Energy
Canada must build 840 solar-power stations or 16 nuclear power plants to meet Ottawa’s 2050 emission-reduction target
From the Fraser Institute
The federal government’s plan to eliminate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from electricity generation by 2050 is impossible in practical terms, finds a new study published today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.
Due to population growth, economic growth and the transition to electrified transportation, electricity demand in Canada will increase substantially in coming years. “To meet existing and future electricity demand with low-emitting or zero-emitting sources within the government’s timeline, Canada would need to rapidly build infrastructure on a scale never before seen in the country’s history,” said Kenneth P.
Green, senior fellow at the Fraser Institute and author of Rapid Decarbonization of Electricity and Future Supply Constraints.
For example, to generate the electricity needed through 2050 solely with solar power, we’d need to build 840 solar-power generation stations the size of Alberta’s Travers Solar Project. At a construction time of two years per project, this would take 1,680 construction years to accomplish.
If we relied solely on wind power, Canada would need to build 574 wind-power installations the size of Quebec’s Seigneurie de Beaupre wind-power station. At a construction time of two years per project, this would take 1,150 construction years to accomplish.
If we relied solely on hydropower, we’d need to build 134 hydro-power facilities the size of the Site C power station in British Columbia. At a construction time of seven years per project, this would take 938 construction years to accomplish.
If we relied solely on nuclear power, we’d need to construct 16 new nuclear plants the size of Ontario’s Bruce Nuclear Generating Station. At a construction time of seven years per project, this would take 112 construction years to accomplish.
Currently, the process of planning and constructing electricity-generation facilities in Canada is often marked by delays and significant cost overruns. For B.C.’s Site C project, it took approximately 43 years from the initial planning studies in 1971 to environmental certification in 2014, with project completion expected in 2025 at a cost of $16 billion.
“When Canadians assess the viability of the federal government’s emission-reduction timelines, they should understand the practical reality of electricity generation in Canada,” Green said.
Decarbonizing Canada’s Electricity Generation: Rapid Decarbonization of Electricity and Future Supply Constraints
- Canada’s Clean Electricity Regulations (Canada, 2024a) require all provinces to fully “decarbonize” their electricity generation as part of the federal government’s broader “Net-Zero 2050” greenhouse gas emissions mitigation plan.
- Canada’s electricity demands are expected to grow in line with the country’s population, economic growth, and the transition to electrified transportation. Projections from the Canada Energy Regulator, Canadian Climate Institute, and Department of Finance estimate the need for an additional 684 TWh of generation capacity by 2050.
- If Canada were to meet this demand solely with wind power, it would require the construction of approximately 575 wind-power installations, each the size of Quebec’s Seigneurie de Beaupré Wind Farm, over 25 years. However, with a construction timeline of two years per project, this would equate to 1,150 construction years. Meeting future Canadian electricity demand using only wind power would also require over one million hectares of land—an area nearly 14.5 times the size of the municipality of Calgary.
- If Canada were to rely entirely on hydropower, it would need to construct 134 facilities similar in size to the Site C power station in British Columbia. Meeting all future demand with hydropower would occupy approximately 54,988 hectares of land—roughly 1.5 times the area of the municipality of Montreal.
- If Canada were to meet its future demand exclusively with nuclear power, it would need to construct 16 additional nuclear plants, each equivalent to Ontario’s Bruce Nuclear Generating Station.
- Meeting the predicted future electricity demand with these low/no CO2 sources will be a daunting challenge and is likely impossible within the 2050 timeframe.
Kenneth P. Green
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright warned International Energy Agency (IEA) head Fatih Birol in July that he was considering cancelling America’s membership in and funding of its activities due to its increasingly political nature.
Specifically, Wright pointed to the agency’s modeling methods used to compile its various reports and projections, which the Secretary and many others believe have trended more into the realm of advocacy than fact-based analysis in recent years.
That trend has long been clear and is a direct result of an intentional shift in the IEA’s mission that evolved in the months during and following the COVID pandemic. In 2022, the agency’s board of governors reinforced this changed mission away from the analysis of real energy-related data and policies to one of producing reports to support and “guide countries as they build net-zero emission energy systems to comply with internationally agreed climate goals” consistent with the Paris Climate Agreement of 2016.
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One step Birol and his team took to incorporate its new role as cheerleader for an energy transition that isn’t actually happening was to eliminate the “current policies” modeling scenario which had long formed the base case for its periodic projections. That sterile analysis of the facts on the ground was replaced it with a more aspirational set of assumptions based on the announced policy intentions of governments around the world. Using this new method based more on hope and dreams than facts on the ground unsurprisingly led the IEA to begin famously predicting a peak in global oil demand by 2029, something no one else sees coming.
Those projections have helped promote the belief among policymakers and investors that a high percentage of current oil company reserves would wind up becoming stranded assets, thus artificially – and many would contend falsely – deflating the value of their company stocks. This unfounded belief has also helped discourage banks from allocating capital to funding exploration for additional oil reserves that the world will almost certainly require in the decades to come.
Secretary Wright, in his role as leading energy policymaker for an administration more focused on dealing with the realities of America’s energy security needs than the fever dreams of the far-left climate alarm lobby, determined that investing millions of taxpayer dollars in IEA’s advocacy efforts each year was a poor use of his department’s budget. So, in an interview with Bloomberg in July, Wright said, “We will do one of two things: we will reform the way the IEA operates, or we will withdraw,” adding that his “strong preference is to reform it.”
Lo and behold, less than two months later, Javier Blas says in a September 10 Bloomberg op/ed headlined “The Myth of Peak Fossil Fuel Demand is Crumbling,” that the IEA will reincorporate its “current policies” scenario in its upcoming annual report. Blas notes that, “the annual report being prepared by the International Energy Agency… shows the alternative — decades more of robust fossil-fuel use, with oil and gas demand growing over the next 25 years — isn’t just possible but probable.”
On his X account, Blas posted a chart showing that, instead of projecting a “peak” of crude oil demand prior to 2030, IEA’s “current policies” scenario will be more in line with recent projections by both OPEC and ExxonMobil showing crude demand continuing to rise through the year 2050 and beyond.
Whether that is a concession to Secretary Wright’s concerns or to simple reality on the ground is not clear. Regardless, it is without question a clear about-face which hopefully signals a return by the IEA to its original mission to serve as a reliable analyst and producer of fact-based information about the global energy situation.
The global community has no shortage of well-funded advocates for the aspirational goals of the climate alarmist community. If this pending return to reality by the IEA in its upcoming annual report signals an end to its efforts to be included among that crowded field, that will be a win for everyone, regardless of the motivations behind it.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Audrey Streb
The Trump administration is rolling back President Joe Biden’s restrictions on oil and gas, planning 21 lease sales in 2025 — a sharp contrast to Biden’s first year, which saw none.
The Department of the Interior (DOI) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have already held 11 lease sales under Trump generating over $110 million for Americans, and plan to host 10 more in 2025, the agency told the Daily Caller News Foundation. While the Biden administration imposed a sweeping offshore drilling ban and greenlit a record-low offshore oil and gas leasing schedule, the Trump administration is working to reopen development on federal lands and waters.
“President Donald Trump has revived American energy. While the Biden administration left our energy resources to waste at the cost of taxpayers, Americans can feel relief knowing that they now have an administration laser focused on unleashing our domestic energy sources, lowering costs, and securing a more affordable and reliable energy future,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told the DCNF. “The number of new oil and gas lease sales simply speak for themselves.”
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has reported 3,608 new oil and gas permits in Trump’s second term thus far, compared to 2,528 permits during the Biden administration, according to the DOI. Trump and the DOI have approved 43% more federal drilling permits than his predecessors had at the same point in their presidencies, according to the agency.
The DOI has also opened more than 450,000 acres of federal land for potential energy development, and the DOI and BLM are set to approve more drilling permits than any other fiscal year in the past 15 years, the agency said.
On his first day back in the Oval Office, Trump signed an executive order to “unleash American energy” and declared a national energy emergency. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) further directed the DOI to open more domestic energy exploration opportunities, ordering the agency to “immediately resume onshore quarterly lease sales in specified states.”
Trump has emphasized bolstering conventional resources, which stands in contrast to Biden’s stifling of the oil and gas industry, as he froze liquified natural gas (LNG) exports, blocked the major Keystone XL pipeline and halted BLM lease approvals on his first day as president. Biden instead championed a green energy agenda, pushing for major wind and solar projects through billions in subsidies, loans and grants.
Notably, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) previously confirmed to the DCNF that the Biden administration failed to adequately review the environmental impacts of certain offshore wind projects before approving them. The Trump administration has cracked down on offshore wind, halting many major projects and reviewing several more, with Burgum arguing that the energy resource the Biden administration favored is “not reliable enough” at an event on Sept. 10.
Additionally, gasoline prices have been dropping nationally in recent months, with costs hitting four-year lows headed into summer and Labor Day weekend, according to GasBuddy and the American Automobile Association. The average retail price for gasoline is projected to keep dropping due to falling oil prices, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.
“[Oil] prices are not set by current supplies. They’re set by future expectations,” Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment, told the DCNF previously. “President Donald Trump is sending signals that the oil industry here is going to be very vibrant. He’s shrinking permitting time for fossil fuel projects, so expectations for fossil fuel supply in the United States are great.”
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