The Energy Council of Canada released a newsletter mid-December with a letter from President and CEO Jacob Irving, summarizing the major energy sector news of 2022.
Irving details the fluctuations felt in international oil and gas markets, from prices to production rates and changes in supply and demand.
Unignorable are the staggering effects of the geopolitical situation in Europe over the last year. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Irving calls “megalomania” at the cost of societal well-being, has had devasting impacts on the lives of everyday citizens, the global economy, and international political relationships.
Irving outlines two important lessons the energy sector has taught us in 2022: first, even though we live in an increasingly globalized world, heavily dependent on international trade and diplomacy, civility for its own sake cannot be expected. The adversarial stances of Russia and OPEC members have demonstrated this with callousness.
Second is our continued reliance on natural gases and fossil fuels, highlighting the all-too-slow green energy transition. Irving notes despite promising advances within nuclear and other renewable industries, still “we are faced with the challenge of finding petroleum solutions for petroleum problems.”
Although Irving’s summary of 2022 in review is sombre and blunt, we are not ending the year without a silver lining. Significant growth in the geothermal industry was palpable across the world, and particularly in the efforts of Calgary-based geothermal innovator Eavor Technologies.
With announcements of new government and private sector funding, the commencement of the inaugural commercial project in Germany, and the company’s first power purchase agreement in Nevada, Eavor Technologies has proven over the course of the year that scalable, clean energy tech is readily available for markets eager to make the leap into the inevitable green energy transition.
