September 06, 2012 - A new report by the Mowat Centre at the University of Toronto raises telling questions about Canada's goal of becoming an 'energy superpower'. 

The report highlights the need for Canada to make energy technology policy a top priority and reform its approaches to supporting energy R&D. 

Becoming an energy technology leader should be a concrete policy commitment from both orders of government, says the report. That commitment should span the whole energy system, from supply to end-use.

Canada's natural resources represent an enormous opportunity to diversify our exports and become more active in the multi-billion dollar global energy technology market. Canada risks missing out on the opportunity of becoming a leader if it fails to invest.

"Becoming an energy superpower requires more than just taking things out of the ground and selling them around the world," concludes the report's author, Mowat energy policy associate Tatiana Khanberg. "What is missing is energy technology."

The report argues that to become an energy superpower, Canada needs to be a global leader in energy technologies, a leader that offers the world not only access to raw energy resources.

Canada must also provide the technology for the efficient development and use of energy across the entire energy system.  This includes the tools to reduce related environmental damage, and, eventually, the breakthrough technologies that will allow a transition to new sources of low-carbon energy.

Notes the report, Between 2002 and 2008, "when adjusted for inflation, Canada's trade in climate-friendly technologies actually declined by 2 per cent annually on average" 

Canada's Energy Technology Policy

Canada's current approach to energy technology investments is piecemeal and fragmented, says the report.  

With some exceptions (which are highlighted in the document), governments rely on a mix of short-term and overlapping boutique energy research and development (ER&D) programs. These have a mediocre track record when assessed on the basis of measurable outputs, such as Canada's (poor) performance in developing new energy technologies. 

A national energy strategy, with a sustained and comprehensive national approach to ER&D as its foundation, is a precondition for energy superpower status. 

But energy technology could be the basis for a wider intergovernmental consensus because, unlike physical resources, expertise in energy technologies is much more broadly distributed across the country.

The report stresses that a province like Ontario could benefit from a national commitment to energy technology investments due to its abundance of human, financial, and knowledge capital. These assets can translate into attractive opportunities to export and develop ER&D services and new energy-using technologies-both across Canada and to the world.

The current suite of ER&D policies and programs is not designed to meet the needs of an emerging energy superpower, says the report. Citing the International Energy Agency, the Mowat Centre says 'It will take nothing less than an energy revolution for the world  to meet the energy challenges of the 21st  century.'

The report charts the path forward from our current approach to one where Canada builds on its natural endowments in order to meet political, economic, social, and environmental objectives domestically and abroad.

To begin with, Canada should put technology at the heart of a new national energy strategy, focused on helping the world transition to lower carbon energy, said Mowat Centre director Matthew Mendelsohn, in a Globe and Mail article.

"The world is evolving to cleaner forms of energy and we don't have the technology to support that," he said. "There's no reason why Canada shouldn't be thinking of itself as an energy superpower in a different way." 

"Our quest for energy superpower status must strive to maximize benefits for Canadians, providing opportunities to regions across the country," states the report.

The Mowat report echoes the findings of recent research by GLOBE Advisors on the 'clean economy' of the Pacific Coast region, which indicated that the transition to a low-carbon energy future requires vision, leadership, and coherent, economy-wide, strategic approaches. Clean energy technologies were singled out as one of the key areas of job and investment growth over the next decade. Check here for more details on this research. 

The full Mowat report is available here.