SaskPower gave a lecture at the university about transmission and generation planning.
“This does not bode well for future generations, as the International Energy Agency has warned that no new major fossil fuel infrastructure can be built if the world is to avoid dangerous, irreversible levels of warming.”
New gas plants, like SaskPower are building and still planning to build, are absolutely a huge problem for humanity’s very survival.
A month ago the Sask Party and the SK NDP both said for different reasons, that getting our energy system to net-zero emissions was too hard. The NDP said this was because the Sask Party did nothing so far to improve emissions, while the Sask Party prefers to believe the coal-burning SaskPower that they can’t manage to do anything for decades.
Meanwhile, Alberta and Saskatchewan are covered in smoke.
Wind and solar power plants generated 46.3 terawatt-hours of electricity between May 1, 2021 and April 30, 2022, the data [in Turkey] showed.
“Without these power plants, underutilized gas-fired plants or coal power plants relying on imports would have had to run in order to compensate for them,” the report added.
“Assuming that all 46.3 TWh power was generated by gas-fired plants, this would mean wind and solar power replaced $7 billion extra gas imports during that 12-month period.””
…is as good as none.
If you’re impressed by SaskPower’s objective to reduce emissions by only half, by 2030, you’re setting the bar way too low. A big reason Saskatchewan is among the world’s worst per-capita polluters is because our electricity is a large lignite coal and fossil/natural gas component. The electricity utility crown corp has been testing solar since at least Y2K when it installed panels on the Sask. Science Centre, yet 22 years later it still has drivel like this on its website:
The federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault says the latest IPCC report from the UN is “sobering”, and fossil fuel companies “cannot do business as usual”, but SaskPower is sticking with its goal from half a decade ago, while it’s actually lost ground on its aim to be 50% renewable, and only “40% less emitting by 2030”. Despite putting a new 200MW wind farm online near Assiniboia, and adding a little 10MW utility solar to the mix soon, it’s added or is adding over 700MW of fossil fuel generating power since 2019.
““Right now, SaskPower is on track to reduce our carbon emissions more than 50 per cent below our 2005 levels by 2030 and we’re looking to get to net-zero emissions by 2050,” Joel Cherry, spokesperson for SaskPower said in an interview Monday.”
I don’t see how that is possible to claim given the numbers I’m seeing. This is not a sprint you want to leave 90% of the work to the last 10 metres.
Yet here’s their homepage claim:
“Renewable Power
IN SASKATCHEWAN
We’re on our way to reducing our emissions by half.
Find out how we’re getting there and the projects underway.”
Back in 2012, there was a problem:
Provincial water too polluted, says research
Back then, the SaskParty was promising to address climate change with a plan that included a 20% emissions cut below 2006 pollution levels, by last year, 2020. They soon deleted that target.
Then this happened, and continues to happen:
Sask. leads country in per capita greenhouse gas emissions
“Provincial environment minister says climate plan needs time to work”
No! It doesn’t. When we give the SaskParty time for their plans to work, they make emissions worse, not better. And they promote their failed Environment Ministers to party leader too.
Other jurisdictions are too Canadian/polite to give us the F grade our Petrostate deserves.
That’s from back in 2015, and my understanding is that it’s been addressed to some degree. For the latest be sure to follow an expert like Prof. Eaton.
“China will increase their coal use by 19% over 5 years.”
“Vietnam, India and many others Asian nations are ramping up coal to give more of their people electricity. The U.S. is now signalling a return to coal.”
-Brad Wall 17 November 2016 · 132,442 views
“Canada only accounts for 1.6% of global emissions. Even if a carbon tax reduced that significantly, and it won’t, global emissions would still be largely unaffected.”
Everything he said there is wrong.
“Coal production fell sharply in China in 2016 by around 320 million tonnes or 9% – a fall equal to more than the total production from South Africa, the world’s 5th largest coal exporter. Coal production also fell elsewhere, such as the US and Australia, leading to global output falling by 458 million tonnes.”
– IEA
“we assume that the Chinese economy is in a structural transformation and that its electricity intensity will decline over time, stopping further growth in coal power generation by 2020.” – IEA
Obama sounds so antiquated now, just like the Liberal Party of Canada’s rhetoric today that echos his words of 10 years ago.
“Statistics From China Say Coal Consumption Continues to Drop” – 2016
China’s coal consumption has peaked” – 2018
China’s coal consumption has steadily decreased by a few percentage points a year since 2013, prompting our pronouncement of a coal consumption peak in an article published in the summer of 2016 in Nature Geoscience.
Wall doesn’t mind being wrong, he just pushes on anyway.
“Macron Calls Climate Change a ‘Red Line’ Issue at G20, Rebuking Trump” – 2019
“America’s coal-burning power plants are shutting down at a rapid pace, forcing electric utilities to face the next big climate question: Embrace natural gas, or shift aggressively to renewable energy?” – NYT yesterday
CPC Racists are at work in Andrew Scheer’s Photoshop department. Why does the CPC still have any support from good Canadians?
Here’s what Doug Ford and Scott Shmoe’s federal party posted today about our Prime Minister:
If we don’t phase out most of the world’s oil and gas sector by 2030, the world’s scientists expect we won’t survive past 2040.
People who know what a Luddite the Premier of Saskatchewan is, knows the answer to my rhetorical question.
https://twitter.com/saskboy/status/981020740400005120
https://twitter.com/saskboy/status/980575284746272769
SaskPower’s 2016-17 annual report, released last summer, states, “We will see our emissions profile rise slightly until 2020.”
Will be? Naw, it has been for years. Still, SaskPower is building another 350MW of natural gas to go online in 2019, while building far less than 300MW of wind power by then. They’ve a target of 50% renewable generation by 2030, and still wind is far less than 5% of the grid total. Clearly they’re on the wrong track, and costing rate payers money.
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff 