Tag: energy policy

Alarm bells, not sleigh bells, should be ringing in Alberta. Saskatchewan, too.

Climate Cult Insufferable Twits 44 Comments

Pipeline Online column on Alberta’s two electrical grid alerts this past week. And it’s not even really cold there yet.

As evidenced twice this past week, the electrical grid can barely handle the demand we have, now, before we switch most of our transportation system to electric vehicles. What happens when half our cars and trucks are EVs? Then three-quarters? What happens when the wind doesn’t blow then? No one goes to work?

When will the other media take notice? When will they start to question this mad rush to wind and solar, and total adoption of electric vehicles? When will someone else in the Saskatchewan media declare “The emperor has no clothes?”

The dawn of a new industry in Saskatchewan: Lithium

Tech youmightbeinsaskatchewan 25 Comments
Geothermal exploration well as it was tested for lithium almost exactly a year ago.

Pretty much anything with a rechargeable battery in it these days, from a cellphone to an electric vehicle, uses lithium (except for the lead-acid battery in your conventional car or truck). As the lightest metal, there’s no beating the periodic table.

It turns out, Saskatchewan has lithium beneath its southern soil. And now five companies are in a race to explore it, develop it, commercialize it bring it to market.

Pipeline Online just launched an in-depth series on what’s happening in Saskatchewan, a series over a year in the making. You can read Part 1, the introduction, and Part 2, recently released Saskatchewan incentives.

It’s the birth of an entirely new industry for this province, one that, if it pans out, could be worth many billions. And it’s all being done with oilfield companies and workers, as seen above.

What the other side is thinking: no more fossil fuels, period

Climate Cult Insufferable Twits 57 Comments
Eric Galbraith. McGill University

In the interest of publishing what the true believers of climate change think, Pipeline Online published this op-ed from two university professors, one from Concordia, the other from McGill. They want to shut down all fossil fuels – coal, oil, natural gas, now. Period. The article came from The Canadian Press.

If we don’t end the use of fossil fuels, all of the rest adds up to little more than branches piled on the tracks in front of a runaway train. They might slow the train temporarily, but until we get inside the engine and shut off the throttle, the train will keep accelerating.
– Eric Galbraith, H. Damon Matthews

And, in a related note: the assault on art continues, this time in Vienna, in the name of saving the planet from fossil fuels.

We don’t need no giant stinking fans. But we’re going to build a lot of them.

youmightbeinsaskatchewan 25 Comments
Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan

The Saskatchewan Party government sure seems to have some mixed messages when it comes to wind and solar power. We keep building more, and will build a lot more, but it turns out they don’t produce as advertised.

In two throne speeches on Nov. 2, one MLA spoke praises of SaskPower’s buildout. But another pointed out that you don’t get anywhere close to what the nameplate capacity is.

Our solar capacity is 20 and we were getting 2. You cannot run a province, you cannot run business, you cannot run industry, you cannot run people’s homes on that unreliability

 

Saskatchewan First Act is about keeping the lights on and letting farmers keep using fertilizer

Climate Cult youmightbeinsaskatchewan 38 Comments

The other media simply didn’t get it, or didn’t read the full text of the Saskatchewan First Act, introduced on Nov. 1. It’s all about Saskatchewan imposing its own veto on federal initiatives that, if carried out to their fullest extent, by 2035 will literally mean cutting off up to 84 per cent of our power production on any given day. Those rules will also mean less fertilizer usage meaning less food.

This is Saskatchewan swinging for the fences, constitutionally. Here’s Pipeline Online’s take on the Saskatchewan First Act.

Thou shalt not use coal for power generation post-2030, the federal government hath said. And it’s moving to do the same with natural gas by 2035. It also wants to limit farmers’ fertilizer usage, all in the name of climate change policies.

On Nov. 1, the Province of Saskatchewan said, “To hell with that,” but in a more sophisticated, legal manner.

Saskatchewan threw down the gauntlet with the federal government on Nov. 1, introducing Bill No. 88, The Saskatchewan First Act. If implemented in its current form, the Act basically says Saskatchewan will make its own decisions and rules on environmental standards, particularly those applying to greenhouse gas emissions and power generation.

And here is Zinchuk’s column interpreting it. His daughter wonders if we’ll be reduced to kerosene lamps.

SaskPower’s proposed 100 megawatt solar facility at Estevan, plus a bonus up to 10 megawatt pilot project on mined land

Climate Cult youmightbeinsaskatchewan 86 Comments
Multiply this by 10, and that will be Estevan’s new solar facility.

Estevan is getting not one, but two solar facilities.

ESTEVAN – SaskPower held a two day open-house regarding at proposed 100 megawatt solar facility on Oct-26-27 at the Estevan Legion Hall.

In actuality, it’s not just a single project of 100 megawatts, but two projects – a 100 megawatt solar facility and a secondary, up to 10 megawatt pilot project.

The 100 megawatt facility is to be built on seven quarters of land approximately 10 kilometres southwest of the Boundary Dam Power Station. While SaskPower has large swaths of reclaimed mine land in the area, this block of farmland was chosen because it was undisturbed. Building on disturbed land would mean the foundations would be more costly.

It’s seven quarters of land in total, 1,120 acres or 453 hectares. The land has been optioned, but has not yet been purchased. It falls within the southwest corner of the RM of Estevan, Township 1, Range 9, west of the second meridian.

And, of course

As for Estevan, when asked “What do you do when the sun goes down?” the SaskPower official said, “You don’t generate any solar power.”

European Parliament is wrong to endorse ‘fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty’

Climate Cult Ethical Energy Insufferable Twits 14 Comments
European Parliament. Image from Storyblocks, as licensed by Brian Zinchuk

The European Parliament is wrong to endorse ‘fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty’, writes Deborah Jaremko of the Canadian Energy Centre. In this column carried by Pipeline Online, Jaremko writes about these facts:

  1. The world needs oil and gas to function
  2. Europe’s largest economy is walking back on renewable energy
  3. Renewable energy is not reliable at scale to replace oil and gas
  4. The world’s growing population requires more energy, not less
  5. Canada is a responsible, reliable oil and gas supplier
  6. Canada’s natural gas can help the world get off coal  

Moe’s Drawing the Line: releases white paper with profound impact on energy.

youmightbeinsaskatchewan 37 Comments

It’s 6 a.m. and after pulling an all-nighter I am finally finishing writing these three pieces. Huge impact on energy policy in Saskatchewan, affecting oil, coal, nukes, farming, fertilizer, even manure. Moe even mentions possibility of carbon capture on Shand. But feds want to kill off all fossil fuel power generation by 2035. On Oct. 9, 82% of Saskatchewan’s power came from coal or natural gas.

Part 1

Drawing the Line: Saskatchewan releases white paper defining how federal climate change regulation is choking this province

Part 2

From food and fuel to cow crap: How 9 federal climate change policies will suck Saskatchewan dry over the next 12 years

Part 3:

Brian Zinchuk: There’s only one word for all the greenhouse gas programs the feds have or will impose on Saskatchewan: strangulation

 

Without coal, the lights would have gone out in Saskatchewan this week. The spinny things only put out 6% of their capacity

youmightbeinsaskatchewan 23 Comments
Boundary Dam Power Station

For months, Pipeline Online has been pointing out that Alberta puts out detailed data on its power grid, but SaskPower did not. Apparently others have been asking for the same information as well. Now, @SaskPower has responded. What does a day of power production look like in SK? Wind put out 6% of its capacity, and 2% of total generation. Coal provided 42% of total  power

REGINA – While it’s not the same minute-by-minute data provided by the Alberta Electric System Operator for their grid, SaskPower has begun breaking down where its power is coming from on a daily basis. And the data from Oct. 3 and 4 showed wind generated an average of just 7.3 per cent and 6 per cent of its rated capacity of 615 megawatts. And while the Crown corporation often points out that “conventional coal accounts for approximately 24 per cent of SaskPower’s total generation capacity,” on those days, coal was providing an average of 42 per cent of the power in this province.

When it comes to shutting down coal in Saskatchewan, they need to just stand up and say, ‘No,’ says RM of Estevan Reeve Jason LeBlanc

youmightbeinsaskatchewan 6 Comments
Jason LeBlanc, now reeve of the RM of Estevan, speaking on Parliament Hill in 2019.

In PipelineOnline.ca’s continuing series on the apparent end of additional carbon capture implementation on this province’s coal-fired power plants, leading to the eventual death of the coal industry, today’s story is reaction from the reeve of the RM of Estevan, Jason LeBlanc.

When it comes to shutting down coal in Saskatchewan, they need to just stand up and say, ‘No,’ says RM of Estevan Reeve Jason LeBlanc

Back in 2019, before he became reeve of the Rural Municipality of Estevan No. 5, Jason LeBlanc was standing in deep snow on Parliament Hill, protesting the carbon tax imposed by the Liberal federal government. And now the largest industry in his RM will likely be largely shut down by the end of this decade, due to that government’s policies against coal-fired power.

And

“The government is knocking on our own people,” he said, speaking of Saskatchewan. “The government is who’s buying into this? And they need to just stand up and say, ‘No.’

“The pendulum always swings. Our ancestors looked for any way to heat the house and to do stuff. And they figured out a way, and it was coal.”

“Other parts of the world are starting to go back. They know it’s not sustainable. It can’t be done. And we have it here. It’s already producing,” he said.

 

Coal will soon be gone, and nuclear is a long ways away for Estevan, and spinny things are not the answer

Saskatchewan Party youmightbeinsaskatchewan 50 Comments

Boundary Dam Power Station. On the left is the carbon capture unit.

 
The reality that coal-fired power in Saskatchewan is being forced to an end, despite the possibility of carbon capture technology, is now weighing heavily on Estevan, as reported by PipelineOnline.ca.

Estevan mayor on coal: “The closer we get without any good answers by 2030, the harder it is for everyone in our community. We deserve some answers”

Estevan Mayor Roy Ludwig:

“And we’re not getting any answers. I mean, we’ve been meeting now with the province a few times and we said, ‘Listen, we want to know. We have to start meeting. 2030 is coming very quickly. What are we going to do? We need the federal government involvement. They don’t even answer our emails. We have to get them to the table.

“They want to shut down coal, which is a great baseload power. The only option to that would be close to that would be nuclear. And that won’t be coming (soon). Once we make a decision toward the end of this decade, it probably won’t be built till 2035-2036, something like that.”

And

“It’s weighing on the employees already. We have people saying, ‘You know, I don’t know for sure what’s going to happen, come 2030, so I’m bailing now. I’m going to where the jobs are now.’

“And it’s this sense of frustration, this sense of not knowing, you know, it’s a killer. And the closer we get without any good answers by 2030, the harder it is for everyone in our community. We deserve some answers. And the federal government owes us some answers. And the province, well, we’re starting to talk with them. SaskPower, we have a pretty good relationship with them, but it’s, you know, the final decisions with SaskPower are made by the provincial government, not SaskPower.”

This is a follow up to Further carbon capture on coal “not an option,” according to CIC Minister Don Morgan

The Beast From the East

Y2Kyoto 21 Comments

Europe, including the UK, has been gripped by freezing, snowy weather blowing in from Siberia. Atmospheric circulation has gone into reverse with freezing easterly winds. It has been far below zero across the whole of northern Europe all week. Global warming or solar driven climate change?
The UK has closed most of its coal-fired power generation. The 11 GW that remain have been running eye balls out all week, day and night. It has been windy, and wind has put in a strong performance, that is until the wind drops. Solar panels are buried in snow. And yesterday the UK grid operator announced we were about to run out of gas. What a mess!

The Beast from the East and European Energy Security
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