Atlantic Canada is sitting on potentially over $400 billion worth of untapped natural gas, yet environmental policies have prevented the region from accessing these vast resources.
A new study released by the Fraser Institute found that Atlantic Canada has a wealth of natural gas resources accessible through hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” However, both federal and provincial environmentalist legislation have effectively blocked development.
According to the study, a 2017 Canadian Energy Research Institute report found that Nova Scotia’s Horton Bluff could be home to 17to 69 trillion cubic feet worth of natural gas. The amount of gas could represent a market value range between $47 billion and $190 billion.
Similarly, New Brunswick’s Frederick Brook shale formation has an estimated 67.3 to 80 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which represents a market value of $186 billion to $221 billion. Although similar studies haven’t been conducted with the same level of accuracy, similar reserves are expected to be in Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island.
Another Fraser Institute study in October found that among all Canadian provinces and the 50 U.S. states, the Atlantic provinces ranked among the lowest in median income rates in 2022, with P.E.I. coming in last. New Foundland and Labrador ranked 47th out of jurisdictions, New Brunswick ranked 52nd, and Nova Scotia ranked 57th.
“Canada has a long way to go in terms of being economically competitive with our most adjacent peers, and exactly how much developing the shale resources could do, that would be speculative, based partly on world energy prices and also what actually comes up out of these reservoirs,” Kenneth Green, the author of the study told True North in an interview.
Green, who holds a doctoral degree in environmental science and engineering from UCLA told True North that a decade-long moratorium against hydraulic fracturing and a list of other environmental policies are preventing the untapped resources from “doing anybody any economic good.”
“We’ve been tracking the literature on the safety of hydraulic fracturing at Fraser for about 10 years now,” he told True North in an interview. “What we found is hydraulic fracturing does pose a few environmental challenges, but they’re manageable with existing technology and engineering methods.”
Green explained that “fracking” is a combination of two “relatively old” technologies. It involves drilling a vertical and then several horizontal holes before injecting a mixture of mostly sand and water to force natural gas out of the ground. Around two per cent of the mixture includes chemicals.
“The two biggest risks to that are that it can cause mostly low-level Earth seismic activity, or tremors, usually not felt at the ground level. Most, the majority, are not felt at ground level,” he said. “And there is a possibility of contaminating groundwater if a well is improperly built, both of those risks can be addressed, and they’ve developed systems to address them.”
He explained that sensor webs can be installed around the fracking area to measure potential tremors in real-time. He said a green light-red light system is installed to signal operators to stop injecting the sand and water mixture when pressure begins to build.
He said this would prevent the unfeelable tremors from becoming “more noticeable,” avoiding doing damage below ground. He said the issue of contamination is removed by proper sealing construction.
Green said that even if the moratorium on hydraulic fracturing was removed in the provinces, a list of bureaucratic barriers, including the Liberal’s Bill C-69 and Impact Assessment Act, would delay or prevent the process of accessing the dormant resources.
Aside from those impairing or preventative policies and laws, the Atlantic provinces would also need to attract capital investment for companies interested in exploring the potentially rich natural resource deposits.
“The biggest obstacle is Canada’s Net Zero by 2050 pledge to align Canada with the European governments in their Paris accord on climate change,” he said. “That is radiating down to suppress virtually all of the energy and natural resource space in terms of economic development.”
A study by the Fraser Institute in February found that achieving Net-Zero by 2050, was likely an impossible feat as energy demands increase and oil and gas would have to be replaced all while trying to meet an ever-increasing energy demand.
“Governments everywhere need to be reconsidering the intelligence and the sanity of signing on to those targets and then creating laws based on what is clearly a fantasy or a fiction that cannot be achieved,” Green said.
If the “oppressive” anti-energy barriers were removed, Green said jobs could be created, and investors would be willing to take the risk of finding out how much gas could be extracted from the sites.