(Thetford Mines) Dominique Anglade’s ECO project on the development of green hydrogen would require the equivalent of 21 Romaine complexes in electricity production, much more than the Liberal leader said at a press conference. To achieve this, wind turbines and solar panels should spring up like mushrooms, since the liberal leader rules out the construction of new dams.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
Updated at 6:31 p.m.
Dominique Anglade has spoken about it in all her speeches since the start of the electoral campaign, but for the first time, she devoted an announcement on Monday to her ECO project. “ECO for ecology, ECO for economy”, as she insists. It is “Quebec’s biggest economic project since Robert Bourassa’s James Bay,” she believes. It’s an image, since Dominique Anglade is not talking here about a hydroelectric site.
Her project aims to develop and nationalize a new source of energy, green hydrogen, in order to achieve carbon neutrality in Quebec by 2050. It would represent public and private investments of $100 billion by then, according to her. .
In another stop in Laval (Mille-Îles), Dominique Anglade explained at a press conference that it would take 100 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity to carry out his project – hydrogen is extracted by passing an electric current through the water to break down its molecules.
But the project is much more greedy in electricity than what Dominique Anglade said. His team indeed clarified afterwards that it is indeed 170 TWh that would be needed in practice. This is 21 times the annual production of Quebec’s newest hydroelectric complex, La Romaine, on the North Shore.
“There is one thing that is clear: the energy saving project, the wind project and the solar project, we will have to invest massively in this to get there, recognized the head. liberal. It’s a lot of energy that we will have to get, but that’s how we have to go. It is the project of a generation. »
It is possible, according to her, to recover 16 TWh in energy saving; twice as much as Hydro-Québec is aiming for by 2030. Asked whether measures will affect people’s lives in order to change their consumption habits, she replied that “it’s sure that everyone” will have to put “your own” into it. “But the vast majority of all this will be done in buildings, and that will be the subject of a later announcement”, this Tuesday.
This also means that wind turbines and solar panels would have to be installed for an additional electricity production of no less than 154 TWh. It’s gigantic.
Last week, François Legault undertook to ask Hydro-Québec to evaluate the construction of new hydroelectric dams – a reflection that the Crown corporation has already begun, according to its most recent strategic plan. But for Dominique Anglade, it is an outdated solution. She criticizes him for not recognizing the potential that green hydrogen represents for Quebec.
In the same document, Hydro-Québec says it intends to “bet on green hydrogen” in order to be “a driver of efficient decarbonization in Quebec”. The state-owned company thus wants to “indirectly electrify uses for which direct electrification is not technically or economically possible, in particular certain types of heavy transport as well as chemical and industrial processes”.
“45% of what we consume here in Quebec are hydrocarbons,” said Dominique Anglade. And this 45% must be partly electrified, but we cannot electrify everything. There are things in Quebec that we are not able to electrify because they are very long distances” or because “the batteries are too heavy”, hence the need to use green hydrogen . This is the case for heavy, rail, maritime and aeronautical transport. The steel, refining and cement sectors could also convert to green hydrogen, adds the PLQ.
In the afternoon, Dominique Anglade visited a Thetford Mines company that develops technologies related to hydrogen, ASDevices. One of its leaders noted that Quebec is slow to enter the global race for this source of energy, which the Liberal leader also deplores. “China is moving extremely fast, Germany too. [Ici]he lacks the will, we have to engage, ”he said.