By Hugh Holland
In the April 24 edition, the Globe and Mail listed four opportunities to rebuild Canada’s economy: Speed approvals for natural resource projects, remove interprovincial trade barriers, manufacture more military equipment at home, and provide the “right amount?” of electricity for AI.
These are all good initiatives, but the overriding principle must be to provide a sustainable balance between the economy and the environment, especially for natural resource projects. Australia just finished its hottest summer ever, with temperatures reaching a scorching 50°C (130°F). Over the next six months, we will see what this brings to the northern hemisphere.
The CEOs of some of our biggest energy companies laid out what they feel needs to be done to boost Canada’s economy through investments in natural resource projects. To that end, both the Conservative and Liberal party leaders vowed to speed up the approval process.
But what is the point of improving our economy with these initiatives, only to see those investments offset by rapidly escalating costs of climate change? We don’t have to do that.
Canada’s single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions is oil and gas production. One-third of our national consumption of natural gas is burned to melt bitumen in the Alberta oil sands. Natural gas heat can be replaced by clean geothermal heat. Northern Alberta is one of the world’s geothermal hot spots. Geothermal uses technology and expertise from the oil and gas industry. Switching from gas to clean, safe geothermal heat can make 6 billion ft3 (cubic feet) of natural gas per day available for sale to help other countries reduce their emissions by shifting from coal to gas, improve our energy industry profits, and reduce Canada’s emissions by 26%. A win-win for all.
Building a 1,400 km natural gas pipeline from Fort McMurray to Port Nelson Manitoba on Hudson Bay would enable exporting the 6 billion ft3 of natural gas per day replaced by geothermal heat in the oil sands. Hudson Bay is now open for shipping most of the year and the route to Port Nelson via Thompson Manitoba is across solid ground (Not muskeg).
1,400 km Natural Gas pipeline from Fort McMurray to Port Nelson
4,600 km Energy East enables exports & secures oil to Ont. & Que.
Building the 4,600 km Energy East oil pipeline along the TC highway with capacity of 1.1 m bl per day would enable an additional 0.7 m bl per day to be exported to Europe from the east coast.
Energy East could also secure the 0.4 m bl per day oil supply for Ontario and Quebec by bypassing the US link thru Michigan to Sarnia. But it would require new refinery capacity near Montreal, and the reversal of Enbridge Lines 9 and 7.
Hugh Holland is a retired engineering and manufacturing executive now living in Huntsville, Ontario.
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All good in theory Hugh but what if TC Energy and Enbridge don’t go along with this? Originally, Energy East didn’t happen because TC bailed on the project. Also, not sure reversing Enbridge lines can happen due to existing long term contracts with shippers. One thing for sure, these projects will require massive investments from the private sector and those things are never fast nor easy to get. But, if anyone can pull it off, it would be PM Carney who’s actually built private/public projects before.
A good, balanced article on what needs to happen. I would add to it reductions or elimination of the damaging Trudeau-era climate regulations and industrial taxes that have discouraged and pushed private sector capital investments to other countries. A recent example of the big opportunities is Japan, who just announced they are in negotiations with Quatar for a long term LNG contract. This follows recent EU announcements that they pivoting to long-term LNG and oil import contracts to help cut their high energy prices damaging European industries and to improve energy security.
Let’s hope PM Mark Carney quickly follows through on his commitments to develop energy projects, like Hugh refers to. This is crucial to strengthening our economy and securing our future prosperity and unity. We have much to do, with great opportunity. It’s time to put partisan politics aside and to work together to build a stronger and more united country.