Are you up to date on what's happening with renewable energy? It is a fascinating industry that is changing just like any other tech space at a rapid, rapid pace. The problem is a lot of the news and media that's coming out is based on what happened 10 years ago or even 20 years ago. And that is a problem because that is affecting how people see renewable energy in the future. even though behind the scenes, renewable energy is increasing in every country.
It's a really interesting thing that we're going to talk about on today's episode, because I have Mark Zacharias, who is the executive director of Clean Energy Canada. He is here to talk about an article that was written on the Fraser Institute website, which is not really known as the best type of information. And he had some comments on an article that talked about how renewable energy is going to be a lot more expensive than we think. He refutes that. We talk
about it on today's episode. So this is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey, everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Angelo. And this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by
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Friday, 8 a.m. Eastern, every Monday to Friday. So speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter for that information. All right. We're talking to Mark Zacharias, Executive Director of Clean Energy Canada today. He's going to talk about an article that he commented on. I found his article on LinkedIn or his commentary on LinkedIn basically saying, hey, look, this article is saying a lot of stuff, but it's a lot of the information is outdated. They're just
kind of bringing it back. But there's been a lot of advancements over the last 10, five, even two, three years. And that we're really progressing on. In fact, there are some governments in Canada, provincial governments that have actually been accelerating their investment and their projects on renewable energies, even though when they first came into power, the Ontario Conservatives were not having it. They cancelled a bunch of contracts, but now they've actually increased it. And we also talk
about the carbon tax. Oh, oh, the carbon tax. It is the bane of existence for a lot of us, but it's done its job. We talk about how it's done its job. And Mark also talks about what could happen in the future if the new government that comes in in October or whenever the next Canadian election is, will that carbon tax be there? And if it's not, what will happen? And what
do we need to worry about if we need to worry about anything at all? So we're gonna talk all about that this interview, and this is Mark Zacharias, Executive Director of Clean Energy Canada, talking about the article and carbon tax. Enjoy, and I'll talk to you after. Hey Mark, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to Right on. I'm so excited about this. Mark, you and I
have known each other for a long time. We actually shared the same supervisor for our graduate work, believe it or not, way back in the day for both of us. And this is really fun because right now we're going to be talking about clean energy. There was an article that was put on a website, the Fraser Institute, that said clean energy is going to cost a lot of money. And you had some comments on that on
LinkedIn. And I asked you, hey, let's talk about it on the podcast, because I want people to hear some of the stuff that goes on and some of the information that was used, some of the data that was using that information. It
was, you know, used from like 19 years ago, as you mentioned before. And so I want to talk about what the new information is, what your comments are, and where we should be thinking about renewable energy in the future, especially some of the myths that are going on about renewable energy and the costs and sort of what it's going to do to our grid and everything. So we're going to get into all that, but before we do, Mark, can you just let us know who you
Thanks, Andrew. My name is Mark Zacharias. I am the Executive Director of Clean Energy Canada. We are a climate and clean energy think tank based out of Simon Fraser University, and And it's a great organization too. I love going on your website. You always have useful tips and strategies and just like, it almost explains the carbon tax so well. We had Jana on a number of months ago. We
talked about the carbon tax. We talked about heat exchanger programs in Canada, but we're gonna talk more today about an article that was put out by the Fraser Institute. Can you just tell us a little Yeah, there's been a number of commentators recently that have basically put out three kind of different arguments around renewable energy and focusing a little bit on British Columbia,
but really they're relevant Canada wide and globally. The first one is that renewable energy costs too much and it's intermittent. So therefore it makes grids less reliable and it drives up costs for the consumer at the end of the day, which you pay in your electricity rate. So that's kind of the first argument. The second one is that climate policies will break the grid. So this is things like EV sales mandates. It's things like heat pump mandates. It's
banning natural gas and new developments that all of this. adds more stress to the electricity grid and will eventually overwhelm it or again, drive up costs. I think the third argument you're seeing from a lot of groups across Canada is that Canadian utilities do import a lot of power in certain situations. The suggestion is that by importing power, this means that you
have some type of structural electricity deficit. Again, we want to respond to all of these because You know, there's nuggets of truth around all of these and there's different examples worldwide where these things have happened. But, you know, right now in this day and time around the globe, most of these are Right. And I think one of the things that really bothers me about this type of information, especially around renewable energy, fossil fuels, it seems like the messages are
corrupted on purpose. It seems like we've known from the past, like from climate change and the climate change messaging coming from the decades past that we know even oil companies have come out and said, yes, we actually perpetuated those climate denial types of information and that climate change didn't exist and it was all a scheme done by
environmentalists and so forth. And even now with renewable energy, I hear a lot of friends and family talk about renewable energy and you hear those myths that just continue to come up and that misinformation that continues to come up and up and up. Like the information that you talked about, that some of the stuff is true, but also it's blown out of proportion or it's not using updated data. Where's that information coming?
You know, there's a couple of points to make, and I think you've had a very good set up for this conversation that, you know, a lot of the information that people have in their heads that they've heard are, you know, are things that were, again, relevant, you know, 10 or 15 years ago. You know, people constantly refer back to Kathleen Wynne and the Ontario government around renewable deployment, which was almost 10 years
ago. And again, you know, that was done in a way where technology was not cost effective and the rate design program actually drove up costs for consumers. So people remember that and they keep coming back to kind of what's transpired. The other part that we notice a lot and more recently is that renewable energy, EVs, heat pumps, they've all become part of the culture wars. And you're either on TVV or Team Renewable Energy,
or you're not. And the reality is that if you look at the US, for example, you know, the states that have the five highest renewable and solar shares in their electricity system, You know, they've got Republican governors, they've been Republican held. So, you know, what you're seeing on the ground is very different than the stories that are being told in the media and on podcasts and other
It is, it is interesting and but it's also it's frustrating. Sometimes, for me to continue to hear this kind of stuff and you want as you want the information coming forward and that's what I love about your organization is that it provides that information. And it's like, you're an organization that just puts out the information and for anybody to read it. And I really enjoy how
it's disseminated because it makes it so easy to understand. Because it can be complex, renewable energy and just energy sector in general, especially here in Canada. There's a lot of culture involvement in that and history, good and bad. And it's nice to be able to find an organization that's ready to put out that information that's truthful and updated and follows that. I feel like we don't have enough of that. So thank you for you and your staff and
your team to be able to do that. Now let's sort of get into this article. You mentioned those three points. You had some three points like rebuttals in the end. So let's start with the beginning. That's that it drives up cost, right? Renewable Yeah. And you know our experience and looking worldwide in jurisdictions that are moving their electricity grids off of coal and natural gas and other fossil fuels has been actually the opposite. And let's look at
some jurisdictions. South Australia is a great example. their electricity grid 10 years ago was almost exclusively fossil-powered, natural gas and coal. Since then, because they don't have a lot of domestic reserves of coal, they had to import a lot of their energy, they made a conscious decision over multiple premiers during this time to actually switch to a renewable grid. Right now, their grid is 75% wind and solar. and
they have a very large proportion of battery storage. And then what they've been able to do is they've been able to commit that their grid will be 100% renewable powered, and that's all solar, all grid, by 2027. And, you know, it's remarkable kind of what's happened there. The other ones I would look at is some of the U.S. states, like Iowa is a classic example. So they went all in wind a couple of years ago. So 55% of their electricity grid is now powered by wind. And
that's a massive share. And again, their electricity costs are 25% less than the U.S. average. Even Texas, which has a 37% solar and wind share in their electricity system. their electricity costs, again, 25% less than the U.S. average. So you can actually do it. And even if you look here at home in Canada, look over at Alberta. There was a renewable procurement a couple of years ago in Alberta, and they got power bids coming in around $0.05 a kilowatt hour. And,
you know, that's remarkable. And again, that's the power that's produced. But if you look at the domestic Alberta electricity rate, you know, it's almost 26 cents kilowatt hours. The delta between what you can produce that versus what you can sell to the retail consumer has a great opportunity to make money. So there are examples all over the world. And, you know, What I think people point to is they point to the examples that don't work, or
where things have gone wrong, or where there's extenuating circumstances. Everybody points to Germany, going, oh my God, look at electricity costs in Germany. A couple of things happen there. One is they shut down nuclear plants. Two is they are based in an EU electricity market that has a lot of peculiarities to it. what happens is it can drive up electricity rates. Then they also point to the war in Ukraine where Germany had made a bet on Russian gas
and they had to get off fairly quickly. That's an example. Another one people point to is California. Californians pay about $0.30 a kilowatt hour US for power, which is astronomical. Compare that to the Canadian average around $0.15 or $0.16 a Canadian, and there's quite a difference in that. And again, you know, there's a whole bunch of structural issues kind of behind why
those power rates are so high. Some of them historical, some of the more recent, you know, the more recent ones are that they are having to rebuild their entire electricity grid because of climate change and in wildfires. So, you know, all those costs get put back on the right pair. And so, you know, the
answer at the end of the day is complicated. So the bottom line though is if you do it it right if you plan ahead and if you actually have all your facts together and everything lined up, you can build renewables into your grid and you can save money, address affordability, you can attract industry, you can do all sorts of things right. Maybe the last thing I'll say before you jump to the next question is, Ontario is such an
interesting study right now. If you remember when Doug Ford came in, he canceled 700 plus renewable energy contracts. And in the last two years, the opposite has happened. Ontario has almost two site C's worth of battery storage procurements that are now finished. They're looking at building more renewables for the grid right now. They just announced last week 10 plus billion dollars to help homeowners switch to heat pumps and
other technologies that are going to save them money and clean up the grid. So I Yeah, yeah. It's funny, though. I live in Ontario. I haven't heard that. And I'm pretty, I follow this quite frequently. I wonder, you know, he's, you know, he's come out, Doug Ford, the Premier has come out very against renewables saying it's like the costs are too high. Has it changed over his last,
Oh, absolutely. I mean, Ontario through its utilities and its regulators have been looking at procuring more wind power, particularly from some of the northern parts of the province. You know, the battery storage and what they've done there is quite amazing. You know, they're bringing nuclear back online on time, on budget, you know, and in the
atomic and nuclear world, that's almost unheard of to be able to do that. So, I mean, good on Ontario for you know, for kind of realizing the error of their ways when they first came into power and realizing that, hey, wait a minute, clean energy
is something that a lot of foreign investment is looking for. And if you look at the 50 plus billion dollars of kind of automotive battery plants that have been landed in Canada, most in Ontario, some in Quebec, you know, that's all predicated on a clean grid. And if you look at these companies that have come into Ontario, and rescue the automotive manufacturing industry, you know, the first thing they say is they say you've got affordable, reliable, cheap,
clean power. And, you know, the Ford administration has realized Yeah. So it's almost like it's not that necessarily they want to change. It's almost like they're forced the chain to bring in more investment, to bring in more opportunity, especially Ontario is known for its automotive sector and it was dying at one point. It wasn't very good at one point and now it started to, it looks like it's reinvigorated with all these plants that we're going to be putting in for, or changing over to the
electric vehicles. So with Volkswagen and other places, so other companies. So that's wonderful. We're going to go on to the next question. I'm sure you've been asked this question a number of times. You thought about it and talked about it a number of times. It seems that the federal level, one party is talking about renewable energies and we need to do more investment and another party is not talking about that. It's talking
about the opposite of that. It costs too much. They're still on the cost. Because this question is all about the cost, The cost that happened so long ago, like even over a decade ago and the problems that we had there, why is that being brought back up knowing that the cost has been reduced and that there's more opportunity? It's almost like we should be switching over and we should be making those investments
Yeah. And if you look at, for example, the federal conservatives and the federal liberals, and to a lesser extent, the NDP, but you know, the federal conservatives, you know, have made part of their election platform, clean energy. They do want to build a grid. They want to build the grid. They want more nuclear. You know, they don't talk about renewables as much or at all, but you know, unsaid is that's
part of the equation. So I think, you know, anybody that wants to govern federally in Canada, You know, it's going to realize fairly quickly that, you know, our grid is 83, 84% non-emitting, and that is a massive competitive advantage. The other thing too, is you get briefed up as a leader of any party, you realize that 8% of our electricity generation goes to the US. And, you know, the opportunity there for arbitrage and profit is fairly substantial. So, you know,
it is kind of known. Now, what the difference being is that each political party has a different way of getting there. You know, the federal government has its clean electricity regulations, you know, which stipulate that there's a carbon intensity for every unit of electricity produced. You know, obviously, some provinces object
to that and have been objecting to that. The final rules are in place. you know, they've been adjusted a little bit to make sure Alberta, Ontario, Saskatchewan and some of the other provinces can actually meet the 2035 target in a way that has minimal effect on the rate pair. But if you look at the kind of more, you know, center right parties, they're kind of flipping it around a little bit going, okay, you know, we'll use tax
incentives rather than regulation to get to the same place. So, you know, ultimately, I think all parties kinda know they need to get to a massively expanded clean
grid because it's in our competitive interests. And also too, is if you look at what's happening down south around potential tariffs and you know, having more electricity up here that's clean allows us to basically manufacture products that we can now sell into Europe, or we can sell into Asia, you know, where there is potentially a price premium on things that
are clean. So a huge opportunity there. So, you know, I just, I don't see the distance that a lot of people see between various political parties, mainly because we're in the weeds, and we're well i mean it's it is it's a relief to know because like it affects the way people vote you know i mean obviously this this election coming up for canada i think is a little a little bit different where it seems like maybe one you know the the liberals have overstayed their welcome or or what have
you and it seems like The genuine sort of prognosis is that the conservatives are going to get in, but it's scary for someone like myself who doesn't hear the conservative, the federal conservative party talk about climate change or how they're going to address climate change other than carbon capture, which we know that technology is not completely there at this point. It's just really it's nice to know that they actually have it in their platform. Maybe you have to do a little bit more
research on their platform and where that's available. But it is nice to know that that a lot of the political parties are moving towards that, because I think it's it's we're getting into dangerous territory here. You know, with the fires down in L.A. and, you know, we have we had fires a couple of like last year, not two years ago, I guess, that were pretty extravagant. And even now, it continues on now in certain parts of BC and so forth. So I think it's a little
dangerous, but that's good to know. Let's go on to the second argument, which was, I believe it was the energy, is Which we hear a lot, yes. Yes, yes. So talk about that. What were they saying? And then what's your This has been a kind of refrain that's been said around the world many, many times is that, you know, particular EV sales mandates will create a situation that will
overwhelm the electricity grid. Now, either at the macro level, you know, in a provincial or state or national scale, you know, or right down to your local level that, you know, they'll melt the transformers if everybody in your block gets an EV and charges at the same time. So, I mean, let's just start with EVs, then we'll work is that EVs have a very small impact over
on the grid. So if you look at, and again, I'll just take Canada for an example, looking at two or 3% more electricity required in the coming years, and that's to actually support the EV sales mandates that are in place kind of federally and provincially, which are very ambitious. VC's EV sales target is 90% by 2030 and 100% by 2035. The federal target is not far behind that. Yet,
you know, EVs are not massive consumers of the grid. And also too, what people tend to forget, you can go out today and you can buy an F-150 Lightning Extended Range, you can buy a Cybertruck, you can buy a Chevy Silverado kind of RST launch edition. All of these have vehicle-to-home charging capabilities. So your vehicle can store energy. But
that also means it's got vehicle-to-grid technologies. And there are pilots happening right now in the States where utilities are signing up F-150 Lightning owners to actually sell power back to the grid in time and needs. So here you are, and we're not very far away from the time where you will have an EV in your driveway. It'll be plugged into your house, but it's also gonna be plugged into the grid. And your utility, when you give them permission, can go and fish those electrons out
of your car, bring them back to the grid, push them back in. So your actually car starts to not just be an appliance that sits there when you're not driving it, it actually starts, it's a money maker. You know, that. And also too, it contributes to grid capacity and resilience. So, you know, that's just kind of one example of all this. And the other one too, You know, you live in Ontario, right? So you may be aware of it. They have this overnight EV charging
rate just over two cents. So when you actually do the math, you can take a Hyundai IONIQ 5 EV, you know, the one you see everywhere, kind of looks like an 80s kind of a Hyundai. You know, that will charge from zero to 100% for $2.35 right now. And compare that to a RAV4 with a 55 liter fuel tank. I think you guys pay around $1.70 or whatever for OK. And so anyways, you're looking at $90 plus. So the EVs can not only they can balance the grid, they can save homeowners money, both
in driving them and in the future in terms of selling power back to the grid. There are actually these massive mechanisms that will stabilize the grid over time as adoption continues. Heat pumps are another really interesting one that people go, oh, when you switch out a natural gas furnace, you switch to a heat pump. A couple of things are happening there. One is, a heat pump is three to five times more efficient than a gas furnace. Why
is that? One joule of energy gives you many more joules of heat or cooling, just how a heat pump works in terms of physics. Also too, gas appliances are not 100 percent efficient. That's one way that overall you save energy. The other interesting thing is parts of Canada, particularly in the West and BC, 40 percent of developing dwellings in BC are heated through baseboards and they're tremendously inefficient. If you actually switch out a dwelling that's currently heated with
a baseboard to a heat pump, you get massive amounts of savings. We've actually kind of figured it out that it's about $500 a year on your electricity bill you would save on your average dwelling. Just move into a heat pump from electric baseboard heating. So it's not a climate thing. It's just a household affordability thing. So, and then the other kind of piece of these arguments are that, you know, natural gas bans and new construction, you know,
will overwhelm the grid. And again, you know, very similar that because heat pumps are so efficient, you know, and because you can actually now have appliances like smart thermostats where the grid can control and you can actually use your house as a virtual power plant, you know, it's not the issue that Right. Right. I think it's really interesting, too, because we've always talked about how, as a species, we have to innovate to get out of this climate change. Not
only do we have to reduce our emissions, but we have to innovate. And it seems like we're doing that. And obviously, it takes time. And that evolution of that technology will always take time. And it'll be less cost effective at the beginning. And as we move through the progress. And as more and more people are using the technology, we get more efficient and more efficient, which seems to be with heat pumps, it seems to be with EVs. It just seems like it's always
there. It's going to continue to grow, it's going to continue to get better. But it seems like a lot of people are just stuck in the past, you know, and they don't want to embrace the new information. or get the new information. And I know it changes quickly, just like the tech industry does,
and so it's hard to keep up. But how come, you know, from a mainstream media point of view, why aren't we hearing about these success stories more often than You know, because, you know, the way media works is you have to have narrative tension. Right. You know, when someone on a block buys a electric pickup and all The person says, Oh, it's 10 bucks. And they go, what? And then they realize that, uh, you know, uh, F one 50 lightning is this exact
same cost as the internal combustion version. So what you do is you get the network effects starting to happen there. So, you know, that's the stuff that doesn't get reported on. I think what you're gonna see the media pick up on in the next couple of years, you know, worldwide, is these, you know, communities that are cut off because of drought, wildfires, flooding, and those communities, the option for them now is
to actually generate and store their own power. So, you know, there's a whole wave of new adopters coming, you know, because of these climate incidents that are happening. They're going to have rooftop solar and batteries and use their cars to store information, and they're going to work together as a community, a power to community. Now, we call these distributed energy resources in the tech terms, but reality, what
it is, it's community, resilience, self-sufficiency, sovereignty. Yeah, so you don't hear too much about the media, but what's interesting right now is if you look in the US, it's really interesting is that EV sales are at their highest level ever. Part of that is because the incoming Trump administration may get rid of the $7,500 tax credit. But also too, I think people in the US are realizing, I was just in California two and a half weeks ago, Gas down there is $4.50 US a gallon. It's
What's that equivalent for? Is that over $2 a liter? Yeah, it would be over $2. Wow, that is expensive. Man, that's insane. That's insane. I could not, I just, one of the reasons why I went, I have an EV. It's one of the reasons why I went to EV because we were approaching $2 here in Ontario at one point a couple of years ago in 2022. And I was just like, I can't do this anymore. My car's coming. It's at that point where if I turn it in, I could, I can do well, but I needed
premium gas and that was going to get more and more expensive. And I just like,
no, this is cheaper. And it's, and it's true. Now, one thing I'd love to get your, your, uh, your answer on when i went to so if you buy an ev in canada or you're looking to get an ev in ontario anyway you can go to it's like um uh it's like an ev place oh what's the name of it i forget the name of it but it's i think it's ev easy or something like that but you can go in they give you all the information all the different types of evs the
different types of chargers, you know, what to look for in terms of price of how you're charging it. And the woman there said that at night, they talked about, you know, the breaking the grid if everybody charged at night at the same time, if everybody, if all of Ontarians had, you know, an electric vehicle and said because at night they change over to nuclear power, it's not only cheaper, but you'll never really run out of out of energy. Is that is that a
Yeah. So there's a reason that, you know, the Ontario utilities are, you know, wanting you to charge it just over two cents a kilowatt hour, which is almost free power overnight. Yeah, it's for that very reason is they're trying to load balance across the daily cycle. So, you know, more AV owners kind of charging at night is actually a very good thing for them. So yeah, yeah. So it is, you know, and it's real, you know, BC, where I live, has a kind of overnight rate that's 5 cents a
kilowatt hour, kind of cheaper than the normal rate. Again, even though we don't have nuclear, we have large hydro reservoirs. But again, these are utilities that are trying to spread a load across the 24-hour period. And Yeah, I just scheduled through the app. It's great. You don't even have to worry. You just keep the plug in and then at 9.30 it turns on and it takes two hours to charge up and you're all ready to go. It's great and I've saved so much money. So that's
wonderful. So we know it's not gonna break the grid. That's clear. The last point I think was, what was the last point here? It was German electricity rates between, Imports and exports of electricity. And there have been a number of commentators kind of looking at various provinces and going, what happens in B.C., what's happened in B.C. with droughts and reservoir levels. I think, you know, if you look at the numbers over the last year, year and a half, B.C. has imported about 25% of
its power. And so the inevitable conclusion from that is that we have some sort of structural electricity deficit. And we can't self-generate enough power. And we're now depending on California and Alberta and a bunch of other states to bail us out. And when you actually look at, you know, again, we come back to the arbitrage, right? So, you know, yes, we imported over the last year, 16% more power than we exported. of
that power. So, you know, for a lot of Canada that has hydro reservoirs, you know, we can hold back water until there's a need and demand requires and, you know, you actually wait till the price spikes and then you open the reservoir and you sell it to the US. So, if you look at just BC alone, you know, since 2019, the province has made $1.5 billion in profit on imports and exports. So what we have been doing is basically being buying cheap power in
California. And what's super interesting right now is with the amount of solar that's been set up in the US Southwest, they're actually getting to periods where power prices are approaching zero or even negative. And when that happens, the smart thing is utility somewhere else is to actually buy that power so you don't have to do this yourself. So what's been happening is You know, utilities in BC are buying power at
very low rates or sometimes even zero or negative rates. And that allows us to kind of hold the water back in our reservoirs until such time as power is needed. And the price goes up. And that's allowed us to do a couple of things. You know, one is it's allowed utilities like BC Hydro to kind of weather the drought that's been happening here for the last two years or so. I think more importantly, though, it allows
us to respond to emergencies. So if you remember this time last year, you know, Alberta went into this massive deep freeze. They sent out grid alerts on their phones. People were asked to just, you know, shut down your appliances, stop using electricity. So in that instance, there was plenty of water held behind dams in BC and BC was able to send an absolute ton of power to Alberta to kind of get over that hump. So, you know, these are the types of kind of trading situations that
we're seeing more and more of. So, you know, and that's kind of the message we're trying to get out is that, you know, power imports are not a bad thing because it allows us to actually prepare for when we need the power and Right. So is the big commodity in the future going to be the imports and exports of power? Like, is that going to be one that, you know, is it going to like right now we get incentivized to, you know, charge our EVs at
night and so forth. The big worry that I hear a lot of people say around me is like, oh, we'll wait till everybody's on the grid and everybody needs electricity. They're just going to increase that. And they're just going to increase it to a point where you just, you know, it's going to be just as expensive as gas. Do you see that happening or from the research that your staff has done and your organization has
Not if you plan correctly. So, and you know what I mean by that is the more interties you can build between grids, the more stability and reliability you have. So if you have a particular grid somewhere in North America that for whatever reasons is struggling. you know, middle of winter, no sun, no wind, power can come in from elsewhere. So
that's the kind of grid that we need to be building. And the more you build that kind of across a continent, whether it's North America, Europe or elsewhere, you know, the more stability you have, the more reliability you have, and less likelihood you are going to get that there's going to be
a price spike. You know, that's one of our large kind of recommendations to the federal government is, you know, one of the things that they can do in the electricity space, because most of it's governed by provincial jurisdiction, you know, is help provinces connect their grids to each other and help provinces connect grids into the US. So, you know, that's
kind of part of it. The other one too, and we talked a little bit about this, is that, you know, homeowners and communities will have more agency in the future. where they're going to generate and store their own power when they need it. And then the third part you already talked about, right, is kind of the innovation aspect of this. So, you know, as we have this kind of large glut of solar coming into
the U.S. Southwest, you know, people are doing innovative things with that. They're turning it into green hydrogen and then holding that until such time as the price goes up. And then you can run the hydrogen through an electrolyzer again and turn it back into power. There's a whole bunch of clever innovative ways that we're starting to look at power and how we can monetize it and use it. Again,
if you do it wrong, prices go up. But if you do it right, you can actually have a very affordable grid that's incredibly reliable, keep prices low. It helps, again, jurisdictions decarbonize, meet climate targets. What people forget too is that when you are fossil fuel powered in your home, You know, you are at the whim of geopolitical events. You know, the oil price isn't set locally. It's not set by your profits, not set by your utility. The gas price is exactly the same, you
know, and you can find yourself with $2 gas fairly quickly. There's nothing really you could do about it, you know, but an electricity price, like, you know, if you're living in Ontario and Ontario has made the right moves and you've made the right moves as a homeowner, you know, you can That's really interesting. And so there's, it seems like a lot more flexibility in going more towards renewables. So that's, that's, that's fantastic. I do have one last question. I couldn't let you go without
asking this question. Is, you know, we, we're looking at a new election. The carbon tax seems to be a really big question here. People hate it. People, absolutely. The citizens who have to pay it, hate it. Even though, you know, there's the proven fact that, you know, you get money back, even though there's proven fact that it hasn't increased inflation or it's been like a 0.00012% increase in inflation. Well, I guess it's a two part
question. One, has the carbon tax work since it's been implemented? And how can we tell? And then also, is this going to be is this going to be scrapped? And how is it going to affect sort of our climate, our climate? I guess our climate? I Yeah. So I'll tackle those kind of, uh, in the order that you asked. So, so, so carbon, carbon pricing does work. Um, you know, it is worldwide seen as the most economically efficient way to reduce emissions and
you know, how it works. And this is where people get a little bit confused is the carbon tax. At the consumer level. So this is the household level, like when you and I pay, when we go fill up our car, you know, Um, it really does two things and two things only it changes. what you drive and how you drive and it changes how you heat your home. Like those are the two main things that the carbon tax does. So just kind of keep in mind on that because we're going to come back to
it. And if you look at, you know, places and jurisdictions that have had a carbon tax in place for a long time, British Columbia has had a carbon tax since 2009. And if you look at emissions intensity per capita per unit of GDP, the line goes down. So carbon taxes are a big part of that and they actually have driven change. both in the industrial level and the behavioral level. Now, there's
two separate carbon taxes in Canada. And the one that people are most upset about and they hear about in the Axodax campaigns, that is the consumer carbon price. It's called the fuel charge under the federal system. So that is the X cents a liter that you pay and what you pay on your gas bill when you kind of go to pay that every month. There's also an industrial carbon pricing system and it's called the output based pricing system. Some provinces have their own system. Alberta
has one, BC has one. So when you look at kind of overall on the consumer system. You know, what you're seeing these days is the cost between an internal combustion car and an EV is, you know, they're coming closer together. And if you actually look at kind of the total ownership costs, the EV wins every time. And, you know, if you keep your car for, you know, eight years and you drive it
20,000 kilometers a year, you're going to save a ton of money with the EV. The capital cost up front is a little bit higher, but overall the savings. So, you know, what the carbon tax its intent is to actually help you make that choice to buy the EV over the gas car. And in that respect, it has kind of worked. We're also looking at heat pumps versus
natural gas furnaces. And again, if you look at most jurisdictions across Canada, you know, the math is starting to come out in the heat pump favor, especially when you factor in the fact that you get air conditioning for free out of a heat pump. So, you know, so, you know, from our perspective is, you know, carbon tax has done a lot of its heavy lifting. on the consumer side already. And it would be a shame if it went away because it still
has work to do. But it's not the end of the world. People are still going to buy EVs. People are still going to buy heat pumps. The math still works out on EVs. The math works out a little bit less on heat pumps, but that could change shortly. So the way we look at carbon pricing at the consumer level is it has done a lot of heavy lifting and it's done its job. If it goes away, there are other ways to make up that delta to help you meet your climate targets.
On the industrial carbon pricing system, those are very, very robust. And what you're seeing now is you're seeing a lot of industries coming to the federal conservatives, you know, who may form the next government, it's looking lightly, kind of going, you know, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Alberta intends, whatever happens at the federal level after the next election, to keep its
will most likely do otherwise. Quebec's got cap and trade. So on the industrial side, I think we're seeing a lot more likelihood of And we're seeing change within that too. Like we're seeing industrial change, like Well, and that's just it. And the other one too, the business community and industry, they
want to know what the rules are, right? Because, you know, if they know that carbon pricing is going to stay in some shape or form for the next 10 years, that helps them make their capital investments kind of right now. Right now, you know, we've got a lot of investment dollars in Canada sitting Yeah, true. That's interesting. It makes it interesting because I think that the one thing from a citizen point of view is we just don't see the results right off the bat. You know, we
don't see it. Everybody's like, well, you know, always the question, the loaded question is like, well, how much has our emissions reduced because of it and all this kind of stuff. And we just don't see it because emissions are usually a year behind and when we measure and stuff. We just don't see it right off the bat, but it is a slow burn.
No pun intended, but it is slow to change and everybody is going to change as we go forward, whether it's for a carbon tax or a pricing point or just ease of not having to go to the gas station anymore and just charging at home and And the other thing that under the consumer carbon tax, under the federal system, which is in place for a number of provinces, is 80% of families are better off with the consumer carbon price. Basically, they get more back on their rebates than they're actually paying
for the fuel that they burn. In that respect, the federal system is quite elegant in that most Canadians are better off. Provinces that have their own systems run them a little bit differently and they have different results in that calculus. But generally, you know, carbon pricing, it works and it Yeah. Well, it'll be interesting to see what happens after the election to see if it stays or
not, depending on who gets in. But regardless of what happens, Mark, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and letting us know all about the different ways that renewable energy can help and how it can help not only our planet, but ourselves in terms of helping out at the wallet. So we really appreciate you taking time to to doing what you do and coming on and telling us all this stuff. And then obviously, again, thank you
so much for what you and your team continually do. I think it's a necessity here in Canada to know what we have in terms of clean energy and where we're going and some Thank you, Mark, for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. It was such a fun interview to do. I love doing these interviews because I hear so much information, so much misinformation, not only from media outlets, but also from people around me just being like, what about this? What about
this? And questions and questions and questions that sometimes I can't answer. I don't know everything. I wish I did. I don't know everything. I just get it from the people that I interview and the articles that I get my information from.
And so to be able to have Mark come in with, you know, the information that his staff, his organization looks out for and reports on all the time is just so nice to have and know that we're in our country, in our world, we're actually headed towards a really great place when it comes to innovation on renewables and coming into implementing renewable energy. and being able to live off of renewable energy and even go into more of like being more dependent
on ourselves in the future. It's going to be really interesting to see what happens. But I'm going to be sharing this interview with a lot of people, I can tell you that. But this is a lot of fun. But I want to hear your comments. I'm going to put the website of Clean Energy Canada in the show notes, in the description. So you can just go below or in the show notes, depending on where you're watching, if you're watching on YouTube or wherever, Apple Podcasts,
you're listening to this, or you're watching this on Spotify. Just go to the description of the show notes, and you'll be able to click on that website But also if you want to get a hold of me and you want to ask me questions or you have any comments on this episode, please feel free to comment below if you're on YouTube or if you're on Spotify or DM me at howtoprotecttheocean on Instagram. That's
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a part of in your favorite podcast platform. So thank you. That's it for today's episode. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy