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Singh joins Alberta NDP in push for 2035 net-zero grid, while Sask. NDP wants 2050 | Winnipeg Free Press
(www.winnipegfreepress.com)
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this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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The vast majority of electricity generation in Canada is already net-zero. In fact, most of the national grid is powered by hydro, even taking into account the lack of waterfalls in the prairies. Between Niagra and the east coast, hydro is doing a lot of work, with nuclear being a strong #2 (almost off of which is in Ontario and Quebec).
If we just push SMRs a bit more and properly invest in them when production starts ramping up, we can easily do this by 2035, and we don't even have any of the usual pitfalls of green energy like storage problems, as wind is only like 5% our total generation, and we practically don't have any solar.
Extremely little of Canada's greenhouse emissions come from electricity generation, as we're one of the cleanest in the world. Our emissions mainly come from cows, cars, and heating. That last one is especially bad, and where we should really be targeting more than anything else.
But making our electricity generation net-zero is also a fine low hanging fruit for Canada.
I think this is a situation where the last 10 percent is going to be harder than the previous 90. The issue is that the places that don't have that low emission power generation are essentially run by oil companies as evidenced by Danielle Smith's antics.
While true, electricity works a bit differently from most other resources, in that you don't have to build it where you use it. Power lines can easily go for hundreds of km if you need to, so if one area refuses to get rid of their fossil fuel power plant, just build excess power somewhere that's willing to do it and send the energy over. You can force that power plant to shut down just by being unprofitable.
This works even across provincial lines if you need it to. Ontario provides a lot of power eastwards, and there's talk of redirecting Newfoundland power back to Ontario when we close one of our nuclear power plants in the next few years. Theoretically it can work, if we upgrade the power lines to be able to handle the reverse flow at least.