I never used to listen to very many podcasts. But lately I've started doing it while heading to/from meetings, either in the car or on the train. This past week I listened to a Bankless podcast talking about crypto and AI, and one of the arguments that was made was that it's probably a safe bet to assume that we're going to need dramatically more compute and electricity in the future.
This seems obvious enough. If you recall, there's no such thing as a wealthy, low-energy nation. If you're a wealthy country, you consume a lot of energy. And that's why Build Canada recently argued that we need a kind of energy revolution. By 2050, it's likely Canada will have 2-3x the electricity demand that we have today. So today I thought I would share a few related charts.
Here's electricity production by source across the world. Coal dominates.
Looking at renewables more closely, we again see that wind and solar are making a run for it. And if you consider that solar is one of the fastest growing energy sources, it's not inconceivable that it will start to become a more dominant source in the near term. In the US, solar PV projects make up the largest share of new planned generation capacity.
But the US is not winning this race today. Right now it's China. (Chart below sourced from here.) They have the largest cumulative solar capacity, followed by the EU, and then the US. That said, coal still forms a dominant part of China's energy mix, and the country continues to construct coal-fired power plants to meet its short-term energy needs.
It's unfortunate that Canada is not on this list. That needs to change.
Cover photo by Benjamin Jopen on Unsplash
We all know what happened this week:
Donald Trump’s decision on April 2 2025 to enact sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs on US trade partners will go down as one of the greatest acts of self-harm in American economic history. They will wreak untold damage on households, businesses and financial markets across the world, upending a global economic order that America benefited from and helped to create.
We also know it was based on highly questionable math:
His “reciprocal” levies amount to a back-of-the-envelope calculation. They take trade partners’ US trade deficit in goods as a share of imports from that country, and then divide it by two. This is not a calibrated attempt to equalise tariff and non-tariff barriers facing US exporters, perceived or otherwise. It is, however, a reckless repudiation of all trade agreements the US has signed, as well as a deeply flawed plan to attract foreign manufacturing investment.
So what happens next?
Assuming this behavior persists, the US will continue to isolate itself from global trade, and the rest of the world will pivot and quickly move to trade more freely among themselves. This maybe isn't as problematic as some might think. Today, the US represents about 13.5% of global goods imports, which is down from almost 20% in 2000. And the biggest drivers of global growth are now China and the Euro area.
To that end, here's a fascinating study from IMD Business School that looked at how long it will take for various trading partners to completely wean themselves off of the US. And to do this, they looked at non-US import growth for the 10-year period from 2012 to 2022, and then extrapolated. This is what they learned:
What this chart says is that by the end of this year, some 70 US trading partners could, in theory, replace the loss of the US export market so long as non-US growth continues as it did in the past. And by 2039, the number jumps to over 140 trading parties. 2039 is obviously a long ways away, but I think it's noteworthy that year one in this specific chart already starts with 70.
Importantly, Canada does not fall within this initial bucket. Based on the study, we are in the danger zone. That is, exports to the US make up more than 10% of our GDP and it will take more than 10 years for full export recovery. But again, this is based on historic non-US growth. So all this means is that the status quo cannot continue; we need to dramatically increase this growth rate and do it as quickly as possible.
I hope our leaders recognize the urgency of this, because nothing can be taken for granted when it comes to the US right now. We need to be hyper focused on full trade recovery as soon as possible. Canada needs to be open for business to the world.
Earlier this week, Chinese architect Liu Jiakun was awarded the 2025 Pritzker Prize. For those of you who may not be familiar, the Pritzker Prize is generally considered to be the architect world's most prestigious prize. (The full list of laureates can be found, here.)
Jiakun is based in Chengdu, China and he has worked exclusively within the country. His largest project is a mixed-use complex known as the West Village, which is a truly enormous courtyard building that exists at the scale of a neighborhood.
It houses cultural, recreational, commercial, and office spaces, all of which are connected by an elaborate network of pedestrian and cyclist ramps. Here's what that looks like from above:
At first glance, it's the kind of large-scale development that looks as if it may not work. It looks like it could be the kind of project that sterilizes a fine-grained urban neighborhood. But get closer, and things start to look a little different.
The true test is seeing how it performs at the scale of a pedestrian. And I found this walking tour helpful in understanding what that might feel like. If you spend a few minutes watching it, or even just scanning through it, you'll see that the area looks active and busy, even at night.
Now, I've never visited this project, or Chengdu for that matter, but I suspect that the way to think about this project is not as one giant complex, but as a giant public space flanked by buildings. In other words, it's not that the complex is enormous, it's that the public spaces are enormous.
Jiakun is quoted as saying this:
“I always aspire to be like water,” says Liu, “to permeate through a place without carrying a fixed form of my own and to seep into the local environment and the site itself. Over time, the water gradually solidifies, transforming into architecture, and perhaps even into the highest form of human spiritual creation. Yet it still retains all the qualities of that place, both good and bad.”
The West Village seems to be a testament to this approach. He aspired to not interrupt the flows of the existing environment, and perhaps that's why it works so well. Or at least, that's what it looks like on YouTube.
Photos by Qian Shen Photography