The end of ocean energy for Canada?
One company has stopped trying; others will follow
Canada’s goal, in the words of Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister, is to “become a global leader in the growing clean economy.” But that’s unlikely to happen.
More likely: Years from now, as temperatures continue to rise, as extreme weather events become more frequent, the renewable energy test site where I work will have closed its doors. The devices that Nova Scotians once proudly built in the hopes of harnessing the power of the highest tides in the world will bear the stamp: “Built in USA,” or elsewhere.
The technologies that regulators pointed to as unsafe for fish, despite the absence of evidence, will have left the Bay of Fundy. So too will have massive numbers of fish, but for a different reason: their disappearance will be a result of the ocean continuing to warm.
Another thing will have left, too. Investor confidence in Freeland’s words.
Not because the federal government hasn’t rallied behind the marine renewable energy sector with policy, funding and other supports. But because its main regulator, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, is reluctant to lay out a clear, transparent and consistent process for how projects get approved.
Despite hearing the need for one, for years, from industry, rights holders, scientists, communities and others. Despite hearing that without a clear regulatory process, marine renewable energy activity would die in Canada.
Last month, tidal energy developer Sustainable Marine, despite making headlines internationally as the first floating platform in Canada to successfully deliver electricity to the grid, announced it was ending its project. They could not see a regulatory “pathway to deliver (their) project” at the Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy (FORCE), the tidal test site where I work.
A test site that was approved for testing by regulators and scientists over a decade ago. A test site that has made Nova Scotia the envy of other tidal regions around the world.
Sustainable Marine is the first company to pull out of FORCE in response to an opaque regulatory process, but they are unlikely to be the last.
Many renewable energy companies have been attracted to Canada by the same vision articulated by Freeland and a belief that if they could develop a technology that was safe and viable they could eventually generate revenue to recover their investment. To date, the investment has been significant, over $200 million in Canada’s tidal stream energy sector.
The market appeared exciting. In Minas Passage alone, tidal energy potential was estimated at 2,500 megawatts, enough to power all of Nova Scotia during peak flows and equal to removing one million cars’ worth of greenhouse gas emissions.
The scientific investment has also been significant, nearly $20 million in scientific studies, including site characterization, environmental monitoring and fish tagging.
But instead of moving toward tidal energy exploration, we’re moving away from it. Many companies can’t see a regulatory path from one device to more. Without that path, they can’t raise money.
Regulatory distaste for tidal energy feels palpable.
They now refer to the fivekilometre-wide Minas Passage as “pretty narrow,” despite tidal devices occupying less than one one-thousandth of its crosssectional area, less than the footprint of a tennis ball on a basketball court.
Soon, years of research and development will end. One company has stopped trying; others will follow. FORCE will shut its doors. Scientists, suppliers, technicians, fabricators and other highly qualified personnel will move or look for other jobs. Our science platforms will be used elsewhere. Our electrical infrastructure, stranded.
When people ask me, “Why didn’t we ever use the highest tides in the world to fight climate change?” I’ll respond, “We were too scared to even try, despite regulators once approving the extraction of 26,000 barrels of oil per day from the same waters that surround all Mi’kma’ki.”
Or we come together. We create a path that acknowledges that climate change is imposing wide-ranging effects on marine ecosystems. That protects the inherent, treaty and legal rights of Indigenous fisheries, commercial and recreational fisheries, and marine life. That gives developers some consistency and clarity about how to move from one device to more. That builds a future where we’re able to say, “We took a careful, inclusive approach to marine renewable energy. We monitored marine life. We collected the data. We kept trying. And now, as Freeland once envisioned, we’re a global leader in the growing clean economy.”
Lindsay Bennett is executive director of Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy.