Is Canada in trouble of losing their status as an energy superpower? Were they ever considered an energy superpower to start with? Well, they would like to think so. However, the Canadian government has a draft report doing the rounds that indicates that the country is scared of the impending move away from fossil fuels in the world today due to the amount of money they may be losing.
The Canadian government used a company named Policy Horizons Canada, a strategic foresight organization, to measure what impact the change in the global energy landscape will have on their country.
"The world's energy is transforming rapidly as the cost of renewable-based electricity, particularly from wind and solar, declines to become competitive with or lower than the price of electricity generated by fossil fuel and nuclear power plants," the beginning of the executive summary of the report read. "The price of batteries is falling precipitously leading to their application at local and grid-level scales in the power supply system as well as facilitating significant electrification of transportation. The shift to an electricity-dominated global energy mix will be accelerated as decreasing costs combine with increasing government and private developing countries where the need for additional energy capacity is greatest."
Policy Horizons says there are three things forcing the hand of government to change from fossil fuels:
- Cost Reduction: Renewable energies becoming cheaper as a result of technology advancements
- Digital Economy
- Climate Change and Air: Developing nations embracing renewable energy to meet economic and development goals.
The Canadian government is now fully aware of the challenges that lie ahead, and really every government that is seeing the rise of renewable energies should be reading Canada's governmental report and making the relevant changes to their energy policies. Canda sees the impending doom of competition for energy markets and knows the best techbokogy is waht will win the hearts of consumers.
"Minerals and metals such as lithium and rare earths could replace oil, gas and coal as strategic resources based on their use in the batteries, electronics and photovoltaic cells of the emerging energy ecosystem," the Policy Changes section of the report said.
The foresight company said that storage solutions were "emerging and evolving" faster than the government thought they would. Enery storage really is the 'great disruption' the analysts have been talking about. The opening of Tesla's Gigafactory (and facilities of the same nature) is of particular interest to the Canadian government who sees lithium-ion slowly taking over. "Utility-scale energy storage techbologies are available now and may be a cheaper alternative to peaking power plants as well as new transmission lines by allowing public utilities to position battery plants near high demand areas like cities and industries and improve load-balancing while reducing GHG emissions," the company wrote.
They conclude the report by saying: "It is increasingly plausible to foresee a future in which cheap renewable electricity becomes the world's primary power source and fossil fuels are relegated to a minority status."
The full draft report can be read: HERE
Original source: CBC News
