CanPol: National Unity and Climate Change Edition

[KrazyHorse]

I actually read the whole Green Shift PDF -- did you?

It was a glorified wealth redistribution scheme. No matter how you cut it. "Big polluters" out West get to pay the taxes, the folks in Ontario and Quebec get the money the West has been paying. The "big polluters" out east got convenient exemptions so they didn't get taxed anyway.

You have no idea what you're talking about

[Asher]

I'm going to let it slide because you've been fairly disconnected from Canadian Politics and I'm 100% sure you don't know much about the Green Shift aside from "it's a carbon tax", which was not the bad part of it.

The thing that made it so terrible wasn't the concept of a carbon tax (though this itself was a bad idea given the price of oil, fleeing investment from Alberta already), it was the inconsistency of it. Dion was all but too happy to add billions of dollars of exemptions and rebates to certain industries which essentially covered most environmentally damaging aspects of society EXCEPT oil production: Agriculture, forestry, trucking, automotive, fishing, etc. He didn't explicitly say it, but the end result would've been provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan paying billions of dollars more and Ontario and Quebec paying billions of dollars less. This is precisely why Liberal MPs in Ontario spun it as a net tax cut for people in Ontario.

[Asher]

The Star has another terrific article. They're letting their "cousins" in Alberta in on a little secret: you can be like Ontario and use Wind to generate electricity. See how green they are in Ontario!

http://www.thestar.com/business/cleanbreak/article/741254#comments

Hamilton: Alberta has wind at its back

Open up the gates of opportunity and it's amazing how folks will rush through.

Less than three months after its launch, Ontario's new feed-in-tariff program for renewable energy has attracted applications to develop 1,300 projects that collectively will add 8,000 megawatts of capacity to the power grid, on top of 1,275 megawatts of renewable capacity already in operation.

Roughly 80 per cent of the new capacity will come from wind projects, with most of the rest coming from solar.

To be sure, there are challenges ahead. New transmission must be built to accommodate larger projects, so for now only "shovel-ready" proposals will be given top priority to the 2,500 megawatts of transmission capacity currently available.

This means it could be a few years before all of this capacity is feeding the power grid.

There's also the reality that this green power won't be producing electrons all the time, which down the road will make energy storage a more crucial part of the system.

It will also be more expensive power, likely to average close to 20 cents per kilowatt-hour based on the current blend between wind and solar.

It's much higher than what we pay for today – by a factor of three, or by a factor of two during peak hours under time-of-use plans. But that's not a fair comparison. What it would cost to build a new nuclear plant or an advanced "clean coal" station today is what matters most.

Coal won't be cheap in a world of rising carbon prices, nor will carbon capture and sequestration technologies aimed at keeping the coal industry on life support. Nuclear reactors – based on some recent estimates – are expected to cost more than 15 cents per kilowatt-hour, if you include long-term financing costs, waste management, decommissioning, fuel and operations and maintenance.

An upside for renewables is that job creation is spread across the province, not just focused on one or two sites, and generation is distributed, meaning no large single points of failure. If 2,500 megawatts of wind, solar and other renewable projects can be built in five years – an easily achievable goal – that's half the time it would take to build the equivalent amount of nuclear capacity.

Of course, let's not forget about the massive potential of conservation and energy efficiency, and the fact that it's the cheapest option out there.

Now, let's shift gears here. The reason why I'm flagging what's going on in Ontario is to show our cousins in Alberta what's possible, and what they're not doing in any meaningful way. The talks in Copenhagen have focused so much on the oilsands that we forget that Alberta also has the most coal-intensive electricity system in the country.

About 53 per cent of Alberta's electricity supply comes from coal and TransAlta Corp.'s Sundance facility is the province's largest at 2,020 megawatts.

Alberta coal plants account for five of the Top 10 industrial emitters of greenhouse gas in the country, collectively emitting the equivalent of 43 million tonnes of CO2 annually, according to government data compiled by Environmental Defence.

That's roughly the amount of greenhouse gases that the oilsands emit per year, though plans for rapid oilsands expansion are expected to see that number nearly quadruple by 2043, according to the Canadian Energy Research Institute.

We know that the oilsands are going to be hit with some sort of carbon pricing, meaning – to use Prime Minister Stephen Harper's language – the carbon intensity of every barrel of oil-sands oil will continue to fall over time as new methods of bitumen extraction and refinement are developed.

If the Alberta government really wanted to prove to the world that it's serious about climate change without sending the sacred oilsands cow to slaughter, it could easily follow in the footsteps of Ontario by announcing a coal phase-out strategy. It could even tie that phase-out to oilsands growth. That is, the faster the province phases out coal the more it loosens the reins on oil-sands expansion.

Alberta could even launch its own feed-in tariff program and unleash the innovation that has been demonstrated in the oil patch, and it could use slightly increased royalties from the patch to fund the program. The Stelmach government keeps talking about jobs and the need to preserve economic growth, but clearly there are just as many – probably a lot more – jobs to be created by fanning the flames of a green-energy movement than in keeping a handful of dirty coal plants open.

Alberta ranchers have plenty of livestock manure that can be converted into electricity. The province is graced with ideal geology for geothermal power production, and it already has the expertise required to drill deep wells that can tap heat within the earth. The Canadian Geothermal Energy Association says low-hanging geothermal fruit in Alberta would produce 500 megawatts, but more investigation of the resource would likely reveal that much more is available.

Needless to say there's huge potential for wind power, and 470 wind turbines are already injecting power into its grid. Alberta also has great solar resources and gets more direct sun annually than Ontario and Germany. Programs to support conservation, energy efficiency and industrial use of combined heat and power could also be easily set up, or made more ambitious.

The good news is that the Alberta Energy Research Institute, in its 2009 strategic plan, is aiming to see 20 per cent of the province's total electricity mix coming from renewable energy by 2020. Alberta could even experiment a bit with nuclear by testing out a new generation of mini-reactors that are starting to emerge.

These tiny nukes are expected to be faster to build, easier to deploy and much safer than existing mega-plants.

In November, Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner commented in the provincial legislature that he's been approached about the idea of establishing a feed-in tariff for renewables similar to what exists in Ontario.

"I'm not entirely opposed to it," he said. "It has some merit, but it's something that I'm not sure the government would arbitrarily impose upon Albertans without first asking them if they are in favour of it."

Well, what are you waiting for? Ask them.

There's only one small, tiny, insignificant catch. Alberta generates more from Wind power than Ontario does already. Alberta has 591MW of wind power to the grid, and it powers (among other things) the LRT in Calgary.

Ontario has 395MW of wind power. Work that out as a percentage of total electricity generation and it's even more lopsided towards Alberta.

Other fun addendum: Alberta's been experimenting with manure-powered electricity since 2005 already: http://www.albertabeef.ca/displayart...el_record=1664

[Richelieu]

There's only one small, tiny, insignificant catch. Alberta generates more from Wind power than Ontario does already. Alberta has 591MW of wind power to the grid, and it powers (among other things) the LRT in Calgary.

Ontario has 395MW of wind power.

The Canadian Wind Association website says 1161.5 MW for Ontario.

[Asher]

That must be very recent, as the latest numbers outside the propaganda website shows 395.

Edit: Yes, in 2009 a new windfarm came online which increased capacity to 1,085MW: http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/pubs/consu...Generation.pdf

Still, in terms of percentage of power generation it's higher (4% vs 1%(?)). And Alberta was there first.

[Asher]

While the author is also bragging about how there are applications to bring 8,000 MW of wind power to Ontario because of their new tariff program, there's already 11,000 MW of wind power in applications to build in Alberta.

http://www.energy.gov.ab.ca/Electricity/pdfs/FactSheet_Wind_Power.pdf

Alberta currently has over 500 megawatts (MW)
connected to the grid. That is four per cent of installed
capacity, which is enough capacity to serve over
500,000 homes. Currently, Alberta is one of the leading
provinces in the development of wind power. There is
also more than 11,000 MW of wind generation projects
that have applied for connection to the transmission
system.

[Asher]

http://www.canwea.ca/pdf/Proposed%20projects.pdf

According to this, Alberta has another 455 MW of wind power coming online within two years. Ontario has another 647 MW of wind power coming online within two years. Still, in terms of percentage of capacity, Alberta's ramp up still significantly higher.

[Wezil]

Windmill farms are an eyesore. Put them offshore out in Lake Ontario.

[Asher]

Ontario is all about eyesores. I've never seen so many ****ing above-ground powerlines in my life. It is a positively hideous province. The smog, the powerlines, the people...all ugly as sin.

[Wezil]

Nothing is as ugly as the tarsands.

[Asher]

Those are beautiful.

Wait until the environmentalists see what cruel mother earth did to other parts of Alberta.





Oh wait, what? These are naturally occurring? Huh.

Where'd you get that pic from? It's hilariously bad.

[Wezil]

Google "Alberta tar sands" (or "oil sands" if you prefer). No shortage of Alberta beauty on display. Unlike the pics you posted, these are man made beauty locations.

[Wezil]

You can argue the oil sands are a necessary evil and I'll probably agree with you but don't go Ben on me and try to argue it's pretty. It isn't.

[Asher]

I'm not saying it's pretty, but the first pic you linked to was hilariously bad.

They're unnatural colors (they've made the one on the left more vivid, they've made the one on the right more neutral), the locations don't match up (they picked one with a flowing river on the left, one without one on the right), etc. It was a hilariously amateurish hatchetjob.

And yes, the process of extracting the oilsands (especially in the strip mining operations) is not pretty. But, by government law, once they're done with the land the oil companies have to fill it in with soil and plant trees, plants, etc to restore it to its natural state. The fearmongers online never show that or mention it, I'm sure.

[Asher]

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/09/13/oil-sands-cleanup-the-public-debate-on-oil-sands-fails-to-recognize-that-restoration-is-possible-and-not-that-expensive.aspx

Oil sands cleanup: The public debate on oil sands fails to recognize that restoration is possible and not that expensive
Oil sands cleanup

The public debate on oil sands fails to recognize that restoration is possible and not that expensive

Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post Published: Saturday, September 13, 2008



Alberta's oil sands projects are ugly. Their tailings ponds pockmark the northern Alberta wilderness. Their open pit mines scar the land. This certifiable ugliness, the trademark symbol of oil sands destruction, has been the chief source of opposition to their development over the three decades that this rawest of resource industries has been in play.

This reason for oil sands opposition has largely disappeared. Oil sands still scar the land but in time the scars are removed, the tailings ponds are drained, the biota is brought back, and the land becomes as productive as before. Oil sands developments, far from being among the worst of energy technologies, now have less of a long-term negative impact on the landscape than many of the energy technologies touted as environmental saviors.

Thanks to ever tightening environmental legislation from the Alberta government, all oil sands operators are required to rehabilitate the land that they had despoiled. Skeptics pooh pooh this obligation, claiming that the scale of destruction on the vast oil sands expanse will be too great to ever remediate, that the work will never be done, that it will be too expensive.

To the contrary, the scale of destruction is far less extensive than imagined, the cost of remediation is far lower than imagined, and the remediation is being done along the way.

The oil sands region is indeed immense -- just over 140,000 square kilometres, the equivalent of about two New Brunswicks. But of that, less than 3,500 square kilometres is suited to open pit mining operations. Of this still-large amount of land--approaching 5% of one New Brunswick -- only 500 square kilometers has been disturbed to date and, of that, 13% has already been rehabilitated (Syncrude, the largest open-pit miner, has rehabilitated 22%). Relatively little land is laid bare at one time because the mining proceeds in a methodical fashion, in relatively small parcels at a time. After each parcel of land is mined out, it is backfilled, topped with the original over-matter, resoiled and replanted. While the vanguard of the mining operation chews up the land, the rearguard puts it back into place.

From the first shovel in the ground to begin the mining process, to the last tree that's replanted, can take as little as 15 years, of which 10 years might be spent in remediation. The cost of the remediation per hectare per year now averages about: $2000, or $20,000 should the remediation take 10 years. Because that same hectare will have produced 10,000 barrels of oil, remediation costs as little as $2 per barrel.

The tailings ponds -- better thought of as recycling pits -- are part of this extract-and-reconstruct process. The ponds are not stagnant but dynamic, a half-way house for the gooey, silty wastes that come from the open-pit mining process. Over time, the solids in the tailings pond settle to the bottom, allowing the water to be recycled for other industrial operations and the solids to be pumped out for backfill. When the ponds are no longer needed in recycling, they are either topped up with fresh water, to become an ecologically sound lake, or backfilled and landscaped.

The overwhelming portion of the oil sands region--more than 135,000 square kilometres -- has bitumen deposits too deep for open pit mining. Here, developers bring the bitumen up through wells, an operation not much different in terms of disturbing the land than the conventional oil drilling that has occurred over much of Alberta for decades. Little land is disturbed. For every billion barrels of oil extracted, and most oil sands oil will come from these wells, a mere 5.5 square kilometres of land will be disturbed.

None of this is pretty or easy on the environment, but energy production rarely is. Alternatives are often far worse and, as a practical matter, represent permanent and irreversible changes to the ecology. To obtain coal, we sometimes level entire mountains. To generate hydroelectricity, we flood vast tracts of river valley. To obtain, biofuels we convert forests to plant fuel crops.

Oil sands' need to restore land is only one of its environmental burdens. This spring, some 500 migratory birds died when they landed in Syncrude's tailings ponds -- a severe snowstorm prevented the company's vehicles from reaching the ponds in time to detonate the cannons that, for the previous 30 years, had succeeded in keeping birds away. Accidents might occur at the tailings ponds -- recycled water might escape to the environment if safety systems fail, for example.

Oil sands are by no stretch benign. But neither are they the overarching evil that they're portrayed to be.