The Renewable Energy Thread

[warspite]

This is the first of three announcements planned by the conservatives this week....
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/01/18/environment-announcements.html

Tories to spend $300M on renewable energy
Series of initiatives very similar to proposals in Liberals' so-called Green Budget of 2005
Last Updated: Thursday, January 18, 2007 | 7:31 PM ET
CBC News
The Tory federal government will announce Friday that it plans to spend $300 million over the next four years for renewable energy projects, one of a number of environmental initiatives that are very similar to Liberal proposals, CBC News has learned.

Called the Eco Energy Renewable Power Initiative, it will provide money for new projects in wind, solar, tidal, geothermal and biomass energy.

It is expected to generate 4,000 megawatts of renewable energy — enough electricity for about 1.5 million homes or four times the amount of renewable energy Canada has right now.

On Sunday, the government will also unveil a new version of the Energuide program — a project that involved giving homeowners money to improve their energy consumption and the energy efficiency of their homes.

Last spring, the Conservatives cancelled the Energuide project, saying it was inefficient. In the 2005 budget, the Liberals were planning to continue and greatly expand the Energuide program, spending $225 million for energy improvements in 500,000 homes until 2010.

The Tories will also announce a plan to promote energy efficient products and equipment for homes, like air conditioners and dishwashers.

Continue Article

Sunday's environmental announcement will be the third such announcement by the Conservatives over a five-day span.

And all are very similar to Liberal proposals in their so-called Green Budget of 2005.

On Wednesday, the government announced $230 million for clean energy research.

In comparison, the Liberals in their 2005 budget had allocated $200 million for very similar research and development.

The Liberals had also planned to spend $300 million to produce 4,500 megawatts of renewable energy over five years, compared to the Tory plan of $300 million to produce 4,000 megawatts of renewable energy over four years.

The Tories' version of the Energuide program is expected to be a bit different than the Liberal plan. For example, sources tell CBC News that the government will not pay for the final audit of the home, which the Liberal program did.

But essentially the new version will be very similar to the former Energuide program.

Personnally I like the idea of the Conservatives spending money on renewable energy.... but does anyone else notice a liberal leaning bias in the article...?

 

[SupersonicMax]

I think this is a much needed initiative from the Conservatives.  We can say what we want but we are slowly (maybe not that slowly) destroying the environment. 

It is also needed politically.  It became a big issue in the last few months and it is a topic the Conservative will need to pit more emphasis on if they want to have a majority government or even keep the power...

Max

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

Have either of you guys read the reports on the Ontario wind projects so far?

No one is talking about it, but apparently they're only running at 20% of peak stated capacity.

So in essence if you have 1000 Megawatt Wind Project, they're only actually producing on average 200 Megawatts which means once again we've got to run the coal generators to pick up the slack.

My take is that although renewables (solar and wind) sound lovely, they don't work unless your offshore and have an ocean-based wind current of some sort (See Holland and Denmark).  Since we don't have that luxury in Ontario we need to go shopping internationally and buy off-the-shelf proven nuclear technology on turn-key contracts to give us fixed costs rather than the variability that always arises when we do custom, one-off, made in Canada solutions where SNC and everyone else surcharges us out the wazzoo.


Matthew. 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Alternative energies, micro-hydro, passive & active Solar and geothermal systems are a really good fit for the CPC, good for the rural base and work towards greater self-responsibility.

 

[Bane]

Thankfully something is finally being done on this front federally. 
I'm not sure if seeing a 'liberal bias' in an article whose sub-title is "Series of initiatives very similar to proposals in Liberals' so-called Green Budget of 2005" is the correct analysis. All it means is that it is similar, and that is what the reporter is pointing out. If it was a different type of article intended perhaps to give an broad over view of Federal Environmental Policy from the last two and a half decades and only showcased Liberal achievements and Tory Failures, then you'd have claim to call it biased.
I personally don't care who does it, and the fact that Harper appears to have a set of ears and listens to the current political trends on the clean energy and environment front is good for everyone and will serve him well, though I hold no allegiance to any political party at all. One can already see all the parties vying for the title of 'most green' for the, likely, spring/summer election. This is excellent...no one likes dirty water or air.

 

[cplcaldwell]

Micro generation can work. N.Ont paper mills have been doing it for years. But it only goes so far.

The Ontario goal is 2700 Mw of green energy buy 2010. Many doubt we can make it.

Oh and for a bit of perspective, current Ontario consumption, right now, 20,000 Mw.

(That isn't the year high, like most jurisdictions, Ontario is now a "summer peak" consumer: most electricity is consumed in July and August around 25,000 Mw).

Pickering NGS A and B produce about 4000 Mw, Bruce NGS nearly 5000 Mw (over 7000Mw when the other two 'A bank' pots come back online). Even Darlington produces about 4000 Mw.

At best green power can be able to take up any new growth and fill in peak periods.

Those nukes aren't going anywhere soon folks.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Part of my current job is reviewing and approving Independent Power Projects (IPP) for their effects on navigation and environment. Generally they are between 4-50MW and most are run of the river, a few using old dams (Anyox) several smaller coal fired plants and about 5 large wind projects in BC alone. When it started we received 400 applications for IPP’s between Squamish to Lilioot, most fell to the wayside as BC hydro picks the most likely to succeed and works with them. One of the IPP’s that will have a big impact is at Atlin where they will replace a Diesel generator  system with a run of the river project, just finishing the approval next week! Currently they require a bi-weekly B train of fuel trucked from Whitehorse, which I think is trucked from Edmonton, so you can imagine the fuel savings this one project will have. Another advantage of many small IPP’s is that they are close to the communities and reduce line loss and power outages caused by weather. All together I suspect they will make for a much more stable grid system in the future.   

 

[HDE]

I read somewhere that most land-based wind projects turn out +/- 20% of their plate capacity, ie,  a 2mw turbine will turn out 20%  of that over time.  It strikes me we'd need an enormous number of units to generate significant numbers.  I can't see it working very well in populated areas.  Possibly offshore or in less populated areas, then you get into probs with transmission distances.

 

[SupersonicMax]

Well, they transmit electricity from James Bay to New York.  I don't see how it could be a problem to do the same from the Atlantic/Pacific to the inland.  For the Prairies, well, there is enough wind to generate power I would say.  There are already tons of windmills in Sask (I see them everytime I fly over them.  An amazing sight at 24 000')

Max

 

[a_majoor]

To my mind the point isn't so much that alternative energy is good or bad (lord knows I have spent plenty of time doing business plans and concluded this is really a niche proposition), but that the government is interfering with the market in order to buy votes. This is a tactical ploy by the CPC to undercut the Greens and the Liberals. Although there is enough factual information to blow the Greens out of the water (see many of the posts above); and the Liberals should be called on their 13 year record of inaction over the environment; you and I know that the MSM will not engage in a factual debate and that the points I raised are not very amicable to the 30 second sound bite while half truths and innuendo's are.

If we really want to see an upsurge in "Green" energy, then let the government really scale back spending and taxes. The billions released into the productive economy will be directed towards all kinds of ends, including alternative energy, as investors look for the greatest returns on their dollars. The demagogues who are trying to dictate government policy on the environment will have to directly convince the general public, and if what they say has merit, then there will indeed be a vast investment into their schemes. (On the other hand, the market will soon determine if there is an attempt to scam the public, and shut these jokers down).

As a potential alternative energy vendor, I am in a poor position to speak against this plan; decades of government overspending at all levels have stripped Canada of much investment funding, leaving it to the bureaucrats rather than the venture capitalists.

 

[HDE]

I find it amazing how the MSM have simply declared how the various parties rate on the "friend of the environment" scale.  There's been very little effort made to detail the various platforms, the pros and the cons, the costs, the feasibility, etc.  Shotgunning out all sorts of concepts which don't have a hope in h@ll of actually being put into action, and not being called on it, doesn't help anyone.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I'm sure glad Dalton is looking after our future................ :

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/christina_blizzard/2011/01/25/17032786.html

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Power splurge: Blizzard
How Ontario blew it on energy, paying big bucks to Quebec, the U.S. — and wind farmers

By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD, Toronto Sun
Last Updated: January 26, 2011 10:15am

What word captures the way Dalton McGuinty’s government has blown it when it comes to windmills and green energy?

Having sold us on their new, clean, green energy, and having hiked our bills to the stratosphere, the province is now in a situation where we have so much wind power, we had to pay Quebec and U.S. states more than $1 million to take it off our hands.
You’ve heard of fire sales? This was a wind sale.

New Year’s Day was warm — and windy. Our windfarms were in overdrive. Most of industry was shut down, so energy demands were low.
You can’t store electricity, so you either have to cut back on production — or find somewhere for it to go.
In brave new Ontario, the government pays windfarm operators a whopping 13.5¢ a kilowatt hour (kwh) to generate electricity.
That compares to about 2.5¢ a kwh for electricity from hydro plants such as Niagara and about 5.5¢ for nuclear.

(On top of that, we pay a “Global adjustment of about 3¢ a kwh — and going up — for new wind and solar projects).

The Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) must take electricity produced by wind first.
So with an excess, generators such as the Beck Plant in Niagara Falls were forced to spill water. Yes, you heard. We had to throw away the cheapest, greenest electricity in the world from Niagara to make way for the really expensive green wind stuff.

And we still had too much — so we had to pay our neighbours to take the expensive stuff off our hands.
(You can’t turn off a gas plant or a nuclear plant completely, because they’re big and complicated to re-boot.)

Energy Minister Brad Duguid defended the sale.

“We were paid to take power from other jurisdictions on Dec. 30,” Duguid said. “It’s a reciprocal arrangement that has been in place for some time.
“Any jurisdiction that is operating on the open market is subject to this kind of provision, where energy exchanges when your demand dips below your baseload capacity and it is more expensive to start shutting down some of those baseload capacity units, like your nuclear units, than it is to pay somebody to take that surplus power that occurs on rare occasions.”

Fair enough. Only two problems with that. First, industry is still in a funk. We aren’t using as much power — so these days we’re using less power all the time. How often will this occur?
Second, if you have to pay people to take excess juice, why would you keep generating the really expensive stuff, like wind?
Surely you should tell the wind operators to shut down first.

A spokesman for the IESO says that’s what they are looking at.
“One of the things we are working at is the ability to turn off that wind.
“If you’ve got a situation that’s going to last for a couple of hours, does it make sense to turn off a plant that’s going to be off for 72 hours, that you might need within those 72 hours, or does it make sense to turn something off for a couple of hours, and deal with the situation that way?” said Terry Young.

In the immortal words of Kermit the Frog: It isn’t easy being green. It’s not cheap, either.

christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca Twitter: @ChrizBlizz

 

[a_majoor]

And of course for every Mw of wind energy installed you actually should have a gas fired turbine generator (running 24/7 at "hot idle") to pick up the load whenever there is a fluctuation or drop in the wind speed. It would be cheaper and more sensible to simply shut down the wind farms and run the back-up generators as the primaries (with 100% or the rated power output, rather than the 20% the typical wind farm produces).

Oh wait, that's common sense again....

 

[Rifleman62]

Ontario voted Liberal provincially, and will vote Liberal federally. Oh wait, that's not common sense again!

Gluttons for punishment. Trouble is, the ROC suffers.

I joke.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Waste o'money.  Go nuclear, or go home.

 

[a_majoor]

Interested readers will find hundreds of alternative energy ideas here.

Good hunting