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Alberta

Alberta won the energy lottery

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8 minute read

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Brian Zinchuk

Some people blamed a small handful of natural gas plants being out of operation. Which is a greater concern – two of 87 gas fired units being down, or 88 of 88 wind and solar farms being down at the same time?

Alberta won the energy lottery millions of years ago. I’m not talking scratchers, but the Powerball. You know, the big American lottery that every so often is over a billion dollars?

Except Alberta’s winnings are much, much larger than that.

So why is it the weekend of Jan. 12-15, the jurisdiction that has more oil, gas and coal than God, because God gave all his to Alberta, was forced to beg its neighbours if they could spare a megawatt?

Because that’s what happened. It got so desperate the night of Saturday, Jan. 13, that the neighbours did not have another megawatt to spare. The Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) and the government of Alberta sent out an emergency alert to every cellphone and TV screen in the province, calling on people to shut off everything from stoves to bathroom fans, as well as unplug block heaters and electric vehicles.

The only way this could happen is complete and utter incompetence at the top. It started with Rachel Notley, but Jason Kenney didn’t seem to do much to reverse her moves. Only Danielle Smith seems to have finally said, “No more!”

Former Alberta premier Rachel Notley’s push to get rid of coal as soon as possible and build as much wind and solar is a prime example of incompetence. While most coal plants converted to natural gas, not all units did, and hundreds of megawatts of cheap, reliable power were lost. Meanwhile, in the last two years Alberta’s wind and solar basically doubled, projects that mostly got their start under Notley. And yet there were moments during the weekend where both wind and solar hit zero output, sometimes at same time. Wind and solar’s theoretical capacity of 6,131 megawatts was a big fat zero.

And yet when Notley announced her departure as leader of the NDP on Jan. 16, she put out a video proclaiming the elimination of coal-fired power and kickstarting renewables among her greatest accomplishments.

Some people blamed a small handful of natural gas plants being out of operation. Which is a greater concern – two of 87 gas fired units being down, or 88 of 88 wind and solar farms being down at the same time, as happened the morning of Jan. 14? Indeed, the vast majority of the 87 gas units and 2 coal units were indeed providing nearly all of Alberta’s power throughout the weekend.

Those four days saw the AESO issue four “grid alerts” in a row. The second one was a much closer-run thing. As a last resort, they put all the grid-scale batteries into play, and those batteries were running out of juice after just an hour. The contingency reserve went to effectively zero.

If the province had not issued its emergency alert, the AESO since reported they were within a half hour of calling for rotating blackouts.

Thankfully, it did work. But what about next time?

The next step was rotating blackouts, and, if that didn’t work, major load shedding. And if that wasn’t enough, a replay of Texas, February, 2021, when 246 died. Except there would be more bodies, because it’s a hell of a lot colder here.

Lessons

There are some lessons from that weekend, and especially Saturday:

  1. Wind and solar totally and utterly fail when we need power the most.
  2. Do NOT expect your neighbour to be able to help you out. Often they can, and do. But as we saw Jan. 13, when your boat is sinking, your neighbour’s may be sinking faster. This was evident by the small amount of power BC sent Alberta. They routinely send 3x that. Montana was sending effectively nothing. And even though Saskatchewan was maxed out in sending what we had, it was not enough to bail out Alberta. Interties are good in many ways, but they must not be entirely relied upon.
  3. As a result, each jurisdiction must ensure it has ample supply within its own borders and control. And that includes enough dispatchable power to backfill every single megawatt of wind and solar, plus the possible loss of one of its baseload units. That 4 per cent contingency reserve is really not enough.
  4. If Alberta did go into rotating blackouts:
    1. What would have happened if that half hour turned out into half a day, or longer, with the temperature at -35 C as it was in Calgary? How many lives might be on the line? What would the property loss be, from things like frozen pipes?
    2. Whose head would the public be calling for on Monday morning? Oh wait, there was a fourth grid alert that morning.
  5. Alberta has more than five million vehicles registered. What would have happened if five million EVs were all plugged in that weekend?
  6. We cannot, we must not, allow this to happen here in Saskatchewan, or again in Alberta. But yet SaskPower keeps saying we’re going to build an additional 3,000 megawatts of wind and solar. We are on Alberta’s path. Alberta already has 6,131 megawatts of wind and solar. How’s that working out for them? Friday night – 6 megawatts. Saturday night – 90. Sunday morning, zero.

Fossil fuels account for up to 94 per cent of Alberta’s and 89 per cent of Saskatchewan’s power on any given day. We cannot, must not, allow ourselves to think any amount of wind and solar can keep us alive when the temperatures hit -35 C. That weekend in Alberta proved it.

Brian Zinchuk is editor an owner of Pipeline Online and occasional contributor to the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Alberta

Alberta introduces bill banning sex reassignment surgery on minors

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith followed through on a promised bill banning so-called ‘top and bottom’ surgeries for minors.

Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith made good on her promise to protect kids from extreme transgender ideology after introducing a bill banning so-called “top and bottom” surgeries for minors.

“It is so important that all youth can enter adulthood equipped to make adult decisions. In order to do that, we need to preserve their ability to make those decisions, and that’s what we’re doing,” Smith said in a press release.

“The changes we’re introducing are founded on compassion and science, both of which are vital for the development of youth throughout a time that can be difficult and confusing.”

Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2024 “reflects the government’s commitment to build a health care system that responds to the changing needs of Albertans,” the government says.

The bill will amend the Health Act to “prohibit regulated health professionals from performing sex reassignment surgeries on minors.”

It will also ban the “use of puberty blockers and hormone therapies for the treatment of gender dysphoria or gender incongruence” to kids 15 and under “except for those who have already commenced treatment and would allow for minors aged 16 and 17 to choose to commence puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender reassignment and affirmation purposes with parental, physician and psychologist approval.”

Alberta Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange, the bill’s sponsor, said the province’s legislative priorities include “implementing policy changes to continue our refocusing work, position our health care system to respond to pressures and public health emergencies, and to preserve choice for minors. These amendments reflect our dedication to ensuring our health care system meets the needs of every Albertan.”

Earlier this year, the United Conservative Party (UCP) provincial government under Smith announced  she would introduce the strong pro-family legislation that strengthens parental rights, protecting kids from life-altering, so-called “top and bottom” surgeries as well as other extreme forms of transgender ideology.

With Smith’s UCP holding a majority in the provincial legislature, the passage of Bill 26 is almost certain.

While Smith has done far more than predecessor Jason Kenney to satisfy social conservatives, she has been mostly soft on social issues such as abortion and has publicly expressed pro-LGBT views, telling Jordan Peterson that conservatives must embrace homosexual “couples” as “nuclear families.”

This weekend, thousands of UCP members will gather for the party’s annual general meeting, where Smith’s leadership will be voted on along with many other pro-freedom and family policy proposals from members. Smith is expected to pass her leadership review vote with a large majority.

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Alberta

Alberta court upholds conviction of Pastor Artur Pawlowski for preaching at Freedom Convoy protest

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Lawyers argued that Pastor Artur Pawlowski’s sermon was intended to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, but the statement was characterized as a call for mischief.

An Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that Calgary Pastor Artur Pawlowski is guilty of mischief for his sermon at the Freedom Convoy-related border protest blockade in February 2022 in Coutts, Alberta.

On October 29, Alberta Court of Appeal Justice Gordon Krinke sentenced the pro-freedom pastor to 60 days in jail for “counselling mischief” by encouraging protesters to continue blocking Highway 4 to protest COVID mandates.

“A reasonable person would understand the appellant’s speech to be an active inducement of the illegal activity that was ongoing and that the appellant intended for his speech to be so understood,” the decision reads.

Pawlowski addressed a group of truckers and protesters blocking entrance into the U.S. state of Montana on February 3, the fifth day of the Freedom Convoy-styled protest. He encouraged the protesters to “hold the line” after they had reportedly made a deal with Royal Canadian Mounted Police to leave the border crossing and travel to Edmonton.

“The eyes of the world are fixed right here on you guys. You are the heroes,” Pawlowski said. “Don’t you dare go breaking the line.”

After Pawlowski’s sermon, the protesters remained at the border crossing for two additional weeks. While his lawyers argued that his speech was made to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, the statement is being characterized as a call for mischief.

Days later, on February 8, Pawlowski was arrested – for the fifth time – by an undercover SWAT team just before he was slated to speak again to the Coutts protesters.

He was subsequently jailed for nearly three months for what he said was for speaking out against COVID mandates, the subject of all the Freedom Convoy-related protests.

In Krinke’s decision, he argued that Pawlowski’s sermon incited the continuation of the protest, saying, “The Charter does not provide justification to anybody who incites a third party to commit such crimes.”

“While the appellant is correct that peaceful, lawful and nonviolent communication is entitled to protection, blockading a highway is an inherently aggressive and potentially violent form of conduct, designed to intimidate and impede the movement of third parties,” he wrote.

Pawlowski was released after the verdict. He has already spent 78 days in jail before the trial.

Pawlowski is the first Albertan to be charged for violating the province’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act (CIDA), which was put in place in 2020 under then-Premier Jason Kenney.

The CIDA, however, was not put in place due to COVID mandates but rather after anti-pipeline protesters blockaded key infrastructure points such as railway lines in Alberta a few years ago.

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