At a news conference in Montreal, the two leaders suggested their priority is to develop cleaner energy sources such as green hydrogen in Canada for export to Europe to help solve the continent’s energy crisis. While not ruling out a role for Canadian natural gas in easing Europe’s energy shortage, Trudeau said there is not yet a clear business case for building an LNG export terminal in Saint John, NB, or elsewhere. Trudeau said the natural gas would have to be transported by pipeline from Western Canada’s natural gas fields to a yet-to-be-built liquefaction terminal on the Atlantic coast. It would be a costly undertaking and may not be a wise investment given Europe’s commitment to a rapid transition to a cleaner economy, Trudeau said. WATCH: Trudeau talks clean energy with German chancellor
Trudeau talks clean energy with German chancellor
During a bilateral meeting in Montreal with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed how Canada can lead the world in clean energy production. “One of the challenges around LNG is the amount of investment required to build the infrastructure for it,” he said. “There has never been a strong business case because of the distance from the natural gas fields, because of the need to transport that gas long distances before liquefaction.” Trudeau said private companies are investigating whether such multibillion-dollar investments would be worthwhile in this “new context.” The war in Ukraine has upended the global energy market. Russia, a major gas supplier to Europe, has been accused of blocking some of its supply in retaliation against crippling sanctions imposed by Western countries, including Germany, over its unprovoked attack on Ukraine. To reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, observers have floated the idea of transporting some of Canada’s abundant natural gas across the Atlantic to terminals in Germany. But because Canada has been slow to develop proposed LNG sites in the Atlantic provinces, that scenario is unlikely to materialize anytime soon. Construction work is carried out on the lock island in Brunsbuettel, northern Germany, Tuesday, March 1, 2022. The North Sea port is under discussion as a site for a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal. (Frank Molter/dpa via AP Photo) Trudeau said Canada will move forward with LNG projects already under construction on the country’s West Coast, terminals that will supply natural gas to another energy-starved region: Asia. With more natural gas coming from Canada, other major suppliers such as Qatar will have a freer hand to ship their product to Germany and other European countries, he said. “Right now, our best [solution] is to continue to contribute to the world market, to displace natural gas and energy that Germany and Europe can then locate from other sources,” Trudeau said. Trudeau said the conflict in Ukraine and the shocks to energy supplies it caused show “the world needs to accelerate ending its dependence on oil and natural gas in general” and transitioning to clean sources. Trudeau said that, in the coming years, Canada will position itself as a “key supplier to the world in a net zero economy.” Scholz said Germany is interested in helping Canada develop hydrogen production capacity — it’s still a fledgling industry with very little production underway — so it can eventually tap into that resource. Trudeau and Soltz will travel to Newfoundland and Labrador on Tuesday to meet with companies there preparing new hydrogen projects that could eventually power Europe. Germany is interested in “green” hydrogen — a form of fuel produced through electrolysis without producing emissions. People inspect a transparent model of the hydrogen Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell at the 2015 Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto. (Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press) In a recent report, Canada’s environment commissioner, Jerry DeMarco, found that Canada’s actual annual hydrogen production is only about 3 megatons — almost all of it “grey” hydrogen, a dirtier form that produces roughly twice the emissions of natural gas. . The commissioner said there are doubts about whether hydrogen can play any kind of meaningful role in Canada in the near term because little of the necessary infrastructure — such as hydrogen pipelines and liquefaction plants — exists. Green hydrogen is also prohibitively expensive. A gigajoule of natural gas costs about $3.79 to produce, while a gigajoule of green hydrogen costs more than $60 if produced with electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar, the Commissioner found. But Scholz said rapid technological innovation is possible and hydrogen could soon be a critical energy source for major industrial economies. “What we’re doing right now is scaling them, which would really change the world of industry and manufacturing globally,” he said. “This is like all other industrial processes from the past. It starts slowly, but then there’s a moment where, overnight, there’s a big escalation because so many different industries have decided they have to change.”
