Atco To Convert All Coal Plants By 2020

[RockLicker]

Originally Posted by photon

The thing with coal (or oil or natural gas) is that a large part of the effort/resources to achieve the energy is hidden or unaccounted for. Millions of years of absorbing solar energy is a lot more effort than building a solar collector, it's just with one a large part of that effort isn't taken into account because it's invisible where the other one has to.

The comparison doesn't seem meaningful IMO.

In the same way that arguing against automation based only on the number of jobs isn't meaningful.

While I agree that looking at hydrocarbons as a concentrated storage medium for fossil solar energy is a good line of thinking, I'm not really following you point here.

Honestly, although thermal coal is facing that inevitable death very soon, I feel a little bit optimistic that we may not see quite the disaster in the electricity market that Ontario is facing. The Montney has enough gas for generations as long as Ab embraces it as the next logical step for base load power. Feels like a win win for Alberta to me considering the US has end run us now completely on LNG export.

However, seems to me that if we follow Ontario down the path they've tread, it's all over. I mean, Wynne's new wonderful plan to make electricity more affordable is to create a new entity that will subsidize utility bills by accruing massive debt over the next 10 years, and then foot everyone with the bill + interest after that. Everyone likes to complain about us mortgaging our kids future, but that is easily the most blatant example of kicking the can down the road.

[jammies]

It's a different, but interesting discussion though - we run a consumer driver economy, so what happens when large numbers of consumers are idled by technology-driven efficiency? The talk of new industries opening up for them is dubious, for one thing, many people are only competent to do rote and simple tasks, which are the ones that are now being entirely automated.

The Industrial Revolution replaced physical labour with machine labour overseen and mediated by humans, and thus farmhands could become factory hands. Factory hands, though, are not likely to become software engineers and materials scientists. The service industry, where they would otherwise go (at much reduced wages and expectations) is being automated as well, and that's going to be more and more socially destabilizing as the pace of that accelerates, and chronic unemployment becomes the norm.

[photon]

Originally Posted by RockLicker

I'm not really following you point here.

Only that comparing renewables solely on the # of people involved per unit of energy doesn't seem like a meaningful comparison. I haven't looked at the overall plan mentioned in the thread so I haven't got any opinion on that.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by jammies

It's a different, but interesting discussion though - we run a consumer driver economy, so what happens when large numbers of consumers are idled by technology-driven efficiency? The talk of new industries opening up for them is dubious, for one thing, many people are only competent to do rote and simple tasks, which are the ones that are now being entirely automated.

The Industrial Revolution replaced physical labour with machine labour overseen and mediated by humans, and thus farmhands could become factory hands. Factory hands, though, are not likely to become software engineers and materials scientists. The service industry, where they would otherwise go (at much reduced wages and expectations) is being automated as well, and that's going to be more and more socially destabilizing as the pace of that accelerates, and chronic unemployment becomes the norm.

They should be ground up and used for food/fertilizer before this becomes an issue.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by jammies

It's a different, but interesting discussion though - we run a consumer driver economy, so what happens when large numbers of consumers are idled by technology-driven efficiency? The talk of new industries opening up for them is dubious, for one thing, many people are only competent to do rote and simple tasks, which are the ones that are now being entirely automated.

The Industrial Revolution replaced physical labour with machine labour overseen and mediated by humans, and thus farmhands could become factory hands. Factory hands, though, are not likely to become software engineers and materials scientists. The service industry, where they would otherwise go (at much reduced wages and expectations) is being automated as well, and that's going to be more and more socially destabilizing as the pace of that accelerates, and chronic unemployment becomes the norm.

Fortunately we have an opiate crisis to keep these people occupied.

[DuffMan]

Can't Canadian coal workers move to the US to fill some of the millions of coal jobs there?

[flamesfan1297]

Originally Posted by octothorp

I'm curious: with a setup like Sheerness where there's a coal mine and generating station, how many jobs are in the mine and how many in the generating station, by comparison? I found a stat that the mine there employs about 110 people, but I couldn't find a number for the generating station.

The plant is about the same. Maybe a few less

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Flames in 07

Lol.

You do realize that the solar/wind industry is hiring like crazy in the US, right?

[snootchiebootchies]

Don't forget the growth of the carbon management and sustainability industry in Alberta. There are now carbon management consultants in EPC companies, and accounting firms. I am seeing growth in sustainable agriculture/precision farming consultants. Countless small niche companies that have also started up to take advantage of clean energy. New start up companies have also cropped up to develop clean projects for the purpose of generating carbon offsets to sell to large carbon emitters. As the price of carbon continues to move up, many offset projects that may not be profitable at $15 or $20/tonne will become profitable at $30 or $50/tonne and they will be developed, resulting in more jobs. The new Climate Action Reserve in Ontario/Quebec will also allow fungible trading of offsets, which means offsets generated in Alberta (and other provinces) can be sold in Ontario or Quebec if they cannot find a buyer within the same Province. I have no idea if the introduction of the carbon levy has resulted in a net gain or loss of jobs but from what I've seen, it has generated quite a bit of entrepreneurial activities around clean energy/sustainability.