Energy
Coal: one million tons an hour
![](https://www.todayville.com/calgary/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2025/01/tvrd-rw-coal-demand-increase-image-2025-01-09.jpg)
From Resource Works
By Stewart Muir
There is no “energy transition” – It’s all “energy addition”
Politicians and climate campaigners like to talk of an “energy transition” in which the world is going to burn less and less fossil fuel, switch to clean (or cleaner) energy, and thus resolve climate issues.
But so far the “transition” is not so much about moving away from traditional fuels as about adding renewable energy sources on top of them.
Our latest episode of Power Struggle looks at the impact of world use of coal, which is still a prime source of energy — and growing. That’s bad, we agree, but some uses of coal are going to be hard to change.
Experts have been predicting “peak coal” for years but they’ve always been wrong. This year, global coal consumption is expected to reach an all-time high.
Some key points from our podcast with our Stewart Muir:
- The world burns over one million tons of coal every hour. That’s the weight of nearly 5,000 Statues of Liberty or 10 aircraft carriers, or about 247,000 adult African elephants. So make that 37,000 adult African elephants every hour.
- Coal energy has enabled millions of people in developing countries to better their lives, and their nations’ economies.
- India’s coal consumption went up 10% in 2024. And Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Pakistan are increasingly reliant on coal.
- China may have installed more renewable-energy sources, and may lead in electric vehicles, but China’s green-energy business is built on coal.
So, while we hail the energy transition, and applaud solar energy, carbon capture and more, we still need to talk about the 247,000 elephants in the world’s room — coal.
Clearly, without addressing coal’s persistent use, the energy transition will fail.
Catch this latest (13th) episode of Power Struggle on YouTube here: https://ow.ly/WiSw50UzX9F
And watch our previous episodes here: https://ow.ly/XK9350UzX9R
Alberta
As President Trump creates new economy, Trudeau government ‘pandering’ to globalists
![](https://www.todayville.com/calgary/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2025/02/tvrd-jordan-peterson-image-2025-02-10.jpg)
Jordan Peterson in a February 5, 2025 video titled ‘Canada Must Offer Alberta More Than Trump Could’
From LifeSiteNews
“Enough idiot green moralizing, enough carbon tax. Enough bloody net-zero,” he said, adding, “how about this: enough multiculturalism and destruction of the Canadian identity.”
Well-known Canadian psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson had choice words for Canadian politicians last week, accusing them of “pandering” to elites and ruining the nation.
In the February 5 video entirely dedicated to the topic of Canadian politics, Peterson said that he is sick of “pathetic celebrity wannabe” politicians, a category in which he includes Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who are “pandering” to the global elites at the expense of ordinary citizens.
Peterson, who is from Alberta, in particular defended his province from a continued push by the Liberal government to undermine its oil and gas industry, amidst a trade tariff dispute with the United States.
“Enough overt and covert attempts to destroy the basis of the economy of my fair and hard-working province,” said Peterson.
“Enough delaying critical infrastructure development and rejection of international trade offers for natural gas, oil, and coal. Enough treatment of the resource economy upon which Quebec in particular, so unacceptably depends as a moral pariah.”
Peterson also took issue with Trudeau’s unpopular carbon tax and the Liberal government’s ongoing promotion of DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) ideology.
“Enough idiot green moralizing, enough carbon tax. Enough bloody net-zero,” he said, adding, “how about this: enough multiculturalism and destruction of the Canadian identity.”
In recent weeks, the Trudeau government has been embroiled in a trade dispute with U.S. President Donald Trump, the latter threatening to impose a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian goods if border security and fentanyl trafficking is not taken more seriously.
Canada was given a 30-day reprieve from the 25 percent tariffs by Trump after Trudeau promised to increase border security and crack down on fentanyl making its way south.
A similar reprieve was struck by Mexico, whose president, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, announced that after talking with Trump the same tariff threat will be delayed for another month.
Since taking office in 2015, the Trudeau government has continued to push a radical environmental agenda like the agendas being pushed by the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” and the United Nations’ “Sustainable Development Goals.”
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been a fierce opponent of Trudeau’s green energy agenda and an advocate for the oil and gas industry.
Canada has the third largest oil reserves in the world, with most of it being in Alberta. Unlike in other nations, Alberta’s industry is largely considered ethical.
This is not the first time Peterson has accused Trudeau and his government of working against the interests of Canada.
Last year, Peterson formally announced his departure from Canada in favor of moving to the United States, saying his birth nation has become a “totalitarian hell hole.”
Energy
LATE TO THE PARTY: Liberal Resource Minister Minister Suddenly Discovers Canada Needs East-West Pipeline
![](https://www.todayville.com/calgary/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2025/02/tvrd-en-liberal-natural-resources-minister-jonathan-wilkinson-image-2025-02-10.jpg)
From Energy Now
By Jim Warren
On Thursday, February 6 federal energy and natural resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson told reporters about a brilliant idea he’d come up with. He said Canada should think about building an east-west oil pipeline. He claimed doing so could provide Ontario, Quebec and parts further east greater security of supply.
Furthermore, such a pipeline would eliminate the need to buy tanker loads of oil from places like Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. And what’s more it could provide us with the opportunity to export Canadian oil to countries other than the US.
Talk about being late to the party. It’s as though the Energy East project never made it onto the national agenda.
Wilkinson told reporters how a pipeline like Enbridge’s Line 5 is vulnerable to shut down by US authorities. Line 5 carries oil from the prairies through the northern US Midwest before delivering it to the refinery and petrochemicals facilities at Sarnia, Ontario.
This is not breaking news. The Liberals have been well aware of the threat for years. Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer waged a well-publicized multi-year campaign to have Line 5 shut down.
According to a CBC report, Wilkinson said, “successive Canadian governments never really gave it much thought that a lot of the energy the country needs to power its economy flows through the U.S.”
That’s a stretch. He apparently doesn’t consider the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan to be Canadian governments. The real problem is Ottawa wasn’t listening when premiers Notley, Kenney, Smith, Wall and Moe explained the value of an all-Canadian Energy East pipeline. They also had plenty to say about the cancellation of Energy East in 2017 and the role Ottawa played by creating the regulatory approval quagmire that helped kill it.
No less puzzling is that Wilkinson imagines such a pipeline could ever be built under the BANANAs (build absolutely nothing, anywhere, near anything) regulatory barriers implemented by the Liberals which make it next to impossible for anyone to build a new pipeline. When Jason Kenney referred to Bill C-69 as The No More Pipelines Bill he wasn’t just whistling Dixie.
The only major export pipeline to be built in the wake of C-69, was the Trans Mountain expansion (TMX). And it was only completed because the owner, the Government of Canada, was prepared to incur the staggering costs of navigating its own pipeline approval regulations. A pipeline originally budgeted to cost $6.8 billion wound up costing an additional $54 billion. Sane investors simply aren’t prepared to accept that level of unreasonable cost and uncertainty.
A first step in getting new pipelines built would be eliminating Bill C-69 along with Bill C-48, the West coast tanker ban. Wilkinson didn’t touch on those points when telling reporters about his bold new idea.
One has to wonder, after11 years of anti-oil and anti-pipeline policy making, if Wilkinson really means what he’s saying. Has he truly experienced a road to Damascus level conversion due to the threat of US tariffs?
Another plausible explanation for Wilkinson’s call for the resurrection of Energy East is that he’s seen the polling numbers. An Angus Reid poll conducted earlier this month shows 79% of Canadians from across the country support new oil and gas pipelines to tidewater on the east and west coasts. The poll also shows 74% of Quebec respondents now support the idea of building new pipelines to tidewater.
If those numbers hold, Canada’s next government could possibly revisit Energy East. If they succeeded in getting the line built it would represent the most visionary nation building project since the building of the trans-continental railway.
No less surprising is, despite the rise in public support for pipelines, Quebec Premier Francois Legault says he won’t accept a new oil pipeline in his province. Legault is out of step with Quebec opinion on more issues than pipelines. The separatist Parti Quebecois is currently leading Legault’s Coalition Avenir Quebec by 10 points in party preference polls. This is not to say the PQ is any more pipeline friendly.
After11 years of Liberal anti-oil and anti-pipeline policy making, Wilkinson is finally on the right side of the Energy East idea. Some might say better late than never—better to change one’s mind than to continue being wrong. Others will say it is a flip flop of epic proportions and questionable sincerity. Skeptical pundits will question whether Wilkinson’s new found fondness for pipelines is any more credible than Mark Carney’s pledge to get rid of the carbon tax.
Wilkinson is a bright man, so it is possible he has believed Energy East was a good idea for some time. Too bad he didn’t tell us sooner. He waited too long to come clean to expect electoral redemption.
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