I’ve been on the road, so there’s a whole lot to get caught up on:
Clean Electricity Regulations:
Saskatchewan and Alberta are tag-teaming the fight with Ottawa on the Clean Electricity Regulations. First, Alberta says on Monday it will use its Sovereignty Act (and Guilbeault has something to say about that). Then Saskatchewan names its tribunal panelists to look into the Clean Electricity Regulations and the harm they will do to the province. One of the panelists is Ken From, former CEO of SaskEnergy and occasional columnist for Pipeline Online. Another is former NDP finance minister and deficit-slayer Janice MacKinnon.
Wilkinson says Ottawa has always been flexible on clean energy rules. Yeah, right. A Canadian Press story.
CO2
Oilsands producers confident in their massive carbon capture project.
Pipelines:
Enbridge is finally, really, totally, completely done on Line 3 replacement. Really.
Coastal GasLink pipeline, the one to feed LNG Canada and finally allow LNG exports, has now been hydrotested and is now mechanically complete.
Nuclear, small and large:
Saskatchewan funds the Saskatchewan Research Council getting its first micro reactor. Notably, it’s a Westinghouse eVinci. Who closed its 49% purchase of Westinghouse a few weeks ago? Cameco.
SNC-Lavalin under a new name launches its first 1000 megawatt CANDU reactors.
The biggest opponent to nuclear development in Saskatchewan for decades was NDP MLA and cabinet minister Peter Prebble. Guess who is now complaining about Saskatchewan’s greenhouse gas emissions? – a Zinchuk column
Misc.
A huge change occurred in Saskatchewan media, with the retirement of John Gormley, the king of talk radio in the Land of Living Skies for the last 25 years. His replacement is former Regina Police Service chief Evan Bray.
What is this carbon capture? Are they going to build a pipeline to coke a cold factory make it more fizzy? How come all this focus on CO2, when the majority of all green house gas is water vapor H2O.
something that matters SFA in a world of 0.004 CO2 , where its been as high as 3 and 6 % in the cretaceous and devonian. and lots of life at the time
And there are risks, could be substantial, with CO2 capture. If there was a sudden escape or release of captured CO2, at ground level it could be deadly. People can’t breath if the air is close to being only CO2.
This has happened. A massive release of carbon dioxide from Lake Nyos in 1986 killed more than 1700 people and 3500 livestock. A previous such event had taken place two years before at Lake Manoun also in Cameroun.
I’d have to do more reading to assess the dangers of a release of sequestered CO2. A lot would depend on the CO2 concentration and dilution effect of air movement (wind), and geology…similar to H2S which is more dangerous at lower concentrations and low lying areas.
As for what they do with the CO2, it depends on location. In southeastern Saskatchewan the carbon capture unit at the boundary dam coal fired electricity plant ships and sells the CO2 to oil companies. It is pumped into old oil fields for enhanced oil recovery. The carbon capture works but not as well as saskpower was hoping it would. The other option is to sequester the CO2 permanently in areas with stable geology, I think.
Liquid CO2 can be used as a non-polar solvent, as in the oil fields to enhance recovery. You can also use it to refine marijuana resins and oils, in a similar fashion. It’s benefit is, .,once evaporated, it leaves no residues or traces of itself.
Also could be used in greenhouses to enhance productivity, so northern climes could grow otherwise expensive produce year round, using various methods to heat light said greenhouses. Also, dry ice..
The cons, as mentioned, it is an asphyxiant, as it displaces oxygen, but is much less toxic than H2S. Also forms carbonic acid, which may or may not be a con, depending on situation. Makes a great fire extinguisher/instant beer chiller!
In total, CO2 is much more useful than harmful, wish they wouldn’t propagandize it as being so negative, that’s just a scam.
Most annoying thing: Seeing an advertisement on global warming, immediately followed by a commercial for SodaStream!
“Also could be used in greenhouses to enhance productivity, so northern climes could grow otherwise expensive produce year round, using various methods to heat light said greenhouses. ”
Yep. In fact, one of Saskpower’s coal fired power plants was designed to have a greenhouse adjacent to it. The design was to have waste heat directed to the greenhouse (not sure about CO2). The greenhouse grows prairie hardy trees and shrubs for rehabilitation projects and for farmers. As always, there were glitches but a worth while concept for industries that produce heat and CO2.
Bruce, I’ve only been thinking of the expense and sheer stupidity of a carbon dioxide capture system, and hadn’t considered the danger.
You make a very good point, one I’ve not seen before.
The biggest downside for CO2 sequestration is that is an added expense and unnecessary. CO2 is not pollution in the traditionally understood definition of pollution, despite what the zealots say. For instance, greenhouses pump in CO2 to enhance growth because plants grow better with CO2 concentrations in the 1000ppm range.
Carbon capture and sequestration is only being done due to greenhouse gas regulations and trading opportunities. An artificial market created by the corporate class environmental industry due to regulations imposed by politicians.
Carbon capture and underground storage (CCUS) is an enormously expensive process with zero justification.
Due to the anti-scientific lie of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), and due to the compounding lie that it is caused by CO2, CCUS is the “solution” to the “problem” of petroleum extraction. Because we require the byproducts of petroleum (natural gas for heating, and gasoline, octane, propane, butane, petrochemicals, etc.), we must therefore bury the harmless and necessary byproduct of the extraction and refining process – CO2.
The cost of so doing will more than offset the value of all petroleum extracted in the WCSB to date.
My guess is that this serves the agenda of the POSs who rule us – massively increasing the cost of energy. Once it becomes unaffordable, and in combination of “green” energy making it also unreliable, they will then control who gets it, and how much.
And at the same time they will subsidize the cost of CCUS for the companies (that they own) who will work on these projects. The costs of which will be passed on to the taxpayer, while the companies they own will immediately turn a profit.
The U in CCUS is actually “utilization.” In the Weyburn Unit, it has extended the life and production of that tired oilfield by decades, and anticipated to do so for several more decades, as long as the CO2 supply continues.
Ah, I’ve seen both. Kinda like the BSW definition. But a quick Google shows that you are correct.
I agree that there is merit in using CO2 as a gas in enhanced recovery of oil, much as there is in waterflood, SAGD, polymer injection schemes, etc.
But you can bet that CCUS will be massively subsidized using AGW as the excuse to use other peoples’ money to pay for it.
And once again, the people who are having issues paying to heat their home, fill their gas tank, and buy their groceries will be forced to “help” connected billionaires generate profit in an otherwise uneconomic scheme.
So you say its no good because of how its funded, ignoring inherent utility.
You must hate roads.
Not sure how you got that from what I said. It’s like solar panels – I’m not inherently against them. If you want to spend your own money to buy them, and if the company that manufactures them doesn’t receive taxpayer subsidies to do so, I have no problem with that.
Much like in the oil and gas world, wells are abandoned despite there still being recoverable oil underground. The issue being that each incremental barrel costs more to extract than it its potential revenue.
YW, I agree. Governments and government projects exist to finance things that private enterprise cannot. Highways are one obvious example, and they have required governments to create them, repair them, and police them since the creation of the Royal Road by the Persian Empire in the 5th century BC.
Organized society breaks down almost immediately when the roads fall to pieces. This happened during the Dark Ages in Europe after about 550 AD. It took centuries to start putting back together what the Roman Empire had built.
So if a greenhouse has CO2 concentrations of 1000 ppm, then it’s obviously necessary to use robots to harvest the produce, right??
Or do the workers have to wear full hazmat suits??
I realize you are being sarcastic but just as a FYI for people who are afraid of CO2 :
“Carbon dioxide is not generally found at hazardous levels in indoor environments. The MNDOLI has set workplace safety standards of 10,000 ppm for an 8-hour period and 30,000 ppm for a 15 minute period. This means the average concentration over an 8-hour period should not exceed 10,000 ppm and the average concentration over a 15 minute period should not exceed 30,000 ppm. It is unusual to find such continuously high levels indoors and extremely rare in non-industrial workplaces. These standards were developed for healthy working adults and may not be appropriate for sensitive populations, such as children and the elderly.”
https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/air/toxins/co2.html
This was the first entry in my search. Normal levels outside are around 400ppm.
I used to work for one of the big breweries in Canada. We had horizontal fermenters for top fermenting ales. Once you got the beer out, workers had to go into the fermenting vessels to push the yeast out so it could be recovered / reused. Our personal O2 meters were set to 19% before alarming, meaning 2% CO2 = 20,000 ppm, right in the middle of what you stated. The ambient CO2 in the cellars was probably 10,000ppm on average.
I used to do air monitoring for maintenance crews in confined spaces. CO2 is not very dangerous but all the fear mongering has people thinking it’s as dangerous as carbon monoxide, CO.
You said “SNC Lavalin”!!!
Don’t you know how that triggers the right?
Nope, what triggers the right is lefties being corrupt. We actually expect companies to take what is given to them. We hope lefty politicians stop being corrupt.
Yup, sounds about right. No small modular nuclear allowed in Canada until the Laurentian Elite have got the market cornered through onerous regulations.
Small modular reactors have existed in Canada since 1970. They have existed in the United States, Britain, France, the Soviet Union, China and India since the 1950s.
In all this you can see the one common theme and that is planning.
Long-term planning.
The Climate Crisis Crusaders & Baby Doomers just seem to think everybody can get a battery car, electric furnace and hot water heater tomorrow without any type of electrical production increase or grid upgrade while actually removing energy coal and gas production.
“We’ll juth add wind millth and tholar panelth.”
Yeah no.
Of course they don’t think any of that. They expect us to do without.
Do you think that all long-term planning is bad?