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.
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.
Assembly of a wind turbine near Assiniboia, SK, on Jan. 7, 2021. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
I worked on this story for many days with one of the proponents whose family will account for around half of the land assembly for the project. The number was initially a lot higher but the project has been changed and adapted. He has some strong points in favour of wind development, and they should be heard.
This is what they call “journalism,” as in telling multiple sides of a story. And no one else is writing in depth stories like this in Saskatchewan.
That being said, I have another wind story about a great day of wind production in Alberta on Sunday – 74 per cent output. That’s four orders of magnitude better than it was at noon precisely seven days before. But that also caused pool prices to hit zero for 12 hours.
Again, I point out the problem with no one making money is no one is making money. That’s unsustainable. And the proposed reforms in Alberta will make it much worse, by introducing negative pricing. Ridiculous! Nothing with intrinsic value should ever be zero. Ever.
Jonathan Wilkinson near Kipling, announcing $50 million for a wind project in June 2023. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
In Pipeline Online’s continuing mission to ensure we all know exactly what the federal government is telling us on climate change initiatives, this is the verbatim press release from the Government of Canada issued at 18:10 hrs on Dec. 5. Notably, it was not sent out via provincial media releases nor SaskPower’s media releases. And apparently according to the feds, Jansen is a company, not the place the largest mining company in the world, BHP, is building the world’s largest potash mind. Check that out in the opening paragraph.
(You’d think the natural resources minister, and ministry, might be aware of the largest potash mine in the world being built in their country)
The announcement was made by Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson. He and Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault are the federal Liberal government’s lead ministers on their numerous and various climate change initiatives. For good measure, we’ve interspersed a healthy dosage of oil and gas ads, that industry that this government’s Bill C-59 is trying to muzzle.
Highlights include money for a number of solar projects, advancing SMR development, the intertie to the United States, grid-scale batteries, and a “forecast that there will be over 130,000 clean energy jobs added in Saskatchewan between 2025 and 2050.”
Oh, and I am willing to bet a Christmas cheesecake the $265 million number was set so they could say it was more than Harper gave carbon capture in 2008 ($240 million). Never mind 9 years of inflation meaning my kid cries after buying groceries.
But hey! At that very moment, at noon, solar’s output was less than 10 per cent!
The number was so low that if you enter those numbers into your Windows calculator app (0.39 megawatts / 5476 megawatts), it will give you the scientific notation of 7.121986851716581e-5.
That’s right – the percentage was in scientific notation, because normal numbers don’t go that low. And this is after many, many billions spend on wind.
I keep asking: Why are we throwing away what we know works, for what we know absolutely does not work?
Electricity is the very oxygen of our economy. When you have lots of oxygen to breathe, no problem. The very second you run out – big problem. And we are entrusting our very lives with technology that continually completely collapses in a widespread basis. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 49 times (the number of Alberta wind farms) shame on me. And fool me 1722 times (the number of Alberta grid-scale wind turbines) … well, you get the idea.
A former Energy and Resources Minister for four years, Eyre is joining Pipeline Online as a regular contributor, both as a columnist and co-host in an upcoming regular podcast that is rapidly coming together. Watch for Eyre’s continuing contributions on Pipeline Online in the weeks and months ahead.
Also:
Alberta wind power generation falls to less than one per cent capacity, once again (Last Friday, it fell to zero. You read that right. Zero.)
And, what’s this Bluesky Social all about? In the interest of staking territory, Pipeline Online is now on this new social media at @pipelineonline.bsky.social. If you’re on there, be the first to follow, I guess?
The Saskatchewan Green Party proposes to “Make Green Jobs the future of Saskatchewan’s economy by transitioning away from fossil fuels,” while financing its extensive socialist policy platform by modelling Norway which applies “a whopping 78 percent total tax” on oil and gas revenues.
Notably, it includes five pages discussing the Greens opposition to small modular reactors. And the policy document closes by saying on the last page, “How do we pay for it? The Saskatchewan Green Party is dedicated to building a prosperous future for our province. It is time to raise royalty rates in the oil & gas sector to levels that truly reflect the value of our resources. We would use Norway as an example. Norway has a 51 percent tax on petroleum-related income, on top of the 27 percent income tax. That amounts to a whopping 78 percent total tax. This is put into a fund to benefit all citizens.”
That page does not list any other major revenue source, or indeed any revenue source at all, other than heavily taxing oil and gas, the same oil and gas earlier in the document the party promises to transition away from. If the party does succeed in “transitioning away from fossil fuels,” (Page 17) it offers no other source of revenue on the “How do we pay for it?” page (Page 61).
This is the third in a series of in-depth interviews with the parties vying for the Saskatchewan election. In it, NDP Energy Critic Aleana Young speaks about the NDP’s all-of-the-above energy strategy.
The greatest threat to nuclear development is not technological or even financial – it’s change in government. This was evident with the Site C Dam in BC, where a new NDP government pumped the brakes, but then ultimately went ahead with it. The NDP in Saskatchewan continue to support nuclear power development, but “we have to get it right.”
As I’ve done with the other parties, I reproduced everything I could find in the party platform related to energy. Well, the terms “oil” “natural gas” “potash” “critical minerals” “SMR” “nuclear” or “electricity” are not referenced within the document. But “healthcare” comes up 35 times.
Friday will be the Buffalo Party. So far, I have not heard from the Greens, PCs or Progressives. Wonder why? Is anyone else writing 3200 word stories on their energy policies?
On a side note, I attended a three hour long Estevan city council/mayor town hall this evening. It took 2 hours and 25 minutes before anyone made any serious comments about coal. That was right before I got my chance to ask about dealing with the impending eventual shut down of coal-fired power generation, but also preparing the city for nuclear power. Amazingly, about half of the 13 people on stage really had no substantive answer on that front, and several had no clue or hadn’t thought of it. You would think that would be the most important issue facing this city – much more important than sidewalks or boulevard flowers (which got more discussion up until that point than coal or nuclear). Especially since the nuclear built out will be the most costly infrastructure project in Saskatchewan history to date. (If I attend a forum like this, you can be damned sure I’m going to ask the toughest questions.)
And, while at the Lloydminster Heavy Oil Show, some interesting things happened. Apparently the media came from Edmonton and Calgary to Lloydminster so they could ask the premier about Edmonton and Calgary.
About a month ago I did some serious digging into Alberta’s electrical grid going into zero dollar hours for pricing. As in all the power on the grid, for the generators anyway, was free, for a few hours. I thought I had published it, but apparently not, as I was reminded by @ReliableAB. And funny thing is, it happened again this past weekend.
The problem with no one getting paid is no one is getting paid. No business model is sustainable like that. I don’t care about averaging things out. No one wants to give away product for free, especially if they are paying for inputs like natural gas for fuel and staffing.
Wind and hydro actually pair very well together, as hydro can ramp up and down very quickly. Building wind in Manitoba will allow them to build up their reservoirs and maintain more capacity overall, especially in low water conditions like the prairies have seen in recent years. So, believe it or not, I’m not wholly against that idea, for Manitoba, at least. I’m surprised they haven’t built more until now.
Also, this was from the Canadian Press. Take that for what you will.
Facing a groundswell of opposition to a proposed 200 megawatt wind project near Weyburn which would be built, operated and owned by Enbridge as an independent power producer, SaskPower posted the following on its corporate blog on Aug. 23.
That blog posting was then promoted via advertising on social media, including Facebook.
What the blog does not say is that Alberta’s fleet of now 47 wind farms, with a total capacity of 5,214 megawatts was producing 35 megawatts at 3:38 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 22, according to X account @ReliableAB. That’s after the recent addition of a new 466 megawatt windfarm which is being brought online. And 35 megawatts was 0.7 per cent of capacity at that moment, while 5,214 megawatts is nearly the entire Saskatchewan grid if every single generating facility was running full our, which never happens.
The ads below are not part of the original blog, but part of every Pipeline Online story to pay the bills. This is that blog posting, verbatim.
Apparently our federal government is asleep at the switch, because our economy is about to come crashing down on us and they’re in la-la land, allowing the entire rail sector to shut down in less than 24 hours.
