The credit rating agency DBRS Ltd. issued separate downgrades for TransAlta Corp. and Capital Power Corp., which have both been affected by power market changes triggered by the province’s climate change agenda.
The credit rating agency DBRS Ltd. issued separate downgrades for TransAlta Corp. and Capital Power Corp., which have both been affected by power market changes triggered by the province’s climate change agenda.
I received a mailer from our useless NDP MLA. In it, they outline lower school fees, and a cap on electricity bills. They know that this is the end result of the game they are playing. It’s an admission of their guilt, and they should hang for this type of treason.
I have little enough respect for the NDP, and this mailer just convinced me that they are trying to hurt the average Albertan on purpose. They will not call an election until the fifth year, to ensure their policies damage is maximized.
Of course … they cloak their fascist-Marxist policies in … “the cillllldren”. BTW … are these the same “schools” that are helping our young boys “identify” as girls (or something in-between) ?
Lovely photo accompanying the article with THREE MASSIVE SMOKESTACKS belching … smoke … er, water vapor … into the air we all breathe. The horror. The horror !!!
This sort of thing confirms that selling my stock in both companies was a very wise move. Their respective managements appear to be clueless about how to run things.
NDP have also managed to run the Balancing Pool into insolvency. Their solution as usual is to just borrow money to cover it.
Notley NDP “loans” insolvent agency $2B to get out of carbon tax induced mess
The Balancing Pool is the middle man, a government agency acting as the contract holder between the power generators and the companies that sell power to Albertans. There is a clause in those contracts stating that if the government does something to make the power contracts unprofitable, or more unprofitable, the Balancing Pool is on the hook for the whole mess.
The NDP’s carbon tax did just that. When the NDP carbon-taxed coal fired electricity generation, a bunch of those contracts turned to junk, and the Balancing Pool started bleeding cash, up to $70M per month.
The next question is how much damage will the NDP do to Alberta and can it be fixed by the next conservative government? We desperately need some intelligence back in government, why are so many losers attracted to the job?
The next question is how much damage will the NDP do to Alberta and can it be fixed by the next conservative government?
Remember that the NDP provincial government has a number of hard-core leftists in its ranks. Quite likely, they derive their inspiration from the Frankfurt School, a group which was dedicated to the destruction of western civilization, not bothering if anything ever replaced it.
Any provincial government that cheers with delight at the hardship it imposed upon farmers won’t care one jot at whatever additional mayhem it can cause before it leaves office.
The downgrade seems to be linked to going from the existing electricity markets to something called capacity markets. I looked up the term because I am unfamiliar with it and the explanation of how it works is vague at best and hopelessly complicated at worst. Basically, energy producers are paid both for what they sell and for their capacity (present and future) and all suppliers get something called a clearing price (set by the most expensive unit needed to meet demand ) but details about pros and cons are fuzzy. Lack of clarity usually doesn’t bode well for consumers. Is it this uncertainty that accounts for most of the downgrade? Or do the rating agencies know that capacity markets are yet another flavor of the day disaster in the making?
It’s the capacity part that looks bad. We know that existing wind turbines in real world conditions can only produce about 20-30% of rated capacity per year but a natgas or coal plant can produce 80-95% of rated capacity. It is also reality that natgas and coal are dispatchable power (ready to go when needed) instead of non-dispatchable and intermittent like wind turbines (at the mercy of nature). So if you need 1000MW of electricity how will the price be be calculated? Will wind power by given the clearing price based on its rated capacity or its actual ability to produce electricity at the time it is needed. Common sense and reality would suggest that if wind turbines can only produce power at 20% of rated capacity then it shouldn’t get paid for 100% of its rated capacity. Cynically, I think that it will be based on rated capacity and this is yet another way to funnel money to green energy crony capitalists causing electricity bills to skyrocket.
Actually it’s more like 15-20% of rated capacity per year. Not only that, wind turbines seldom reach the projected life expectancy used in the economic studies touting their use.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7492994/Wind-farms-produce-fifth-of-expected-electricity.html
It’s important to remember that the NDP only achieved power because Alberta conservatives became increasingly corrupt and fractionated after the Klein administration. The same thing happened in Ontario. If the conservatives can’t attract better leaders and get their shit together then the left will continue their disastrous regime.
The NDP is just doing what they do: destroy everything they touch. They are not to blame however. Blame those b*stards in the PCs and the traitors in the Wildrose. They are the true blameworthy actors in this farce. Never forget !
Yes, wind turbines are quite variable in their production values. It’s a problem that advocates want to wave away or compensate for by adding on expensive fixes that *might* increase wind’s efficiency. No guarantees.
Ultimately if you have to drive to work every day at 8am, do you want a car that starts every morning or one that only starts 1 or 2 mornings a week? What good is a car if is only starts at midnight one day, 3pm the next, then not at all for a couple days? If you don’t want a car like that then why would you intentionally build an electricity system with those types of problems.
Years before the collapse of the PC’s in AB I warned on this site that AB was a lot more socialist than it appeared. I took the blows for that observation until it came to pass. Turns out there are a hell of a lot of socialists in AB.
It’s is not beyond the realm of possibility that the ndp is returned to power. Politicians that are more interested in winning an argument than winning an election and forming government need to get out of the way and work toward forming a solid front or it will be 4 more years….of ndp.
If the government of AB goes back to the right, will these same politicians have the guts to reverse the ndp platforms of $15/hr minimum wage or $25/day daycare? We’ll see.
There hasn’t been conservatives in power in Alberta since Steve West left.