Frogs

[shtferbrains]

We are shutting down dependable plants to replace them with a much less dependable source.
The ones we are shutting down are paid for.
How does it get cheaper than that.
We aren't reducing global CO2 production. We are exporting it to Asia Pacific countries and importing all the consumer goods and heavy manufacturing from them.

[fjlip]

Chuck, have I got a deal for you. Since you claim to be a capitalist farmer, I'll sell you a fleet of the cheapest new harvesting capacity that you can add to your fleet.

Threshing machines. The payments on your new combines are costing you $100's per threshing hour. I can get you into a fleet of threshing machines for a fraction of that cost per threshing hour. And you can use wood burning steam engines to power them, and horses to haul the stooks and grain and save the environment from CO2 at the same time.

Except, you can't sell your current combines because you will still need them when it gets too dark for the threshing crews without lights, so your payments will stay the same, but their cost per acre will go up a lot. You will just add the payments for the threshing machines.

You'll never buy fuel for the threshing machines, you'll just have to hire a crew year round to cut and spilt and cure and haul firewood, you'll pay that crew year around, even when the threshing machines aren't even in use. You will need to seed a large amount of farmland back to trees to keep up with the demand.

Your current swathers won't work, so you'll have to buy a fleet of binders, and horses to pull them, and harnesses, and build a barn to house the horses, and hire the crews to drive them, then feed and look after the horses year around, even if they aren't producing anything all winter. You'll have to devote a large proportion of your farmland to growing horse feed, those are acres that will no longer be growing crops you can sell. But you'll still have the payments on your existing swathers to swath for the combines you'll have to keep.

Just like wind and solar, the supply needs to be brought to where the demand is, and since a threshing machine is stationary, you'll need to buy a fleet of stook wagons and horses and hire the crews to haul the stooks to the threshing machines.

The threshers won't reach into your current grain carts and trucks, so you'll need to buy an entire fleet of grain wagons and crews to run them, but you'll still have to keep your trucks and carts to service the combines. Did you forget that those wagons don't have hoists? Now the elevators you haul to will have to install hoists to dump the wagons, should that cost be forced on all the other farmers who don't use it?

You will have more downtime, they require a lot of maintenance. With a road speed of 2 miles per hour behind the steam engine while you move from field to field across your 6000 acre farm, you will need a lot of redundant capacity to make up for the travel time while the threshing machines don't do any productive work.

They are quite weather dependent. Everytime it rains, and every night, you'll have to remove all the belts from the thresher, and the canvases from the binders, better allow a lot of extra time for this.

The straw will all end up in a pile, if you burn it, you release CO2, since care about the environment, you will need to spend a lot of time and energy putting the straw back on the fields where it belongs.

But at least you can always claim that these new threshing machines have the cheapest cost of new threshing capacity. Unless of course you can actually do math.

What a GREAT analogy! Thanks...THINK CC, exactly how wind/solar interact with gas/coal generation...CHEAP but plain STUPID!

[fjlip]

Speaking of FROGS...they spanked the TURD in by election really hard!

[chuckChuck]

Any price difference between Louisiana and Texas could be from structural differences.

Texas is a deregulated market not sure about Louisiana, legacy of existing versus new capacity. legacy Nuclear in Louisiana vs more gas in Texas for example, percentage of new capacity and growth in each state. And supply and demand growth

To suggest that the higher price in Texas has only one cause in Texas, is simplistic crap from the guy who says we need more CO2 in the atmosphere!

And when Sask power is saying wind and solar are lower cost than other options its for new generation capacity.

But A5 you are pretty sure Sask Power is wrong even when Lazard also say wind and solar are lower cost than other new generation options?

Keep running A5!

[TSIPP]

How much does chuckroach get paid for producing solar energy? Is it 14 cents a kilowatt?

saskpower buys coal generated electricity for about 2 cents per kilowatt.

[chuckChuck]

What does it cost them for a new gas plant per Kwh? Because they are not going to keep burning coal in old coal plants.

What does it cost them for hydro, imports, wind, and solar?

What they said is wind and solar are the lowest cost new generation generation sources.

[cropgrower]

still useless when needed most , - 35c night for example

[chuckChuck]

That's why you have backup supplies and reap the benefits of cleaner lower cost intermittents when you can, with no fuel costs.

Its not one or the other its all of the sources.

On our farm the solar covers the equivalent of our average annual usage with no carbon emissions!

In Manitoba you have almost all non emitting renewable hydro at 10 cents a Kwh! Compare that to Saskatchewan's coal and gas at 14 cents.

You want to switch back to gas and coal Crop!

Like Alberta at 20 - 25 cents a kwh?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

That's why you have backup supplies and reap the benefits of cleaner lower cost intermittents when you can, with no fuel costs.

Its not one or the other its all of the sources.

On our farm the solar covers the equivalent of our average annual usage with no carbon emissions!

In Manitoba you have almost all non emitting renewable hydro at 10 cents a Kwh! Compare that to Saskatchewan's coal and gas at 14 cents.

You want to switch back to gas and coal Crop!

Like Alberta at 20 - 25 cents a kwh?

Chuck why do you do this to yourself. After repeating your mantra that solar and wind are the cheapest generation according to Sask and Ab.
You post the prices for electricity in Sask, Man and Ab. Ab has by far the most wind and solar, and you indicate that Ab prices are the highest of the prairies. Manitoba has almost no solar and wind, and you correctly point out that their prices are the lowest.

Tell us again how wind and solar are resulting in cheaper costs for consumers.

[blackpowder]

What would secretly float his boat would be for AB to have to buy all its power from another province.

[Blaithin]

I always wondered why Alberta didn’t invest in more hydro.

Hydro and Nuclear. Where are the reports on those capabilities?

Why put up a forest of turbines and an ocean of panels, many out in more sensitive ecosystems.

If it truly were about “all of the sources.” then there would be balanced analysis of all sources, not this only positives for some and only negatives for others, and there would be focus on alternate sources beyond wind and solar.

[chuckChuck]

Renewable Hydro in Quebec and Manitoba provide the lowest cost electricity in Canada!

Alberta's deregulated electricity market is largely responsible for the higher prices.

Several economist have already pointed to utilities with holding supply to drive up prices.

Do I need to post their research again for the slow learners?

Wind and solar bids are much lower than the bids from gas plants.

Saskatchewan has regulated rate reviewed prices from a provincially owned Sask Power which are significantly lower than Alberta's deregulated "free market" that over charges consumers.

[chuckChuck]

Varcoe: Alberta power market shakeup could save consumers billions but at 'expense of investor confidence,' report finds

[url]https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/varcoe-alberta-power-market-shakeup-save-consumers-billions-expense-investor-confidence[/url]


How 'economic withholding' is impacting Albertans' power bills and why even the premier is watching

Danielle Smith suggests 'something's broken' and needs to be done

[url]https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-electricity-economic-withholding-1.6946797[/url]


Alberta's electricity market can be a complicated subject, but consumers generally understand that prices for electricity have soared.

Experts say one of the main reasons is something called "economic withholding."

In Alberta, electricity generators are allowed to hold back all or some of their electricity supply, then offer it to the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) at a higher price. It's an intentional — and legitimate — practice that boosts wholesale prices and profits. The province's Utilities Consumer Advocate provides full details here ([url]https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/electricity-market-pricing.aspx[/url]).

The roughly 550,000 customers on the regulated rate option (RRO) who haven't signed a fixed-rate contract with a competitive retailer are subject to those wildly fluctuating prices.

A cap earlier this year held prices at 13.5 cents per kilowatt hour. Since the cap was removed in April, prices have soared.

Enmax, Epcor and Direct Energy Regulated Services are now offering a RRO price of 32 cents per kilowatt hour.

While economic withholding is allowed in Alberta, the province's Market Surveillance Administrator (MSA) says the practice could trigger an investigation if the agency were to ever believe the big power generators, which include TransAlta, Enmax, Capital Power and Heartland, were colluding to increase wholesale prices — which affects consumers who are on the RRO.

"While the MSA cannot comment on specific investigations, economic withholding is not prohibited by the legislation or market rules and therefore has never been investigated as a potential contravention," wrote the CEO of the MSA in an email to CBC News.

The MSA also refers to the practice as market power or offer behaviour. The most recent snapshot of the practice is detailed in a recent quarterly report ([url]https://www.albertamsa.ca/assets/Documents/Quarterly-Report-for-Q2-2023.pdf[/url]).

An Alberta economist who has researched the practice says the impact on prices is clear.

"I wholeheartedly agree that I think that the big driver of recent price increases is economic withholding," said David Brown, an economist at the University of Alberta who has studied the impact economic withholding has on consumer prices.

Love it or hate it, Brown says it's a part of Alberta's free-market system which is designed to encourage large-scale investment in electricity generation and allow those firms to recoup some of their costs.

[cropgrower]

Sorry we don't read or believe a word cbc says , try putting something in your words cc

[chuckChuck]

The Calgary Herald?

"I wholeheartedly agree that I think that the big driver of recent price increases is economic withholding," said David Brown, an economist at the University of Alberta who has studied the impact economic withholding has on consumer prices.

Neither are CBC opinions Crop!

Stick to the dark regions of social media Crop to get your fake news and far right anti vaxer flat earth crap!