Basically, Saskatchewan large GHG emitters are forced to pay a form of carbon tax called “Output Based Pricing”. Some of the money from that is what was provided, from the feds, to Cowessess, for their investment equity into this project which cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Also, Enbridge doesn’t build a lot of pipelines in Canada anymore. But they are building wind turbines off the coast of France.
Happy Canada Day! In honour of the day the federal government decided to implement the second carbon tax, aka Clean Fuel Regulations, Quick Dick McDick presents the Canadian ABCs.
Oh, and I take serious issue with how he pronounces “Z.”
Lloydminster is building a new arena, and Cenovus, Saskatchewan’s largest oil producer, just ponied up big dollars for naming rights. Still waiting to hear of a wind power generator donating millions to a local community.
Lightning struck a oilfield battery near Stoughton SK a few hours ago pic taken by Kris Cheaters #skstorm pic.twitter.com/Erz6aOdADW
— Brandon Houck ⚡️ (@HouckisPokisewx) June 26, 2023
A set of what appears to be explicit alphabet cards left in a high school classroom has Planned Parenthood in hot water with some parents, and now with the provincial government as well.
Education Minister Dustin Duncan said Thursday he’s suspending the organization from doing presentations in schools until a review can be done.
It stems from materials left at Lumsden High School after a presentation Monday. According to Duncan, the presentation itself concerned things like sexually transmitted infections (STI) and contraception, but some materials that were left in the classroom included a set of alphabet cards that explicitly described sexual acts and situations.
Good. Now, do something about the Trans-Groomer Rainbow Cult that’s infected the curriculum.
And, what the hell is a hard left activist group doing in the schoolroom, performing the job of teachers? Educating kids about STDs is basic health instruction. Stop farming it out to people who hate you.
Let me share a little story.
Many years ago, a great controversy erupted when a tailings pond at a northern Saskatchewan uranium mine was breached, and radioactive water flowed into a local creek. As you might imagine, much hand wringing and Indigenous outrage and excitable CBC stories ensued.
Omitted from the reporting eruption was that the tailings spill had lower levels of radiation than the natural creek water, effectively diluting it.
Anyhoo… Saskatchewan is now the second largest producer of uranium in the world!
The irony is the current federal government wants to shut this all down, because coal is evil.
In the meantime, Saskatchewan – Regina, Estevan and Weyburn – showed off its decades of experience to worldwide experts on carbon capture, utilization and storage as they set international standards for the same.
The City of Saskatoon is facing a $52-million shortfall as it begins its budget process for next year.
That revenue gap is “probably close to double” the amount that city administrators have faced in the past when starting the budget process, chief financial officer Clae Hack said at a media briefing on Wednesday.
If there are no cuts to services or future growth plans, city residents would face a property tax increase of 18.56 per cent next year and 6.95 per cent the year after, the city said. But the multi-year budget process for 2024 and 2025, which is starting this month and will wrap up in November, will be focused on lowering that number.
Hack stressed the city isn’t recommending a property tax rate at this point, just offering a “fully transparent view” of what administrators and city council will be wrestling with.
They’re socialists, its their nature. Saskatoon city staff unveil $19B climate action master plan
Flooding shuts down major coal power station at Coronach, leaving SaskPower scrambling to backfill its nearly 600 megawatt output and shed load internally. This was the story promised yesterday.
Without it, nothing else matters.
I wrote this column nearly two weeks ago, and only shared it this morning. But it turns out this is playing out in real time, as I’m working on a big story about how SaskPower’s Poplar River Power Station is down, thus putting us out nearly 600 megawatts. This happened just as demand is spiking for air conditioning due to +30 temps this week. As a result, SaskPower is scrambling to reduce its internal demand, doing something called “load shedding.” Watch for that story once I’ve got it together.
Whether you love em or hate em, one of the biggest obstacles to the adoption of electric vehicles has been a charging format war. There was a major development last Thursday on this front, and it’ll have impacts with Saskatchewan chargers and EVs in the near future. The repercussions from this will have a dramatic effect on the adoption of EVs.
And now for two things completely different:
Pipeline Online columnist Brian Crossman broke his leg, twice, after a hip surgery, giving him some insight into what’s going on in Saskatchewan’s health care system. I don’t think he’ll be climbing any derricks any time soon.
And years late, billions over budget, Georgia’s two new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors (big ones, not ‘small modular reactors’) are finally going online. And while the story doesn’t mention this, there’s a major Saskatchewan tie. These two reactors going overbudget bankrupted Westinghouse, one of two nuclear reactor pioneers in the US (the other being General Electric). As a result of that bankruptcy, eventually last year, Saskatoon-based Cameco bought 49% of Westinghouse for a song.
This model is currently being built in China and being considered for substantial deployment in Poland. Three of these reactors, alone, at the highest rating, could make up almost the entire generation needs of Saskatchewan on most winter days. But if one went down, it would take down a third of our grid, which is why we never built big reactors.
After the resignation of Dick Michel (a 5 term councillor in Weyburn) due to health concerns, Dick encouraged Trevor Tessier to run for the Weyburn By-Election on May 31st. Trevor is bringing a new family perspective coupled with his military background, healthcare leadership, and entrepreneurial spirit. The by-election to fill his vacancy has been called for May 31.
Voting begins: May 25th 5-9pm, May 27th 1-5pm and May 31st 9am-8pm.
More at Sask Today.
*Not a paid political announcement
Saskatchewan’s own Quick Dick McDick offers his take on federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault. He talks about the implicit threat of criminal sanctions for keeping the power on, and how Guilbeault should know a thing or two about wearing handcuffs. Quick Dick picks up on a lot of the stuff I’ve been writing about recently.
The Saskatchewan Legislature ended its 2022-23 session on Thursday. The very first bill was about keeping the lights on, and the very last debate was also about keeping the lights on. This was the keeping the lights on session.
This past week the Saskatchewan government spent a lot of time on power generation and this “Net Zero by 2035” idea the federal government is trying to force upon the provinces.
This is the “energy transition” decision making in real time, folks. The impacts are enormous for this province, which is why I’ve been hammering these stories so hard.
The week summed up with Premier Scott Moe coming to Estevan to explain to local officials what the provincial government’s plans are for power production. For generations, Estevan has been home of the highest concentration of power generation in this province. However, the addition of multiple gas plants and wind facilities has largely diluted the percentage of power from Estevan. But as the province is clearly indicating a move towards nuclear, Moe all but said that Estevan will be home to some of the first small modular reactors. Pay attention to how he corrects himself from saying “nuclear” to “small modular reactors.” In this video, Moe addresses many of the concerns I’ve been raising over the last 17 months. As for adoption of nuclear – if future Saskatchewan governments follow Moe’s lead, this won’t be a small thing. Twenty years from now, as all our coal is retired and as older natural gas plants also reach retirement age, it looks like Saskatchewan will be moving to a largely nuclear grid for baseload power. And when Moe says baseload, he repeatedly refers to 80 per cent of the grid. That’s a lot more than four reactors down the road. That’s a sea change.
There’s also response from Estevan Mayor Roy Ludwig on what this all means.
Regarding this impending Clean Electricity Standard, which would force a massive energy transition in Saskatchewan in just 12 years:
Without committing to nuclear, Saskatchewan is pretty much committing to nuclear
Asking Scott Moe: What if the feds order power plants be shut down, and the Supreme Court backs them?
It turns out Steven Guilbeault has an answer for that: He said burning coal would be a violation of Canada’s Criminal Code. So will the feds be arresting the premier, SaskPower minister, SaskPower CEO, coal miners or power plant operators? All the above? And will they be arrested the same way Guilbeault was, when as a Greenpeace protestor, he scaled the CN Tower?
Saskatchewan will not meet Net Zero by 2035, but will aim for 2050. Here’s a lot more depth than you’ll find from any of the other Saskatchewan media. And there’s more to come regarding what this means for federalism. Follow up story is about how we’re going nuclear.
If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.
Earlier this month, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said the federal government’s goal for net-zero emissions wasn’t realistic.
He doubled down on that statement Tuesday while announcing the province’s plans for electricity generation to 2035 and beyond.
“The federal government’s standards for zero emissions electrical generation by 2035 are unrealistic and unaffordable,” Moe said in a media release. “They mean SaskPower rates would more than double and we may not have enough generation to keep the lights on.
“I’m not going to let that happen.”
That which can be ignored no longer: Alberta’s wind power drops to 2 megawatts out of 3618 on Friday, the lowest level we’ve seen yet