At a recent conference held by LearnNB in Fredericton entitled Collaborating to Compete, an attendee asked a panel if they thought that energy might be the next big economic driver for New Brunswick.

The question had followed the recent Irving announcement indicating their plan to build a new refinery in the Saint John area.

The question is critical. There is significant energy activity throughout the entire region-offshore oil for Newfoundland, hydro and wind for Labrador, on-shore gas for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, offshore gas for Nova Scotia, and wind and biomass for Prince Edward Island. And of course some of the major projects in Saint John—refit of Point Lepreau, the liquefied natural gas plant, and now possibly, the new refinery.

So one might consider energy to be the next ‘perfect storm’ of opportunity as the questioner in Fredericton had put it.

You’d be hard pressed to find that energy production, distribution, and marketing are not going to dominate the growth agenda for the next 25 to 50 years. Particularly in the area of renewable and clean energy.

Environmental concerns are unequivocally going to overshadow the political agenda in spite of the current federal government’s unwillingness to back away from its support of western fossil fuel production.

And therefore you can assume that while the world needs more and more power, the world is also going to need more and more clean, environmentally safe power.

To develop alternative energy sources with enough capacity to power the world’s needs is going to take massive amounts of brainpower and capital.

When companies like Irving announce mega projects worth billions in construction and follow-on investment with thousands of jobs attached, it is apparent that many, if not most of the jobs, will be knowledge-based jobs. And much of the capital investment will be in information technology, engineering, innovation, science and research.

The only way —whether they be fossil fuel or nuclear— mega-projects can be successful is if they are designed, built, and managed with the protection of the environment at the forefront of the thinking. And that takes major science, engineering and innovative horsepower.
There is no doubt that energy production and distribution will help grow the region’s economy. But the long term spin-off benefits can be often more mammoth—if we get active.

Our own engineering, IT, science-based companies need to be building relationships now with the proponents of the mega projects. To wait until projects are announced will mean competing with well financed, well connected multi-national knowledge- based companies.
The innovations, technologies, systems and processes which will be developed for our energy plays will be adaptable and exportable. Our knowledge-based companies can and should be at the centre of this activity. Our region can and should become the centre for a new knowledge— clean energy.

And therein lies the next “perfect storm” of opportunity.