From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

‘There is no industrialized economy in the world operating that way,’ Danielle Smith said at the 2023 Alberta Climate Summit

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith tore a page off a heckler’s fantasy suggestion of a solar and wind battery-powered future after she stepped into the lion’s den to advocate for oil and gas at a conference hosted by a pro-climate change think tank.

On October 26, Smith spoke at the Pembina Institute’s “2023 Alberta Climate Summit” in a “Fireside Chat, Premier Smith with Dave Kelly” to argue in favor of oil and gas and against proposals to phase out Alberta’s main energy industry.

While offering remarks in support of Alberta’s energy industry that includes fighting a federal government rule decreeing net-zero power emissions by 2035, Smith said trying to have the province go off natural gas for power generation by that year would be impossible after a heckler interrupted her.

Smith responded to the heckler by saying, “Do think I can get an equivalent amount of nuclear rolled out in 12 years? Do you think I could do that in an environment that we’ve never had nuclear before?”

“And what do I do when there’s no sun and there’s no wind?” she added.

At this point, the heckler shouted, “Batteries,” which irked Smith.

“Let’s talk about batteries, because I’ve talked to somebody and I want to I want to talk about batteries for a minute, because I know that everybody thinks that this economy is going to be operated on wind and solar and battery power and it cannot,” she said.

“There is no industrialized economy in the world operating that way because they need baseload. And I’ll tell you what I know about batteries because I talked to somebody who was thinking of investing in it on a 200-megawatt plant, $1 million to be able to get each megawatt stored. That’s $200 million for his plant alone. And he would get one hour of storage.”

Smith said that if one wants to have “12,000 megawatts of storage, that’s $12 billion for one hour of storage, $24 billion for two hours of storage, $36 billion for three hours of storage.”

The Pembina Institute lobbies for what it says is “reducing the harmful impacts of fossil fuels while supporting the transition to an energy system that is clean, safe and sustains a high quality of life.”

Companies such as Tesla offer both home as well as commercial battery pack applications that are designed to store electricity from wind, solar or the grid. However, such packs are massively costly and come with their own negative environmental footprints.

The institute’s goals align with those of the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has imposed a punitive carbon tax on all Canadians.

‘Fantasy thinking’ won’t keep the lights on in winter, Smith says

Replying to the heckler, Smith stressed how in Alberta, which gets most of its power via natural gas and coal generators, with some solar and wind, there are “long stretches in winter where we can go weeks without wind or solar.”

“That is the reason why we need legitimate real solutions that rely on baseload power rather than fantasy thinking,” she said. “And I’m not going to engage in fantasy thinking and see something is possible when I know that my principal job, I think we need to stop.”

Smith said her “principal job is to have a reliable energy grid” and added that is what she is “trying to do.”

Former Liberal MP turned gas price analyst Dan McTeague, who is against the carbon tax and the push to ban gas-powered cars in favor of electric vehicles, said Smith’s remarks were “beautiful.”

“Beautiful,” McTeague wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

“Climate extremism performs poorly when confronted with reality.”

Trudeau’s carbon tax scheme falling apart

Cracks have begun to form recently. Faced with dismal polling numbers, Trudeau announced he was pausing the collection of the carbon tax on home heating oil in Atlantic Canadian provinces for three years.

This caused a immediate reaction from Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, who said his province will stop collecting a federal carbon tax on natural gas used to heat homes come January 1, 2024, unless it gets the similar tax break that Atlantic Canadian provinces.

The Trudeau government’s current environmental goals – in lockstep with the United Nations’ “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” – include phasing out coal-fired power plants, reducing fertilizer usage, and curbing natural gas use over the coming decades.

The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) – the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda – an organization in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.

The Trudeau government has also defied a recent Supreme Court ruling and will push ahead with its net-zero emission regulations.

Canada’s Supreme Court recently ruled that the federal government’s “no more pipelines” legislation is mostly unconstitutional after a long legal battle with the province of Alberta, where the Conservative government opposes the radical climate change agenda.

Alberta has repeatedly promised to place the interests of their people above the Trudeau government’s “unconstitutional” demands while consistently reminding the federal government that their infrastructures and economies depend upon oil, gas, and coal.