Moving energy from A to B, whether it’s oil or hydroelectricity, has forever been a challenge. The source is often distant from the user. The work to connect the two reliably spirals into sagas, marked by years of debate.
The examples are endless. Trying to ship Alberta natural gas by pipeline to Ontario and Quebec in the 1950s upended a 22-year federal Liberal dynasty. Trying to move Alberta oil to Texas on the Keystone XL pipeline was rejected, approved and rejected by three different U.S. presidents.
Fossil fuels, today especially, attract a particular political heat.
But even clean, carbon-free energy doesn’t always escape the same elongated inquisitions.
Ask Hydro-Québec – Canada’s top exporter of clean power to the United States, with ambitions for more. But because the electricity is generated by large dams – which means flooding, and questions of Indigenous rights – and moved on high-voltage transmission lines that nobody wants in their backyard, and because it might displace other sources of energy, there are always opponents.
Thus it was welcome news last week that Hydro-Québec’s years-long mission to supply New York City with power, pushing out fossil fuels, finally succeeded. Hydro-Québec will deliver 1,250 megawatts, about one-fifth of the city’s consumption. The A to B connection is the underground Champlain Hudson Power Express line, which will be in service in 2025. This power, along with a second plan to connect New York City with instate solar, wind and hydro, will halve the city’s reliance on fossil fuel electricity.
The export value of this exported Canadian energy? An expected $20-billion over 25 years.
Hydro-Québec won this saga, but it remains on the ropes in another. The provincial utility wants to send $10-billion of hydroelectric power, over 20 years, to another large American city, Boston. Three years ago, a plan to run the electricity through New Hampshire was sunk by opposition in that state. Last fall, the idea to go through Maine met the disdain of a majority of voters. The route requires cutting through some forest, work partly completed. Legal fights are ongoing. Opponents are unusual allies: an environmental group and a local seller of fossil fuel electricity.
There is no doubt hydro can have its downsides. Projects have a habit of going over budget, though that is a risk for the (Canadian) producer, not the (American) buyer. It’s a blunt technology, and involves flooding land. But water turning a turbine, while an old method, generates zero climate-heating pollution.
The reality is the world is going to need a lot more power, as major sectors – notably transportation – go from fossil fuels in the tank to electricity from a plug. At the same time, the world has to make sure that electricity from fossil fuels is an ever smaller part of the grid.
And on both of these scores, Canada is an energy superpower. This country’s electricity grid is already more than 80 per cent clean, thanks mostly to hydro and nuclear, with a small but growing contribution from wind and solar.
The U.S. grid, in contrast, is still 60 per cent dirty.
Last year, Canada exported 60.3 terawatt hours of electricity – up about 50 per cent since 2010 and four times that of 1990. The exports, around a tenth of the power Canada generates, only add up to a couple of percentage points of U.S. consumption. But every bit helps to green U.S. electricity, and bolster Canada’s economic bottom line.
Quebec has long been the leader, accounting for about 40 per cent of exports. In 2021, total exports tallied $3.3-billion. While that’s less than 5 per cent of this country’s crude oil exports, the figure has ticking up for decades. The New York and (if it goes through) New England projects will substantially boost that figure.
There are big environmental benefits, too. The New York City deal will cut four megatonnes a year of emissions – the same as closing an oil sands mine. And the displaced natural gas, no longer needed to generate electricity in the U.S., could be redirected to Europe, helping the continent get off Russian gas.
The long-standing image of Canada as an energy giant is usually portrayed as being all about oil and gas. And those fuels are a big part of the story, and will remain so for some time. But Canada can also be clean energy superpower.
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