Why 'Wind West' matters
Stomping out coal's last refuge in Canada
Since re-election, Premier Houston has been pushing for more natural resource development in the Nova Scotia. For a while, the focus was on natural gas, or maybe mining uranium. That seemed odd to me, because while Nova Scotia appears to have some shale gas near Wolfville, in my (admitted limited) experience looking at energy issues, I’d never heard anyone from outside of Nova Scotia mention it as a good potential gas “play”.
The actual natural resource Nova Scotia has in abundance is wind (and don’t we know it!). That’s why it’s great that - after the first “first ministers” meeting between PM Carney and the premiers - Nova Scotia’s leading nation building project would be “Wind West”. Wind West envisions greatly expanded offshore wind generation, with transmission lines headed to Quebec to connect to central Canada. The numbers floated suggest up to 40 gigawatts (GW) of wind capacity, compared to Nova Scotia’s ~3 GW of total electricity generation capacity.
Why Wind?
Wind is a renewable resource that doesn’t produce greenhouse gas emissions. Generally speaking, Canada is very good at producing clean electricity. Hydro dams in Quebec, Manitoba, B.C. and Newfoundland serve as massive sources of clean power. Meanwhile, Ontario and New Brunswick have good amounts of nuclear power, which also provides clean power. P.E.I basically only generates wind power (topped up with imports from New Brunswick as needed). What’s left is Alberta and Nova Scotia.
Historically, both provinces relied heavily on coal power. Over the past decade, Alberta has rapidly phased out its coal (the latest data point available is still from 2021 - but the final coal plant closed in 2024). Alberta didn’t quite switch to clean electricity, it basically just started using more natural gas (which produces roughly half the CO2 emissions).
That leaves Nova Scotia as the dominant user of coal in the country. Something like three-quarters of the coal burned for electricity is in Nova Scotia. It’s a stain on the country as whole that we still burn coal with so many available alternatives. There is a debate about Canada exporting more liquefied natural gas to replace coal in Europe and Asia, which is odd when we still have coal as well.
Why West?
The less flashy, but just as critical part of Wind West is transmission lines. The idea is to build way too much electricity for Nova Scotia’s own needs, with the goal of exporting that energy to other provinces. Getting transmission lines to Quebec and Ontario unlock large markets for that energy. To build huge offshore wind farms, there needs to be a market to sell to.
But the benefits go beyond exports. In return, new transmission lines to Quebec would connect the Maritimes to Quebec’s hydro dams. That’s critical for an intermittent electricity source like wind. A very good wind farm will only generate power ~60% of the time. If you have a wind dominated grid - and especially as you transition towards one - you will inevitably have moments when the wind doesn’t blow. Some places rely on natural gas in those moments, some will argue for keeping coal as a reserve, and other have started building big batteries. But the best batteries in the world already exist in Canada, we just call them hydro dams. Hydro is unique for being very clean, renewable, and quickly turned on or off (just a few minutes are needed to open the gates). The maritime link to Newfoundland is an example, but Quebec is a far larger generator - producing 15x the total electricity of Nova Scotia. Plugging into that market not only provides a market to sell in, but a reliable backup connection when something goes wrong with the wind.
Wind West is exciting, it’s a opportunity to decarbonize and drive significant economic activity at the same time. But it wont be easy. Offshore wind is generally more expensive than onshore wind, and likely requires lots of scale to be viable (to get economies of scale and lower those costs). In addition, transmission lines are probably the hardest infrastructure to develop, with timelines often measured in decades, not years. Much of that is studies and permitting, getting rights-of-way across huge distances are a big hurdle.
It’ll take a lot of “energy” to get it done, let’s hope it happens.
Just a thought for accross Canada that likely will never happen but makes sense. One of the biggest hurdles in cost for both electrical transmission and high speed rail is land acquisition. For long stretches of both it might be cost effective for these two groups to work together to use the same land. The power lines could meet with the high speed rail outside of cities and run above future rail expansion.