Last week, this morning

My take on Energi Media’s coverage from the week of June 16, 2025

Hey everyone, MC Breadner here! I’m a member of the Energi Media team. I’ll be chiming in occasionally on the Substack. Looking forward to your feedback as we build out our audience on this platform.

The Big Theme: The Politics of the Energy Transition

Forget the shiny new tech and economic spreadsheets—the biggest story last week (and most weeks, honestly) is just how messy and political the energy transition really is. Policy lives and dies by political communication, building consensus, and the never-ending circus of election incentives.

Carbon Taxes: Great on Paper

On Tuesday, Markham and Dr. Jared Finnegan took a deep dive into the Canadian consumer carbon tax—a classic case of a smart policy getting steamrolled by politics. Jared even calls it a “case study” for his students. Why did it flop? “Reasonably well implemented, reasonably well designed,” he says, but “very poorly communicated.”

Markham’s take: Trudeau never built a solid base of public support. Enter Pierre Poilievre’s “axe the tax” campaign, which turned the whole thing into a political punching bag.

Jared pointed out that in Canada’s winner-takes-all system, parties have zero incentive to agree on anything, so governments panic about voter backlash and run from anything that smells like a cost.

My translation: Politicians care way more about votes than data. If we want better policy, we need better conversations with real people—not just headlines and slogans.

Pipeline Math: Who Do You Trust—IEA or OPEC?

Let’s talk pipelines. The Canadian debate boils down to which crystal ball you trust: the International Energy Agency (IEA) or OPEC.

The IEA says global oil demand will peak by 2030 at 105 million barrels per day and start declining soon after. OPEC is far more bullish: peak in 2050 at 120 million barrels per day, and then a nice, comfy plateau. This isn’t just academic bickering—if the IEA is right, expanding oil sands and building new pipelines now is the worst move. If OPEC is right, we have time.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and the oil patch are all-in on the OPEC worldview. That’s why Smith spends so much time calling the IEA “radical” and trying to shred its credibility. After all, if you’re planning to double oil production (from 4 million to 8 million barrels per day) and run pipelines to every coast, you need the future to look pretty rosy.

But here’s where things get interesting: Canada’s own energy regulator trusts the IEA. IEA’s forecasts are transparent, credible, and have the kind of data you can actually look at, according to chief economist Jean-Denis Charlebois in a 2023 Energi Talks interview with Markham. Oil sands are tricky—huge upfront costs, low operating costs, but sky-high emissions intensity. The real risk isn’t a price crash, it’s the cost of cleaning up those emissions—making Alberta’s heavy crude less and less competitive as the world gets serious about decarbonization.

And don’t forget: road transportation is 45% of global oil demand, and China is electrifying its cars fast. So where are the customers for oil?

So, “do the math”—whose numbers do you believe? That’s the real heart of the pipeline debate. If you want more, check out the full convo here.

Carney’s National Power Grid

Hands down, my favorite episode last week tackled the big, bold idea of a coast-to-coast national power grid—a true nation-building project if there ever was one. The spark? Trump trade drama, which finally created the Canadian political for PM Mark Carney to tackle the enormous nation-building project. But as Prof. Madeline McPherson (University of Victoria) explained, the real challenge is provincial politics.

McPherson has spent over a decade modeling what a Canadian supergrid could look like, and just came back from studying how places like Europe, Australia, and South Korea are making big, unified power networks happen. Her verdict: it’s absolutely possible, but Canada has serious challenges.

Biggest lesson? Building the grid is only half the battle—the bigger job is building the story that gets Canadians excited and united behind the project. If we get this right, we don’t just get a more reliable, clean, and affordable grid—we get a nation-building win.

Check out the full episode with Prof. Madeline McPherson here.

That’s the quick-and-dirty catch-up on the coverage from last week. What did you take away from last week’s conversations? Do you agree—or did I miss something big? What are the biggest obstacles you see in the energy transition, and how do you think we overcome them?

Drop your thoughts in the comments—I’m genuinely curious!