Here’s How People, Companies And Communities Can Cut Carbon Emissions
Greg Robart is CEO of Smart Grid Innovation Network Canada Inc. The Smart Grid Innovation Network aims to foster this collaboration in Canada. To join the conversation, sign up to be a member at www.sgin.ca.
The debate on whether our climate is changing is over. We have seen the impacts firsthand in the form of fires, floods, hurricanes, locusts, and shifting seasons. The question now is how do we move forward to mitigate these future impacts?
As consumers, there are many individual things we can do to help address climate change, but we need to achieve decarbonization on a global scale. What should our government, institutions, and businesses do about it? The most economical path to decarbonization includes more electrification.
Currently, Canada is blessed with a very clean electricity generation fleet that makes up only nine percent of our total emissions. In fact, Canada’s generation fleet is 82 percent non-emitting. Three-quarters of our emissions in Canada could be directly addressed by aggressively converting to other, more electricity-intensive technologies. And these technologies are, for the most part, readily available.
The Government of Canada reports that almost 50 percent of our emissions can be attributed to buildings (mostly for heat and air-conditioning), transportation, and the generation of electricity. We can reduce these emissions by transitioning to new energy uses such as electric vehicles, better public transit, non-emitting building heating systems, and more clean electricity generation. So why is it not happening faster?
To achieve these goals, there are economic considerations and policy implications. We need to make the right investments, ensure we have the correct codes, regulations, and incentives in place, integrate planning at the utility, municipal and provincial levels, and collaborate with indigenous rights-holders – to name a few. Let’s not forget we need a trained workforce to enable all of this plus implement new clean technology and new businesses in this sector.
While intense electrification is a viable net-zero pathway, as we ramp up the use of more electrical loads and generation, the design of the grid that we have benefited from for decades needs to be re-assessed. More grid capacity, intelligence and visibility will be required to understand what’s happening on the grid so that we can maximize renewables and manage them in a way that protects the stability of our society’s critical asset – the electricity system.
Communities are more aware of their role in shaping our future of this energy mix and they are keen to understand how renewable technologies can support their goals. Solar and wind technology prices continue to fall and they are typically less expensive than traditional generation assets, but we will also need to include other non-emitting energy sources, such as nuclear power, in order to offset the variable nature of renewables. The development of small modular reactors (SMRs) offers a promising, flexible solution to our ongoing need for baseload generation to balance the growth and variability of renewables. We will need a healthy mix of all types of non-emitting solutions.
There is a lot to consider, but none of the unanswered questions should change our resolve. Innovative leaders like Elon Musk have demonstrated how thinking outside of the box and taking charge has paid off as we watch most of the major car manufacturers now follow Tesla’s lead.
How can we take charge of our climate future in Canada? Doing whatever we can to increase the amount of clean generation we have on the system, electrify more end uses, and make sure the grid is upgraded will all get us closer to achieving our goals. This will require a new way of looking at our planning, education, regulation, and business models.
In True North style, we need to look for ways to work together to address the roadblocks and increase the pace. There are islands of great work being done across the country and scaling these localized pockets of results requires a structured approach that fosters collaboration for every Canadian’s benefit.
Huddle publishes commentaries from groups and individuals on important business issues facing the Maritimes. These commentaries do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Huddle. To submit a commentary for consideration, contact editor Mark Leger: [email protected].