Marty47 wrote: BUYTIME:
We want to achieve dramatic emissions reductions, but we want to do so in a way that manages to maintain the reliability of our power grid and keeps life affordable for everyday Albertans and Canadians," Smith said in the television interview.
"Unfortunately, that's not what the federal government's doing. If it takes us pushing back against them, we're prepared to do it."
On Wednesday, the federal government announced a plan to phase out internal combustion vehicles by 2035. The target for 2026 is to have electric or hybrid models make up 20 per cent of new vehicles on the market.
Smith called the federal targets “unachievable” for her province, due to the small number of EVs Albertans are buying right now, and a dearth of charging infrastructure in a province with communities are spread far apart.
Instead, Smith said her province is focused on its previous goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.
“There's a lot of work that needs to be done to upgrade the power grid, to make sure that we've got range issues established for the electric vehicles, to make sure that there's fuelling stations,” she said.
Smith said she is not focused so much on EVs as she is on hydrogen-powered vehicles, which only produce water from their exhaust.
“In our market in particular, I think it's going to be a lot more practical for us to be looking at hydrogen fuel cell vehicles or hydrogen combustion engine vehicles, both of which don't have a broad adoption on the market just yet,” she said.
In November, the province bought three Toyota Mirai electric vehicles for its own fleet, and Toyota partnered with Edmonton’s airport in July to bring in 100 of these cars to the city’s roadways.
Smith added that the government vehicles are likely the only hydrogen-powered vehicles on Alberta’s roads at the moment.
“In Western Canada, that's actually going to be the more practical approach,” she said. “I saw with interest that Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said that hydrogen vehicles weren't his priority. Well, they're my priority.”