“All-of-the-above” energy solutions discussed at Schulich panel event

Cooler heads need to prevail if we are going to make realistic and sustainable changes in energy.

This was a theme repeated throughout “Schulich Connects: Balancing Tradition and Innovation in Energy,” a breakfast panel hosted by the Schulich School of Engineering on Nov. 28, 2024.

Moderated by Dr. Josephine Hill, PhD, the panel weighed in on a variety of topics ranging from personal and corporate responsibility to new technologies and climate change.

Those in attendance remarked about how thoughtful the conversation was, especially around the challenges of navigating the current “either/or” dialogue around traditional and new energy.

“They’re not easy questions to answer,” Hill said. “You can’t just do one thing and that will solve everything.”

She says it’s important for engineers and energy industry professionals to educate the public about what is happening today and what needs to happen to create a future more dependent on new energy like hydrogen, nuclear and geothermal.

Court of public opinion

Dr. Milana Trifkovic, PhD, another panellist, says we have made some headway when it comes to research and public perceptions.

“Let’s take hydrogen as an example,” Trifkovic said. “There’s a huge public perception that hydrogen is a very unsafe energy vector and things will explode, but, if you look at it, even the way it is stored today, we actually use it for the fuel for rockets to go into space.”

As another example, she says metal-organic framework composites were thought of as not being stable just over a decade ago and are now thought of as one of the most vital energy storage materials available.

Trifkovic says even the research and adoption of electric vehicles and solar power for homes has come a long way in a short amount of time.

Canada can’t just turn off the tap

All of this isn’t to say that it’s time to give up on traditional energy sources like oil and natural gas.

Richard Masson, an energy expert and Executive Fellow of the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, says we still rely on hydrocarbons today and we’re not going to displace them any time soon.

He says everything seems to contain some sort of plastics, so it’s important to start talking about minimizing carbon dioxide emissions, more than smaller actions that make little difference such as bans on single-use plastics.

“People want to see change quickly, but the system is big and it’s hard to change,” Masson said. 

“What we need to do is work on things like carbon capture and storage, which is the kind of thing where we can start to make a difference as a province and we’re well set up to be at the forefront of that.”

He says humans have handled “energy additions” for years, from biomass and coal to oil and gas and more, so it’s a matter of having that same conversation for new energy today.

Fuelling future development

Public demand for energy is still increasing around the world and Puneet Mannan, MBA’05, says the energy future will need to involve several solutions. 

The associate director of Innovate Calgary’s Energy Transition Centre adds it won’t be a “one-size-fits-all” fix, either.

“If you look at the distribution of that consumption, fossil fuels still represent more than 70 per cent of that mix,” Mannan said. “Within that increasing demand, the key thing that we need to focus on is triple-e: energy, environment and economy.”

Mannan and the other panellists agree that Canada will need strong policies and incentives to continue being leaders in research, development and public deployment.

Which brings them back to having nuanced conversations about the present-day realities of energy and what potential opportunities lie ahead.

“You need different types of fuels for different applications,” Hill said. “You can’t just cut down a branch and put it in your gas tank. It has to be converted to a fuel that will work with the engine, so that ‘all-of-the-above’ conversation is very important.”

The next Schulich Connects, entitled “Engineering Tomorrow: AI and the Smart City Revolution,” is scheduled for Feb. 27, 2025.