Alberta Premier Danielle Smith wants her fellow Prairie premiers to take the lead in expanding the capacity of the rail and port systems in Churchill, Manitoba, an expensive idea that analysts say has some merit.
“Is there a case for Churchill to be used as a port? Absolutely,” Malcolm Bird, a political science professor at the University of Winnipeg, said in an interview.
“It’s part of a bigger thing where we need to talk about the Arctic and the capacity of Canada to exert sovereignty, which we are [until now] hopelessly, hopelessly unable to do. We’re asleep at the switch. This is a really serious issue.”
In Smith’s letter to fellow premiers, she noted that “the Russian Yamal Peninsula project has been operating with great success, and even expanding operations to meet global gas demands.”
Bird says Russia is showing Canada up in multiple ways.
“If you want to take a cruise ship of tourists through the Arctic, you have to check in with 32 different agencies. It’s impossible. You can’t do it. Go to Russia and [you get] your permit four hours later.”
In August 2022, the Manitoba government and the feds pledged to invest $147 million to upgrade and maintain the railway. Barry Prentice, a professor of supply chain management at the University of Manitoba, says the line has worth beyond commercial considerations.
“That route is a strategic military asset because it does give us access to the furthest north point where we have actual water service to the central Arctic, and there is still remaining a very large airstrip there from the Second World War. So from a strategic perspective it has value. And of course, politically it would be impossible to abandon,” Prentice told The Epoch Times.
‘Astronomical’ Costs
Greg Gormick, a consultant and commentator on rail issues, says politics has been part of the Churchill rail line and port from the beginning. He believes Smith’s proposal has “some utility” but isn’t the first place rail investments should go.“We’ve never gotten enough traffic to come into the Port of Churchill. There has been some, and it has been kind of a relief valve of sorts at times when Thunder Bay and Vancouver have been overloaded, but it’s a minor factor,” Gormick told The Epoch Times.
“The money would be better spent to try and improve the existing CN and CP main lines and to have higher capacity to the ports of Thunder Bay, Vancouver, and Prince Rupert. You'd be assisting the system that handles so many other things through those ports.”
The port itself was closed for two years beginning in November 2021 while the rail line leading to it undergoes repairs.
In August this year, federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra announced $4.4 million in funding for a University of Calgary study on how the railway can be strengthened to handle permafrost melting due to rising temperatures.
Gormick says facilitating more volume on the Churchill line would take substantial time and money.
“The cost of rebuilding that railway to handle the volume of traffic that you would need to put through that port will be astronomical,” he said.
Hydrogen, Bitumen Pucks
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline has made energy needs more acute in Europe. The federal government announced a Canada-Germany Hydrogen Alliance earlier this year, with the first Canadian exports of wind-generated “green” hydrogen from Newfoundland and Labrador expected in 2025.In June 2021, the Alberta and federal governments agreed to a deal with a private company to build a $1.3 billion low-emission “blue” hydrogen plant in Edmonton. Blue hydrogen is produced by extracting hydrogen from natural gas.
Prentice says one train-load of anhydrous ammonia each week would be enough to make the Churchill line commercially viable by itself.
“We need to look at solutions where we have a win-win-win. This is a win for Alberta. It’s certainly a win for Manitoba. It’s a win for government of Canada. It’s a win for Europe,” Prentice said.
“The only thing that’s actually missing is a container crane at Churchill to load the ship. We [would] export a lot of hydrogen. We would provide traffic for the Churchill railway. And the federal government wouldn’t get its shorts in a knot because we’re not exporting carbon.”
Prentice said Churchill already has a “tank farm” to allow oil shipments, but new technology gives other new options for exports.
“One suggestion, which has received a lot of talk but no action, is the development of these asphalt pucks, a technology that was developed by CN and the university to move the material from the oilsands in the form of the round discs that can be used for making asphalt for roads,” Prentice explained, referring to puck-shaped bitumen capsules covered in a polymer.
“The advantage of this idea is that they carry it in bigger hopper cars. If there’s a spill, you just sweep them up, or they float so you just pluck them out of the water. So it doesn’t have the environmental harm that it would have as a liquid.”
In April, then-Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre said a pipeline from the Alberta oilsands to Churchill could carry up to 200,000 barrels daily. He said that if he is elected as prime minister at some point, he would consult with First Nations communities and pre-approve export licences to expedite the process.
At the time, the head of the Arctic Gateway Group, Sheldon Affleck, told the Winnipeg Free Press that he was open to Poilievre’s proposal and mentioned bitumen pucks as one option.
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