Deeds, Not Words, Are Needed As We Transition From Russian Fossil Fuels
John Harker is the former president of Cape Breton University and former director for Canada at the United Nations International Labour Office.
Mid-July is usually when Europeans and Canadians spend little time thinking about the cold and dark season that awaits them. Today, things are different, and challenging.
July 11 marked the start of maintenance work on the 1,220-kilometre pipeline, Nord Stream 1, that carries Russian natural gas to Germany. Serious analysts worry that after the ten days of planned maintenance the pipeline might not resume its transfer of the gas. Germany is the largest consumer of Russian gas, 155 billion cubic feet of which was supplied to Europe last year.
Russian gas is essential for both industrial activity in Germany and for enabling Germans to enjoy necessary thermal comfort, both heating and cooling. The German Economy Minister, Robert Habeck, recognized this by telling the public that the gas might or might not flow again, and the country needed to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
Of course, Germany is not alone in this exposed vulnerability. On July 10, the French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, pointed out that France gets 17 percent of its natural gas from Russia and is now working out how to cope with a total cut-off of this supply.
I have to wonder if either of these ministers, or their advisors, had read a trenchant opinion piece carried by Energy Post last year titled The greenest energy is the energy we don’t use. It was written by Martin Rossen, a vice-president of the Danish energy company Danfoss, and made a strong case for ensuring thermal comfort and continuing economic activity by pursuing ways of reducing energy consumption.
But back in 2021 there was no Russian invasion of Ukraine underway and “business as usual” paid too little attention to the kind of questions now having to be asked: how do we both ensure thermal comfort and seriously address climate change? What do we do less of without hurting humanity, or more of while helping humanity?
Minister Habeck might have been thinking about these questions as he pondered the future of Nord Stream 1 and learned that Germany’s largest residential landlord, Vonovia, which owns almost 500,000 apartments, is planning to reduce night-time heat and will have its system in place before the Winter.
Vonovia and Minister Habeck would be advised to look beyond Europe as they prepare for what is likely to be a Winter of Discontent across Europe but perhaps especially in its largest economy, Germany.
They could discover that a company in Atlantic Canada has developed intellectual property, encapsulated in patents in both Europe and North America, geared at ensuring the supply of electrical energy. It’s technology that could help respect the idea that the greenest energy is the energy we don’t use while avoiding the denial of thermal comfort, in winter or in summer, thus contributing to maintaining economic activity, civil peace, and the necessary transition towards renewables.
The company is Green Power Labs in Nova Scotia and it is partnered with an Alberta company. By using algorithms centred on predictive building control, GPL can reduce energy consumption considerably. Its creator, Alexandre Pavlovski, is exactly the kind of figure Ministers Habeck and Le Maire should be in touch with.
Interestingly, the French minister, in his remarks about coping with a total cut-off of Russian natural gas, not only thought that households and businesses might have to cut their energy consumption but also suggested that effort would have to be put into building new infrastructure to receive supplies of liquified natural gas and convert it into the gas on which so much of Europe relies.
He might be well advised to look across to his neighbour, Italy, for some relevant experience on this point.
Almost twenty years ago, I took on the challenge of leading a Nova Scotia university, one vital to the well-being of a region that had to face the decline, and disappearance, of the coal and steel industries. Not far from the campus was the site of the first North American commercial coal mine.
Among the steps we took was to develop skills essential to the growing LNG industry worldwide. We soon established a partnership with ExxonMobil, for whom we trained skilled technicians, including Russians engaged to harvest natural gas on Sakhalin Island. We also trained Italians, recruited to bring into production the world’s first gravity-based floating station for receiving LNG from the Arabian Gulf and distributing it as consumer-ready natural gas across Italy.
In these various efforts, we also drew on skills developed by a British company that had been created by great people who had been cut adrift by the downsizing of Britain’s coal industry.
The whole experience left me convinced that there is a danger in talking about “lessons learned” instead of acting on what, if we look around, are skills and examples of their application from which we can improve and move forward.
And as winter nears and Ukraine is still under threat, now is the time for firm action and fewer words. The town in England where I was born, Corby, is mentioned in the Domesday Book, not so much for its few ploughs as for its “ironworks.” It was then a village. Later, a town, one with a motto: “Deeds, not Words.” One of its deeds was to produce the steel piping, PLUTO, designed to carry wartime oil from Britain to Europe.
Europe, not just Ukraine, is again under threat and “Deeds, not Words” are what are needed. The deeds of securing thermal comfort, firming up public resolve, and transitioning to a renewable and peaceable future are there for us to see, grasp, and employ. What are governments waiting for?
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].