Tag: solar power

Pour on a little more coal, boys!

Climate Cult 23 Comments
Boundary Dam Power Station last night

The past weekend proved to be a close-run thing for the Alberta electrical grid, and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is making statements resolving he won’t allow that to happen here.

Specifically, after having nearly completely divested itself of coal-fired power production, Alberta’s dramatic buildout of wind and solar proved impossible to keep the lights on in that province when the chips were down and temperatures hit -35 C, or worse.

Alberta’s close brush with possible rolling blackouts stiffens Moe’s resolve to keep the lights on. On Monday, he announced that SaskPower has relit a shuttered coal unit near Estevan, one the feds had supposedly forced to retire Dec. 31, 2021.

Also note: Saskatchewan has about a million cars registered. So a good bet is Alberta probably has four million. What would have happened if four million EVs were all plugged in last weekend?

If you missed them, these five stories, in order, chronicle what happened in Alberta.

Most of Alberta’s wind fleet slowly shut down Thursday night, but not for lack of wind

Grid Alert 1:

Alberta goes under grid alert for just under 5 hours on Jan. 12

Grid Alert 2:

Alberta’s electrical grid stood at the brink of blackouts Jan. 13, before pulling back in the nick of time

Grid Alert 3:

Alberta goes into Round 3, with its third electrical grid alert in three days

Grid Alert 4:

Round 4: Alberta declares fourth electrical grid alert in 4 days, second in 17 hours

Round 3, Fight! Alberta spends third evening in danger of blackouts

Climate Cult 21 Comments

For the third day in a row, Alberta went into an electrical grid alert on Sunday. At one point it had no contingency reserve left at all, but imports from BC appeared to save the day. While it looked a little hairy there for a bit, there was no emergency alert declared, unlike Saturday.

Did I mention before that Alberta has more coal, oil and natural gas than God? Because guess what? It still does.

 

Alberta peered into the abyss Saturday evening

Climate Cult 40 Comments

Alberta’s electrical grid stood at the brink of blackouts Jan. 13, before pulling back in the nick of time.

It was the second evening in a row Alberta saw “grid alert” issued, but this time, it was a much closer-run thing.

Alberta’s electrical grid was in such peril of falling into rotating blackouts on Saturday night, the provincial government urged people to even turn off their bathroom fans, among other things.

Also, from Western Standard:

STIRLING: When magical thinking meets a polar vortex cold, hard reality follows

Friday night was a rough one for Alberta’s power grid

Climate Cult 42 Comments

Alberta went under grid alert for just under 5 hours on Jan. 12. And yes, the AESO suggested people shouldn’t run their dishwashers. Alberta has more coal, oil and gas than God, because God gave all his to Alberta, and people there shouldn’t have washed their dishes lest the lights go out. That is no word of a lie. I was up all evening monitoring it, as you’ll see in the story.

And all of this is before four million Albertans are forced to buy electric cars and pickups.

 

Also:

It looks like Trans Mountain might, indeed be allowed to finish the darn pipeline in weeks instead of years. That is, unless they find another hummingbird on the right of way. The Canada Energy Regulator apparently removed its head from its posterior.

Canadian Press story on record cold in BC, AB.

Methane fees in US.

Alberta’s wind power sputtered to next to nothing Sunday night, again

Climate Cult Drill, Baby, Drill 26 Comments
Wind turbines near Pincher Creek, Alberta. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

It’s starting to get cold out. The sun was down and Alberta’s wind power generation fell to next to nothing last night – less than half a per cent capacity.

Meanwhile in Saskatchewan, we’ve had several days of minimal wind power generation.

In other news, they’ve started to bring in floating accommodations for the staff to build the Woodfibre LNG facility.

And Precision Drilling meets debt reduction goal, on track to repay $500 million by 2025. 

Clean Electricity Regulations and nuclear power: Moe

Climate Cult 5 Comments
Scott Moe.

Saskatchewan’s Year in Energy: Premier Scott Moe, 2023: Part 3: Clean Electricity Regulations and Nuclear Power

Clean Electricity Regulations proposed by the federal government mean to totally change our nation and its economy. And nuclear power is really the only option Saskatchewan has for large-scale, baseload power that does not emit greenhouse gasses.

Part 3 discusses the Clean Electricity Regulations and their impact, and widespread adoption of nuclear power

The failure of wind, then solar, and also batteries, in three stories

Climate Cult 45 Comments

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:

Steven Guilbeault cheers IEA report which says “no new long-lead-time conventional oil and gas projects are needed”

 

Saskatchewan says following the Net Zero by 2035 Clean Electricity Regulations are not possible, unaffordable, unconstitutional and unobtainable

Climate Cult youmightbeinsaskatchewan 24 Comments
Dustin Duncan

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.

Unreliable power a leading factor in South Africa’s demise

Climate Cult 26 Comments

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.

Can solar flatline for a whole day? Yep.

Climate Cult Drill, Baby, Drill 4 Comments

Can solar power essentially flatline for a whole day? It did in Alberta on Monday

How is it some people are arguing a pipeline treaty is “dormant?” Would that make other treaties, say those with First Nations, also dormant?

I’ve been writing about the phenomenal growth of the North Dakota Bakken for the better part of 15 years. In 2008, the state produced around 90,000 barrels per day. By 2014, it was something like 1.2 million. Currently it’s around a million or so. A major player was Hess Corporation, which currently produces about 175,000 barrels of oil equivalent in North Dakota. But curiously, none of the supermajor oil companies were involved in North Dakota. Well, that changed, as Hess is being bought by Chevron.

 

High praise, indeed

Climate Cult 20 Comments

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.

Rolling blackouts again threaten Alberta and Texas on Tuesday

Climate Cult 22 Comments

The energy transition continues: Alberta issues second electrical grid alert in two days. Texas also issued a grid alert on the same day. Funny, that. The two most energy-rich jurisdictions in the hemisphere, and perhaps the planet, are struggling to keep the lights on. Again.

Oh, and Texans have been warned: expect the same on Wednesday.

Why do I keep writing about this? Because people need it beat into their heads “The emperor has no clothes!”

The energy transition in real time: brownouts threaten at suppertime

Climate Cult 20 Comments

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.

A small drop in a very large nuclear bucket

Climate Cult 16 Comments
Jonathan Wilkinson. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

 

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

Grand sweeping fairytales – Smith calls a spade a spade on renewables

Climate Cult 30 Comments

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.

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