Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Yoho]

Let’s see the Feds do nothing, not compromise at all, and let these left leaning fairytale green energy companies who have been promised the world lose millions.

Smith knows full well the odds of this Liberal crew being around post Federal election is small.

[DFO]

Originally Posted by Yoho

Let’s see the Feds do nothing, not compromise at all, and let these left leaning fairytale green energy companies who have been promised the world lose millions.

So the UCP is being spiteful at the expense of jobs and investments in Alberta infrastructure? Brilliant!

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by DFO

So the UCP is being spiteful at the expense of jobs and investments in Alberta infrastructure? Brilliant!

Really brings out the FYIGM mentality of the right.

[Tron_fdc]

Originally Posted by Yoho

Let’s see the Feds do nothing, not compromise at all, and let these left leaning fairytale green energy companies who have been promised the world lose millions.

Again, these "left leaning fairytale green energy companies" include O&G operators looking for carbon offsets via renewable generation.

Carbon offsets required by Alberta's carbon tax.

Which was implemented by Klein.

[Yoho]

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

Again, these "left leaning fairytale green energy companies" include O&G operators looking for carbon offsets via renewable generation.

Carbon offsets required by Alberta's carbon tax.

Which was implemented by Klein.

Who probably also have a vested interest in natural gas as well.

[Wormius]

How this is good for the province? Does Smith know?

[Monahammer]

Does Smith even know when the next federal election is? I doubt it.

[Yoho]

Originally Posted by Wormius

How this is good for the province? Does Smith know?

Energy bills won’t be 5x current amount and people of the province will have uninterrupted heat in thier homes in the winter for starters?

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Yoho

Energy bills won’t be 5x current amount and people of the province will have uninterrupted heat in thier homes in the winter for starters?

How many times was your heat shut off last winter?

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by sketchyt

Yoho in a GIF:

Replace the treadmill running belt with a Twitter feed.

[Mr.Coffee]

Any “energy transition” strategy, if applied too quickly, is obviously going to cost way more than what the Feds would like anyone to believe. I am extremely doubtful that the costs are going to be what the Feds are purporting here.

Look at any energy transition scheme worldwide in any jurisdictions, it is not cheap and it will cost a lot. Pretty confident in that.

Now that all said, to stunt or prevent or stop or delay or whatever, any new investments into renewables or any technology or not support businesses or fledgling investments in these fields- is idiotic. Full stop. Alberta has the potential to be an energy superpower and a logical place to be the technological and investment hotbed of such research and development and head offices for these types of companies. I see no reason whatsoever why Alberta wouldn’t want this. It doesn’t even stop, prevent or delay oil and gas investment because anyone who has a read on energy use and oil and gas demand knows oil and gas is going to still be around and active for decades- even with the development of renewables and transition energies. To attempt to curate policy or political rhetoric to try and pit renewables vs. Oil and gas shows just how ideological and short-sighted Smith is.

Yoho you say Smith is fighting for her constituents. I disagree, because what she is doing is actually not in their best interests for the long term. As has been mentioned, carbon hubs and many other carbon reduction projects are key investment portfolios of almost every major oil and gas company in Canada today. CNRL, Strathcona, Tourmaline, Suncor, (all Pathways partners), Wolf, AltaGas, Pembina, Keyera, etc. etc. on and on- all have carbon reduction projects, carbon capture projects, projects that hinge on the carbon tax and current plan to escalate to $170/T that the feds put out a few years ago. Why on earth would you scrap or reverse that after all of your industry is already moving in lockstep with the policy and which doubles with being able to boast that the industry truly IS world class and frontier burning in applying new oil and gas technologies that are better for the environment. If this is the Canadian oil and gas brand, saying that we’re the best and brightest and should be given social license for these projects, why would you stunt it by reversing the policies that enabled companies to economically enable these long-term projects?

Alberta can be an energy superpower, not just an oil and gas superpower. It provides long-term investment, jobs, and regional growth and we have the engineering and technical talent to do it, as well as access to reliable capital markets. It makes so much sense, so I just don’t understand where the UCP is coming from other than- the only thing I think they’re right about- that a transition plan that is overly aggressive WILL be overly burdensome on average Albertans. But that’s really just a matter of negotiation with the feds.

[calf]

Originally Posted by Tron_fdc

Again, these "left leaning fairytale green energy companies" include O&G operators looking for carbon offsets via renewable generation.

Carbon offsets required by Alberta's carbon tax.

Which was implemented by Klein.

It's pretty easy to tell who is strawmanning how the renewable energy industry works. No one, and I mean no one, in the industry thinks wind and solar energy is going to cover all of the province's energy needs in the near future until large-scale storage is available in some point...we're not anywhere close to that. Wind is unpredictable. Solar is actually generally predictable, but only for sunlight hours of course. But again, everyone in the industry knows this.

From an economics perspective there's a number of things that don't get discussed:
1) Under the current scheme, adding additional generation to the pool will reduce the market energy prices for everyone. Why would a renewable company tank market prices? They're not. Many renewable developers are entering into long-term virtual power purchase agreements with large companies, effectively selling Recs, which locks in a favorable price for the generator, allows the purchaser to show they're sourcing electricity from green sources. Free market solutions for free market problems.
2) Like you said, carbon emitters can purchase carbon offsets produced by renewable companies at a lower price than the carbon tax they would be paying. An additional revenue stream for the developer, a cost-effective solution for industry. The free market in action, yet again.
3) Banks, investors, etc are looking to boost their green energy portfolios as well and are lining up to do so, regardless of O&G. It doesn't make sense for a government to stifle investment and job creating activities.


Realistically, grid capacity does need to be looked at and expanded, but that's not simply a supply-side problem. As more and more machinery, vehicles, etc are electrified, the grid needs to be expanded to handle the demand load - and well in advance to ensure the system can handle the load. Realistically, if we're so worried about utility bills, the current transmission and distribution system should be under the microscope. That all being said, the AUC is already within its rights to not add generation if the system can't handle it. As well, developers are required to clean up their sites at the end of their life, just like O&G. In my past O&G job, we went through some massive exercises on liability management with the AER. Bringing in similar rules without pausing an entire booming industry to have a level playing field seems completely reasonable.

[Whynotnow]

Originally Posted by calf

It's pretty easy to tell who is strawmanning how the renewable energy industry works. No one, and I mean no one, in the industry thinks wind and solar energy is going to cover all of the province's energy needs in the near future until large-scale storage is available in some point...we're not anywhere close to that. Wind is unpredictable. Solar is actually generally predictable, but only for sunlight hours of course. But again, everyone in the industry knows this.

From an economics perspective there's a number of things that don't get discussed:
1) Under the current scheme, adding additional generation to the pool will reduce the market energy prices for everyone. Why would a renewable company tank market prices? They're not. Many renewable developers are entering into long-term virtual power purchase agreements with large companies, effectively selling Recs, which locks in a favorable price for the generator, allows the purchaser to show they're sourcing electricity from green sources. Free market solutions for free market problems.
2) Like you said, carbon emitters can purchase carbon offsets produced by renewable companies at a lower price than the carbon tax they would be paying. An additional revenue stream for the developer, a cost-effective solution for industry. The free market in action, yet again.
3) Banks, investors, etc are looking to boost their green energy portfolios as well and are lining up to do so, regardless of O&G. It doesn't make sense for a government to stifle investment and job creating activities.


Realistically, grid capacity does need to be looked at and expanded, but that's not simply a supply-side problem. As more and more machinery, vehicles, etc are electrified, the grid needs to be expanded to handle the demand load - and well in advance to ensure the system can handle the load. Realistically, if we're so worried about utility bills, the current transmission and distribution system should be under the microscope. That all being said, the AUC is already within its rights to not add generation if the system can't handle it. As well, developers are required to clean up their sites at the end of their life, just like O&G. In my past O&G job, we went through some massive exercises on liability management with the AER. Bringing in similar rules without pausing an entire booming industry to have a level playing field seems completely reasonable.

Nice post, I will add that a lot of prominent energy companies have made significant ESG commitments themselves to shareholders and in rare cases bond holders. Alberta was a good jurisdiction because if you consume power here cost is very high and producing here in a renewable way helps to offset that. She now stands in the way of these organizations doing what they need/want do do. Some of them also have other investment opportunities in different jurisdictions, they will very quickly move on.

Brilliant move here…

[Barnes]

A couple of interesting renewable energy projects that are being worked on by the left leaning, green, fairytale energy company TC Energy here in Alberta. I believe neither are impacted by the latest moratorium.

Canyon Creek Pumped Storage Project.
https://www.tcenergy.com/operations/...umped-storage/

Saddlebrook Solar + Energy Storage Project near Aldersyde.
https://www.tcenergy.com/operations/...r-and-storage/
This one will use storage technology supplied from the left leaning, green, fairytale Lockheed Martin company.

[Yoho]

Originally Posted by Whynotnow

Nice post, I will add that a lot of prominent energy companies have made significant ESG commitments themselves to shareholders and in rare cases bond holders. Alberta was a good jurisdiction because if you consume power here cost is very high and producing here in a renewable way helps to offset that. She now stands in the way of these organizations doing what they need/want do do. Some of them also have other investment opportunities in different jurisdictions, they will very quickly move on.

Brilliant move here…

Once they leave they won’t ever come back…

This is politics for sure but I don’t mind a little politics stuffed back in the Feds face, let’s see how this plays out before we say this is the end of the world.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Yoho

Once they leave they won’t ever come back…

This is politics for sure but I don’t mind a little politics stuffed back in the Feds face, let’s see how this plays out before we say this is the end of the world.

Cool - so you want to stick it to the feds because you find that funny, but what about the thousands of Albertans that have just potentially lost their jobs because of this dumb moratorium on renewables and the redirected investment opportunities to other jurisdictions by energy companies? Do you think that's funny too?

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Yoho

This is politics for sure but I don’t mind a little politics stuffed back in the Feds face, let’s see how this plays out before we say this is the end of the world.

So what you’re saying is you’re a cut your nose off to spite your face kinda guy?

[Whynotnow]

Originally Posted by Yoho

Once they leave they won’t ever come back…

This is politics for sure but I don’t mind a little politics stuffed back in the Feds face, let’s see how this plays out before we say this is the end of the world.

Geez man, I didn’t say that. But they will invest elsewhere right now while the UCP decides to fiddle with this issue. That means jobs and capital will leave the province for a while. All in the pursuit of what exactly again?

I don’t get how you can celebrate everything that goes on here, she can fight the fight on natural gas base load and she should AND allow for renewable development to continue. There was zero reason to take this step.

It really, really is ok for you to look at something she’s done and say, oops that was a mistake.

[Yoho]

Originally Posted by Whynotnow

Geez man, I didn’t say that. But they will invest elsewhere right now while the UCP decides to fiddle with this issue. That means jobs and capital will leave the province for a while. All in the pursuit of what exactly again?

I don’t get how you can celebrate everything that goes on here, she can fight the fight on natural gas base load and she should AND allow for renewable development to continue. There was zero reason to take this step.

It really, really is ok for you to look at something she’s done and say, oops that was a mistake.

I hear what you are saying and you have valid points.

There are very few mechanism to get Steven G’s attention to realize the effects of what he’s bludgeoning thru for this 2035 adgenda , right or wrong DS has gone down this path with it.

[Yoho]

Originally Posted by Muta

Cool - so you want to stick it to the feds because you find that funny, but what about the thousands of Albertans that have just potentially lost their jobs because of this dumb moratorium on renewables and the redirected investment opportunities to other jurisdictions by energy companies? Do you think that's funny too?

I missed your tears for the workers when Keystone got moth balled