Alberta wind output falls to 0.05 per cent of capacity days before energy election. And the Clean Electricity Regulations, brought into force the last day Parliament sat, do not appear to be up for change according to the Liberal election platform. Read for yourself.
Bronwyn Eyre: Canadian Oil Companies’ Flip Flop on CCUS…and Everything Else.
Eyre pulls no punches in this column, wondering where the oil & gas CEOs have been all these years?
National leaders debate on energy, verbatim. You can bet pipelines were discussed.
Poilievre’s key energy policy: a National Energy Corridor for pipe, power and rail. Here’s his speech, verbatim.
The reality is, we largely have a such a corridor already from Moose Jaw to a third of the way through Ontario. It’s Quebec and New Brunswick that are the issue.
And just a couple hours after Poilievre spoke, we recorded this with Andrew Scheer:
Pipeline Online Podcast, Ep. 6: Andrew Scheer on a National Energy Corridor and a whole lot more, including tariffs, Clean Electricity Regulations and coal-fired power.
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
All things energy in Saskatchewan Budget 2025
Pipeline Online combed through the budget so you don’t have to.
The biggest item for oil and gas is a new program meant to re-invigorate old, low producing wells by doing re-entries and drilling new legs on them of at least 500 metres. It will be interesting to see what the adoption of this program will be. I sure didn’t see it coming.
The story also does some digging into the goal of 600,000 or even 1 million barrels of oil production per day, and what the budget forecasts, which is essentially flat until 2029. There’s a big discrepancy there. Guess I better get back to working on my Reaching for a Million series and pump the ministry full of ideas before the next budget cycle.
On Friday I will publish the NDP response.
BIG NEWS: Westinghouse in SK, Part 3: Westinghouse signs MOUs with six Saskatchewan companies. When they say modular, they mean modular.
Despite Thursday’s partial tariff reprieve, Saskatchewan still cutting off US alcohol sales and procurement. This story is moving so fast, I had to update it twice before publishing. It might be out of date by Friday morning.
South Bow says tariffs could create challenges in its marketing segment (this is the spin-off company from TC Energy that operates Keystone Pipeline)
ROK Resources releases 2025 budget guidance, CEO discuss possible tariff impacts
Dr. Kaase Gbakon digs deep into the impacts of tariffs and the energy industry.
Trump calls once again for Keystone XL pipeline to be built
There is no project. There is no company behind it. TransCanada split into two companies. The team scattered to the winds. There is no pipe, and if there is any left, do not let it be put into the ground because it’ll be so rotten it’ll leak like a sieve. And there’s no one making pipe these days at Evraz, although such a project would surely be welcome there.
And why they hell would we lock even more into the American market at a forever discount? If we’re going to build pipe, build it to tidewater.
OR – is this they key to getting Trump to back off on tariffs?
Trudeau’s Done! And the oilpatch rejoices! For everyone who put a “F— Trudeau” sticker on their truck or hardhat, Monday was a day of celebration.
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.
Santa gave Alberta free power again on Christmas and Boxing Day.
Scott Moe 2024 in Review: Nuclear, Coal, Wind and Solar Power Generation
Also:
Enbridge’s Weyburn wind project open house, Part 5: Health, setbacks, provincial dollars
(conclusion of series)
Here’s part five, which includes discussion on health impacts, setback distances, and speaking with Premier Scott Moe about provincial loan guarantees.
Scott Moe 2024 in Review: Moe calls for election; increasing oil production to a million barrels per day
Also: 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.
Enbridge’s Weyburn wind project open house, Part 3: Consultation, renewable energy, turbine size.
Also: Canadian carbon removal company scores US$40M grant from fund backed by Bill Gates
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.
Seriously, I was working on yet another wind story when this came up.
For 12 hours again this past weekend, power in Alberta was “free,” with BC and Montana benefitting greatly.
Zero dollar price is “free,” is it not?
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:
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.