Without heat from carbon-based plants and animals — either long dead in the form of coal, oil or gas or not yet fossilized wood or grass — we’d all have frozen to death. On January 15, the coldest day of the period, the Alberta Electrical System Operator reported electricity generated in Alberta came 34.2% from toxic coal and 60.2% from that menace-in-the-making, methane or natural gas. Solar was zero and wind 0.002% . Alberta set an all-time record for electricity consumption during this period.
Back out the 2.3% from hydro and 97.7% of our electricity came from carbon-based sources. The cold was not confined to Alberta. Numerous communities in BC set new cold weather records. Malahat on Vancouver Island and Prince Rupert on the Northern Coast plummeted below the previous lows set in 2007 and 1969 respectively.
This is a temperature usually associated with Siberia, Canada’s Arctic, Greenland or Antarctica. The coldest temperature in Regina dates back to the late 1800s. The cold snap affected oil prices as bitumen solidified and became increasingly difficult to transport. It appears uber-cold weather is equally effective at preventing this deadly hydrocarbon from reaching market.
It is against the reality of what is required to live in this large, cold and dark country for much of the year that we must revisit the ongoing Canadian climate change debate. As the opening line in my book released last year — From Miracle to Menace — Alberta, A Carbon Story — states, «The current debate about climate change and what mankind should do about it has deteriorated to the point of absurdity». In the past twenty years, millions of Canadians have chosen to mentally leave Canada and relocate their minds to a fantasy northern country that can somehow wrestle the global climate change monster to the ground singlehandedly. This will be accomplished by a genius combination of virtue signaling, carbon taxes, renewable energy subsidies, expanded government, important conferences, passionate retelling of the enormity of the challenge, and ensuring pension funds, mutual funds and universities don’t own shares in fossil fuel companies.
Canada is the third largest hydro generator in the world. Dams, water and turbines supply 60% of the country’s electricity. Manitoba has great hydro resources from northern regions, the province’s portion of the Canadian Shield. But where the land is flat like Alberta and Saskatchewan, hydro only supplies up to 5.5% and 13% in respectively.
While the politicians, activists and the media agonize over the necessity of reducing then eliminating fossil fuel use, there is no evidence that this will happen soon, if ever. The five main forecasters of energy demand and mix for the next 20 years are the International Energy Agency , Energy Information Administration , ExxonMobil, BP and Shell. While they vary slightly, all five conclude fossil fuel demand will rise for the next 20 years without a major technological breakthrough in energy sources or feedstock for plastic and petrochemicals that does not yet exist. Canada’s official global warming concerns date back to the UN Rio «Earth Summit» in 1992.
However, its first major virtue-signaling policy commitment came in 1997 when Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s government endorsed the Kyoto Protocol. What was supposed to emerge was a global carbon emissions trading market that would lead to increased efficiency and reduced consumption. At the time of the Kyoto climate conference almost a quarter-century ago, the world consumed 73 million b/d of oil. Climate change has become an important political issue this century.
It was 15 years ago when Ontario’s Liberal government committed to lead the charge with an aggressive, multi-year plan to phase out coal for electricity and become a leader in wind and solar power supply and hardware. After electricity prices tripled and the advertised «cleantech» energy jobs never appeared, the whole program was scrapped and $26 billion of future renewable power purchase commitments was buried in the provincial deficit. The climate-obsessed Ontario Liberal Party was wiped off the political map in the 2018 election. Based on rising fossil fuel consumption, Canada’s self-appointed climate leadership role is a failure.
According to CAPP statistics, when Canada committed to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 total demand for refined crude oil products of all types was 1.6 million b/d. Natural gas consumption increased from 2.4 bcf/day in 1997 to 3.6 bcf/day in 2018, a 50% increase. There has been some progress in the «higher carbon» fossil fuels. Coal consumption declined by 37% in the 20 years from 1997 to 2017 due in large part to Ontario’s phase-out of coal-fired electricity.
According to Statistics Canada, in the past 10 years electricity from wind has increased by ten times and solar is finally reaching measurable quantities. But the two combined in 2019 were only 4% of total Canadian electricity generation. While wind is stable on a seasonable basis when the air is moving, solar drops off sharply when required the most which is in the winter, an obvious casualty of shorter days at northern latitudes. What makes the discussion about the future of fossil fuels so shallow is most people have no idea how ubiquitous hydrocarbon byproducts are in everyday life.
In terms of gasoline consumption, oil-pipeline hating Quebecers love to drive. Gasoline consumption continues to rise, as does sales of bigger vehicles like SUVs. Because they reject the oil sands and pipelines, and even though Montreal refineries receive Alberta crude, they still buy most of their oil from the US and offshore sources. There are no publicly confessed regrets about supporting the Liberal west coast oil tanker ban while accepting tankers in St. As the third anniversary of BC’s NDP government approaches in June, Premier John Horgan’s crew wins Canada’s climate hypocrite award.
Fulfilling a campaign promise, Horgan went to the Supreme Court to stop the Trans Mountain expansion while simultaneously challenging Alberta’s new law to reduce throughput of the existing pipeline. We don’t want more Alberta oil, but it is illegal to supply less. In terms of total GHG emissions, little progress is evident. When Chretien signed Kyoto is 1997 total emissions were 687 megatonnes per year.
Canada’s 2015 Paris commitment was to reduce emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030, a mathematical target of 511 megatonnes and 28% below 2017 levels. During last fall’s election campaign Prime Minister Trudeau assured voters Canada was «on track» to meet its Paris commitments in only ten years. Mysteriously, in researching this article no federal data for 2018 GHG emissions was found on the websites of the usual federal sources. Canada is tenth at 1.6%.
That Canada alone cannot save the planet is rarely mentioned. The Canadian motto must surely be, «Do as I say, not as I do.» Because for all the speeches, policies, platitudes, promises, taxes and passionate outpouring of grave concern, there is no evidence that Canada or Canadians have any intention of doing anything other than talking a good climate story if it costs money or votes. Otherwise carbon taxes would be at $200 a tonne, the number often cited as the level required to materially change consumption behavior. Even then, people would still buy fossil fuels to stay alive.
Statistics show extreme cold kills more people than extreme heat. Blessed with ample and affordable heat, Canada has mostly avoided cold weather deaths. We cannot live in Canada without fossil fuels. Would people please start saying it out loud — and repeating it regularly — so we can change the channel and have the first intelligent discussion this century about climate change and what to do about it.
Source: David Yager | EnergyNow.ca
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