Alberta Premier Jim Prentice speaks at the Vancouver Board of Trade lunch in Vancouver, British Columbia on December 1, 2014. The Premier told The Globe and Mail recently that economic diversification is back in vogue in Alberta as the government looks to plug a budget hole caused by a severe reduction in revenue from the oil and gas industry.Ben Nelms/The Globe and Mail
The oil-price crash gives Alberta a solid excuse to finally get serious about green energy.
The province has toyed and tinkered with a strategy for wind, solar and other renewables for years, partly in hopes of showing the country and international trading partners that its leaders have more than just hydrocarbons on the brain.
Now, with the the possibility of a recession looming as the oil patch slashes budgets and bleeds staff, it makes both environmental and economic sense to branch out with incentives for alternative energy.
Why not make use of the slackening in labour markets to help build a sector that will help Premier Jim Prentice achieve his stated goal of positioning the province as both an energy and environmental leader? It would go far beyond just short-term job creation.
It's not as if this hasn't been discussed enough. The idea of an Alberta alternative-energy policy was among several recommendations made in 2009 by the Clean Air Strategic Alliance, a group of smart people from government, industry and environmental organizations. The alliance said that green energy should be encouraged for its environmental, economic and social benefits.
Since then, there's been much plenty talk and no policy.
The last time the issue looked to be on the front-burner was more than a year ago, when former Alberta premier Alison Redford named Calgary MLA Donna Kennedy-Glans associate minister of electricity and renewable energy.
She had been expected to usher in a new framework for alternative energy some time last year. But the work was soon thrown into disarray as Ms. Kennedy-Glans went into self-imposed exile from the Redford government in the buildup to the premier being shunted out the door amid a scandal over lavish spending and criticism over her leadership style.
Then, policy took a back seat to politicking as the Tory leadership race shifted into gear over the spring and summer. The other piece of important work caught in the party's machinations was its climate-change strategy and potential for higher and more expansive carbon levies for industry.
A renewed industrial-carbon-reduction plan had been due last September. It was pushed back to December, at which point, Mr. Prentice said the policy needed more fine-tuning and would be delayed to around the end of June. One assumes the policy is being hammered out in tandem with a plan for renewables.
There is no reason to dither any more. The Premier told The Globe and Mail recently that economic diversification is back in vogue in Alberta as the government looks to plug a budget hole caused by a severe reduction in revenue from the oil and gas industry.
He said diversification is targeted around the pillars of energy, agriculture and tourism. Certainly, a serious push into alternative energy at both the large grid and small generation levels would confer large benefits to all three.
For energy, the sector and government have been stung by criticism that Alberta is a dinosaur when it comes to its carbon-intensive oil sands sector, despite the current $15-a-tonne carbon levy. A bigger shift from coal in power generation will only help its cause in the United States and elsewhere.
Here are a couple ideas that have been kicked around.
The province is Canada's third-largest wind-power generator, and there's still breeze to go around. The industry enjoyed a building boom in its early years, but development tailed off as financing became tough to secure due to volatile power pricing. The government could provide some kind of electricity-market stability for the sector, which would help bring more capital into the sector.
On the small-scale front, many Albertans are willing to embrace technology such as rooftop solar power, if only a market mechanism existed to provide the real benefits of contributing power to the grid at peak demand times, which coincide neatly with when the sun is shining. Currently, solar generators are only able to get the lower retail price.
Policy that brings environmental benefits in energy, investment and job creation just when the economy could use it – what's not to like?