When do we start talking about the elephant in the room?
I will preface all of this with my personal opinion that I do believe that society needs to get serious about carbon emissions, but not at any cost. I also believe that there can/should/will be a greater penetration/contribution of renewable power in Alberta's generation mix. Phase out does not mean outright ban.
Some thoughts for discussion...
How long did it take the Enmax Shepard generator to get online? It broke ground in 2011ish and was online in spring 2015? So 4 years for 800MW at a cost of $1.4B (likely more when you factor in the pool price being a lot lower than what they raised their capital at)?
Current generation mix in Alberta can be found
here. For those who don't want to click, there is 6,200 MW of coal installed and operating as of June 2016.
To achieve the targets set in the Climate Leadership Plan, rough math is an average of 400 MW of new generation capacity on line per year every year for the next 14 years. That doesn't factor in demand growth. This is unprecedented generation development in any normal market. This is not a normal market. The pool price is at a 20 year low. What company would invest in a market like that?