The Ongoing Super Mega Weather Thread v3

[Leondros]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Leave you alone? I'm not bugging you. I'm engaging on a chat forum.

I'm also not chastising you. Grow a pair.

You want to know how to make more energy in certain ways and my contribution is we can also decrease our usage. Your way requires billions of dollars, uncertainty and decades of building up infrastructures.

My way proposes some $8 motions sensors.

Same goal, ultimately. Energy security. We need both.

Instead of being a little baby maybe just see that I'm contributing to what you're saying. Not out to get you there, guy. lol

Sliver, the whole premise of decreasing consumption is asinine given where we are going as a society. Government wants EVs on starting in 2035. In what world can you possibly think tackling the demand side of energy is a good idea? Like seriously, usually your posts come off as intelligent but you are so out to lunch on this one. You honestly believe tweaking consumer behavior is somehow going to meet the delta on the supply side? You are coming off as a bit of a dick to Acey here.

Imagine if everyone had an EV today and we had this problem. You are putting your cards on society doing the right thing and curbing their demand to address the problem? I think during COVID we proved that people are pretty ####e at doing the right thing.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by flamingchina

So, the AUC did study in 2010, that showed that Alberta has 42-52 TWH of total hydro capacity on our river basins.

Thanks a lot for the info. I'm usually pretty good at Googling but somehow didn't find that first article.

Canadian Hydro Association estimates that Alberta still has more than 11,500 MW of remaining economic hydro potential including both reservoir and run-of-the-river projects.

That figure is far more than I thought, and also is coincidentally quite close to our current usage of 11,000. Yes, I do realize that harnessing all of that power would be massively expensive, environmentally destructive, equally silly to put all our eggs in the hydro basket, etc... but it is interesting to see it quanitifed.

[Leondros]

Originally Posted by Acey

Thanks! That's what I would have figured, given how long ago Quebec and BC's big hydro projects started. We would have got it going long ago if it was feasible.



Not sure. I was just wondering how and if Alberta plans to replace natural gas as our primary method of energy generation. Obviously wind and solar are not available 100% time, so the bulk of our power for the duration of those times will have to come from somewhere if gas were to be absent in the future.

Every Albertan, even when we're not in any kind of energy crisis, should be taking reasonable measures to reduce their personal energy consumption, this is an incredibly obvious point that does not need to be codified with details about laundry. However, said measures will simply not reduce Alberta's total energy consumption by the massive 80% required to negate our reliance on gas, so we'll need something else.

Acey, to answer your question about hydro, Alberta has quite a bit of smaller projects. Look at Transalta’s facilities. My buddy runs them. The issue with hydro is it takes a long time to get up and running and it’s big dollars for projects that are large enough to replace natural gas completely.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Leondros

Sliver, the whole premise of decreasing consumption is asinine given where we are going as a society. Government wants EVs on starting in 2035. In what world can you possibly think tackling the demand side of energy is a good idea? Like seriously, usually your posts come off as intelligent but you are so out to lunch on this one. You honestly believe tweaking consumer behavior is somehow going to meet the delta on the supply side? You are coming off as a bit of a dick to Acey here.

Imagine if everyone had an EV today and we had this problem. You are putting your cards on society doing the right thing and curbing their demand to address the problem? I think during COVID we proved that people are pretty ####e at doing the right thing.

Consumers and industry.

And government regulations.

EVs is the perfect example. They're basically all hypercars. Lower their power, that will result in smaller battery packs that take less energy to charge.

Put a cap on their weight. Do we really need or want EV Hummers and Cybertrucks when a hybrid Maverick will do basically the same things but better? The Hummer weighs SEVEN times more than a Maverick. It takes a lot of energy to move that.

Acey is being a total weirdo and I'm surprised at you, too.

Never in a million years did I think the idea of reducing consumption would be controversial lol.

[GGG]

This is a good example of the challenge of transitioning to a renewable base. Our peak usage is the coldest winter day. This coincides with low wind and solar generation. Solar will be able to provide the cheapest power in the summer so the natural gas and other back up generation can’t sell.

So if we need the most power on the coldest day the market system won’t really work because it isn’t profitable to design to serve the coldest day of the year and not profit the other days.

So it likely requires some kind of government investment in providing base load. Be it air or hydro storage or nuclear or gas base load / back up.

[Leondros]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Consumers and industry.

And government regulations.

EVs is the perfect example. They're basically all hypercars. Lower their power, that will result in smaller battery packs that take less energy to charge.

Put a cap on their weight. Do we really need or want EV Hummers and Cybertrucks when a hybrid Maverick will do basically the same things but better? The Hummer weighs SEVEN times more than a Maverick. It takes a lot of energy to move that.

Acey is being a total weirdo and I'm surprised at you, too.

Never in a million years did I think the idea of reducing consumption would be controversial lol.

It’s not controversial, it’s just not a reasonable solution. We are only becoming more and more reliant on the grid. Look at our goods today versus 20 years ago. Laptops, ebooks, baby cams, ring cams, cars, iPads, smart homes, watches all take electricity. To assume the solution is to consume less is not grounded in reality or practicality. Sure you could have the government step in and control products and their use of electricity but no government is going to do that.

Ok top of that, The government wants to start eliminating natural gas appliances. Imagine the load increase last night if everyone had an electric stove, dryer, and hot water tank…

[Acey]

As EVs become more mainstream and mandatory, their peak power levels will naturally decrease as they become more affordable and they will no longer all be hypercars, especially since that isn't even currently true. Reducing peak power will only negligbly reduce the total battery capacity required, the bigger penalty of that would be range. If 10% of sales in Canada are currently EV and the goal is for everything to be EV, reducing a battery pack from 50 kWh to 45 kWh will do nothing to save the grid from inevitably strict restrictions on charging during peak times, etc... it just means I more frequently have to stop at Wal-Mart and twiddle my thumbs to charge.

Hummers and Cybertrucks represent such a small percentage of EVs that they are irrelevant.

[Table 5]

Alberta added something like 184,000 people last year, and Canada added close to half a million. You can, and should, try to optimize consumption, but demand is only going to go up in this province and country. If you plan to keep growing the country at this pace, we're going to need more energy generation no matter how efficient we try to be.

Originally Posted by transplant99

I really think that nuclear is the way to go in the future, but it is such a political hot potato that it wont happen until its forced upon the masses with no other options available....which will be long after most here are dead.

I'm not sure it's as much of a hot potato as it used to be. I think slowly more people are coming around to seeing nuclear not only as a viable option for stable baseload energy, but in many ways, the best option in the long term. Governments around the world are backtracking on shutdowns, more new plants are being built and planned, and you're also seeing it starting to see it being embraced by more environmentalists (at least the more practical ones). Perhaps because I follow it, but I see considerably more pro-nuclear stories in the news these days than negative. I think we're coming around!

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Alberta added something like 184,000 people last year, and Canada added close to half a million. You can, and should, try to optimize consumption, but demand is only going to go up in this province and country. If you plan to keep growing the country at this pace, we're going to need more energy generation no matter how efficient we try to be.



I'm not sure it's as much of a hot potato as it used to be. I think slowly more people are coming around to seeing nuclear not only as a viable option for stable baseload energy, but in many ways, the best option in the long term. Governments around the world are backtracking on shutdowns, more new plants are being built and planned, and you're also seeing it starting to see it being embraced by more environmentalists (at least the more practical ones). Perhaps because I follow it, but I see considerably more pro-nuclear stories in the news these days than negative. I think we're coming around!

Thank #### for that.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Leondros

It’s not controversial, it’s just not a reasonable solution. We are only becoming more and more reliant on the grid. Look at our goods today versus 20 years ago. Laptops, ebooks, baby cams, ring cams, cars, iPads, smart homes, watches all take electricity. To assume the solution is to consume less is not grounded in reality or practicality. Sure you could have the government step in and control products and their use of electricity but no government is going to do that.

Ok top of that, The government wants to start eliminating natural gas appliances. Imagine the load increase last night if everyone had an electric stove, dryer, and hot water tank…

I didn't say it was the fkn solution. I said it's part of the solution. Increase output and decrease demand where possible. We are obviously not all living our lives in the most energy efficient ways possible as evidenced by how we were immediately able to lower consumption with one text.

[zamler]

Some of you need to go outside and cool off.

[btimbit]

Energy storage is another very interesting angle to this. The advances around batteries specifically are promising and we've seen many grids around the world add them

[Doctorfever]

If only there was some sort of levy or tax on consumption of electricity that the government imposed. Surely that, in itself, would curb usage.

I jest, but wasn’t that what the intent was?

[zamler]

Did anyone have a power failure? Having lived in the eastern United States for some time I can tell that power delivery there is garbage many outages per year is the norm.

In Alberta we have zero to complain about.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by zamler

In Alberta we have zero to complain about.

I imagine that most complaints are based on the fact that we have the highest energy rates in Canada, which is a fair thing to complain about.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Acey

I imagine that most complaints are based on the fact that we have the highest energy rates in Canada, which is a fair thing to complain about.

Nothing to complain about reliability wise.

[D as in David]

I have a friend who is an executive at a large O&G company and is in charge of a project looking into developing a nuclear power facility in western Canada. He says their estimates currently are showing a 10+ year time frame and over $12B to complete a SMR facility. If they're right, nuclear is ways off from being a solution.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by zamler

Did anyone have a power failure? Having lived in the eastern United States for some time I can tell that power delivery there is garbage many outages per year is the norm.

In Alberta we have zero to complain about.

Exactly why we should improve it now before it gets to the point where we're having power failures

[Flabbibulin]

So is the internet scorn being directed at EV owners reasonable at all? Or are they no more a factor than any other random item?

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Alberta added something like 184,000 people last year, and Canada added close to half a million. You can, and should, try to optimize consumption, but demand is only going to go up in this province and country. If you plan to keep growing the country at this pace, we're going to need more energy generation no matter how efficient we try to be.



I'm not sure it's as much of a hot potato as it used to be. I think slowly more people are coming around to seeing nuclear not only as a viable option for stable baseload energy, but in many ways, the best option in the long term. Governments around the world are backtracking on shutdowns, more new plants are being built and planned, and you're also seeing it starting to see it being embraced by more environmentalists (at least the more practical ones). Perhaps because I follow it, but I see considerably more pro-nuclear stories in the news these days than negative. I think we're coming around!

+1,030,378 people in the first nine months, and over 430 000 in the final quarter. So, yeah, consumption is going to go up even if we all commit to conservation. Kind of a problem across the board in a lot of sectors.