ARCHIVED – Canada’s Energy Future 2016: Province and Territory Outlooks
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Glossary
| Biomass | Organic material such as wood, crop waste, municipal solid waste, hog fuel or pulping liquor, processed for energy production. |
| Brent | A key global crude oil benchmark price. It is a light sweet grade that is extracted from the North Sea. |
| Capacity (Electricity) | The maximum amount of power that a device can generate, use or transfer, usually expressed in megawatts. |
| Carbon capture and storage (CCS) or carbon capture and sequestration | A method of capturing (and storing) CO2, such that it is not released into the atmosphere, hence reducing GHG emissions. Carbon dioxide is compressed into a transportable form, moved by pipeline or tanker, and stored in some medium, such as a deep geological formation. |
| Conventional crude oil | Crude oil, which at a particular point in time, can be technically and economically produced through a well using normal production practices and without altering the natural viscous state of the oil. |
| Conventional natural gas | Natural gas that is found in the reservoir and produced through a wellbore with known technology and where the drive for production is provided by expansion of the gas or by pressure from an underlying aquifer. |
| Crude oil | A mixture of hydrocarbons of different molecular weights that exists in the liquid phase in underground reservoirs and remains liquid at atmospheric pressure and temperature. Crude oil may contain small amounts of sulphur and other non-hydrocarbons, but does not include liquids obtained from the processing of natural gas. |
| End-use, or secondary, energy demand | The energy used by end-users in residential, commercial, industrial (which includes energy used for oil and gas production), and transportation sectors. |
| Energy efficiency | Technologies and measures that reduce the amount of energy and/or fuel required for the same work. |
| Feedstock | Natural gas or other hydrocarbons used as an essential component of a process for the production of a product. |
| Fossil fuel | Hydrocarbon-based fuel sources such as coal, natural gas, natural gas liquids and crude oil. |
| Generation (electricity) | The process of producing electric energy by transforming other forms of energy. Also, the amount of energy produced. |
| Geothermal energy | The use of geothermal heat to generate electricity. Also used to describe ground-source heating and cooling (also known as geoexchange or ground-source heat pump). |
| Greenhouse gas (GHG) | A gas such as carbon dioxide, methane or nitrogen oxide, which actively contribute to the atmospheric greenhouse effect. Greenhouse gases also include gases generated through industrial processes such as hydroflurocarbons, perflurocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride. |
| Gross Domestic Product (GDP) | GDP is a measure of economic activity within a country. It is the market value of all goods and services in a year within Canada’s borders. |
| Heavy crude oil | Generally, a crude oil that has a density greater than 900 kg/m³, or an API gravity below 25. |
| Henry Hub (price) | Henry Hub is the pricing point for natural gas futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The hub is a point on the natural gas pipeline owned by Sabine Pipe Line and located in Louisiana. |
| Hydroelectric generation | A form of renewable energy wherein electricity is produced from hydropower. |
| Liquefied natural gas (LNG) | Liquefied natural gas is natural gas in its liquid form. Natural gas is liquefied by cooling to minus 162 degrees Celsius (minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit), and the process reduces the volume of gas by more than 600 times, allowing for efficient transport via LNG tanker or trucks. |
| Marketable natural gas | The volume of gas that can be sold to the market after allowing for removal of impurities and after accounting for any volumes used to fuel surface facilities. As used in this report for undiscovered volumes, it is determined by applying the average surface loss from existing pools in that formation to the recoverable volumes of undiscovered pools of the same formation. |
| Natural gas liquids (NGLs) | Those hydrocarbon components recovered from natural gas as liquids. These liquids include, but are not limited to, ethane, propane, butanes and pentanes plus. |
| Oil sands | Sand and other rock material that contains bitumen. Each particle of oil sand is coated with a layer of water and a thin film of bitumen. |
| Real or constant dollar | When price levels that are held constant at a base year, eliminating the effect of inflation. |
| Refined petroleum product | A wide range of products derived from crude oil through the refining process such as gasoline, diesel, heating oil, and jet fuel, among others. |
| Solar energy | Includes active and passive solar heat collection systems and photovoltaics. |
| Wave / Tidal power | Also known as tidal energy, tidal or wave power makes use of the rise and fall in sea levels, or tidal flow, to create hydropower. |
| Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) | The Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) is an ancient sedimentary basin 1.4 million square kilometres in size that formed over southwest Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan, almost all of Alberta, eastern and northeastern British Columbia, and the southern Yukon and Northwest Territories. |
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