And now for a low-voltage, low-hysteria energy discussion.
No pipeline blockades; no coal dust sneezing and wheezing; no carbon offsets, here. Just a few nonconfrontational words about how North America can increase power efficiency, reduce energy waste and pollution and keep the economy humming.
The man wielding the low-volume loudhailer in this conversation is Mike Cleland.
Semi-retired, the former urban planning and energy industry executive was in town recently to spread the word about building better energy outcomes with the tools at hand rather than pulling the plug on hydrocarbon sources and economic progress by attempting to supplant them with renewable sources without regard to their economics or power grid viability.
Cleland’s trio of big ideas is pretty basic stuff:
•the best way to mitigate energy’s environmental impact is to reduce energy waste and demand;
•redesigning and upgrading communities can have a bigger impact on energy efficiency than any current supply technology; and
•overhauling the power grid and energy system is going to take time; trying to rush that major transformation with half-baked technology will be counterproductive in the long term.
That triple play from Canada West Foundation’s Nexen executive in residence might not have hearts pounding on the radical left or right, but it makes abundant common sense in the middle ground.
Also scoring prudency points are Cleland’s views on today’s prevailing energy misconceptions.
For example, especially in B.C. and Quebec, the belief that hydropower is green. The impact of major hydro projects is anything but.
Discussion in past Public Offerings columns regarding BC Hydro’s push for the Site C dam project on the Peace River underscores the wrong-headedness of that green hydro fairy tale and its real long-term financial and environmental costs (issue 1135; July 26-August 2, 2011). Meanwhile, government subsidies continue to skew the market costs of hydro.
Cleland also rightly points out that too many people think Canada and other countries can hit major greenhouse gas reduction targets easily and at relatively small cost to the economy.
And he points out that too few Canadians appreciate how important hydrocarbon production is to the economy of the entire country, not just Alberta’s.
Righting the energy ship in B.C. and improving the country’s energy security through better supply management and market diversity are also major challenges, as is developing a clear and visionary national energy strategy.
Steps along that road are relatively straightforward. But they require two elements now in desperately short supply: political leadership and non- partisan thinking in the marketplace of ideas.
For example, Cleland points out how hard it is to get objective non-politicized energy information in Canada compared with other countries, specifically the United States, where the independent U.S. Energy Information Administration provides a wealth of such data.
Aside from accurate information upon which to base informed discussion, the country also needs:
•more investment in technology and processes to reduce the environmental impact of oil and gas production;
•more private corporate investment in research and development – as documented in the recently released Science, Technology and Innovation Council report, investment in key manufacturing, communications and energy sectors, including clean tech, is falling, not rising; and
•more courage, especially from the Canadian public.
That requires, as Cleland points out, more citizens to support governments when they make tough decisions to do what’s right, not just what’s popular.
That’s doubtless the biggest challenge of all in a land where doing anything daring is now almost against the law. •
