The Trudeau government’s mandate that all new passenger vehicle sales must be electric or plug-in hybrid by 2035 could cause chaos because Canada’s electricity grid isn’t close to having the capacity needed to charge them, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute.
The fiscally conservative think tank estimates in a report released Thursday that to meet the higher demand for electricity will require increasing electricity generation nationally by up to 15.3% within 11 years.
An increase of that size in such a short time frame, study author G. Cornelis van Kooten warns in “Failure to Charge: A Critical Look at Canada’s EV Policy,” isn’t “realistic or feasible” because it would mean the equivalent of constructing 10 new mega hydro dams across the country, or 13 new large-scale natural gas plants.
The alternative, would be installing almost 5,000 new large wind turbines, which would still have to be backed up by natural gas peaker plants, hydro or battery storage, because wind power can’t provide base load power to the electricity grid on demand.
For the rest of this column: https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-pms-electric-vehicle-mandates-powered-by-fantasies-report