Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall stands alone against federal carbon-pricing plan

[Oliver88]

So in latitudes where we are and farther north how efficient is solar Nov through March ?
Just woundering ....

Come on now you are asking technical questions, these projects are just about feeling good and "doing what's right". In reality all wind and solar power plants will have to have more reliable forms on standby for the periods of no wind, no sun, maintenance, etc.
Lifespan of bearings and parts in turbines, birds killed, carbon footprint for parts and trucking of parts, space required for inefficient turbines will all be minor issues to deal with according to the Toronto yuppies.

Prices of electrical will definitely increase severely like in Ontario and Great Britain but a few people in Montreal will feel better while us farmers watch our aeration & grain drying charges double or triple.

Get this, in Ontario they mentioned removing the tax from the hydro bills now since costs are out of hand.....since the taxpayers and hydro consumers are the same people they'll be paying the tax. 😂

[seabass]

U ever got the maintenance bill for those windmills?

[chuckChuck]

Wind and Solar Are Crushing Fossil Fuels
Record clean energy investment outpaces gas and coal 2 to 1.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-06/wind-and-solar-are-crushing-fossil-fuels

[Flatlander]

Imagine that , an eastern rag that promotes the continued milking of the west, surprise surprise. BW is right on this even if the Feds have trumped him for now.

[biglentil]

Solar panels get frosty and snow covered very easily as they do not warm in the sun. Also our winter hours of sunlight are very short and sun stays low. Cloudy months like October happen. I use 400 sq ft solar thermal and photovolaic panels. I hope they will eventually pay for themselves before hail gets em, but do not shut down the coal plants.

Wind power is high maintenance, kills birds, and never seem to reach their stated lifespan. Wind is gusty and directions vary. The loads placed on turbines and bearings are mind boggling. They still routinely catch on fire as a suitable grease does not exist.

[chuckChuck]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-13/we-ve-almost-reached-peak-fossil-fuels-for-electricity

The World Nears Peak Fossil Fuels for Electricity
Coal and gas will begin their terminal decline in less than a decade, according to a new BNEF analysis.
Tom Randall
tsrandall
June 12, 2016 — 10:01 PM CST

The way we get electricity is about to change dramatically, as the era of ever-expanding demand for fossil fuels comes to an end—in less than a decade. That's according to a new forecast by Bloomberg New Energy Finance that plots out global power markets for the next 25 years.

Call it peak fossil fuels, a turnabout that's happening not because we're running out of coal and gas, but because we're finding cheaper alternatives. Demand is peaking ahead of schedule because electric cars and affordable battery storage for renewable power are arriving faster than expected, as are changes in China's energy mix.

Here are eight massive shifts coming soon to power markets.
1. There Will Be No Golden Age of Gas

Since 2008, the single most important force in U.S. power markets has been the abundance of cheap natural gas brought about by fracking. Cheap gas has ravaged the U.S. coal industry and inspired talk of a "bridge fuel" that moves the world from coal to renewable energy. It doesn't look like that's going to happen.

The costs of wind and solar power are falling too quickly for gas ever to dominate on a global scale, according to BNEF. The analysts reduced their long-term forecasts for coal and natural gas prices by a third for this year's report, but even rock-bottom prices won't be enough to derail a rapid global transition toward renewable energy.

"You can't fight the future," said Seb Henbest, the report's lead author. "The economics are increasingly locked in." The peak year for coal, gas, and oil: 2025.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance
2. Renewables Attract $7.8 Trillion

Humanity's demand for electricity is still rising, and investments in fossil fuels will add up to $2.1 trillion through 2040. But that will be dwarfed by $7.8 trillion invested in renewables, including $3.4 trillion for solar, $3.1 trillion for wind, and $911 billion for hydro power.

Already, in many regions, the lifetime cost of wind and solar is less than the cost of building new fossil fuel plants, and that trend will continue. But by 2027, something remarkable happens. At that point, building new wind farms and solar fields will often be cheaper than running the existing coal and gas generators. "This is a tipping point that results in rapid and widespread renewables development," according to BNEF.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance

The pink stuff on the top of this chart is new this year. It represents flexible capacity—technology, primarily large batteries for the home and grid, that smooths out the peaks and valleys inherent in wind and solar power. By 2028, batteries will be as ubiquitous as rooftop solar is today.
3. Electric Cars Rescue Power Markets

In this discussion of peak fossil fuels, the focus is on electricity generation, not transportation fuels. For cars, peak oil demand will take a bit more time. But the sudden rise of electric cars is on the verge of disrupting oil markets as well, and that has profound implications for electricity markets as more cars plug in.

In fact, electric cars couldn't come at a better time for developed economies. Take Germany, where increases in efficiency mean that without electric cars, demand for electricity would be headed toward a prolonged and destabilizing decline. Electric vehicles will reverse that trend, according to BNEF.

The charts below show the soaring demand for battery capacity for cars and the difference that EVs will make to power demand worldwide. The adoption of electric cars will vary by country and continent, but overall they'll add 8 percent to humanity's total electricity use by 2040, BNEF found.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance
4. Batteries Join the Grid

Renewable energy and electric cars create a virtuous cycle of demand growth. Unlike fossil fuels—where a surge of demand leads to higher prices—with new energy technologies more demand begets more scale, and that drives prices lower.

The scale-up of electric cars increases demand for renewable energy and drives down the cost of batteries. And as those costs fall, batteries can increasingly be used to store solar power.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance
5. Solar and Wind Prices Plummet

The chart below is arguably the most important chart in energy markets. It describes a pattern so consistent, and so powerful, that industries set their clocks by it. It's the beautiful math of declining solar costs.

The chart is on a logarithmic scale, so the declines are even more profound than at first glance. For every doubling in the world's solar panels, costs fall by 26 percent, a number known as solar's "learning rate." Solar is a technology, not a fuel, and as such it gets cheaper and more efficient over time. This is the formula that's driving the energy revolution.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance

Wind-power prices are also falling fast—19 percent for every doubling. Wind and solar will be the cheapest forms of producing electricity in most of the world by the 2030s, according to BNEF.
6. Capacity Factors Go Wild

One of the fast-moving stories in renewable energy is the shift in what's known as the capacity factor. That's the percentage of a power plant's maximum potential that's actually achieved over time.

Consider a wind farm. Even at high altitudes, the wind isn't consistent and varies in strength with the time of day, weather, and the seasons. So a project that can crank out 100 megawatts of electricity during the windiest times might produce just 30 percent of that when averaged out over a year. That gives it a 30 percent capacity factor.

As technologies continue to improve and as project designers get smarter about their placement, the capacity factors of renewables are increasing. Here's a watercolor plot of wind power capacity factors over time. Some wind farms in Texas are now achieving capacity factors of 50 percent, according to BNEF.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance

Improving capacity factors make renewables more attractive. But capacity factors of gas and coal plants are also changing. Once a solar or wind project is built, the marginal cost of the electricity it produces is pretty much zero—free electricity—while coal and gas plants require more fuel for every new watt produced. If you're a power company with a choice, you choose the free stuff every time.

As natural gas and coal plants are increasingly idled in favor of renewables, their capacity factors will take a big hit, and lifetime cost of those plants goes up. Think of them as the expensive back-up power for cheap renewables.
7. A New Polluter to Worry About

China, the biggest and fastest-growing polluter, became a major global environmental concern over the past few decades. But that perception is changing fast. China's evolving economy and its massive shift from coal to renewables mean it will have the greatest reduction in carbon emissions of any country in the next 25 years, according to BNEF. That's good news for the climate and is a significant change for the global energy outlook.

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But that leaves India, which is emerging as the biggest threat to efforts to curb climate change. India's electricity demand is expected to increase fourfold by 2040, and the country will need to invest in a variety of energy sources to meet this overwhelming new demand. India has hundreds of millions of people with little or no access to electricity, and the country sits atop a mountain of coal. It intends to use it.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance
8. The Transformation Continues

BNEF's outlook for carbon dioxide emissions has improved significantly over the past year, in spite of cheap fossil fuel prices. The shift to renewables is happening shockingly fast—but not fast enough to prevent perilous levels of global warming.

Without additional policy action by governments, global carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector will peak in the 2020s and remain relatively flat for the the foreseeable future. That's not enough to prevent the surface of the Earth from heating more than 2 degrees Celsius, according to BNEF. That's considered the point of no return for some of the worst consequences of climate change.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance

BNEF's report focuses on fundamental economics: price, demand, supply. It includes climate-related policies that have already been set into action but doesn't make any guesses for new policies beyond those. It also doesn't include any jumps in technology that aren't clearly already under way.

That could be heartening for people concerned about climate change, because if there's one thing that energy markets have shown in the past decade, it's that there will be more surprises to come.
Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. LEARN MORE

[chuckChuck]

Already, in many regions, the lifetime cost of wind and solar is less than the cost of building new fossil fuel plants, and that trend will continue. But by 2027, something remarkable happens. At that point, building new wind farms and solar fields will often be cheaper than running the existing coal and gas generators. "This is a tipping point that results in rapid and widespread renewables development," according to BNEF.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance

[parsley]

Chuckchuck

When Canadians, including you, pay out our $17.5K share of the federal debt, (that does not include provincial debt or personal debt), then Canada can begin estimating the cost of replacing oil and coal as our staple source of energy.

AND

the cost of replacing machinery and equipment and adaptation for each sector.

Tractor adaptation and replacement in Saskatchewan would bankrupt present farmers and chill future entrants. After all, May 16, 2006 Census of Agriculture counted 44,329 farms. If each farm has a minimum of one tractor of one kind or another, that means 44K tractors will be costly.

Imagine what it will be like for potash and uranium and gold mines; manufacturers of cattle trailers, steel mills, hog barns? Hair dressers and restaurants and crematoriums?

If we cannot pay bills now, how stupid do Canadians have to get to realize that replacement and adaptation costs are truly unaffordable... Pars

[chuckChuck]

If Wind and solar are bad options then someone should ask Brad Wall why he is investing in them?

[chuckChuck]

New report shows health and climate impacts from coal power cost Alberta millions Health and environment groups urge Alberta to go beyond weak federal rules for climate pollution from coal power and to implement a provincial renewable energy policy

March 26, 2013

EDMONTON — The health impact costs associated with burning coal for electricity in Alberta are close to $300 million annually according to a new report released today by a coalition of Canadian health and environmental groups.

Coal plants are a major source of toxic air contaminants, including mercury, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, and particulate matter. The study shows that in Alberta each year this pollution contributes to over 4,000 asthma episodes, over 700 emergency visits for respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, and around 80 hospital admissions, with chronic exposures resulting in nearly 100 premature deaths.

“Doctors agree that coal is a health hazard from start to finish,” says Farrah Khan with the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. “Coal-fired power plants put Albertans’ health at risk, especially the health of our children.”

“Pollution from coal power contributes to thousands of asthma episodes every year,” says Dr. Robert Oliphant, President and CEO of the Asthma Society of Canada. “On average in Alberta, a child visits an emergency department for asthma every 34 minutes, with pollution from coal power being a major contributor to these episodes.”

Recent polling suggests that only one in three Albertans know the majority of their electricity comes from coal. Though coal is generally seen as a cheap source of electricity, this analysis reveals that the health and social costs of coal pollution add at least 3.6 to 5 cents per kilowatt-hour, nearly doubling the cost of electricity production.

“Air pollution from coal is linked to respiratory conditions – chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, lung cancer, and pneumonia,” says Beth Nanni, Environmental Program Specialist with The Lung Association, Alberta & Northwest Territories. ”We urge the Alberta government to transition away from coal power and towards renewable energy as soon as possible.”

Alberta burns more coal than the rest of Canada combined, accounting for almost two-thirds of the electricity sold on Alberta’s market, releasing almost as much greenhouse gas emissions as all of the oilsands. According to the analysis, climate change impacts from coal-fired power range from $1.1 to 4.5 billion annually.

“Alberta has no shortage of viable renewable and low-carbon alternatives,” says Tim Weis, Director of Renewable Energy and Efficiency Policy with the Pembina Institute. “Currently these cleaner options are not competing on a level playing field because our market does not make polluters pay for the health and environmental costs.”

Current federal greenhouse gas regulations will eventually phase out coal plants, but not until they have been allowed to operate unmitigated for up to 50 years. The groups are urging Alberta to adopt a provincial renewable energy policy and to phase out existing coal plants faster than federal regulations require.

-30-

Representatives from each organization will be attending a press conference for the launch of the report in Edmonton today. For details, please see the media advisory.

The report — A Costly Diagnosis: Subsidizing coal power with Albertans’ health — is the first of its kind to assess the health and environmental costs of coal-fired electricity in Alberta. It was co-authored by the Asthma Society of Canada, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, The Lung Association, Alberta & the Northwest Territories, and the Pembina Institute.

CONTACT:

Beth Nanni
Program Specialist, Environment, The Lung Association, Alberta & Northwest Territories
780-488-6995 Ext: 2252

Farrah Khan
Campaigner, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment
647-886-2189

Kevin Sauvé
Communications Lead, Pembina Institute
604-354-2628

Noah Farber
Director of Communications and Government Relations, Asthma Society of Canada
416-787-4050 Ext: 100