Lessons From a Fossil Fuel Leader

I am an alumni of the University of Calgary. Not a booster, but I get the alumni correspondence via email, which I admittedly never read. However, something about the title Why Care About Pat Carlson? (We Do — and With Good Reason) caught my attention. To be clear, Pat Carlson is "this year’s Arch Award-recipient for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement".

I do not know Pat and we are a generation apart. But Pat is from Lethbridge (my hometown) which suggests we have at least something in common. In fact, I am fairly confident that Pat and I share a couple or few people in common. The article details Pat's career after University, including starting several companies including Kiwetinohk Energy Corp. and Seven Generations Energy Ltd.

While I spent a few years chasing oil and gas drilling rigs around Western Canada in my early to mid 20's, I am more than 20 years removed from this world. That said, the takeaways for me were his leadership style which are highly engaging and people-focused and an awareness that he did not and does not have all of the answers. Further, that life and business are about curiosity, humility and learning. I have read enough about leadership that this is in no way earth shattering but the stories shared including one about how they (Pat and his wife) approached Christmas with Seven Generations was compelling.

More striking was a short discussion on "Climate Change: The More We Delay, the More We’ll Pay. Pat says, “let’s do as much solar and wind as we can; then let’s look at hydrocarbons and capture the carbon . . . but let’s be prudent" and goes on to note "Right now, what Alberta needs is a combination of natural gas-fired energy, plus wind and solar power.”

The above sums up how I and my colleagues at SkyFire Energy Inc have viewed our role in Alberta's energy transition. It is about all of us. We (and the the solar PV industry more broadly) readily recognize that we cannot do it all, and certainly not overnight. Wind and solar are the two largest opportunities in front of us but are intermittent (this is not news to any of us) and battery (and other forms) of storage (short and long) are relatively new and will take time to develop affordably. Yet all have a place in Alberta. Despite what many would have you believe, we are blessed with an abundance of natural resources to be sure.

If you read the news, or LinkedIn for that matter, it would be easy to conclude that many Albertans, especially influential business people and our politicians, especially those directly involved in the oil and gas sector have a disdain for renewables. However, based on this short article and interview with Pat and his wife, I am left to wonder how accurate/inaccurate that belief really is.?.

I suspect (hope) that there are far more CEO's and C-suite oil and gas folks that understand the need for an energy transition and the cost of not proceeding. Suzanne West and Imaginea Energy Corp. started something years ago marrying fossil fuels and renewables but sadly, very little has happened (at the source) since 2016. Don't get me wrong, companies such as TC Energy, Enbridge, Shell and others have made massive investments into renewables. But an opportunity exists to deploy smaller projects at the source (behind the meter) in a very viable manner.

For my part, I woke up today more hopeful than yesterday. Hopeful that Pat's words have and will inspire others in his companies (past/present and future). But also that his words and sentiments are shared more broadly in the oil & gas industry and in Alberta's living rooms.

There is much opportunity in Alberta for all forms of energy, what Alberta needs now is leadership that understands this and has a desire to leverage everything we have to offer.