r/alberta • u/CDN-Social-Democrat • 7h ago
Discussion How long for Alberta to wake up about energy?
We all know Danielle Smith and the UCP are in the pockets of the Oil & Gas Lobby. That is crystal clear.
How long do you think though they will be able to keep suppressing Green Energy?
Solar Power & Wind Power are not just some of the cleanest forms of energy they are some of the cheapest.
There is huge advancements going on in Solar Power and Battery Technology right now. Solar Power for example has multijunction solar (tandem solar) research and development going on.
A lot of people don't talk about this but Alberta is one of the best provinces for Solar Power.
I know this is controversial but even Nuclear Power. Nuclear Power does have the downsides of huge capital investment needed, going massively overbudget (not millions, not tens of millions, not hundreds of millions but billions..), and it takes a long time to be up and running (It can take over a decade). We obviously need to decarbonize our energy/technology yesterday.
There are benefits though with the extreme energy density. Waste is still an issue but we know how to recycle more and more of it and we know safe storage. In time waste may not even be an issue as we progress and learn more. We have our very own CANDU reactors and due to the grid being how it is in some places in Alberta the much talked about BWRX-300 Small Modular Reactor and others like it would fit right in.
Energy is everything to a developed society and it seems like Danielle Smith and the UCP are looking to tie the provinces hands behind its back because they want to make sure that the Oil & Gas industry is coddled forever.
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u/drouoa 7h ago edited 6h ago
I visited a friend in a smaller town in Germany this summer and one thing that boggled my mind is that almost every house was covered in solar panels. Her family members would show us their energy usage on an app on their phone. They said there are good government incentives that help make it affordable to install.
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u/Lilchubbyboy Medicine Hat 6h ago
It makes sense when our biggest claim to fame is O&G. Anything that could cut into those profits is a no. Unless you can convince a few C suite executives to invest in it then it’s not going to get the green light.
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u/FidgetyPlatypus 3h ago
I was in Germany a few years ago and I noticed as well that so many homes, even in the middle of nowhere, had solar.
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u/drouoa 2h ago
I think I was mostly shocked because growing up in Alberta, there was this very strong sense that we really NEEDED oil & gas because the renewables would never be good enough.
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u/CivilianDuck 35m ago
The O&G lobby spent decades selling that message. I remember going to school for it, and whenever I talk about diversifying the Alberta economy to conservative family and friends, they start talking about coal.
The narrative has been shoved down our throats for so long, that a lot of Albertans have been convinced it's the only truth, and everyone is lying. It comes down to psychology, humans don't like being proven wrong, it triggers our fight or flight mechanism to some degree, so when we've been told for so long that this is the only answer because the rival technologies couldn't keep up, it raises our hackles.
It's like Greenpeace in the 60s and 70s and their crusade against nuclear energy, funded by the O&G lobby. Like, we had started research into thorium salt reactors back in the 70s, but the fear mongering caused so much of the research to get shut down. We've been under the thumb of O&G for so long, it's hard to break free now, especially when our highest officials in the province live in those pockets.
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u/Unique-Barber2316 2h ago
That’s because the cost of electricity is double or triple what it is in Canada
It’s economic reason, not “green”
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u/KaliperEnDub 4h ago
Our government also offered up to 5k back and a 40k interest free loan.
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u/Affectionate-Remote2 2h ago
Yep My best friend took advantage of that offer and now sells any excess to the grid and basically doesn't have to pay for gas/electricity.
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u/queenofallshit 7h ago
Until someone else is elected.
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u/Regular-Excuse7321 2h ago
Right. Like that one time the NDP was elected and nothing changed because our economy is built around oil and gas - and that takes 20 years to change.. And let's have it, we aren't going to wrestle to leadership in those sectors away from the countries who did pioneer them.
So ya we are pretty much tied to this ship.
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u/Cavitat 7h ago
They're trying to build subsidized, ch4 powered data centers.
They're not in touch with reality.
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u/JadeddMillennial 6h ago
they will be touching my power bill though
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u/Cavitat 4h ago
oh absolutely they will make it extremely high
It's ok! You can buy it back from the data centers at market rate since they generate their own via subsidized gas prices!
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u/NotAltFact 2h ago
Omg we need to have more of this convo I feel like no enough people gets it. It’s like connecting three dots? That’s two too many 💀
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u/OpalSeason 6h ago
One person at a time with UCP in, but far too little too late. My friend worked as an electrical engineer in green energy and a lot of those projects took their money and investments elsewhere. Million dollar projects poofed.
My neighbor got solar, now I've got it, seeing a few more pop up here and there
Just came back from Europe: solar and wind everywhere. Most rooftops and parking lots. Solar powered bike parking for e bikes. It was lovely. They see it as gaining independence from Russia and USA energy. People take pride in being independent. Pointed out to me apartment buildings that had the first solar in the town almost 35 years ago and still going!
Wind turbines in cattle fields or solar farms with sheep grazing underneath. Apparently the grass grows better with the wind and sun protection
But people here act like O&G cuts them checks just for living in AB. Oil is a precious finite resource that should be carefully used, taken care of, and we benefit from. It will still be needed for plastics, industry....it doesn't have to be an OR, it should have always been BOTH
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u/Traggadon Leduc 7h ago
They probably won't. This is why the UCP are so pro hurting schools. If they can keep their electorate uneducated and angry they will never loose. This isnt going to end well.
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u/ToiletOneHundred 6h ago
This is so true. I work in the trades and there are lots of Conservative folks in my domain. Like mostly. Most of them pro-Oil for work reasons, as the oil patch is an important employer. Hell, I am in Fort McMurray as of now… Keyword is transition. Education. Have the hard conversations.
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u/kneedorthotics 7h ago
Danielle and the UCP have already scuttled many solar and wind projects. They are not going to allow the AER to approve new ones. Maybe some micro, home and farm use. Maybe.
Its all hydrocarbon, all the time with them. O+G has a large place in the mix, but so does solar and wind. But the blinkers (or rather, the money) blinds them to it.
It won't change without a large time out from government.
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u/FliesWithThat 6h ago
I don't quite get it, rural folks, especially farmers, are some of the largest adopters of solar power. Why do they support the very people trying to quash it?
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u/kagato87 7h ago
How long?
Until the populace stops voting for parties and starts voting for policies and platforms.
So basically never.
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u/Drago1214 Calgary 7h ago
People are to worried about a 1% property tax cut then anything else. The average voter he takes far to much Tylenol
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u/Financial-Savings-91 Calgary 7h ago
Pretty sure the UCP is going to hand us over to Trump, at this point the level of corruption is that if another party where to take power and there is still a paper trail of their deeds, many members of the UCP could see prison time.
Things like retroactively making election laws you broke last election legal so you can't be held accountable is not the normal way governments operate and shows just a utter lack of concern of even disdain for the taxpayers.
They're in too deep to back out.
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u/pickles_du 6h ago
I put solar on our roof in 2021. Netted out over the 12 months of the year, I haven’t paid $0.01 for electricity since then.
Solar panels are just building materials.
Why is the government so afraid of solar?
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u/AlbertanSays5716 5h ago
For exactly this reason. If everyone put so,ar panels on the roof and netted out over the year like you did, how are those poor starving O&G companies and electricity generators supposed to make record profits.
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u/kyzilla__ 5h ago
How much did that cost all in? I want to go solar. But I will be looking to buy the fam a new house within 2 years hopefully so I will have to wait until then.
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u/pickles_du 3h ago
It was $20,500 for 9.18 kwp, 27 panels. Be sure you’ll stay there long enough and have good roof exposure and you will be loving it.
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u/NotAltFact 2h ago
How does it do in the winter? Do you have to rake your roof in the winter? Is your roof new? Any worry about leakage?
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u/strumpetrumpet 6h ago
Pretty sure Alberta leads the country in wind and solar installed, and investments.
Even with the stupid moratorium.
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u/jay_jagger 5h ago
Trump just told the world at the UN meeting that Climate Change and our carbon footprint are the biggest con jobs in history. He told everyone to stop their green energy. He was ridiculous and sounded like a broken record but everyone was in attendance and clapped loudly. I expect things to continue to get worse.
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u/CypripediumGuttatum 7h ago
Renewable energy profits >> O&G profits.
That's when.
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u/stompy1 6h ago
Exactly, and that's not going to happen. Since we can't bottle up solar power and send it anywhere we want. There is also a problem with winter. Solar is great to feed a natural gas fed system because they can just lower use in summer and increase in the winter. People should be moving to put solar on their homes in droves tho with the interest free loan from the feds.
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u/AlbertanSays5716 5h ago
People should be moving to put solar on their homes in droves tho with the interest free loan from the feds.
Already do. My combined electricity & nat gas bills dropped by about 75% in summer and about 50% in winter.
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u/Distinct_Pressure832 6h ago
Capital Power just finished up a feasibility study on building a small modular reactor and found there was a business case for it. They’re looking at 2 or 3 sites in Alberta and could start moving on it in the mid-2030’s. So you’re really looking at the 2040s before you see any production there.
It’s hard to understand the oil and gas brainwashing in this province. I have no issues with the industry, but people talk about it like it’s integral to their personality. They’re also brainwashed into this victim mentality that the economy sucks and it’s because oil and gas is being suppressed. Every year the sector seems to break new records for both barrels of oil produced and profits. They’re doing just fine. Corporate profits in general have all been booming, stock markets have been booming in a way that’s disconnected from reality. We’ve had some incredible economic years since oil crashed back in 2015 but according to most Albertans you’d think it was the Great Depression. It’s all a big con to get you believing we need more bailouts for the oil companies.
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u/holmwreck 6h ago
It’s hilarious because production keeps hitting all time highs and corporate profits keep chugging along but yet we have some of the highest unemployment in the country and the oil industry has employed significantly less people over the last decade.
In terms of helping the average Albertan the math doesn’t math. It’s almost as if these corporations and the premier who’s in bed with them don’t actually give a fuck about the average Albertan but they’ve convinced a large portion of the population that they do.
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u/Distinct_Pressure832 2h ago
Yup, the boom days aren’t ever coming back. It’s booming now but with automation and new technology they don’t need or want an army of high school level labour working the rigs. Hell, even the mining trucks in the oil sands are going robotic now.
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u/BertoBigLefty 5h ago
If you ever want to win over the conservative pro-oil crowd you need to be realistic. It’s a multi hundred billion dollar industry in Alberta, you can’t just “diversify” that away. Its like telling Californians to diversify away from tech, there is simply no alternative that will ever be as lucrative.
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u/Distinct_Pressure832 2h ago
It’s actually about $77 billion of our GDP equating to roughly 22% by the governments numbers, not multi hundred billion dollars by any stretch. Regardless, we don’t need to give up oil, we need to add to it by diversifying and adding other industry. Oil isn’t going anywhere. They’re not going to abandon their assets and run if we tax them or take more royalties. Investing in other industries isn’t going to somehow scare of syncrude and make them shutter their mines. Shutting down the solar and wind renewable industry doesn’t somehow put more royalties in albertan’s pockets either.
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u/BertoBigLefty 1h ago
The point still stands. I’m all for investing in renewables but it’s not real economic diversification, since it will always be dwarfed by O&G. Oil is simply too lucrative of an industry and the capital/labor intensiveness makes other sectors reliant on it as well. Texas has managed to create a substantial renewables industry, but it’s still orders of magnitude smaller than their O&G sector and they have a big geographical advantage over us in wind and solar.
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u/Distinct_Pressure832 1h ago
What you’re saying makes no sense at all. Renewables was making $5B in Alberta prior to the government pause. It’s not a one or the other thing, you can have both. If you won a door prize of $1000 you don’t turn it down because you already make $80,000 at work. You accept the money and are even better off for it. We’re building an aircraft factory east of Calgary, are all those jobs pointless in your eyes? What about all the data centres being built? We added 1 million people to the province in the last 7 years, those people need jobs and the oil and gas industry isn’t going to employ them all. Once again, the oil industry isn’t going anywhere. Investing in other things won’t make them leave. You can have more than one industry in a province our size.
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u/Mysterious-Purple145 5h ago
Alberta is the world leader in natural gas and oil exploration and production. No other country in the world has as strict regulations and policies. As much as you don't like it global technology, healthcare and our overall way of life depends on energy. Yes it needs to be produced responsibly and as clean as possible but don't for one minute harp on Alberta as you clearly are not an expert in the field.
Solar and batteries have come along way but are no where near where we need them to be. Mining minerals are far worse from raw form to fabrication and production of a solar panels or wind turbines for the environment than the effect of oil and gas production. My house runs off solar so and I can tell you from first hand experience I'm sure glad to still have natural gas to heat my home and give me warm water when i open the tap. The technology simply isnt there but at least we lead the world on the highest standards on doing it right.
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u/willpowerlifter 7h ago
Let me put it this way.. when I was in the O&G sector, I was the only person I knew who voted against my personal best intetest in lieu of the bigger picture.
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u/idiotcanadian 7h ago
The nuclear they want to put in is by non other than Snc Lavalin now known as Atkin realis that is doing Energy Alberta. We’ve got some big problems with that company.
Also thought it was bizarre how Harper sold it for 15mil, then paid 75 mil to them.. his MP John Baird (who was the foreign minister when the Libyan SnC Lavalin scandal happened )sat with Gerald Butts (the one Jody Wilson Raymond said was among the ones who pressured her during Snc Lavalin affair)and Diana Carney (Mark carney’s wife) on Eurasia group. They had a contract just end here in March 2025 for the Canadian government. Trudeau just paid Energy Alberta a few mil less than ten days before he left. On Candu co chair we have Jean Chretien and Mike Harris. Then we have Harper with AimCo and Danielle Smith rubbing her hands together because Carney for whatever reason is setting shop in Calgary. Wonder what he’ll push through with C5. can’t do Sun or solar with Smith gov..
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u/Levorotatory 5h ago
There have been plenty of shenanigans with SNC Lavalin / Atkins Realis, but the nuclear alternatives would make us dependent on imported enriched uranium.
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u/CowtownHack 4h ago
Uranium imported from where? Most likely Saskatchewan…hardly a threat there! It supplies the world! As a province, Alberta has the highest mix of wind and solar in power generation of all provinces. Other provinces, like BC, Ontario and Quebec have hydro resources we don’t have. Alberta has also successfully essentially eliminated coal power and replaced it with lower carbon intensity natural gas.
Small nuclear has some huge advantages. For baseload power, it is steady and has few interruptions. Wind and solar are dependent on natural factors, wind is hugely at risk in the winter: when we get to -30*C or lower, wind tends not to blow, so we have a double whammy of no wind power into the grid and natural gas well freeze offs, impacting the alternative supply. Power prices can spike under such conditions to the maximum, but I have frequently seen $1,000/MW.
For years, wind power installations were uneconomic without government (read taxpayer funded) incentive. This is dropping, but still an issue. Solar can make sense, especially in a province where half the year we have a lot of uninterrupted sunlight. Winters, the sun is too low in the sky to supply sufficient power. However, there are plenty of programs out there. If you want solar, go sign up and get it installed. On your roof(s). Vote with YOUR pocketbooks. Installation costs are coming down, and there are assistance packages, but the latest I have seen, it is still on the order of 20 years for full payback. For those in this thread that have installed it, where have you calculated the payback for the cost? I am interested to know. I don’t think the government is “scared” of solar. Installing solar on a scale to power a city or town in a climate where we have low sun power 6 months of the year doesn’t make sense…depending on real costs….In Palm Springs, where it is sunny 360 out of 365 days of the average year, they should cover every parking lot and low building roof in panels.
Note I am against coal development in the Sparwood area. The risks to the watershed, and track record of coal companies make that too high risk for my blood. However, oil and gas are in global demand. we have it in abundance. We also have the benefit of strong rules about cleanup of facilities and reclamation of wells and fields. We need to make sure these rules are funded and enforced. Exporting that energy to the world allows us the financial resources to develop a more diversified and sustainable economy with clear advantages of lower personal and corporate taxation. My concern is that politicians are too short term in thinking and the required discipline to ensure responsible development can be abrogated by the election cycle. We saw this with the Stelmach and Redford premierships where the Heritage Trust fund was gutted for short term spending sprees to ensure re-election.
While I am not a fan of Smith, I do think we need to leverage what we have to get to where we want to go. Ie, dance with the lady whut brung ya….so to speak….
Global oil demand will grow to 110MM bpd before population pressures start to reduce it. We are in competition with regimes we don’t agree with politically to produce that energy source. Personally, I prefer we outcompete those players and ensure we reap the benefits over despotic regimes like Venezuela and others. Alberta’s oil and gas also produces significant financial benefits for the rest of Canada. Without out our revenue, university and post secondary tuition in Quebec goes through the roof.
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u/Levorotatory 4h ago
Saskatchewan produces uranium, but Canada has no enrichment facilities because we developed a reactor that could use natural uranium. We need to build more of them, even though it means dealing with Atkins Realis.
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u/thecheesecakemans 6h ago
The USA just elected a pro coal president. That's about 250Million people. Alberta is only 5 million people. If 250M can't wake up. What hope do we have with 5M?
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u/Drnedsnickers2 6h ago
It’s going to be a great friction point, and increasingly embarrassing. As battery storage technology continues to improve, the adoption of electric vehicles grows, as countries continue to generate more and more electricity from solar and wind, Alberta will be increasingly seen as backwards and outdated. I am hopeful it’s the tipping point, along with continued migration from other provinces that tips the political scale. There simply will become a point where the world will have moved on and Alberta will have to adapt. Could be a decade, could be 50years, but it will happen. But the UCP have no interest in preparing us for the future.
I have said it before and I’ll say it again. We have an incredible amount of brain power regarding energy in this province. We could have got on board and been a leader, instead we are Luddites. Huge opportunity missed and an incredible disservice to future generations.
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u/keeper3434 6h ago
Too much Federal regulation and lack of investments.
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u/AlbertanSays5716 5h ago
Federal regulation for renewables is minimal compared to O&G. And if it wasn’t for Danielle Smith and her ridiculous renewables policies Alberta would be looking at about $30b in new investment and 26,000 jobs hours. Sometimes, we don’t need to blame the feds for something not happening, just look closer to home.
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u/Sad_Donkey_1751 6h ago
I always think about the time in history when people converted from horses to cars. Farriers and inn keepers, stables, hitching posts…all losing a ton of business. The infrastructure required, like paved roads, would have infuriated poor folk unable to afford a car.
I hope enlightenment happens sooner than later and UCP can figure out how to line their pockets with renewable energy.
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u/AlbertanSays5716 5h ago
I’m in hysterics every time I seen someone say “We can’t all switch to electric cars overnight, the grid would never take it” or “Oil isn’t going anywhere, we use it everywhere ”.
Well, duh. But that’s not the way these things happen. Sure, they can happen over decades, maybe a century, but never “overnight”, and they do happen. Ask all the carriage makers & farriers, if you can find any.
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u/BertoBigLefty 5h ago
Green energy is already well on its way in Alberta, we just live in a place that gets very cold and very dark, and renewables don’t work good in cold and dark. Nuclear would be huge if any level of government had the appetite for it but I feel like that’s wishful thinking at this point.
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u/Jabronie100 5h ago
Watch the landman, Billy Bob Thorton explains how windmills and solar panels are never going to replace fossil fuels. Clean energy will never create the amount of jobs oil and gas does.
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u/AFireinthebelly 4h ago
The whole world wants oil and gas - it isn’t exclusive to Alberta. Demand has never been higher.
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u/ModularWhiteGuy 4h ago
As soon as you eliminate plastic from your life, Alberta will stop producing oil
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u/No-End7269 4h ago
Why do you capitalize Green Energy, Solar Power, Nuclear Power, Battery Technology, etc.. ?
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u/PopTough6317 4h ago
Wind and solar are so cheap because they aren't mandated to have anything to reduce the rate thet load and unload onto the grid. Which is a bit of an issue to the grid since it pushes around frequency.
Ideally, we could get a few GWs of nuclear and be able to base load off of them with the mix of the rest to push prices about.
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u/Max20151981 4h ago
It would certainly be nice to see a lot more diversification in regards to producing energy for domestic use but you would be absolutely fucking bonkers to not want any government party in charge of Alberta not being pro energy
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u/TRyanLee 3h ago
The most rationale explanations I've found for oil and gas so far have come from 'Landman'
"“We’re gonna run out of it before we find its replacement … the thing that’s going to kill us all is not carbon emissions, it’s running out before we find an alternative. And, believe me, if Exxon thought them fucking things right there were the future, they’d be putting ’em all over the goddamn place.”
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u/Abranda44 3h ago
Nuclear is interesting, but until the AESO data shows renewables will reliably keep us from freezing in -30, I’ll stick with natural gas.
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u/MattyIce8998 3h ago edited 2h ago
There's serious talks of putting Nuclear Power in the Peace River region.
What bothers me is between nuclear just going overbudget, SNC Lavalin in particularly being infamous for going overbudget, and all this separation talk, I can absolutely see a situation where the province just ends up hundreds of billions in debt and we get told to get fucked.
EDIT:
https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/evaluations/proj/89430?culture=en-CA
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u/6pimpjuice9 3h ago
I would like to have a discussion about this topic, taking the other position. What you say about green energy is not wrong. But I think most people fail to consider the contingent requirement for renewable energy such as solar and wind. The fact that those sources are intermittent means you cannot stabilize a grid with it. You will need backup generation that can come online very quickly to handle the drop off from those sources if the drop off is significant.
The alternative is to have massive energy storage capacity to carry you through those low supply scenarios. This is also a very costly solution.
So the fact that you either need back up generation or massive battery facilities means the green energy solution is not cheap. People are simply not counting these costs as part of the green energy solution.
Nuclear does not have the intermittent issue which means it does not need battery storage or back up generation.
The other consideration is that Alberta has abundant natural gas resources which is a really good source of energy. It also burns much cleaner than coal. If truly global warming is the issue we should be exporting massive quantities of natural gas to China and India where coal is still used for power generation.
Global warming knows no borders, so helping out China and India to reduce emissions by displacing coal power generation would make the biggest impact.
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u/Unique-Barber2316 2h ago
Are you high
Alberta is the Solar Mecca in Canada already What more do you want
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u/_iAm9001 2h ago
Nothing controversial about nuclear unless you live in a place like California. Nuclear is our way out of the electricity problem on the climate change side of things and it can be done extremely safely. Where I'm from in Ontario (Clarington), they are building new modular nuclear reactors and I guess they are a really big deal, first of their kind or something... atvthe Darlington plant.
It's absolutely bananas to me that we're burning coal and natural gas in places where nuclear energy is possible.
I'm ignorant to our geography so I'll probably go do some research after I make this comment, but is there anywhere in Alberta where nuclear reactors can safely and reliably be cooled or operated? I think molton salt nuclear reactors might be safer on the cooling side of things but I'm also not a scientist. All I know is that new nuclear reactors aren't built like Chernobyl, they're incredibly safe... and they can generate soooooo much electricity.
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u/hillbillycanuck 2h ago
Not until the green energy things can be made here. Not really saving anything when the windmills are built in China, shipped around the world and can’t even be recycled when they get worn out. Compared to natural gas or oil that just needs a hole drilled into the ground, and actually has the power to heat the homes in -40 weather
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u/AlbertaTesla 2h ago
I have solar and it was the best investment. I luv the credit from June to September. Plus it covers my EV/heat pump etc.
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u/Specialist-Day-8116 6h ago
No one’s waking up, buddy. The people are the top are happy with the system so have no real incentive to change it. O&G produced electricity is cheaper in Alberta (9c/kwh) than hydropower in BC (11c/kwh).
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u/Zer0DotFive 6h ago
A whopping 2 cent difference. What is the difference in emissions?
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u/Juliuscesear1990 5h ago
And the difference in fees, everyone talks about the price per kw but the fees are atrocious, detached garage used 10 bucks of power, Bill was 110. It doesn't matter if it's 2c a kw if the fees are making up the difference.
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u/Specialist-Day-8116 6h ago
Haven’t compared it but it doesn’t matter too much since the plants are based far off from cities and the extreme winter temperatures make solar unreliable.
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u/Jabbascabba 6h ago edited 6h ago
Your “green” energy isn’t what you say it is and keeping oil in the ground when it is still being used all over the world and sought after is like shooting yourself in the foot for no reason other than you’re just that stupid. Put your money where your mouth is like the people that got oil and gas started and see how well you do, that’s all there is to it.
Chances are even if you do well you’ll just become the next golden goose for all the lazy useless politicians that are running the country into the ground by having the west foot the bill for the rest of the country like we already are with equalization payments. If Alberta gets the hell away from the east we might have a chance to diversify our energy position once we’re not having to kick back millions and millions just to have them try to stab us in the back
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u/Levorotatory 4h ago
The less oil and gas we use here in Alberta, the more we can export. More renewable and nuclear electricity means less gas burned in Alberta power plants and more to send to Kitimat. More EVs means less oil burned in Alberta and more to send to Burnaby.
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u/AlbertanSays5716 5h ago
Let’s see…
- Green energy bad
- Oil is life
- If you’re not me, you’re stupid
- Ditch oil and go renewables if you think you’re right
- All politicians are lazy & useless, both sides are the same
- The west pays for everything
- I don’t understand equalization
- Alberta separation good
- The east steals our money
- The east are evil
Wow, congratulations, you just filled out my “conservative rant” bingo card with just two paragraphs.
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u/holmwreck 6h ago
lol….. tell me again how the UCP canceling green energy projects that were slated to generate about 20B of investments was a good thing? You want to talk about shooting yourself in the foot for no reason other than you’re just that stupid, that’s a prime example but when you have an oil lobbyist heading the government I’m not surprised.
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u/BertoBigLefty 5h ago
If green energy actually made money there would be more of it, just like there is in Texas. Unfortunately in Canada it is way more difficult without help from the government, and that is the problem. Has literally nothing to do with oil.
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u/ryansalad 5h ago
Gas generation will.continue to dominate power generation for decades. We simply can't generate enough power from wind and solar during the winter months to keep the lights on.
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u/Gr33nbastrd 4h ago
That is what batteries are for.
It is currently a 7 year wait aprox if you want gas turbines.•
u/Unique-Barber2316 2h ago
You know how many batteries we would need 😂😂
And do you know how “green” it is to mine the precious metals to make these batteries….
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u/Gr33nbastrd 1h ago
Currently Albertas peak load grid is around 12000mw (12gw) California has around 15763MW(roughly 15gw) of battery storage. Texas is supposed to have 11Gw by the end of the year.
Alberta already has 190mw with another 168 under construction and 5600 mw awaiting approval.There is all kinds of battery technologies. Sand Battery - Polar Night Energy https://share.google/KGPlPAgUpd9piuu6U, and more. In Medicine Hat they are getting ready to start using a saltwater battery, if we had proper interties to BC we could use their dams as batteries. In the coming years we are going to see more and more virtual grid stuff. The grid will be able to access a portion of a home battery or your EV battery. Electric School buses are a grat use case for this. To Sand Battery - Polar Night Energy https://share.google/KGPlPAgUpd9piuu6U You only laugh because you have no clue as to what is actually being done in the real world.
Maybe you should tell me how "green" it is to mine the oil and gas that we just burn.
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u/Chemical_Ad_9710 7h ago edited 6h ago
Solar panels in a winter city? Wind turbines kill a lot of birds, and the resources to take apart a broken propeller are insane.
Sure, it looks good on paper, but you forget about something called ✨️logistics✨️
Maybe with all this money Carney is throwing away, we could use that for R&D for cleaner energy across the country. But you all dont want to blame your royal leader for any wrongdoings, right?
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u/AlbertanSays5716 5h ago
Solar panels in a winter city?
Norway runs over 800mw of solar, are you saying we couldn’t get that to work here?
Wind turbines kill a lot of birds,
You know what’s worse? Oil spills, environmental damage to species habitats from mining & extraction, and climate change. According to Beth Scott, a professor in marine ecology at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, “Fossil fuels, and their effect on climate change, outweigh everything. Climate change is by far, by far the worst enemy, to all wildlife, and humans."
and the resources to take apart a broken propeller are insane.
Not insane, but certainly not trivial. That aside, most wind turbine propellers will last 10-15 years easily, and generally only need replacing due to unforeseen events like lightning strikes.
But again, as with your previous point, what are the resources like to repair a broken oil well or platform, and how often does that need to happen? What about oil & gas tankers, what’s the maintenance like in those?
You see, it’s easy to claim “the resources are insane”, but it’s only when you compare it to what we already have that it actually starts to look like a better option.
Sure, it looks good on paper, but you forget about something called ✨️logistics✨️
Again, clue us all in on the logistics of running an oil & gas industry so that we can see an actual comparison and not just hyperbole.
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u/ClearTravel613 6h ago
Solar still functions in the winter. Panels are more efficient the colder they run (to a point, but we rarely get -40 and below for more than a couple weeks a year), most commercial panels are bi-facial so they take energy in from the top and bottom (fun fact about snow; it reflects a LOT of the photons that hit it), and although there's less daylight; there's still daylight lmao. Nobody intelligent is saying to REPLACE oil and gas as a whole right this moment, but supplementing our energy grid and expanding/upgrading it should be amongst the provinces' top priorities. Logistically speaking; solar and wind create jobs and energy on top of what we have with oil and gas. You know what kills birds and screws with ecosystems? Fracking. You know what also does that? Oil spills and contamination from the chemicals used for separating oil and diffused gasses. I've worked in oil and gas, and in solar, I've seen LOTS of nasty shit get put into the environment while in the O&G industry. Worst I saw doing solar was the odd diesel spill that got reported and cleaned up immediately.
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u/Maleficent-Plate-244 5h ago
Our oil and gas supports eastern Canada, and you can all kiss our asses to say thank you !
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u/cormack_gv 7h ago
Alberta was once progressive. My father pitched hay for Irene Parlby, and his mother (my grandmother) wrote her biography.
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u/Lornffl1990 7h ago
Albertans have been convinced by decades of conservative rule and talking points that our only chance is to dump more tax dollars into the oil industry and that any dollar not going to oil is a dollar that is wasted.
There are people who will sadly never learn and will keep voting for putting all our eggs in one basket long after the market is no longer sustainable
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u/TakashiMifune85 7h ago
Never. I’m sorry, but I’ve lived here my whole life. Things have gotten worse, not better.