Jaxon Caines, technology reporter, Hart Energy: CEOs have an interesting challenge in following the path toward net zero goals. Find out how this CEO sees the net zero conversation heading in this Hart Energy Live Exclusive interview with Enserva.

Gurpreet Lail, CEO, Enserva: My takeaways so far have been that, as Canadians we're well positioned for this net zero conversation. I feel like we've developed technologies and innovations that we can offer to the rest of the world to help them and their transition away from emissions. And we've had interesting conversations with India and Qatar just talking about what Canadians are doing to get to net zero. Because we've been doing this for a long time, we're just now starting to talk about it.

JC: How are Canadian companies responding to the challenge of net zero?

GL: When it comes to the energy service supply manufacturing sector, we are the innovators of the sector. So someone will give us a problem and we'll come up with a solution and bring the workforce along with it to implement it. So we've been doing this whole transition away from emissions for a long time. It's just now being talked about in media and with governments. It's the new buzzword, but we've been embracing it. All our companies have been embracing it and we're hoping that we can get our product out to new markets to help them on their path to net zero.

JC: How are Canadian companies embracing and even taking the lead on this?

GL: So I would say we have a lot of technological advances that we're taking, and not just even to net zero. If you look at years past, what we've done with pressure pumping here in Canada, it was actually our American counterparts that took our technology from here and moved it across the border to utilize in the United States. What Canada's achieving with CCUS, with geothermal, when we're looking at lithium and other minerals, it's going to be productive for the rest of the world to utilize. And…there's some cool technology too, right? When you look at AI or robotics, there's a lot on detecting emissions and leaks based on drones or having robodogs on the field. It's phenomenal. So I think we have a lot to offer.

JC: What's helped the net zero conversation mature away from the radical view it's had in the past?

GL: I think the radical view actually came from misunderstandings from people outside of the energy who didn't really understand what it means. I think where we're at right now is the conversation has to switch to energy security. And we saw what happened in Europe and what was going on there, and all of a sudden, the light bulb went off for everybody to be like, “oh, this could be huge.” And if we don't do everything in a processed manner, which has economic ramifications, and think that process through, we won't have energy security in North America, let alone looking across at Europe and whatnot. And I think we're positioned to help the rest of the countries actually move to new, cleaner products.

JC: What do you make of Canada's response to the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act?

GL: Full transparency, I think what we were expecting as an industry was, “Hey, look, the United States came together and they've given us a roadmap,” and we assumed that our government was going to tweak a few of the things and then implement this roadmap. However, that's not the case. And what has come out I don't think actually provides any incentives for the energy sector, and I think we have a lot to learn from our American counterparts on that. The IRA is actually incentivizing the industry, and it's amazing to see the Republicans and the Democrats work together for economic prosperity, and I wish we thought the same.

Someone asked me yesterday, they said, “why aren't the oil companies paying for all of this?” Well, if you look at years past, we went through an economic downturn, huge. You guys felt that too in the United States. COVID hits and then we're now starting to come out of that. And from service supply and manufacturing companies, we're still not making record profits. So I think for the betterment of Canadians, the government should do what the American government did and provide incentives for companies to move to a cleaner future.

JC: That's your Hart Energy LIVE Exclusive interview with Enserva. To learn more go to hartenergy.com.

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