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Energy

COMMENTARY: Let’s Hear From Real “Experts” When it Comes Our Critical Electrical Systems – Not Bureaucrats, Academics, Activists and Partisan Politicians

Published

2 years ago

6 minute read

From EnergyNow.ca

By Deidra Garyk

We need to redefine who is an “expert”

Experts cannot only include bureaucrats, politicians, academics, activists, and white-collar corporate elites. We must include the people who do the work to keep society functioning, such as electricians, utility system operators, and oilfield and construction workers.

Who is given the mic (or the pen) is given the power to influence perceptions, sometimes resulting in demands for unworkable plans.

The Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) issued an emergency alert Saturday, January 13 asking Albertans to immediately reduce their electricity use or risk rotating outages. The extreme cold across the West caused an increase in demand and a restriction of imports, and that resulted in the worst-case scenario.

Albertans did what Albertans do – they pulled together and shut down unnecessary usage, averting a crisis.

Alberta is a modern, energy-rich province, the envy of the world, in many ways. How did this crisis happen?

Reporting afterwards on the alert, Calgary newstalk radio QR 770 interviewed an “expert” – a multi-degreed economics and law professor at an Alberta university and part-time climate activist. He said several words and asked a similar question, but otherwise contributed little of substance because he does not have adequate expertise to identify practicable solutions.

I would like to know why QR 770 did not interview a utility system expert to explain what happened and why. AESO made experts available to media to answer questions. The role of the media is to inform the public, and that is best accomplished by interviewing a broad cross-section of people with real-world knowledge.

The Official Opposition in Alberta put out a statement trying to capitalize on the situation, as any political party would. Shadow Minister for Energy and Climate Nagwan Al-Guneid demanded immediate action be taken by the governing UCP while praising renewables for getting the province through the alert, and simultaneously forgetting it was her government that mandated all coal fired power plants be shut down by 2030. They even paid three power plant operators $1.36 billion to shut down their plants early.

Wind and solar renewables did not get Alberta through the most critical time – the coldest, darkest hours – of the electricity crisis and the data shows it. The assertion was at best missing context, and at worst disinformation for ideological gain.

Again, we need to redefine who is an “expert”.

There is a place for opposition parties, academics, corporate leaders, and even activists. However, they have an obligation to be serious and come to the discussion table in good faith. Otherwise, we have people with severe climate anxiety and a decade of “climate-induced insomnia” demanding that Canada build net zero hospitals powered by wind and solar to decarbonize and climate-proof the health care system.

The table must be expanded and seats added to include the people working closest to the source. Therefore, it would be beneficial for media organizations to interview the “invisible” people who work thanklessly to keep the systems running so much so that we take them for granted. We could all benefit from better understanding how the world works and how things are made.

I want to hear from electrical engineers, electricians, pipeline operators, oilfield workers, energy marketers, utility system operators, and anyone else who works to keep the electricity system  functioning without fail.

They too must come to the discussion in good faith, ready to participate in complex but meaningful problem-solving discussions as their input is essential.

The reason the grid nearly failed and caused rolling blackouts is multi-faceted – extreme cold, taking coal plants offline early, not adding sufficient reliable power generation, renewables not producing during peak demand, increased population, increased business activity, and burdensome federal regulations, to name a few. It will take a truly diverse group of experts to build the grid that is able to withstand the most adverse weather to consistently deliver power during the coldest and deadliest times.

Over the weekend there were pleas on social media to get adults in the room to address the electricity grid crisis. We will not get adults in the room to create prudent energy policy for real people until we redefine who is an “expert”. This weekend proved that we need to do that soon.

About Deidra Garyk

Deidra Garyk has been working in the Canadian energy industry for almost 20 years. She is currently the Manager, ESG & Sustainability at an oilfield service company. Prior to that, she worked in roles of varying seniority at exploration and production companies in joint venture contracts where she was responsible for working collaboratively with stakeholders to negotiate access to pipelines, compressors, plants, and batteries.

Outside of her professional commitments, Deidra is an energy advocate and thought leader who researches, writes, and speaks about energy policy and advocacy to promote balanced, honest, fact-based conversations. 

Connect with Deidra on Linkedin
Visit her website:  DEIDRA GARYK: Canadian Energy Advocate

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Energy

Minus Forty and the Myth of Easy Energy

Published on October 20, 2025

By

By Stewart Muir

It’s not about ideology at  forty degrees below zero. It’s about survival

When the thermometer plunges to forty below, ideology no longer matters. Survival does.

That lesson was driven home in January 2024, when a brutal cold snap swept across America’s Pacific Northwest and western Canada. For four days, the region’s interconnected energy system teetered on the brink of collapse. Power lines snapped, gas pipelines strained, and four states of emergency were declared. In Portland, a falling power line killed three people and injured a baby.

This was no ordinary winter storm. It quickly became known as the January 2024 Event – a capital-letter crisis that planners are still analyzing nearly two years later. As recently as August 2025, experts continued to hold panels to ask the same question: how did the grid survive? Their verdict is grim.

Hydropower, long the Northwest’s reliable backup, faltered. Wind turbines stood still as the winds died at exactly the wrong time. Solar panels offered little under heavy gray skies. Natural gas supplied about two-thirds of the energy as furnaces worked around the clock – but even gas has limits.

The Real Problem: Capacity, Not Cold

Here’s the twist: post-event analysis shows the real problem wasn’t the cold. It was demand growth colliding with a system stripped of firm capacity. The cold snap may not have been unprecedented, but the risks were, BC Hydro’s Powerex reported.

They also warned that fashionable fixes like batteries and pumped hydro aren’t the cavalry many hope for. These technologies can even worsen shortages by competing for scarce electricity when it’s needed most. One Alberta utility estimated it would take a battery bigger than 13 years of the world’s entire EV battery output to cover its customers’ electricity needs for those few days.

Meanwhile, the renewables lobby was left scrambling for answers. Investigations by ProPublica and Oregon Public Broadcasting highlighted the obvious: Oregon and Washington had set “100% green” targets without solving the transmission bottlenecks needed to deliver that power. Instead of addressing the flaw, advocates doubled down, calling for more wind, more solar, more batteries without any credible plan for the impossibly large quantities required.

And so, in the depths of that frigid January, reality intruded. Gas-fired generation carried the essential load. Imports were pulled in. Utilities called for conservation, and households responded. System operators dug deep, showing remarkable resilience under pressure. Heroic efforts kept the lights on. But it should never have come to that.

The lesson is not that renewables are bad or that we should cling to the past. It is that energy policy must begin with humility. Weather is unpredictable. In a cross-border region of 26 million people, demand is also growing much faster than once forecast.

A Wake-Up Call Ignored

When lives are on the line, nothing replaces firm, dispatchable power. A balanced system – yes, with more renewables, but anchored by natural gas and supported by robust transmission – is essential. Pretending we can run an advanced economy on press releases and hope is how ideology masquerades as policy, and how families end up shivering in the dark.

The January 2024 event should have been a wake-up call. Yet too many leaders remain captivated by slogans and blind to physics. The grid doesn’t read legislation. It doesn’t listen to speeches. It responds only to supply, demand, and the weather. And when the weather turns deadly, the reckoning is swift.

Dreamers will keep promising a painless transition. British Columbia, for example, is shutting down domestic gas generation in what’s branded a “pivot” to renewables – even as the province ships its first LNG cargoes to a world hungry for reliable gas. At the same time, the explosive growth of data centres driven by artificial intelligence has experts agog at what this means for an already strained system.

Eighteen months after the event, the people we expect to have answers are still asking questions.

Questions Still Unanswered

Here’s one more: is our energy system’s fragility the result of wishful thinking colliding with reality? To many experts, the answer seems obvious.

At minus forty, there is no spin, no ideology—only survival.

If Canada and the Northwest want to avoid a repeat of January 2024, the path is clear: double down on reliability, build the neglected transmission, and keep firm power in the system. Because the next deep freeze—or heat wave—will not wait for us to get our politics straight.

References

LA Times (Jan 17, 2024). Pacific Northwest ice storm kills three.

NewsData (Aug 2025). Panelists: January 2024 gas shortage sparked conversations on coordination.

USACE (2024). Don’t bet on the weather: the role hydropower plays in balancing the grid.

Western Power Pool (2024). Assessment of January 2024 Cold Weather Event.

Powerex (Mar 2024). Analysis of the January 2024 Winter Weather Event.

ProPublica/OPB (May 2025). How the Pacific Northwest’s dream of green energy fell apart.

NW Energy Coalition (2024). Customer-side resources critical to reliability.

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Alberta

Busting five myths about the Alberta oil sands

Published on October 20, 2025

By

Construction of an oil sands SAGD production well pad in northern Alberta. Photo supplied to the Canadian Energy Centre

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Deborah Jaremko

The facts about one of Canada’s biggest industries

Alberta’s oil sands sector is one of Canada’s most important industries — and also one of its most misunderstood.

Here are five common myths, and the facts behind them.

Myth: Oil sands emissions are unchecked

Steam generators at a SAGD oil sands production site in northern Alberta. Photo courtesy Cenovus Energy

Reality: Oil sands emissions are strictly regulated and monitored. Producers are making improvements through innovation and efficiency.

The sector’s average emissions per barrel – already on par with the average oil consumed in the United States, according to S&P Global – continue to go down.

The province reports that oil sands emissions per barrel declined by 26 per cent per barrel from 2012 to 2023. At the same time, production increased by 96 per cent.

Analysts with S&P Global call this a “structural change” for the industry where production growth is beginning to rise faster than emissions growth.

The firm continues to anticipate a decrease in total oil sands emissions within the next few years.

The Pathways Alliance — companies representing about 95 per cent of oil sands activity — aims to significantly cut emissions from production through a major carbon capture and storage (CCS) project and other innovations.

Myth: There is no demand for oil sands production

Expanded export capacity at the Trans Mountain Westridge Terminal. Photo courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation

Reality: Demand for Canadian oil – which primarily comes from the oil sands – is strong and rising.

Today, America imports more than 80 per cent more oil from Canada than it did in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

New global customers also now have access to Canadian oil thanks to the opening of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in 2024.

Exports to countries outside the U.S. increased by 180 per cent since the project went into service, reaching a record 525,000 barrels per day in July 2025, according to the Canada Energy Regulator.

The world’s appetite for oil keeps growing — and it’s not stopping anytime soon.

According to the latest EIA projections, the world will consume about 120 million barrels per day of oil and petroleum liquids in 2050, up from about 104 million barrels per day today.

Myth: Oil sands projects cost too much

Heavy haulers at an oil sands mining operation in northern Alberta. Photo courtesy Suncor Energy

Reality: Operating oil sands projects deliver some of the lowest-cost oil in North America, according to Enverus Intelligence Research.

Unlike U.S. shale plays, oil sands production is a long-life, low-decline “manufacturing” process without the treadmill of ongoing investment in new drilling, according to BMO Capital Markets.

Vast oil sands reserves support mining projects with no drilling, and the standard SAGD drilling method involves about 60 per cent fewer wells than the average shale play, BMO says.

After initial investment, Enverus says oil sands projects typically break even at less than US$50 per barrel WTI.

Myth: Indigenous communities don’t support the oil sands 

Chief Greg Desjarlais of Frog Lake First Nation signs an agreement in September 2022 whereby 23 First Nations and Métis communities in Alberta acquired an 11.57 per cent ownership interest in seven Enbridge-operated oil sands pipelines for approximately $1 billion. Photo courtesy Enbridge

Reality: Indigenous communities play an important role in the oil sands sector through community agreements, business contracts and, increasingly, project equity ownership.

Oil sands producers spent an average of $1.8 billion per year with 180 Indigenous-affiliated vendors between 2021 and 2023, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Indigenous communities are now owners of key projects that support the oil sands, including Suncor Energy’s East Tank Farm (49 per cent owned by two communities); the Northern Courier pipeline system (14 per cent owned by eight communities); and the Athabasca Trunkline, seven operating Enbridge oil sands pipelines (~12 per cent owned by 23 communities).

These partnerships strengthen Indigenous communities with long-term revenue, helping build economic reconciliation.

Myth: Oil sands development only benefits people in Alberta 

The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) on Bay St. Getty Images photo

Reality: Oil sands development benefits Canadians across the country through reliable energy supply, jobs, taxes and government revenues that help pay for services like roads, schools and hospitals.

The sector has contributed approximately $1 trillion to the Canadian economy over the past 25 years, according to analysis by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI).

That reflects total direct spending — including capital investment, operating costs, taxes and royalties — not profits or dividends for shareholders.

More than 2,300 companies outside of Alberta have had direct business with the oilsands, including over 1,300 in Ontario and almost 600 in Quebec, MLI said.

Energy products are by far Canada’s largest export, representing $196 billion, or about one-quarter of Canada’s total trade in 2024, according to Statistics Canada.

Led by the oil sands, Canada’s energy sector directly or indirectly employs more than 445,000 people across the country, according to Natural Resources Canada.

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