How Much Energy does the Yukon Need?

Yukon Energy recently hosted its energy planning charrette, which has generated quite a bit of discussion in the community about planning for our energy future.  As part of the charrette, an exercise was done where participants had to develop an energy options portfolio to meet future electrical demands - 500 GWh/yr, 600 GWh/yr or even 1000 GWh/yr.  For perspective, currently the Yukon generates approximately 400 GWh/yr of electrical energy.

So, inspired partially by this event, and also the energy accounting in by David MacKay's very engaging book "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air", I thought I'd do an updated analysis of how much ENERGY (not just electricity) that the Yukon actually needs.  A total energy picture is very important if we, as a community, have a sustainable energy vision for our future and want to reduce or even eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels.

Full Disclosure:  As part of my day job, I was retained by Yukon Energy to particpate in the charrette as one of the energy resource technical experts.  However, I am also a long-time Yukoner and so I write this based on my personal interest in sustainability and this post does not reflect the views of my employer or Yukon Energy Corp. 

What this analysis shows is where does our total energy usage in the Yukon come from (the primary energy sources) and what do we use it for (Energy Use).  The electricity portion of energy use also includes electrical space heating, but I don't know what portion of electrical energy usage is for space heating - so it is all mixed in there.  Oh, and "biomass" is the cool word for "firewood".

Methodology:  I've based this on my earlier "Yukon's Energy Budget" analysis, but I've updated this with the most current data from 2009 Yukon Bureau of Stats annual report.  As for end usage, I've adjusted downward the actual delivered energy for space heating by 78% average efficiency for fossil fuels, and 65% for biomass. Note that pellets are missing from this inventory because we have no statistics of pellet consumption / utilization in the Yukon.  I don't think it is a significant portion of our total energy usage, but maybe that is something someone can start to track.

Observations: 

• 75% of our energy in the Yukon comes from fossil fuels.  So, we are a LONG way from having a sustainable energy system in the Yukon.
• If we are to start thinking about a fully sustainable energy future, then perhaps we need to start thinking about the total energy usage picture - something on the order of 1,400 GWh/yr - not just the 400 GWh/yr of electricity we currently use.  
•  Transportation is a huge portion of our fossil fuel usage.  However, we don't know anything about how much of this energy is used for long-haul transport versus local (e.g. <100km) driving around.  Again, this is something we should figure out because it is such a big piece of our total energy usage in the Yukon. 

Maybe in a future post I'll share my ideas of how we could move to a sustainable energy future, and what are the implications for our investments as a community.