Energy
Canadian Gas Association Writes a Letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Highlighting the Importance of Natural Gas Energy Choice for Canadians
From EnergyNow.ca
On January 29, 2024, the Canadian Gas Association (CGA) sent a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, emphasizing the significance of the natural gas energy option for Canadians, a need underscored by the recent severe weather conditions in Western Canada.
The letter reads as follows:
Canada’s energy delivery companies had their work cut out for them over the last few weeks, ensuring the country could get through a period of extreme cold temperatures. The polar vortex that locked in across the continent only underscored how important an energy system with many options is to our overall well-being. I thought I would expand on this point in my first letter to you in 2024.
The second week of January saw temperatures in parts of the country drop well into the minus 40s, with windchill in the minus 50s. This triggered alerts from various authorities to reduce electricity use. Around 4 pm in Alberta on January 12th wind and solar generation facilities were operating at only a few percentage points of their capacity. But power was desperately needed. Luckily, a combination of in-province and neighbouring jurisdiction power sources – like natural gas-powered plants – could help meet the power needs of the province.
It is worth drawing attention to the fact that the alerts were all about a single energy system – the electricity grid. While that grid was under strain due in part to low renewable energy generation availability, the natural gas delivery system (a separate system that delivers gas energy, not electrons) was delivering approximately 9 times the energy and operating without any alerts required.
The contribution of the gas system is really worth emphasizing.
Nationally, over an average year, electricity meets just over 20% of our energy needs. Natural gas directly delivered to customers – residential, commercial and industrial – meets almost twice that amount, or just under 40% and liquid fuels like gasoline and diesel meet the balance. But at certain times of the year, such as during the recent January freeze, the differential between what natural gas and electricity deliver grows dramatically. At points earlier this month Alberta had use of roughly 12,000 megawatts of electric power and over 110,000 megawatts of gas energy equivalent.
And yet it was the electric system, not the natural gas system, that was threatened.
Media coverage during and after the freeze referenced how the electric system is threatened by extreme weather and needs to be built out to meet demand. But to suggest that the electric system could ever meet the energy delivered by natural gas over the gas delivery system is simply unrealistic. Do those who advocate for the electrification of all energy, especially peak heating needs, pretend that we have either the means, the resources, or the dollars, to build out an electric system that could meet roughly nine times the load of the gas system? Do advocates of natural gas bans appreciate that banning natural gas power generation would leave us in situations of actual shortage – a terrifying spectacle in the event of minus 50 degree weather?
Again, the point here is to underscore the value proposition of natural gas and the infrastructure that delivers it: the reliability these provide is extraordinarily important. This value is particularly well demonstrated when severe weather – a Canadian reality – hits us. We have to stop talking about eliminating the choice of energy options like natural gas, and relying exclusively on one energy delivery system, like electricity. Each delivery system has its own advantages, and natural gas is particularly well suited to meet heating needs. That should never be overlooked, as this month’s weather events reminded us.
Prime Minister, when it comes to energy – in supply options, and in delivery systems – diversity truly is our strength in Canada. We must maintain natural gas as an option for reliability, for affordability, and for sustainability – all of which are essential for our country’s energy security and the wellbeing of the Canadian consumer.
Respectfully,
Timothy M. Egan
President and CEO, Canadian Gas Association
Chair, NGIF Capital Corporation
About CGA
The Canadian Gas Association (CGA) is the voice of Canada’s gaseous energy delivery industry, including natural gas, renewable natural gas (RNG) and hydrogen. CGA membership includes energy distribution and transmission companies, equipment manufacturers, and suppliers of goods and services to the industry. CGA’s utility members are Canadian-owned and active in eight provinces and one territory. The Canadian natural gas delivery industry meets 38 per cent of Canada’s energy needs through a network of almost 584,000 kilometers of underground infrastructure. The versatility and resiliency of this infrastructure allows it to deliver an ever-changing gas supply mix to 7.6 million customer locations representing approximately two-thirds of Canadians. CGA members ensure Canadians get the affordable, reliable, clean gaseous energy they want and need. CGA is also working to constantly improve that gaseous energy offering, by driving forward innovation through the Natural Gas Innovation Fund (NGIF).
SOURCE Canadian Gas Association
Energy
Straits of Mackinac Tunnel for Line 5 Pipeline to get “accelerated review”: US Army Corps of Engineers
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Audrey Streb
The Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday announced an accelerated review of a Michigan pipeline tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac following President Donald Trump’s declaration of a “national energy emergency” on day one of his second term.
Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline is among 600 projects to receive an emergency designation following Trump’s January executive order declaring a national energy emergency and expediting reviews of pending energy projects. The action instructed the Army Corps to use emergency authority under the Clean Water Act to speed up pipeline construction.
“An energy supply situation which would result in an unacceptable hazard to life, a significant loss of property, or an immediate, unforeseen, and significant economic hardship,” if not acted upon quickly, the public notice reads.
U.S. President Donald Trump holds up a signed executive order as (L-R) U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum look on in the Oval Office of the White House on April 09, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“Line 5 is critical energy infrastructure,” Calgary-based Enbridge wrote to the DCNF. The company noted that it submitted its permit applications to state and federal regulators five years ago and described the project as “designed to make a safe pipeline safer while also ensuring the continued safe, secure, and affordable delivery of essential energy to the Great Lakes region.”
Army Corps’ Detroit District did not respond to the DCNF’s request for a copy of the notice or for comment.
The pipeline has been active since 1953 and extends for 645 miles across the state of Michigan, according to the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy website. Line 5 supplies 65% of the propane needs in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and 55% of the state’s overall propane demand, according to Enbridge.
The project has faced legal trouble and permitting delays that have hindered its expansion. Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2019 used a legal opinion by Attorney General Dana Nessel to argue that the law that created the authority to approve the project “because its provisions go beyond the scope of what was disclosed in its title.”
The State of Michigan greenlit the project in 2021 and the Michigan Public Service Commission approved placing the new pipeline segment in 2023.
Trump has championed an American energy production revival, stating throughout his 2024 campaign that he wanted to “drill, baby, drill,” in reference to oil drilling on U.S. soil.
Daily Caller
Trump Executive Orders ensure ‘Beautiful Clean’ Affordable Coal will continue to bolster US energy grid
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By
President Trump signed several executive orders Tuesday that will allow coal-fired power plants to stay online past planned retirement dates, identify coal resources on federal lands, and bolster the reliability of the electric grid. The orders may help the U.S. face an uncomfortable truth: wind turbines and solar panels can’t cost-effectively meet the U.S.’ growing electricity needs.
Coal provides an important source of the reliable and fuel-secure energy needed to keep the lights on. Our organization’s research shows that it is more affordable than wind and solar, too.
Mr. Trump’s executive orders will allow coal operators the flexibility to delay the premature closures caused in part by President Biden’s policies. A May 2024 rule from the Biden Environmental Protection Agency would have forced coal plants to spend billions on unproven technology to capture 90% of their carbon dioxide emissions. If coal plants failed to comply by 2035, they would be forced to shutter by 2039. The Trump EPA has since announced it will reconsider this rule, but the process could take years.
Coal should be allowed to help keep the lights on, especially because U.S. electricity demand is rising. The North American Electric Reliability Council’s 2024 long-term reliability assessment warns that “resource additions are not keeping up with generator retirements and demand growth” in most regions of the U.S. Coal produced 16% of the U.S.’ electricity in 2023, and coal, natural gas and petroleum together produced 60%. Nuclear comprised another 18%. It is folly to believe that the U.S. can meet its growing power demands while kneecapping a significant source of its baseload power.
Not only is reliable baseload power a must for the grid, but electricity generated by coal is less expensive than intermittent resources like wind and solar. It’s easy to understand why: the cheapest source of electricity is from plants that have already been built. Most of the U.S.’ coal fleet is like houses where the mortgages have been paid off. With no loans or interest left to repay, operating costs for existing coal plants typically consist of property taxes, insurance, labor, maintenance, and fuel.
Our organization models the full costs of building enough wind, solar, and battery storage to replace coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants. Powering a grid on wind, solar, and batteries is more expensive than coal because connecting wind turbines and solar panels to the grid entails system-wide costs like constructing new transmission lines. The intermittency of wind and solar means you need more power plant capacity to generate the same amount of power. More power plant infrastructure means more property taxes. More weather-dependent resources means more costs to managing the grid, like turning off wind turbines and solar panels when they are producing too much electricity for the grid to absorb — or conversely, ramping up natural gas generation on cloudy and still days when wind and solar aren’t producing.
Our research incorporates system-wide costs and shows that a realistic midpoint estimate for wind turbines is $72 per MWh. Electricity from new solar can range between $50 per MWh to $85 per MWh. Data from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission shows that the average coal plant generated electricity for only $34 per megawatt-hour (MWh) in 2020 (the last year of available data). It could be even less expensive for coal plants to generate electricity if states and utilities allowed coal plants to operate more often. In 2024, the coal fleet generated electricity only about 43% of the time. If that approached 80%, costs could go as low as $29.
Keeping America’s “beautiful, clean coal” plants online is the right thing for the country and it is good news for consumers that the U.S. has recognized the electric grid’s reliability hole and decided to stop digging.
Isaac Orr is vice president of research, and Mitch Rolling is the director of research at Always On Energy Research, a nonprofit energy modeling firm.
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