When François Legault threw this stone into the pond, in Bécancour, I said to myself: look, another politician who wants to win votes with Hydro-Québec dams.
Posted at 6:30 a.m.
The older ones will remember, for example, the declaration of the former leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, Robert Bourassa, who had promised to create 100,000 jobs in 1971 with the large construction site in Baie-James.
Which fly stung François Legault? In his words, “you don’t have to be an accountant to understand. We will have to build a half-Hydro-Québec in the next few years” to concretize the projects on the table. In short, new dams are needed, and quickly, especially since they take 15 years to design and build.
No doubt the politician has inflated the numbers to show off, I thought to myself. That he added up all the projects without subtracting those that will never come true. That he minimized the energy savings that Quebecers can make.
Currently, Hydro-Québec produces about 200 terawatt hours (TWh) per year and according to François Legault, the new demand for the next few years will reach 100 TWh, hence the 50% jump in production. Ayoy!
However while searching, I realized that this forecast of 100 TWh does not come only from the communication team of the politician. It is also estimated by three organizations, namely the Trottier Energy Institute, the Dunsky firm and Hydro-Québec.
Their conclusion is relatively simple. Some 46% of the energy consumed in Quebec comes from hydroelectricity, wind power or biomass, and the rest is essentially fossil energy, used mainly in transportation.
However, to achieve the objective of carbon neutrality in 2050 – and therefore fill most of the remaining 54% –, it will be necessary to multiply green energy projects over the next few years.
“And this is the case even when deploying all the least expensive solutions, such as energy saving,” says Normand Mousseau, scientific director of the Trottier Energy Institute, whose forecasts take into account the economic and population growth, among others.
The Dunsky firm, for its part, even arrives at 137 TWh in 2050, a jump of 65% rather than 50%.
In short, there is no doubt that we have to roll up our sleeves. The total needs could even exceed 100 TWh by adding the new projects currently in the boxes of Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon, in particular those of the electric battery sector1.
Of course, Hydro-Québec is not standing idly by. Currently, the state corporation has several projects on the table that will allow it to fatten its available energy.
First, there are energy efficiency measures, thanks to which it expects to release 8 TWh of energy over the next 10 years. Added to this is around 11 TWh with the refurbishment of old power stations.
To this volume must be added Hydro-Québec’s calls for tenders which are in progress or announced, and whose wind power or other sources will total around 15 TWh. In addition, we must take into account the request made by François Legault in Bécancour on Tuesday for a new volume of wind power, which should reach approximately 8 TWh.
In short, before talking about new large dams, Hydro should be able to inflate its energy block by about 42 TWh out of the 100 TWh required.
Despite everything, the remaining volume of 58 TWh remains enormous. To give you an idea, the hydroelectric power stations newly commissioned 20 years ago (Eastmain, Péribonka, La Romaine, etc.) total 24 TWh.
It will therefore be necessary to unearth 2 to 3 times more new sources within 25 years than we have found for 20 years with dams. And we hope that the giant contract for Churchill Falls (32 TWh), which expires in 2041, will be renewed without too many problems.
But is it necessary to build new dams? The problem with dams is that new power plants would be further and further away and therefore more expensive. This is without taking into account that it would be necessary to come to an agreement with the Aboriginals in a context where the constitution of immense reservoirs is much less accepted and feasible nowadays.
At the same time, new sources of renewable energy cost less and less, although good wind sites will eventually dry up. And let’s be aware of this: Quebec currently has around 2,000 wind turbines, a figure that should probably be multiplied by 3 or 4, depending on their efficiency, to meet new needs. Imagine the impact on the landscape!
According to expert Pierre-Olivier Pineau, from HEC Montréal, the construction of new dams is a costly and complicated avenue in the short term, and it is therefore preferable to opt for wind power. Especially since our current hydroelectric reservoirs can serve as batteries, in a way, to store the energy produced by wind turbines – and unused – during the summer or during the nights.
In other words, resuscitating dam projects like Grande-Baleine, in the Far North, is probably the least interesting option for the moment, whatever François Legault may say.
One thing is certain, however, these large and increasingly expensive energy needs will come with a bill. It is impossible to achieve carbon neutrality by thinking that tariffs will remain stable or very low, as many politicians promise.
And anyway, higher tariffs would encourage users to save more energy, contributing to this great national ambition.
1. It should be noted that the contracts with New York (10.4 TWh) and Massachusetts-NECEC (9.45 TWh) are already taken into account in Hydro-Québec’s production and therefore excluded from the additional needs of 100 TWh of here 2050.