Chuck, some good news about renewables. No, really.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

First, a solar success story, in of all places, the evil fossil fuel energy industry in climate denying Alberta.

A local company is converting chemical injection pumps at remote wellsites to run on 100% solar with battery back up. And doing it economically enough that they are doing it for FREE to the customer. The installer receives all of the CO2 credits until they recoup their costs plus profit, then turn the CO2 credit back to the owners of the wells. Thanks to advances in motor technology, using VFD brushless motors, they have reduced the power consumption low enough to make it viable to install enough battery back up capacity to work in our climate( installing from roughly Wyoming up to NWT border right now).

And how much back up storage does a real world solar installation, with no backup, and no blackouts or brownouts permitted, require to make it viable in our climate you might ask? A mere 3 months. I will leave the math exercise up to you, on how to scale that up to converting the rest of the economy, let along your farm to renewables requiring 3 months of storage, and enough excess generating to charge 3 months worth of storage.

But it does provide proof of concept. With no existing infrastructure in place, and essentially 100% subsidies from other industries in the form of CO2 credits, the quasi free market is making it economical to convert to 100% solar.

The other good news, is on the jobs front. I'm sure you have seen this headline by now:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2219927-us-green-economy-has-10-times-more-jobs-than-the-fossil-fuel-industry/?fbclid=IwAR21xonvyWNnyfopgWAd-_57FTlMPu6emGT8mmmV5TLXz13M7qpqUEeeKK8 https://www.newscientist.com/article/2219927-us-green-economy-has-10-times-more-jobs-than-the-fossil-fuel-industry/?fbclid=IwAR21xonvyWNnyfopgWAd-_57FTlMPu6emGT8mmmV5TLXz13M7qpqUEeeKK8

The title of the article didn't come up in the shortened link, it is as follows:
US green economy has 10 times more jobs than the fossil fuel industry
Which, taken at face value, means that it only takes 10 times more labour to produce 10 times less energy than the equivalent in fossil fuels:



So, again, if we take their study at face value, renewables are only 100 times more costly ( if you pay the employees the same wage), as fossil fuels. Not quite sure why they would be proud of that, but they go to great efforts to prove that it will create more jobs than it eliminates. If you were to break that down further to include only solar and wind, it would be an interesting statistic.

[jazz]

So a bunch of make work jobs for a more expensive and vastly less efficient fuel source which has to be backed up by oil and gas anyway. Its amazing these eggheads can even publish this stuff with a straight face.

Anyway, the climate cult wont accept solar running pump jacks. They want oil dead.

[chuckChuck]

Don't believe a word of it. It is the work of economists and all a conspiracy and a hoax.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Don't believe a word of it. It is the work of economists and all a conspiracy and a hoax.

Thanks for the mature, intelligent, well reasoned response.

I offered an example of where solar really does make economic sense, and what parameters are required to make it so. Actual rubber meets the road, vs purely academic and theoretical. And that is the extent of your response?

[TASFarms]

Do you know what they charge for the chemical pump? Doesn’t take a lot of solar power to pump milli liters an hour. It would be different if they were talking about the lift pump for oil. Local electrical firm priced out solar set up for the pump jacks doing 2 to 4 well pads. Not feasible any time soon.

[blackpowder]

Perhaps an overlooked point. But an example of the world leaders in technology we can be if we let our industry run.
Doesn't play well in Ottawa does it?

[Guest]

Thanks for the mature, intelligent, well reasoned response.

I offered an example of where solar really does make economic sense, and what parameters are required to make it so. Actual rubber meets the road, vs purely academic and theoretical. And that is the extent of your response?

well, it has to come from him , and not from dirty old alberta

[AlbertaFarmer5]

well, it has to come from him , and not from dirty old alberta

That is a valid point, I posted this too soon. Should have waited until CBC reports on this development, so that they can inform chuck what his opinion is supposed to be. My apologies for catching you unprepared Chuck.

[jazz]

Guys chuck cant respond right now. He has his CBC headphones on getting tomorrows talking points.

Can you imagine a person getting daily mental reprogramming from that marxist site and then heading out into the internet to troll each day only to get destroyed by free thinkers and then scurrying away to do it all again tomorrow. We should pity him actually.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I thought the most interesting take away was the 3 months of storage required to make it reliable and viable.

I'd been trying to find that number for years. With no back up, no rationing, and for a predictably stable application for which 100% uptime is mandatory.

No one could provide me with even a ballpark figure till now. It took applying the technology in the real world to answer.

3 months isn't surprising, but is disappointing, as it precludes so many potential uses where solar otherwise makes economic sense.

[helmach]

Do you know what they charge for the chemical pump? Doesn’t take a lot of solar power to pump milli liters an hour. It would be different if they were talking about the lift pump for oil. Local electrical firm priced out solar set up for the pump jacks doing 2 to 4 well pads. Not feasible any time soon.

a chemical injection pump like this can run anywhere from 2k to 6k depending on flow rates and applications. like you said they are ml injection pumps and use extreamly low amounts of power

[helmach]

a lift pump or pump and motor like this requires huge amounts of power and would never ever be feasible under solar applications. the ups battery supply would be enormous... let alone a 3 month's supply

[Hamloc]

AB5 very well said. I remember a few years into Rachel Notley's mandate I did research into going off grid on my farm. I believe the recommendation was to have enough battery storage for a minimum of 4 days in the winter. The additional kicker was you required a bigger solar array to supply power during the limited daylight hours plus charge the large battery bank to survive the longer periods without sunlight. The total cost was over $200000 without including installation costs and an insulated small building to house the batteries. Obviously not feasible when my yearly power bill is just under $4000. Now Chucky will come along and say that battery technology has advanced and is less expensive. And he will supply articles claiming how cheap solar power with battery storage is. I say it is all bulls#^t and is all theoretical computer modelling and AB5's real world example is more realistic! Then remember who will benefit most from solar installations? China! Oh yeah that country that won't buy our canola. What a bunch of f+#knuts! Enjoy your evening.

[mustardman]

Hamloc Why do you want to go Off grid ?

Put up your solar and USE the grid as the Battery

[Hamloc]

Hamloc Why do you want to go Off grid ?

Put up your solar and USE the grid as the Battery

Actually Mustardman the original reason I wanted to go off the grid was as a way of controlling future electrical costs. I was of the opinion that with the NDP in power that costs would probably go up.

As for solar generation with battery storage this is now what environmentalists are promoting as the only solution for any new electrical generation, there is no way this will work in the dead of winter in Canada!