To achieve Canada's target of carbon neutrality by 2050, many options are available. However, not all of them are equally relevant: for example, some seemingly tempting technological choices, once integrated into an overall strategy, may prove to be an economic dead end or require a development time that is far too long in relation to the objective. As the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, then Minister of Environment and Climate Change, pointed out:
"Charting Canada’s path to net zero emissions by 2050 requires a solid, evidence-based understanding of many complementary pathways and policy options. More data-driven modelling can only help us as Canadians choose the most efficient, affordable and effective trajectories to a cleaner future."
In June 2023, Natural Resources Canada invested in three energy modelling projects, led respectively by:
Each of these organisations has produced its own decision-making and popularisation tool. The tool proposed by the IET, the Pathways Explorer, focuses on modelling the transition to carbon neutrality and takes the form of an interactive dashboard to visualise the impact of several factors on Canada's greenhouse gas emissions.
The project was designed and piloted by the IET, with the participation of ESMIA Consultants for modelling and Kashika Studio for data visualisation.
The results presented come from NATEM, a techno-economic optimisation model of the energy system, powered by explicit representations of technologies. NATEM models Canada at the level of the provinces and territories, and optimises the overall cost of transforming the energy system according to the constraints imposed.
On 5 July 2023, the tool was launched during a webinar that included a demonstration of its capabilities.
A model like NATEM provides a large amount of data, not all of which can be presented in a publication like Canada's Energy Outlook, so difficult choices have to be made. The Pathfinder aims to compensate for this loss of information by presenting the data in all its complexity, while remaining accessible to non-specialists.
The tool therefore allows more scenarios to be presented than in a standard publication, and presents them in a way that makes it easier to compare different trajectories. In particular, by starting with the question: What would a carbon-neutral world look like in 2050 or 2060, compared with a future that would simply be a continuation of what we know today? you can make your own comparison between scenarios (over 150 proposed) by adjusting several parameters, or follow a step-by-step analysis prepared by the team (more succinct than what you would find in a specialist publication).
To explore the scenarios in more detail, seven indicators characterise each of them:
The results are presented in graphical form, with various aids to interpretation:
It is also possible to sort the scenarios by increasing value of a sub-indicator (e.g. in Primary energy production: total quantity, bioenergy, hydraulic energy, renewable energy, coal, natural gas, crude oil, uranium) and to filter them according to the combinations of constraints involved, for a higher-level comparison.