Boundary Dam Unit 4 fired up on April 22, and it’s more significant than you might think
Up until now, the coal-fired power refurbishment may have seemed like a lot of talk. On Wednesday, April 22, it became real. And that’s significant for a number of reasons.
Not the least of which is it is in total defiance of federal coal regulations. Saskatchewan is giving Ottawa the bird.
Saskatchewan is the battleground between the AtkinsRealis (SNC-Lavalin/former AECL) CANDU reactor and the Cameco/Brookfield-owned Westinghouse AP1000 reactor. I’d digging as deep as I can to provide context for Saskatchewan decision makers who will be making this decision. In recent weeks I had two podcasts on the CANDU. This is the first on the Westinghouse. What’s really significant here is the Westinghouse ownership is now fully Canadian companies, even though the design is American. And in November or so, Trump’s administration said they’d build 10 of them.
Pipeline Online Podcast Ep. 31: Dr. Grant Isaac, Pres. & COO of Cameco on SK buying Westinghouse reactors. There were technical difficulties which shortened our time, so we’re going to take another run at it in the near future.
Also:
This is a really good discussion on LNG:
Decouple Media: The Terrible, No Good week for LNG
Black mark on industry (I hate it when this happens):
Alberta landowners take stand over years of missed payments by delinquent oil company
It turns out Pipeline Online isn’t the only one to use a Timbit as a unit of monetary measure. Maybe they got the idea from Pipeline Online? Here’s the Canadian Press story:
What will the carbon price cost the oilsands? A Timbit per barrel, one analysis says
Pipeline Online Podcast Ep. 24: Premier Scott Moe Year End
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe joins the Pipeline Online Podcast in his annual year-end interview. The discussion digs into the coal decision, Saskatchewan’s move into nuclear, carbon capture, interties to Alberta’s grid, and the Alberta-Canada MOU. The multilateral well program, oil production goals, Saskatchewan’s new energy and resources minister, lithium and hydrogen are also discussed.
Elaboration on end of industrial carbon tax in Saskatchewan – or is it the end?
It turns out the feds get a vote.
The Pipeline Online Podcast will feature Andrew Scheer today, Monday, March 31 at 1 p.m. SK time. The carbon tax will surely be part of the discussion.
You can watch live here:
x: https://x.com/Pipeline_Online (best)
How does the saying go? Gradually, then suddenly?
In case you missed it, posted last night
Moe declares “Saskatchewan is now a carbon tax free province”
BC is scrapping its consumer carbon tax
B.C. to bring in legislation to end its carbon tax on consumers starting April 1
BREAKING: Hardly able to contain his glee, Moe declares ‘Saskatchewan is now a carbon tax free province‘
This will have a huge impact on coal-fired power generation, making it much more competitive.
Mark Carney new Liberal leader and prime minister: cutting carbon tax, fighting Trump. He never mentioned pipelines, but Chretien did.
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
And not even all of it, according to SaskPower Minister Jeremy Harrison, whom the other media are apparently ghosting by not actually quoting him as minister.
Wall Street Journal looks, wrongly, at Trans Mountain Expansion Pipeline and its impacts. There’s a lot wrong in this video. Can you count the ways?
Weekend Watch: Mike Rowe and Victor Davis Hanson on what’s wrong with society, and there’s a lot Highly recommended.
Environment, energy ministers offer Jagmeet Singh a briefing on carbon pricing. Oh sure, now they tell him about it.
Manitoba government extending gas tax holiday until end of the year Because of course it is. This is the problem with supposed gas tax holidays – you can’t end the holiday.
Indigenous equity ownership saw momentum in 2024, but still more work to do
Top swag of the show: Bravo Target Safety hands out aspirin keychains. With an 18mm culvert in the largest artery of my heart, I grabbed four. Hopefully I’ll never need them.
And just in case you were wondering, Alberta’s power was $0 for almost the entirety of Sept. 27. I’ll write about that next week if I have time.
If carbon capture is supposed to be the future, why does it keep striking out? Last week, Capital Power in Alberta cancelled the $2.4 billion carbon capture project for the Genesee Power Station, which is currently being converted from coal to natural gas. It’s the last thermal coal power plant in Canada west of Coronach, Sask.
Also last week, TransAlta canceled a wind project not far from Waterton Lakes National Park.
And Saskatchewan and Alberta are deepening nuclear ties.
TC Energy’s making bank on natural gas deliveries.
First, Quick Dick McDick takes another swipe at the federal carbon tax, from the calving barn.
Then, Senator Pamela Wallin interviews Pipeline Online editor and owner Brian Zinchuk re carbon tax.
And, in an unrelated column, Brian Crossman talks about the significance of washing your work truck. It’s actually pretty important for a number of reasons. Call it “Work Truck Therapy.”
Conservatives blast pro-carbon price economists as ‘so-called experts’ It doesn’t cause inflation, didn’t you know? Then why were my groceries yesterday 40% more than 2020?
Meanwhile, the carbon tax fight is heating up as the price is about to go up, again, on April. 1, fittingly April Fool’s. Conservative premiers are lying about carbon pricing: Trudeau, while Moe addresses Commons committee.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister asked Premiers what they would do to reduce emissions instead of a carbon tax.
Today in a House of Commons committee, I answered that question. pic.twitter.com/yldmqjEw0E
— Scott Moe (@PremierScottMoe) March 27, 2024
Sorry I didn’t have time to dig into this one myself. Not enough hours in the day. After all, I had to spend half an hour at Sobey’s on Wednesday pointing out to my 17-year-old son how prices of soup, meat, green onions and the like have gone up 40% in the last four years. In the end, a cart which wasn’t even full cost $300, whereas in 2020 it would have cost closer to $210 or so. I kept asking, “And who do we blame for this?”
What do you think the right answer was?
Also, for your reading pleasure:
The Canada Carbon Rebate puts hundreds of dollars back in Canadians’ pockets every quarter. Oddly, some Premiers are against that – and they want to scrap your rebates.
Here’s what I had to say about that: pic.twitter.com/kJcLGDetIq
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) March 27, 2024
Saskatchewan NDP get into carbon tax fight, call out Moe for “failure to secure an Atlantic-style carve-out of the carbon tax.”
Carbon tax war heats up between Saskatchewan and feds. Duncan says Saskatchewan won’t remit carbon tax after his “walk in the rain.” Wilkinson says no carbon rebates for Saskatchewan after province says it won’t remit. Moe says no rebate = no carbon tax.
My response to the federal government threatening to take away the Carbon Tax Rebate for Saskatchewan families. pic.twitter.com/mcDbYQx1FZ
— Scott Moe (@PremierScottMoe) February 29, 2024
Also,
Justin Trudeau may not have taken a “walk in the snow,” like his father did 40 years ago on this day, but Dustin Duncan took a walk in rain in front of Parliament, and decides we’re not remitting carbon tax to the feds.
This is the guy who, by a recently passed law, gets to be sacrificed on the cross for our carbon tax sins.
(The decision was clearly made before, but it makes good political theatre.)
No forecast for snow in Ottawa today, unfortunately. Maybe the federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change changed the climate?
There’s a truism in politics: “All politics is local.” And there’s nothing more local than the road full of potholes in front of your house. But Minster of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault, supposedly speaking on behalf of the entire federal government, seems to think we don’t need any more roads. The reaction was fast and furious.
Liberals rebrand carbon-price rebates in bid to make policy more palatable
The Saskatchewan and Alberta NDP distance themselves from their federal brethren regarding banning promotion of oil and gas.
Also regarding the NDP’s banning everything, because, why not?
NDP to move bill calling for ban of coal exports as Canadian output booms
Danielle Smith asks ‘Is Canada Broken?’ in a video targeted at Steven Guilbeault’s environmental policies.
Shell is betting heavily on Canadian LNG. Not only is it the lead partner in LNG Canada, it just agreed to buy 1/6 of the offtake from its competitor up the coast.
Shell signs offtake agreement to buy LNG from second BC project
And for a REAL deep dive into carbon tax analysis, a Prince Albert, SK, based economist allowed Pipeline Online to reprint this in-depth report on how the carbon tax affects his SaskPower and SaskEnergy power and natural gas bills. It was originally posted on LinkedIn.