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Comment by softfalcon | Hacker News Reader

Hey folks, I live in Alberta. This isn't as big of a win as you all think it is. We replaced coal burning with natural gas and gasoline burning power generation.

For those who will say, "but Alberta has wind and solar!" please know that our current premiere (similar to a governor) is actively attacking all of our renewable energy investments. Her name is Danielle Smith and she's quite literally a former oil and gas lobbyist.

The only reason this is being touted is because big oil in Alberta is happy we've switched over to burning their carbon emitter of choice.

Take that into account when you read this feel good piece about Alberta being "coal free".

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I'll still count it. Natgas is much cleaner than coal. And economics will eventually force their hand as solar costs continue to fall

At present, solar is about 6% of Alberta's electric generation capacity.

The provincial government suspended planning permission for all renewable energy projects across the province for six months, then outright banned the installation of grid-scale solar in much of the province. This resulted in the cancellation of tens of billions of dollars worth of private investment in renewable energy in Alberta.

Solar is also not as cheap as elsewhere in the world, as Canada has import duties on the cheap Chinese solar panels are driving the change elsewhere. The duties roughly triple the price, with a tax of ~160% on the purchase price and per-watt charges on the panel's rated output.

I'm sure that in five years things will start to shift. Heck, there's workers installing solar panels on my neighbour's roof right now — but it's not going to change much while Danielle Smith is in charge.

It's not as much cleaner as we often think. Only a small % of leakage means that overall the warming potential (from leaks and burnt gas) can be more than coal.

Actual gasoline? Unless you're talking about super-isolated northern communities on generators [which should still be using diesel rather than gasoline], that seems... insane.

As posted elsewhere anyway, Alberta doesn't have any oil-fired power stations: https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/CA-AB

They fire up gasoline generators when the load is high as a back-up to natural gas generation.

There have been periods of rolling brown outs due to high industrial demand where I live. I know people in the industry and also watch the local news where they report that the gasoline backups have been activated and the brown outs should stop. Can confirm, they sometimes burn gasoline for power generation.

How much is natgas? I Do think it's still better than coal in terms of emissions and particulates and such.

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