The pursuit of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 could set up Canadians for disaster in the name of avoiding it, say two Canadian policy experts..The Canada 2022 Energy Policy Review by the International Energy Agency acknowledged Canada already had “one of the cleanest electricity systems in the world,” but substantial changes were yet ahead..“The challenge ahead is to eliminate the remaining emissions while increasing capacity to support electrification of end-uses: a doubling or tripling of the supply of clean power is estimated to be required to meet the 2050 net zero goal,” said the report..Ian Madsen, senior policy analyst for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, said nuclear would be a good option for that, but regulations will make progress slow. In the meantime, wind and solar are poor yet expensive solutions to rely on..“If you're going to have this greater reliance on electricity and alternative energy sources for the for the electricity, you're going to have to have more baseload reliable power to make up for those times when the alternative stuff does not come through. And that would be either gas-fired, coal-fired, or nuclear and if coal's out of bounds, then it has to be gas,” Madsen..Ensuring a baseload of power requires backup from conventional sources or creating battery power, which is expensive..In December, Ontario’s Independent System Electricity Operator (ISEO) estimated a $400 billion cost to decarbonizing the province’s electricity grid by 2050 and eliminate gas-fired power generation..A 2021 report by Royal Bank of Canada put a $2 trillion price tag on making Canada net zero by 2050. This included annual spending of $1.8 billion for renewable power sources and $3.6 billion to store their power in batteries. It’s a cost some people can’t afford, Madsen said..“The people who feel that the worst are the lowest income people, of course. It becomes a much higher proportion of their and more limited income. Not fun at all.”.Germans know how un-fun renewables can be. In 2019, sunny and windy days boosted renewable power to 43% of the nation’s total generation. However, the grid had difficulty transmitting the surplus power and foreign markets bought it at a negative price. Other times, gloomy, windless days brought production to a near standstill. That’s one reason a German wind turbine farm was recently dismantled in recent months to expand a nearby coal-fired power plant..“You need more competition, more interconnection, and more honesty and transparency about what's going on with these alternative energy sources,” Madsen said..“If you prematurely bring in industry to [alternative sources], and with nothing viable or truly practical to replace it, then you're just asking for trouble and misery—and not just the increased costs, but perhaps death in the winter, and also, a really dysfunctional economy where costs escalate and some businesses can't really survive, just as [it was] with the lockdowns.”.In February 2021, storms in Texas left an estimated 246 to 702 deaths occurred due to the crisis, with at least $195 billion in damage caused. The catastrophe was worse because regulations required wind turbines to power the gas-powered power plants. When wind turbines failed, the gas plants couldn’t run either, and 4.5 million homes and businesses were without power..“The whole green edifice is a fraud. That Texas episode really shows that. That was a really freak storm. Now, obviously, because it happened, it shows it can happen. So it's not totally freak, right?” Madsen said to Western Standard in an interview..“Quebec had a really severe ice storm several years ago, and put not just themselves, but New York State, and part of Ontario and New England out of commission too, because everything was dependent on Hydro-Quebec, which has this sort of religious status in that province.”.On Jan. 4, 1998, freezing rain in eastern Ontario and Quebec took down hydro lines and trees. By January 5, 650,000 people there lost power, a number that later swelled to 1.6 million. Rural residents around Ottawa were without power for 33 days. Thirty-five people died and $1.44 billion of insurance claims ensued..Madsen said the electrical grid could face even worse threats from coronal mass injections or an electro-magnetic pulse attack. Insulating the grid is relatively straightforward and inexpensive, but hasn’t been a priority..“It would be absurdly cheap to do that. Have an aluminum or copper sheath on all the cables and over transformers and substations, and that's enough to do it. But there's been very little action,” Madsen said..“It's a serious issue. Our civilization would end if everything was fried because people would start to starve within a few weeks if we couldn't communicate or transmit power. It would be a total disaster and very little is being done on this that I'm aware.” .A geomagnetic storm blacked out Hydro-Quebec’s electrical grid in 90 seconds in 1989. The Carrington Event of 1859 saw a coronal mass ejection three times worse. An estimate by Lloyd’s of London and Atmospheric and Environmental Research in the US said a similar storm today would cause US$0.6-2.6 trillion damage..Former Liberal MP Dan McTeague was invited to San Diego a few years ago to provide expertise on disaster scenarios, including geomagnetic storms. The president of Canadians for Affordable Energy said fossil fuels are a necessary energy option..“This is an issue I've raised many, many times in the past about putting all our eggs in one basket and what that would look like. Anybody who's been through a power failure can now sit back and think long and hard about that being extended, not just minutes or hours, but days, weeks, and even months,” McTeague said..“The idea of net zero electrification is simply putting the country on a fool's errand, and most of us [Canadians] have absolutely no idea what that would entail.”.McTeague said Category Two storms that caused power outages in the Maritimes in recent years would have been worse without fossil fuels. He said total electrification would be “absolutely beyond foolhardy” in a country which has had inclement and unpredictable weather for thousands of years..“We need to be able to be nimble in our response and have a diversity of energy options… Anybody who thinks energy security is a joke only has to now look at why Russia feels emboldened to do what it's doing,” McTeague said..“I'm not sure how people would think you can make everything electrical. Good luck with that. There aren't enough electricians for this country to do that to begin with. But do we have the two, three trillion dollars to do this? And are we prepared to sacrifice and put the country into lockdown for seven or eight years, to achieve these extraordinarily questionable goals, for which no other producing nation would even contemplate, and such a silly, unplanned, and not very well thought out strategy? I'm not sure what's behind this.”.Whatever the ulterior motives of net zero proponents might be, McTeague doubts they are in the common interest..“Those advocating this are smart people. They ought to know better. And the facts that they provide simply do not equate with any semblance of reality or honesty, full stop. This is very bad policy based on fundamental dishonesty. So, lots of lies, deceit,” McTeague said..“People have to understand from a democratic point of view they don't have your backs, they have their own agendas. And they serve obviously a very different master than the people that elected them. This is hard, hard reality being provided to Canadians. If they choose to ignore it, that's fine, but somebody is going to suffer, and needlessly.”
