Trudeau's pie in the sky environmental policies

[msj]

It's not wishful thinking at all. 

It is happening in the here and now even without breakthroughs in storage. 

As for large scale storage? It's called natural gas.  

NG will be the backup for wind/solar/tidal.  Not today, not next year, but two/three decades out.  

And, once again, Canada will be lagging because of vested interests lacking the vision to change their businesses to the new paradigm. 

Same as it always is. Let others invest in the R&D and let others reap the rewards, so says Canada's O&G industry. 

[TimG]

41 minutes ago, msj said:

NG will be the backup for wind/solar/tidal.  Not today, not next year, but two/three decades out.  

Same as it always is. Let others invest in the R&D and let others reap the rewards, so says Canada's O&G industry. 

NG is still a fossil fuel and Canada has plenty of that. Of course we have trouble developing new reserves because of the myopic obstructionists that have no understanding of how the energy system works.

NG also does nothing about transportation. Oil will be the go to fuel for cars, trucks and planes for a long time to come. Wishful thinking is not going to change that.

Also, first mover advantage is largely a myth. The people who benefit most from new tech tend to be the ones who come later after the problems have been worked out. Look at China. It has invented next to nothing yet produces the majority of world's solar panels using tech that people thought was obsolete.

Of new tech means nothing if we destroy our ability to generate export income because myopic obstructionists think they can kill off a viable industry. We need a healthy oil and gas industry whether you like it or not. 

[Queenmandy85]

I am surprised at all the whining and wringing of hands. This is an incredible opportunity to ramp up the construction of Candu reactors for both domestic use and export. The advantage of the Candu is it is capable of using thorium instead of uranium, thus eliminating the issues of melt-down, fuel supply, and waste. The increase in electrical capacity would allow Canada to electrify the transportation system, thereby reducing carbon emissions even further.

[msj]

Ha, Canada is never going to be a second, third, or fourth mover so no fear there. At this rate we are being left way behind. 

As for natural gas - the point is that it is less carbon intensive than coal and oil and can be used for electricity which will then be used to power business, homes, and electric vehicles. But even then, more so as a backup. 

The carbon emission reduction will not matter in Canada but in sunnier parts of the world it will be yuge and will have the benefits of providing, China, for example, with breathable air. 

As for nuclear - I wonder if it is that green. Lots of carbon just in the mining.  But I'm okay with some as a decent way to diversify our system.

Better than coal and oil, probably no worse than natural gas. 

[?Impact]

2 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:

Candu is it is capable of using thorium instead of uranium, thus eliminating the issues of melt-down, fuel supply, and waste

Obviously you slept though your nuclear physics class. You picked up a little bit of knowledge from different places, and put it together into your idealistic scenario.

The melt-down issue you picked up was thorium molten salt reactors, not CANDU.

Yes thorium is compatible with the CANDU system, but it will still be a pressurized heavy water reactor. There were talks about China investing in this, but I am not aware that this ever made it off the drawing board. The only Canadian reactors that have included thorium in their fuel cycle that I am aware of are the NRX & NRU experimental reactors in Chalk river.

Thorium does help with fuel supply, but there are still abundant supplies of uranium so there is no immediate need

Thorium still has waste issues. There is a shorter half-life of many of the byproducts, and we don`t have the plutonium issue.

[TimG]

50 minutes ago, msj said:

As for natural gas - the point is that it is less carbon intensive than coal and oil and can be used for electricity which will then be used to power business, homes, and electric vehicles. But even then, more so as a backup. 

Better than coal and oil, probably no worse than natural gas. 

We don't have economically viable EVs today and will likely never have them for trucks, ships or planes. Oil is the only option for the bulk of our transportation needs for the foreseeable future.

As for NG as backup - a complete waste. Just get rid of the useless wind and solar and just use the NG generators 24x7. Much more economical.  

Edited November 24, 2016 by TimG

[?Impact]

56 minutes ago, TimG said:

Just get rid of the useless wind and solar and just use the NG generators 24x7. Much more economical.  

I pay nothing for sunshine, how can NG be more economical?

[Queenmandy85]

Thanks, Impact. I stand corrected. The point is that moving the world into the nuclear age will not only be better for the environment, it will be profitable for Canada and provide a major boost for employment. 

[TimG]

3 hours ago, ?Impact said:

I pay nothing for sunshine, how can NG be more economical?

Solar panels are not free. Nor are the grids used to distribute the power that have to be much larger since solar is a more diffuse energy source. On top of that you have the cost of building the NG plant which consumes more fuel because it is constantly started and stopped. If you just built the NG plant you save on the cost of the panels, the cost of the extra grid and can use fuel more efficiently. On top of that NG Is cheap so it is the incremental cost of the fuel is low. 

You should never assume that facile claims like the 'sun and wind' or free have much impact on the real economics of electric systems. If it was that simple then there would be no need for subsidies since everyone would want to use these sources.

Edited November 24, 2016 by TimG

[Argus]

21 hours ago, msj said:

Canada's emissions will not matter, true. 

But you don't mind spending a trillion dollars to try and cut them down?

[Argus]

19 hours ago, msj said:

Conservatives hate change and it harms us all as the economy

No, conservative hate stupid change, they hate expensive change that accomplishes nothing. They had change which is not well-thought out, and change to ideas which are unproven. You already pointed out that this will have no impact on world emissions. Why not spend the money more productively then?

[?Impact]

57 minutes ago, Argus said:

But you don't mind spending a trillion dollars to try and cut them down?

You keep repeating the same statement, but have yet to provide a single reference to the truth. The idea of taxes based on emissions is not to spend, but rather to collect based on use of resources or emissions. This is not putting an additional trillion dollars of taxes into the system (not sure where you get that number from anyway), but to make a fair distribution of taxes collected.

[msj]

I agree with ?Impact: if it ends up being like the BC carbon tax then we are talking about a shift in taxes. 

Income taxes are reduced while taxes for consumption (of carbon) are increased. 

So, no, I do not expect the government to receive more revenue from this - they will just receive revenue from a different source and that additional cost to the price of fossil fuels will encourage people to use alternatives. 

Much ado about nothing. 

[H10]

If Trudeau goes through with his retarded plan he will be a 1 term prime minister.  Energy is already unaffordable in Ontario thanks to Wynne's crazy policies with global adjustment fees.  If it were any higher, I believe there will be a large business exodus and people exodus and voter exodus from the liberal party.

[Argus]

On 11/24/2016 at 2:35 PM, ?Impact said:

You keep repeating the same statement, but have yet to provide a single reference to the truth. The idea of taxes based on emissions is not to spend, but rather to collect based on use of resources or emissions. This is not putting an additional trillion dollars of taxes into the system (not sure where you get that number from anyway), but to make a fair distribution of taxes collected.

Scientific studies suggest that voluntary compliance with the COP21 international climate agreement would have no meaningful impact on global temperatures. Therefore, Canada’s 1.6 per cent contribution would be infinitesimal. Nevertheless, Ontario’s cap-and-trade plan will impose an annual cost of $1.9 billion on consumers and businesses. This when the province is struggling to reform a broken health-care system and address the largest sub-national debt in the world. Alberta’s cap on GHG emissions could cost hundreds of billions in lost production by 2040. This as the province still reels from a dramatic decline in oil and gas prices. Federal and provincial policies combined may cost Canadians up to $1 trillion by the end of the century. This when the federal government is running large deficits.

 

http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/joe-oliver-when-will-canadians-finally-say-no-to-all-these-expensive-dysfunctional-fiscal-and-climate-policies

[herples]

So what is this study Joe Oliver cites that says voluntary compliance with COP21 would have no meaningful impact? How did he arrive to the trillion dollar figure it would cost us to implement these policies?

It would be nice to see the data not Joe Oliver's opinion.

Edited November 29, 2016 by herples

[cannuck]

Good discussion so far, but there is one thing missing on the coal front.

The genre of truly mindless tree hugging seems to need some incredibly simplistic theme to carry on their war against common sense.   It has been consistent: all nuke = bad, all pipelines = bad, all coal = bad - when in reality, the associated technologies have most of the answers to accomplish for real much of what this misguided mindset thinks will come from bottling unicorn farts.

Let's start with the real elephant in the corner of the room.  Most of these so-called "green" technologies are all centered around continuing to live exactly as we do - wasting energy, resources, our future at an astounding, and totally unsustainable rate.   Part of it is population based, and a good bit more is based upon the expectation of each emerging economy to be just like the developed nations who set the pace of waste and excess.  Each newly developing economy - China now, India tomorrow and Africa next week - will duplicate exactly what we did (rape and pillage resources in a filthy mess of low-tech emissions).  Until we gain the sense to deal with these issues, the rest is not that important - it is only going to delay the inevitable.

So, if we keep on down this road of trashing the technologies we know to cling to some that are very tenuous at best, we will trash the economies that have to work well to be able to afford the real solutions that MUST be found.  We can't waste our opportunity to avoid the inevitable instead of just delaying it.

It is not about using nuclear power, petroleum resources or transporting them in the safest way possible (i.e. pipelines), it is in HOW we use these resources and how much of them we continue to use.  Nuclear tech is in the process of commercializing technologies that will cut spent fuel down more than 100 fold and operate fail-safe.  Clean coal technologies already exist, but hardly anyone actually uses them.  Just as we have dropped automobile emissions dramatically, we can cause the same to happen from coal fired plants by simply requiring the emissions to meet regulatory standards that will need full blown CCT.   The CO2 side is easy - sequestration.

BTW: if you ever wonder why Brad Wall is so much in Trudeau's face over this carbon tax thing, there is really only ONE coal plant in the world that is using every available clean coal technology - and it is Saskpower's Boundary Dam retrofit.  Yes, it has cost a great deal of money, and no, it is not yet fully operational - but no project that is breaking this much new ground ever gets built without some complications.   The thing is, when you realize how many new coal fired plants are being built around the world, if you want to have any real environmental impact, you/we need to spend our time, money and vision on solving the problems that are real and current, not tilting at windmills (sorry for the alternate energy joke, but it was irresistible).  In the megawatt + wind turbine business, for instance, Canada is not even a bit player.   But, we (and I mean the "we" in Saskatchewan) are ideally positioned to lead the world in CCT technology - since this is the first place with the balls to put the cash on the line to do it full scale.

Let the countries that have the cash or who are willing to bankrupt their grandchildren's future chase down the holy grail of alternatives.   We need to use a bit of common sense and just take advantage of the reality that is right before us and solve the problems that fit into the current reality of the infrastructure we have.

[Bonam]

5 minutes ago, cannuck said:

BTW: if you ever wonder why Brad Wall is so much in Trudeau's face over this carbon tax thing, there is really only ONE coal plant in the world that is using every available clean coal technology - and it is Saskpower's Boundary Dam retrofit.  Yes, it has cost a great deal of money, and no, it is not yet fully operational - but no project that is breaking this much new ground ever gets built without some complications.   The thing is, when you realize how many new coal fired plants are being built around the world, if you want to have any real environmental impact, you/we need to spend our time, money and vision on solving the problems that are real and current, not tilting at windmills (sorry for the alternate energy joke, but it was irresistible).  In the megawatt + wind turbine business, for instance, Canada is not even a bit player.   But, we (and I mean the "we" in Saskatchewan) are ideally positioned to lead the world in CCT technology - since this is the first place with the balls to put the cash on the line to do it full scale.

Let the countries that have the cash or who are willing to bankrupt their grandchildren's future chase down the holy grail of alternatives.   We need to use a bit of common sense and just take advantage of the reality that is right before us and solve the problems that fit into the current reality of the infrastructure we have.

Excellent point. If there is a productive way to use resources in a way that would make the thousands of new coal plants that will be built in China, India, SE Asia, and Africa in the coming decades cleaner, that will have certainly have a much larger impact than reducing Canada's emissions. 

[msj]

People still not understanding this: natural gas is killing coal. Thanks to the free market. 

Renewables will be doing this to natural gas within 10 years even without carbon taxes. 

It's the free market, stupid. 

Get on board or forever chase a sunset industry (which is what Canada chooses every time). 

[Argus]

12 hours ago, msj said:

People still not understanding this: natural gas is killing coal. Thanks to the free market. 

Renewables will be doing this to natural gas within 10 years even without carbon taxes. 

It's the free market, stupid. 

Good! Then we don't need carbon taxes.

And just how many nations which signed the Paris accord will actually lower their emissions? I'm guessing just Europe and a few others like Canada.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Argus

[TimG]

12 hours ago, msj said:

Renewables will be doing this to natural gas within 10 years even without carbon taxes. 

Only people who don't understand how the electrical system works would say this. Renewables are not going to replace natural gas this century. 

[?Impact]

4 minutes ago, TimG said:

Only people who don't understand how the electrical system works would say this. Renewables are not going to replace natural gas this century. 

It is not about replace, it is about displace. 

[TimG]

1 minute ago, ?Impact said:

It is not about replace, it is about displace. 

That won't happen either. To ensure reliable power we need base-load and dispatchable power. Renewables are neither so they are destined to be bit players in any market based energy system unless there is some currently unknown breakthrough in storage technology (simply improving what already exists is not enough). 

[?Impact]

Just now, TimG said:

That won't happen either. To ensure reliable power we need base-load and dispatchable power.

Why do you need base-load if you have dispatchable power? You do realize that in Ontario we are paying dearly for the high level of base-load power from nuclear? 

[msj]

Renwables may not displace NG but they don't have to. 

NG will be the base and renewables will replace coal and some oil (as vehicles are electrified). 

It is going to be a great disruption and Canada, as usual, will not be ready for it thanks to conservatives who don't mind billions of subsidies for O&G.