Renewable energy soaring everywhere except Canada where ‘pipelines trump power lines’

With the oil industry weakened by a war over share of the market, global investment in alternative energy is setting new records, according to a brand new report that boasts: “While fossils crash, clean energy soars.”

The exception is Canada, where purchase of renewable energy plummeted 46 per cent in 2015 compared to 2014, to some paltry US$4 billion, even while Canadian governments were rushing to promote and subsidize clean energy.

In comparison, Canada’s oil and gas industry investment was forecast at $45 billion in 2015, down nearly 40 percent from $73 billion in 2014. In Alberta’s oilsands alone, 2015 capital investment was forecast to become lower by almost another, to $23 billion, when compared with $33 billion in 2014, based on the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

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The 16-page Clean Energy Canada report, released Monday, said Canada is lagging on alternative energy because it has a patchwork of provincial renewable power policies that haven’t produced long-term certainty.

“The country has additionally experienced a lack of overarching federal policy support: pipelines trumped power lines as a national priority,” the group, affiliated with Burnaby, B.C.-based Simon Fraser University, writes in the report.

“But there is good news late in 2015 – Alberta and Saskatchewan both announced targets to improve their manufacture of renewable power, and the newly elected federal government has indicated that getting good clean energy around the grid is a priority.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, provincial premiers and aboriginal leaders are meeting in Vancouver this week for discussions on the pan-Canadian framework to satisfy greenhouse gas reduction emissions commitments made in Paris in December included in a brand new global agreement.

The framework will develop actions already taken by provinces and territories, to ensure that Canada can meet – or exceed – its climate commitments, Trudeau said inside a Feb. 10 statement.

Clean Energy Canada, which fits to accelerate the transition to renewable energy, said an unprecedented US$367 billion was invested globally in renewable power in 2015, and the Paris commitments will boost its momentum.

“Turmoil in fossil fuel markets led many analysts to suggest clean energy investment would similarly stall out,” executive director Merran Smith said within the report.

“How could alternative energy possibly compete with cheap oil, gas and coal? But clean energy did compete, also it won. Once again, more income flowed into new renewable electricity than new power from fossil fuels.”

The group says clean energy costs are coming down as production and experience increase.

In the U.S., it says, the unsubsidized technology price of wind energy originates down 61 per cent since 2009, and utility-scale solar photovoltaic is down 82 per cent, thanks to improved efficiency minimizing costs of components like panels, inverters and turbines.

The top investors in renewable energy in 2015 were China (US$110.5 billion), the U.S. (US$56 billion) and Japan (US$43.6 billion). With only US$4 billion invested, Canada was in eight place.

Globally, the renewable energy sources of preference were solar (US$161 billion), wind (US$110 billion) and enormous hydro projects (US$42 billion).

“These global trends have to be on the radar of Canadian business and political leaders, simply because they paint an image of great opportunity,” Smith said in the report.

“There will continue to be markets for the fossil fuel helpful information on serious amounts of come, however their future is increasingly uncertain. It’s clear where the puck goes.”

ccattaneo@nationalpost.com