I’ve been living in the UK since I began studying energy issues a few years ago. It’s a great country for this type of work with lots of (comparatively) progressive policies being discussed and implemented. Unfortunately being in the UK also means that I don’t really know what’s happening in Canada. Occasionally I’ll see an interesting article on globeandmail.com but I’m usually disappointed by the lack of awareness and consideration for environmental or social energy policy issues in North American media outlets.
So it was a pleasant surprise when I saw that the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives published a review of energy policy in my home province, Nova Scotia. Written by Dalhousie professor Larry Hughes, the report looks at developments in the energy sector in 2004 and asks whether or not NS is ticking the right boxes. Over the past 50 years or so, “energy” in Nova Scotia has been synonymous with coal but offshore oil and gas are the new fuels since their discovery in the waters near Sable Island. The sector’s been booming in the past few years but Prof Hughes highlights several signs that the party may be almost over:
- The raw resource is in decline: a 60% decrease in total estimated Sable gas reserves and 37% decline in production from 2003.
- New exploration is becoming more expensive with no new exploration licences and no applications for licence extensions.
- Constructing a liquid natural gas port to make use of the excess pipeline capacity resulting from declining offshore production is unlikely to provide major benefits to the region.
- In the quest to eliminate red tape, offshore workers are still not afforded the same workplace health and safety standards as other Nova Scotian workers.
- Arguably, legislation like the Electricity Act has been geared to meet the needs of Nova Scotia Power Inc. and not Nova Scotians.
These findings do not bode well for the future of offshore oil and gas in Nova Scotia but for me, the report’s most important critique was its implication that energy policy in Nova Scotia – like those rare Globe and Mail articles – has completely missed the mark on larger energy-related issues.
Energy security is one such concern. In the traditional sense, the term means that Nova Scotia’s increasing reliance on imported oil and gas will make it captive to rising prices in the global market with potentially damaging economic effects. But right now, energy security means something very different to the thousands of Nova Scotians who are unable to affordably heat their homes. This phenomenon is widely known in the UK as fuel poverty and the most appropriate remedy is to improve the thermal efficiency of these homes, thereby reducing the amount of energy required to heat homes. Instead the NS government is providing “fuel assistance” payments of $200 per household, a short-sighted move which will only set the precedent for fatter payments as energy prices continue to rise.
Reducing energy demand through efficiency and conservation also tackles the climate change question, which the province has failed to address sufficiently to date. Cynically I would suggest that the flash of offshore black gold has blinded the government to Nova Scotia’s more traditional – and more sustainable – sources of energy wealth: biomass, winds, waves, tides, and sun. There is great potential in these resources, especially in microgeneration applications: biomass micro-CHP isn’t all that different from my grandmother’s old wood stove.
At one point in the report, Hughes implies that “an over-inflated view of Nova Scotia’s importance as an energy player” is harming the province’s ability to make sensible energy policy. This strikes me as a perfect summary of the situation and the goverment’s knee-jerk reaction to the report’s publications only confirms this suspicion. From my position on the other side of the Atlantic, I’m thrilled that the CCPA and Prof Hughes are raising these questions, stirring public debate and hopefully leading to sound energy policy decisions. I look forward to reading the 2005 version of the report, due to be released sometime next year.
