'For the First Time In More Than 150 Years, Alberta's Electricity Is Coal Free' (theglobeandmail.com) 124
Alberta's last coal plant went offline on June 16, marking the end of coal-fired electricity in the province. "So, for the first time in 150 years, coal is no longer part of Alberta's electricity mix," writes Chris Severson-Baker in an opinion piece for The Globe and Mail. "It is important to celebrate and reflect on these milestones, while recognizing there is no time to rest before redoubling our efforts and looking to what's next." From the report: Many organizations contributed to this successful campaign through advocacy and research. The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, the Lung Association and the Asthma Society of Canada were instrumental in highlighting the health impacts associated with air pollution from coal-fired electricity. The Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based clean-energy think tank, first intervened in a coal plant regulatory process in the late 1990s and, in 2009, published the first major proposal that showed the province could move to an unabated coal-free grid by 2030. Our research was ahead of its time and criticized as idealistic.
Coal accounted for 80 per cent of Alberta's electricity grid in the early 2000s and it still amounted to 60 per cent just 10 years ago. When phasing out coal was just an idea being batted around, many said it couldn't be done. This is not dissimilar to the rhetoric today around decarbonizing the grid. But Alberta's experience phasing out coal shows environmental progress of this magnitude is possible. [...] Phasing out coal in Alberta was supported by good policy design driven by carbon pricing and regulations with clear targets that offered necessary certainty to the industry and stakeholders. Rapidly growing, low-cost renewable energy further supported the phase-out, along with companies investing in gas-fired electricity. All these actions accelerated the transition away from coal at a faster rate than anticipated. Chris Severson-Baker is the executive director of the Pembina Institute, a Canadian non-profit think tank focused on advancing clean energy solutions and sustainable environmental practices through research, advocacy, and collaboration.
Further reading: Air Pollution Can Decrease Odds of Live Birth After IVF By 38%, Study Finds
Coal accounted for 80 per cent of Alberta's electricity grid in the early 2000s and it still amounted to 60 per cent just 10 years ago. When phasing out coal was just an idea being batted around, many said it couldn't be done. This is not dissimilar to the rhetoric today around decarbonizing the grid. But Alberta's experience phasing out coal shows environmental progress of this magnitude is possible. [...] Phasing out coal in Alberta was supported by good policy design driven by carbon pricing and regulations with clear targets that offered necessary certainty to the industry and stakeholders. Rapidly growing, low-cost renewable energy further supported the phase-out, along with companies investing in gas-fired electricity. All these actions accelerated the transition away from coal at a faster rate than anticipated. Chris Severson-Baker is the executive director of the Pembina Institute, a Canadian non-profit think tank focused on advancing clean energy solutions and sustainable environmental practices through research, advocacy, and collaboration.
Further reading: Air Pollution Can Decrease Odds of Live Birth After IVF By 38%, Study Finds
OilBerta got rid of Coal :) (Score:3)
Now, OilBerta, get rid of Oil, and become "Berta"
We'll see what happens next (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in Alberta.
It will be interesting to see what this does to my electricity bill that has already gone up so much in the last few years. I wish I could believe it will go down.
It's also interesting that this is the first place I have heard of this.
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already they're screwed, from about 7 cents per kWh in 2020 to 24 cents in 2023
Sounds like pushing people into poverty.
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>> pushing people into poverty.
That is B.S.
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The current energy policies are certainly eroding the standard of living. If it's literally pushing people into poverty depends very much on just how far out of poverty you were to start with.
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Yes, but the standard of living was so high because we did things we shouldn't have, in hindsight. So, we either fix that and pay the REAL costs of healthier living, or we doom ourselves to ever-worsening the situation for all of humanity.
The standard of living is great when you don't pay for externalities...for a few decades. Then we see shit like we are now, like global warning.
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Sounds like pushing people into poverty.
That can be changed via carbon pricing and tax credits if that political will is there
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Well, if the choice is between "humanity dies from global warming" or "we pay more for cleaner electricity", what ya gonna pick?
Seriously, gimme some alternatives here.
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Ah, a global warming denier. So we just broke the 1.5C global warming threshold, but hey, no big deal, nothing to see here right?
The real problem is that we've let some people get rich off natural resource extraction and processing without making them also pay for the externalities, and now that things are becoming a major problem and we barely start to ask for the externalities to be at least partially accounted for, you are crying.
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How accurate is this video? https://youtu.be/DFJAgb7dn78?s... [youtu.be]
If all of canada is only 38M people, and 70% live below the 49th parallel, exactly how much population are we talking for Alberta?? Is this just a headline story? Forget percentages, is their carbon input even statistically significant?
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I didn't have the time to watch the whole thing. It looked plausible.
Alberta is above Montana (https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta) and isn't part of the area discussed in the beginning of the video.
It has a population of almost 5 million, most of whom live between the 49th and 54th parallel. Around half live outside major cities, so public transportation isn't an option.
As to the other comment that renewables are cheaper, they may be to produce, but they are marketed as a "feel good luxury" item. Wind power
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Renewables are cheaper than coal. If your state's aren't, figure out where the corruption is.
Re:We'll see what happens next (Score:5, Insightful)
It will be interesting to see what this does to my electricity bill that has already gone up so much in the last few years. I wish I could believe it will go down.
To borrow Slashdot's favourite meme: Correlation != causation. Everything has gone up a lot in the last few years. Inflation is a thing that actually exists despite the fact people think their electricity price and their phone contract should be immune from it.
Additionally the world has gone through a major international resources upset as well. If you want stable prices you'd generate your own green energy rather than relying on fungible internationally traded goods during a volatile period.
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No argument on the general statement.
It was clearer in gasoline prices, but when prices jump 5 to 10 percent in a single day, the day a tax is put into place, it's not all inflation.
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Prices at the pump are currently lower than they were prior to the new carbon tax increase coming online.
In BC, it's almost 20c/L less expensive now than in April.
In Alberta, it's only 5c less, but that's still lower.
https://charts.gasbuddy.com/ch... [gasbuddy.com]
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Not to mention the power shortages that were pretty big as well last winter. Something along the lines of critical power shortages and the inability to bring more power in because all the power lines going to Alberta were already overloaded.
It's almost as if
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Vote out Danielle Smith.
Your electricity bill is going up because she subsidizes her cronies in the oil&gas business with your money and by sabotaging renewables projects.
Thus sabotaging the climate and probably pushing it beyond a point of no return.
https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]
She should be fired on the spot and criminally prosecuted.
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I live in Alberta.
It will be interesting to see what this does to my electricity bill that has already gone up so much in the last few years. I wish I could believe it will go down.
It's also interesting that this is the first place I have heard of this.
I also live in Alberta.
I'm surprised our Premier isn't calling for a public day of mourning. She did after all try to kills renewables with a 7-month moratorium followed by vague regulations [www.cbc.ca].
Mordor... (Score:3)
So they've switched to gas. Where does the gas come from? Fracking? It might lower CO2 at point of use but we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions globally. The amount of methane that leaks from fracking wells, pipelines, storage, etc., & then only getting a 50% reduction on CO2 emissions is arguably worse than sticking to coal.
Alberta's a long way off from being able to sincerely tout green policies. They ain't never gonna say no to those sweet, tax payer subsidised tar $s.
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"You know, the Alberta tar sands where they export some of the dirtiest fossil fuels in the world from."
That talking point is the go-to for the people unwilling to educate themselves. The truth is far more complicated. I could line up some points of nuance... but you wouldn't read them. Easier to remain uninformed and opinionated.
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The extraction and processing of tar sands in Alberta, Canada, are often criticised for their significant environmental impact. Here are the key points that illustrate how dirty and environmentally unfriendly this process is:
Carbon Emissions
High Carbon Intensity: Tar sands oil, also known as bitumen, is much thicker and more viscous than conventional crude oil, making it more difficult and energy-intensive to extract and process. This results in higher greenhouse gas emissions per
Nuclear Retrofit of Gas/Oil fired plants? (Score:1)
Curious what work has been done retrofitting coal and gas plants to nuclear. All the generators and turbines presumably could be used as is, just a new source of steam...
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All the generators and turbines presumably could be used as is, just a new source of steam...
No not even remotely. Leaving aside the difficulties of even slight variances between processes for the use of a steam turbine (they are actually manufactured in a very special purpose way for each specific process condition so its often quite expensive to swap even turbines from one coal plant to another without some seriously costly adjustments) nuclear has additional issues in that the steam type going into the turbine is vastly different. The earliest nuclear power plants were specifically engineered to
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Often the cost of reusing even simple sounding equipment vastly exceeds the cost of replacing it. For one, leaving aside the large re-work, you basically have to redo the engineering of the turbine from scratch with strange boundary conditions rather than simply buying something "off the shelf" and I use quotes there since there's integration engineering work, but broadly the expertise and core engineering that makes up the existing vendor knowledge here is highly valuable.
Basically this. There are "repower" projects that get done, virtually always to switch from coal to natural gas, and it's mainly to use the existing buildings and transmission infrastructure not the turbines and pipes. I think there was some talk that SMRs might be able to slot into existing setups, but I'd be pretty skeptical.
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>> coal and gas plants to nuclear.
Not gonna happen. Makes zero economic sense.
Nuclear electricity costs 4x more than coal/gas. At least.
Renewables cost a bit less than coal/gas.
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Well, even assuming it's worthwhile to design a new reactor to use existing turbines, you still have to build a containment building inside the plant.
What makes more sense, however, is to put grid battery storage in old coal plants. Such a facility could improve the economics of nuclear plants by buying power from them when demand was low and reselling it when demand is high.
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Curious what work has been done retrofitting coal and gas plants to nuclear. All the generators and turbines presumably could be used as is, just a new source of steam...
Probably zero as replacing coal and gas with nuclear is not a simple matter of changing the fuel source. There is a whole lot of infrastructure that nuclear requires including storage, cooling, reactors, etc. Replacing coal with gas is not always a simple replacement either. In some cases replacing a coal fired steam boiler system with a gas turbine might be more cost effective despite the increase in capital costs.
For all non-Canadians. (Score:2)
Alberta is a landlocked Canadian province that fancies itself as the Texas of Canada.
Lots of oil, coboy hats, cattle, and rednecks.
So, how much .. (Score:3)
Even a small reduction turned out to be measurable [slashdot.org].
Re:nat gas (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not? Replacing coal with nat gas is a good thing. It is not the best thing, but it is still a good thing.
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Well they could replace it with wind and tidal power
Four strong winds that blow lonely
Seven seas that run high
All those things that don't change come what may
But our good times are all gone
And I'm bound for movin' on
I'll look for you if I'm ever back this way
Think I'll go out to Alberta
Weather's good there in the fall
I got some friends that I can go to workin' for
Still I wish you'd change your mind
If I asked you one more time
But we've been through that a hundred times or more
Re:nat gas (Score:5, Insightful)
coal - nat. gas is going down a blind alley (Score:2)
It means you just wasted a lot of time and resources going in a direction that does not significantly help you achieve your climate-change-relevant goal of zero GHG emissions. You now have to backtrack and replace all the natural gas electricity with zero-emission renewable energy and energy storage.
So basically it cost
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Re:nat gas (Score:4, Informative)
You're lying again. [cer-rec.gc.ca] Stop it.
While coal to gas conversion was an important part of the transition away from coal, the percentage of energy produced by fossil fuels in the province has gone down significantly since 2019. Renewables will continue to displace fossil fuels, no matter how much you lie about it.
Re:nat gas (Score:4, Informative)
Alberta electricity generation sources (2019): 9% low carbon
Alberta electricity generation sources (2023): 19% low carbon
source: electricitymaps.com (open source app showing realtime and historic data for global electricity generation).
BTW, the last coal plant on the Great Britain grid is scheduled to close in September.
GB electricity generation sources (2019): 52% low carbon
GB electricity generation sources (2023): 62% low carbon
Whether gas is actually better than coal is all down to relative amount of fugitive methane emissions (from extraction of both). e.g. Emission of unburnt methane from Australian coal and gas extraction has been estimated to account for over half of the country's total GHG emissions.
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Indeed the 'gain' may be illusory
https://rockymntstage.wpengine.com/calculating-parity-between-gas-and-coal-life-cycle-emissions/ [wpengine.com]
While true, it's a trivially solvable problem. Basically we haven't cared about methane leakage because it isn't poisonous, so there's virtually no regulation around it. In fact until very recently industry standard for working on a natural gas pipeline was just just dump the gas to atmosphere. Now there's cost effective processes to over pressurize a pipe segment and push the liquid natural gas into other pipe segments or containers. Still, not everyone does it, because it isn't mandated.
That article menti
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BTW, the last coal plant on the Great Britain grid is scheduled to close in September.
I'm half expecting Braverman or someone like her to latch onto this as the conservative party thrashes around about how they're not loony enough. Britain eas great in the old days. We burned coal in the old days. Burning coal and illegal immigrants makes Britain Great.
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Whether gas is actually better than coal is all down to relative amount of fugitive methane emissions (from extraction of both). e.g. Emission of unburnt methane from Australian coal and gas extraction has been estimated to account for over half of the country's total GHG emissions.
Sure if you are going to ignore a major pollution that coal produces over natural gas: soot. One of the costs that makes coal plants less profitable to run is they have far more maintenance cycles due to . . . soot. From the perspective of power companies, they are moving away from coal not because they are Earth-hugging hipsters. Coal plants costs more to operate than natural gas due to multiple factors. One of those factors is more overall pollution which leads to more maintenance.
Moron (Score:1)
So the 2023 stats are less relevant than your 2020 stat? How does fuck off and die sound, you moron? Are you even capable of rational thought. Moron.
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Sigh... Are you really this stupid? How is that even possible?
Let's see if I can make this simple enough even for you to understand:
When you want to show a change, you need to show things as they were before and how they are after. He only showed how things are after and then lied about how things changed. I showed how things were before, so that you could see how things actually changed.
If you're still confused, remember that 2019 came before 2023. That means 2023 came after 2019.
That might still be to
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Indeed, those coal plants just magically appear without any resources, definitely no cost there. *Infrastructure* costs exist for every source. Solar has effectively zero *ongoing* resource costs, vs coal and anything that requires actual fuel having to be mined, transported, processed...for every kw produced.
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Almost as much ramifications as mining all those wonderful rare earth elements.
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And you think that the mining is NOT continuous?
You do know that coal once it is used has to mined again, right? This is the nonrenewable energy. Did you miss that lesson in school?
Talk to african children about what life is like in a cobalt mine.
Ah, the screeching of a Karen, “Won't anyone think of the CHILDREN?” Do you actually have a point or are you on a crusade to deny how bad coal is for the planet?
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Arguing "Your pollution is "badder" smacks of barking up the wrong tree.
Essentially the entire world agrees (except for you) that coal pollution is the worst of the fossil fuels. Even power companies think this as they replace coal with natural gas. So you have confirmed that you are a denier.
Also the point you refuse to accept is that coal is used once as it is a fuel. Cobalt is not a fuel source. Cobalt can be recycled and reused after it is mined. Your denial runs deep.
Again, you don't give a shit. You're quibbling pointlessly so you can be "right"
You have denied basic reality and facts. Coal is the most polluting of the fossil fuels and it cannot be re
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Oh, come on. This is the same argument as people who say that EVs cause more pollution because making them is more polluting than owning and driving an ICE vehicle for 10-12 years (the current # of years people in the US now keep a car).
(CLUE: THEY'RE NOT.)
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Re:nat gas (Score:5, Interesting)
Not surprisingly, engineers have actually run the numbers. A coal plant costs roughly twice what a combined cycle natural gas plant costs to build. It also costs about 50% more to run. Nobody who cares about profits would build a coal plant today. The last coal plant that was built in the US went online in 2013 (and its owner went bankrupt); meanwhile there are nearly 200 natural gas plants currently being planned or built.
Utilities are touting the carbon emission benefits of moving away from coal, but if coal plants were profitable to run they'd still be building them. Likewise environmentalism has little to do with the proliferation of wind farms; wind farms are fast and cheap to build and highly profitable to operate. This is why Texas with its largely deregulated grid, gets more of its power from wind than any other state. It isn't as if the state government even *believe* in climate change. It's that investors can make quick bucks with wind.
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One unexpected factor is that they are *so* cheap it actually is a problem to build and operate them profitably at scale. We need them, but the low profit margins on the resulting power make large scale corporate investment scarce.
Great podcast on the subject here https://www.volts.wtf/p/are-ma... [volts.wtf]
We probably need gov't investment, ownership and operation of the grid scale solar (and other renewable) projects - because the current 'free market' approach to infrastructure isn't really suitable.
I liken it to
Re: nat gas (Score:2)
Way cheaper if you don't have to pay for batteries. Or backup reserves in the event you can't meet your delivery obligations. No, the wind not blowing is not an allowed exception in delivery contracts.
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Do you just not understand the concept of an electric grid
Yes. It's my job. Do you even have one?
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Burning biomass and NG are NOT "renewables"
And all the renewables (wind/tide) are ignoring the maintenance costs of keeping equipment working.
Wind turbines tend to eat themselves over time. And the stresses of the equipment means that beyond a certain interval, you have to pull the things down and bury a bunch of non-biodegradeable stuff in the ground.
And tidal power? It's one of the most hostile environments on the planet for equipment longevity.
Also, they are STILL BURNING PETROLEUM!
So they're not tooti
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But you don't need to refill the reservoir for your hydro power plant, and you don't need to transport wind to your wind turbine or sunshine to your PV.
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A wind turbine is cheap. Solar panels are cheap. And their maintenance costs are low, especially for solar panels. Did you ever look at the running cost for a coal plant even without the fuel? Do you know how often steam turbine blades have to be replaced and reworked? Do you know how much maintenance a steam boiler requires, because it operates at high temperatures and high pressures and has to be recertified
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>> Yes. And prices will triple as a result
B.S.
Renewables are much cheaper.
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CO2 per MWh for gas is half of what coal generates so it is a step in the right direction.
Though you probably should add cost of war in Ukraine to cost of gas - as purchases of Russian gas fund it...
Then local coal might be better than Russian gas...
Also gas mining often has huge methane emissions which is much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2...
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CO2 per MWh for gas is half of what coal generates so it is a step in the right direction.
Though you probably should add cost of war in Ukraine to cost of gas - as purchases of Russian gas fund it...
Then local coal might be better than Russian gas...
Also gas mining often has huge methane emissions which is much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2...
Local wind and solar power would be even better than local coal and not just because of lower cost and a lower CO2 footprint. Ukraine has a nice conventional power grid with something like 50 big Soviet megaproject style Nuclear, Hydro and Thermal powerplants. This network has proven extremely vulnerable to Russian attacks. Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands have tens of tousands of wind generators and solar plants of all kinds many of whom generate power that is consumed locally. It would take a completely
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Probably one of the best things the US/EU could do for Ukraine is a massive effort to install rooftop solar in the worst hit areas.
That is possibly the most ignorant thing I have ever read. I suspect clean electricity production, let alone CO2 emissions, fall somewhere under clipping toenails and polishing doorknobs as priorities for Ukrainians right now.
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Probably one of the best things the US/EU could do for Ukraine is a massive effort to install rooftop solar in the worst hit areas.
That is possibly the most ignorant thing I have ever read. I suspect clean electricity production, let alone CO2 emissions, fall somewhere under clipping toenails and polishing doorknobs as priorities for Ukrainians right now.
They have rolling blackouts, power for a few yours a day if they are lucky and you think the average Ukrainian really gives a shit whether the power they get comes from rooftop solar and a battery bank or from some, in your estimation, more politically correct source like nuclear?
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They have rolling blackouts, power for a few yours a day if they are lucky and you think the average Ukrainian really gives a shit whether the power they get comes from rooftop solar and a battery bank or from some, in your estimation, more politically correct source like nuclear?
No. My point is that electricity in general is likely pretty low on Ukraine's list of priorities. Unless rooftop solar is missile/bomb-proof, I doubt they care.
Halved already (Score:3)
CO2 was halved already. (Canada-wide)
https://natural-resources.cana... [canada.ca]
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Decarbonizing the grid is a much, much harder problem than replacing fossil fuel plants with fossil fuel plants.
Lower carbon still decarbonizing (Score:2)
From the silly blurb, they compared going to coal-free to decarbonizing the grid.
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I'm not sure that replacing coal with natural gas is quite what the net zero loons had in mind https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
Nat Gas is cheaper than coal and pollutes less than coal when responsibly extracted. Nat Gas isn't optimal but even from a purely economic point of view it is still a far superior way of generating energy than using coal. Having said that I'd replace Nat Gas whenever and wherever possible with some cost effective low carb alternative. I don't see a reason to cling onto obsolete tech.
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>> That is until coal became cheaper. The power plant conversions typically allow for either to be used as the fuel.
Not going to happen.
Economics 101. Mining coal is much more resource intensive than drilling for gas.
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The power plant conversions typically allow for either to be used as the fuel.
Not necessarily. If the conversion was replacing coal with gas as the fuel source in a steam boiler system, the switch can be made back and forth. However, this is the least efficient conversion. A far more efficient power plant conversion would be replacing the boiler system with a gas turbine system where coal cannot be used as an alternative fuel source.
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I'm not sure that replacing coal with natural gas
I just checked that out too. Most recent non-paywalled stats I found show 57% of Alberta's electricity coming from gas, 22% from wind/solar. The same table showed 6% from coal so those numbers are out of date.
From the fine summary:
When phasing out coal was just an idea being batted around, many said it couldn't be done.
I'm not sure who those people are. We've had 20 years of success replacing coal with natural gas. It's cost effective and dramatically reduces carbon emissions per joule. Yay fracking. Problem is, it's a good solution, not the perfect solution green energy advocates dream of.
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On the context of global warming only yep, but in the context of stopping killing people with terrible air pollution, it is a nice step forward.
Re:Congrats, Canada. You just played yourself. (Score:5, Informative)
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>> So Canada shifts the pollution to China
That is B.S right there.
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