Because we’re all going to drive electric cars, starting real soon. Didn’t you know?
Wonder where they’re going to get all the power from? Wind?
Alberta electrical grid in peril for the third time in 24 hours
The Alberta Electric System Operator issued a grid alert for the second time in one day, third time in 24 hours, and fifth time in three weeks. And at 5:27, demand hit another all-time peak.
Alberta electrical grid alert second time in less than 24 hours, fourth time this month
For the second time in 2 days, 4th time in December, Alberta Electric System Operator declares a “grid alert” as the power system can’t keep up with demand. It’s too cold for the wind turbines. -31C at Lethbridge, -35 C at Pincher Creek
How the Grinch tried to steal the oilpatch
Everyone’s got a Grinch story at this time of year. This is how the Grinch tried to steal the oilpatch.
Those giant stinking fans failed Saskatchewan, again, on Tuesday
SaskPower delays its reporting of power output by two days. But it turns out that on Tuesday, Dec. 13, wind power production in Saskatchewan all but collapsed. Again. You’d think in winter, having reliable power might be a thing? But we are intent on building more, a lot more, wind and solar.
Recently retired SaskEnergy CEO has a thing or two to say about energy transition
Recently retired CEO of SaskEnergy Ken From is a new columnist with Pipeline Online, and he’s got a thing or two to say about this supposed energy transition.
Subsidies for oil and gas? Really?
Some people think the oilpatch is blessed with all sorts of federal subsidies. Here’s Pipeline Online’s brief to the House of Commons Natural Resources Committee on the topic, which the committee is working on right now.
Alarm bells, not sleigh bells, should be ringing in Alberta. Saskatchewan, too.
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?”
Are we blind?
Alberta issues second grid alert in three days, as wind power generation collapses utterly, yet again, at suppertime.
The dawn of a new industry in Saskatchewan: Lithium
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
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.
As Alberta’s wind power generation collapsed this week, so, too did Saskatchewan’s giant stinkin’ fans
On Tuesday going into Wednesday, Wind power production in Alberta dropped to 0.1 per cent of nameplate capacity. And it stayed at 2% or less for about 24 hours. Well, now we know Saskatchewan saw a substantial drop as well.
To hell with that
Premier Scott Moe quoted a Pipeline Online story regarding shutting down coal and natural gas for our power production, as well as possible federal limits on nitrogen fertilizer emissions. “To hell with that!” he said in his throne speech on Nov. 3. This is the energy portion of his speech.
On Halloween, 81% of SaskPower’s electricity came from coal and natural gas, a nearly even split.
We don’t need no giant stinking fans. But we’re going to build a lot of them.
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
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
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’
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:
- The world needs oil and gas to function
- Europe’s largest economy is walking back on renewable energy
- Renewable energy is not reliable at scale to replace oil and gas
- The world’s growing population requires more energy, not less
- Canada is a responsible, reliable oil and gas supplier
- Canada’s natural gas can help the world get off coal
Moe’s Drawing the Line: releases white paper with profound impact on energy.
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
Part 2
Part 3:
Without coal, the lights would have gone out in Saskatchewan this week. The spinny things only put out 6% of their capacity
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
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.
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.