Breaking oil habit won’t be fast or easy for economy
Climate activists say a ‘just transition’ is possible with planning and policy
Sign says: “Planet over
REGINA profit.”
A black and yellow waterproof jacket, with black windbreaker pants to match.
That was Brett Dolter’s outfit on Sept. 27, when he addressed a crowd at the Regina climate strike.
After his speech about a sustainable economy, “Somebody pointed out on Twitter, my jacket was made from hydrocarbons,” said Dolter.
That even an ecologically-minded economist can’t get away from fossil fuels is a sign of what society is up against.
“It’s actually hard not to use oil. We use it to fuel our transportation, we use it in the clothes we wear,” said Dolter, an assistant professor in economics at the University of Regina. “The problem is it’s actually really useful and we have to stop using it. And that’s as simple as it is, and as hard as it is, is that those two things are both true.”
And economic growth is not a necessary casualty of a transition from carbon, said Dolter.
People of all ages have rallied in Regina, across Saskatchewan and around the world calling for action on climate change. Their arguments are based on science and spurred by the October 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which states that limiting global warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels would prevent “irreversible changes” and ecosystem loss, as compared to even 2 C of warming.
The students don’t want to see the environment “go past the point of no return,” in the words of Sydney Chadwick.
But, a concern among climate protesters and industry workers alike is that fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas, and natural gas) mean big business in the province.
If actions speak louder than words, a 10-kilometre-long, anti-carbon-tax convoy that drove into Regina’s Evraz Place in April spoke volumes.
“This rally is really for the people of Saskatchewan. It’s about supporting the sectors that are vital parts of our economic engines,” Blair Stewart, one of the convoy organizers said.
“We can go to green, but you cannot shut the taps off … and starve hundreds of thousands of people out of work and say, ‘Oh, too bad, take a bus,’” said Patrick King, who was part of that convoy.
Just like the workers, the Regina students leading the strikes do not want to see job loss.
They have called all along for a “just transition,” to protect workers and the climate.
But, they do not believe in prioritizing economy over climate: “There are no jobs on a dead planet,” to quote one poster from the strikes.
The Canada Energy Regulator and Saskpower recognize Saskatchewan’s solar and wind potential.
“The reality is that we need more solar,” said Margot Hurlbert, Canada Research Chair in Climate Change, Energy and Sustainability Policy and one of 14 lead authors of the aforementioned IPCC report.
“Saskpower has said they’re going to have 50-per-cent capacity in renewables (by 2030). So how are we going to meet that? And that’s where my research right now is …” Hurlbert added. “We need to think about how we in Saskatchewan are going to generate low carbon energy when it’s minus 40 and perhaps … the sun’s not shining and the wind’s not blowing.”
Having backup energy sources is essential, Dolter agreed, but “it doesn’t have to be fossil fuel backup.”
It could be hydro energy purchased from Manitoba. It could be hydrogen, produced with wind energy and stored “in a big cavern like natural gas.” It could be nuclear power (which is debated for its high cost and risk of radiation). The Saskatchewan government recently began exploring small modular nuclear reactor technology.
Raphael Idem, director of the U of R’s Clean Energy Technologies Research Institute, doesn’t count out fossil fuels.
“A lot of people look at, ‘Oh, we shouldn’t use sources of energy that involve carbon.’ … My research is, whatever source of energy you can find in your jurisdiction, how can you process it without harming the environment?”
Whatever the energy source, “You should have a technology that prevents the release of carbon into the atmosphere,” added Idem.
Kelvin Ng suggests waste as a resource.
“Plastic has a very high thermal energy content, so if we can thermally destroy the materials, we can extract the energy for that and then we can use it to generate electricity or other types of things,” said Ng, a University of Regina engineering professor.
Plastic is commonly made of petrochemicals.
Because landfills produce methane, some Canadian landfills have installed gas management systems to capture the gas and use it, including in Regina where the gas-to-energy facility can power 1,000 homes by converting methane.
In Edmonton, non-recyclable and non-compostable waste is converted into biofuels, too.
Any of these options will require a government and industry buy-in in terms of policy and innovation.
Dolter said it’s not enough to encourage people or businesses to voluntarily make changes. Even incentives can backfire, sometimes giving rebates to people who would have made the change anyway.
“The two that actually have some teeth are regulation and carbon pricing, and some combination of those is needed to actually get these technologies and practices to be adopted,” said Dolter.
“Without providing that leadership the solutions aren’t going to happen,” said Larissa Shasko, one of Hurlbert’s graduate students who researches climate policy.
“The voluntary actions that we can do, although they are ultimately what we need to do, like we need to live those low-carbon lifestyles … it’s not going to make that impact unless it’s regulated,” added Shasko, a former Saskatchewan Green Party leader.
Regulations are already showing results, said Dolter.
“Why are we phasing out coal? Well, we have regulations that say coal has to be phased out by 2030 or equipped with carbon capture and storage. … We can use pricing, and at $50 a tonne, $60 a tonne, coal is no longer the cheapest option; it’s cheaper to generate electricity with natural gas and wind.
“And once carbon pricing gets up to $200, $250 a tonne, then natural gas is no longer the lowest-cost way to generate electricity.”
“In the end, it will go back to the customer: How much are you willing to pay for electricity?” said Idem.
Because so many material goods are imported, Roger Petry suggests imposing tariffs on countries that aren’t reducing their carbon usage because “they’re effectively dumping products cheaper into the Canadian market because there’s no carbon price built into those products.”
The co-coordinator of the Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development in Saskatchewan, Petry said leadership might influence other countries to think about implementing carbon pricing.
The Saskatchewan government’s Prairie Resilience plan does not include a carbon tax. It focuses on the progress that’s already being made (including agricultural tillage practices sequestering nine megatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year, planting “nitrogen-fixing crops,” using damaged canola crop as biodiesel, researching livestock feed to reduce methane emissions, adding renewable energy to the Saskpower grid, and “creating market demand” for methane from petroleum operations).
“If a carbon tax is supposed to change your behaviour, (if ) that’s the intent of it, we’re 1.1 million people spread over a large geographical area,” said Environment
Minister Dustin Duncan. “Like on a (cold winter) day like today, I’m not sure how a carbon tax is going to change my behaviour.”
Dave Sauchyn, director of the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative at the U of R, recognizes the challenges of adapting in Saskatchewan.
Adaptation is much more feasible in a city like Vancouver, said Sauchyn. “They don’t have to deal with snow; they don’t have to deal with freezing temperatures very often. They have a great rapid transit system.
“In rural Saskatchewan, there’s just so few options when it comes to not burning fossil fuels. You can’t produce food without burning fossil fuels. … And you can’t complain that people drive in rural Saskatchewan. What are they supposed to do, hitchhike? We got rid of the trains and we got rid of the buses.”
To rebuild provincial transit, “It’s a huge capital expense, right?” added Sauchyn. “We’re talking about megaprojects like Lake Diefenbaker in the ’60s. This would be a megaproject building high-speed rail across the Prairies. Man, it would take a lot of political gumption.”
Dolter said adapting won’t kill the economy, but we can’t drag our heels on it: We have to be “creative about solutions.”
“We know we can move to electric vehicles; we can move to electric heat,” he added. “We can use carbon capture and storage in industries like cement and steel making where, by their very nature, they produce CO2.
“You can generate hydrogen by taking water and splitting it with electrolysis, with electricity. … That hydrogen is a fuel, and we can have an industry that does that,” using wind power, which costs less than four cents a kilowatt hour, said Dolter.
Limitations can lead to innovation and new industries, Petry agreed.
“That’s when people innovate is when they have constraints. Or even think of a game,” said Petry. “Hockey players get better at the game because there are rules.”
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