The Iran war has shocked us. We are shocked by the audacity of the United States to enter this Middle East war. We are shocked that this war has impacted us economically. We are shocked at the prices we pay at the pump, the increased prices to transport goods from one side of the province to the other. We have been shocked by the sudden increase in plane fares. And we are learning that electricity is king.
We haven’t learned anything from the oil embargo of the 1970s that saw gas prices spiral and shortages appeared. That too was brought on by an oil crisis. We are again learning that oil is a great economical equalizer. The war has reduced the availability of oil, sending prices soaring and hurting every economy in the world. And we ae rediscovering that we can’t control inflation.
We are really learning that electricity is our answer today and will be well into the future. We must diversify energy resources from carbon fuels. Our country must be just brave enough to embrace this change of culture. Yes, hydrocarbons will be needed for decades to come and shipping oil and gas through pipelines to coastal waters and then transporting those carbons to Asia and the far east will provide huge capital to fund the future of Canada.
But economists are telling us to commit capital to green energy projects. China today gets 15 per cent of its power from green energy and annually brought on stream 76 gigawatts of power in 2024, enough power for 76 million households in one year. China is still dependent of coal-fired power generation but is transforming its electrical energy supplies.
In North America, we continue to choose gas-guzzling vehicles over hybrids and EV’s. And the owners of EV’s have not seen an increase in the cost of electricity to drive their vehicles. And homeowners who rely on heat pumps and electric furnaces have not seen an increase in electrical rates that their neighbors are experiencing with natural gas.
This Iranian war is transforming how we look at energy. The sad part of this challenge is that Canada and most nations have not planned for the electrical energy that we will require in the next decade. We are not even prepared to move electricity effectively across provincial boundaries.
To meet future demands, we must create a national electrical grid. We must expand the production of power though more wind, solar, nuclear and thermal power.
