Canada Wants to Phase-Out Coal-Fired Power Plants by 2030

Canada plans to phase-out coal power plants by 2030.

The Canadian federal government wants to phase-out coal-fired power plants and to replace them with renewable energy sources by 2030.

The time is running out for the coal power plants in Canada and in many other countries across the planet.
After we have announced that Germany plans to cut CO2 emissions up to 95% by 2050, now is the turn of Canada to announce that they plan to phase-out coal power plants by 2030.

While Donald Trump wants to revive the coal power plants in the U.S., Catherine McKenna, Minister of the Environment and Climate Change in Canada, announced that the goal is to phase-out all coal power plants in the country and to make 90% of the Canadian electricity renewable by 2030.

It seems that the Canadian Government (like a few other governments around the world) has a firm commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the country, but the difference is made here by the speed of the process that will make the transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

The new plan to bring the massive reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions closer to our time, will mean that about 1.3 million old and high-polluting cars will be removed from roads in the following years, and all coal power plants that have no scrubber and/or a carbon capture storage will be phased-out by 2030.

There is a small break in this plan for the coal-fired power plants, which will have enough time to install a scrubber or/and a carbon capture storage and be exempt from closure.
Some of the provinces in Canada will have time this way to adapt to the new conditions and to shift the electricity producers from coal to natural gas, which is actually the most obvious route to alternative energy.

The federal government in Canada is working to put a carbon tax in place, and some of the provinces are already against the plan due to the economic implications, but Ontario, which is the biggest province in Canada has already phased-out coal fired electricity, so if Ontario already did it (with some costs), other provinces can do the same in the near future.

Luckily, Canada has a great potential for hydroelectric power and in the country’s energy mix, hydropower represents about 50%.
If hydropower covers half of the energy consumption in Canada, the shift toward solar, wind and other renewable energy sources is in fact the goal of the federal government.

The Canadian government plans to make the shift from fossil fuels to renewables by 2030, but also plans to make the country a great exporter of clean technology.