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
For some reason, I woke up extra early this morning, well before my alarm. As soon as I came to and noticed the time, I immediately reached for my phone to pull up Twitter and see what happened with the UK referendum. And frankly, I was shocked to see that they had voted to leave the EU.
Once I saw what had happened, I then went to my computer and started looking for maps of the voting results.
Here’s one from the Guardian:
They also found that the best predictor of how people voted (with Scotland being a bit of an exception) was whether or not they had a degree. Residents with higher education were more likely to vote “remain.”
Here’s another vote map from the Telegraph, broken down by 12 regions:
According to these regions, only Northern Ireland, Scotland, and London voted to remain. If we get a bit more granular though, the map turns into this:
Not surprisingly, it is London and other big cities (remain) vs. the rest of England (leave). Here’s another case of urban divide.
Gangi, Palermo - Sicily by Claudio Siragusa on 500px
Buy real estate. It always goes up. That’s the mantra, right?
Few things in life are that black and white.
A small town in Sicily called Gangi is in the midst of a novel urban renewal experiment. They are giving away houses for free to people who will agree to renovate them within a 4 year time period.
Here’s the “free houses” notice from the Comune Di Gangi explaining how it works and who to contact. You have to be an Italian or EU citizen to participate.
Free can be a powerful business model, as we see all the time with tech companies. And sometimes cities and towns aren’t all that different.
So if you’re looking for a vacation home or want to move to Sicily, now might be a great time.