Berlin Airlift, 1949: the Number One commodity flown into Berlin during that iconic early Cold War confrontation was coal. At its height, the airlift transported 5,000 tons of “commodities” per day, two thirds of which were coal. The operation began…
The Texas Debacle: a crisis worse than Covid
In the early hours of Monday February 15 2021, the US state of Texas suddenly became two things it had never been before. First, it became a winter electricity peak jurisdiction. In every year of the state’s electrical history following…
Solar PV, CO2 avoidance, and magic wands: attractive packaging and misleading advertising
The International Energy Agency’s Integrated Smart Grid Action Network—what does just the title of the organization say? To me, a cynical pro-nuke climate hawk, it connotes exactly the type of bureaucracy that is simultaneously useful and frustrating. Useful because it…
Wind power in Ontario, June 2019: Dances with… Hydro
Last time I noted the operation of one particular Ontario gas-fired generating plant in relation with provincial electrical demand, total in-province generation, “market” price, and aggregate wind output. I showed that although through the month of June 2019 total generation…
Did wind-generated electricity displace gas-generated electricity in Ontario in June 2019?
Financiers of green energy projects often claim in public filings that the energy generated by the projects they have financed has avoided some definite number of tons of CO2 emissions. Run the numbers, and you usually find they have assumed…
“E” vs “SG” in ethical investing: how sustainable is mollification-by-cherrypicking
In the great game of whack-a-mole that is capital raising in Canada’s oil patch, it must be frustrating, for those whose full-time job when there isn’t a global pandemic is whacking the moles of ESG criteria on which they feel…