COP28: Saskatchewan, and over 50 companies and organizations, will be in the room where it happens
No carbon tax on electrical home heat from SaskPower, says Moe
Wind drops to 0.9% output in Alberta on Thursday. Again.
Shipper costs to rise as regulator approves preliminary interim Trans Mountain tolls
Alberta now has 44 wind farms, and Wednesday night they collectively produced next to no power (posted yesterday, but leads into the next two for context)
On Thursday, Alberta wind power had a hangover and the sun didn’t come out to play
What the Globe and Mail left out in its story on grid-scale batteries in Alberta
Key points:
The last day saw not only wind utterly collapse in Alberta, but solar AT THE SAME TIME, even at noon. And the narrative that we’ll simply build a lot of batteries for when that happens is disproven, as Alberta’s seven batteries only produced a 62 minutes of a wee bit of power all day on Thursday. And over the last 30 days, those seven batteries only produced 265 minutes out of over 300,000 minutes available to them. Yes, you read that right. And SaskPower is spending $26 million to buy one of these batteries. Seriously. It should be online any day.
So why, again, are we throwing away what we know works, natural gas and coal, for wind, solar and batteries? And it’s not even all that cold yet!
Bonus reading:
Alberta now has 44 wind farms, and Wednesday night they collectively produced next to no power. Oh yeah, and the sun wasn’t shining, either. Imagine that.
And in case you missed it, Ottawa can take its journalism subsidies and shove them. Maybe that’s why I’m the only reporter I know of who’s not singing the praises of wind and solar? Will reporters whose salaries are 35% subsidized by the federal government do the same, and question the narrative?
In August, Steven Guilbeault released the draft Clean Electricity Regulations which mean to remake our entire country in just 11 years.
On Nov. 2, Saskatchewan told them where to go. Today, they said publicly how to get there.
Three stories:
‘It just isn’t possible’ – SaskPower Minister in-depth response to Clean Electricity Regulations.
SaskPower response to the Clean Electricity Regulations: ‘Not possible from technological, financial and logistical perspectives‘
Saskatchewan response to the Clean Electricity Regulations: Unaffordable, unconstitutional and unobtainable.
If you haven’t been paying attention, South Africa is falling apart. The reasons are many and various. But a principal factor is an increasingly unreliable power grid leading to up to a third of the grid being in the dark at any one time.
This is why Pipeline Online has been covering the reliability of the Canadian electrical grid with such intensity. Politicians talk about “reliability, sustainability and affordability of the electrical grid.” As these videos outline in great detail, when reliability collapses, nothing else matters. South Africa has at times one third of its grid in rolling blackout. Everything from food preservation to industrial factories to medical operations ends up in peril.
The minute any grid operator, power generator, or government starts talking about “load shedding,” things are going to hell in a handbasket in a hurry.
And as a reminder, the Alberta grid had eight “grid alerts” in the last year, each time when wind and or solar power generation failed. Alberta is a jurisdiction that has more coal, oil, and gas than God, because God gave all of his to Alberta. The only way this could happen is sheer and utter incompetence. You might consider that getting rid of reliable and cheap coal-fired power generation in favour of more and more wind and solar power might be indicative of this. And in the last few days, Alberta brought on another 297 megawatt wind farm, bringing their total wind generation to 4,150 megawatts. Two years ago, it was closer to 2700 megawatts.
Here’s a couple recent videos on YouTube discussing the ever-worsening plight of South Africa.
It was a full year ago when the Saskatchewan First Act was introduced and then brought into law. But now the provincial government is going to use it to fight the federal government’s climate change initiatives on Clean Electricity Regulations, Clean Fuel Standard, and an incoming emissions cap for oil and gas.
And here’s why:
Another day of near-flatline wind power production in Alberta on Wednesday. 13 of 38 wind farms produce 1 megawatt, or less (as in zero) for 24 hours. Several of those had capacities in the 100 to 200 megawatt range. And all the got was one, for a few minutes at a time.
And despite renewables clearly failing miserably, as noted above, Canada needs to move faster on renewable energy, Jonathan Wilkinson says.
There were some other energy issues raised in Wednesday’s Throne Speech.
On Friday, Alberta Energy Minister Brian Jean praised the Travers Solar Project in a LinkedIn post. At noon on Sunday, when the sun was highest in the sky, it was producing 10.9 per cent of nameplate capacity.
And at the very same time, wind was producing less than 2 per cent capacity, and was around that level all afternoon long.
The Canadian Energy Regulator provided reasons for its TMX pipeline route change ruling.
In an unrelated note, if you’ve worked in the southeast Saskatchewan oilpatch, you probably know, or know of, Larry Day, who was awarded dispatcher of the year.
And while we’re tooting horns, Pipeline Online received an Estevan Business Excellence award for New Business Venture.
All the hacking issues last week means there’s a lot to catch up on in the world of energy.
First, a column this morning from U of R professor Jim Warren: Guess what happens when eco-zealots are put in charge of making climate policy?
Here’s another verbatim press release from Steven Guilbeault about cutting oil and gas emissions by 75%.
If you didn’t catch it last week, Sask Polytechnic is getting a brand spanking new campus. Too bad it won’t be anywhere close to finished before my daughter finishes her journeyman heavy duty mechanic ticket. (She just started her 4 year apprenticeship, if that give you a hint.) Maybe my 16-year old son will get to attend the new site in his fourth year of apprenticeship?
Did you know Manitoba has an oilpatch? Often their own politicians don’t really clue in on it, including former Premier Brian Pallister. I can’t find it now, but when he flip-flopped on fighting the carbon tax, he made accusations against “oil producing provinces.” Manitoba produces around 38,000 barrels per day. Anyhow, the largest oilfield in Manitoba is now 19 years old.
Oil prices look like they’re heading for $100/ barrel US.
Dams aren’t so green, after all.
And the big one for last week: my column on how Saskatchewan goes big into nuclear. Funny thing is I’ll be speaking to the SaskPower CEO on Monday. We’ll see if I’m on the mark or not.
Supper in Texas on Wednesday: for the 9th time in 3 weeks, the lights are in danger of going out due to high temperatures and low wind power generation.
Well, that’s what I initially wrote. Then the Texas grid literally went into “red alert,” as the frequency started to drop and reserves fell perilously low. If the frequency goes too low, generating plants would start to trip off in cascading failures, leading to massive blackouts. Thankfully, they got it under control.
Also: Pipeline Online editor Brian Zinchuk on John Gormley Live talking about oil prices, drilling activity, carbon capture, grid alerts, and dramatically more nuclear power generation possible in Saskatchewan.
And if you missed it, Enbridge snapped up three natural gas utilities in the US. Funny how they’re spending big money in the US, but not Canada…
With brownouts a possibility, Texas issues another electrical grid alert on Tuesday, its second in three days. Alberta issued one yesterday. These are the most energy-rich places on earth. What is going on?
UPDATE: 3:08 p.m. Aug. 29.
At 2:25 p.m, the Alberta Electric System Operator has not yet issued a grid alert on this date, but put out a tweet alluding to one, imploring Alberta citizens to reduce power consumption.
It’s still hot out there! Do your part to conserve electricity during peak demand, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., to reduce strain on the grid. Find out more. https://t.co/H3xXXvV4Ou pic.twitter.com/8HcRtNelCb
— AESO (@theAESO) August 29, 2023
Don’t use that dishwasher! Alberta under another “grid alert” as #wind bottoms out, again, on Monday. This happens just a day after Texas issued an almost identical alert, and for the same reasons. Hot weather, no wind, power reserves dwindling…
In Saskatchewan, Poplar River Power Station is now fully online again, which is good, because on Aug. 22, when wind generation fell to less than 1 per cent capacity, natural gas and coal made up 87 per cent of power generation. And of course, Alberta saw its wind production fall below 1 per cent, again.
Texas and Alberta have more oil, gas and coal than God, because God gave all his to Texas and Alberta. And yet “grid alerts” are becoming the norm in both, as they’ve both built out tremendous amounts of wind power, and the wind doesn’t blow. On Sunday, Texas issued its form of grid alert.
But remember, the Canadian government says we must abandon coal and natural gas for wind and solar.
Ding ding ding! The amount of power output Alberta’s wind farms were putting out at noon on Tuesday. But the feds want us to get rid of all coal and natural gas power generation! And it was like that for around 10 hours! Whoo hoo, more wind!
And from the other side of the spectrum, the development of lithium into a potential multi-billion dollar industry in Saskatchewan continues apace, as Hub City Lithium announced test results from its second well north of Estevan which confirmed numbers from the first – and that one had the highest concentrations reported in Canada for lithium brines. But there’s a curious wild card here – it’s right beside the Viewfield Crater, an astrobleme from 190 million years ago. There’s only a handful of known craters in Canada, and this is one. Discussion in the story.
Four reactors could cost Saskatchewan $12 to $20 billion. The feds just gave us $74 million. But don’t worry, the money came from Guilbeault and Wilkinson. At least, those were the ministers quoted.
In the above, you will see that in 26 years, four months and 10 days, Saskatchewan could need as many as 27.5 nuclear reactors. At $3 to $5 billion a crack. Good luck, with that.
Also, Yukon might connect to the BC, and thereby national, electrical grid.
And Ford just milked the federal and Quebec EV cow for $1.2 billion
Danielle Smith: Grand sweeping fairytales that threaten Canadians ability to keep the lights on are no way to speed things up.
I’ll have more on that pretty impressive press conference as I have time.
As well, some oil companies aren’t doing too badly, as Saturn Oil & Gas reports it has tripled its production in a year.
Also, in last week’s Crown mineral rights land sale in Saskatchewan, one, singular exploration permit went for over $6 million. The last time I saw numbers like that for one piece of land was like during the Bakken boom of 2008. It’s simply unheard of in the last 15 years to see a single parcel, even an exploratory permit, go for that much. In recent years, we’d be lucky if a few dozen leases, combined, would make up a total of $6 million. So this is verrrrry interesting. It was near Kindersley, by the way.
Total flatline: For 3 hours, 17 minutes on Sunday, not one lightbulb in Saskatchewan was powered by grid-scale wind. Three times wind power went to zero. Not 1 per cent. Not half a per cent. Zero.
Sunday morning, Alberta’s wind generation dropped to 0.8 per cent, again. It’s actually around 2.5% at noon on Monday, but I don’t think I’m going to write that story. It was at similar levels on Saturday, too, so three days in a row, if you’re counting. On Thursday, the Alberta government put a six month pause on approvals for new wind and solar projects. There are still plenty in the works already, but does anyone think there’s finally a realization at the highest level these things don’t actually work?
Also, if anyone here has seen any other media reporting on this (wind power collapsing, again), I would love to see links in the comments. As far as I’ve seen, I’m the only media doing so in Western Canada.
Is there any possibility that the folks in Edmonton have been paying attention to all the stories I’ve been doing on the failure of wind in Alberta? Because on Thursday, Alberta announced a six month pause on renewable energy approvals.
Why does one keep repeating “The Emperor had not clothes?” Because greater society hasn’t figured it out yet. So yet again, wind power in Alberta and Saskatchewan has cratered in recent days. But we’re building more wind turbines!
Basically, Saskatchewan large GHG emitters are forced to pay a form of carbon tax called “Output Based Pricing”. Some of the money from that is what was provided, from the feds, to Cowessess, for their investment equity into this project which cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Also, Enbridge doesn’t build a lot of pipelines in Canada anymore. But they are building wind turbines off the coast of France.