Alberta’s last coal plant shuts down, and days later, a grid alert is declared.
Oh, and that new grid-scale battery that SaskPower just went $10 million over the initial announced price on – Alberta has 10 (albeit a different manufacturer). Three haven’t lit a light bulb since March, and they were no shows on Monday.
But that’s okay, the Pembina Institute wrote a piece celebrating the end of coal, which they strongly advocated for over many years. They published it two days before the grid alert.
And it’s going to be hot two more days in Alberta. Anyone want to make a bet there will be more grid alerts?
Again, Alberta has more coal, oil and gas than God, because God gave all of his to Alberta. For that province to ever be running short of energy is a result of sheer incompetence at the top. And Saskatchewan is following that path – shutting down coal, building more wind, solar, and now batteries. SaskPower has had announcements for all three in recent weeks. Will I be writing about Saskatchewan grid alerts, because we failed to heed what is happening west of us?
Canadians are disgracefully stupid.
Smith has been premier for 2 years. Last saw Notley 5 years ago. This is not an NDP problem.
SK saw the back of Calvert 17 years ago.
Mike…
Exactly. Why these 2 Premiers continue to KISS Climatards (_i_) across our Provinces simply baffles me..??
Industrial WIND, SOLAR and Battery are utterly f’ing USELESS as shown Annually in The Dead of Winter & during a “warm” spell.
Why is anyone surprised when you vote stupid you get stupid?
Because the magority voting is stupid.
Majority
Because our choices are between dumb and dumber.
Too many folks in Alberta and Saskatchewan live in cities and have the idea the ‘milk comes from the store’. Electricity is something that you pay for and it arrives in wires.
Wires? No, electricity comes from the wall. You just plug your stuff into the wall and voila, you get power.
This is why our electrical grid is on a path, albeit slower, to be akin to South Africa’s. We’ll just keep pushing it, and pushing it, and then it will tip over and start failing, and everyone will stand around going, “HUH? How’d that happen?!”
Why does anyone take “Utility Scale Battery Storage” seriously, when it could supply a max of 1.7% of the grid for 1 hour, assuming all of it’s available?
It does serve the purpose of stabilizing the grid to deal with all the unreliables, but they wouldn’t be required if the grid was built for reliability first, even if that is unpalatable to the renewable fanatics at Pembina
It serves the purpose of stabilizing a lie (and someone’s bank account) but does nothing for the grid. Actually, it makes the grid more complex and expensive and less reliable.
It certainly is Rachel Notley’s legacy.
Yup…those who don’t understand how long it takes to get ANYTHING built in this damned country don’t know what the hell they are talking about.
all these profoundly imbecilic brain trusts we have about all manner of stuff now.
it answers the question, ‘how stupid are they Johnny?’
‘they’re so stupid, Ed they are doing EVERYTHING necessary to put them in a lethal power situation’.
and the ones going to suffer the most FIRST are the ones who VOTED for it.
they stupidly WANT it and stupidly CREATE it. they got it covered.
I might have to steal that.
also l was about to leave a snarky msg on their answering machine, but . . . . l think their too STUPID to ‘get’ it.
WEXIT.
How will WEXIT fix anything when the West is bent on committing suicide along with the rest of Canada?
Needs a /sarc tag.
Perhaps “The calls are coming from inside the house.” would have been more fitting.
Because the West isn’t bent on committing suicide…..all the lemming don’t have to go off the cliff.
Wexit is certainly going to be a factor going forward but we are completely compromised by the bureaucracy that actually controls us. Sadly, the west has just as many people in places of power that don’t have the general good in mind. They will spend your money on unicorns as long as their expense accounts are covered by the taxpayer.
The taxpayer, even if they have a basic understanding of our economy, can still be purchased by a bit of spending that makes them feel like it’s good.
Every level of government and administration in our province is infected by this thinking that if the money isn’t directly coming from our wallets, it’s somehow not real money. Until that connection is made, we will continue to bleed out our resources
Ever apply for a public service job with the government of SK, or any other public sector organization in the government?
DEI to the core!!! Our provincial government in SK is just as woke as they are back east!
Open the coal plant up again, for goodness sake.
Hot tip : politicians aren’t that smart when it comes technology, energy, budgeting, economics, etc. What they’re mainly good at is getting elected by telling voters what they want to hear and using taxpayer money to buy votes. Once elected, they become really good at kickbacks, money laundering, pay to play and other money harvesting schemes. Bureaucrats are only good at the money harvesting schemes. Both politicians and bureaucrats rely on paid “experts” to provide justification for the policies that perpetuate those schemes. Communication consultants use focus groups to find the best slogans to market the schemes to gullible voters.
None of those above concern themselves with actually providing reliable, efficient and affordable services. Follow the money. Politicians net worth rises dramatically once they are in government and only a small fraction of that comes from their salary. Battery installations, wind, solar, smart meters and other “green” policies have been the most lucrative money making schemes for the political class and corporate class environmentalists since the mid 1990s.
LC
For many politicos, is schooling to become good used car sales people kind. Bullshitt works well in both of those professions, as well as in religion.
I have far more respect for used car salesmen since they can’t compel you to buy their product. I’m neutral on religion – some of the nicest people I know are religious, some of the worst people I know are religious.
Give it up, GYM. Your bullshitt (sic) bigotry isn’t going to pass any muster around here anymore.
For the record, Yes, I agree with LC. Religious people are no better, but also no worse than anyone else. We are all sinners… YOU included!!! ESPECIALLY YOU!!!
LC
It’s not just votes they buy it’s science as well. Only those experts get funding that will find the answers politicians are looking for and those findings become the bases for new taxes. Steven Donziger an environmental attorney once said in the movie Crude “Facts do not exist… Facts are created.”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSj4QHe6ogs
I’m not familiar with the chevron case so I can’t give any opinion on that. I do see that environmental activists, paid experts and judges seem to conspire to do the governments bidding.
In Canada it goes one step further since the government gives taxpayer money to environmental groups to take legal action against the government and private companies. The favorable rulings for the environmental groups from Liberal Party appointed judges, who all donated to the Liberal Party before their judicial appointment, then provides the justification for the Liberal government to enact more environmental laws and regulations.
I sorta expect that after the Liberals lose the next election that environmental groups will use lawfare to try to prevent the Conservative government from axing the carbon tax. My guess is that the activists will claim that Canada is bound by international agreements like the Paris Accord, indigenous rights or rights of future generations. Hopefully, if that happens, the Conservatives can invoke the notwithstanding clause.
It’s stupidity all the way down.
Kenney had the obligation to cancel the NDP stupidity. Danielle had a majority, but her idea of government is to never have to say controversial words so the left won’t get hurt.
We are screwed, with zillions of tons of coal under our own feet.
How long ago was Alberta’s population half of what it is now? All of this population increase demands services. Methinks it takes longer to properly increase infrastructure than it does to increase population and their wants.
Brian. It is not “sheer incompetence at the top”, these policies are intended, and supported by Smith.
She is turning out to be about as conservative as Jason Kenney.
She could stop this nonsense tomorrow.
But instead, she spends her time on photo ops promoting diversity
You don’t know what you are talking about. The last bit of coal generated power in Alberta was small in the overall scheme of things and is being replaced by natural gas power plants. The Genesee coal plant is being converted to natural gas.
This is all the fault of the previous NDP government. These systems can’t be changed in the blink of an eye.
Smith is doing just fine.
Oh…and by the way, Alberta was not even close to rotating outages.
Smith only disagrees with the timing of Net Zero, Art.
Think about that.
As of right now, Alberta’s 4748 megawatts of wind is producing 26, or one half of one per cent capacity. Hold onto your hats, Albertans, it’s going to be a bumpy ride today.
Yep…in a Province with the 2nd or 3rd largest Reserves of OIL – GAS- COAL on the planet and here we are, relying on Utter Climatard BS for energy.
And both premiers kiss CImatard (_i_)
WTF..??
No…no they don’t kiss Clmatard (-i-). The issue simply is the conversion of coal plants (an edict from the previous NDP government) to natural gas. Alberta is not relying on wind and solar….it is using natural gas plants that are to come on line.
Alberta IS relying on wind and solar. Every grid alert I’ve reported on over the last 2.5 years has been a result of the failure of wind and/or solar. But wind’s failings is ALWAYS in play.
And yes, as noted in the story, that coal plant is being converted to natural gas. But the broader point is when Alberta relied principally on coal, were grid alerts frequent occurrences? They were not.
You’re both right. In the bad old days of reliable, affordable electricity it was understood that the system had to have enough reliable baseload power to handle peak winter lows and summer highs. Then gas peaker plants were used for peak power, emergency power if baseload went down (built in redundancy to handle foreseen and unforeseen conditions). Plus imports and exports to increase profits.
Baseload was coal, hydro and gas on the prairies. Peaker plants were gas. No unreliable wind and solar power needed. That type of system works very well. I personally would swap out baseload coal with baseload nuclear or gas as the coal plants reach the end of their lifespan. Trash wind and solar power from the system entirely.
They are not stupid.
They are not incompetent.
They are lunatics living out their fantasies.
“For that province to ever be running short of energy is a result of sheer incompetence at the top.”
At this point Brian, it is time to finally admit that this is not incompetence. Everybody knew what was going to happen. It isn’t rocket surgery, right?
Not incompetence. Malice.
Dealing with MALICE at the top requires a different set of techniques than dealing with idiots.
And now wind is down to 12 out of 4748 megawatts.
Make that 11
And now 10
Well, of wind and solar, wind is the most useless….solar isn’t much better, but wind is an absolute joke. Which is why Alberta is building natural gas base power and peaker plants.
Importing 420 MW @ $849.21 per MWH = $356,668.20 per hour to import power because the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.
But, were told to build more wind / solar which will also not produce when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.
Is this a great business plan or what?
Here in the Pacific NW wind follows a similar pattern – no wind during periods of extreme hot / cold when we need generation the most. We’re in a heat wave right now, and 2800 MW of wind generation has been nil for the past 6 days.
https://transmission.bpa.gov/business/operations/wind/baltwg3.aspx
Industrial strength stupidity taken from the gospel of The Sustainable Organic Church of the Carbon Apocalypse
So if they are “serious” about lifting the moratorium on “renewables” then part of the contract should be if you want to be connected to the grid, you have to produce 90% of your nameplate, 90% of the time, or buy the equivalent power on the open market, while we pay a fixed rate of $0.043/kWh or whatever the current rate that the baseload units get.
Yep, wind and solar should be responsible for their intermittency. Wind and solar destabilizes the grid and messes up the economics of building the reliable baseload power/peaker plant system that is needed. I might drop that number to 80% of nameplates capacity, though. Even requiring wind and solar to provide 80% of nameplate capacity would destroy the ROI of green energy, imo.
It seems that wind and solar is a solution to a non-existent problem as many have expressed here. Simple folk like me must trust in the awsome intellect of our leaders./s
Building, decommissioning, reactivating, or otherwise altering the operating parameters of a grid scale (tens or hundreds of mega-watts) power plant is not a quick process. It is quite literally a half dozen years of design, procurement, and construction. A person must be very careful not to incorporate fire emitting fault detectors into the system.
And that is presuming the government and various other NGO are not lying down in the street in front of traffic trying to stop it.
You never saw government contractors work faster than those dudes who knocked down the Nanticoke generating station. Largest coal-fired generating station in N. America, according to Wiki. Took ‘er down quick, let me tell you. Almost as if they were under political pressure to make sure there wasn’t a single nut or bolt left when #RubberDougie got into office.
Q “Mommy,what did people use for lights at night before candles?”
A “Well dear,once they had a thing called electricity..”
Time to start preparing for whale oil again..
The bureaus are full of land Whales.
The Pembina Institute gets funding from the federal government to write “studies” supportive of their climate hysteria, delusions, and narratives. Pembina is therefore not an actual NGO but a government proxy lobbying governments, institutions, and the public on behalf of the Jacobins and Bolsheviks of the state, essentially a satellite criminal enterprise of the criminal enterprise known as the state. Any self-described NGO that gets government funding is also part of this criminal enterprise.