It’s been a rollercoaster ride for the energy industry lately. Volatile fossil fuel prices and supply chain disruptions have forced governments to take a hard look at domestic energy security – something that has been taken for granted for many years with ever-increasing globalization. These difficulties come as countries are taking steps to tackle the climate crisis. This opens the debate on how to balance concerns over emissions, fuel costs and geopolitics.
Canada is not immune to these worldwide problems. Although we are lucky to have an electricity system that is more than 80 per cent low-carbon and generated from domestic resources, including uranium mined in Canada, our energy system overall is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels. Transportation, buildings and industry are still mostly powered and heated by oil and natural gas, a significant portion of which is imported.
Countries have been forced to publicly reconsider their positions on nuclear power, which in many cases has been based on politics rather than economic and climate policy. Governments that once suggested they were finished with nuclear power are now admitting that such statements were premature.
