Policy Research

ChatGPT generated: Burning contracts symbolize the erosion of trust, as political ideology halts a half-built offshore wind farm and leaves investment in ashes

From Ørsted to Ontario: How Populist Conservatives Undermine Contract Sanctity

The Trump administration’s stop-work order on Ørsted’s Revolution Wind project has already become a defining event for investors and developers in the United States energy sector. The project was nearly complete, with billions already invested in turbines, monopiles, offshore cables, port infrastructure, and labor. Every required federal and state permit … [continued]

chatgpt generated image: Idle LNG tankers queue off a hazy Asian coastline, a visual metaphor for weakening demand and oversupply in global LNG markets.

Fossil Demand Decline In India & China Puts Canadian LNG At Risk

India’s electricity system is undergoing a shift that signals broader changes in global energy markets. For decades, its fossil generation rose steadily to meet rising demand. In the first half of 2025 that changed. Coal- and gas-fired electricity both fell as renewables surged, with total fossil electrical generation dropping 4%, … [continued]

chatgpt generated: Split-screen panorama contrasting costly, delayed nuclear projects on the left with wind turbines, interconnectors, and batteries powering a clean future on the right

Canada’s National Projects: Betting on Nuclear & LNG While the Future Waits

Canada has put a stake in the ground by deciding which megaprojects are now officially in the national interest. Out of an initial list of 32 candidates I analysed recently, five made the cut. That is a small number on paper, but the financial and climate commitments stretch out for … [continued]

A panoramic charcoal sketch showing the financial trajectory of SMR projects worldwide. From left to right, a canceled U.S. build, Russia’s barge-mounted reactors, and China’s HTR-PM stand as markers of escalating costs, with overlaid bars and numbers highlighting overruns that climb from 75% to 200%

Small Modular Reactors and the Big Questions of Cost & Waste

The publication of Kim and Macfarlane’s 2026 study on small modular reactors is a moment worth pausing over. Nuclear energy sits at the margins of most serious decarbonization pathways today, but SMRs have been marketed as the technology that could change that. They are advertised as cheaper, safer, faster to … [continued]

ChatGPT generated panoramic contrast: a vibrant Chinese graduation packed with STEM graduates under their national flag, set against an empty U.S. lecture hall marked by its flag

Why Nations Fail, Revisited: America’s Institutional Drift & China’s Cleantech Rise

I recently read Why Nations Fail, the 2012 book by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, who won the Nobel Prize in 2024 for Economics for their work on how institutions shape economic prosperity, and was struck by how confidently it placed the United States on a path of enduring greatness. … [continued]

Chatgpt generated split scene of a battery-electric truck depot and a hydrogen station, showing contrasting infrastructures and outcomes

Why So Many Non-BEV Trucks in NACFE’s Run on Less?

The United States North American Council for Freight Efficiency’s (NACFE) Run on Less is underway again, and the lineup is broad. Battery electrics are sharing the road with renewable diesel tractors, natural gas trucks, and a pair of hydrogen fuel cell units. That variety is interesting because it reflects the … [continued]

ChatGPT generated panoramic illustration of giant laminated wooden Lego-like CLT panels being lifted by cranes and stacked into a building under construction

Mass Timber As Lego: Flyvbjerg’s Modularity Meets Low-Carbon Construction

Mass timber is being promoted as a way to cut carbon in construction, speed up schedules, and reduce costs. But there is another lens through which to view it that comes from project management research. Professor Bent Flyvbjerg has spent decades studying why large projects fail and what can be … [continued]

ChatGPT generated panoramic illustration of a cracked black box labeled “Hydrogen Transportation Future,” split open to reveal broken pumps and costly parts

Battery Electric Rise, Hydrogen Falters: Lessons From South Korea

In 2019, South Korea announced a program that was meant to make the country a global leader in hydrogen transportation. The government declared that all 802 police buses then in service would be replaced with hydrogen fuel cell models by 2028. These were not ordinary buses. They were national security … [continued]

ChatGPT generated panoramic cross-section of a sedimentary basin showing storage-safe layers, seismic faults, and urban exclusion zones for clarity

Carbon Storage’s Prudent Limit: The End Of Infinite Assumptions

The publication of A prudent planetary limit for geologic carbon storage in Nature is an important moment in the conversation about carbon capture and storage. For decades storage has been discussed as if it were an almost limitless global sink, with estimates running from 10,000 to 40,000 gigatons of CO₂ … [continued]