Rachel Notley calls Leap Manifesto 'naive' 'ill-informed' & 'tone-deaf'

424 posts / 0 new

Fri, 2016-06-10 12:38

epaulo13

..txs orange crushed.

Rev Pesky wrote:

epaulo13 wrote:
.....last one i promise..the halting of site c dam which is being built to power the fracking industry in bc. bc dosen't need the power otherwise. the land to be flooded is prime growing soil. it is said the farming can be expanded on this land and could feed a million people. this is political.

There is not a shred of evidence that Site C is being built to provide power for fracking.

As far as BC needing, or not needing, the power, you should study up on the Columbia River Treaty with the USA. BC receives a portion of the power generated by the Columbia River hydro as compensation for upstream water storage built by BC Hydro. That agreement is up for renewal, and there's nothing in the present agreement that guarantees BC will receive that same amount of power in the future.

As to the fertility of the Peace River valley, I guess my question is, how many people is it feeding now? For those not familiar with the geography of BC, Fort St. John, which would be the closest town to Site C is almost as far from Vancouver as San Jose, CA. Driving wise, taking into account fuel prices, etc, it's cheaper to truck fresh produce from California than from the Peace Valley. What is grown in the Peace Valley now? Mostly forage crops for cattle feed.

..there are plenty of shreds. i posted a few myself in the site c thread. one of the last was from a hydro official finally admitting that the dam will power some fracking. up to this point the libs and hydro were denying any connection at all. there is a lot of good reporting on site c here. i've grown to respect and trust damien gillis. he is quite knowledgeable and grew up in the region.

..i'm not fully up on the current farming in the area but i have listened to speakers that talk about not only prime growing soil but also unique in some of the things they grow. the expansion idea comes from the alliance between first nations, farmers, ranchers and others..in the area. and the drought in california makes that a dead end for food. they are in deep crisis there and local is most often the better option anyway. here we have some control over how food is grown and transported. this is a political issue as much as a survival one. a couple years back i read they were transporting grains on sailboats in the kootenays. local can be very inovative.

eta: i'll look into the the columbia river treaty

Fri, 2016-06-10 14:40

#403

Rev Pesky

quizzical wrote:

Rev Pesky wrote:
I already wrote for example that wind power wasn't the only alternative energy source available.

In March 2004, the BC government started accepting bids from geothermal energy companies that want to develop the resource potential in the Meager Creek and Kinbasket Lake (near Valemount, BC) areas.

Perhaps geothermal will do better elsewhere.

you're using old news again. try some newer news.

http://www.cangea.ca/craig-dunn.html

https://www.sdtc.ca/en/organizations/borealis-geopower-inc

http://borealisgeopower.com/

Having looked at their web site, I didn't find any indication that they're actually generating any georthermal electricity. Everything I see is about exploration. Let me know when they are actually generating electiricity.

By the way, the reason there's no 'late news' on Meager Creek is because it has been abandoned as a possible source of geothermal electricity. Bear in mind it was recognized as the best chance in BC, and was worked on for forty years.

Fri, 2016-06-10 14:46

#404

Rev Pesky

mark_alfred wrote:

Rev Pesky wrote:

Solar is less variable than wind, but it has the unfortunate liability of generating the elecricity when you need it least, and not generating it when you need it most.

Isn't demand greatest during the day, when the sun is up, and presumably solar is producing electricity?

Depends on where you live. If you live in Canada, especially northern Canada, the greatest demand for electricity is in the winter, when the days are shortest.

It is true that if you live in the southern USA, there is a great demand for air-conditioning during the day, and during the summer. There's a number of places in the USA where you couldn't live if it weren't for air-conditioning, Palm Springs, for instance. So obviously solar would do better in California than in Yukon.

Fri, 2016-06-10 16:45

#405

mark_alfred

Rev Pesky wrote:

mark_alfred wrote:

Rev Pesky wrote:

Solar is less variable than wind, but it has the unfortunate liability of generating the elecricity when you need it least, and not generating it when you need it most.

Isn't demand greatest during the day, when the sun is up, and presumably solar is producing electricity?

Depends on where you live. If you live in Canada, especially northern Canada, the greatest demand for electricity is in the winter, when the days are shortest.

It is true that if you live in the southern USA, there is a great demand for air-conditioning during the day, and during the summer. There's a number of places in the USA where you couldn't live if it weren't for air-conditioning, Palm Springs, for instance. So obviously solar would do better in California than in Yukon.

Hard to know what to make of your post. Anyway, Toronto Hydro deems the day, not the night, as the time of peak usage, which is why they've introduced a higher rate for this daytime usage. http://www.torontohydro.com/sites/electricsystem/residential/rates/pages...

Fri, 2016-06-10 17:05

#406

JKR

US Energy Storage Market Grew 243% in 2015, Largest Year on Record

Quote:

“We can look back at 2015 as the year when energy storage really took off,” said Ravi Manghani, GTM Research senior energy storage analyst and author of the report. “While most of the growth was limited to a single wholesale market of PJM, we expect growing interest for storage in several markets.”

“Energy storage is changing the paradigm on how we generate, distribute and use energy. With exponential growth predicted over the next couple of years, energy storage solutions will deliver smarter, more dynamic energy services, address peak demand challenges and enable the expanded use of renewable generation like wind and solar,” said Matt Roberts, executive director of the Energy Storage Association (ESA), adding, “The net result will be a more resilient and flexible grid infrastructure that benefits American businesses and consumers.”

Sat, 2016-06-11 13:05

#407

Rev Pesky

mark_alfred wrote:

Rev Pesky wrote:
...Depends on where you live. If you live in Canada, especially northern Canada, the greatest demand for electricity is in the winter, when the days are shortest.

It is true that if you live in the southern USA, there is a great demand for air-conditioning during the day, and during the summer. There's a number of places in the USA where you couldn't live if it weren't for air-conditioning, Palm Springs, for instance. So obviously solar would do better in California than in Yukon.

Hard to know what to make of your post. Anyway, Toronto Hydro deems the day, not the night, as the time of peak usage, which is why they've introduced a higher rate for this daytime usage. http://www.torontohydro.com/sites/electricsystem/residential/rates/pages...

The rates as posted by Ontario Hydro are for summer. As I pointed out, it will be different in the winter when the days are shorter. And the further north you go, the shorter the days in winter.

Here's a chart from Pacific Power

Time of Use Pricing

Peak during the winter is from 6:00 am - 10: am, and from 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm. Where I live it gets dark around 4:30 pm in winter, and there wouldn't be a lot of sunlight at the evening peak time. Even the morning would be mostly dark. Obviously the closer you get to the equator, the less the season matters.

Sat, 2016-06-11 14:14

#408

mark_alfred

The Oregon one you posted still shows that night time is not a peak, but rather early morning and/or late afternoon early evening, but certainly not night. This often seems the case. I suspect part of this is due to the working schedule of people. People get up, make coffee, fry tofu (or eggs and bacon if you're one of those types), then go to work, and at 5PM or so return home, prepare the potatoes, peas, carrots, beets, and spinach (or roast beef if you're one of those types), resulting in residential usage peaking at these times. Working hours could be adjusted. Anyway, it's not night that's a peak. How could when people generally sleep be a peak? It's not, and it's not reflected in any of the jurisdictions that use time-of-day pricing that I've seen.

Here's a couple more examples to add:

Hydro One:

Hydro Quebec:

Quote:
Regarding peak consumption when it’s very cold, Hydro-Québec may ask the public to reduce or postpone using major appliances between 6 and 9 a.m. and between 4 and 8 p.m. during weekdays.

Sat, 2016-06-11 14:24

#409

kropotkin1951

Toronto relies on air conditioning in the summer and they have experienced brown outs because of that load. I think a perfect pairing is solar panels to power air conditioners. When the air conditioning is needed the most is when the solar panels are the most effective. Even without major storage capacity the daytime demand would be significantly reduced. The winter months are the time when Hydro power is at its most abundant because there is plenty of water available.

Sat, 2016-06-11 21:10

#410

NorthReport

Notley's 98% leadership support is phonomenal
Has any NDP leader ever had that high a per cent support
My hunch is the leap manifesto is dead in the water or the federal NDP is dead in the water or more probably both

Sat, 2016-06-11 21:33

#411

JKR

Lately I've been hearing that "gravity energy storage" has a lot of potential to revolutionize energy storage.

http://www.stratosolar.com/gravity-energy-storage.html

http://www.aresnorthamerica.com/article/9085-a-train-that-goes-nowhere-c...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/energy-storage-hits-the-rails-...

Quote:

What is over 4 miles long, is full of dirt and has a potential power output of 50 megawatts?

If you're stumped, don't worry—not many people have heard of energy-storage-by-rail, a concept soon to be launched on the southwestern edge of Nevada. But its architects have high ambitions for a project they say could go a long way toward stabilizing the regional power grid.

Compared to the mechanics of chemical batteries, the idea behind rail storage is simple. During periods of low electricity demand, power is dispatched from the nearby grid to pull a chain of weighted train cars uphill. And there they will sit—losing no power to degradation—until the grid has a period of high power demand. Then they are sent rolling downhill. Their momentum sends electrons back to the grid through a system of regenerative braking that uses the turning power of the wheels to generate electricity.

"They go up, they go down, Slinky fashion," said Francesca Cava, chief operating officer at Advanced Rail Energy Storage North America, the company behind the Nevada project. "For the most part, the technology we're using is over a hundred years old—we're not waiting for any scientific breakthroughs to be profitable."

Sat, 2016-06-11 23:32

#412

mark_alfred

NorthReport wrote:
Notley's 98% leadership support is phonomenal Has any NDP leader ever had that high a per cent support My hunch is the leap manifesto is dead in the water or the federal NDP is dead in the water or more probably both

Yes.

Sun, 2016-06-12 03:27

#413

Orange Crushed

Not necessarily. Notley's high popularity within the Alberta NDP is hardly surprising; but I don't think the federal party should take its lead from her. Notley popularity is less likely to survive the next general election, and even more unlikely to translate into broader NDP support for bitumin export elsewhere.

Sun, 2016-06-12 10:43

#414

NorthReport

You are barking up the wrong tree

Notley stands a good chance of being re-elected

LEAP proponents were brain dead to have initiated it in Alberta

Coal is the enemy not oil and Canada for the sake of our economy must get Alberta's oil to tidewater

And finally and perhaps most importantly, who cares what the NDP does federally as the last election has relegated then to their usual location, the cellar of Canadian politics

The federal NDP is a good debating society though but not much more than that

The results of the next election are already out: Liberals first, Cons second, and the NDP last as usual. The Jack Layton era is over

Sun, 2016-06-12 11:39

#415

Taliesyn

I "love" these ideas for gravity storage of electricity, either through pumping water uphill or rolling train cars. There is a fundamental thermodynamic limit, imposed by the 2nd Law. The pumps and turbines used to move the water up hill and recover the energy coming back down are probably about 80% efficient. To get the total energy efficiency, you multiply. 0.8x0.8=0.64. That meants 36% of the energy generated via the renewable source is LOST to the environment as heat. This further cuts into the load factor of the renewable source, which isn't good anyway. Wind turbines around the world currently have load factors of between 10-12% of installed capacity, which is a pretty terrible investment. That means to be competitive, wind power needs to be a tenth of the cost of natural gas. Today it is more expensive.

Sun, 2016-06-12 11:40

#416

Taliesyn

I highly doubt much power from Site C will end up being used for fracking. Why? Because fracking pumps are usually powered by diesel engines or gas turbines. They need a lot of power for a short period of time. Far cheaper to use portable power rather than building power lines to remote sites. Fracking doesn't use electricity....

Sun, 2016-06-12 12:53

#417

Rev Pesky

Taliesyn wrote:

I highly doubt much power from Site C will end up being used for fracking. Why? Because fracking pumps are usually powered by diesel engines or gas turbines. They need a lot of power for a short period of time. Far cheaper to use portable power rather than building power lines to remote sites. Fracking doesn't use electricity....

As you say. Especially right now the economic case for using Site C to power fracking is non-existent. Natural gas prices were hovering near $0.50 per thousand cubic feet. No kind of electricity could compete with that. As well, fracking is going on now, without Site C, and Site C wouldn't be on line for another ten years. I suspect the linking of Site C with fracking is purely for propaganda purposes.

As to the pumping of water uphill to storage, I don't disagree with your math. My reason for accepting that type of storage is simply that it reduces the 'noise' level of wind powered generation. The single biggest problem with wind generation is it's variability. Finding some way to reduce that variability would make it much more useful.

Sun, 2016-06-12 13:09

#418

Rev Pesky

JKR wrote:

US Energy Storage Market Grew 243% in 2015, Largest Year on Record

Quote:

“We can look back at 2015 as the year when energy storage really took off,” said Ravi Manghani, GTM Research senior energy storage analyst and author of the report. “While most of the growth was limited to a single wholesale market of PJM, we expect growing interest for storage in several markets.”

“Energy storage is changing the paradigm on how we generate, distribute and use energy. With exponential growth predicted over the next couple of years, energy storage solutions will deliver smarter, more dynamic energy services, address peak demand challenges and enable the expanded use of renewable generation like wind and solar,” said Matt Roberts, executive director of the Energy Storage Association (ESA), adding, “The net result will be a more resilient and flexible grid infrastructure that benefits American businesses and consumers.”

I'll just point out that most of that storage is lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are not green, or sustainable.

Tue, 2016-06-14 13:05

#419

epaulo13

Alberta NDP refuses to debate fracking resolutions

The Council of Canadians supported the call for the Alberta NDP to adopt at their convention this weekend (June 10-12) resolutions backing both a moratorium on fracking and a comprehensive expert study into it.

We circulated this petition calling on members of the Alberta NDP to support these two resolutions on fracking.

There were early signs of trouble.

On Friday afternoon, the Calgary Sun reported, "Resolutions will first be discussed Friday by closed-door panels of party members who will decide whether the policies will make it to the floor on the weekend for further debate." In the early afternoon, a National Observer reporter tweeted, "Motion to implement a moratorium on hydraulic fracking defeated by delegates on the convention floor." Later that afternoon, CBC noted, "Motions to bump the items on fracking and pipelines closer to the front of the agenda were defeated on Friday, as the convention got underway."

And by Sunday night the Calgary Herald reported, "Some delegates expressed disappointment over a lack of debate over controversial resolutions on pipelines and hydraulic fracturing. Paul Lawson, a labour delegate from Calgary, said he sensed the party is fearful of anything suggestive of the Leap Manifesto, an anti-fossil fuel agenda under discussion by the federal NDP that has been strongly condemned by [Premier Rachel] Notley and her government. He said in an interview that the resolution calling for a moratorium on fracking in Alberta should have been brought to the floor given the concerns that exist in rural areas."

It is too bad because the resolutions really only reflected what Ms. Notley had said less than four years ago while in opposition.

In August 2012, as the party's environment critic, she stated, "If we don't get a better ... understanding of what's safe for Albertans, we run the risk of doing some really long-term damage. In Alberta, we have no regulation — at all — that specifically covers fracking activity. [Questions need to be answered before] we start holus-bolus giving out water to the fracking industry without knowing the safety that needs to come along with that."

But that was then and this is now....

Tue, 2016-06-14 13:11

#420

epaulo13

..from 2014

What the Site C Dam is really for: an explosion of new fracking wells

The idea that the proposed Site C Dam on the Peace River is going to be used for supplying electrical energy to all of British Columbia is utterly naïve.

I say this because the site of this proposed project is directly over the Montney Formation shale gas deposit, with reserves of 449 trillion cubic feet of marketable natural gas, 14,521 million barrels of marketable natural gas liquids (NGLs) and 1,125 million barrels of oil.

The Montney Formation is the largest shale gas deposit in British Columbia. It straddles the Alberta-BC border; and is next to numerous other shale gas deposits on both sides of the border. At present, there is a gold rush mentality related to the Montney Formation, with fracking companies falling all over themselves to draw in new business.

quote:

Fracking operations use large amounts of water – the very commodity that will be stored in abundance behind the Site C Dam. A typical fracking well consumes between 7,500,000 and 15,000,000 litres of water.

But fracking a particular well often has to be repeated over and over. Total water consumption for any given well can reach as high as 70,000,000 litres.

Multiply this figure by several thousand (the state of Kansas alone, less than 1/4 the size of BC, has 57,000 fracking wells within its borders), and the volume of freshwater consumed by this process escalates into the billions of litres.

In discussions of fracking operations, there is another input that is almost never mentioned. And that's electricity.

The 1,000 HP pumps that power drill rigs, lower casings into drill holes, send fracking fluid down several kilometers below the Earth’s surface, and pump out gas and “process water” (the name given to fracking fluids after they have been used deep underground”) all have to be powered by some sort of energy.

Out in the country, far from urban eyes, fracking operations are typically powered by generators fueled by the very hydrocarbons that are being extracted from the earth. The noise and air pollution generated by these machines contaminates the local air, but doesn’t cause the same unrest that would be generated in a city or a town.

But in and around heavily populated areas, electricity is taken directly off local electrical grids, in part because air pollution would be unacceptable, and in part because the electricity is easily accessible.

Wed, 2016-06-15 13:40

#421

Rev Pesky

From the above posted:

Quote:
...Out in the country, far from urban eyes, fracking operations are typically powered by generators fueled by the very hydrocarbons that are being extracted from the earth. The noise and air pollution generated by these machines contaminates the local air, but doesn’t cause the same unrest that would be generated in a city or a town.

But in and around heavily populated areas, electricity is taken directly off local electrical grids, in part because air pollution would be unacceptable, and in part because the electricity is easily accessible.

So why wouldn't the fracking operators in northern BC use the same fuel as the Kansas frackers 'far from urban eyes'? Economically it wouldn't make any sense to use electricity when you not only have the fuel on site, but the price of that fuel makes electricity uncompetitive.

The above article shows clearly the anti-Site C crowd are desperate. But it also clearly shows that there's not a shred of evidence that Site C will be used for fracking, or will destroy BC's food supply.

Hydro electrical generation is green, probable greener than wind generation. So why are the green crowd so opposed to green energy? By the way, there are already two power dams on the Peace River in BC. Where is that electricity going, I wonder?

Thu, 2016-06-16 04:15

#422

Orange Crushed

NorthReport wrote:
You are barking up the wrong tree Notley stands a good chance of being re-elected LEAP proponents were brain dead to have initiated it in Alberta Coal is the enemy not oil and Canada for the sake of our economy must get Alberta's oil to tidewater And finally and perhaps most importantly, who cares what the NDP does federally as the last election has relegated then to their usual location, the cellar of Canadian politics The federal NDP is a good debating society though but not much more than that The results of the next election are already out: Liberals first, Cons second, and the NDP last as usual. The Jack Layton era is over

So are the nineteen fifties, where going for a Sunday ride with the family or cruising up and down the road were seen as harmless past times. Oil is not an enemy, we should just leave more of it where we found it. That's the future and te fortunes of the federal NDP are far more important nationally than this short term aberration in Alberta.

Thu, 2016-06-16 07:52

#423

montrealer58 montrealer58's picture

It used to be cheaper to leave the lights on in large commercial buildings than to pay someone to switch them off. This was when Hydro was very cheap. Getting off of oil will result in a change of how we live and work. We have to face the fact that we are left with all this technology from the last century which has to be refurbished, made more efficient, and if necessary replaced.

There is no way that I think that technology will solve the problem on its own. But we do have to deal with technology, old and new. I am hoping for a change in our atrocious employment and poverty situation in Canada, and putting people to work in the energy efficiency/renewable power/maintenance/operations sector will mitigate this.

Energy and technology will tell us where the work has to be done. It is only the beginning.

Sat, 2016-06-25 14:14

#424

mark_alfred

Mr. Magoo wrote:

A curious conundrum of some "green" things.

Compact Fluorescent light bulbs are supposed to be the "green" alternative to old incandescents. But I note that you can throw old incandescents in the garbage if you want-- they're just a few grams of glass and a bit of zinc alloy metal.

They say Reduce, Reuse, Recycle when it comes to good environmental practices. Incandescent lightbulbs were an early effort by industry in the effort of "planned obsolescence" (a phrase coined somewhat later.) One of the first incandescent lightbulbs is still burning today, over a hundred years later, before changes in how they were made caused them to burn out after short usage, to promote continual consumer spending on them. The savings in material and manufacturing if things were made to last might help reduce ghg (though perhaps incandescents simply aren't appropriate).

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160612-heres-the-truth-about-the-plann...

Rachel Notley calls Leap Manifesto 'naive' 'ill-informed' & 'tone-deaf'

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