Oil Change International Senior Research Analyst Kelly Trout points to the IEA’s long history of “consistently overestimated the expected role of fossil fuels in the global energy system and consistently underestimated the growth of renewables”. And Thomas Gunton, a director of Simon Fraser University’s Resource and Environmental Planning Program, cites the IEA’s findings and BP’s recent forecasts as the latest evidence against continuing construction of the C$12.6-billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
“At the same time that demand is declining and oil producers are cutting back, Canada is expanding its oil pipeline capacity by just over 2.4 million barrels per day,” he writes. Pre-pandemic projections for western Canadian oil production showed expansion of no more than 1.2 million barrels per day through 2030, yet Trans Mountain was just one of several pipeline projects on the books, large and small.
“While some pipeline expansion may be warranted, spending $12.6 billion of taxpayer funds to build a pipeline when private sector companies are adding more than enough capacity to meet Canada’s need without any taxpayer support is hard to justify,” he writes.
“Ironically, the oil sector may also be adversely impacted by building the Trans Mountain expansion, because shipping tolls will have to be increased to cover the costs of redundant pipeline capacity. This will reduce oil company profits and tax payments to government.”
Source: Solar the ‘New King of Electricity’, Trans Mountain at Risk as IEA Analysis Sinks In – The Energy Mix
