The Climate Cycle

AI data centres are consuming electricity at unprecedented rates, creating anxiety about grid stability, power bills, and backsliding on climate progress by firing up natural gas generators to meet demand.
But done right, this load growth could actually make electricity cheaper, accelerate grid modernization, and pull forward technologies that weren't economically viable two years ago.
We talk to Sam Hasty, a Partner at early stage climate tech fund Active Impact Investments, about what’s actually happening with data centre energy demand, why load growth could actually lower electricity prices, and what it takes to sell to risk-averse utilities.
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Links
Lawrence Berkeley study
ThinkLabs
The Power Law
eBoys
The Courage to be Disliked

Electrification depends on critical minerals — but mining and processing them remains one of the dirtiest, most constrained parts of the clean energy transition.
While countries like Canada are rich in mineral resources, much of what’s mined still ships overseas as raw concentrate, leaving refining - and control - elsewhere.
We talk to Mohammad Doostmohammadi, CEO of pH7 Technologies, to unpack an overlooked bottleneck in the critical minerals value chain: processing and refining.
His team has developed a closed-loop process that extracts critical metals with near-zero emissions and no wastewater - replacing chemical consumption with electricity.

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What does it actually take to build first-of-a-kind climate projects inside some of the world’s most risk-averse industries?
In this episode, three leaders share how they’re scaling climate hard tech in the real world.
Saad Dara from Mangrove Lithium, on scaling electrochemical lithium refining and standing up their first commercial plant
Sean Lowrie from Arca shares how they’re deploying carbon mineralization at active mines and integrating carbon removal into mining operations
Jonathan Rhone from CO280 on partnering with pulp and papers mills to scale carbon removal and building a pipeline of billion-dollar projects across North America.
Recorded live at Converge 2025, hosted by NorthX.
Three home-grown leaders building the next generation of industry in Canada and around the world.
In this episode, we cover:
The real challenges of moving from lab validation to commercial scale
How to work with large industrial partners and navigate risk-averse industries
Tactical lessons from building pilot plants and hundred-million-dollar projects
The economic edge for Canada to transform existing industry
If you’re building in climate tech - or trying to understand how hard-tech companies actually scale - this episode offers three grounded, first-hand perspectives from the people working to transform industry and move the needle on climate change.
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In this episode, I’m joined by Sarah Goodman, President and CEO of NorthX.
NorthX deploys non-dilutive catalytic capital at the early stages of commercialization, where founders face high risk, limited funding options, and a real need for industry traction. Their model has now supported more than 80 projects and helped unlock nearly half a billion dollars in follow-on investment from commercial partners and investors.
In this episode:
The unique challenges faced by early-stage hardtech
Why NorthX thinks like a VC fund to deploy non-dilutive funding
How catalytic capital unlocked real traction for Arca, Mangrove Lithium, Moment Energy and others
What founders need to know about securing their first industry partners
Why Canadian climate startups need to think globally from day one
The strategic opportunity for Canada to lead on climate tech
The NorthX model is truly unique in Canada, and is making real progress on scaling up climate hardtech. If you're interested in how climate tech actually makes it to market, this one's for you.
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We sit down with Hayden Smith, founder and CEO of FeX Energy, to unpack why energy storage matters to the energy transition and how their new iron-based storage solution could challenge incumbent technologies like lithium-ion.
FeX is developing an Iron Arc reactor that has the potential to hold energy for days or weeks, and release it as clean energy and high-temperature heat that could power industries like mining, provide heating for buildings, or balance load for the grid. By using one of Earth’s most abundant and affordable materials, FeX aims to close the gap between intermittent renewables and reliable, dispatchable power.
In this conversation, we cover:
Why energy storage is the “missing link” in the clean-energy transition
How FeX’s iron-based system compares to lithium and hydrogen storage
The role of long-duration storage in decarbonizing heavy industry and remote sites
What Canada needs to do to accelerate storage deployment and grid resilience
Hayden’s journey from corporate innovation at Siemens Energy Ventures to climate tech founder
📬 Sign up for our weekly briefing to get the latest deals, real-world projects, and policy signals in Canadian climate tech.
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→ Send feedback and episode ideas to ⁠⁠[email protected]