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For the first time in more than 150 years, Alberta's electricity is coal free

theglobeandmail.com

221–227 of 227 posts

Re: For the first time in more than 150 years, Alberta's electricity is coal free

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada emits more Co2 per capita than China today, by 1.5x. But Co2 doesn't only count in 'last years'. It counts as a cumulative effect. The Co2 damage of Canada per capita is way beyond that of China, cumulatively. In cumulative terms, China has emitted 'only' 7.5 times as much Canada despite having 35x the population. In other words, Canada's per capita cumulative emissions are about 4.5x those of China. And that'…

I’m not sure you can say China’s total is 7.5x Canada’s total and say Canada has caused more damage. It might well be true that per capita is higher however you seem to be comparing apples to oranges here. And as others have mentioned sources for numbers greatly help the collective conversation.

> I’m not sure you can say China’s total is 7.5x Canada’s total and say Canada has caused more damage.

Of course all on a per capita basis, I thought I was sufficiently clear.

What is the apples to oranges comparison?

Source is https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-metrics

Re: For the first time in more than 150 years, Alberta's electricity is coal free

#222
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you let your hydraulics freeze?

Sorry, I did some research, it's not just hydraulics, but at below -30 materials experience significant changes in strength and many become brittle and prone to breaking, demanding that they be shut down. My mechanic father has a saying - badly maintained stuff breaks down at -30 C, but everything can break at -40 C.

Well, then you'd better choose materials that are appropriate for the location. There are wind turbines in Antarctica. It's just a matter of engineering.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90429887/sustainable-living-less...

Re: For the first time in more than 150 years, Alberta's electricity is coal free

#223
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's storage for a few hours to smooth the volatility intraday. Nothing like the sort of storage capacity you would need if you don't have an alternative source of energy when there is no wind for a week.

Your original comment was talking about the volatility.

No wind for a week is the volatility of renewable. And that's a common occurence. You can easily have 3 weeks without wind.

Re: For the first time in more than 150 years, Alberta's electricity is coal free

#224
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/energy-storage/texas-wi... ("Texas will add more grid batteries than any other state in 2024.") https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/energy-storage/how-texa... ("How Texas became the hottest grid battery market in the country") https://www.texastribune.org/2023/09/12/texas-power-grid-bat... ("As brutal heat tests Texas’ power grid, batteries play a small but growing role in keepin…

As far as I am aware, these are short term batteries to deal with intra day volatility (intra hour to switch between different sources in fact I believe). It's not capacity to deal with a week without wind. You would need to quote the capacity not in GW but in GWh for that (or GW-days).

Batteries are short duration storage (4-12 hours); overbuilding renewables, generation diversity, and transmission solves for your problem statement around longer duration lulls in certain generation types.

Related citation wrt battery costs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40919052 ("HN: China’s Batteries Are Now Cheap Enough to Power Huge Shifts")

Re: For the first time in more than 150 years, Alberta's electricity is coal free

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> stop growing so many people lol they did just that. China is not "growing so many people" anymore, and neither is India, really. I suppose they could cull some of the previously grown people to get under 5 million like Alberta and to make your advice actually useful. But maybe your obvious solutions just haven't occurred to them yet.

You need to update your racist stereotypes. India's birth rate is below the replacement rate.

wrong thread? you need to reply above for the stereotype.

Re: For the first time in more than 150 years, Alberta's electricity is coal free

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I understand it, the whole country is dependent on the tar sands, but the east still hates it.

Canada's economy is built on primary resource extraction and production in general but would have done fine without the tar sands. Most of the oil money leaves the country; the money that stays mainly fuels self-serving private agendas, pressuring other parts of the economy and stuffing politics. This could have been averted had a solution like Norway's state oil fund been adopted but would have been too socialist a…

Is this not the analogous fund?

https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/heritage-fund-reaches-all-time-h...

Re: For the first time in more than 150 years, Alberta's electricity is coal free

#227
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the US should be able to do without dirty, polluting imports from China. Right?

Imports from China are $0.5T. US economy is $25T. So the US imports 2% of its GDP from China. Rounding error.

This is very naive thinking. Let's begin with the fact that imports aren't GDP. GDP is the value of goods and services produced inside the country. Imports, by definition, are produced outside the country.

Imports power GDP growth. Let me illustrate.

60% of Wal-Mart's imports in 2023 came from China.[1] Wal-Mart is also the largest private employer in the world.[2] Wal-Mart generates billions of dollars of revenue and profit - GDP in other words - by selling imports from China.

Imagine the economic hardship if even just Wal-Mart was cut off from Chinese imports. They'd lose at least half their sales overnight. Up to half their stores might close, or half the workforce might lose their jobs. That's almost 800k people. The unemployment rate goes up 60 basis points overnight. That's just one company.

Extrapolate that to the rest of the US economy.

1. https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/walmart-shifts-to-indi...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walmart

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