The Canadian Environment Commissioner said on Tuesday that the country may fail to meet its 2030 emissions reduction targets as the current federal government plan is based on “unrealistic” assumptions about the role of hydrogen in the energy mix in the following years.
Commissioner Jerry DeMarco today published a series of audits documenting the federal government’s environmental shortcomings – including its failure to create a meaningful “fair transition” plan for energy workers displaced by the transition to a low-carbon economy and the uneven application of a supposed national cost. carbon emissions.
But DeMarco was perhaps most scathing in his assessment of the government’s hydrogen strategy, which he said was based on “overly optimistic” assumptions that “compromised the credibility” of the government’s entire emissions reduction plan.
Speaking at a news conference, DeMarco said the government’s dubious hydrogen emissions targets “raise concerns about their overall approach to climate modeling and reducing emissions in general”.
“Canada needs to be more outspoken and transparent about its assumptions about what is a very optimistic view of the role of hydrogen,” he said. “They have to be realistic.”
The federal government has vowed to reduce Canada’s emissions by 40 to 45 percent below 2005 to 2030 levels and is counting on widespread deployment of hydrogen, a carbon-free, carbon-free energy source to help the country achieve this ambitious goal.
Departments disagree on the impact of hydrogen
Two federal departments – Environment and Climate Change in Canada and Natural Resources in Canada – said that the rapid adoption of hydrogen would lead to significant reductions in emissions, as it could displace high-carbon fuels. But the commissioner found that these departments could not agree on the amount of emissions that would be offset by its use.
Environment and Climate Change Canada said the use of clean hydrogen technology could lead to emission reductions of 15 megatons by 2030, while Natural Resources Canada estimates its contribution to 45 megatons.
People inspected a transparent model of the Hyundai Tucson hydrogen-powered fuel cell at the 2015 Canadian International Motor Show in Toronto. (Darren Calabrese / Canadian Press)
The commissioner said both departments were probably wrong because they used “unrealistic assumptions to model the hydrogen potential”.
The commissioner said Natural Resources Canada expects an “ambitious technology breakthrough” over the next eight years – an assumption he said is not necessarily based on reality.
While the government wants to increase hydrogen use to significantly reduce emissions, there is essentially no meaningful plan for that to happen, he said.
Highly expensive hydrogen
The commissioner said so-called “green” hydrogen – a form of fuel produced by electrolysis without emissions – may not be widespread until the end of the decade because it is prohibitively expensive.
According to the commissioner’s report, the production of a gigajoule of natural gas costs about $ 3.79, while a gigajoule of green hydrogen costs more than $ 60 if it is produced using electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar energy.
Due to this huge price mismatch, there is little incentive for the industry to produce green hydrogen.
Citing government figures, the commissioner said Canada’s actual annual hydrogen production is only about 3 megatons – almost all of which is “gray” hydrogen, a dirtier form that produces about twice the amount of natural gas emissions.
The commissioner also said he had doubts about whether hydrogen could play a significant role in Canada in the short term, as very little of the necessary infrastructure – such as hydrogen pipelines and liquefaction plants – is available.
Aspiration numbers
DeMarco also said that there is not enough carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) technology to produce “blue” hydrogen, a form of fuel that is extracted from natural gas through a process of steam reforming methane. CCUS is a process that captures and reuses or stores carbon dioxide emissions.
While Natural Resources Canada has publicly stated that hydrogen uptake could account for up to 15 percent of the emission reductions needed to reach the 2030 target, the commissioner said the department’s own internal numbers are based on “growing demand reports”. , suggest that hydrogen will contribute only 0.5% to the 2030 target.
The commissioner said the department did not find these emission reduction targets “captivating” and instead chose to use “more desirable numbers” in drawing up its emission modeling plan.
“In our opinion, this plan is not completely transparent because it includes assumptions that are not clear and relies on some policies that have not been announced or are not in force,” the commissioner said.
If the government “does not properly design the impact of hydrogen on reducing emissions, then there is a risk that Canada will not achieve its emission reduction targets,” he said.
The commissioner blames Ottawa for a non-existent “fair transition” plan.
DeMarco said the government has done little to prepare for an expected wave of cuts in the energy sector as the country moves away from fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas in the coming years.
DeMarco said the government had long promised to draw up a “fair transition” plan to help affected workers with incomes and pensions and retraining. He said the government was “slow”, had taken “little action” and was terribly “unprepared” for possible mass unemployment.
Workers maintain an oil rig in Alberta. (Kyle Bucks / CBC)
He said the government’s recent approach to job losses in the coal industry – Ottawa is seeing a complete cessation of electricity with coal by 2030 – leaves much to be desired.
Instead of developing a plan to address the specific needs of laid-off coal workers, DeMarco said the federal government relied heavily on the existing employment program (EI). It must take a different approach for other emission-intensive sectors that are expected to lose jobs, DeMarco said.
Without further action, the country as a whole could experience something like a catastrophic moratorium on cod in Newfoundland and Labrador, DeMarco said, leading to thousands of job losses and depopulation in the province.
There are approximately 170,000 direct fossil fuel jobs in Canada, and there must be legislation and a plan “to support the future and livelihoods of workers and communities affected by the transition to a low-carbon economy,” he said.
“The current pace of planning for a fair transition will make it difficult to cope with the forthcoming changes in the labor market.”
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