Canada as an energy superpower

To get TOD Canada rolling again, I’ve written a refresher on Canada’s energy situation. Canada can’t be ignored when it comes to energy. We are a land of plenty. Lots of land, lots of weather, lots of consumption, lots of production. Plenty can easily become scarce though and it has to be managed, and managed well. Management of our resources will be Canada’s challenge in the years ahead. Unmanaged, Canada’s energy consumption is close to the highest in the world and stands at 350 GJ/person, slightly more than in the U.S. and Canada’s energy intensity is the worst in the G7 at 10.6 MJ per unit GDP.


It’s wrong to average Canada’s energy situation though. Even neighboring provinces have vastly different stances: British Columbia has implemented North America’s first consumer based carbon tax and is joining the Western Climate Initiative’s cap-and-trade system while Alberta’s Premier is still talking about bird kills by wind turbines. On the East Coast, New Brunswick has the largest Canadian refinery (288,400 bpd capacity) producing 45% of all U.S. reformulated gasoline imports, is building a new LNG terminal and has plans to become an energy hub for the Eastern U.S. by building a second 300,000 bpd refinery and a second nuclear reactor, both to be used exclusively for export to the US. Energy exports are a huge part of Canada’s economy, accounting for 20% ($90 billion) of Canada’s total exports in 2007.

From the federal perspective, Canada’s government has publicly stated that they are positioning Canada as a “reliable energy superpower”. This is the closest we have to a national energy policy. The wording here is important: By definition, energy superpower implies at least two things: 1) multiple customers 2) willingness to use energy supply as a negotiation tactic.

TOD: Canada