The Energy Transition and technologies

[Azure]

Hard to believe that such a ruling would stand against an actual court order.

But yeah, that is about as dumb as it gets. Damage to the state forests? Good lord.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Quebec's electricity export "pipelines" continue to run into the same problems that Alberta's oil pipelines have.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/maine-...ebec-1.6233569

It's hilarious(sad) that it's being opposed by the oil and gas industry, and environmentalists. See, they can work together.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Quebec's electricity export "pipelines" continue to run into the same problems that Alberta's oil pipelines have.




https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/maine-...ebec-1.6233569

You hate to see it.

[Torture]

Let's build a transmission line from QC to Alberta to get Alberta on clean hydro. We can call it Energy West.
Note: not a serious idea.

But more seriously, high voltage, long distance transmission lines are the new pipelines. Nobody wants them in their backyard but as we electrify everything and try to move clean electricity across the country/manage intermittency issues we're going to need them.

The US is already working on it, Canada should be doing the same.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-...electric-grid/

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Torture

Let's build a transmission line from QC to Alberta to get Alberta on clean hydro. We can call it Energy West.

Note: not a serious idea.

I vote that Manitoba blocks this from going across our great province and damaging our forests and instead builds the exact same line from Manitoba to Alberta.

[woob]

I see another win for Musk here; The Boring Company contracts itself to major electric utility companies to bore all their transmission lines for them. Win/win!

[Azure]

So woke. Greta is proud.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1455899848520183813

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Azure

So woke. Greta is proud.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1455899848520183813

And the part of "renewables" that comes from burning garbage mixed with natural gas doesn't seem super environmentally friendly to me.

[Azure]

And if they mean wood as in burning wood, that isn't renewable either, and is terrible for releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

[opendoor]

That's what happens when you don't have a carbon tax. There's no incentive to go for the more expensive but more environmentally friendly options like hydro or nuclear when gas is plentiful and cheap.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Azure

And if they mean wood as in burning wood, that isn't renewable either, and is terrible for releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

That's actually what it is, some of the biomass plants are also repurposed coal power plants.



https://news.sky.com/story/climate-c...laims-12428130

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Azure

And if they mean wood as in burning wood, that isn't renewable either, and is terrible for releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

But wood is green!

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Torture

Let's build a transmission line from QC to Alberta to get Alberta on clean hydro. We can call it Energy West.
Note: not a serious idea.

But more seriously, high voltage, long distance transmission lines are the new pipelines. Nobody wants them in their backyard but as we electrify everything and try to move clean electricity across the country/manage intermittency issues we're going to need them.

It's criminal Alberta has not started the process of building a line to Site C. That project is a 2025 ISD. An HVDC link is about 10 years development start to finish. That line would be about 600 km and cost $3.5B for 2,000MW.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

But wood is green!

Burning wood is basically carbon neutral on a pretty short time scale, because of carbon recapture. Pretty much anywhere you cut down a lumber tree a new one storing a similar amount of carbon is up in 10-20 years.

Wood construction is generally a time limited form of carbon sequestration. Us biology to suck CO2 out of the air, hold it in solid form for ~100 years

Probably the greenest option we have for a lot of physical goods

[Azure]

Uptake in wood materials is massive if done properly. If they are burning wood, it is probably wood chips which could be repurposed into melamine or MDF fiber products for which there is a big demand right now.

Just a dumb idea across the board and we should be legislating against it.

[Azure]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1455920572429266949

https://twitter.com/user/status/1455920976659550221

[Fuzz]

The shameful part is they are using a lot more than wood scrap for this BS biomass "green" energy. They are using whole trees. They like to pretend it is just waste product, but it goes way beyond that. This is just one news story, there are many out there.

https://biv.com/article/2020/04/tree...under-scrutiny

We will see a lot of this going on as countries swear off coal plants for renewables, and then realize they need reliable power and the only thing they can do in the short term is burn wood. This is the danger of moving to wind and solar with no plan.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

It's hilarious(sad) that it's being opposed by the oil and gas industry, and environmentalists. See, they can work together.

The story I've read is that they've said that Quebec hydro power isn't very green because it results in flooding that kills trees. And those trees release their carbon when they die.

It sounds like nonsense to me, but that's part of the opposition story behind getting people to reject the transmission lines.

[SeeGeeWhy]

It is somewhat complex, but a huge portion of the US Eastern Seaboard and Ontario are planning on Hydro Quebec to be able to snap their fingers and turn export capacity on as nuclear plants get retired.

Quebec can't even supply it's domestic demand in the winter they are a net importer during heating season. There is no amount of interties that you can build to overcome a lack of generation when all of your neighbours are also short of generation to supply.

Furthermore it's not like there are a huge number of opportunities to build more new hydro in Quebec or Labrador.

I don't know where all of these people are getting the idea that Hydro Quebec is some infinite source of clean, easy power but that's the way regulators in NY, Maine, Vermont, Mass, and Ontario are acting. These decisions will not only cost a lot of money, they will kill people in extreme weather periods. Absolutely predictable AND insane.

[SeeGeeWhy]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

The story I've read is that they've said that Quebec hydro power isn't very green because it results in flooding that kills trees. And those trees release their carbon when they die.

It sounds like nonsense to me, but that's part of the opposition story behind getting people to reject the transmission lines.

Biomass by tree is not exactly carbon neutral, and the carbon being captured is still in the biosphere. It's a temporary hold at best. Canada's boreal forests have been net emitters for about 17 years because of forest fires and invasive pests. The pests knock the trees down and they rot, emitting methane which is a more potent GHG.

Hydro can be an emitter in operation through a similar process of methane production, but it isn't just the trees that get flooded out. You get upstream methane forming from algae and other plant material that grows, dies and rots, but you also get methane off-gassing downstream after the water flows through the turbines because some of that methane produced upstream will be dissolved in the water and released once it is agitated. One paper I read a while back estimated that downstream hydro sites in Brazil accounted for 3% of all the methane released in the Amazon Basin which was a significant figure.

I seem to recall that a significant portion of this methane could be captured and combusted to produce power and reduce the potency of methane as a GHG, but I don't think it is a common practice.