Tag: energy policy

Moe comes to Estevan to explain its power generation future

Climate Cult youmightbeinsaskatchewan 20 Comments
Scott Moe in Estevan

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.

 

We’re going nuclear, but will handcuffs be involved if we keep burning coal?

Baiting The Left Climate Cult youmightbeinsaskatchewan 40 Comments

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?

You get carbon capture, and you get carbon capture …

Climate Cult youmightbeinsaskatchewan 8 Comments
Boundary Dam Power Station

When the SaskPower Boundary Dam 3 carbon capture project opened in 2014, nobody followed. The tech looked doomed as recently as a few months ago. On May 11, the US Environmental Protection Agency proposed that all coal and most natural gas power plants have carbon capture applied by 2038, or shut down.

Interestingly enough, last year, when I asked Crown Investments (and SaskPower) Minister Don Morgan if we would be doing any more carbon capture on coal, he said it was “not an option.” So, in Canada, it’s not an option, but in the US, it looks like it may soon be mandatory.

Why did SaskPower so quietly go ahead with a new power plant?

Climate Cult youmightbeinsaskatchewan 39 Comments
Aspen Power Station render. SaskPower

Is national unity at stake?

SaskPower will be building a new $850 million natural gas power station near Lanigan, starting in under a year. More than half of its power will go to the BHP Jansen potash mine, the crown jewel of Saskatchewan’s economy. But Steven Guilbeault and Justin Trudeau want to shut down all natural gas power stations by 2035.

Irresistible force is about to meet immovable object, and national unity is on the line.

Oh, and for good measure, Bill C-69 is involved.

Trudeau says we shouldn’t burn oil, but process it. And build lots of nuclear

Climate Cult Drill, Baby, Drill 37 Comments
Trudeau speaks of supplying natural gas to #Germany, despite his government killing Energie Saguenay. And he wants to build lots of #nuclear, too. And he wants carbon capture, but his government won’t allow enhanced oil recovery incentives. We shouldn’t burn oil, but process it. 
And he said all this in front of the German president, months after he told the German chancellor there was “no business case” for LNG.

One more time, wind utterly fails in Alberta at supper time

Climate Cult 14 Comments
At supper on Friday, Alberta’s wind power fell to 7 out of 3,618 megawatts, or 0.19 per cent capacity. Again. 
The Devil may have gone down to Georgia, looking for a soul to steal, but he went to Alberta, instead, to steal their wind. At supper. Again.
But hey, SaskPower intends on adding 3,000 megawatts of additional wind and solar to our grid over the next 12 years. And Steven Guilbeault figures the “social cost of carbon” should be $247 a tonne (previously posted)

Steven Guilbeault starts talking about $247 per tonne “social cost on carbon”

Climate Cult 59 Comments

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announces “social cost on carbon.” Could this mean a $247/tonne carbon tax? Could it even hit $294/tonne?

Some more details in this Canadian Press story.

This is a big deal, and a huge threat to Saskatchewan and Alberta. In this Twitter video, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault first provides the justification for why the carbon tax was originally $50, noting the government calculated the cost to be $54/tonne. Now he says they are implementing a “social cost of carbon,” and says it’s $247 per tonne. “ He calls it a “new tool the federal government is going to use on the fight against climate change.”

Is this the next threshold for the carbon tax? Sure sounds like it. Also sounds like justification for the proposed Clean Electricity Standard, to rid Canada of all coal and natural gas power generation. That’s a driving factor behind the Saskatchewan First Act. It also sounds like after the nine federal initiatives listed in the Drawing the Line White Paper, Clean Electricity Standard being No. 10, this is likely No. 11.

And have the provinces been consulted?

Poland is planning on 20, possibly more, SMRs of the same design SaskPower chose

youmightbeinsaskatchewan 20 Comments

I’ve been waiting to see a story come out about this for a while. A few weeks ago I saw that Poland may be building as many as 79 of the General Electric Hitachi BWRX-300 reactors, the exact same design chosen as SaskPower. This story indicated 20 at this point, but hints it could be more.

Ontario Power Generation is building the first one. Tennessee Valley Authority is building the second. Saskatchewan may have thought we were all that and a bag of chips by announcing four. But we won’t finish our second until around 2038. In the meantime, Poland might have built all 79 by that time.

We might have thought we’d be driving the bus on this SMR rollout. We’re not. In other words, the instruction manuals will likely be written in Polish. But it also means a lot of confidence is being expressed by the Poles in the design, if they build 20, or 79, or whatever.

As for how much uranium will go into these, I sat at a banquet a few weeks ago with some Cameco reps. They explained that SMRs actually use very little uranium. You fill them up at the start, and basically that’s it. That was very insightful, I thought, because that’s exactly how current US nuclear submarines (with small reactors) work.

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