Anatomy of a State Blunder: Quebec’s “Green” Gas Fiasco
3 hours ago Guest Blogger 18 Comments
First published in French on Association des climato-réalistes site. Translated by Google Gemini.
By Robert Girouard
Because it promised to fight climate change while preserving the existing gas network, renewable natural gas (RNG)—strategically rebranded as “green gas” by communications professionals—was touted as the ultimate miracle for Quebec’s energy transition.
Conceived under the Coalition Avenir Québec government and enshrined in regulation in 2019, the strategy appeared crystal clear on the surface. It aimed to force gas distributors, primarily Énergir, to inject an increasing proportion of RNG derived from the decomposition of organic waste—whether manure, compost bin contents, or sewage sludge—into their distribution networks. The stated targets were intended to be progressive yet ambitious: 1% integration in 2020, 5% by 2025, and 10% by 2030.
This policy was adopted under constant pressure from environmental groups and, later, structured coalitions such as Sortons le gaz! (bringing together Équiterre, the David Suzuki Foundation, Nature Québec, and other key players). By demanding an urgent exit from fossil fuels and setting utopian decarbonization targets, these organizations contributed to imposing a demand for immediate results, effectively bypassing a rational cost-benefit debate on the policy.
A few years later, the verdict is unequivocal. Production from Quebec’s biomethanation plants remains capped at a marginal level, production costs have proven astronomical, and the government has been forced to backpedal by officially postponing its own regulatory deadlines. Beyond a simple supply chain failure, this file offers a textbook case of institutional blunder, where ideological blindness, activism, corporatism, and technocracy combined to suspend the laws of arithmetic and physics—at the expense of taxpayers and businesses.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/07/30/anatomy-of-a-state-blunder-quebecs-green-gas-fiasco/
