106–Robert and Eric interview Luke Andreychuk from Manitoba Hydro. There discussion centers around the Canadian National Electrification Assessment Report and the challenges and opportunities of electrifying Canada's economy by 2050. The conversation concludes with a critique of the current approach to climate change, emphasizing the need for a more direct and efficient transition to renewable energy rather than pursuing costly and potentially ineffective technologies like carbon capture when still using coal plants. Note that the host Eric held the NSERC/Manitoba Hydro Chair in alternative energy for more than 10 years where he provided third party assessments to Manitoba Hydro and learned the perspective of utilities, attending many EPRI and CEATI utility meetings on emerging technologies.

The Cana­di­an Nation­al Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion Assess­ment Report ana­lyzes Canada’s cur­rent state of elec­tri­fi­ca­tion and its poten­tial for fur­ther elec­tri­fi­ca­tion across var­i­ous sec­tors (trans­porta­tion, build­ings, indus­try, and pow­er gen­er­a­tion) by 2050. The report projects that ener­gy effi­cien­cy, struc­tur­al changes, and fuel switch­ing could reduce econ­o­my-wide CO2 emis­sions by 47 – 80% by 2050. Achiev­ing net-zero will require addi­tion­al mea­sures like car­bon removal, low-car­bon fuels, and demand-side approach­es. Man­i­to­ba Hydro col­lab­o­rates with EPRI and is involved in dis­cus­sions about car­bon seques­tra­tion tech­nolo­gies. The report iden­ti­fies trans­porta­tion and indus­try as hav­ing the great­est poten­tial for emis­sions reduc­tions through elec­tri­fi­ca­tion. Trans­porta­tion accounts for about 25% of Canada’s emis­sions, and elec­tri­fi­ca­tion could reduce its emis­sions by up to 95%. Indus­try accounts for over 40% of nation­al emis­sions, and elec­tri­fi­ca­tion could reduce its emis­sions by up to 30%. Build­ings (13% of emis­sions) and pow­er gen­er­a­tion (12%) also offer oppor­tu­ni­ties for reduc­tion through elec­tri­fi­ca­tion and oth­er mea­sures. Inte­grat­ing large amounts of renew­able ener­gy into the grid presents tech­ni­cal chal­lenges due to the vari­abil­i­ty and uncer­tain­ty of wind and solar pow­er. This requires man­ag­ing sup­ply and demand, main­tain­ing grid sta­bil­i­ty, and poten­tial­ly using bat­tery stor­age. Elec­tri­fi­ca­tion also changes elec­tric­i­ty demand pat­terns, with increased win­ter peaks due to elec­tric heat­ing and EV charg­ing. New pow­er sup­ply requires sig­nif­i­cant upfront invest­ment in infra­struc­ture. This could be a bar­ri­er for low-income house­holds, requir­ing tar­get­ed incen­tives and financ­ing. The high upfront costs of green tech­nolo­gies, cou­pled with poten­tial­ly high­er inter­est rates, could lead to elec­tric­i­ty rate increas­es. Dr. Renew­able points out that 9 tril­lion dol­lars are spent annu­al­ly on fos­sil fuels (fuel val­ue, sub­si­dies, envi­ron­men­tal dam­age), a non-recov­er­able cost. He con­trasts this with the invest­ment need­ed for renew­able ener­gy tran­si­tion, which he esti­mates at 2 tril­lion per year, argu­ing that the lat­ter is a much more sus­tain­able and cost-effec­tive approach. The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has announced plans to dou­ble elec­tric­i­ty capac­i­ty by 2050, while the report sug­gests a 50% increase. As for the coal para­dox, Dr. Renew­able rais­es a crit­i­cal ques­tion: why invest in car­bon cap­ture while glob­al coal con­sump­tion is still increas­ing for coal pow­er plants? He argues that this is like try­ing to plug holes in a sink­ing ship while oth­ers are mak­ing more holes, result­ing in a net loss. He ques­tions the log­ic of util­i­ties using elec­tric­i­ty to cap­ture car­bon when that same elec­tric­i­ty could be used to dis­place fos­sil fuels directly.