By Andrea Dunn, Business Development Manager, Scovan and Michelle Edge, Co-Founder and CCO of Energy Disruptors
Andrea Dunn: Can you share with us what Energy Disruptors: UNITE is and why you created it?
Michelle Edge: We founded the Energy Disruptors: UNITE Summit with the audacious goal of uniting the world’s boldest energy trailblazers to ‘shake things up for good’. Concerned by the challenges facing the energy industry and the global need to accelerate the energy transition, we self-funded and launched an event series we hoped would challenge assumptions, facilitate connections with unlike minds, and empower delegates to lead with creativity and courage. In an ever more divided world, we felt it was imperative to have a forum in which the entire energy value chain can come together and find common ground in the pursuit of pragmatic, scalable, equitable, and profitable energy solutions.
AD: Energy Disruptors: UNITE has been named Canada’s Best Conference, and has hosted headliners such as Richard Branson, Malcolm Gladwell, Erin Brockovich and Peter Tertzakian. What are you most excited about for this year’s conference, happening October 1-2, 2024 at the BMO Centre?
ME: There are so many things to be excited about, including hosting the event in the amazing new BMO Centre but hosting two groundbreaking world leaders has to be the greatest achievement our team has had to date. Everyone is counting down the days to meet Former Prime Minister Sanna Marin and the Rt. Hon Dame Jacinda Ardern and hear their insights on geopolitics, climate policy, and bold leadership.
AD: Why did you choose Calgary as the place to host Energy Disruptors: UNITE
ME: Firstly, and most importantly, Calgary is our home and we love it. We want to make Calgary the annual destination for the world’s greatest thinkers and also create a global platform for our homegrown energy trailblazers to shine. Secondly, Calgary is the best place in the world to make big things happen. The Unite Summit wouldn’t exist today without the enthusiasm and unwavering support of the local community which has shown us an abundance of generosity every step of the way.
AD: Looking ahead to the next 3-5 years, what are your perspectives on the greatest disruptions in Energy that we’ll see in Western Canada?
ME: We’d start by saying it is extremely difficult to predict disruptions and the global energy system is incredibly complex. One of the big overarching threads is the need for more electrons. We are seeing rising electricity demand from EVs, industrial electrification, and the explosion of generative AI. How do we ensure the new supply of electrons is as clean, affordable, flexible and, most importantly, resilient as possible? That’s a complex challenge. I think the other big trend we are paying attention to is the scale-up of global mineral and metals supply to feed the energy transition. At its heart, we believe the energy transition is primarily a mining (and materials) challenge. The final thing to mention is societal acceptance. A lot of new infrastructure needs to be deployed and existing infrastructure re-imagined. How do we accelerate the timelines and reduce the cost of this infrastructure whilst ensuring appropriate environmental guardrails and stakeholder engagement?
All of these factors are going to be important from a Western Canadian perspective. We should be playing a bigger role globally in helping to solve these problems.
AD: What has been the most interesting thing you’ve learned about Energy in Western Canada since the inception of Energy Disruptors: UNITE?
ME: One of the things that has surprised us has been the level of support. The other thing would be the number of really cool companies and exciting entrepreneurs doing new stuff in the energy space.
AD: As part of our commitment to a sustainable future, Scovan has partnered with veritree with a goal of planting 100,000 trees and 30,000 lbs of kelp in Western Canada in the next 3 years. What are some other emerging environmental trends that you’re seeing?
ME: That’s a great initiative. There are some really interesting environmental trends from controversial topics like geo-engineering as a last line of climate defence to better building design, to thinking more about regeneration than just aiming for carbon neutrality. Perhaps on a less positive note, we’ve also been concerned about the rise in climate catastrophism especially amongst young people. Despite a generally very negative news cycle we are making some progress in areas. Having young people feel empowered to be part of helping scale global solutions is essential.
AD: Through proprietary technologies such as PadX and HipVap, Scovan is disrupting the future of energy. What are some other trends in innovation that you’ve seen over the last several years, and what parts of the world are leading the way?
ME: If there were two innovations we’d have to pick out, the first would be a group called TerraPraxis (led by Kirsty Gogan and Eric Ingersoll) leading an initiative called “Repowering Coal” with the ambition of repurpose existing global coal power plants using small modular nuclear reactors – coal power generation being the number one global emissions problem child. The work TerraPraxis is leading is less about new innovations and more about how we re-imagine the deployment of infrastructure, compressing timelines and costs. As a good analog, if you look at the impact SpaceX has had in disrupting the traditional aerospace industry (10x reduction in cost of launching a satellite), how do you take that mindset and approach and apply it to the future of energy infrastructure.
The second would be a great Calgary homegrown story called Eavor (led by John Redfern), who are leading the charge on unlocking the potential of abundant geothermal heat and power. Eavor are making tremendous strides in commercializing closed loop geothermal and are a company to watch.
AD: The energy industry in Alberta is facing many challenges and opportunities as it transitions to a low-carbon future. The province has abundant natural resources, such as oil, gas, and coal, but also faces environmental and social pressures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and diversify its economy. What are some of the trends you’ve learned about from other nations that have eased the transition to a low-carbon future?
ME: We’ve seen various European countries massively reduce their emissions over the last 25 to 30 years whilst achieving ongoing economic growth. However, the picture gets more complex as many of these countries have also de-industrialized to a large extent as more manufacturing has moved to Asia. As exciting as the new innovations are, I think something we could do better is focus more on energy efficiency, better building design, better material design, greater consumer awareness, and, probably most importantly, leaning into the changing global energy landscape. We need to decouple economic growth from emissions whilst also having resilient supply chains and not totally de-industrializing. It is a massively complex and nuanced challenge. There is no silver bullet and ultimately achieving globally a lower-carbon future will require courage, societal acceptance, unprecedented collaborations, multiple solutions, a reimagining of infrastructure deployment, the list goes on…
AD: What other trends are you seeing in the Western Canadian energy landscape?
ME: In some areas a step backwards in ambition and a more polarized environment. To borrow a line from one of our prior speakers Michael Liebreich, “for everything to stay the same everything will have to change”. There is a bit of mentality creeping in that energy transition was a temporary blip and will go away. We believe this mindset needs to be constructively challenged as it won’t serve us well as a community in the future.
AD: Thanks for your time and insights! It’s been a pleasure.
Originally published in IGNITE V8.
