Energy
Putin’s uranium export restrictions are a gift for Canada
From Resource Works
“The World Nuclear Association says Canada could now play a major role in meeting future world demand, as several key nations eye nuclear energy to meet growing demand for electrical power and for power production that does not use fossil fuels.”
Good to see Russian President Vladimir Putin proposing restrictions on Russian exports of uranium in retaliation for Western sanctions on Russian oil, gas, and LNG.
“Please take a look at some of the types of goods that we supply to the world market,” he told Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. “Maybe we should think about certain restrictions — uranium, titanium, nickel.”
Russia is the world’s sixth-largest uranium producer and has about 44% of global uranium enrichment capacity.
Canada, once the world’s largest uranium producer, is now the world’s second-largest producer of uranium, behind Kazakhstan. Canada accounts for roughly 13% of total global output, and Putin’s comment quickly increased the value of shares of our uranium producers.
The World Nuclear Association says Canada could now play a major role in meeting future world demand, as several key nations eye nuclear energy to meet growing demand for electrical power and for power production that does not use fossil fuels.
The Cigar Lake mine in Saskatchewan is one of the world’s richest in uranium. The McClean Lake mill, which processes it, is operated by a subsidiary of France’s Orano and sells 40% of its production to the French electric utility company, EDF.
Australia’s Paladin Energy moved in June to buy Canadian uranium explorer Fission Uranium for $1.14 billion. That purchase is now undergoing a national security review ordered by Ottawa.
Canada’s 34 “critical metals” and minerals have been taking up more of Ottawa’s interest, with the feds pushing their Critical Minerals Strategy and making it harder for foreign firms to acquire Canada’s biggest mining companies.
Now, Saskatchewan has vowed to compete with China in processing and production of rare earths and to become the prime North American source for metals used to make magnets for electric vehicles and wind turbines.
All this comes as one outlook says the global mining industry will require US$2.1 trillion in new investments by 2050 to meet the raw material demands of a net-zero-emissions world. The report says critical energy-transition metals, including aluminum, copper, and lithium, could face supply deficits this decade—some as early as this year.
In Canada, a new report from consultants EY says “capital is king” and is the top risk facing the mining industry this year, as tough financing and economic conditions make it more difficult to deliver the metals needed for the energy transition.
“We need about $1 trillion in investment to produce enough metals for the energy transition,” says Theo Yameogo, EY Americas and Canada mining and metals leader. “We haven’t seen that coming in. Now it’s the #1 (risk) because people are really worried. We’ve seen some M&A, but we haven’t seen direct investment in the mining sector.”
This points to the need for Canadian governments to simplify and speed up regulatory processes for new mines. It can take 12 to 15 years before a proposed mine can get through all the red tape from assorted governments and get into its first production. Jonathan Wilkinson, federal minister of energy and natural resources, announced in March that Canada would soon launch an Action Plan to speed up the mine-permitting process. But we still don’t see it.
Dan McTeague
Will this deal actually build a pipeline in Canada?
By Dan McTeague
Will Carney’s new pipeline deal actually help get a pipeline built in Canada? As we said before, the devil is in the details.
While the establishment and mainstream media cheer on the new pipeline agreement, there are specific details you need to be aware of.
Dan McTeague explains in his latest video.
Energy
Canada following Europe’s stumble by ignoring energy reality
Family in Spain eating by candlelight during a blackout, April 2025
From Resource Works
Canada’s own 2024 grid scare proves we’re on the same path unless we change course.
Europe’s green-energy unraveling is no longer a distant cautionary tale. It’s a mirror — and Canada is already seeing the first cracks.
A new Wall Street Journal investigation lays out the European story in stark detail: a continent that slashed emissions faster than anyone else, only to discover that doing so by tearing down firm power before its replacement existed comes with brutal consequences — collapsing industry, sky-high electricity prices, political fragmentation, and a public increasingly unwilling to subsidize wishful thinking.
The tragedy isn’t that Europe tried to decarbonize quickly.
The tragedy is how they did it: by insisting on an “or” transition — renewables or fossil fuels — instead of what every energy-literate nation outside Europe pursued: renewables and fossil fuels, working together while the system evolves.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Canada has already had its first European-style crisis. It happened in January 2024.
Canada’s early warning: the January 2024 electricity crunch
Most people have already forgotten it, because our political class desperately wanted you to. But in January 2024, Western Canada came within a whisker of a full-blown energy security breakdown. Alberta, Saskatchewan, and B.C. were stretched to their limit. The grid was under cascading stress. Contingency plans were activated. Alberta came terrifyingly close to rolling blackouts.
It wasn’t caused by climate change. It wasn’t caused by a mysterious cyberattack.
It was caused by the same structural brittleness now crippling Europe:
- Insufficient firm power, after years of political messaging that we could “electrify everything” without adding real generating capacity.
- Overreliance on intermittent sources not backed by storage or gas.
- A planning system that punted risk into the future, betting the grid could be stretched indefinitely.
The January 2024 event was not a blip. It was a preview.
Our European moment in miniature.
But instead of treating it as the national wake-up call it should have been, B.C. did something telling — and deeply damaging.
The B.C. government’s response: attack the messenger
Just a couple of years ago, an economist publicly warned about the economic price of emerging system vulnerabilities due to a groaning stack of “clean economy” policies.
The B.C. government didn’t respond with data, evidence, or even curiosity. Instead, a cabinet minister used the safety of legislative privilege — that gold-plated shield against accountability — to launch nasty personal attacks on the economist who raised the concerns, which themselves had originated in the government’s own analysis.
No engagement.
No counter-analysis.
No willingness to consider the system risks.
Just slurs — the very definition of anti-intellectual governance.
It was a moment that told the whole story:
Too many policymakers in this province believe that energy systems obey politics, not physics.
Physics always gets the last word.
Europe shows us what political denial turns into
The WSJ reporting couldn’t be clearer about the consequences of that denial:
- Germany: highest domestic electricity prices in the developed world.
- U.K.: highest industrial electricity rates among major economies.
- Industrial flight: chemical plants closing, data centres frozen, major players hinting at exiting Europe entirely.
- Grid instability: wind farms paid tens of millions not to generate because the grid can’t handle it.
- Public revolt: rising support for parties rejecting the entire green-transition agenda.
- Policy whiplash: governments rushing to build gas plants they swore they’d never need.
Europe is now an object lesson in how good intentions, executed poorly, can produce the exact opposite of what was promised: higher prices, higher volatility, declining competitiveness, and a public ready to abandon climate policy altogether.
This is precisely what January 2024 warned us about — but on a continental scale.
The system cost we keep pretending doesn’t exist
Every serious energy expert knows the truth Europe is now living: intermittent renewables require massive amounts of redundant capacity, storage, and backup generation. That’s why the U.K. now needs 120 gigawatts of capacity to serve a demand previously met with 60–70 gigawatts, even though electricity use hasn’t meaningfully grown.
This is the math policymakers prefer not to show the public.
And it’s why B.C.’s refusal to have an honest conversation about firm power is so dangerous.
If we electrify everything without ensuring affordable and abundant natural gas generation, we’re not building a green future.
We’re building Europe, 10 years early.
The lesson for Canada — especially for B.C.
Here is what Europe and January 2024 together say, in one clear voice:
1. There is no energy transition without firm power.
Renewables are part of the system, but they don’t run the system. Natural gas does. Hydro does. Nuclear does. Pretending otherwise is how you end up with rolling blackouts.
2. Political denial makes crises worse.
When ministers attack economists instead of answering them, it signals that ideology is running the show. Europe learned the cost of that. We will too, unless we change course.
3. Affordability is the foundation of public consent.
Europe lost the room. Once people see their bills double while factories close, the climate agenda becomes politically radioactive.
4. B.C. has an advantage Europe would kill for.
Europe dreams of having an abundant, local, low-carbon firm-power fuel like northeastern B.C.’s natural gas. We treat it like a political liability. That’s not strategy. It’s negligence.
5. The transition will fail if we don’t treat electricity like the national security asset it is.
Without energy, there is no industry.
Without industry, there is no prosperity.
Without prosperity, there is no climate policy that survives the next election cycle.
What we need now
Canada must embrace an “and” strategy:
Renewables and natural gas. Electrification and realism. Climate ambition and economic competitiveness.
January 2024 showed us the future in a flash. Europe shows us the end state if we keep ignoring the warning.
We can still choose something better. But only if we stop pretending that energy systems bend to political narratives — and start treating them with the seriousness they demand.
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