We Don't Need No Stinking Giant Fans

50% renewables for SaskPower generation by the year 2030 should be a good indication that their planning board consists of 'The Blind Leading The Blind'.

When provincial governments and local rent seekers get into huge transactions across national borders
with companies from certain parts of the world, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered but
never are. Not unlike the weirdness involved with airlines that are able to get great deals on new offshore
built aircraft while their foreign competitors get deals on Canadian made planes that our own airlines can
only dream about.

Any cab minister proffer up their resignation based on their gross incompetence??? Didn't think so.

I guess Ontario has to make payments on those Windmills going FWD.....The Money has to come from somewhere..
The zero down, no payment for 36 months hits like a hammer

Liberals were told at least 10 years ago of the futility of pursuing the Big Wind pipe dream, and they have been warned repeatedly since of the absurdity of their policy. An outfit called Ont Power Authority was set up by government to among other things assess the long-term adequacy of electricity resources for Ont. In an annual report about 2006 they ranked wind power dead last among available generating sources, stating it could never be more than a niche supplier of electricity. That report has disappeared from web sites. The OPA was wound down and combined into IESO in 2015.
Many other analysts and commentators have pointed out the obvious shortcomings of Wind power; Liberals from McGuinty forward have ignored, or discounted this advice and listened instead to green zealots like Gerald Butts who idealized the concept of electricity generated without burning any fuel.
Ontarians will pay many times over for this Liberal folly.

This is what happens when Politicians have IMMUNITY from anything they do while being in power.

ZERO F'n Accountability other than some lame excuse...which to me is utter BS. They knew damned well what was going to happen...they knew, they were warned and went ahead anyway - Arrongant SOBs's

And where did all the money go...?? to F'n Liberal Insiders who ran the Wind companies....@ 0.82/kwhr no less for a number of years. That to me is outright THEFT and should be prosecuted to the N'th degree....but it won't and every one of those SOB's will get a fat pension while the rest of the country-province starves due to energy poverty.

This shit keeps up and there will be in the not too distant future, armed revolt...with I HOPE a return of the Guillotine....bring McGuinty, Smitherman, Wynne, Notley and any other goddamned socialist to the Central Square - Invite CBC and maybe even add those bastards to the list...off with their disgusting heads.

I'd bet money that Saskpower will not get to 50% renewables by 2030. Not 50% installed capacity and of course not 50% of total annual electricity production (since the wind towers currently operating only produces about 20-30% of the time). Grid instability kicks in when wind power reaches 10% and there are serious, critical grid stability issues at 20% plus. If the technical issues don't kill the dream then production costs (wind farms plus 100% natgas backup) and public anger over rate increases will. Given government budget pressures and the expensive clean coal project, Saskpower isn't exactly rolling in cash right now. Perhaps we can vulture off of Alberta's wind power push and buy cheap wind power they need to dump at prices below production costs like Ontario's neighbors?

If Saskpower had the opportunity to build or import massive amounts of hydro power or went into nuclear power then they could get to 50% "clean" power but not by 2030. Personally, I think once small, modular nuclear power becomes commercially viable it would make sense to gradually replace ageing coal power plants with nuclear power.

IMO, the renewable promise is an empty promise that politicians make to other politicians and the media in the go along to get along, please don't ostracize me spirit. Like the Liberal Party and the Kyoto Accord. Well that and politicians don't know F-all about the electricity industry - production, transmission, maintenance, economics etc. Generally politicians are only experts at getting elected and the energy advisers they rely on are non-STEM liberal arts major, crony capitalist or SJW types.

People who know what they doing don't usually do well in a highly politicized state-run environment. The CAGW Kool-Aid has contaminated everything the institutional left has been involved in including the corporate rent-seekers. Hysteria-pimping politicians and even those so-called conservatives pandering to the same forces are running organizations that would be better left to the private sector unfettered by the dead hand of government. Given that our unfortunately heavily mixed economy isn't going in the right (private) direction, we are stuck with a technocracy (or worse, green theocracy) for fools where instead of knowledgeable technocrats making informed decisions on government institutions delivering good and services, those decisions fall on people pathologically driven to seek power over other peoples lives on the basis of emotional appeal.

Why why why aren't the politicians and special interests that created this mess in jail?

I am being serious. It is time to change the law so that politicians that destroy wealth go to jail.

How is it possible that I just paid a $ 411.00 monthly PG&E bill for my little 2-story home here in the most temperate of all eco-systems on the planet ? SIMPLE ... Green FRAUD. Green GRAFT ... Eco-POVERTY. Redistribution of MY PERSONAL WEALTH into the hands of an (effectively) UN-regulated quasi-governmental Utility.

"Thibeault's excuse that the Liberals were well-intentioned and only realized their mistake with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight is absurd."

So they traded the cow for a handful of beans. There should be a learning experience in there somewhere.

Shouldn't the guy be fired or something?

"Liberals were told at least 10 years ago of the futility of pursuing the Big Wind pipe dream,"

No, the Liberals were told it was futile the first time they talked to a power engineer. I was told it was futile in 1976 at a McMaster University engineering fair. I am very much -not- an engineer, but even I can figure out it can't work.

That is, -cannot- work, no matter what, ever. Not possible.

Knowing full well that it was not possible to do what they said they wanted to do, they went ahead anyway. Because, none of this was EVER about the environment, or any of the stuff they always say. Exactly the same as the gun registry was never about crime.

This was about money for hooked up Liberal insiders. Billions of dollars already, and we will still be paying for this twenty years from now.

It was a scam. If a private company did this, they would all go to jail forever. Because it was the Liberals, no one will ever go to jail.

Welcome to the Real Canada, my friends.

Wynne is Trudeau's taxaction mentor, as Rex opines:

"This is a story of almost Dickensian symmetry. The ecoLords who have brought mayhem to Ontario’s electricity system and reduced some of its citizens to public tears and weeping, with power being cut off to low-income residents, is hurling $14,000 subsides to those who by definition – those buying $150,000 wonder cars – have no possible need of them."

If the lady who wept to the Prime Minister hears of this, she will no doubt weep again. She can’t pay her light bill, while Tesla Tommy gets $14,000."

Oh brave new green world that has such subsidies in it! A world where there are those who get their power cut, or make the bitter choice between food and light, where others saunter to Tesla showrooms and get a $14,000 discount. Now if you want to call this “carbon pollution” have at it. Meantime in Ottawa Mr. Trudeau looks out over Ontario and its maddening green gyrations and sees that it is good. Expect more tears."

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/rex-murphy-in-ontario-the-taxpayers-sustain-wynnes-green-energy-perpetual-motion-disaster

http://www.ottawasun.com/2017/02/25/pcs-poised-to-win-super-majority-forum-poll

But I'm not sure Patrick Brown is going to be any better

Patrick Brown says he supports putting a price on carbon
'Climate change is a fact. It is a threat. It is man-made,' Ontario PC leader says at annual party convention

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-pc-convention-1.3477623

He may be only marginally better than Wynne...

http://www.saskpower.com/about-us/senior-leadership/honourable-gordon-wyant/

Not to insult Saskatchewanians, but after reading this guy's profile,and ALL the political positions he held,board,councils, etc.,etc., I HAVE to ask," did this guy EVER hold a REAL job in his entire &%^$# life!

This is the same CV as Kim Campbell, half the B.C. NDP MLA's,and every other socialist I can remember. No damned wonder we are so poorly governed when you elect a huge percentage of people who have never had to be truly accountable in their entire lives!

The main reason I embrace the Trump government is because he has appointed so many people with real world experience,not government pussies.

Isn't it sad that the same people that brought you the Green revolution in Ontario by advocating and promising a sustainable economy are now the same people that are importing hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees and promising that they will integrate into and benefit our society. You must be a Liberal/NDP pecker-head if you believe we can grow the economy by bringing in more people and at the same time reduce our carbon footprint by imposing taxes. If they didn't learn from their hands-on experience at the sacrifice of the Ontario manufacturing base over the last ten years and they cannot see what is happening in Europe over the last five years then perhaps some commentators here are right, it may just have to come down to an armed insurrection. Nothing like the gutters running with blood, and the tumbrils running 24/7 to clean out the bloodsuckers and parasites.

Never in the history of Ontario have we seen such incompetence fueled by incompetents from the Premier on down the line. We won't even get into the scandals....

The energy minister's admission about good intentions and hindsight remind me of the age-old excuse used for poor handling of firearms: "I didn't know the gun was loaded."

ohhhh thank you thank you thank you for that link to the Sun.

now, NOW I have the printout I need to *shove in the go**amn face of the local Lieberal MPP's constituency 'orifice'* to yet *again* and this time DEMAND to know did *anyone* in the entire lieberal govt in the past 10 miserable years think that the hate-on they have about 'carbon' just might all backfire AND get blown out of the water by the Chirese who don't give a rodent's derriere about CO2 in our great world wide atmosphere?

or, 'politics as usual'.

With an ineffective opposition (all the same ideologically and all promising to have the same 'good' intentions), voters will have few alternatives in the next election and Ontario will just elect more of the same. No end in sight.

It was never about electric power.
Always about the power to steal.
Once elected our Kleptocrats have unchallenged ability to loot the public,robbing the many to reward the well connected few.
And their actions are not criminal in Canada..Because people of their bent wrote these laws.
We have no property rights and are being stripped of our right to self defence, because both of these foundations of civil society threaten the continued existence of these parasitic creatures.
Politic = Poly Ticks.
Many blood sucking life forms who have no other ability.
The "contracts" rewarding the unreliable "power" supplied by the wind and solar "industries" are just old fashioned racketeering dressed up in bureaucrateeze.
In plain english they say"We will reward our comrades with your money and you dumb citizens can pay up or freeze in the dark.
"We are from the government, we are here "helping" you.
So much corruption,our language is awash in it today.
Theft and banditry are now; "Good Government".
Enjoy.

There is a reason I spend 6 months in the Bahamas and then 6 months in Canada in the so called warmer months. I am always surprised to see anyone alive in Ontario when I return. I have never voted Liberal and never will but Canadians vote for however the media tells them to. The US and European activists groups spent a lot of money last election ensuring that Stephen Harper was not re-elected. Just so Trudeau could be elected and bring in a carbon tax.