Yesterday the Canadian minority federal government took a step toward its own demise when it tabled a budget that none of the opposition parties said they would support. We will know soon whether the government can or will work out a deal with another of the federal parties. If it cannot or will not...
Natural gas
Industrial strategy and cheap energy: why China is eating, and will keep eating, our lunch
Future historians may look at the early 21st Century as the time when China and India emerged as the third and fourth of the great continental powers of the post–Second World War era. The first two are of course the U.S.A and Soviet (and to a lesser extent, post-Soviet) Russia. What made these powers...
Nuclear maneuvering in Ontario: planning future agility
In recent posts on Ontario’s long-term energy plan, I have pointed out that wind power is actually gas power. That’s because wind is unreliable and needs to be balanced with gas-fired electricity. The following chart shows Ontario grid-connected wind farm output between December 22 and yesterday (January 4). Each column represents one wind farm’s...
Wind power is gas power, and comes with pollution
According to Ontario’s long term energy plan, in 2030 the province will get 26.3 billion kilowatt-hours from wind, solar, and bio-energy. Most of that will be from wind, which according to historical statistics has a 33 percent capacity factor (meaning that over an average year, all wind generators produce only 33 percent of what...
Ontario’s Long Term Energy Plan: pay lots of money for small carbon reductions
Nobody should be surprised by anything in the Long Term Energy Plan the Ontario government released last week. The biggest question is what will replace coal-fired generation, which the government has promised to phase out. Coal has historically provided 20–25 percent of the province’s power. The LTEP leads off by saying conservation will do part of that,...
Polls
Loading ...