Clean energy experts question Kinew government's enthusiasm for hydrogen as Manitoba energy solution

Clean energy experts say it makes no sense for Manitoba's new government to tout hydrogen as a solution to the province's growing energy needs — and are questioning other aspects of the NDP's decarbonization plans. 

Throughout Manitoba's provincial election campaign and since he became premier, Wab Kinew has stressed the need to invest in hydrogen production in Manitoba. 

The premier's initial environmental pledges also include incentives to purchase electric vehicles, the installation of 5,000 heat pumps, weaning Manitoba Hydro off fossil fuels by 2035 and making the entire province carbon neutral by 2050.

Bruce Lourie, president of the Ivey Foundation — a non-profit organization that supports the clean-energy transition — said Manitoba needs to develop a concrete plan to increase electricity production in order to achieve decarbonization goals.

"It sounds to me like there isn't really a plan right now in Manitoba," Lourie said in a telephone interview from Ottawa, noting Hydro-Quebec recently unveiled a $185-billion plan to increase wind-power capacity and build 5,000 kilometres of transmission lines. 

"My question to them [the new government] would be, 'When will you have a plan that specifies things to the level of detail that Quebec has?'"

An energy roadmap completed by the former Progressive Conservative government suggested Manitoba Hydro may rely on natural gas-fuelled power plants to meet growing energy needs in the short term, at least until other forms of cleaner power become more viable.

"Strategic use of natural gas assets and gaseous fuels are an integral part of the energy transition in Manitoba," Hydro stated in an integrated resource plan published in August.

That runs contrary to the Kinew government's directive to make Manitoba Hydro production entirely clean by 2035. But there is pragmatism to Hydro's position, suggested Nicholas Rivers, an associate professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa and an expert in environmental economics.

"As we start expanding our electricity systems and increasingly relying on variable renewable electricity like solar and wind, which produce no carbon, we're going to be looking for firm backup power. And that means power that can be supplied or delivered to the system when the sun's not shining and when the wind is not blowing," said Rivers in a telephone interview from Ottawa.

"The main source of that firm backup power right now is either hydro or natural gas, and hydro is a constrained power source. We can't just build it out quickly. So I think we will see some continued reliance on natural gas to provide that firm backup power in the near term."

Both Rivers and Lourie do not share Kinew's enthusiasm for hydrogen as a solution to Manitoba's growing energy needs, with Lourie saying it "doesn't really make sense" to talk about hydrogen, even as a means of energy storage.

"The electricity required to produce hydrogen, it's just so huge that you have to have a heck of a lot of excess hydro to make that viable," he said.

"Right now there is no business case for green hydrogen, and so the idea that you would use electricity to produce hydrogen is not going to be a cost-effective option."