Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦

Good to start the week off with a Monday morning desk rejection email. ✅

What a list to be included in!

Calgary friends - don’t forget to do that extra load of laundry tonight before the water pipe repair starts!

Transmission lowers US generation costs, but generator incentives are not aligned | PNAS The US electricity grid is rapidly evolving with the entry of low-cost renewable electricity. As a result, new supply is not spatially matched to d...

This explains a lot of what's wrong with existing grid governance:
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

There really needs to be some kind of push to keep arXiv papers from ending up in news stories etc. I think they have a role to play in the field where people can judge the papers.

I think it depends a lot on their training/scope of focus.
For one of my family members who suffers from IBS there have been some who were really bad but some who were really good

I hadn’t done the math on truck numbers. That is truly bonkers.

So many thoughts on this -
Including:
The need for these breaks being tied to rising temperatures

last week my kids played a soccer game with no subs on their team and the coach of the other team wouldn’t allow the ref to give a mid half water break (presumably bcs he thought it would benefit them)

Who among us hasn’t tried to build a 1.5 gw diesel backup plant near a city and forgot to mention it?

"For example, the proposed 600 units of backup diesel generators, each rated at 2.6 megawatts, do not appear to be discussed in the project information package, dated January 27, 2026," the decision reads.

That’s a lot of backup diesel units 😬

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Thanks for sharing this story! I’m glad it popped up for you.

So many ovaries/ uterus/fallopian tubes

100%
And the social media that enables the dissemination is also partially to blame.
It’s like we all just collectively forgot that the govt has the ability and the need to regulate things that are harming people.

I hadn’t. Thanks!! Love to see it

Cargo trike with white box parked at a rack next to a pink Larry and Harry cargo bike.

I like to park my cargo trike at different spots around campus so it can visit with all its cargo bike friends.

No comment*

*I have in fact not committed/or intend to commit any crimes (that im aware of)

🚨 Techno-optimism reduces willingness to address climate change 🚨

In a new preprint, @maiensachis.bsky.social, @fdabl.bsky.social, and I examined the causal effect of techno-optimist beliefs on the willingness to contribute to addressing climate change.

🔗 Read the paper: lnkd.in/eE847_jK

The new business school building food place

Well setting aside that question, it’s a cargo trike so it doesn’t even count as a second bike!

YouTube video by Energy vs Climate: climate change & energy systems 18 Million EV Chargers vs. 35,000. That's the Gap | Energy vs Climate Podcast

18.64 million EV chargers in China versus 35,000 across Canada.

Christina Pan walks through exactly how China built that — and why the model looks nothing like what we have here.

Full episode → energyvsclimate.com

youtube.com/shorts/ULJgb...

#EVs #EnergyTransition #CleanEnergy #ClimatePolicy

It’s good that it’s not near my office.
Actually I once worked in an office where an ice cream shop (a good one!) moved in downstairs.
I ate a lot of ice cream

For some more depressing reads I’ve also done some academic work on the unique challenge of innovation away from high carbon industry (with a glimmer of hope in there too):

www.policyschool.ca/wp-content/u...

I would argue that it is not ethical for modelers that want to be deeply policy engaged to try to do a really abstract national model rather than to try to get into this at high levels. There are things we can do just because it is interesting scientifically, but especially for these models that are really saying, “I’m going to go to the federal government with these and say, ‘let’s do this,’” there is a little bit of a responsibility of knowing where those edge cases are.

A great quote by @gruberte.bsky.social on @volts.wtf about the responsibility of working on climate today as a modeler.

Ice cream robot machine. It has bright colours and a big screen

I’ve clearly missed important things in my time away from campus.
For example the fact there is an ice cream robot vending machine

ah of course! I have a problem sometimes connecting people in real life with their names and photos on social media profiles :) glad you could come

sorry for snagging your spot!

yes its me!!
I was giving a talk at the law school today and snagged closer parking than my office :)

The fate of fossil fuel systems in the "mid-transition" I talk with Emily Grubert about the hidden dangers of letting the free market manage the decline of our legacy energy infrastructure.

Today on Volts: for the next few decades, we'll be in the "mid-transition," with clean energy systems growing as FF systems decline. Those FF systems will not decline smoothly -- there will be thresholds, "cliffs," where they suddenly crumble -- so maybe we should, I dunno, plan for it?

I have to do Career Day at my kids' school, what's a good way to teach them about science? I was thinking of giving them a fun activity and then making them fill out a lot of paperwork before abruptly canceling it