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Last updated 2025.10.15
Canada's Projects in the National Interest - Clearing Some Trash
The coal age is dead.
From 2022 coal use worldwide has flatlined. Major user countries (China, India,Other Asia are slowing their rates of growth, while the U.S., EU and the rest of the world are actually reducing coal use. In October of 2025, the U.S. government – actively promoting coal resurgence – received only a single bid for massive coal reserves on government land, and rejected that bid because it was too low for their liking. In Canada, only 3% of electricity generated in 2024 came from coal – a 72% drop since the turn of this century.
The oil age is coming to an end.
This is mostly due to the increasing acquisition and use of electric drive for ground transportation and short-haul on-water transportation, and niches in air transportation. This is because electric propulsion is more reliable and with lower fuel costs than refined oil fuels. Other uses of oil, e.g., heating for buildings and domestic hot water, are being replaced by clean technologies like heat pumps, better insulation, use of energy-recovery ventilators, passive solar heating features … This shift is driven by simple financials as costs of the new technologies are dropping, while oil prices continue to rise as the easy, cheap oil is gone and now we’re going after the harder to access (e.g. offshore) and worse (heavy oils, bitumen) sources. Eventually, taxpayer subsidies for oil will be reduced or removed, which will make oil completely uncompetitive with renewable energy.The Stone Age came to an end not for a lack of stones, and the Oil Age will end, but not for a lack of oil.
~ Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani (2000)
The fossil methane age is coming to an end, and especially LNG.
It is projected that LNG demand will continue to rise for 2-3 more years, then drop. Already (2025) LNG tanker ships are sitting idle, and being sent to be disassembled and recycled.
LNG demand in China will drop massively when the Russia-China NG pipeline is operational. The EU is working diligently to
reduce its use of natural gas broadly to reduce dependence on Russian NG. Once they achieve that goal (possibly in 2027),
they will then start to erode demand for LNG imports as renewable continue to be installed at an accelerating rate.
Japan is restarting its nuclear fission fleet, which will massively reduce their need for LNG for electricity generation.
It will take any new LNG project in Canada a minimum of 7 years to reach production status.
By 2032, the global LNG market will be in rapid decline.
It is already established that LNG is not a clean fuel solution for reducing GHG emissions; it is actually worse than burning coal in terms of overall GHG production for useful energy delivered.
The nuclear fission age is coming to an end.
Other than a small number of ill-fated 'small modular' reactor experiments funded by taxpayers, nuclear fission for peaceful use will be limited to decommissioning, which likely take 5 decades or more, mostly at taxpayer expense. The actual generating capacity and production of electricity from nuclear fission in Canada has been falling from 2016 to 2024 (last full year reported).
The existing civil nuclear fleet is aging out, and so is the workforce with the requisite expertise.
There is still no solution in sight for the permanent safe disposal of nuclear fission radioactive waste. Storage projects are under construction at very high cost, at taxpayer expense, but storage is not the same as disposal. As disposal would be less expensive, presumably this means the nuclear industry (e.g. NWMO) has plans for future use of the radioactive waste, possibly for weapons.Mark Jacobson's (a better known environment / energy expert) June 2025 take on nuclear fission. Read it for yourself (12 pages) and draw your own conclusions. For my take from about 2 decades ago, I recommend Chapter 8 from my book The Emperor's New Hydrogen Economy
The hydrogen energy economy has failed to launch, and for good reasons..
So, given the context above, and the
July 2025 Advisory Notification from the International Court of Justice, and the
expectation that
the EU CBAM duties will come into effect in January 2026,
I have a list of non-starter categories for projects in the national interest.
(For clarity, my definition for a 'national project' is one approved by the federal government as such or reliant on funds from the
Canadian taxpayer up front, during construction or production operation or for decommissioning and remediation. In my view,
a project which will hasten the extinction of Canadian humans or expose Canadian taxpayers to incalculable and uncontrollable
future costs or closes off export markets to Canadians in order to continue subsidizing fossil fuel companies
is not in the national interest.)
- Any pipelines or other new or upgrading of infrastructure intended primarily for the export of fossil fuels from Canada to anywhere (oil, fossil methane aka ‘natural gas’, LNG, dilbit, propane, butane, coal, etc.)
- Any new infrastructure for hydrogen as an energy store (fuel), including production, distribution, storage or utilization.
- Any work related to the planning, construction, refurbishment, or decommissioning of nuclear fission operations, or for the storage of spent fuel or other highly radioactive waste associated with nuclear fission for energy production. /LI>
- Any work related to the mining of additional uranium in Canada for export.
I am not advocating for a prohibition of any of the above areas, so long as they are fully funded by the proponent, and the financing plan assures that no liability can ever fall upon Canadian taxpayers, including judgments falling under the umbrella of the ICJ Advisory Notification or CBAM tariffs imposed on other Canadian exporters making insignificant contributions to Canada’s GHG emissions.
If it’s for-profit and passes the regulatory requirements, then the private sector can undertake all the risk associated with the project. This means the proponent pays all the costs of the licensing and regulatory processes, and does not get to use publicly-funded police forces or the military as their goon squads.
Having taken care of that, let's move on to some things that are positive and constructive for the future of humans and other species on our planet, and Canadians in particular.
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