The Canadian government has just confirmed its intention to export natural gas in a few years to help Europe, and more particularly its industrial engine, Germany. Since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who recently visited us, has been seeking to “liberate” his country from Russian natural gas, the supply of which could soon cease completely.
The challenge of reducing dependence on coal, fuel oil and nuclear remains immense for the whole of Europe and for the rest of the world.
It is unfortunate that the gas offered by Canada as a medium-term solution is more harmful to the environment than that of Russia, which comes from conventional deposits and is delivered by pipeline. The hydraulic fracturing process used here and in the United States means that methane gas, although it emits fewer polluting particles into the atmosphere during its combustion, contributes to global warming just as much as oil and coal.
However, our country continues to promote natural gas from Alberta as an acceptable transitional energy. To do this, it relies on CO capture and storage technology.2 which has not yet been proven on a large scale and whose cost would be borne in large part by taxpayers through transition subsidy programs.
However, the government of Justin Trudeau imposes as a condition on the promoters to develop in parallel with the LNG infrastructures the green hydrogen sector, which it considers more accessible in the short term and irreproachable from an environmental point of view.
The color of hydrogen
This green hydrogen would be produced by electrolysis of water using electricity generated by wind turbines or by hydroelectric installations, while blue hydrogen and gray hydrogen are produced from natural gas and oil respectively, so less ecological. But will they be excluded from exports? We can doubt it.
Green hydrogen has its uses in certain areas, such as in industrial manufacturing processes and heavy transport. Thus, trains and semi-trailer trucks benefit from being powered by electricity from hydrogen tanks, lithium batteries being too heavy and bulky.
However, the export of large quantities of green hydrogen seems difficult to achieve because of the costs associated with its production. The exporting country is depriving itself of renewable energy which it itself needs to meet its own decarbonization objectives. Canada is already lagging behind in this regard.
On the other hand, everything indicates that Canada’s energy supply would serve more to satisfy the demand of the industrial sector than to meet the basic needs of the population: lighting, cooking, heating. For these domestic uses, the German government is already recommending energy rationing measures.
An excuse for the status quo
The delivery of green hydrogen and possibly liquefied natural gas from fracking would actually serve to maintain a system of production and consumption of goods which, in half a century, has succeeded in undermining a good part of the resources of the biosphere. In particular with the manufacture of motor vehicles, now in excess in all developed countries and on the way to becoming so even among the poorest.
It would be absurd to export our energy to primarily support the production rate of Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW – the three largest German companies, which alone in 2020 totaled a turnover of 530 billion euros.
A slowdown in the energy-starved German economy would of course lead to layoffs and supply difficulties for all of its trading partners. This may be the price to pay for real change.
In a context of labor shortages, the workers affected should not have too much trouble retraining for less paying but more rewarding sectors. The wisest will console themselves with the idea of being nothing more than cogs on an assembly line, while waiting for their elimination by the robotization and relocation favored by these multinationals.
We should seize this opportunity to take a healthy break in terms of growth and consumption, even if it means going through a good recession. It is high time to relearn how to live by taking note of the finiteness of the resources of our only habitable planet.