Alberta's Power Crises--Civilization In Collapse

 CTV reported this past weekend that "Albertans asked to conserve energy during cold spell". From the article:

    Albertans were asked for the second evening in a row on Saturday to limit their electricity usage to essential needs only.

    According to an alert issued by the Alberta Emergency Management Agency to all cell phones shortly before 7 p.m., a high demand for power during the extreme cold placed the province at a "high risk" of rotating power outages.

    "On top of high demand of our own energy generation, Alberta's grid receives electricity from neighbouring provinces. Extreme weather in Saskatchewan and British Columbia is impacting electricity sharing, which is also a contributing factor to tonight's grid alert," Nathan Neudorf, the province's utilities minister, said in a statement.

    "The Alberta Electric System Operator has activated its emergency grid management plan to work with local distribution utilities to avoid potential rolling brownouts."

The article was strangely silent on why Alberta was short of power. To learn why, we must turn to this article from the Western Standard: "When magical thinking meets a polar vortex cold, hard reality follows" by Michelle Sterling. As that article relates, it all comes from Alberta switching to renewables instead of using fossil fuels. 

    January 12, 2024, is the day decarbonization died in Alberta.

    People with EVs were caught out as the cars couldn’t hold a charge and could only get half the range, as Global News reported.

    As Brian Zinchuk of Pipeline Online reported, wind farms in Alberta quietly all went to sleep as temperatures hit minus 30C the night before. Why?  Because in extremely cold weather, infrastructure like wind turbines with exposed blades and internal mechanics way up high face the risk of embrittlement and… shattering. Even though there was some wind, the risk was too great to continue operations, meaning that almost all of Alberta 4481 MW of wind power became useless. About that same time, the sun went down. Meaning that all of Alberta’s 1650 MW of solar power vanished for the night.

    Meanwhile, the remaining coal-fired power plants, which have 820 MW maximum capability, have been running flat-out, presently at 817 MW as I write this at 12:14 on Saturday January 13, 2024 — another frosty day in polar vortex deep freeze, with temperatures across the province ranging from minus 40 to minus 50 degrees Celsius.

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    When you look at the AESO’s list of maximum capability of all sources of power generation, you will find that the maximum capability is 20,777 MW. Yet Alberta topped its previous peak demand record on Thurs. Jan. 11, 2024, about 6 p.m. at 12,384 megawatts. By Friday evening we faced a grid alert. Why? Where were those other 8,000 MW? The answer is that 6131 MW are the unreliable renewables, the 4481 MW wind and the 1680 solar, both of which took a vacation at a critical time. 

    There is 900 MW pending from the Cascade gas plants which are not fully operational.  And hydro almost never can be run at maximum capability in winter due to obvious icy reasons.

    Our friendly neighbours and the inter-ties were the stop gap that saved us, despite our neighbours facing the same weather extremes, meaning that we got lucky. 

    Imagine the deadly outcome if we were to go along with the climate plans to entirely phase-out fossil fuels and rely on renewables. 

    Imagine the grid demand if every house and heavy industry in Alberta was legislated to be heated only by electricity, not natural gas. 

    Imagine the collapse of medical facilities if the province faced days or weeks of such a cold snap — which is possible.  ...