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Journalist Markham Hislop interviews leading energy experts from around the world about the energy transition and climate change.
Welcome to episode 373 of the Energy Talks podcast. I'm energy journalist, Markham Hislop. Last week, the Pembina Institute published an op ed that caught my eye. It's titled the new energy economy has arrived and Canada must pay attention. As regular listeners know, I have argued for a long time that Canada is not paying attention and that this is especially true in Alberta whose premier has recently talked about doubling oil production, which is a ridiculous proposition in the face of the International Energy Agency's comments about the world leaving the age of oil and beginning the age of electricity.
Markham:I'm joined today by Chris Severson Baker, Pembina's executive director, to discuss the op ed. So welcome back to Energy Talks, Chris.
Chris:Well, thanks for having me back. Appreciate it.
Markham:I wanna start this by plugging the online training course that we, launched last week. For anybody who doesn't know already, it's titled how this energy transition really works, and it's premised on the basic principle that this energy transition is technology led, not commodity led. When you build your energy technologies in a factory like you do with solar panels, and I guess to a lesser extent, wind turbines, The the price of that technology
Chris:and
Markham:the energy that it creates obeys different laws. It's the law of rights law, learning curve effects, and what that means is that this energy transition is is going to be lower cost, and it's going to spread, it's gonna diffuse more quickly, and so on. So it's an hour long and with some reading, and you can take it, and you can, go to our website in energy dot energy dot media, and find the link. So with that as background, Chris, maybe we could start with just an overview of the op ed, please.
Chris:Sure. I mean, really, I mean, your listeners are probably paying a lot of attention to the same kinds of things that the Pembina Institute is paying attention to, which is, you know, what's happening in the in the world, you know, across Canada, outside of Canada. And, really, what we're we're trying to highlight is that, you know, if if you're especially if you're in Alberta, we are really sort of there's not a lot of conversation about how, Alberta is gonna prosper in a variety of different scenarios. We're sort of really focused on the scenario where the world does not succeed in in continuing to address climate change through adoption of clean technology. Somehow, you know, the the the the progress that's being made gets halted, and and we continue to rely on fossil fuels, and we even rely more on fossil fuels to to to meet the world's energy demand in the future.
Chris:The the other scenario that, you know, there's lots of other scenarios that have been put out in the International Energy Agency is one that we, we find particularly useful, credible. It's a 50 year old organization. You know, it, Canada is a member of the International Energy Agency. And and this organization is is basically sending the message that, you know, if we continue on the path that we're already on with this the policies that have already been stated by countries around the world, We're gonna see a a peak in the demand for oil, coal, and natural gas by around 2030. And that assumes that there isn't some kind of big disruption that that sort of causes that, plan to to to go awry.
Chris:But it also points out that, you know, if the if governments around the world were to increase their level of ambition and introduce more policies, that we would that we would even be moving quicker down towards decarbonizing the the overall economy. But that is not something that, is part of the conversation in Alberta. You know, sort of how does Alberta prosper in a in a in a world where, you know, demand for fossil fuels sort of peaks and then and starts to decline. And so that's the conversation that we're trying to provoke as as often as we can, and and, you know, and I think your audience, again, is probably paying a lot of attention to this. But a lot of Albertans are really focused on on other things.
Chris:And and then we've also got a large group of folks in in the province who are kind of hoping, crossing their fingers that somehow that scenario doesn't play out, but it's not a strong basis for planning or governing.
Markham:Well, going back to our training course, one of the, important principles is, and tools for understanding this energy transition is the s curve. And we argue that all of the major clean energy technologies, so we're talking wind and solar, batteries, EVs, and heat pumps, all of them have reached and passed the inflection point on the s curve. They are now on the at the bottom of it, yes, but still on the hockey stick growth part of that curve now, and that will only accelerate over time. And I interviewed, you know, professor Dorian Farmer from the Oxford Martin School, and he's and his colleagues have done research, and they say, look, once a technology reaches that point, it's, diffusion into the economy, and the displacement of the competitive techno the old technology is inevitable. So this is it's not like this is coming or this is, you know, maybe gonna be a problem.
Markham:This is here. It's inevitable, and we can either adapt to change or we can, you know, change will do us in. That, I think, I that idea is not only not well understood in Alberta, it's actively rejected. I've had many conversations with engineers and decision makers and policy makers, and they mock and ridicule it. And there's almost like a campaign to discredit it, certainly to discredit the IEA.
Markham:Is that a problem getting people to turn on their ears and and and actually listen to this message?
Chris:Well, I I think it is. I mean, I I I think, otherwise, we would be hearing more signals from outside of of Alberta coming in and into the into the conversation here in Alberta. I know that, you know, hosting the International Energy Agency in Calgary at a live event was somewhat controversial in in Calgary. You Talking to to people in the energy sector about, about this and sort of gauging their level of interest in participating in that conversation, most people were quite enthusiastic about it. See, the International Energy Agency is is a very credible organization, and and why wouldn't we wanna hear more, from that organization?
Chris:But there were a number of people who said, I wouldn't be I won't be coming to that event. And and I don't think you're gonna have very much luck getting, you know, others who think like me coming to that event because because they actually view the the organization as having an agenda or somehow not a credible source of information. And that's because the International Energy Agency has been attacked publicly by organizations that have a vested interest in in maintaining the status quo. And and even our own premier, has taken shots at the International Energy Agency. And so, you know, I I think that's happening in Alberta.
Chris:Right? So peep you know, the the signal is not is not, getting through. But, you know, I think there's also this dynamic happening in Alberta too where, you know, the more people are having these thoughts and concerns, and keeping their mouth shut than, then then we realize. Right? And it it is sort of when you live in this province, you sort of feel a little bit, you need to keep some of those thoughts to to yourself.
Chris:And and so I think once we actually do start having a more open conversation about this, we're going to find that, that there's actually a lot of people who've been thinking this way and actually would really support government policies that positioned Alberta to be more, successful in that kind of a future scenario.
Markham:I agree wholeheartedly, and, energy media is repositioning itself to play a role in that conversation, in that new conversation, providing a forum for it. We've formed formed our energy circle with, primarily energy professionals. We've got our courses and webinars and so on, and it's all designed to get people. And we're going into we wanna talk to oil and gas professionals who will be probably the least open to this. You one would think, though I will say I'm finding that as I go out and talk to them, that they are more open.
Markham:What they need, Chris, I in my opinion, based on my experience, is an analytical framework that makes sense. And too often, we're bombarded with, you know, little bits of information, and putting it together into a coherent structure that explains why things happen, where things are going, is is lacking in in Alberta. And so once you frame it like that, and and I say, then it becomes all about technology change and markets and disruptions to business models, you know, the oil and gas business model, and they're actually open to that conversation. Now does that does that reflect your experience?
Chris:I mean, I think so. I I feel like, I I I think that, you know, it might it might depend on where some of these folks are in terms of, like, their positions within their organizations or their age, frankly. You know, I don't think we're going to see too many, you know, CEOs who are sort of, you know, doing their last gig thinking this way or wanting to explore this. But there's a lot of people that are sort of in their thirties and forties and are trying to think ahead to what the rest of their career looks like. And, and they're a bit nervous about about where things are going.
Chris:Right? And I and I think there's a desire to sort of have, take stock of what Alberta really has going for it. And what are some no regrets moves that we could be making, and certainly not do anything that that is going to, you know, only work in a scenario where the world doesn't continue to to make progress on tackling climate change. And so, like, the clean electricity grid is one example of that. I think everybody if you get a group of people into the room, everybody agrees Getting to a a clean grid in Alberta that is that is growing in size and and, and producing lots of affordable clean electricity is a no brainer.
Markham:Yeah. I would agree. Clean elect abundant, reliable, low cost, clean electricity, is the foundation of the modern economy. If you don't have that, and I talk to entrepreneurs all the time, in on this podcast and elsewhere. And and I asked them, well, like, what's the what criteria are you using when you decide to locate a plant, for an example?
Markham:And they always come back to electricity. If you don't have that, you're not in you're not even gonna be considered. So I would agree with you whole wholeheartedly. I wanna I don't think I've I talk about this occasionally on this podcast, but I don't think I mentioned it to you. Last September of 2023, as you know, the World Petroleum Congress was in Calgary, and I attended and and reported on all three days of it.
Markham:And I went to premier Danielle Smith's press conference, and she was attacking the IEA and saying, you know, no credible forecaster is calling for peak oil demand by 2030. And when it came time for my question, I said, well, premier, I can give you 6 or 12 right off the top of my head, and the only one that isn't is OPEC. And then in my follow-up question, I said, okay. Fine. What's your plan b if you're wrong?
Markham:And the and the response was nothing. There is no plan b. It's all or nothing on plan a, which is, you know, an expansion of hydrocarbon production and exports out of Alberta. And and I think what you just said about people wanting to, you know, think about what's coming in the future, it's the plan b. What ought we to be doing that we're not, especially if we see a rapid decline in, oil and gas consumption, globally?
Markham:How do we how do we strategize to come up with a plan b?
Chris:That's the real question, isn't it? So, I mean, I I do think that, part of it is just what are Albertans calling for? What are they like, how are they they're not expressing a lot of public, dissent about the the the direction that we're we're taking. So, I think a lot of people are keeping the they have harboring those thoughts and concerns and and not actually expressing them. And so there is a need to give voice to more of those, folks.
Chris:So, you know, our organization is trying to do that by, continuing to bring up into the into the media, into the political discourse, the fact that we had a moratorium on renewable energy. Before that, we had we were leading the whole country in in renewable energy by far, and that the industry is is essentially, halted even though the moratorium is technically over until the more of the uncertainty that was created is is cleared away. So we you know? So we're trying to play a role of trying to keep that kind of thing in the in the public discourse. But it but what we're noticing is that there's not a lot of other voices who are, you know, adding to ours.
Chris:Right? There's nervousness amongst the renewable energy sector about saying something that's going to result in some kind of punishment perhaps. There are, you know, others are are maybe feeling as though they're in the minority with these views that, that that we need to actually be driving hard towards a clean electricity grid in Alberta. And so I think, you know, over time, that has to change, in order for, I think, the political discourse to start to shift in this province as well.
Markham:Yeah. Finding other voices, other than Pemboda and Energy Media is really tough. And what I find is the, when you use tools like s curves and, Everett Rogers' technology adopted bell curve, and and data and evidence, and put together a coherent argument for why change is inevitable at the global level, and the effect that it's likely to have in Alberta as oil and gas demand peaks and then begins to decline, at least gets some traction. I mean, I'm having much more much more civil conversations with oil and gas professionals, today than I did a year or 2 ago when everybody was even more defensive. So I'm beginning to detect a shift, but like you say, it's underground right now because this is a highly politicized issue.
Markham:And if you raise it, there could be a political backlash. You it could be career limiting. It could be whatever the the issue. But there there will be a there could be a back backlash, a good chance of it. So, let's talk about some of the things that are required, and this is, well, it wouldn't be an energy talks podcast if we didn't criticize your op ed a little bit.
Markham:And one of the things that I noticed was that no mention of industrial policy. And I think this has been a major shift in the way that, China, the US, and Europe are approaching it. You know, not that long ago, we were talking about climate policy. And I would agree that climate policies starting in the 19 eighties really, was the support for those clean energy technologies to advance along the bottom of the s curve, to get to their inflection point. There was a lot of policy support for that.
Markham:And but China has shown us, and now the US is, in many ways, copying China, that industrial policy where you strategize and you build industries and you build supply chains and you put in, you you, have policies that deal with both the supply and the demand side of clean energy. So you don't just build solar panels, you also deploy solar panels in your own market, and and the government plays a a much more active role, than it has. That's the way of the future. And I think Canada, while it occasionally talks about industrial policy, clean energy industrial policy, we've fallen way behind. Even the even our neighbors in the in the south.
Markham:And I I so given that it wasn't in your op ed, I thought I'd just ask you about it.
Chris:Well, I I mean, I we do agree that we need to we need to see governments across Canada and the and the federal government, making very deliberate moves, in the direction that we that we wanna go. Picking it starts with and I think part of the reason why we're not seeing it in Alberta is because we don't have a, like, a coherent strategy that's based on what's actually happening in in the world. It's, there's a lot of contradictions, to what we're doing and what we're saying. To me, it's yeah. We need to look at our what we have going for us.
Chris:Like, what are the things that actually make us, that give us an advantage in in a a net zero future? And then how do we what what is it really needed to exploit those advantages? So rather than passively waiting for for for, you know, a corporate entity to show up and to sort of show the way, like, what do we need what do we need to actually do to create to to capitalize on that opportunity? At the national level, I think, you know, it's it's a clean electricity grid. Like, you know, when other countries in the world look at Canada, they just think, you know, you have such an advantage.
Chris:Like, where your grid is already 80%, emissions free. You have all of the opportunities to generate electricity that one could hope for, including nuclear in in Ontario. And and you can do it, and you have lots of land. Right? You don't have huge population centers so that so there isn't an opportunity to scale it up.
Chris:And so you could be a a reliable, clean, affordable source of electricity. In Alberta, we have that opportunity too. But then we also have the ability to sequester carbon. We have the bitumen product, which is sort of unique in the world. Like, there's a few things that we that we have that are give us a real advantage.
Chris:And and if we think about that and and and and we actually have planned for that scenario where the world actually moves rapidly to, decarbonize, you know, it sort of sends a clear signal where we need to focus, I would think.
Markham:Bitumen is an an amazing resource, and we have been burning something that we should be making things with. It's a horrible waste, in my opinion, of, bitumen. And I had Michael Kerr, who's in charge of Alberta Innovates, bitumen beyond combustion, program. Had him on the the podcast last week. We talked about this.
Markham:I mean, they're building a demonstration project, a research center. It'll be open next year. And the that he's confident that they will have a commercial commercially competitive process to make carbon fiber precursor in the very near like, 2026 is is the is the target date. That's just one. But let's get I I I'm I'm struck by your comments about electricity because, like, Tony Seba I interviewed him in 2017.
Markham:And so anybody who doesn't know Tony Seba is a futurist and a and his focus is technology disruption. And his point was that, wind and wind and solar plus batteries is like a superpower. And, essentially, over time, as I explained about the how, our energy technologies are built in a factory, the because of learning curve effects, the cost approaches essentially the marginal cost becomes 0 or close to it. And and I know we we have a somebody from Pincher Creek, James Van Lewen, who asked the question because they're right in the middle of a wind turbine, farms. If we had a marginal cost of 0 in Pincher Creek, which is a little town of a little 35100, what could we do with that?
Markham:How what kind of industries could we attract? And one of the obvious ones is data centers because they're also on a big data trunk, runs right through town. And I think you're absolutely right. Once you have that foundation, then you can look around and say, well, what else do we have? What could we attract?
Markham:What could we build if we really put our mind to it? But it all starts with low cost, abundant, clean electricity.
Chris:Yeah. Yeah. That's the foundation. Right? And I and a lot of other you know?
Chris:I mean, that the the International Energy Agency talks about that in this in their their latest, World Energy Outlook report 2024. But then our the the big provinces in Canada have clearly woken up to this reality as well. You know, like, Quebec is scaling up clean electricity, so is Ontario, so is BC. We don't so as an organization, like, my organization, we're not trying to convince those provinces to actually do it anymore. We're what we're trying to do now is is sort of figure out how do we make sure that they, you know, they don't make too many investments in things, you know, in the short term that are gonna be regret regrettable in the long run, like locking into some gas when you don't really need to.
Chris:But how do you pave the way to to really scaling that up and getting as many customers to actually decarbonize as possible? And, so that that shift is happening. Bringing it back to Alberta. I mean, I think you mentioned a lot of the positives. Right?
Chris:Like, each part of the province could be empowered to sort of do its own, like, assessment of of of whatever its strengths. I think we also need to do a bit of a assessment of where we where are we most vulnerable in in in different scenarios. Because there are going to be some parts of this province that are gonna be, the first to be impacted when demand peaks. So what can we do to help the people that work in those areas, the people that live in those communities?
Markham:I wanted to make a point here because, there might be some, oil and gas folks listening to this podcast, and right away, they're thinking, The oil sands. And I should point out again for non Canadian listeners, Canada is the 4th largest oil producer in the world, the 5th largest producer of gas. It's almost entirely controlled out of out of Alberta. That's why Alberta is is really important. And there are some other reasons, including the the, oil sands, which, produces 3,500,000 barrels a day of, of bitumen.
Markham:And they and and the CEOs and supporters of the oil sands say, oh, yes. But we have a very low decline rate, so we don't need the amount of capital that the shale producers or even the conventional producers require. And that allows us we can have our our half cycle costs, which are basically keep the lights on, will sustain us for many years if if, you know, demand starts to go down. The problem with that is half cycle costs don't make any profit. And eventually, because these are investor owned companies, that's bad news.
Markham:You can all you can survive a cyclical downturn. You can't survive a structural downturn in your in demand. And and I think personally that because and you point this out in the op ed, because the oil sands are both high cost producers and some of the highest emissions intensity, producers that and and let's not forget far from market, that makes them vulnerable. And I don't see that there's enough policy work or work by the companies to change that equation, And I think that makes them particularly vulnerable.
Chris:Yeah. And if you look at that at the overall sector and you sort of look at it, there's a whole bunch of there's quite a range. Right? Even within that high cost, high carbon sort of range, there's a, you know, there's a range of different players. And so you can you can pick the ones like, these are the ones that are gonna feel it first.
Chris:Which communities are those plants or those, fields feeding in terms of jobs and economic opportunities? What's coming, you know, in the in the next 10, 15, 20 years that might help absorb that workforce and keep that community vibrant? You know, that's the kinda thing that we could be doing at the same time as looking for the where are the real opportunity areas and how do we make investments to to capitalize on that.
Markham:And and we can't emphasize enough that we need to start now. We, you know, the the premier has said she said and she said it during this press conference last year. She said, well, you know, if demand actually does fall, we'll just make stuff with it. Well, yes. But if you're gonna build an industry to make stuff with oil and gas with bitumen, you better start now.
Markham:Now Alberta has the 2nd largest petrochemical cluster in North America. So fair enough, but it's all gas based. It's not oil based. And so if you wanna build, you know, like a carbon fiber or asphalt binder or activated carbon sector, you need to start planning now. You need to start, talking to investors or, you know, companies that are willing to come here and set up, that have that expertise, have markets.
Markham:It's a 10, 15, 20 year process to build a vibrant, viable, industry. And, you can't do it on the it's a supertanker, does not turn on the on a dime. And I I worry that we think we've got that in our back pocket as insurance, and we're grossly overestimating, how quickly, we can we can actually build that out.
Chris:Yeah. And I think the other part of this is that you know? And I think, again, everybody's thinking about these things all the time is very much aware of just how much money the government, how much oil and gas revenue or in the form of royalties the government is reliant on. And and so, so right now, you know, we have access to a lot of royalty revenue. And so we, you know, so the government can actually make some strategic investments.
Chris:In a scenario, you know, if the price drops, all of a sudden we're it's the opposite situation. Right? We're we're facing a deficit and, and and the government tightens its belt. And so you have to make really strategic investments when you when you have that that money. If if if if we had to had the foresight to sort of put that money into a different pot, right, rather than into general revenue, it it wouldn't the, you know, the the on off wouldn't be so dramatic, but, you know, obviously, we didn't do that.
Markham:Yeah. We're not Norway. As is often pointed out, we don't have we don't have, but we have the heritage fund, but there's not much money in there, relative to what the industry, what, royalties have been produced. I wanna make a bit of a lateral move here, Chris. And because the Rocky Mountain Institute, a couple weeks ago released a really, really smart paper, and it was about combustion and the relative inefficiencies of fossil fuels compared to electricity.
Markham:So in broad general terms, fossil fuels, you know, so coal, oil, and gas together, are only about 30% efficient, whereas electrical technologies electric technologies are about 75% efficient. So the more electric technologies you're using, the you actually need less energy to get the same amount of work out of them. And this is in some ways the secret sauce of the electric age. It is that you, you know, we keep thinking we have to double and triple our our power grids, maybe not. You know, maybe we're just going to be use that what we do produce a lot more efficiently.
Markham:We'll make better use of the of the transmission we already have, you know, like reconductoring lines with carbon fiber and getting 2 to 3 times as much transmission out of the same infrastructure we've already built, that sort of thing. Heat pumps. You know, we put a heat pump in our house 2 years ago, and it at 3 or 400% efficiency, it's criminal how little electricity it takes to heat and cool our 1300 square foot home, and and especially on oil. See, this is where I think it is oil's Achilles' heel. We all know internal combustion engines only use you know, they're 20, 30 percent efficient.
Markham:Most of the energy in the liter of gasoline goes out the out the exhaust pipe or is lost in heat from the engine block. And then you've got the other additional efficiencies that are created when you're extracting it out of the ground, and when you're shipping it in a pipeline, you get losses there, and then you, in a refinery, get further losses. The amount of energy you get from oil in transportation is really, really low. And that's a problem when you're competing against electric vehicles where an electric motor might get 90, 95%. And the amount of losses in generating and transmitting your electricity is fairly fairly low.
Markham:And so I was really pleased to see in your op ed, you had a section on efficiency, and maybe my question here is how important do you see efficiency to this overall move to electrify? Mhmm.
Chris:Well, I mean, this is this is how you maintain affordability while you're scaling up, the supply of electricity, I think, at at a regional level. Because it is conserving electricity and encouraging your your customers to to use it at the right time rather than at the worst possible time saves everybody so much money. Right? That, it's part of the reason why other jurisdictions in Canada had lower electricity prices than Alberta, in in recent years. It's because they actually have some sort of primitive demand side management or energy efficiency programming sort of baked into the into the cost.
Chris:In Alberta, we don't have anything right now. So right. You're and it's and and so and and we have a you know, our premier talks about how we can't produce we can't electrify everything and or we can't use renewable energy, and and have a reliable grid. It's because we're sort of assuming that the grid is it's it's very primitive system that that, doesn't take advantage of any of, sort of the the modern great features. Right?
Chris:Like, like load shifting and demand side management and and things like that. I noticed that Quebec you know, I I heard a a presentation from the the, the CEO of Quebec Hydro recently and talking about the the massive amount of investment that they've been mandated to to pursue to scale up the grid. And and so they're gonna try to build, was it 10 gigawatts of of power by, by 2030 or 2035. And over that same time period, capture 3.5, gigawatts of energy efficiency. So even in a place like Quebec, they're just they see it as a huge opportunity.
Chris:And so that you know? And I think if we combine, you know, battery storage and including battery storage at the household level, you know, if we encourage people to charge their electric vehicles at the right time of the day and so on, we have a lot more energy than we realize, to work with. So it makes the job of of sort of scaling up and electrifying everything that currently burns fossil fuels just that much easier. The flip side of that is is Alberta's hydrogen, aspirations, where we are you know, we continue to talk about a level of hydrogen production that, you know, would see us sort of just switching gears and instead of shipping out fossil fuels, we're switching hydrogen or shipping hydrogen all over the planet. And it just doesn't make sense for the reasons that you were talking about, like the amount of energy that you that's required to get it to to to the location, the amount of transformation of that product that has to happen to get it there.
Chris:It's like chopping down a forest, building furniture, and then transporting that furniture to market and then breaking it in down and putting it into your furnace or your, your, fireplace and using it as energy. It just doesn't make sense to do all these different things to it. So I, you know, I think we've got to sort of get real about what is it that we have going for us in Alberta and and what are some things that are probably important but not going to be, you know, they're not gonna replace what, what oil and gas has done in terms of overall revenue for the province in the past.
Markham:One of the interesting things about Alberta, Alberta has a lot of heavy industry. It has more engineers per capita than any other province in in Canada. It's got excellent education, postsecondary, education, either at both at, the the sort of, university level, both the UC and the u u of a have excellent research programs and and also the, the technical schools. It has a lot of the pieces that are required and an innovation ecosystem, I might add. I mean, you can go there's a lot of oil and gas centered technology that's been developed over the course of the, you know, over the last, x number of decades.
Markham:It would be a logical place to locate manufacturing of clean energy technologies. So, I had the Bloomberg NEF head of mining and minerals, on the podcast, and we talked about so if you're gonna mine critical minerals, the key bottleneck here is not the mining, It's the smelting and and processing and refining of those into battery metals because most of that capacity is is in China right now. And so you're in a very uncomfortable position of mining it in Canada, shipping it to China to be processed, and then shipping it back. That's not very economic. And so, the those regions that are smart and looking ahead to the development of a battery industry in North America, which the Americans are essentially building, and we're building some here in Canada, would be looking ahead and and building that infrastructure so that as the critical minerals, mining ramps up, then there's a the plants are available here to to do the processing and refining, and then either you have a battery plant here or you ship it off and and they're you know, it's made into cells and then packs somewhere else.
Markham:And we've got all the infrastructure to do that. What we lack is a strategy to say, okay, we see that opportunity, we see the value chain, the supply chain associated with that, and we're going to take a strategic approach to this, and and develop it, and government will play a role, and industry will play a role, and labor will play a role, and the education institutions will play a role, and we'll all collaborate. Professor Bentley Allen from the Transition Accelerator and Johns Hopkins talks about this all the time, strategic collaboration amongst all the players and come up with a plan. And I have to say, Alberta's plan stinks. It's an awful plan.
Markham:Mission reduction and energy development plan is just awful. Doesn't talk about any of this stuff. And I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what I could ask you for a question, Chris. But as an observation, we have so much potential and so little planning.
Markham:Oh, I know. I'll give you mom's admonition from the the from the, the training course. Mom says, hope for the best, plan for the worst. Alberta says, plan for the best, ignore the worst, and we need to stop that and start recognizing change is coming and plan for it. What does a what might a plan look like?
Chris:Yeah. Well, I've I mean, what you're making me remember is is being and I think this was happening during, you know, the pandemic and and sort of a couple years after that. There was a number of sort of, initiatives, brought together a bunch of stakeholders who's kind of being organized more at the by at the municipal level. So let's talk about what how Alberta could position itself in these future scenarios. Right?
Chris:It was an attempt at that same conversation that you and I are talking about wanting to encourage. And and, it was a great exercise, and and and we sort of keyed in on some of these types of things that we're talking about now around, like, you know, what where Alberta could be successful at attracting investment in in the future and so on. And then you would sort of get to the further in that process of like, okay, how do we now communicate the outcome of this exercise to to government? And and you start to run into this problem of, well, if we hang on a second, the Premier has said that she doesn't believe in batteries. So this particular idea, you know, and this thread of logic or whatever is gonna run into a bit of a an impediment there.
Chris:So and I was I found it interesting. It's like you you started to have to twist yourself into all kinds of different, you know, contort the message and all this kind of stuff, and it started to lose its integrity. And and that that's the problem. Right? We just don't have, you know, we don't have a the government isn't presenting sort of a coherent sort of strategy that's based on what's actually happening in the world.
Chris:And, therefore, good folks in Alberta who are trying to put together these thing pieces and and these, you know, ideas, you know, are having a hard time communicating it to government in a way that will be, positively received, because it just there's too many sort of landmines that you can step on in the process of delivering that message.
Markham:Yeah. We talked about, you know, industrial policy being a strategic collaboration between all of the the players that need to be at the table. And a coming up with some kind of an energy transition plan would be pretty much the same thing. And if one of those players, and government obviously, you could argue is the the the key player is going in a different direction and is active actively discouraging the things that you might put in your plan, that makes for a very, very difficult situation. And, I I I mean, aside from changing the energy conversation and and changing people's minds, which is not an easy task, that I don't know what else you do.
Markham:We haven't been we and we clearly have not been able to do it so far.
Chris:I guess the good news is, I mean, a bunch of these exercises have been carried out, and there's some good reports laying around all over the province. And if, you know, if there was a sense that we needed it to start shift our strategy and and start to move in that direction that at least some of that work has already been done. It's just, you know, not the ideal position to be in, this close to peak demand for for a lot of the stuff that we produce here.
Markham:So if I had to summarize our conversation in your op ed, Chris, it would be that the major changes at the global level, we're moving into the age of electricity. It's in your op ed, you describe it as the second industrial revolution. I mean, that's how dramatic, the structural change in the global energy system is, and it'll have all sorts of implications for economies and on and on. At the Canadian level, the federal government has been, I would argue, more focused on climate policy and less on industrial policy than it should. Nevertheless, it has put in place all of these policy framework for decarbonization and for shifting more to electrify the Canadian economy.
Markham:BC, Ontario, and Quebec get it. There's they especially in the last year or 2, they've made some major, changes. Alberta sticks out like a sore thumb. It it just is the the, of the 4 big provinces, it is the one, the outlier. That and it's not just a little outlier, there's it's not that it disagrees, you know, a little bit, a few degrees off bubble, it's like a 180 degrees.
Markham:And that has implications for the entire country. It's very difficult to, you know, for to have national policy and a national strategy when one of your big players just fundamentally doesn't agree with you, and is actually actively working against you in many respects. Yeah. And just your thoughts,
Chris:and I
Markham:know I've kind of asked this question, in a different format. What do we do?
Chris:Yeah. I I mean, I think I think, I mean, part of the reason why people across Canada think that clean electricity is is not reliable and expensive is because Alberta spent 1,000,000 of dollars advertising that message at them. And, and so it I mean, it does have an impact. When a government, a government like Alberta decides to put money taxpayer money into those types of campaigns, it really does have an impact. And and so, there hasn't been too many, you know, political consequences for spending Alberta taxpayer money in that way.
Chris:So, I mean, I think that's even that would be a place to start. It's like Albertans need to express their their their views on what they want their government to do and how they wanna spend taxpayer money. I do think that, you know, part of it is is the the conversation does need to get broader. Like, definitely think that the end people that work in the energy sector are very important. But there also needs to be you know, people who wake up every day and who are more concerned about other things, need to see the connection between sort of some of the things that we're doing around energy policy in in in Alberta and in Canada as as being, like, directly impacting them.
Chris:Right? So I think those connections are starting to be made around affordability. People are starting to realize, like, you know, there's a risk of of, in in terms of, like, you know, increasing, costs, insurance costs, you know, having to, just having homes that are not healthy or resilient. So the health commune you know, community, people that are concerned about the welfare of the elderly and and people that have chronic health issues. You know, all of these folks sort of need to sort of see how their issue is is kinda linked to the choices that we're making.
Chris:And so I think there's just more energy is going to need to be into bigger, broader coalitions.
Markham:But I wanna end on a positive note because we've spent we've spent the better part of an hour complaining about, you know, Alberta's not doing this. Alberta's not doing that. But I lived in Alberta for a long time, and I've I've been going back. You know? I mean, we we spend a lot of our time covering Alberta energy issues, and I know plenty of people back in in Alberta.
Markham:And I'm noticing a change. And if I had to say, I would describe it as it's not an earthquake. It's not even a little earthquake, but I can feel the tremors that precede the earthquake. And and I think that one thing to do might be to find the source of those tremors inside the various sectors, whether they be oil and gas or the power sector or, you know, wherever it is, and and start there. That might be a good place to start to begin the the new energy conversation that Alberta needs.
Chris:Yeah. And I think we also know, like, public sentiment can shift quite dramatically or at least it seems like that on the surface, and it's because that pressure has been building up below the surface for quite a long time. And I can sense it as well. I think, you know, there's a lot of people that, like, kinda get what's going on and are have concerns, but they haven't decided to express it quite yet. And when that when the dam breaks, it can be quite dramatic.
Chris:Just as we saw with the affordability issue taking over the the whole political agenda in the last whenever it has been a year and a half or so, that was bubbling below the surface for a very long time. And and and now it's all that any politician can think about and, has to react to.
Markham:Well, Chris, this has been a fascinating conversation and, a precursor maybe in some ways to the conversation that Alberta needs to have and hope we hope will have in the very near future. Thank you very much for coming on today.
Chris:Thank you very much for having me. I look forward to next time.