that deeper target. So we really want both and we should be focused on getting, I think too often we talk past each other when it comes to those categories.
Michael (03:23):
Okay. Yeah. And looking at the report, even between the 2030 and the 2050 goal, it kind of changed based on how much you were using the safe bets or the wild cards.
Jason (03:30):
Exactly. Yeah. So we found that to get to that 2030 target, at least two-thirds of the work comes from safe bets. So the real finding there is we have in hand today, what we need to get to that target. It's just a matter of deploying it. Now. That's not straightforward. There's a lot of complexity there, of course, but we know what we have to do out to that longer-term target. We found that in some scenarios, it was still safe bets doing most of the work up to two-thirds of it. In other cases, it was wild cards doing that much of the heavy lifting and what that really underscores there is uncertainty in how big of a role they'll play, but that when you look out to that longer target, they're the things that we're really gonna want in hand as many as we can to really help us get there as easily and as cost-effectively as possible.
Michael (04:13):
Yeah. And, and so with electrification grid, you know, you said that was a, a safe bet. Is there any part of the wild cards that tie into the electrification?
Jason (04:21):
Yeah. So on the one hand, there's the demand side, the things that we use energy for, we demand energy to fuel our appliances, to fuel our vehicles, to fuel our furnaces and heat pumps. Those are all important, safe bets, electrifying those things that currently run on fossil fuels is really important. Then there's more of what you can think of as the supply side. This is how that energy gets to you. So, you know, we plug our, our appliance into the wall, but the electricity that was used to produce it can come from different sources. It can come from nature. So wind and solar can come from fossil fuels. So natural gas plants and hydroelectric plants, nuclear. These are other big ones in Canada. What we've found there is non-emitting electricity. So ways of generating electricity that doesn't produce emissions. That's a safe bet as a category, but you're right.
(05:10):
Within that, there are a lot of different technologies that are possible. So non-emitting electricity, an energy source that doesn't produce emissions, absolute safe bet. How will we produce it? Well within that, there are safe bets and there are wild cards. So some technologies that people are excited about like carbon capture and storage that can be attached to natural gas or coal plants, geothermal energy, these kinds of much smaller nuclear reactors, small modular reactors. Smrs these are all wild cards. The potential is real and they might play a big role, or they might either not prove technically viable enough cost-effective enough, scalable enough to outcompete their alternatives. And there are alternative things like hydroelectricity, you know, a major one that we use a lot of as it is and wind and solar storage is increasingly a safe bet, especially that kind of short duration storage that can help spread out the benefits of that. We get from wind and solar to kind of allow us to use it. Oh, outside of the times it's generating so lots of categories of technology within that larger category of noting electricity, but important to note that as a, it's an absolutely safe bet, that is an energy system that will be critical to delivering on climate change action.
Michael (06:23):
Yeah. And with this report, you're making recommendations. So I think framing it like, this is a safe bet. Gives people a lot of assurance I think is what I'm reading.
Jason (06:31):
Yeah. And really, I mean, why we kind of landed on that language of safe bets and wild cards is what's interesting to observe about the safe bets is they are safe bets, even under best-case scenarios for all the wild cards. So even when the wild cards are going bananas, we still use the safe bets because they're available because they're cheap because they're reliable technologies. So we don't need to let the promise of wild cards distract us from the work we should do on safe. In fact, that's the danger people are often afraid of when they see people focused on these technologies of tomorrow. But we also shouldn't let our fear of that distract us from the work we have to do on the wild cards to get them ready for when we need them. So really it's about both, I think too often, we're kind of focused on one at the exclusion of the other, and that's what we're arguing about in some of these cases and to us that misses the point.
Michael (07:19):
Yeah. I think that's, a really good point for sure. Cuz you're right. Cuz a lot of people might think that some of these technologies are too far off or we should be focusing on fossil fuels. Cause that's more of something that we know. So I really like how you frame it within those, those two contexts. That's really helpful.
Jason (07:35):
I think if there's been a criticism of this using this language, cuz it really has sort of captured people's imagination at times. The thing we hear repeated back to us the most out of this work was the sense that like, oh, it's all just a poker game, it's all a big unknown. And I think we wanna hold as many of these in our hand as we can. Like if, if it is a poker game metaphor, really the idea is you want wild cards, they're powerful, but you want to play your safe bets, but you've gotta play them. Canada has a strong hand, we can strengthen our hand, but we've gotta play it and really to rest on our laurels and to kind of take too long and sit on our cards too long. That's a danger as well.
Michael (08:13):
Yeah. That, that's a really, really great analogy. So I really like that. In another part of the report I read, we talked about smart grid and that was a new term for me. And that made me think of a giant smartphone or something. But tell me what exactly is a smart grid?
Jason (08:26):
So yeah, a smartphone is not a bad analogy here. I mean, it's really about next-generation technology. Electricity grids used to always be pretty one way. We push the electricity out through the system. Smart grids really refer to the fact that technology is increasingly allowing communication in electricity networks to go in both directions. So an example could be smart meters and net metering, which allow me to not only push electricity that my solar panels on my roof would be generating. I don't have any, but if they did to push it back into the grid, for the grid to communicate when that would be especially valuable when that's in high demand. So that's just one example. Another could be this possibility of what they call utility load control, which I plug something into the wall, say my dryer, for example, through a little socket. And that socket communicates with my utility through my internet connection.
Jason (09:23):
And I might be able to press a button on my appliance and say, it'll cost half as much to run if I'm willing to just let it run overnight instead of right now. And it's that possibility of communication and sort of off optimization in the system that smart grids are all about. So the technologies are there. They're not deployed everywhere. We don't have them in place everywhere, but the potential is real and we're starting to see more and more deployment. And as you can imagine, just like your smartphone opens up a lot of possibilities compared to, you know, your old landline, same with smart grids. A lot of things become when our, our electricity networks start working in that 21st-century technology era.
Michael (10:00):
Yeah. And to me it makes sense cuz you're just, you're automating that. So you don't have to think about it. And I love that example of how your device could just use the power later when it's cheaper. Are there any barriers to implementing smart grids?
Jason (10:13):
Well, frankly consumer acceptance is a, a really big one that people have from our observation kind of a funny attitude when it comes to electricity as an energy source, they don't think of it at all. First of all, you know, they plug stuff into the wall and it works fair enough, but they also kind of think of it more as a right. They do other energy systems that it's, I expect it to work. I expect it to be simple. I think, think for a very long time, it, it has always worked. It's been simple. It's, it's cheap by international standards, even if we don't always like how much it costs here in Canada. But increasingly I think we are going to run up against changes in the possibilities and in that energy system, and that's gonna have implications for consumers, consumers have resisted this. There are things we've been able to do for a while.
(11:00):
Like time of use pricing that gets a pretty mixed reaction from consumers. They just don't like the change. And I think as consumers, we need to sort of understand and anticipate that smart grids and all this technological change in electricity are gonna mean it's gonna work differently for us on the demand side too. But what that doesn't mean is that it all has to get extremely complicated. In fact, the opposite, you might be able to imagine in the future having an electricity bill, that's kind of like a cell phone plan where you can choose the option. That's the best fit for you. So maybe, for example, I'm willing to adopt these load control technologies. Oh sure. I plug my EV into one of these systems and I'll have a little socket that some of my major appliances go through. And if I'm willing to adopt those things, maybe my utility is willing to put me on a very cheap plan.
(11:49):
Maybe even something like an all-you-can-eat plan that says go crazy on electricity. But at certain times of day, when there's really high peak demand and it gets really expensive for the system to deliver you electricity, we might hold off your consumption from some of those major appliances for that period. Maybe you'd even on your phone, have the option to override it. I'm willing to pay an extra couple of bucks to get my laundry done right now instead of overnight. But these sorts of changes I think are gonna be something we need to get used to. It's gonna happen slowly over time. But I think we do need to get used to the idea of changing the way that electrical systems and bills and, and incentives have worked for a long time, needs to be modernized and updated. And I think we need to think very carefully about how that experience is gonna work for consumers. But I think on the consumers' end, we need to understand to really unlock bigger savings for all of us to get systems working efficiently. We need to start using electricity more smartly too. And we can do that through technology.
Michael (12:46):
Yeah. And to me, that seems quite exciting cuz I like the idea of personalizing it. And rather than just a bill, you get every month kind of regard list of the actions you take, you're now saying, Hey, I can take a bit of control. And if I really want to cut down on my emissions, cause you know, we live in an off-grid, tiny house. And part of that was I wanna lower my emission. So I'm going to live in this extreme way. But if other people can do that in their regular homes, I think that would be really, really great in your work with this. Have you surveyed people or talked to people about how they feel about this new technology?
Jason (13:16):
It depends on how you phrase the question, right? I think when you talk about all of these technological possibilities, people can see the things that are exciting about them. I think where people get their back up a little bit and, and fairly is the question about what does this mean for my bill is power gonna get more expensive? There are all these investments we're doing in wind and solar. Are they cost-effective? What is this gonna mean for me? We're doing some research that's showing yes, in certain places in certain ways electricity bills might rise, you know, not everywhere and others. They actually might go down because a lot of these sources are so much cheaper than what we're using today. The thing that I would really kind of point people to in the larger context here is a very clear finding we had in our work.
(13:59):
That was a bit surprising, frankly, just how unambiguous it was that under all scenarios where we moved to net-zero by 2050. So no G HG emissions, we found that households on average are spending less on energy services, not more so under all scenarios. So that includes not only what we're spending on electricity, but on gasoline, on natural gas to heat our homes and on the equipment that those fuels power. So appliances vehicles, what we're spending on, all of that, what we call energy services as a share of income goes down. And then that's because electricity as an energy source is so much more efficient because it's cost-effective in terms of some of these emerging generation sources. So even if we are spending more on electricity in the, you know, decade, two decades ahead, we're saving on energy overall. And I think it's important to keep that bigger picture context in mind.
(14:52):
And it's a bit surprising for people that finding and it's explained by a few things and, and one of them is just, the technologies are getting cheaper and they're falling in costs, especially as we scale up our use of them. But also that electricity is just so much more efficient when you run a furnace or a vehicle on electricity. So, so much less energy is lost as waste heat. People talk about energy efficiency, just switching to electricity is its own source of energy efficiency. And that's part of the reason that we can expect these cost savings to unlock. Not saying it's gonna be that way for everybody. And there'll be some unique challenges and specific groups. So, you know, rural households we'll need to think carefully about, but on average, I think we can expect it to go down. Even if the electricity bill that one part of your energy kind of portfolio might be rising, the whole package is going down.
Michael (15:40):
That's really interesting. It sounds like a safe bet to me. And, and I guess with energy and it may be depending on the province you're in or the states, it varies between provinces, is that correct? So like how your utilities are managed, does that play, into some of the work you've been doing?
Jason (15:56):
Yeah. So provinces and territories manage their own electricity systems in Canada. So it totally depends on which province you're in, in a few respects. One is, you know, the way the electricity market and regulatory approach works in some provinces. It's one huge that does everything publicly owned in others. It's much more privatized and that's the way it is in Alberta though. Parts remain publicly regulated and managed. So there's that governance of the electricity system. The system itself is quite different. Some provinces, BC, Manitoba, Quebec, have really large hydroelectric systems. That's almost their entire energy source. And so kind of path to net-zero when it comes to electricity is pretty clear, more wind and solar in the mix, certainly to help grow supply and meet demand from electrification. But the path forward is clear in other jurisdictions where there's more natural gas or coal in the mix.
(16:47):
There's a tougher challenge ahead. They have to get those emitting sources out of the mix, bring more renewable online, but in a way that you can both be cleaning the system and growing it at the same time. So very different challenges, different realities in each province, but each has a doable transition ahead of it, especially if we're willing to use technologies, emerging technologies in the way that their potential exists to be used. And if we're willing to coordinate and collaborate, I mean, this is a bit of a side point, but if we were to connect more across provinces, these grids, they are very complementary to each other. So BC has Alberta as a neighbour. Alberta has a lot of renewable energy potential, and a lot of existing and growing wind and energy generation capacity. Right next door. You've got BC with a very large hydroelectric system.
(17:35):
They're very complementary to each other when wind and solar are generating Alberta and BC through those enterprises, those connections could be consuming that electricity when it's not, they could be drawing on the power that exists in those reservoirs and letting the reservoirs fill when those other sources are generating. So that complementary is real and we'd be fooled not to try to tap it because every province has a neighbour with hydro. Saskatchewan has Manitoba, Ontario, and much of the Maritimes has Quebec, BC, and Alberta. So really there's some potential there when it comes to linkages and not remaining in an island in our electric systems that could really carry a lot of benefits.
Michael (18:11):
That's a really good point. We're all neighbours and we should all help each other out. Cause currently, I assume that's not the case that we aren't sharing power between provinces?
Jason (18:19):
It's funny. We are much more tied with the US and that's not crazy right. Among a lot of the population is right along the border and the trade linkages are quite strong north. So, so yeah, we're, we're quite well integrated with them and those same potential relationships can exist with many states, but we also would benefit a lot from doing it east-west. And we just haven't historically some connections exist. They're not always high capacity. And they're just, hasn't been a culture of sort of cooperation and integration across provinces electricity systems. We haven't had had to do it. I mean, there'd be benefits to it. There have always been benefits to it, but the benefits grow in this context of trying to deal with climate change, to work together, not only for reducing emissions but for remaining more resilient to climate change. If you build your grid like an island and it gets a big shock, some big weather event, as we saw with that big freeze in Texas us last year, you're kind of on your own. So connection can be a source of resilience and GEG reductions
Michael (19:16):
Kind of talking about the interties and working together and, and our neighbours and things like that. I'm I love healthy competition. Are there any countries that are just nailing it when it comes to cleaning up their electricity grid?
Jason (19:27):
Yeah, I think everybody's got a lot of work to do, but some places are making pretty significant strides. Ontario has actually been a pretty big leader in this regard, phasing out coal over a decade ago now, or about nearly a decade ago, by the time they completed it, that action alone is the most impactful G HG reduction step taken in Canada to date. Now that was mostly replaced by gas. And that's something in that we're gonna have to, to get that source of emissions out in time, or at least equip it with CCS, carbon capture and storage to neutralize it. But that's a pretty impactful measure. And around the world, we're seeing a lot of jurisdictions moving off coal, whether it's for an interest in clean air, whether it's for an interest in GC reductions or just market, you can genomics that are driving it, or usually some combination of these that's happening all over the place.
(20:16):
And it's not always and everywhere happening fast enough, but it's an important trend to point to in terms of countries that are making big strides. I think Germany is kind of one that people often talk about. They have this energy vendor program, which is about increasing the amount of renewables in the mix. It's a big complicated country, and there's a lot to say about that program and that effort, but it's been quite successful in helping drive down the cost of wind and solar build experience with using those sources of energy. At the same time, Germany has decided to do away with nuclear power. That's made the overall task ahead, a, a tougher client, cause that's a source of non-emitting power. That for various reasons, they've decided to set aside lots of work to do there, but they're taking it quite seriously. We released a case study recently looking at a pilot project they did within that larger energy vendor program.
(21:05):
That was a pilot of well, let's try running a grid on 100% renewables. So they brought in all sorts of different measures, including load control. The kind of things I was talking about, where when certain sources weren't generating, they would find ways of reducing demand in the system to wait till the supply could come back online and also working with other jurisdictions and sharing power and resources and through a kind of smart grids and interconnections in the ways, I was talking about, they proved it's viable. They, this system ran successfully. What they found was their biggest barriers, not technology, it's all the policy and the governance and the institutions that that's where the tough work to make this happen is. And we're seeing a lot of countries increasingly stepping up in that regard. We have this observation that in Canada if we worked with our neighbouring jurisdictions a bit better, we could really realize some benefits.
(21:55):
And there's always this observation of like, yeah, but that's been true a long time. We just, you know, never seem to get it done. It's tough when it's kind of bottom-up and provincially regulated. There's no top-down authority to make it happen. Well, in fact, the Scandinavian countries have a common electricity market, very, very deep coordination, and these are sovereign countries. They didn't have to do that, but they recognized the common benefit of doing it. They benefited from a kind of historic culture of collaboration there that hasn't always been the strongest across Canadian provinces, but we do come together to do things. And I think electricity and, and working together on it is something that we can a lot of headway on. And I hope Canada and time will really be at the top of this list of countries that are taking electricity transitions very seriously because our system is mostly clean as it is. We have a head start relative to other countries. We've got the experience and know-how, you know, we are a 21st-century digital economy, not just a resource economy. So I think and believe we can be one of the countries really pushing the envelope on this electricity front.
Michael (22:53):
My understanding is historically Canada has also been a large emitter being a developed country. So I think we also have more of a responsibility to act on that as well.
Jason(23:02):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're a historic emitter and we're a, a wealthy G seven-country, any arguments that we're too small to matter. Well, you know, we're, we're pretty big compared to a lot of other countries sure. Only 2% of global emissions, but if you add up all the other countries that are smaller than us, that adds up to more than China. So, you know, everybody's gotta do their part here as a wealthy country that has historically contributed to the problem. I think it's important that we step up not only for its own sake, not only in some sense of there's a historical debt ode, but because through our example, we can actually show other countries that this is viable. If a cold and resource-intensive country like Canada can make some progress here, it really kind of drains any argument so that, well, that's just not gonna work here or there or wherever. I, I think there's a real opportunity to lead as a relatively small country of middle power through our example here.
Michael (23:55):
And I guess that kind of ties into my next question of, are there any other maybe myths that you'd want to clear up when it comes to talking about cleaning up our electricity grid?
Jason (24:03):
Yeah. So there's, there's one when it comes to wind and solar, then it, it kind of cuts both ways. You hear this idea. Well, we can't build a system without gas or coal because the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine and you figure that a lot. And there is a grain of truth to that. It makes the job harder. Now we have to think about electrical systems in a different way. And wind and solar are so cheap and continuing to fall in costs. They are safe, fast. They will play a huge role in any electrical system in the future, regardless of climate action. When you are trying to reduce emissions, they are a foundational piece that you need. And they're so cheap that you want them in the mix in a big way, even though they're intermittent, even though you can't control when they generate.
(24:46):
So the big challenge becomes well, how do you balance that intermittency, honestly, looking forward and looking backward. This is the way that we need to think about electrical systems in the future. How can we balance that? Whereas in the past, it was all about meeting kind of predictable demand with baseload power, more or less. It had a kind of daily swings. And in terms of demand, a peak re in the future, it's about smart management of supply and demand. So there is a kind of category of solutions that fit under flexibility. Flexibility is the thing that can allow you to deal with the intermittency of wind and solar. Now, hydro is a great one. It's what's called dispatchable. You can sort of turn it on and turn it off to eye up and down to adjust for falls in the fluctuations, in the supply of wind and source.
(25:32):
So a great source of flexibility and one in Canada already has a lot of natural gas equipped with carbon capture and storage could be that too. And I think that's an important wild card technology, other emergent sources like geothermal, and even some types of proposed smrs can be flexibility, but flexibility sources can include things that we're not used to thinking of as power sources. So that can be storage. So storage and batteries storage in the form of hydrogen, and then using that storage power. When those sources aren't generating, that's a source of flexibility. So is demand-side management. So sending signals to consumers that right now, you know, power is scarce and expensive. Please dial down your usage. You can do that through prices and incentives, or you can do it through those remote load control devices that I was talking about. And this is kind of where I would say that there's a, a myth, to kind of take on here.
(26:21):
Yes, wind and solar are intermittent. Does that mean we can't build a system around them? Absolutely not. In fact, there are a number of solutions that can help with that. What does the future grid look like exactly in terms of which mix of solutions in which ways coming together? I think we don't know. I think we know parts of that are safe. Bets. Others are wild cards and that's okay. We can have a competition among these different sources of flexibility in the market to try to figure out well, what's the best way here. And in this context to build a system that can accommodate wind and solar. So the reason I said it kind of cuts both ways is I think those that would say you can't build a grid off wind and solar are not really telling the story, but I would also think that those that would say how cheap wind and solar are. That's not the full story either. It's not like we can sort of, you know, dust off our hands and say, great, we're done. We can go with wind and solar. Now you have to build flexibility into the system to accommodate its intermittency. And that's a big part of the job. And I think both sides need to be clear and honest about that.
Michael (27:23):
Okay. So that ties into my next question. So of course our goal is to be net-zero by 2050. And when we're predicting the future, we don't always get it right. We aren't all going around on hoverboards or flying cars, like back to the future too had me believe. But if you had to speculate, what, what do you imagine the world of electricity generation looking like in 30 years?
Jason (27:41):
Sure. So, I mean, I can kind of map it out at a high level in terms of potential safe bets and wild cards. So I think a first safe bet to talk about is it's bigger, right? That to power transportation, electric vehicles, more and more home heating with electricity, you need more electricity. So first of all, it's a bigger system than it is today. It's a more energy-efficient system. That's another safe bet. So we are gonna be continuing to bring in technologies and ways of doing things that increase energy efficiency allow us to do more with the same amount of electricity, but important to note that even with all those energy efficiencies gains supply still needs to grow. So it's a bigger system. So that's kind of the bigger part. The next part is the cleaner per so within that there are safe bets like we're certainly going to continue to use hydropower where it exists.
(28:32):
So not only using existing and maintaining existing hydropower but growing it where we can. And often that can mean expanding it at existing sites. So making the absolute utmost out of those hydro resources, another safe of bet, wind and solar, obviously another safe bet. That's a way that we're getting the system both bigger and cleaner is building a lot of that. And a lot more than we have been to today. Another safe bet is phasing out fossil fuel generation. So natural gas and coal. If they're not equipped with CCS are going to have to be set aside in favour of those other sources to that when it comes to how we're making the grid cleaner, you're into wild card territory, are those CCS technologies applied to existing, natural gas and cold generation facilities. Are those playing a big role? I think maybe, maybe not.
(29:19):
Or at least it's not clear how big of a role they'll play. And then these other emerging sources like hydrogen geothermal SMRs. I think we're not sure how big of a role they'll play, but the potential is real. So that's kind of, you got this bigger with lots of safe bets there, cleaner some safe bets, some wild cards, and then more flexible that other thing I was talking about, that's the other part of this, right? That's the other side of the coin to the intermittency of renewables and there there are safe bets you can do around how you manage the flexibility and predictability of variable sources. If you have lots of them spread all out over the country, the sun may not be shining over there, but it is shining over there. And that can really help. You're also, of course, making use of those hydropower resources, doing the most you can with demand-side flexibility.
(30:02):
So getting consumers to be smarter, not only households, but business and industry about when they consume electricity, recognizing sometimes it's absolutely plentiful and incredibly cheap to produce other times it's more scarce. So kind of having that flexibility to consume accordingly another important, safe bet, short storage, this kind of big batteries that can hold power from variable sources for a number of hours, definite safe bet, longer-term storage would be really helpful. You know, the ability to hold power for weeks or months, we're in wild card territory there. We're not sure how well those technologies will pan out how much they'll cost lots of promising options there, but, but tough to say. And then, of course, some of those emerging sources might be sources of flexibility. Geothermal actually generates electricity from the heat in the ground. If we can really get that technology cheap and cost-effective enough, that might itself be a source of flexibility.
(30:56):
It's dispatchable. We can decide when we want to use it or not. So to zoom out, I think what we can say is, are things we know about what the future grid looks like. There are things we don't know, but that's okay. You know, we know what our next steps are. Certainly building a ton of variable renewals, getting grids smarter. We don't have to have every step on the entire journey, figured out what we need to do. And this is what our work is focused on. In large part is set ourselves up with the policies, the institutions and the incentives that can allow all of these different solutions to get an equal kick at the can. Cuz right now our electricity systems and incentives are all set up for kind of the old world in terms of baseload power, predictable demand, looking forward to using electricity systems, to deal with climate change, making the most out of all these tech technologies is a different reality and we need to kind of fit our policies and institutions to that reality.
(31:48):
And, and that's something we can absolutely do. And then we'll let whatever rise to the top in terms of the best solutions. Let, let the market figure it out for you as a consumer, you might not be aware of any of this, right? Like you plug it in, it works. And maybe your utilities wanting you to do things like get on a different plan that might give you some incentives to try to be smart about when you use electricity or, or let the utility control it for you sometimes really. I mean, as the consumer, it might not be much more than that to you. You might see that there are more wind turbines around more transmission towers. But beyond that, I mean, it's not like it's gonna fall to regular people to figure out, you know, which of these and in what mix it'll be a provincially or territorially run grid. Like it always has been and the power will work when you plug in, but we wanna kind of make it work as smoothly and efficiently and simply for consumers as we can.
Michael (32:36):
This show is about empowering citizens to take action on the climate crisis. So even though some of this stuff is out of their control, what can regular people do today to ensure that we clean up our electricity grid?
Jason (32:48):
Yeah. So I mean, if we're talking about what consumers can do on that supply side, there's a great book by mark Jaccard called a citizens guide to climate action, where he talks about the voluntary things that you can do. You know, they're not meaningless, but really systems have to change. You know, a lot of the changes are big in scale. So pushing for policy change, electing and keeping elected and holding accountable, what he calls climate sincere politicians is absolutely essential. And so when it comes to that kind of supply-side electricity systems side, I would say, you know, right, your MPP, not many people know these exist, but there are groups like utility commissions or energy boards. They're the ones that are charged with a lot of these decisions. Let them know what you think. Talk to your utility about what you think to push in terms of those that are kind of charged with the management and policy for these systems push for change.
(33:42):
The other one though that I would say is, we're talking about the supply side electricity systems, that demand side of adopting electric vehicles, adopting heat pumps here. There really is something powerful. And it's, it's called a neighbour effect in the literature where, when I see somebody I know driving in EV and I can sort of asking them questions about it. And even if I can't, I'm just aware that they've done that. And it seems to work for them that has a powerful, psychological effect. And I think we're gonna see it happen in electric vehicles pretty quickly in the coming years and, and, and decade but years really that people are gonna start to recognize, sure they're more expensive at the point of purchase, they are much cheaper to fuel. They are much cheaper to maintain. They have some good durability. They last and they can meet most people's needs. And the grids in terms of the charging networks, they're getting better all the time. So the range, anxiety, all these different concerns people had about EVs. I think we're gonna see some of those starts to fall all away and they'll fall away because of the neighbour effect. So all that to say, people's adoption of these technologies sort of shows others that their sensible solution is something people can definitely do. I've never met a Tesla owner that didn't want to talk about their Tesla. So I don't think that's the problem.
Michael (34:57):
Yeah.
Jason (34:57):
But yeah, I think that there is a scope for people to really kind of help in this way, showing friends, family, neighbours the way forward.
Michael (35:04):
Great. I think that's, that's a perfect answer. This is a, this has been very educational. Jason, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Jason (35:10):
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Michael (35:11):
Well, that was my conversation with Jason. Obviously, I loved the safe bets and wild card analogy that was really clear to me and really helpful. The one thing that he brought out that I hadn't heard was that neighbour effect, which is really interesting that what other people do influences what you do and, and how we can have a positive impact on each other. So I think that was really helpful as far as how we can take action on something that we feel like maybe there isn't that much control that we have over that. So really, really good information. Oh, and one more thing, you may listen to the show on a podcast player, but don't forget to check out the website, www.inovermyheadpodcast.com the show is there, but there's other content like guess shows that I've been on and pictures of the tiny house. So definitely worth checking out. Well, that's all for me. I'm Michael Bartz. Here's the feeling a little less in over our head when it comes to saving the planet. We'll see you again, soon. In Over My h+Head was produced and hosted by Michael Bartz, original theme song by Gabriel Thaine. If you would like to get in touch with us, please email info at, in over my head podcast.com. Special thanks to Telus STORYHIVE for making this show possible.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
I'm trying to save the planet or will someone please save me.