Alberta
Alberta Premier tells environmental heckler a battery-powered electrical grid is pure ‘fantasy’
From LifeSiteNews
‘There is no industrialized economy in the world operating that way,’ Danielle Smith said at the 2023 Alberta Climate Summit
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith tore a page off a heckler’s fantasy suggestion of a solar and wind battery-powered future after she stepped into the lion’s den to advocate for oil and gas at a conference hosted by a pro-climate change think tank.
On October 26, Smith spoke at the Pembina Institute’s “2023 Alberta Climate Summit” in a “Fireside Chat, Premier Smith with Dave Kelly” to argue in favor of oil and gas and against proposals to phase out Alberta’s main energy industry.
While offering remarks in support of Alberta’s energy industry that includes fighting a federal government rule decreeing net-zero power emissions by 2035, Smith said trying to have the province go off natural gas for power generation by that year would be impossible after a heckler interrupted her.
Smith responded to the heckler by saying, “Do think I can get an equivalent amount of nuclear rolled out in 12 years? Do you think I could do that in an environment that we’ve never had nuclear before?”
“And what do I do when there’s no sun and there’s no wind?” she added.
At this point, the heckler shouted, “Batteries,” which irked Smith.
“Let’s talk about batteries, because I’ve talked to somebody and I want to I want to talk about batteries for a minute, because I know that everybody thinks that this economy is going to be operated on wind and solar and battery power and it cannot,” she said.
“There is no industrialized economy in the world operating that way because they need baseload. And I’ll tell you what I know about batteries because I talked to somebody who was thinking of investing in it on a 200-megawatt plant, $1 million to be able to get each megawatt stored. That’s $200 million for his plant alone. And he would get one hour of storage.”
Smith said that if one wants to have “12,000 megawatts of storage, that’s $12 billion for one hour of storage, $24 billion for two hours of storage, $36 billion for three hours of storage.”
The Pembina Institute lobbies for what it says is “reducing the harmful impacts of fossil fuels while supporting the transition to an energy system that is clean, safe and sustains a high quality of life.”
Companies such as Tesla offer both home as well as commercial battery pack applications that are designed to store electricity from wind, solar or the grid. However, such packs are massively costly and come with their own negative environmental footprints.
The institute’s goals align with those of the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has imposed a punitive carbon tax on all Canadians.
‘Fantasy thinking’ won’t keep the lights on in winter, Smith says
Replying to the heckler, Smith stressed how in Alberta, which gets most of its power via natural gas and coal generators, with some solar and wind, there are “long stretches in winter where we can go weeks without wind or solar.”
“That is the reason why we need legitimate real solutions that rely on baseload power rather than fantasy thinking,” she said. “And I’m not going to engage in fantasy thinking and see something is possible when I know that my principal job, I think we need to stop.”
Smith said her “principal job is to have a reliable energy grid” and added that is what she is “trying to do.”
Former Liberal MP turned gas price analyst Dan McTeague, who is against the carbon tax and the push to ban gas-powered cars in favor of electric vehicles, said Smith’s remarks were “beautiful.”
“Beautiful,” McTeague wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“Climate extremism performs poorly when confronted with reality.”
Trudeau’s carbon tax scheme falling apart
Cracks have begun to form recently. Faced with dismal polling numbers, Trudeau announced he was pausing the collection of the carbon tax on home heating oil in Atlantic Canadian provinces for three years.
This caused a immediate reaction from Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, who said his province will stop collecting a federal carbon tax on natural gas used to heat homes come January 1, 2024, unless it gets the similar tax break that Atlantic Canadian provinces.
The Trudeau government’s current environmental goals – in lockstep with the United Nations’ “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” – include phasing out coal-fired power plants, reducing fertilizer usage, and curbing natural gas use over the coming decades.
The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda – an organization in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.
The Trudeau government has also defied a recent Supreme Court ruling and will push ahead with its net-zero emission regulations.
Canada’s Supreme Court recently ruled that the federal government’s “no more pipelines” legislation is mostly unconstitutional after a long legal battle with the province of Alberta, where the Conservative government opposes the radical climate change agenda.
Alberta has repeatedly promised to place the interests of their people above the Trudeau government’s “unconstitutional” demands while consistently reminding the federal government that their infrastructures and economies depend upon oil, gas, and coal.
Alberta
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith Discusses Moving Energy Forward at the Global Energy Show in Calgary
From Energy Now
At the energy conference in Calgary, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith pressed the case for building infrastructure to move provincial products to international markets, via a transportation and energy corridor to British Columbia.
“The anchor tenant for this corridor must be a 42-inch pipeline, moving one million incremental barrels of oil to those global markets. And we can’t stop there,” she told the audience.
The premier reiterated her support for new pipelines north to Grays Bay in Nunavut, east to Churchill, Man., and potentially a new version of Energy East.
The discussion comes as Prime Minister Mark Carney and his government are assembling a list of major projects of national interest to fast-track for approval.
Carney has also pledged to establish a major project review office that would issue decisions within two years, instead of five.
Alberta
Punishing Alberta Oil Production: The Divisive Effect of Policies For Carney’s “Decarbonized Oil”
From Energy Now
By Ron Wallace
The federal government has doubled down on its commitment to “responsibly produced oil and gas”. These terms are apparently carefully crafted to maintain federal policies for Net Zero. These policies include a Canadian emissions cap, tanker bans and a clean electricity mandate.
Following meetings in Saskatoon in early June between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Canadian provincial and territorial leaders, the federal government expressed renewed interest in the completion of new oil pipelines to reduce reliance on oil exports to the USA while providing better access to foreign markets. However Carney, while suggesting that there is “real potential” for such projects nonetheless qualified that support as being limited to projects that would “decarbonize” Canadian oil, apparently those that would employ carbon capture technologies. While the meeting did not result in a final list of potential projects, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said that this approach would constitute a “grand bargain” whereby new pipelines to increase oil exports could help fund decarbonization efforts. But is that true and what are the implications for the Albertan and Canadian economies?
The federal government has doubled down on its commitment to “responsibly produced oil and gas”. These terms are apparently carefully crafted to maintain federal policies for Net Zero. These policies include a Canadian emissions cap, tanker bans and a clean electricity mandate. Many would consider that Canadians, especially Albertans, should be wary of these largely undefined announcements in which Ottawa proposes solely to determine projects that are “in the national interest.”
The federal government has tabled legislation designed to address these challenges with Bill C-5: An Act to enact the Free Trade and Labour Mobility Act and the Building Canada Act (the One Canadian Economy Act). Rather than replacing controversial, and challenged, legislation like the Impact Assessment Act, the Carney government proposes to add more legislation designed to accelerate and streamline regulatory approvals for energy and infrastructure projects. However, only those projects that Ottawa designates as being in the national interest would be approved. While clearer, shorter regulatory timelines and the restoration of the Major Projects Office are also proposed, Bill C-5 is to be superimposed over a crippling regulatory base.
It remains to be seen if this attempt will restore a much-diminished Canadian Can-Do spirit for economic development by encouraging much-needed, indeed essential interprovincial teamwork across shared jurisdictions. While the Act’s proposed single approval process could provide for expedited review timelines, a complex web of regulatory processes will remain in place requiring much enhanced interagency and interprovincial coordination. Given Canada’s much-diminished record for regulatory and policy clarity will this legislation be enough to persuade the corporate and international capital community to consider Canada as a prime investment destination?
As with all complex matters the devil always lurks in the details. Notably, these federal initiatives arrive at a time when the Carney government is facing ever-more pressing geopolitical, energy security and economic concerns. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development predicts that Canada’s economy will grow by a dismal one per cent in 2025 and 1.1 per cent in 2026 – this at a time when the global economy is predicted to grow by 2.9 per cent.
It should come as no surprise that Carney’s recent musing about the “real potential” for decarbonized oil pipelines have sparked debate. The undefined term “decarbonized”, is clearly aimed directly at western Canadian oil production as part of Ottawa’s broader strategy to achieve national emissions commitments using costly carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects whose economic viability at scale has been questioned. What might this mean for western Canadian oil producers?
The Alberta Oil sands presently account for about 58% of Canada’s total oil output. Data from December 2023 show Alberta producing a record 4.53 million barrels per day (MMb/d) as major oil export pipelines including Trans Mountain, Keystone and the Enbridge Mainline operate at high levels of capacity. Meanwhile, in 2023 eastern Canada imported on average about 490,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd) at a cost estimated at CAD $19.5 billion. These seaborne shipments to major refineries (like New Brunswick’s Irving Refinery in Saint John) rely on imported oil by tanker with crude oil deliveries to New Brunswick averaging around 263,000 barrels per day. In 2023 the estimated total cost to Canada for imported crude oil was $19.5 billion with oil imports arriving from the United States (72.4%), Nigeria (12.9%), and Saudi Arabia (10.7%). Since 1988, marine terminals along the St. Lawrence have seen imports of foreign oil valued at more than $228 billion while the Irving Oil refinery imported $136 billion from 1988 to 2020.
What are the policy and cost implication of Carney’s call for the “decarbonization” of western Canadian produced, oil? It implies that western Canadian “decarbonized” oil would have to be produced and transported to competitive world markets under a material regulatory and financial burden. Meanwhile, eastern Canadian refiners would be allowed to import oil from the USA and offshore jurisdictions free from any comparable regulatory burdens. This policy would penalize, and makes less competitive, Canadian producers while rewarding offshore sources. A federal regulatory requirement to decarbonize western Canadian crude oil production without imposing similar restrictions on imported oil would render the One Canadian Economy Act moot and create two market realities in Canada – one that favours imports and that discourages, or at very least threatens the competitiveness of, Canadian oil export production.
Ron Wallace is a former Member of the National Energy Board.
Anti-Trump protests planned across the country on Saturday as LA violence continues
Telegram founder Pavel Durov exposes crackdown on digital privacy in Tucker Carlson interview
Carney’s Promise of Expediting Resource Projects Feels Like a Modern Version of the Wicked Stepmother from Disney’s Cinderella
