EPCOR Utilities Inc. and Enbridge Inc. are jointly submitting two projects that each have the potential to meet nearly one-quarter of the provincial government's carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction target. Full project proposals are being submitted for funding from the Alberta Government's $2 billion carbon capture and storage (CCS) program under the climate change action plan.
"The CCS Fund has kick-started industry to work together to find technological solutions to provide a cleaner energy future," said EPCOR Executive Vice-President Brian Vaasjo. "We have been working with our partners and we believe our proposals can deliver on the goals the province has established."
"In 2008, the Alberta government committed to reducing CO2 emissions by 200 megatonnes by 2050," said Enbridge Senior Vice President, New Ventures, Jim Schultz. "Through projects like ours, we can thoroughly test our technology, share our knowledge with the industry, and help the Alberta government meet its target."
The two projects are designed to provide cleaner electricity from both existing and new electricity plants, with captured CO2 piped offsite and used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) or stored underground in saline aquifers.
The proposals include North America's first project combining an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) commercial-scale near-zero-emission thermal power plant with carbon capture, compression and storage (CCS). The Genesee IGCC CCS project has the potential to capture more than 3,300 tonnes per day or 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
The other proposal is for a post-combustion facility designed to capture CO2 emissions on conventional power plants. The Genesee Amine CCS project would use an amine scrubbing process to remove CO2 emissions from the flue gas of the facility. This project would be designed to capture 3,000 tonnes of CO2 per day, or nearly one million tonnes a year.
Enbridge and the Alberta Saline Aquifer Project (ASAP) would be responsible for transporting captured CO2 from the Genesee site for use in enhanced oil recovery or permanent storage in deep saline aquifers.
The province will review the proposals and is expected to release their funding decisions in the next three months.
ITER Nuclear Fusion advances tokamak magnetic confinement, heating deuterium-tritium plasma with superconducting magnets, targeting net energy gain, tritium breeding, and steam-turbine power, while complementing laser inertial confinement milestones for grid-scale electricity and 2025 startup goals.
Key Points
ITER Nuclear Fusion is a tokamak project confining D-T plasma with magnets to achieve net energy gain and clean power.
✅ Tokamak magnetic confinement with high-temp superconducting coils
✅ Deuterium-tritium fuel cycle with on-site tritium breeding
✅ Targets net energy gain and grid-scale, low-carbon electricity
It sounds like the stuff of dreams: a virtually limitless source of energy that doesn’t produce greenhouse gases or radioactive waste. That’s the promise of nuclear fusion, often described as the holy grail of clean energy by proponents, which for decades has been nothing more than a fantasy due to insurmountable technical challenges. But things are heating up in what has turned into a race to create what amounts to an artificial sun here on Earth, one that can provide power for our kettles, cars and light bulbs.
Today’s nuclear power plants create electricity through nuclear fission, in which atoms are split, with next-gen nuclear power exploring smaller, cheaper, safer designs that remain distinct from fusion. Nuclear fusion however, involves combining atomic nuclei to release energy. It’s the same reaction that’s taking place at the Sun’s core. But overcoming the natural repulsion between atomic nuclei and maintaining the right conditions for fusion to occur isn’t straightforward. And doing so in a way that produces more energy than the reaction consumes has been beyond the grasp of the finest minds in physics for decades.
But perhaps not for much longer. Some major technical challenges have been overcome in the past few years and governments around the world have been pouring money into fusion power research as part of a broader green industrial revolution under way in several regions. There are also over 20 private ventures in the UK, US, Europe, China and Australia vying to be the first to make fusion energy production a reality.
“People are saying, ‘If it really is the ultimate solution, let’s find out whether it works or not,’” says Dr Tim Luce, head of science and operation at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), being built in southeast France. ITER is the biggest throw of the fusion dice yet.
Its $22bn (£15.9bn) build cost is being met by the governments of two-thirds of the world’s population, including the EU, the US, China and Russia, at a time when Europe is losing nuclear power and needs energy, and when it’s fired up in 2025 it’ll be the world’s largest fusion reactor. If it works, ITER will transform fusion power from being the stuff of dreams into a viable energy source.
Constructing a nuclear fusion reactor ITER will be a tokamak reactor – thought to be the best hope for fusion power. Inside a tokamak, a gas, often a hydrogen isotope called deuterium, is subjected to intense heat and pressure, forcing electrons out of the atoms. This creates a plasma – a superheated, ionised gas – that has to be contained by intense magnetic fields.
The containment is vital, as no material on Earth could withstand the intense heat (100,000,000°C and above) that the plasma has to reach so that fusion can begin. It’s close to 10 times the heat at the Sun’s core, and temperatures like that are needed in a tokamak because the gravitational pressure within the Sun can’t be recreated.
When atomic nuclei do start to fuse, vast amounts of energy are released. While the experimental reactors currently in operation release that energy as heat, in a fusion reactor power plant, the heat would be used to produce steam that would drive turbines to generate electricity, even as some envision nuclear beyond electricity for industrial heat and fuels.
Tokamaks aren’t the only fusion reactors being tried. Another type of reactor uses lasers to heat and compress a hydrogen fuel to initiate fusion. In August 2021, one such device at the National Ignition Facility, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, generated 1.35 megajoules of energy. This record-breaking figure brings fusion power a step closer to net energy gain, but most hopes are still pinned on tokamak reactors rather than lasers.
In June 2021, China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor maintained a plasma for 101 seconds at 120,000,000°C. Before that, the record was 20 seconds. Ultimately, a fusion reactor would need to sustain the plasma indefinitely – or at least for eight-hour ‘pulses’ during periods of peak electricity demand.
A real game-changer for tokamaks has been the magnets used to produce the magnetic field. “We know how to make magnets that generate a very high magnetic field from copper or other kinds of metal, but you would pay a fortune for the electricity. It wouldn’t be a net energy gain from the plant,” says Luce.
One route for nuclear fusion is to use atoms of deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen. They fuse under incredible heat and pressure, and the resulting products release energy as heat
The solution is to use high-temperature, superconducting magnets made from superconducting wire, or ‘tape’, that has no electrical resistance. These magnets can create intense magnetic fields and don’t lose energy as heat.
“High temperature superconductivity has been known about for 35 years. But the manufacturing capability to make tape in the lengths that would be required to make a reasonable fusion coil has just recently been developed,” says Luce. One of ITER’s magnets, the central solenoid, will produce a field of 13 tesla – 280,000 times Earth’s magnetic field.
The inner walls of ITER’s vacuum vessel, where the fusion will occur, will be lined with beryllium, a metal that won’t contaminate the plasma much if they touch. At the bottom is the divertor that will keep the temperature inside the reactor under control.
“The heat load on the divertor can be as large as in a rocket nozzle,” says Luce. “Rocket nozzles work because you can get into orbit within minutes and in space it’s really cold.” In a fusion reactor, a divertor would need to withstand this heat indefinitely and at ITER they’ll be testing one made out of tungsten.
Meanwhile, in the US, the National Spherical Torus Experiment – Upgrade (NSTX-U) fusion reactor will be fired up in the autumn of 2022, while efforts in advanced fission such as a mini-reactor design are also progressing. One of its priorities will be to see whether lining the reactor with lithium helps to keep the plasma stable.
Choosing a fuel Instead of just using deuterium as the fusion fuel, ITER will use deuterium mixed with tritium, another hydrogen isotope. The deuterium-tritium blend offers the best chance of getting significantly more power out than is put in. Proponents of fusion power say one reason the technology is safe is that the fuel needs to be constantly fed into the reactor to keep fusion happening, making a runaway reaction impossible.
Deuterium can be extracted from seawater, so there’s a virtually limitless supply of it. But only 20kg of tritium are thought to exist worldwide, so fusion power plants will have to produce it (ITER will develop technology to ‘breed’ tritium). While some radioactive waste will be produced in a fusion plant, it’ll have a lifetime of around 100 years, rather than the thousands of years from fission.
At the time of writing in September, researchers at the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion reactor in Oxfordshire were due to start their deuterium-tritium fusion reactions. “JET will help ITER prepare a choice of machine parameters to optimise the fusion power,” says Dr Joelle Mailloux, one of the scientific programme leaders at JET. These parameters will include finding the best combination of deuterium and tritium, and establishing how the current is increased in the magnets before fusion starts.
The groundwork laid down at JET should accelerate ITER’s efforts to accomplish net energy gain. ITER will produce ‘first plasma’ in December 2025 and be cranked up to full power over the following decade. Its plasma temperature will reach 150,000,000°C and its target is to produce 500 megawatts of fusion power for every 50 megawatts of input heating power.
“If ITER is successful, it’ll eliminate most, if not all, doubts about the science and liberate money for technology development,” says Luce. That technology development will be demonstration fusion power plants that actually produce electricity, where advanced reactors can build on decades of expertise. “ITER is opening the door and saying, yeah, this works – the science is there.”
NB Power Pulp and Paper Subsidies lower electricity rates for six New Brunswick mills using firm power benchmarks and interruptible discounts, while government mandates, utility debt, ratepayer impacts, and competitiveness pressures shape provincial energy policy.
Key Points
Provincial mandates that buy down firm electricity rates for six mills to a national average, despite NB Power's debt.
✅ Mandated buy-down to match national firm electricity rates
✅ Ignores large non-firm interruptible power discounts
✅ Raises equity concerns amid NB Power debt and rate pressure
An effort to fix NB Power's struggling finances that is supposed to involve a look at "all options" will not include a review of the policy that requires the utility to subsidize electricity prices for six New Brunswick pulp and paper mills, according to the Department of Natural Resources and Energy Development.
The program is meant "to enable New Brunswick's pulp and paper companies have access to competitive priced electricity," said the department's communications officer Nick Brown in an email Monday
"Keeping our large industries competitive with other Canadian jurisdictions, amid Nova Scotia rate hike opposition debates elsewhere, is important," he wrote, knocking down the idea the subsidy program might be scrutinized for shortcomings like other NB Power expenses.
Figures released last week show NB Power paid out $9.7 million in rate subsidies to the mills under the program in the fiscal year ended in March 2021, even though the utility was losing $4 million for the year and falling deeper into debt, amid separate concerns about old meter issues affecting households.
Subsidies went to three mills owned by J.D. Irving Ltd. including two in Saint John and one in Lake Utopia, two owned by the AV group in Nackawic and Atholville and the Twin Rivers pulp mill in Edmundston.
The New Brunswick government has made NB Power subsidize pulp and paper mills like Twin Rivers Paper Company since 2012, and is requiring the program to continue despite financial problems at the utility. (CBC) It was NB Power's second year in a row of financial losses, while it is supposed to pay down $500 million of its $4.9 billion debt load in the next five years to prepare for the refurbishment of the Mactaquac dam, a burden comparable to customers in Newfoundland paying for Muskrat Falls elsewhere under separate policies, under a directive issued by the province
NB Power president Keith Cronkhite said he was "very disappointed" with debt increasing last year instead of falling and senior vice president and chief financial officer Darren Murphy said everything would be under the microscope this year to turn the utility's finances around.
"We need to do better," said Murphy on Thursday
"We need to step back and make sure we're considering all options, including approaches like Newfoundland's ratepayer shield agreement on megaproject overruns, to achieve that objective because the objective is quickly closing in on us."
However, reviewing the subsidy program for the six pulp and paper mills is apparently off limits.
The subsidy program requires NB Power to buy down the cost of "firm" electricity bought by pulp and paper mills to a national average that is calculated by the Department of Natural Resources and Energy Development.
Last year the province declared the price mills in New Brunswick pay to be an average of 7.536 cents per kilowatt hour (kwh). It is higher than rates in five other provinces that have mills, which the province points to as justification for the subsidies, even as Nova Scotia's 14% rate hike approval highlights broader upward pressure, although the true significance of that difference is not entirely clear.
In British Columbia, the large forest products company Paper Excellence operates five pulp and paper mills which are charged 17.2 per cent less for firm electricity than the six mills in New Brunswick.
The Paper Excellence Paper Mill in Port Alberni, B.C. pays lower electricity prices than mills in New Brunswick, a benefit largely offset by higher property taxes. It's a factor New Brunswick does not count in calculating subsidies NB Power must pay. (Paper Excellence) However, local property taxes on the five BC mills are a combined $7.8 million higher than the six New Brunswick plants, negating much of that difference.
The province's subsidy formula does not account for differences like that or for the fact New Brunswick mills buy a high percentage of their electricity at cheap non-firm prices.
Not counting the subsidies, NB Power already sells high volumes of what it calls interruptible and surplus power to industry at deep discounts on the understanding it can be cut off and redeployed elsewhere on short notice when needed.
Actual interruptions in service are rare. Last year there were none, but NB Power sold 837 million kilowatt hours of the discounted power to industry at an average price of 4.9 cents per kwh.
NB Power does not disclose how much of the $22 million or more in savings went to the six mills, but the price was 35 per cent below NB Power's posted rate for the plants and rivaled firm prices big mills receive anywhere in Canada, including Quebec.
Asked why the subsidy program ignores large amounts of discounted interruptible power used by New Brunswick mills in making comparisons between provinces, Brown said regulations governing the program require a comparison of firm prices only.
"The New Brunswick average rate is based on NB Power's published large industrial rate for firm energy, as required by the Electricity from Renewable Resources regulation," he wrote.
The subsidy program itself was imposed on NB Power by the province in 2012 to aid companies suffering after years of poor markets for forest products following the 2008 financial collapse and recession.
Providing subsidies has cost NB Power $100 million so far and has continued even as markets for pulp products improved significantly and NB Power's own finances worsened.
Report warned against subsidies NB Power has never directly criticized the program, but in a matter currently in front the of the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board looking at how NB Power might restructure its rates, including proposals such as seasonal rates that could prompt backlash, an independent consultant hired by the utility suggested rate subsidies to large export oriented manufacturing facilities, like pulp and paper mills, is generally a poor idea.
"We do not recommend offering subsidies to exporters," says the report by Christensen Associates Energy Consulting of Madison, Wis.
"There are two serious economic problems with subsidizing exports. The first is that the benefits may be less than the costs. The second problem is that subsidies tend to last forever, even if the circumstances that initially justified the subsidies have disappeared."
The Christensen report did not directly assess the merits of the current subsidy for pulp and paper mills but it addressed the issue because it said in the design of new rates "one NB Power business customer has raised the possibility that their electricity-intensive business ought to be granted subsidies because of the potential to generate extra benefits for the Province through increases in their exports"
That, said Christensen, rarely benefits the public.
"The direct costs of the subsidies are the subsidies themselves, a part of which ends up in the pockets of out-of-province consumers of the exported goods," said the report.
"But there are also indirect costs due to the fact that the subsidies are financed through higher electricity prices, which means that other electricity customers have less money to spend on services provided by local businesses, thus putting a drag on the local economy."
The province does not agree.
Asked whether it has any studies or cost-benefit reviews that show the subsidy program is a net benefit to New Brunswick, the department cited none but maintained it is an important initiative, even as elsewhere governments have offered electricity bill credit relief to ratepayers.
"The program was designed to give large industrial businesses the ability to compete on a level energy field," wrote Brown.
Portsmouth Wind Turbine Complaints highlight noise, shadow flicker, resident impacts, Town Council hearings, and Green Development mitigation plans near Portsmouth High School, covering renewable energy output, PPAs, and community compliance.
Key Points
Resident reports of noise and shadow flicker near Portsmouth High School, prompting review and mitigation efforts.
✅ Shadow flicker lasts up to 90 minutes on affected homes.
✅ Town tasks developer to meet neighbors and propose mitigation.
The combination of the noise and shadows generated by the town’s wind turbine has rankled some neighbors who voiced their frustration to the Town Council during its meeting Monday.
Mark DePasquale, the founder and chairman of the company that owns the turbine, tried to reassure them with promises to address the bothersome conditions.
David Souza, a lifelong town resident who lives on Lowell Drive, showed videos of the repeated, flashing shadows cast on his home by the three blades spinning.
“I am a firefighter. I need to get my sleep,” he said. “And now it’s starting to affect my job. I’m tired.”
Town Council President Keith Hamilton tasked DePasquale with meeting with the neighbors and returning with an update in a month. “What I do need you to do, Mr. DePasquale, is to follow through with all these people.”
DePasquale said he was unaware of the flurry of complaints lodged by the residents Monday. His company had only heard of one complaint. “If I knew there was an issue before tonight, we would have responded,” he said.
His company, Green Development LLC, formerly Wind Energy Development LLC, installed the 279-foot-tall turbine near Portsmouth High School that started running in August 2016, as offshore developers like Deepwater Wind in Massachusetts plan major construction nearby. It replaced another turbine installed by a separate company that broke down in 2012.
In November 2014, the town signed an agreement with Wind Energy Development to take down the existing turbine, pay off the remaining $1.45 million of the bond the town took out to install it and put up a new turbine, amid broader legal debates like the Cornwall wind farm ruling that can affect project timelines.
In exchange, Wind Energy Development sells a portion of the energy generated by the turbine to the town at a rate of 15.5 cents per kilowatt hour for 25 years. Some of the energy generated is sold to the town of Coventry.
“We took down (the old turbine) and paid off the debt,” DePasquale said, noting that cancellations can carry high costs as seen in Ontario wind project penalties for scrapping projects. “I have no problem doing whatever the council wants … There was an economic decision made to pay off the bond and build something better.”
The turbine was on pace to produce 4 million-plus kilowatt hours per year, Michelle Carpenter, the chief operating officer of Wind Energy Development, said last April. It generates enough energy to power all municipal and school buildings in town, she said, while places like Summerside’s wind power show similarly strong output.
The constant stream of shadows cast on certain homes in the area can last for as long as an hour-and-a-half, according to Souza. “We shouldn’t have to put up with this,” he said.
Sprague Street resident John Vegas said the turbine’s noise, especially in late August, is louder than the neighborhood’s ambient noise.
“Throughout the summer, there’s almost no flicker, but this time of year it’s very prominent,” Vegas added. “It can be every day.”
He mentioned neighbors needed to be better organized to get results.
“When the residents purchased our properties we did not have this wind turbine in our backyard,” Souza said in a memo. “Due to the wind turbine … our quality of life has suffered.”
After the discussion, the council unanimously voted to allow Green Development to sublease excess energy to the Rhode Island Convention Center Authority, a similar agreement to the one the company struck with Coventry, as regional New England solar growth adds pressure on grid upgrade planning.
“This has to be a sustainable solution,” DePasquale said. “We will work together with the town on a solution.”
UK Energy Price Cap drives household electricity bills and gas prices, as Ofgem adjusts unit rates amid natural gas shortages, Russia-Ukraine disruptions, inflation, recession risks, and limited storage; government support offers only short-term relief.
Key Points
The UK Energy Price Cap limits per-unit gas and electricity charges set by suppliers and adjusted by Ofgem.
✅ Reflects wholesale natural gas costs; varies quarterly
✅ Protects consumers from sudden electricity and heating bill spikes
✅ Does not cap total annual spend; usage still determines bills
The government organization that controls the cost of energy in Great Britain recently increased what is known as a price cap on household energy bills. The price cap is the highest amount that gas suppliers can charge for a unit of energy.
The new, higher cost has people concerned that they may not be able to pay for their gas and electricity this winter. Some might pay as much as $4,188 for energy next year. Earlier this year, the price cap was at $2,320, and a 16% decrease in bills is anticipated in April.
Why such a change?
Oil and gas prices around the world have been increasing since 2021 as economies started up again after the coronavirus pandemic. More business activities required more fuel.
Then, Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, creating a new energy crisis. Russia limited the amount of natural gas it sent to European countries that needed it to power factories, produce electricity and keep homes warm.
Some energy companies are charging more because they are worried that Russia might completely stop sending gas to European countries. And in Britain, prices are up because the country does not produce much gas or have a good way to store it. As a result, Britain must purchase gas often in a market where prices are high, and ministers have discussed ending the gas-electricity price link to ease bills.
Citibank, a U.S. financial company, believes the higher energy prices will cause inflation in Britain to reach 18 percent in 2023, while EU energy inflation has also been driven higher by energy costs this year. And the Bank of England says an economic slowdown known as a recession will start later this year.
Public health and private aid organizations worry that high energy prices will cause a “catastrophe” as Britons choose between keeping their homes warm and eating enough food.
What can government do?
As prices rise, the British government plans to give people between $450 and $1,400 to help pay for energy costs, while some British MPs push to further restrict the price charged for gas and electricity. But the help is seen by many as not enough.
If the government approves more money for fuel, it will probably not come until September, as the energy security bill moves toward becoming law. That is the time the Conservative Party will select a new leader to replace Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The Labour Party says the government should increase the amount it provides for people to pay for fuel by raising taxes on energy companies. However, the two politicians who are trying to become the next Prime Minister do not seem to support that idea.
Giovanna Speciale leads an organization called the Southeast London Community Energy group. It helps people pay their bills. She said the money will help but it is only a short-term solution to a bigger problem with Britain’s energy system. Because the system is privately run, she said, “there’s very little that the government can do to intervene in this.”
Other European countries are seeing higher energy costs, but not as high, and at the EU level, gas price cap strategies have been outlined to tackle volatility. In France, gas prices are capped at 2021 levels. In Germany, prices are up by 38 percent since last year. However, the government is reducing some taxes, which will make it easier for the average person to buy gas. In Italy, prices are going up, but the government recently approved over $8 billion to help people pay their energy bills.
EU Gas Price Cap Strategies aim to curb inflation during an energy crisis by capping wholesale gas and electricity generation costs, balancing supply and demand, mitigating subsidies, and safeguarding supply security amid Russia-Ukraine shocks.
Key Points
Temporary EU measures to cap gas and power prices, curb inflation, manage demand, and protect supply security.
✅ Flexible temporary price limits to secure gas supplies
✅ Framework cap on gas for electricity generation with demand checks
✅ Risk: subsidies, higher demand, and market distortions
The European Commission has outlined possible strategies to cap gas prices as the bloc faces a looming energy crisis this winter.
Member states are divided over the emergency measures designed to pull down soaring inflation amid Russia's war in Ukraine.
One proposal is a temporary "flexible" limit on gas prices to ensure that Europe can continue to secure enough gas, EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson said on Tuesday.
Another option could be an EU-wide "framework" for a price cap on gas used to generate electricity, which would be combined with measures to ensure gas demand does not rise as a result, she said.
EU leaders are meeting on Friday to debate gas price cap strategies amid warnings that Europe's energy nightmare could worsen this winter.
Last week, France, Italy, Poland and 12 other EU countries urged the Commission to propose a broader price cap targeting all wholesale gas trade.
Russia has slashed gas deliveries to Europe since its February invasion of Ukraine, with Moscow blaming the cuts on Western sanctions imposed in response to the invasion, as the EU advances a plan to dump Russian energy across the bloc.
Since then, the EU has agreed on emergency laws to fill gas storage and windfall profit levies to raise money to help consumers with bills.
Price cap critics One energy analyst told Euronews that an energy price cap was an "unchartered territory" for the European Union.
The EU's energy sector is largely liberalised and operates under the fundamental rules of supply and demand, making rolling back electricity prices complex in practice.
"My impression is that member states are looking at prices and quantities in isolation and that's difficult because of economics," said Elisabetta Cornago, a senior energy researcher at the Centre for European Reform.
"It's hard to picture such a level of market intervention This is uncharted territory."
The energy price cap would "quickly start costing billions" because it would force governments to continually subsidise the difference between the real market price and the artificially capped price, another expert said.
"If you are successful and prices are low and you still get gas, consumers will increase their demand: low price means high demand. Especially now that winter is coming," said Bram Claeys, a senior advisor at the Regulatory Assistance Project.
Canada Net-Zero Electricity Buildout will double or triple power capacity, scaling clean energy, renewables, nuclear, hydro, and grid transmission, with faster permitting, Indigenous consultation, and trillions in investment to meet 2035 non-emitting regulations.
Key Points
A national plan to rapidly expand clean, non-emitting power and grid capacity to enable a net-zero economy by 2050.
✅ Double to triple generation; all sources non-emitting by 2035
✅ Accelerate permitting, transmission, and Indigenous partnerships
✅ Trillions in investment; cross-jurisdictional coordination
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, says a new report from the Public Policy Forum.
Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and shifting to emissions-free electricity, as provinces such as Ontario pursue new wind and solar to ease a supply crunch, to propel our cars, heat our homes and run our factories will require doubling — 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 will be published Wednesday.
It's going to cost a lot, and in Ontario, greening the grid could cost $400 billion according to one report. Most estimates are in the trillions.
It's also going to require the kind of cross-jurisdictional co-operation, with lessons from Europe's power crisis underscoring the stakes, Indigenous consultation and swift decision-making and construction that Canada just isn't very good at, the report said.
"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 that all power be generated from non-emitting sources by 2035 clean electricity goals, as proposed.
Greenspon said that means there are two major challenges ahead: massively expanding how much power we make and making all of it clean, even though some natural gas generation will be permitted under federal rules.
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 these facilities is another thing, and provinces such as Ontario face looming electricity shortfalls as projects drag on. The Site C dam in British Columbia won't come on line until 2025 and has been under construction since 2015. A new transmission line from northern Manitoba to the south took more than 11 years from the first proposal to operation.
"We need to move very quickly, and probably with a different approach ... no hurdles, no timeouts," Greenspon said.
There are significant unanswered questions about the new power mix, and the pace at which Canada moves away from fossil fuel power is one of the biggest political issues facing the country, with debates over whether scrapping coal-fired electricity is cost-effective still unresolved.
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