Canada’s looming power problem is massive and time is running out, report says
OTTAWA — Canada must build more electricity generation in the next 25 years than it has over the last century in order to support a net-zero emissions economy by 2050, according to a new report from the Public Policy Forum.
Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and shifting to emissions-free electricity to propel our cars, heat our homes and run our factories will require doubling, or possibly tripling, the amount of power we make now, the federal government estimates.
“Imagine every dam, turbine, nuclear plant and solar panel across Canada and then picture a couple more next to them,” said the report, which was published on July 19.
It’s going to cost a lot — most estimates are in the trillions.
It’s also, the report said, going to require the kind of cross-jurisdictional co-operation, Indigenous consultation, and speed of decision-making and construction that Canada just isn’t very good at.
“We have a date with destiny,” said Edward Greenspon, president of the Public Policy Forum. “We need to build, build, build … we’re way behind where we need to be and we don’t have a lot of a lot of time remaining.”
Later this summer Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault will publish new regulations to require all power to be generated from non-emitting sources by 2035.
Greenspon said that means there are two major challenges ahead: massively expanding how much power we make and making all of it clean.
On average, it takes more than four years just to get a new electricity generating project approved by Ottawa, and more than three years for new transmission lines.
That’s before a single shovel touches any dirt.
Building them is another thing. The Site C dam in British Columbia won’t come on line until 2025 and has been under
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