It is potentially breathtaking stuff, but what struck Higgs most as he mixed with the hydrogen wheeler-dealers was a comment someone made about Rotterdam being a two-hour flight from the war in Ukraine. That conflict has radically altered the global energy picture, leaving European countries scrambling to replace Russian oil and natural gas, and consumers dealing with energy price spikes — although those have significantly eased in recent months.
What hasn’t gone away, Higgs said, is Europe’s demand for energy, a near-term need the hydrogen plants of tomorrow aren’t meeting. He has a solution, though, and it involves ramping up New Brunswick’s dormant shale gas industry. In other words — fracking — which just so happens to be a dirty word in the premier’s neck of the woods, where a prior government slapped a moratorium on the industry more than a decade ago following violent protests.
On a recent break from the legislature, Higgs spoke of hydrogen, fracking and the potential role Canadian energy can play in the fight against Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin.: Europe is in crisis. The war today is probably fifth or sixth on the news cycle in New Brunswick, and in Canada, and we have such an opportunity as a nation, not to mention as a province, to be a major energy supplier for Europe, and to do it in a timely fashion.
Energy companies in Europe are asking: where can we get a supply of energy that can help us shut down coal plants? And some energy companies are saying, “That is our goal right now,” securing a transition fuel. And yet here in Canada, we have kind of taken a position where it is hydrogen or bust.Hydrogen may be the future, but what we tend to overlook in the push to net zero is that we also need to live in the present.