Financial Post: 'As for oil, the EU is even more dependent on autocracies and tyrannies for imports. Between 2005 and 2019, it imported €4.6 trillion in foreign oil, with 68 per cent or €3.1 trillion worth coming from countries not considered democratic or free. In 2019, the share was down only slightly, to 67 per cent. (These data are from the Canadian Energy Centre, where I co-authored several reports on the oil and natural gas exports of regressive regimes worldwide.) Russia accounts for 58 per cent of the natural gas and 42 per cent of the oil that the EU bought from tyrannies and autocracies between 2005 and 2019....
'It is time for Canadians to end their magical thinking about energy. That includes dropping the fantasy that we can realistically reduce carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050. As University of Manitoba professor emeritus Vaclav Smil has long argued (he being the leading world expert in energy transitions) the physical capacities of oil, natural gas and coal cannot be replaced by the low-punch energy density of renewables. Responsible analysts, politicians, insurers and investors need to recognize that fossil fuels will continue to be crucial to our energy needs and now also to our national security interests and those of our allies, be they in Europe, the United States or Asia.
'There is little reason why Germany or Japan, for example, should continue to rely so heavily on natural gas from not-free countries when liquified natural gas could be extracted from Alberta and Northern British Columbia but also from Atlantic Canada and Quebec, as all have the potential for significant extraction and exports.'
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