Chris Bataille

One of my big frustrations with David Eby is he cancelled a highly effective, partially revenue neutral carbon tax just because the feds did so (Québec didn’t), leaving a big hole in our provincial finances, only to be annihilated in an unnecessary election 1.5 years later. Excellent legacy.

“Severe heat killed more than 50,000 people in European cities and towns this summer, according to peer-reviewed estimates released by scientists in London on Friday.” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/22/c...

Electricity for EV charging has grown 55.4% so far this year in China.

I was just in Europe and was kind of astonished at ... the really nice FORD EVs I saw (???). Why don't we have them in North America? Partly ...👇 h/t @gspeng.bsky.social

As the count continues, we are getting a clearer picture of the results from Monday's AB referendum: 1. Separation was trounced 2. No real mandate on the heavily pushed Q1-9 Big picture: the Urban-Rural divide Cgy+Edm voted No on all questions Rest of Alberta (combined) voted Yes

We're getting a visit from sea levels from later this century, yay.

A weird position to be in working in climate is in a plane with the engines running near full blast on the ground to reduce weight before takeoff. There’s a real negative cost mitigation action - count your passengers and bags first, and don’t over load fuel.

A nice figure from the IEA showing the flows from primary, to final, to useful energy. This is where people get all fired up about these stupid organisations / people that use primary energy. Well, let me explain why people like me use primary energy... www.iea.org/reports/elec...

I woke up in Europe, nothing on the Alberta referendum on CBC front pages (*fear*), but CTVnews shows 76:23.4. Thank God, my heart.

This - if you step outside the European/NORAM world, there is an astonishing and very visible amount of Chinese electrification technology getting installed because it's both cheaper to install and reduces ongoing FOREX needs. And Chinese EVs are everywhere, and they often feel like German cars.

Uh, if a Russian anti-satellite weapon chases down and destroys a Finnish satellite being used to help Ukraine, is that an Article 5 event?

Good Lord, the soldiers killed at Wainright were on their way to Latvia as part of the Baltic trip wire brigade against Russian incursion, and they were caught in a wildfire that travelled a kilometre in under a minute due to high winds. www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/art...

Thoughts are with the CAF and community in Wainwright. Several friends from high school passed through there on training. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

❤️😀

Here's a horror story. If plastics sourced from crude oil (naptha) have a GHG intensity indexed to 1, then from gas sourced ethane it's 0.8, but from coal based methanol to olefins it's ~7. Coal Fischer Tropsch to olefins is ~10. And guess which way some markets are trending?

Trump has basically said he's going to ignore Congress, presumably for the next 2 and a quarter years. Anywhere else in the world people would be rioting, gathering in the capital - this would be a constitutional crisis. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/u...

Trump tells Congress he doesn't care about what they think and lifts Russian energy sanctions www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/u...

’After a week of contentious deliberations and some displays of temper, IPCC failed to reach agreement on either a timeline for the remainder of its Seventh Assessment Cycle or even a budget for the coming year.’ enb.iisd.org/intergovernm...

As an order of magnitude, around 15% of Muslim men have “Muhammad” (in some spelling) as part of their given name. If you also count it appearing as a father’s or grandfather’s name in the full name, the share is much higher. This is incredibly irresponsible.

Battery Storage is Booming Around the World...But Not In Canada Katye Atlieri of @ember_energy discusses a new report about battery storage. Canada is targeting Asia for greater trade. What if Asia electrifies, thanks in part to batteries? #cdnpoli youtu.be/Suv_l3L3yJU

Every time a centrist Canadian party fails to carry out electoral reform and bring in some form of proportional representation it shoots itself and the Canadian mainstream in the foot. The Green deserve their 10-15% of votes, & we’d all benefit.

One has to take the bits of good news where one finds them, even if they are temporary.

Just read the whole thread #cdnpoli #bcpoli #abpoli It also passes as a comedy routine. @markhamhislop.bsky.social

Brown University’s widget shows that the energy costs of the Iran war have just passed $1,000 per household iranwarcost.watson.brown.edu

We’re in strange historical period where an authoritarian state bent on leapfrog export development, a new democratic state struggling to survive war with a neighbour 4X its size, & a war of choice against a theocratic petrostate by a democratic petrostate are contributing most to decarbonization 🤷‍♂️

Buoyed by the embrace of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin has supercharged his assassinations bureau and tasked it with murdering Europe's defense chiefs. www.ft.com/content/5da2...

I’d take the arguments about overcapacity more seriously if the US concentrated its tariffs on China, and specifically the overcapacity goods produced there, instead of on its erstwhile closest allies.

Here’s my question. Are all these AI proofs of long standing math problems being done through brute force, or through something like imagination? If the ladder, I’m very curious.

New working paper on Equitable Transitions Away from Fossil Fuels (ETAFFs) - read it hot off the press here commerce.uct.ac.za/sites/defaul... 🧵👇

Someone is of the philosophical bent at Ember. "Abundance is arriving; whether it is used well is up to us." 😄

I thought this might be an exaggeration, but no! Despite all the talk of technology neutrality, it appears the permitting reform proposal would weaponize claims for federal damages — but in practice, only for fossil fuels.

When you find an article, read through it a bit, thinking to yourself, "damn, these folks are insightful", nodding away, and then look up and see you name on the author list. 🙃

That big dry spot in the middle ...

Chapeau @blakeshaffer.bsky.social and @shastingssimon.bsky.social 🤠🤠!

I won’t belabour this because I’ve written about it before, but the part of Carney’s pipeline pivot that I find impossible to justify is the government taking on the demand risk.

Most kids learn to stop touching the stove.

Swiss glaciers suffer 'disastrous' year of ice loss, threatening water supplies "…in its simplest form, what we see right now is that we took an ice cube out of the fridge and it's just melting in front of our eyes." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Worth noting: MacDonald's first attempt a establishing a Canadian Pacific Rail line STARTED in 1873 (when he and other officials were bribed as part the Pacific Scandal). Final construction wasn't completed until 1886. 13 years, not 4. Then, as now, the delays were political and regulatory.

Interesting graphic analysis of how crude oil and LNG flows shifted since the beginning of the latest Persian Gulf crisis. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Bagels and cultivated lox at NYC climate week. Ingredients beyond the salmon cells here: www.wildtypefoods.com/faqs/why-are...

I got to spend one fall working deep in the Canadian Rockies after undergrad, and it was so beautiful it broke my heart to leave.