Energy
What doubling the grid really means

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
” imagine if someone said in the next 25 years and 11 months, we must twin every single freeway, highway, grid road, street and alleyway, across the entire country, at the same time. And along the way, we have to replace up to 89 per cent of the existing infrastructure, as well, because it is no longer considered adequate “
Recently my daughter called me while on her way back from a Costco run in Regina, heading home to Weyburn.
She noted that it appears they are twinning the highway between Regina and Weyburn. Indeed, they are, I explained. And several years later, they’ll probably get it all the way to Weyburn. Maybe by the time I retire, if I live that long, they’ll get as far as Estevan.
Indeed, those timelines are likely pretty close to reality, if the twinning of Highway 16, from Saskatoon to Lloydminster, was any indication. I used to drive from Saskatoon to North Battleford to get the newspaper I was working for printed, with road construction for much of that. And it took several more years to complete the Battlefords to Lloydminster portion. I was fortunate enough to be present at the ceremony for that. It was significant enough that Premier Lorne Calvert came out.
Twinning a major highway is a substantial undertaking. Historically, Saskatchewan could usually only afford to work on three separate areas at a time, typically doing 20 kilometres per year in each stretch. That was all the provincial finances could handle.
By adding an additional two lanes, you are effectively doubling the capacity of that major piece of infrastructure. It’s not easy, not cheap, and not fast.
Now imagine if someone said in the next 25 years and 11 months, we must twin every single freeway, highway, grid road, street and alleyway, across the entire country, at the same time. And along the way, we have to replace up to 89 per cent of the existing infrastructure, as well, because it is no longer considered adequate.
You’d probably think they were living in a dreamland, or quite possibly stark raving mad.
And yet this is precisely what the federal government is proposing, nay, demanding, of Canadians from St. Johns to Victoria to Tuktoyaktuk.
In order to save the world from anthropogenic (manmade climate change) and attain a “Net Zero by 2050” economy, we must increase the size of the electrical grid by a factor of 2.5x. And for Saskatchewan and Alberta, who on any given day get up to 88 and 94 per cent of their power, respectively, from fossil fuels, they must also replace that existing gas and coal power generation with non-emitting sources, at the same time as they’re building out the truly massive expansion.
The first reference I saw of the federal Liberal government’s intentions of this was in the 2023 budget, which noted expanding the electrical grid by a factor of 2.2 to 3.4 times. By August, when they released the proposed Clean Electricity Regulations, the government seemed to settle on a factor of 2.5 times for the high demand scenario.
So in the highway twinning example, that would be adding three lanes, not two, to every two lane highway, grid road, street and alleyway. For an existing four lane highway, you would need to add six lanes. For a six lane freeway like Ontario’s 401, you’d need to add an additional nine lanes, finding the right of way space, concrete, rebar, gravel, and asphalt for all of this. Again, all at the same time, in 25 years and 11 months.
There are several thrusts that the federal government is pushing. First, by 2035, they want to totally eliminate gasoline and diesel from new light vehicle sales. There’s currently only eight retail hydrogen fueling stations listed by the federal government and Shell in the entire country. There could be more, but they’re not listed. Realistically this means battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs). But nearly all of those EVs will require charging at home each night (and especially during winter, pre-conditioning those batteries, keeping them warm).
So every residence in the country will require 30 amp chargers for cars, and 80 amp chargers for pickups.
But the government is also now moving away from fossil fuels for home, heating, too. This was indicative of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s pause on the carbon tax for home heating oil (primarily used in Atlantic Canada, although I grew up in a house with that system). To do so, the feds are offering “free” installations of heat pumps (which are wholly inadequate at -30 temperatures, let alone the -44 seen in Alberta in mid-January). And those could be up to another 50 amps, per heat pump.
And that’s just residential, never mind commercial or industrial.
The Clean Electricity Regulations are meant to force fossil fuel power generation to go away. And since wind frequently drops to nothing, and the sun goes down every day, the only real alternative is massive expansion of nuclear power across Canada. We’re talking small modular reactors by the dozen in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and to a lesser extent, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
On Jan. 30, SaskPower announced a formalized agreement with General Electric-Hitachi for small modular reactors. But when I asked how many they plan on building, the CEO wouldn’t say. But he did speak of increasing the provincial grid from 5,400 megawatt now to 13,000 to 15,000 megawatts.
Hydro Quebec just released their plans to double their grid. Yet, perhaps miraculously, they’re not saying how many, if any, new dams will need to be built.
This doubling of the grid (actually 2.5x, but that’s not easy to say), means we’re going to need not only additional generation, but transmission lines, distribution lines, back alley pedestals, and wiring to every home, business and factory in the country. Where the materials come from? The contractors and workers? Will Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) be universally trampled on by eminent domain orders, for the good of the planet? Or will it be a continuation of Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything Syndrome (BANANAS)?
A very real example is the Trans Mountain Pipeline. The original was built in something like 16 months, from scratching dirt to oil flowing. The expansion is taking a hell of a lot longer. Work started in 2018, and it is still not done. Any change in the plan had to go back to the Canadian Energy Regulator. Some First Nations fought it every step of the way.
Now do this for every single piece of existing power infrastructure. Wrap your head around that for a minute.
This supposed energy transition, from fossil fuels to electric everything, does not work if you cannot build out the electrical infrastructure, everywhere, and essentially all at in the next 25 years and 11 months. Either the timelines need to be stretched to a generational scale, or more realistically, the whole concept needs to be entirely rethought.
As Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has said more than once, “We will not attempt the impossible when it comes to power production.”
Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online, and occasional contributor to the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He can be reached at [email protected].
Business
Net Zero by 2050: There is no realistic path to affordable and reliable electricity

By Dave Morton of the Canadian Energy Reliability Council.
Maintaining energy diversity is crucial to a truly sustainable future
Canada is on an ambitious path to “decarbonize” its economy by 2050 to deliver on its political commitment to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Although policy varies across provinces and federally, a default policy of electrification has emerged, and the electricity industry, which in Canada is largely owned by our provincial governments, appears to be on board.
In a November 2023 submission to the federal government, Electricity Canada, an association of major electric generators and suppliers in Canada, stated: “Every credible path to Net Zero by 2050 relies on electrification of other sectors.” In a single generation, then, will clean electricity become the dominant source of energy in Canada? If so, this puts all our energy eggs in one basket. Lost in the debate seem to be considerations of energy diversity and its role in energy system reliability.
What does an electrification strategy mean for Canada? Currently, for every 100 units of energy we consume in Canada, over 40 come to us as liquid fuels like gasoline and diesel, almost 40 as gaseous fuels like natural gas and propane, and a little less than 20 in the form of electrons produced by those fuels as well as by water, uranium, wind, solar and biomass. In British Columbia, for example, the gas system delivered approximately double the energy of the electricity system.
How much electricity will we need? According to a recent Fraser Institute report, a decarbonized electricity grid by 2050 requires a doubling of electricity. This means adding the equivalent of 134 new large hydro projects like BC’s Site C, 18 nuclear facilities like Ontario’s Bruce Power Plant, or installing almost 75,000 large wind turbines on over one million hectares of land, an area nearly 14.5 times the size of the municipality of Calgary.
Is it feasible to achieve a fully decarbonized electricity grid in the next 25 years that will supply much of our energy requirements? There is a real risk of skilled labour and supply chain shortages that may be impossible to overcome, especially as many other countries are also racing towards net-zero by 2050. Even now, shortages of transformers and copper wire are impacting capital projects. The Fraser Institute report looks at the construction challenges and concludes that doing so “is likely impossible within the 2050 timeframe”.
How we get there matters a lot to our energy reliability along the way. As we put more eggs in the basket, our reliability risk increases. Pursuing electrification while not continuing to invest in our existing fossil fuel-based infrastructure risks leaving our homes and industries short of basic energy needs if we miss our electrification targets.
The IEA 2023 Roadmap to Net Zero estimates that technologies not yet available on the market will be needed to deliver 35 percent of emissions reductions needed for net zero in 2050. It comes then as no surprise that many of the technologies needed to grow a green electric grid are not fully mature. While wind and solar, increasingly the new generation source of choice in many jurisdictions, serve as a relatively inexpensive source of electricity and play a key role in meeting expanded demand for electricity, they introduce significant challenges to grid stability and reliability that remain largely unresolved. As most people know, they only produce electricity when the wind blows and the sun shines, thereby requiring a firm back-up source of electricity generation.
Given the unpopularity of fossil fuel generation, the difficulty of building hydro and the reluctance to adopt nuclear in much of Canada, there is little in the way of firm electricity available to provide that backup. Large “utility scale” batteries may help mitigate intermittent electricity production in the short term, but these facilities too are immature. Furthermore, wind, solar and batteries, because of the way they connect to the grid don’t contribute to grid reliability in the same way the previous generation of electric generation does.
Other zero-emitting electricity generation technologies are in various stages of development – for example, Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) fitted to GHG emitting generation facilities can allow gas or even coal to generate firm electricity and along with Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) can provide a firm and flexible source of electricity.
What if everything can’t be electrified? In June 2024, a report commissioned by the federal government concluded that the share of overall energy supplied by electricity will need to roughly triple by 2050, increasing from the current 17 percent to between 40 and 70 percent. In this analysis, then, even a tripling of existing electricity generation, will at best only meet 70 percent of our energy needs by 2050.
Therefore, to ensure the continued supply of reliable energy, non-electrification pathways to net zero are also required. CCUS and SMR technologies currently being developed for producing electricity could potentially be used to provide thermal energy for industrial processes and even building heat; biofuels to replace gasoline, diesel and natural gas; and hydrogen to augment natural gas, along with GHG offsets and various emission trading schemes are similarly
While many of these technologies can and currently do contribute to GHG emission reductions, uncertainties remain relating to their scalability, cost and public acceptance. These uncertainties in all sectors of our energy system leaves us with the question: Is there any credible pathway to reliable net-zero energy by 2050?
Electricity Canada states: “Ensuring reliability, affordability, and sustainability is a balancing act … the energy transition is in large part policy-driven; thus, current policy preferences are uniquely impactful on the way utilities can manage the energy trilemma. The energy trilemma is often referred to colloquially as a three-legged stool, with GHG reductions only one of those legs. But the other two, reliability and affordability, are key to the success of the transition.
Policymakers should urgently consider whether any pathway exists to deliver reliable net-zero energy by 2050. If not, letting the pace of the transition be dictated by only one of those legs guarantees, at best, a wobbly stool. Matching the pace of GHG reductions with achievable measures to maintain energy diversity and reliability at prices that are affordable will be critical to setting us on a truly sustainable pathway to net zero, even if it isn’t achieved by 2050.
Dave Morton, former Chair and CEO of the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC), is with the Canadian Energy Reliability Council.
2025 Federal Election
Canada is squandering the greatest oil opportunity on Earth

Canada has 3X US oil reserves but less than 40% the production. Why? Anti-oil politicians like Mark Carney who say they’re protecting Earth’s coldest country from global warming.
- Canada has 170 billion barrels of proven oil reserves—by far the largest of any free country. And its producers can profit at $44 oil, vs. >$57 for US shale.
- Canadian oil production is also continuing to get cheaper. Oil sands operating costs have dropped 19% over the past five years, and the industry—which is still fine-tuning how to coax oil-like bitumen out of oil sands—has substantial room for further cost reductions.
- In addition to its massive proven oil reserves, Canada also has massive unexplored oil resources. Canada’s Northwest Territories may contain up to 37% of Canada’s total oil reserves, much of it light crude, which is even cheaper to extract and transport than bitumen from oil sands.
Canada is squandering this opportunity, with < 40% of US production and much slower growth
- Given Canada’s massive oil reserves and lower production costs, Canadian oil should have been growing far faster than US oil—on a path to producing even more oil than the US does.
Instead, Canada is totally squandering its oil opportunity, with less than 40% of US production and slower growth since 2010.
The lost opportunity is costing Canadians 100s of billions of dollars a year—and undermining global security
- In 2023, oil sands directly contributed C$38 billion to GDP—while total economic impact was 100s of billions of dollars. It could have been far, far greater.
- Canada’s oil underproduction is undermining both Canadian prosperity and global security. E.g., Europe’s dependence on Russian oil triggered an energy crisis after Russia invaded Ukraine. By doubling its oil production, Canada could make oil dictators weaker, the free world stronger—and Canada more powerful.
The cause: False climate ideas have led Canada to senselessly strangle its oil industry
Canada is squandering its oil opportunity by preventing its abundant oil from being transported to world markets
- With 3X US oil reserves but 1/8 the people, Canada can produce far more oil than it can use. So it needs a lot of transportation. Yet it wages war on pipelines, which are the cheapest, fastest, safest way to transport oil.
- In 2016, the Canadian government rejected the Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to B.C. after nearly a decade of review, citing insufficient Indigenous consultation. The pipeline would have carried 535K barrels of oil per day to Asia-Pacific markets, generating ~C$300B in GDP over 30 years.
- To make matters worse, several years after the cancellation of the Northern Gateway pipeline, Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-48 (the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act), banning large oil tankers from calling at northern B.C. ports and effectively shutting the door on any future pipeline to that region.
- In 2017, TC Energy canceled their Energy East pipeline project after the Canadian government demanded they calculate all of its indirect GHG emissions. The pipeline would have carried 1.1M barrels per day of Albertan and Saskatchewan oil to Eastern Canada, generating ~C$55B in GDP over 20 years.
- The Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX), operational in 2024, is Canada’s only new major pipeline in over a decade. Proposed in 2012, it barely survived years of political hurdles, progressing only after the federal government bought it in 2018. By completion, its costs had ballooned from the projected C$7.4B to C$34B.
- The main government-created obstacle for pipelines in Canada is the onerous federal “environmental review” process called the Impact Assessment Act (IAA), and before that, its precursor, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA).
- Under the Impact Assessment Act, the Canadian government can effectively veto a pipeline project by deeming it not in the “public interest,” as determined by factors including “sustainability,” alignment with climate goals, and impacts on Indigenous groups—but not economic benefits (!)
- Before the Impact Assessment Act was instituted in 2019, pipelines faced similarly onerous environmental reviews under its precursor, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA). Under CEAA, government could veto projects it judged to cause “significant adverse environmental effects,” a vague and open-ended criteria.
- Even if a pipeline project isn’t formally rejected by the Canadian government, the environmental review process can stretch on for years—often causing projects to collapse from escalating costs or investors withdrawing amid uncertainty. This is exactly what happened with the Energy East pipeline in 2017.
- If Canada built ample transportation, it would have the potential to produce even more oil than the US does and sell it around the world. Instead, its production is < 40% of the US’s, and 97% of its exports are to the US—at below-market prices.
Canada is also strangling oil investment, production, and refining
- Canada isn’t just strangling oil transport, it’s sabotaging oil at every stage—from Mark Carney’s proposed emissions cap to “Clean Fuel Regulations” to EV mandates to drilling bans to refinery restrictions.
- Investment in Canadian oil plunged over 50% (C$76B to C$35B) between 2014-2023—with investors pointing to regulatory uncertainty, inconsistencies, and compliance costs as major barriers to investments.
- A further looming threat to oil investment is the proposed cap on oil and gas sector GHG emissions. If implemented, as promised by Mark Carney’s government, this proposal will require the oil industry to reduce its GHG emissions to 35% of the 2019 level, which would significantly discourage investment and production.
- The Clean Fuel Regulations (CFRs), which mandate that Canadian fossil fuel producers reduce the emissions from fuels to 15% lower than 2016 levels by 2030, harms Canadian oil production by significantly increasing the cost of production and thus decreasing the domestic demand for gasoline and diesel.
- Canada’s EV mandate, which requires that 20% of vehicles sold in 2026, at least 60% of vehicles sold in 2030, and all new vehicles sold in 2035 are electric, harms Canadian oil production by greatly reducing the demand for gasoline and diesel.
- Canada’s consumer carbon tax, which until earlier this month imposed a fee of C$80 per ton of CO2, harmed Canadian oil production by raising gasoline prices by 17.6 cents per litre, thereby decreasing demand. Though this tax has been repealed, gasoline and diesel remain subject to the industrial carbon tax.
- In addition to measures that heavily disincentivize oil production, the federal government also directly limits production through moratoria on oil development on Canada’s Pacific and Arctic coasts, blocking access to hundreds of billions of barrels of oil.
- On top of Canada’s oil underinvestment and underproduction, Canadian oil refining has stagnated, with Canada’s refineries able to process less than half of the oil it produces and only one new refinery built since the 1980s.
The leading stranglers of Canadian oil, such as Trudeau and Carney, say they are protecting Canada and the world from a climate crisis
- The root cause of Canada’s squandered oil opportunity is leaders’ belief that world’s coldest country must stop global warming at all costs.
That’s why they advocate pursuing “net zero” by 2050—which necessarily means destroying Canada’s domestic oil industry.
- Canada has embraced climate catastrophism for over 3 decades now. For example, it was one of the original signatories of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992. The UNFCCC has been the driving force behind “net zero” policies.
- Justin Trudeau took Canadian anti-oil policy to a new level, making the destruction of Canada’s oil opportunity a central focus: “We need to phase [oil sands] out,” he said in 2017, “We need to manage the transition off of our dependence on fossil fuels.”
- While Trudeau’s opposition to Canadian oil and therefore its economy is well-known, most Canadians do not know that Mark Carney is a far more committed opponent of Canadian oil than Justin Trudeau ever was. Indeed, Carney is one of the world’s leading “net zero” advocates.
- The last several decades of Mark Carney’s career have been focused on pressuring countries like Canada to adopt “net zero” policies that have proved ruinous. He did this as the head of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, and as the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action.
- Mark Carney’s past statements on climate include:
“investing for a net-zero world must go mainstream” (2019)
“those that fail to adapt [to net-zero] will cease to exist” (2019)
“build a financial system in which every decision takes climate change into account” (2021)
- Myth: Mark Carney used to be for carbon taxes but has changed his mind, as shown by his elimination of Canada’s carbon tax.
Truth: Carney is still for carbon taxes—because he is still for the net-zero agenda that requires taxing CO2 along with all other means to eliminate fossil fuels.
But while climate change is real, it is not a crisis—thanks to increasing resilience—nor is it addressed by unilateral Canadian sacrifice
- Far from facing a catastrophic climate crisis, Canada and the world are safer than ever from climate.
The global rate of climate disaster-related deaths has fallen 98% in the last 100 years—thanks to increasing climate resilience from reliable, affordable energy, including oil.
- Myth: Even if climate-related disaster deaths are down, climate-related damages are way up, pointing to a bankrupting climate future.
Truth: Even though there are many incentives for climate damages to go up—preferences for riskier areas, government bailouts—GDP-adjusted damages are flat.
- Sacrificing Canadian oil won’t make the coldest country in an increasingly climate-resilient world safer from global warming—since countries like China and India will never follow suit. What it will do is leave Canada far poorer, weaker, and more endangered from lack of energy.
The solution: Unleashing responsible oil development will make Canada rich, resilient, and secure
The rational path forward on climate is to embrace prosperity, which drives resilience and energy innovation
- Canada is safer than ever from climate, and other countries won’t cut emissions until it’s truly cost-effective to do so. The path forward is to embrace prosperity.
- The more prosperous Canada is, the more it can make itself more and more resilient to all manner of climate dangers. And the more prosperous Canada is, the more it can innovate new forms of energy that have the long-term prospect of outcompeting fossil fuels.
The number one path to Canadian prosperity is unleashing responsible development in the oil industry and other energy industries
- Canada must finally seize its enormous oil opportunity, unleashing investment, production, refining, and transport from irrational restrictions. Only then can Canada can deliver oil to eager markets worldwide.
- Canada should renounce its pledge to achieve “net zero by 2050” by repealing the Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act where it is enshrined and withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. This will massively increase investor certainty about the future viability of the oil industry.
- Canada should reject the proposed GHG emissions cap for the oil industry. Canadian provinces that have their own carbon taxes and emission credit trading schemes should eliminate them too. This will improve investor expectations about the oil industry’s future viability.
- Canada should repeal the Impact Assessment Act (IAA) and replace it with a framework that minimizes the cost and duration of reviews and enshrines clear and narrow criteria for rejecting projects. This will help build more oil pipelines and reduce investor uncertainty about environmental regulations.
- Canada should revise the Canadian Energy Regulator Act (CERA) by limiting the certification review of the covered oil pipeline projects to the question of whether there is sufficient proven demand for the oil they are planning to transport. This will expedite pipeline approval.
- Canada should repeal the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act (Bill C-48), which bans large oil tankers off the northern and central coast of British Columbia. This will open the door to building pipelines to B.C. that can transfer oil to crucial Asian markets.
- Canada should repeal the Clean Fuel Regulations (CFR) and the EV mandate. This will boost investor confidence in oil by increasing both current and anticipated domestic demand for oil-derived fuels.
- Canada should repeal the federal moratoria on offshore oil drilling on the Pacific Coast and in the Canadian Arctic. This will unlock up to hundreds of billions of barrels of Canadian oil.
- To stop squandering the world’s greatest energy opportunity, Canada must start electing leaders who value Canadian energy, and stop electing leaders with a proven track record of destroying it.
Daniil Gorbatenko, Steffen Henne, and Michelle Hung contributed to this piece.
“Energy Talking Points by Alex Epstein” is my free Substack newsletter designed to give as many people as possible access to concise, powerful, well-referenced talking points on the latest energy, environmental, and climate issues from a pro-human, pro-energy perspective.
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