The phrase “energy superpower” has received a lot of press since its use in an Alberta Oil Radio interview with Energy Council of Canada president Dr. Murray Stewart last August – so much so that the moniker has been demoted to mean more realistically “a country with lots and lots of energy resources.”

The announcement was jaw-dropping: “Canada’s oil reserves represent 923 years of supply and its natural gas reserves 392 years of supply.” It came from Joe Greene, then-minister of Canada’s Energy, Mines and Resources, in a presentation to the U.S. Independent Petroleum Association in Denver. The year was 1970.

Almost 40 years later, the estimates have been scaled downward considerably but optimism about Canada’s huge energy potential remains. In fact, Canada now ranks third internationally in natural gas, seventh in oil, and first in both hydroelectric power and uranium extraction. And its overall capacity is actually still expanding.

Little wonder, then, Canadian officials continue to tout the country as an “energy superpower.” But what exactly does that mean, and are we shooting ourselves in the foot when we shoot off our mouths?

Deploying the oil weapon

One problem with “energy superpower” is confusing it with what “superpower” has traditionally meant in political terms: a nation with the ability to deploy overwhelming military might in order to protect or even expand its interests on a global scale. Indeed, for almost half a century, the Cold War split the world’s allegiances between two military and ideological ‘superpowers’: the United States and the Soviet Union.

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