Against the backdrop of a profound restructuring of the global political and economic order, energy is no longer only a matter of resource allocation. It has become a central variable in national security and international power relations. The fragility exposed by the Strait of Hormuz crisis shows how traditional energy supply can shift from a market issue into a strategic vulnerability. In this transition, clean energy is no longer merely a moral response to climate change. It is increasingly becoming a practical tool for safeguarding national autonomy, price stability, and strategic security. Within this logic, interaction between China and Canada in the clean energy sector is not only an extension of economic cooperation, but also a reflection of how countries with different development paths position themselves in a new round of energy system restructuring.
1. Reframing the Drivers of Energy Transition: From Idealism to Strategic Necessity
For a long time, the main rationale for developing clean energy came from climate change and carbon reduction goals. These are long-term issues with strong moral legitimacy, but they often lack urgency in real-world politics. The Strait of Hormuz crisis changed the political context by turning energy from a future challenge into a present risk. Its essential warning is that a country's economic lifeline can be exposed to external control.
Under this pressure, energy transition has gained a new driver: energy security and price stability. Compared with climate concerns, this driver is more immediate, more concrete, and more likely to enter policy priorities. Clean energy development is therefore no longer only a question of whether countries should pursue it. It is increasingly a question of whether they can afford not to. In this sense, the energy transition is shifting from a moral choice to a strategic necessity.
2. The Institutional Meaning of Clean Energy: A More Decentralized Energy Structure
The fundamental difference between clean energy and fossil fuels is not only technological. It is also institutional. Wind and solar power have three important characteristics: their fuel is free, difficult to monopolize, and difficult to blockade.
These characteristics weaken the role of energy as a geopolitical instrument. In the traditional fossil fuel system, oil and gas resources are concentrated in specific regions, giving supply chains a strong degree of control and exclusivity. Clean energy, by contrast, relies more heavily on distributed natural resources, making access more balanced and less dependent on a small number of strategic chokepoints.
For this reason, the expansion of clean energy is not only an adjustment of the energy mix. It also has the potential to reshape global power structures. Countries that master clean energy technologies, infrastructure, and system integration capabilities may gain a leading position in the future energy order.
3. Technological Progress and System Constraints: The Real Contradiction of Clean Energy
Clean energy has clear institutional advantages, but its development has long been constrained by intermittency. Wind and sunlight are variable, which has made them difficult to rely on as primary power sources. Over the past decade, however, falling costs, energy storage development, and the application of artificial intelligence have gradually changed this picture. In particular, AI can improve forecasting and real-time dispatch, allowing energy systems to anticipate wind and solar conditions and adjust supply dynamically. In this way, previously uncontrollable energy can increasingly become dispatchable energy.
More importantly, the central bottleneck for clean energy is not simply generation. It lies in transmission and consumption. The problem appears in three main ways: generation sites are often far from demand centers; generation times do not always match peak demand; and existing grid structures are often poorly suited to variable power sources. This shows that clean energy is fundamentally a systems engineering challenge, not a single-technology problem.
4. Transforming Energy Carriers: From Electricity to Ammonia
To address the difficulty of storing and transporting renewable electricity, one possible pathway is the electricity-hydrogen-ammonia route. Electricity can first be used to produce hydrogen through electrolysis, and hydrogen can then be converted into ammonia for long-term storage and long-distance transportation.
Ammonia has several notable advantages as an energy carrier. It is easier to liquefy than hydrogen, existing transport systems are relatively mature, and it can also be used directly as a fuel. This pathway breaks the limitation that electricity must be consumed immediately and allows energy to move across regions more flexibly. Although cost and safety challenges remain, the direction is strategically significant.
5. China's Experience: Transition as Addition, Not Immediate Replacement
China's experience shows that clean energy development does not immediately replace traditional energy. Instead, it often creates a dual-track structure. Even as clean energy installed capacity continues to expand, coal power remains part of the system and continues to play a role because of energy security and system stability requirements.
This indicates that energy transition is not a simple process of substitution. It is a gradual process of addition and adjustment. During the transition period, traditional energy still provides a stabilizing function, while clean energy gradually increases its share.
6. Canada's Strategic Choice: Resource Advantages and Path Dependence
As a resource-rich country, Canada has advantages in both traditional and clean energy. On one hand, it has abundant oil and natural gas resources. On the other hand, wind power, hydropower, land resources, and regional energy demand create favorable conditions for clean energy development.
In this context, Canada's key question is not whether to transition, but how to transition. A dual-track approach may allow Canada to maintain the economic value of traditional energy while expanding clean energy deployment. Such a path can reduce transition risks and preserve strategic flexibility.
7. Opportunities and Boundaries for China-Canada Cooperation
In clean energy, China and Canada have clear areas of complementarity. China has cost advantages, manufacturing capacity, and technological experience in clean energy equipment and system deployment. Canada has resources, market space, land, and energy transition demand. Cooperation may be possible in equipment procurement, green hydrogen and green ammonia development, energy storage construction, and energy systems for remote regions.
However, this cooperation is also constrained by political relations and institutional differences. Energy cooperation is not merely an economic activity. It also involves security, trust, and policy coordination. For this reason, China-Canada cooperation in clean energy needs to proceed gradually and in controllable areas, rather than through overly ambitious frameworks that may exceed political and institutional conditions.
Conclusion: The Energy Revolution Is a Competition of National Capabilities
In an era when energy security is returning to the center of national strategy, the clean energy transition is no longer only a technological choice. It has become a key question concerning national development paths and positions in international competition. The experiences of China and Canada reflect differences in resource endowments and development models, while also showing a shared need to seek balance and cooperation in an uncertain global environment.
The future competition in energy systems will not be determined solely by resource ownership. It will depend on a country's ability to transform resources into system capabilities. Only through coordinated progress in technology, infrastructure, and institutions can countries gain initiative in this new round of energy transformation and establish a stronger position in the reshaping global order.