What doubling the grid really means

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

” imagine if someone said in the next 25 years and 11 months, we must twin every single freeway, highway, grid road, street and alleyway, across the entire country, at the same time. And along the way, we have to replace up to 89 per cent of the existing infrastructure, as well, because it is no longer considered adequate “

Recently my daughter called me while on her way back from a Costco run in Regina, heading home to Weyburn.

She noted that it appears they are twinning the highway between Regina and Weyburn. Indeed, they are, I explained. And several years later, they’ll probably get it all the way to Weyburn. Maybe by the time I retire, if I live that long, they’ll get as far as Estevan.

Indeed, those timelines are likely pretty close to reality, if the twinning of Highway 16, from Saskatoon to Lloydminster, was any indication. I used to drive from Saskatoon to North Battleford to get the newspaper I was working for printed, with road construction for much of that. And it took several more years to complete the Battlefords to Lloydminster portion. I was fortunate enough to be present at the ceremony for that. It was significant enough that Premier Lorne Calvert came out.

Twinning a major highway is a substantial undertaking. Historically, Saskatchewan could usually only afford to work on three separate areas at a time, typically doing 20 kilometres per year in each stretch. That was all the provincial finances could handle.

By adding an additional two lanes, you are effectively doubling the capacity of that major piece of infrastructure. It’s not easy, not cheap, and not fast.

Now imagine if someone said in the next 25 years and 11 months, we must twin every single freeway, highway, grid road, street and alleyway, across the entire country, at the same time. And along the way, we have to replace up to 89 per cent of the existing infrastructure, as well, because it is no longer considered adequate.

You’d probably think they were living in a dreamland, or quite possibly stark raving mad.

And yet this is precisely what the federal government is proposing, nay, demanding, of Canadians from St. Johns to Victoria to Tuktoyaktuk.

In order to save the world from anthropogenic (manmade climate change) and attain a “Net Zero by 2050” economy, we must increase the size of the electrical grid by a factor of 2.5x. And for Saskatchewan and Alberta, who on any given day get up to 88 and 94 per cent of their power, respectively, from fossil fuels, they must also replace that existing gas and coal power generation with non-emitting sources, at the same time as they’re building out the truly massive expansion.

The first reference I saw of the federal Liberal government’s intentions of this was in the 2023 budget, which noted expanding the electrical grid by a factor of 2.2 to 3.4 times. By August, when they released the proposed Clean Electricity Regulations, the government seemed to settle on a factor of 2.5 times for the high demand scenario.

So in the highway twinning example, that would be adding three lanes, not two, to every two lane highway, grid road, street and alleyway. For an existing four lane highway, you would need to add six lanes. For a six lane freeway like Ontario’s 401, you’d need to add an additional nine lanes, finding the right of way space, concrete, rebar, gravel, and asphalt for all of this. Again, all at the same time, in 25 years and 11 months.

There are several thrusts that the federal government is pushing. First, by 2035, they want to totally eliminate gasoline and diesel from new light vehicle sales. There’s currently only eight retail hydrogen fueling stations listed by the federal government and Shell in the entire country. There could be more, but they’re not listed. Realistically this means battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs). But nearly all of those EVs will require charging at home each night (and especially during winter, pre-conditioning those batteries, keeping them warm).

So every residence in the country will require 30 amp chargers for cars, and 80 amp chargers for pickups.

But the government is also now moving away from fossil fuels for home, heating, too. This was indicative of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s pause on the carbon tax for home heating oil (primarily used in Atlantic Canada, although I grew up in a house with that system). To do so, the feds are offering “free” installations of heat pumps (which are wholly inadequate at -30 temperatures, let alone the -44 seen in Alberta in mid-January). And those could be up to another 50 amps, per heat pump.

And that’s just residential, never mind commercial or industrial.

The Clean Electricity Regulations are meant to force fossil fuel power generation to go away. And since wind frequently drops to nothing, and the sun goes down every day, the only real alternative is massive expansion of nuclear power across Canada. We’re talking small modular reactors by the dozen in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and to a lesser extent, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

On Jan. 30, SaskPower announced a formalized agreement with General Electric-Hitachi for small modular reactors. But when I asked how many they plan on building, the CEO wouldn’t say. But he did speak of increasing the provincial grid from 5,400 megawatt now to 13,000 to 15,000 megawatts.

Hydro Quebec just released their plans to double their grid. Yet, perhaps miraculously, they’re not saying how many, if any, new dams will need to be built.

This doubling of the grid (actually 2.5x, but that’s not easy to say), means we’re going to need not only additional generation, but transmission lines, distribution lines, back alley pedestals, and wiring to every home, business and factory in the country. Where the materials come from? The contractors and workers? Will Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) be universally trampled on by eminent domain orders, for the good of the planet? Or will it be a continuation of Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything Syndrome (BANANAS)?

A very real example is the Trans Mountain Pipeline. The original was built in something like 16 months, from scratching dirt to oil flowing. The expansion is taking a hell of a lot longer. Work started in 2018, and it is still not done. Any change in the plan had to go back to the Canadian Energy Regulator. Some First Nations fought it every step of the way.

Now do this for every single piece of existing power infrastructure. Wrap your head around that for a minute.

This supposed energy transition, from fossil fuels to electric everything, does not work if you cannot build out the electrical infrastructure, everywhere, and essentially all at in the next 25 years and 11 months. Either the timelines need to be stretched to a generational scale, or more realistically, the whole concept needs to be entirely rethought.

As Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has said more than once, “We will not attempt the impossible when it comes to power production.”

Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online, and occasional contributor to the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He can be reached at [email protected].

Related Topics:#BrianZinchuk #DoublingTheGrid #ElectricalGrid #FrontierCentreForPublicPolicy #PipelineOnline feature

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Energy

Tech giants’ self-made AI energy crisis

Published on May 18, 2024

Todayville

For years tech giants have been helping climate catastrophists shut down reliable fossil fuel electricity. Now the grid they’ve helped gut cannot possibly supply their growing AI needs.

ALEX EPSTEIN

MAY 16

For years tech giants have been helping climate catastrophists shut down reliable fossil fuel electricity, falsely claiming they can be replaced by solar/wind.

Now the grid they’ve helped gut can’t supply their growing AI needs.¹

For the last decade, tech giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Google have, through dedicated anti-fossil-fuel propaganda and political efforts, promoted the shutdown of reliable fossil fuel power plants in favor of unreliable solar and wind.
Tech giants have propagandized against reliable fossil fuel power plants by falsely claiming to be “100% renewable” and implying everyone could do it. In fact, they have just paid utilities to credit them for others’ solar and wind use and blame others for their coal and gas use.²
In addition to their “100% renewable” propaganda, tech giants directly endorsed people and policies who shut down reliable fossil fuel power plants.E.g., The RE100 coalition, including Google, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft, advocates for policies to “accelerate change towards zero carbon grids at scale by 2040.”³
Companies’ propaganda that solar/wind could rapidly replace fossil fuels has proven false.
Statewide blackouts in California (2020) and Texas (2021) were caused by the failure of solar/wind—which can go near zero at any time—to make up for lack of reliable fossil fuel capacity.
Thanks in significant part to tech giants’ advocacy, we have now shut down enough reliable power plants to be in a nationwide electricity crisis.
For example, most of North America is at elevated/high risk of electricity shortfalls between 2024-2028.⁴

The anti-fossil-fuel, pro-unreliable solar and wind political climate that tech giants have fostered is getting much worse, as the Administration has pledged to further reduce reliable electricity supply via power plant shutdowns and add artificial demand through EV mandates.

Biden’s EV mandate: a dictatorial attack on the American driver and the US grid

ALEX EPSTEIN

APR 22

Biden's EV mandate: a dictatorial attack on the American driver and the US grid

Biden’s de facto mandate of over 50% EVs by 2032 is a dictatorial attack on the American driver and the US grid that will 1. Force Americans to drive inferior cars. 2. Place massive new demand for reliable electricity on a grid that is declining in reliable electricity supply.

Read full story

While for years tech giants didn’t seem to have any concern about the electricity supply disaster their propaganda and policies were bringing about, they are now very interested because of the accelerating power requirements of computing, above all the hyper-competitive AI space.
To function at its potential, AI requires massive amounts of power. E.g., state-of-the-art data centers can require as much electricity as a large nuclear reactor.⁵
Electricity demand from US data centers already doubled between 2014 and 2023. Now with the fast growth of energy-hungry AI, demand from data centers could triple from 2.5% to 7.5% of our electricity use by 2030, according to Boston Consulting Group.⁶

In large part due to AI, nationwide electricity demand is projected to skyrocket. Official 10-year projections for the US have summer and winter peak demand rising by over 79 gigawatt and over 90 gigawatt. 90 gigawatt is equivalent to adding the entire power generating capacity of California (!)⁷

Given the woeful underpowered grid that AI giants have helped bring about, dramatically rising demand from AI will not only contribute to massive electricity shortages, but it will also destroy a lot of potential for AI to occur in the United States.
Limited and expensive electricity will force data centers to operate with higher cost or lower capacity within the US—or take a performance hit in the form of increased latency (which can drastically reduce the value of the product) by moving offshore.
Not only is offshoring data centers destructive from an economic standpoint, it also poses a substantial security risk. E.g., Building a data center in China—which we already depend on dangerously for critical minerals—gives the CCP physical power over more parts of our economy.
Economically, data centers are a gold mine of opportunities.Globally, data centers employed 2M people full-time in 2019, many in high-skill/high-pay jobs—and this number is forecast to increase nearly 300K by 2025.
Our gutted grid will cost many Americans these opportunities.⁸
In the face of woefully inadequate electricity supply for their AI goals, tech giant CEOs are finally speaking up about the lack of power.
E.g., Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview that energy will be the #1 bottleneck to AI progress.

It is not enough for tech giants to warn us about the lack of reliable power. They need to take responsibility for their anti-fossil-fuel advocacy that helped caused it. And they need to support energy freedom policies that allow all fuels to compete to provide reliable power.

End preferences for unreliable electricity

ALEX EPSTEIN

DECEMBER 14, 2022

End preferences for unreliable electricity

Today’s grids are being ruined by systemic preferences for unreliable electricity: 1) no price penalty for being unreliable 2) huge subsidies for unreliables 3) mandates for unreliables Congress should end these now. The Opportunity America, given its combination of abundant domestic energy resources, technological ingenuity, and free-market competition, has …

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An example of a tech giant influencer not taking any responsibility for causing the electricity crisis is BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who pushed companies and governments to adopt “net-zero” policies using mostly solar/wind, but now admits they can’t power AI data centers!
A better attitude toward electricity was expressed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: “There will always be people who wait and sit around and say ‘we shouldn’t do AI because we may burn a little more carbon’… the anti-progress streak” and this “is something that we can all fight against.”⁹
America faces a choice. We can either continue our current trajectory, descend into a Third World grid, and become totally inhospitable for AI, or we can adopt energy freedom policies and become a world leader in both AI and electricity.
Share this article with tech giant CEOs and tell them to publicly apologize for damaging our grid and to commit to energy freedom policies.Google: @sundarpichai ([email protected])
Apple: @tim_cook ([email protected])
Meta: @finkd ([email protected])
Microsoft: @satyanadella ([email protected])

Michelle Hung contributed to this piece.

Energy

Federal government continues to reject golden opportunities to export LNG

Published on May 18, 2024

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Julio Mejía and Elmira Aliakbari

A recent report released by the National Bank of Canada underscores the potential environmental impact of transitioning from coal to natural gas in countries such as India. According to the report, by 2030 the cumulative effect of this transition would result in up to four times fewer greenhouse gases emissions than what Canada emitted in 2021.

Once again, Canada has missed a crucial opportunity to supply clean and reliable energy to an ally. Polish President Andrzej Duda recently expressed interest in purchasing Canadian liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Canada but the Trudeau government did not offer any concrete commitment in response. We’ve seen this movie before.

During his recent visit to Ottawa, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis received the same noncommitment. In January 2023, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida came to Canada hoping to secure a reliable energy source. In response, Trudeau expressed the importance of Canada as a global energy supplier, only to add the disclaimer that the world is “aggressively” moving towards decarbonization. And in 2022, after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine led Germany to seek ways to reduce its reliance on Russian energy sources, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz asked to buy Canadian LNG but the prime minister gave him the cold shoulder. Apparently, Trudeau found no compelling “business case” to export LNG to Europe’s largest economy.

Of course, Canada’s vast natural resources could make a significant positive impact on global energy security, reliability and emissions reduction by reducing reliance on coal while also creating jobs and economic opportunity here at home. Energy supply shortages have already forced European countries to revert to coal-fired power plants—coal contributes more CO2 emissions per unit of energy than natural gas. In the developing world, India aims to double coal production by 2030 to meet the demands of its burgeoning economy and population. Similarly, China quadrupled the amount of new coal power in 2022 and has six times as many plants under construction as the rest of the world combined.

A recent report released by the National Bank of Canada underscores the potential environmental impact of transitioning from coal to natural gas in countries such as India. According to the report, by 2030 the cumulative effect of this transition would result in up to four times fewer greenhouse gases emissions than what Canada emitted in 2021. To put that in perspective, the impact would be even bigger than completely shutting down the Canadian economy.

Moreover, a recent McKinsey report anticipates an annual increase in global LNG demand of 1.5 per cent to 3 per cent by 2035. And according to the latest report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), limited new LNG production means supply will remain tight. The Biden administration recently halted LNG project approvals, increasing the need for Canada to establish its own infrastructure if we’re to seize the opportunity and become a global LNG supplier.

Unfortunately, Canada currently has no operational LNG export terminals, with the first LNG facility expected to commence exporting by 2025. The Trudeau government has frustrated the development of other LNG terminals, primarily through government regulatory barriers including long approval timelines. The government’s emissions caps on the oil and gas sector and federal Bill C-69 (which added more red tape and complexity to the assessment process for major energy projects) have also created uncertainty and deterred—if not outright prohibited—investment in the sector. Additionally, the British Columbia government’s “CleanBC” plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has added more regulation. Not surprisingly, a recent survey revealed that investors identify regulatory uncertainty as a major deterrent to investment in Canada’s oil and gas sector.

With the proper polices in place, Canada could provide an energy alternative to our allies and other coal-consuming countries worldwide. The Trudeau government should acknowledge the environmental benefits of our natural gas resources, reform regulations for energy infrastructure projects so they’re more competitive, and allow our energy industry to be a leading source of clean and reliable energy, for the benefit of Canadians and the environment.