2024: @johnrhanger:
Milestone: solar beats coal during March in Texas!
TX generates & consumes more electricity than any other state. Demand is rising rapidly & solar generation is skyrocketing in TX.
Solar exceeding coal for a month in TX is a clean energy milestone!
Dr. Anthony Ingraffea:
“Fracked gas is not a bridge fuel. It’s a gangplank to more warming.”
@TheBreakdownAB April 5, 2024:
“On Wednesday, the SMRID revealed eight inches of water per acre will be allocated this summer – a drop of about 50 per cent compared to normal.”
So farmers in Southern Alberta get half the water they normally would for crops.
Fracking get cut yet?
Kooteneys@shummutt:
Mean while the farmers are out protesting the carbon tax
Ian@ian7952327:
Farm fuels are carbon tax exempt
Kooteneys@shummutt:
I know that…but do they? Who’s driving all the tractors to the protests?
I bet people from or farmers paid by Steve Harper’s hideously evil hate-driven IDU with its intent to destroy democracy in Canada and get Pierre Picklehead into power as PM (India and China reportedly interfered in the Canadian con party leadership race, to make Picklehead leader; I expect Zionists and Israel meddle too to get pro genocidal politicians into power, and Harper put Zionist judges on our benches – they are likely also interfering). Harper tried but failed to destroy Canada while he was PM. So, now, he and his dirty creepy lying old white man ilk are trying again with Pierre Picklehead and fabricated (and paid for) Fucker Trucker rage.
TinkieGurl@sharib1959:
The majority of farmers are too busy getting ready for seeding.
Raptor fella- full time Russiaphobe@raptorgirlSK:
Its time to talk about the coal mines and the problems we face downstream from contaminated water to lack of water.
brenda@BrendaD2019:
and what about those coal mines
Hilary Tanasichuk@HTanasichuk:
We need a comprehensive water use, allocation and retention policy. What is being done to reduce or re-negotiate industrial and commercial water use? Fracking, bottled water, coca-cola licences, just to mention the obvious???
Canadian Shoe Smuggler@Gisele_ShoeSmug:
The majority of water goes to agriculture- feeding cows or growing their feed. I’m no fan of using water for fracking but it’s negligible compared to ag use.But, only water injected for enhanced oil recovery, SAGD and frac’ing is lost forever to reuse. Agricultural and municipal uses do not remove water permanently from the hydrogeological cycle like frac’ing does which is why frac’ing must be criminalized.
A proportion (25% to 100%) of the water used in hydraulic fracturing is not recovered, and consequently this water is lost permanently to re-use, which differs from some other water uses in which water can be recovered and processed for re-use.
Images above by Barb Ryan, Fox Creek (frac central) Alberta
Southern Alberta farmers allocated 50% less water than normal for 2024: SMRID by Karsen Marczuk, CTV News Lethbridge Video Journalist, April 4, 2024
While farmers in southern Alberta will soon be gearing up to plant this year’s crops, those in the St. Mary’s River Irrigation District (SMRID) now know how much water they’ll be receiving.
On Wednesday, the SMRID revealed eight inches of water per acre will be allocated this summer – a drop of about 50 per cent compared to normal.
“A typical allocation for us in a typical water supply year – or average water supply year – is about 16 inches,” said David Westwood, general manager of the SMRID.
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Westwood says the set amount will now allow more wiggle room depending on spring precipitation.
Heading into another potential drought-like summer, he believes the number is high enough to get irrigators through.
“Now that they know (the) number they can finalize their plans, they’re ready for it and will make it work along with other measures in the province dealing with drought that we have in the southern half of the province that we’re all looking towards,” Westwood said.
One of those preparing for a busy season is Johnson Fresh Farms. Co-owner James Johnson says the hot weather in the summer is great for Taber corn, but the need for water is just as important.
“Early season corn, it’s in the ground much shorter and it’ll use much less water than our late season corn,” Johnson explained. “But, on average – between our early and our late – right around 15 inches would be preferred.”
The SMRID provides water to 504,000 acres of land between Lethbridge and Medicine Hat.
While it’s below average, Johnson says they’ll make it work for the growing season, while others are finding alternative drought-like crops to plant.
“Guys are looking at their total amount of acres and maybe what they can spare and do a few less intense or high water using crops and swapping them out for ones that would consume much less,” he said.
While the end results are unknown, both Johnson and Westwood say all they can do now is hope for a wet spring.
“Irrigators are very resourceful and I truly believe they will be able to find water to grow a satisfactory crop,” Westwood said.
“Will it be a bumper crop this year? That’ll all depend on whether we get additional precipitation.”
Alberta’s second grid alert in 2 days leads to rolling blackouts by Bill Macfarlane and Michael Franklin, April 5, 2024, CTVNews
The Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) issued another grid alert on Friday, the second in the past two days, and ENMAX says it led them to shut down power to a number of Calgary communities.
As of 6:49 a.m., AESO declared the alert “due to a tight supply.”
“Generation is slowly coming online, and we expect conditions to return to normal by 10 a.m.,” AESO said.
During a grid alert, Albertans are asked to take energy saving measures such as turning off unnecessary lights and appliances, minimizing use of air conditioners and space heaters and using cold water to wash clothes as much of the energy used in washing machines goes to heating water.
ENMAX reported Friday morning that it had been instructed to put ‘rolling blackouts’ in place in several Calgary communities to help control power consumption.
.@theAESO has issued a province-wide directive that power consumption must be reduced due to an imbalance in supply and demand. Customers in the areas of Martindale, Castleridge, Falconridge, Panorama Hills, Coventry Hills, Golden Triangle, Foothills, Eastfield 1/2 — ENMAX Power (@ENMAXpower) April 5, 2024
As of 10 a.m., calls to ENMAX’s info number has a recorded message saying the service is experiencing “a higher than normal call volume” due to the number of communities experiencing power outages.
“ENMAX crews are currently investigating to restore power and quickly and safely as possible,” the message said.
‘Built the system completely backwards’
Premier Danielle Smith, speaking at a school announcement in Brooks, said the issue in Alberta is that the electricity system’s been built to favour renewable sources ahead of fossil fuels.
“We’ve built a structure that gives priority to wind and solar,” she said. “When wind and solar don’t materialize, it takes a couple of hours to power up our natural gas (plants).
“We’ve built the system completely backwards.”Ugly evil liar, and Smith knows it. Some countries and states are powering their grids, and many EVs, solely on wind and solar.
Smith says that system needs to be built on “reliable base load power” instead of relying on the forecasts of what wind and solar could generate each day.
Alberta used to have 90 per cent of its power generated by coal generators, Smith said, and it was easier for the system to manage.
With coal out of the picture, Smith said the province is in a balancing act.
“What we’re trying to do is match our natural gas to jack up and go down on the basis of whether the sun jacks up and goes down and wind goes up and jacks down.
“It’s creating these gaps, which are filled by either higher spikes in prices – and people are seeing that on their power bill – or we’re ending up with this system instability.”
Smith said the issues Alberta has seen with its grid alerts and brownouts underlines the fact that the province can’t build a system that only consists of wind and solar.
“It just isn’t possible.”
Looking to other jurisdictions
Smith said her government is looking at a number of other options to solve Alberta’s power crunch, including the possibility of tapping more heavily into the grids of its neighbours.
“It’s not just with B.C., it’s also with Saskatchewan and certainly Montana,” she said.
However, there is an issue with accessing electricity generated with B.C., Smith said.
“It’s not really a fair relationship. When they buy it from us, they buy it at zero power and when we buy it from them, we’re competing with California, which can see prices go up to $5,000 per megawatt hour,” she said.
“So we don’t actually have an agreement with B.C. that would give us priority.”
‘Unexpected generation loss’
At 8:12 p.m. on Wednesday, the agency said an “unexpected generation loss” also led to a grid alert.
University of Calgary economics professor Blake Shaffer, who worked for a decade and a half as an energy trader, said the province needs a more flexible system, inlcuding pricing that helps shift demand to off-peak hours, so-called “peaker plants” that can provide short-term bursts of power.
He also said the system connecting Alberta’s grid to other jurisdictions needs work, both to increase the amount of power that can be brought in, but also the self-imposed price cap that leaves Alberta unable to outbid American states that are sometimes bidding on that same power.
“This is an outage story,” Shaffer said. “So what you have right now is you have several large power plants offline for maintenance. The Sheppard gas plant in Calgary, the currently biggest power plant in the province, is offline.
“You had several very large ‘baseload power plants’ suddenly go offline, over the span of 24 hours,” he added, “at different times — and that is very hard for a grid operator to manage here.”
Friday afternoon, AESO said that on Thursday night, they expected to have 800 MW more power than needed, but forecasts changed overnight, and 900 MW of renewable energy didn’t come through.
To compound matters, one natural gas plant “tripped” off-line unexpectedly, robbing 400 MW of power from the grid, causing blackouts to ensue.
That all came on top of the fact that the Shepard Power Plant in Calgary, which is the province’s largest, was already down for scheduled maintenance.
“We had a bunch of generation that either had some planned outages and others that were just returning to service due to being off yesterday,” said AESO vice-president of grid reliability, Marie-France Samaroden. “And so those take a while to ramp up.”
AESO said that disruption was caused by a number of factors, but an “unexpected outage of thermal generation led to tight conditions.”
A full list of conservation tips can be found on the AESO website(opens in a new tab).
The Smith government is expected to share further details on electricity agreements with neighbouring jurisdictions in the coming months.
Moelinty@moelinty:
It is the @Alberta_UCP & @ABDanielleSmith playing games. I’m wondering what they promised the electricity company’s to do this? Something stinks #Daniellesmithisaliar #ableg
Alberta You See Pee@youseepeeYYC:
What makes you think these “failures” are not desired results of #UCP policy?
Flapjack@FlapjackFly:
It’s not hot or cold, how can this happen ?
lovinlife@lumber2014:
And during and right after her 500.00 a plate hate the federal government dinner!
CRae@CRae_Bourbon:
They absolutely are. Read the comments under Smith and Neudorf’s tweets about the grid alerts. Full of UCP trolls demanding coal power. I give it a few weeks before Smith says she’s listened to Albertans and Albertans want coal power back.And, AER will approve Billionaire Gina Reinhart’s greedy evil destructive water contaminating Grassy Mountain coal projectMeanwhile, we all pay more.
What I will never understand is why the same people who live in the area systematically vote in conservative governments against their own interest. If you can articulate so well the reason why coal mining is so damaging, why can’t you complete your job as citizens to vote in a government that will put a stop to it. In Livingston-McLeod in 2023 the Alberta NDP had an outstanding candidate in Kevin Van Tighem. Why didn’t you vote him in.
@avry_wilson:
AESO web notes cause. But it ain’t cold, and no specificity on the last two. Which leaves them blaming wind and solar.
This is politics. Nothing wrong with the grid.And tragically, Albertans for the most part are greedy and stupid enough to fall for PC/UCP/CPC political trickery; I’ve watched it happen hundreds of times.
Mark@MMACSCOT:
Absolutely true. She needs to resign. In addition she should move to the country she prefers south of us. It’s also time for Albertans to educate themselves re carbon reduction initiatives like the carbon tax. There is virtually zero consumer inflation related to levy. I promise