Carney’s mandate letter to ministers is dramatically different than Trudeau’s, with climate change an afterthought. Trudeau mentioned climate 27 times in his letter to Steven Guilbeault, 20 times to Jonathan Wilkinson. Carney? Once, and almost in passing.
Another major nuclear announcement, this time in Tennessee, which will have impact on SaskPower’s nuclear ambitions.
Moe issues Saskatchewan’s demands, a week after Smith announces Alberta’s
Reaching for a million (or 600,000?), Part 3: Low Productivity and Reactivation Oil Well Program announced. What if you could breathe new life into an old, depleted well?
SaskPower awards major wind and solar projects to Meadow Lake Tribal Council, Mistawasis Nêhiyawak and Potentia partnerships
All-of-the-above approach: SaskPower Minister’s speech at wind and solar announcement
Meanwhile:
Energy Realities Podcast: Spain and Portugal’s major blackout
Enbridge: Securing the affordable, reliable energy we need takes an all-of-the-above approach
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.