Enough of this writing about wind and solar collapsing! Time to get back to some energy stories!
Lithium in SK, Part 24: Hub City Lithium releases preliminary economic assessment for Viewfield project. If it works out, after-tax payout projected in 2.4 years.
Prairie Lithium had some announcements this month and I hope to catch up with them shortly. They released a similar sort of thing. Grounded Lithium had a similar release last summer. That means three players are getting closer to commercialization. As I keep saying, this could be the cusp of a multi-billion dollar industry for Saskatchewan. I sure hope so.
Whatever you think of electric vehicles, someone’s going to make money making those batteries. So we might as well put some of that money in our pockets in Saskatchewan.
And on that front, Ford cut a shift from its F-150 Lightning plant. I sent Ford a long list of questions about how Lightnings perform in -35 C. Let’s see if they respond. What do you think?
Nothing will happen until any project goes through the environmental assessment process. This will be a large project requiring extensive public and expert consultation. Expect the EA process to take at least five years. Canada’s performance is very bad in doing EAs. Some of them have taken as much as a decade.
A major problem with EA in Canada is that passing an EA does NOT provide automatic approval to the project in question. Furthermore, the Province must conduct its own EA. (I do not know whether or not the federal government and Saskatchewan have a unified EA process.) It will still come back for approval by the relevant Minister or agency.
It is no exaggeration to say that Canada has the worst, most inefficent EA process among all OECD nations. No one does it worse than us. This should be expected. The legislation was designed in 1990 by Lucien Bouchard. And it functions as intended – to prevent any development of anything, anywhere.
It’s not a large project at all. Crescent Point Energy used to drill as many wells in that area in about three weeks as this total project will be, six weeks if you include the disposal wells. The extraction process is about 98% in common with normal, every day oil and gas production. The only difference is the processing on surface. And that’s just mechanical piping and a chemical plant, not much different than an oilfield battery.
So no, do not expect a massive environmental assessment to be required.
The problem will be the public consultation as always. That’s where the environmentalists suck up lots of foreign funding, hire lawyers and try to drag things out endlessly. And also expect a barrage of “expert” testimony as intervention to thoroughly muddy the water. As the dismal old joke states accurately, “the process is the punishment.” That’s the key question; will a public hearing and consultation process be needed?
Alberta wind power at an incredible 7.6% of capacity this morning!
By the time all this lithium is ready for prime time … no one will still own an EV and will be busy looking for back up energy to keep the lights on despite governments dwindling concern about our energy future.
AND IT AIN’T GONNA BE A GOD DAMNED BATTERY.
Saving the F**king planet is the mind-meld at this time and probably going forward. Takes time for fools to wake up.
Even if EVs don’t take off like the Biden and Trudeau administrations would like, there will still be an EV market. And every cellphone, Apple watch and iPhone, as well as your laptop, use lithium batteries. Someone’s got to produce that lithium, so how about Saskatchewan getting in on the action?
Don’t forget about cordless tools.
Costs more, Less reliable. Yes, we’d like that one.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/energy-developer-axing-key-coal-power-plants-meet-eco-goals-jeopardizing-power-millions
… “Unsurprisingly, Xcel’s largest shareholders are made up of the biggest champions of the ESG cult: BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street”
The Chi-coms control the lithium market and thanks to their over-production of EVs without commensurate demand, the price is 1/6 of its peak of that at the end of 2022. Like most of the real world issues in attempting to achieve the fairy dust of net zero within the timeframe mandated by Jacobins and Bolsheviks, if any “gains” are made they will be over a much longer time period and may take technological twists now unforeseen. As for a tripling of the grid capacity and full-on electrification, good luck securing metals, minerals, mines, and approvals. The only remotely feasible path is nuclear power.
As cgh stated, Canada is in a state of arrested development when it comes to building anything. The deranged politics and culture of central Canada are more concerned with shutting down areas of the economy where we actually have a competitive advantage.
I like the term “Can’tada.” I think it’s fittingly accurate, just as you say.
The state of arrested development with regard to environmental assessment was created deliberately. At the time, the Minister creating it was Lucien Bouchard, Minister Environment Canada, in the Mulroney government. A die-hard separatist, anything which made Canada function less efficiently would help the separatist cause in Quebec. Hence the toxic waste dump known as the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 1992. It was intended to work as badly as possible.
John is right; extended electrification is only possible with lots more nuclear power on a global basis, not just Canada. However, the Net Zero people = the international antinuclear industry = the anti- oil and gas industry. So they will make any expansion of the electrical system via nuclear as miserable and unpleasant as possible.
Can’tada: thats a good one, Brian.
We don’t want no dirty Saskatchewan lithium. We’d rather import from clean lithium from the third world. sarc off
I haven’t seen much blog commentary about this:
Trudeau visits Nunavut for largest land transfer in Canadian history:
https://globalnews.ca/news/10235637/nunavut-land-transfer
Any thoughts, SDA comm?
A slightly positive move but under this regime, no substantial change as the feds still have the regulations required to ensure resource development is crippled. The only reason anyone lives there is for resource development and extraction, including indigenous survival. Putting more control in the hands of locals makes sense but they will also inherit liabilities (bureaucracy and service requirements) from the feds. Unfortunately, the region is a federal welfare sink and that will likely continue which disincentives the need to develop resources. Once the deal clears, the local government should start a program of privatizing the land with resource potential and for all their residents but that would make too much sense.