Alberta now has 44 wind farms, and Wednesday night they collectively produced next to no power (posted yesterday, but leads into the next two for context)
On Thursday, Alberta wind power had a hangover and the sun didn’t come out to play
What the Globe and Mail left out in its story on grid-scale batteries in Alberta
Key points:
The last day saw not only wind utterly collapse in Alberta, but solar AT THE SAME TIME, even at noon. And the narrative that we’ll simply build a lot of batteries for when that happens is disproven, as Alberta’s seven batteries only produced a 62 minutes of a wee bit of power all day on Thursday. And over the last 30 days, those seven batteries only produced 265 minutes out of over 300,000 minutes available to them. Yes, you read that right. And SaskPower is spending $26 million to buy one of these batteries. Seriously. It should be online any day.
So why, again, are we throwing away what we know works, natural gas and coal, for wind, solar and batteries? And it’s not even all that cold yet!
Bonus reading:
What is very disturbing is that Steven Guilbeault knows nothing about climate and is taking Canada with Trudeau down a road to bankruptcy!!!! Man made climate change is not real (Anthropogenic Climate change) and in the future real science will laugh at how stupid the Guilbeaults of our world were!!!!
If we still exist! Thanks Brian for your excellent reports!!!
Sadly Guilbeault knows very little about anything. If he had even a tiny functioning brain he would know that the climate is out of our control and that CO2 is not a climate driver. The goal is destruction not construction, or saving a damn thing.
Don’t make the mistake of imagining Guilbeault to be stupid. He’s a very clever, completely unscrupulous, dangerous man. He has an agenda which most of us find repulsive. But don’t make the mistake of thinking him stupid. The truly dangerous never are.
cgh
Exactly. He is on a mission and came to realize that if you want to effect real change you need to be able to pull the leavers of power. The Bongs old man did the same thing. Make no mistake he is dangerous. An enemy of Canada.
When I use the word stupid it does not necessarily mean dumb as a bag of rocks but it can mean that. Think about the word and actions that are irrational, insane, evil and guess what, STUPID.
Climate campaigners have embraced the Levelized Cost of Energy calculation by Lazard which falsely claimed that wind and solar were the cheapest form of electricity generation. LCOE conveniently left out the cost of backup for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, or blows too strongly.
Bank of America’s Global Research department did the proper calculations, which show that when “all-in” costs are included, wind and solar, including required backup, are the most expensive sources of electricity. The exhibits on page 12 of the report illustrate this.
https://advisoranalyst.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/bofa-the-ric-report-the-nuclear-necessity-20230509.pdf
They don’t intend for there to be any backup. They intend power for the elite and starvation and freezing in the park for the rest of us. Stop trying to reason with these people, they understand the situation and don’t care. If we don’t want a stone age future we’ll have to stop them.
I’m sure they also didn’t include the cost of having to replace the unRenewables every 15 to 20 years compared to the Reliable Power sources which are good for 60 to 100 years, or the increased transmission costs for distributed power.
I wonder if the original study also included the “social(ist) license costs” of Reliable Power versus the unRenewables.
Since batteries store electricity not generate electricity so in order to have an electrical grid run off of solar, wind and batteries the solar and wind have to produce enough electricity to meet the base load they also have to generate enough electricity to keep the batteries charged should the wind stop blowing and the sun set. Wind and solar is not even close to producing enough electricity to meet base load demand let alone charge the battery.
“the solar and wind have to produce enough electricity to meet the base load they also have to generate enough electricity to keep the batteries charged should the wind stop blowing and the sun set. ”
Yeah, everyone forgets that part, don’t they? You not only have to calculate for the known electrical load but also for the battery load as well. This is the fatal flaw in ‘pumped storage’ hydro as well.
All of these things are fine for powering vacation homes or small villages as long as there is a reliable (hydro, gas/coal or nuclear) backup available. None are remotely suitable for *mass* power generation to service large cities, though.
On farms they grow something. On wind farms they grow public debt.
With all the subsidies solar companies are paying farmers 2-3 times what they could make growing corn or beans.
One small correction. It’s not the solar power companies paying the farmers.
“On farms they grow something. On wind farms they grow public debt.”
So true.
(and I may borrow that one…)
There is little logic building wind and solar. It’s like buying a lame horse to supplement your reliable gas car. Wind and solar are like the lame horse because they only work sporadically, may not work when you really need them to, lots of breakdowns and a short lifespan.
The chart that matters would be one that shows the actual production rates over a year in Saskatchewan or Alberta .
There are 8760 hours per year. How many hours does a wind tower produce 100% of its nameplate capacity? And 90%, 80%…20%, 10%, less than 10% of nameplate. Then add columns for solar, baseload natgas plants, baseload coal, baseload hydro and an Ontario nuclear plant for comparison.
I suspect wind and solar can’t come anywhere near the reliability of the other sources. And reliability is the only thing that really matters in electricity production. Electricity needs to be available 24/7/365. Everything else is politically driven nonsense designed to instill confusion.
I bet if you look, you might find that the Demand Peaker plants also produce more power than the wind farms, and that’s the least efficient forms of Reliable Power
“I suspect wind and solar can’t come anywhere near the reliability of the other sources. And reliability is the only thing that really matters in electricity production. Electricity needs to be available 24/7/365. Everything else is politically driven nonsense designed to instill confusion.”
Well said, LC.
It’s all about the money (as are most things, I find). The engineers, consultants, business people and installers of this stuff make out like bandits…the rest of us just have to pay the price for it. The politicians, of course, know that they and the news media have convinced enough of us that we absolutely need this ‘green’ infrastructure to9 prevent a ‘climate CATASTROPHE!’, so they not only gain votes for it but taxes, levies and eco-fees as well (which go right into government coffers). Win-win for them, especially when they get to label anyone who expresses any kind of concern as a “climate denier”.
The Big-Green Machine slammed heavy oil by calling it Tar Sands. Two can play that game.
Let’s call Renewable Energy by a more accurate descriptor:
– Intermittent Energy
– uneconomic energy
– chaotic energy
– inconvenient energy
– codependant energy
Thoughts?
Try “the unreliables”
cgh – Or, Unreliable Energy sounds about right.
Grid Parasites
It seems as though, the convict can do anything without interference from the parliament.
Could it be said, dicktatorship (sic) by proxy?
Its been BULLSHIT since Maurice first starting spewing his Lies at Rio in the early ’90’s.
That a significant portion of the planet believes MAN is soley responsible for Climate simply illustrates that the Program, besides continually spewing the words “Anthroprogenic Climate Change” was just part of the Lie….It’s the Media, School Teachers who pushed this LIE…along with SCUMBAGS LIERS Like Michael Mann and his “hockey stick”, Greta & Eco Terrorists like (Stephan Guilbault).
The Globalists jumped on board seeing an opportunity to Destroy the West using this as their Reason.
The entire network of so called renewables in Alberta and Sask should be dismantled and Dumped on the lawn of Parliament in Ottawa, 100% replaced with Natural Gas & Coal. Nuclear can come later.
Time to reclaim some sanity, our landscapes and a massive reprieve for our Wildfowl.
Yes. Hydro, coal, nuclear and natural gas produced electricity reliably and affordably for decades before a single wind or solar project was constructed. The traditional system worked extremely well and returning to that system would also work extremely well again.
We need to get back to basics and build electricity generation systems that actually work.
Yes indeed and considering we have 500 to 600 years of fossil fuels under North America it will eventually have to be used. Throw in nuclear as well. No need to die in the cold or die in the heat.
The only reason we have energy poverty and energy instability in Canada is because of political interference. If you removed all of the political policies that have impeded energy production over the last 20-25 years then affordability and reliability would return (electricity and petroleum production). I think that the environment policies of the 1990s had pretty much found the right balance between economic realities and environmental protection.
“Throw in nuclear as well. ”
Quite right. Nuclear power can produce about 15,000 times as much energy as it produces on the single use fuel cycle we use now. If recycled and turned into new fuel, nuclear power can provide all the electricity our civilization uses for at least the next 10,000 years.
And when we run out of uranium we can use thorium.
We will never run out of fuel. We will only ever run out of the invested capital to turn that fuel into useful energy.
Man induced climate change is such a big lie with so many long and numerous tentacles of corruption that I am starting to doubt the honesty of even our so called populist leaders slowly gaining power all over the west.
Starting with Trump, why is it that none seems to entertain the idea and promise to establish a large commission involving REAL scientists from all over the world (not Greta, Gore or Suzuki) to finally expose the lie and officially declare C02 is not a pollutant and that fossil fuels (and nuclear) are still the best by far?
Poilievre, what about you?
I have no love for the feckless “Conservatives”. However, if they founds their balls and a spine, and publicly declared that the whole damn thing is a fraud, and that they would undo every bit of climate insanity…
…then I would vote for them in the next election.
So I say with confidence that I will be voting PPC next election.
And if the CPC came out with that platform, they would win about fifty seats in parliament.
Go ahead and vote PPC, the Liberals love splitting the Opposition, but when Trudeau again forms government, look at yourself in the mirror and admit YOU helped elect him!
The object is to get Trudeau and his green fanatic party the hell out of government! Vote accordinglt or re-elect the sonofab****.
Liberal, Conservative both belong to the Uniparty.
“And if the CPC came out with that platform, they would win about fifty seats in parliament. ”
Not if they had a leader who wasn’t afraid to make the case for it. All the actual evidence is on *our* side, and a good speaker with a reasonable intellect (and a spine, as WY says) could make that case without too much difficulty. Sadly, that man is NOT Pierre Poilievre.
“Go ahead and vote PPC, ”
I will.
“the Liberals love splitting the Opposition, but when Trudeau again forms government, look at yourself in the mirror and admit YOU helped elect him!”
I will do no such thing. I will vote PPC, again, so that the so-called ‘conservatives’ in the CPC know that they *could have* had my vote if they had acted like real conservatives.
Supporting the despicable monopoly that keeps poor families paying *three times* the prices for milk, cheese, eggs and chicken that the Americans do? NOT conservative.
Voting to accuse *all* Canadians of responsibility for an ongoing ‘genocide’ against indigenous people? NOT conservative.
A vote for the CPC is therefore a vote that says, “That’s okay”. Well IT IS NOT okay. Not with me, sorry.
Change those policies and you can have my support back. Until then, I will vote PPC…and I will continue to reject any and all fearmongering or attempts to guilt me into not “splitting the vote”.
“Poilievre, what about you?”
Doesn’t have the stones for it, sadly.
Brian, you are an excellent, excellent analyst of this stuff. Thank you very much for your work.
It would be nice if Saskatchewan and Alberta would make you the head of energy policies.
I would love to know where and when it was decided that electricity didn’t need to be cheap anymore?
I think even a junior high school student can understand that an economy, or country, with cheaper electricity and energy is going to be a better place to do business than an expensive one.
“So why, again, are we throwing away what we know works…”
Because they are simply stealing the money, Brian.
It is very hard for Canadians to wrap their heads around malfeasance in high office, we have all been propagandized from the cradle to believe in government officials. Even when it is proven beyond any doubt, we still think of it as individuals behaving badly. What we face is not bad individuals.
This is a systemic, bone-deep culture of graft, entitlement and larceny. We can’t reform it. We need to starve it to death. Tax cuts.
The political and corporate class are using a psychological manipulation to manufacture consent to radically change the energy system.
As a parent you give your kids choices when getting them to complete necessary tasks but limit the choices : would you like to clean your room now or after supper instead of would you like to clean your room. Not cleaning your room is not presented as an option. It gives kids the illusion of control.
In much the same way, people are not being offered the option of not radically altering energy production. The initial options in canada were carbon taxes or renewable energy or massive regulation. In reality, the fully intended to implement all three and more but they gave you the illusion of control. , gaining manufactured consent.
Knowing what we know now, the original but suppressed premise must be considered : is radically changing energy production an environmentally and economically sound idea? That’s the discussion the politicians and crony capitalists absolutely do not want people to think about.
Not just tax cuts, but massive cuts in gov’t spending is necessary. Start with a MINIMUM cut of 50% across the board. In a year, look for the next 25% to cut.
Reduce gov’t to it’s absolute minimum, and keep it starved.
Again: if the “Conservatives” were to commit to this- they’d have my vote.
They never will, of course.
Why? Because they are projecting their self loathing onto us.
Wind / solar can be down for days. Battery backup provides minutes of backup protection.
What can possibly go wrong?
Has anyone looked at the real data and said, “if AB had this much battery capacity it would have provided all the power needed when wind and solar couldn’t.” And then, “to keep those batteries charged sufficiently, it would need that much wind and solar capacity, given actual production day by day” and finally, “all those batteries, wind and solar will cost $N-trillions, and cover X,Y and Z hectares”. Bonus points for doing the same with “nuclear, with so much battery capacity to handle the daily fluctuations, would be so much and take that much space” (I realize has it hydro might be better suited to dealing with the variations, but it’s a thought experiment)
It’s a bit of morbid curiosity on my part, but mostly it strikes me as a good bit of info for contentious family get-togethers during the holiday seasons.
Your thought experiment is a pretty good one. One serious caution: most of the useful hydraulic sites around the world are already harnessed, so there’s little new hydraulic capacity available. Site C in British Columbia is about the end of it.
Present day batteries are fine to smooth out minor dips in the grid.. Yes, green needs help even under the best conditions :).. They will fail up against any peak usage scenario.. Dinner time, minus 20 in january :)..
Whatever, bring the failure so we can get on with kicking these grifter losers to the curb..
Can you grow crops in the sizeable spaces between the solar rows? nothing too high, potatoes?
We diddle and fiddle and accomplish nothing. The climate will kill us if we don’t keep warm.