Reality bites on ‘energy transition’ in Canada and beyond

For about 50 years now, beginning with the environmental movement of the 1970s — with concerns about global warming, “peak oil” and Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance — many have mused about an “energy transition” to change the way people power their increasingly energy-intensive lives.

The idea is that, somehow, societies could replace fossil fuels with weak, diffuse, intermittent energy from windmills, sunlight or low-intensity energy stored in batteries (although nuclear power mostly need not apply). In other words, energy transition as pure political will.

There’s only one problem. Despite the efforts of activist groups, politicians and environmentalists, an endless amount of tax dollars poured into green energy schemes and economic wreckage in sectors that previously fuelled global prosperity, the Great Transition, well, is not transitioning.

As U.S. energy scholar Mark Mills observes, despite the United States and Europe pouring vast amounts of money — nearly $20 trillion over two decades — to encourage, subsidize and mandate an energy transition, global oil use (on a per-person basis) is essentially the same today as two decades ago. And for those thinking that transition-promotion was still insufficient, that spending rivals the total spending on all social programs on both continents over the same period. The same is true for natural gas and coal — the world is using far more of both compared to two decades ago.

In fact, Mills notes, while the data show nothing resembling an energy transition, we’ve seen continual additions to energy supplies from all sources, politically favoured or not. Even wood for fuel is in greater use now than at any time in history; a cosmic irony for those of us who remember the anti-forestry and anti-wood movements of the last few decades, with tree-spiking and alike.

What about Canada? Have our efforts to suppress oil, gas and coal in favour of wind, water and sunlight been more successful?

In a word, no. As noted in our new study published by the Fraser Institute, despite Canada’s aggressive approach, there has been virtually no significant “transition.” Fossil fuels in 2024 (the latest year of available data) still accounted for 76.3% of Canada’s domestic energy consumption compared to 76.8% in 1995. That’s less than one-half of one per cent over 20 years.

More specifically, in 2024 fossil fuels supplied nearly three-quarters of industrial energy use and more than half of residential energy use in Canada, with natural gas remaining the dominant source, particularly for space heating. Despite decades of electric-transportation boosterism by governments across the country, fossil fuels accounted for almost 99% of the transportation sector’s energy consumption in Canada. And the energy sector generates approximately 7% of Canada’s total economic activity.

Clearly, it’s time for a reality check. Fossil fuels are here to stay, far into the foreseeable future, and policymakers should stop trying to transition away from them and instead help fully realize their benefits.

Kenneth Green is a senior fellow with the Mathison Energy Research Initiative (MERI) at the Fraser Institute. MERI received funding from Ron Mathison, founder of the MATCO Group of Companies, with interests in energy and oilfield services.