Ideology costing us energy growth

If Brad Wall and the Saskatchewan Party government are thinking that tying this province to a sinking rock that is burning coal for carbon capture and storage is going to endear us to the national carbon pricing program of the federal government and the rest of Canada, then he better be prepared to have this province sink further and faster than in 2008.

Nine gigawatts of growth in renewable energy production is projected by the International Energy Agency (IEA) for Canada from 2017-2022. Clean energy grew 22 GW in the U.S. last year. China, India and the U.S. will account for two-thirds of renewable energy expansion over the next five years.

“We see renewables growing by about 1,000 GW by 2022, which equals about half of the current global capacity in coal power, which took 80 years to build,” Dr. Fatih Birol, the executive director of the IEA, said in a statement.

“What we are witnessing is the birth of a new era in solar PV (the conversion of sunlight directly into electricity). We expect that solar PV capacity growth will be higher than any other renewable technology through 2022.”

Tying ourselves to three states not in the U.S. Climate Alliance of 14 states, Puerto Rico and hundreds of other U.S. cities, universities and corporations making up 36 per cent of the U.S.population is sad and distressing.

It is also not dealing with the real potential growth in jobs, energy capacity and resilience that we could have in this province, if only the premier wasn’t so ideologically stubborn. Jim Elliott, chairperson, Regina chapter, Council of Canadians