Tag: 100% renewables

How well do large hail and large solar arrays mix?

Climate Cult 17 Comments

So I just posted this on Facebook. I wonder what sort of response I’ll get?

So that purple area is right over the Turning Sun solar array under construction southwest of Estevan. This is at 11:50 p.m. on Friday. I feel bad for the farmers, for sure, as that purple is likely hail. The question is, how will the array fare? I’m not nearby this weekend, so if anyone notices any damage, please let me know.
This is what Environment Canada says: “At 11:46 PM CST, a line of severe thunderstorms is located from about Oungre to Estevan then to 25 km south of North Portal. These severe thunderstorms are moving northeast at 35 km/h. Damaging wind gusts, up to quarter size hail and heavy rain are possible.”

A big question I’ve been asking for years is this: Show me one place in Saskatchewan where you can guarantee it will not be hit by toonie sized hail over the next 25 years? I asked SARM’s board this. They all laughed, because they have a hail insurance company for that exact reason. My own place has been hit by toonie to baseball sized hail twice in 18 years. My dad’s farm was wiped out by the white combine around 1987. So how will hundreds of millions of dollars of solar panels hold up when the inevitable happens? This array is supposed to pivot vertically to reduce damage, something fixed arrays can’t do. Maybe that’ll help. This particular area in the image has hit hard several years ago by hail. I hope it’s just rain, for the farmers’ sake. If you know what happens, please comment below or let me know.

Betting the wind will always blow, when it doesn’t.

Climate Cult 14 Comments

NDP release Pembina Institute paper on costs of coal refurbishment, but the paper leaves out a lot of context. The report puts a lot of faith in wind and solar, but real world examples over the last two weeks bring that faith into doubt. Using the scenarios the Pembina Institute outlines in the report quoted by the NDP, on Aug. 12, Saskatchewan would have run out of batteries six times in 24 hours.

And just after I finished writing this at 2 a.m., I got an email alert that Alberta wind generation fell to less than 1 per cent output, again. But they have no use for baseload power. Good grief.

 

How much? A zillion? Surely more than that!

Ethical Energy 7 Comments

NDP claim coal refurbishments will cost even more, while SaskPower minister tours Boundary Dam and Estevan mine

On a day when the Minister Responsible for SaskPower was touring the work done on the coal-fired Boundary Dam Power Station Unit 4 and the nearby Estevan coal mine, the Saskatchewan NDP was quoting another number, their highest yet, as an estimated cost of the coal refurbishments. But what are those numbers based on?
Pipeline Online digs into that analysis, and finds the scenarios each to have significant flaws.

Also:

Jim Warren: Why the biggest oil supply crisis in history hasn’t produced the highest crude prices in recent history

That’s one way to lose an election

Baiting the Right Climate Cult 5 Comments
Brian Zinchuk: How messing with power pricing will get the  Alberta UCP unelected in a few easy steps. 
Some poor bastards, also known as the Alberta ratepayers and Alberta industry, get to pay those rates. And just as sometimes the wholesale price goes to $999.99 per megawatt-hour now, it will go to $2999.99 per megawatt-hour in 2032. And somebody has to pay that. If you live in Wild Rose country, that somebody will be you.
Oh, and the NDP point out, correctly, that oil prices are a lot lower than the Saskatchewan budget predicted.

Who needed power on Labour Day, anyhow?

Climate Cult 7 Comments

Alberta wind power generation took a holiday on Labour Day

Throughout the day, wind output from the 1722 wind turbines (at last count) totalling 5,688 megawatts of total generation capacity hovered around the 1 per cent output mark, ranging from 1.9 to 0.8 per cent.

 

A “Dialectic on Energy Policy” with a former pipeline CEO vs. sustainable development exec

On July 27, the Midwest Legislators Conference in Saskatoon held a “Dialectic on Energy Policy,” essentially a debate on energy choices in a world focused on climate change. Hal Kvisle, former CEO of TransCanada Pipeline/TC Energy was on the right side of the debate and Louise Miltich came from the left.

 

Brian Zinchuk on Evan Bray Show: Multilaterals, coal revival, major projects and more

On Sept. 3, Evan Bray and Brian Zinchuk go over the growing impact of large multilateral wells, LNG, the new major projects office, Alberta electrical grid updates, coal revival and more.

Coal in SK may be given new life

Drill, Baby, Drill 11 Comments
Boundary Dam Power Station

Saskatchewan is looking to rejuvenate coal, not abandon it: in-depth with Minister Jeremy Harrison.

If SaskPower carries through with rejuvenating coal, it will save three power plants, two mines, ~1000 jobs and two communities.

The significance of the shift on coal cannot be understated. When SaskPower’s then-CEO Mike Marsh came to Estevan in 2018 to say they would not be installing carbon capture technology on Boundary Dam Units 4 and 5, it wasn’t the obituary for the community, but it sure felt like the cancer diagnosis. And with no talk of carbon capture for Coronach’s Poplar River Power station, it seemed all but certain that town would whither away once the coal plant and related mine shut down by the federally mandated 2030 deadline. The January, 2025, announcement of SaskPower looking to rebuild both Boundary Dam and Poplar River, if carried out, would be a decades-long reprieve for both communities.

To extend the metaphor, effectively Estevan and Coronach just went into chemotherapy, and the results may be positive.

The implications of this change in direction, from the impending death of coal, to its possible rejuvenation, have local, provincial, national and international aspects, detailed in the story.

Watch for the Pipeline Online Podcast, Episode 2, to be broadcast on LinkedIn, Facebook and X at 1 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 24.. Crown Investments Corp Minister Jeremy Harrison is the guest, where we will delve even further into this new direction on coal-fired power generation.

X (works best): https://x.com/Pipeline_Online 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianzinchuk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pipelineonlineca/

It will eventually be posted to YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify

Be careful what you wish for, Weyburn

Climate Cult 32 Comments

Brian Zinchuk: In opposing a wind project, Weyburn might want to be careful what they wish for

It was right around the time a man walked up to me, leaned close to my face and asked how much I had been paid to write a story talking about the benefits of the Weyburn wind project that I had an epiphany…

Brian Zinchuk: In opposing a wind project, Weyburn might want to be careful what they wish for

This is the column I referenced in those Weyburn wind stories. While I still very much question wind generation in a macro sense, I definitely had an epiphany when it came to NIMBY and the Weyburn wind project being presented by Enbridge. If an energy project can’t get built by an oil town, what’s going to happen when we want to start building reactors? Or a major pipeline is proposed?

And on Sunday, I stopped at the Bekevar Wind Facility. I posted a few videos from there, which I will eventually post as stories on the site. For the second time in a row, there was zero power being produced as not one turbine turned in the hour or so I was there. The wind was around 2-4 knots, according to weather reports.

Weyburn Wind, Part 4: acreages, wildlife, referendum

Climate Cult 6 Comments

Enbridge’s Weyburn wind project open house, Part 4: Acreages, wildlife, referendum

Here’s Part 4 of the Weyburn Wind saga, focusing on acreages, wildlife and referendum

You might be wondering why I’ve gone so deep into this open house. Here’s the thing – this has been the first opportunity I’ve had to really get into the development of one of these projects, and see and hear the arguments from both sides. Alberta just put its 50th online. Saskatchewan has nine. This would be the 10th. So it’s a chance to really get into the weeds.

The numerous stories I’ve written about wind power to date have almost been exclusively about their reliability or lack thereof, and their impact on a macro scale on grids, power pricing and the like. This development side is a totally different aspect.

Weyburn wind open house, Part 1

Climate Cult 21 Comments

Enbridge’s Weyburn wind project open house, Part 1: Setting the stage

It was a contrite Enbridge which presented a second open house in Weyburn for its planned 200 megawatt wind project, to be located east of the community. The project has seen several revisions, and Enbridge representatives repeatedly spoke about correcting mistakes and working with people affected by the proposed project.

Note: This story ended up being so massive, it needed to be broken up into several parts just to make it manageable and yet still allow a great deal of depth on a topic very important to Weyburn.

On top of that, there is a LOT going on in the power space right now, with the Tuesday release of the revised Clean Electricity Regulations and on the same day as the grand opening of the Great Plains Power Station at Moose Jaw which Pipeline Online attended. There’s a lot of catching up to do, so please bear with me. Here’s Enbridge’s Weyburn wind project open house, Part 1: Setting the stage.

I’ve never seen a multi-billion behemoth like Enbridge be so apologetic for wanting to spend around a third of a billion around a community.

Enbridge folks said “apology” or “apologize” five times, and “sorry” twice. I checked my transcript.

I expect they still feel sore about losing Northern Gateway, where First Nations claimed Enbridge spoke to them like they owned the place. It was clear this was an entirely different approach.

Eastern bastards

Climate Cult 65 Comments

Holy mackerel! This story is well worth reading. The Churchill Falls deal between Quebec and Newfoundland was the most atrocious you could possibly imagine. On Thursday, a deal fixing that was signed.

Quebec and Newfoundland end one of the most bitter energy disputes in Canadian history over the horribly lopsided Churchill Falls deal. Quebec was getting power nearly free, and making billions off it while Newfoundland starved. No more.

FYI, Churchill Falls can produce more power than all of Saskatchewan, if every dam was full, every coal plant running full out, every wind turbine cranking and every natural gas plant humming. The deal that had been in place until 2041 would have had Quebec pay 0.2 cents per kilowatt hour until then. That’s effectively free. This changes all of that.

If Quebec and Newfoundland can make peace on this, maybe some day they’ll allow a pipeline through la belle province? Don’t bet your kids’ college fund on it.

 

Also:

Let those Yankee bastards freeze in the dark?

Ontario mulls U.S. booze ban as Trump brushes off Ford’s threat to cut electricity

That’ll go over well. The 10th Mountain Division will be invading the next day. Their home base is at Fort Drum, New York State. It’s within spitting distance of Kingston, Ont. So, good luck with that.

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