Phasing out coal in Alberta was supported by good policy design driven by carbon pricing and regulations with clear targets that offered necessary certainty to the industry and stakeholders
Coal accounted for 80 per cent of Alberta’s electricity grid in the early 2000s and it still amounted to 60 per cent just 10 years ago. When phasing out coal was just an idea being batted around, many said it couldn’t be done. This is not dissimilar to the rhetoric today around decarbonizing the grid. But Alberta’s experience phasing out coal shows environmental progress of this magnitude is possible.
Great headline but doesn't indicate what replaced it.
Carbon dioxide still getting produced in massive quantities.
Coal and other hydrocarbons still being produced for export. But, hey, if it gets burned in another jurisdiction that isn't our problem, right? We will put up those glass barriers all the way to space so our atmospheres don't mix.
Southern Alberta is probably the best place in Canada for massive scale solar installations. Get on it.
Alberta said that putting it on prime agricultural land needed some restrictions, and rightly so. The amount of good farmland that's under solar panels now in south and central is disconcerting. There's no end of shit land in Alberta that's better suited to solar panels anyway.
Alberta produces 2-3X more energy per capita from wind and solar than any other province, and has almost as much renewable energy storage than the rest of Canada put together.
I mean, I'm biased, but I get the sense the rest of Canada uses us as a scapegoat a bit, like a cartoonified version of what Alberta is. No, we have hipsters and progressives here, and I see all the redneck Doug Ford guys out there. It's not all that different really.
NS's power generation is a. Bunch of micro-plants, which lend themselves more easily to upgrade and transformation.
Just gotta get on it.
The fact that their entire infrastructure - roads, water, power, some sewer, data - is all long thin media and throughways twisting along through granite and trees, makes 'status quo' maintenance hard, harder still depending on the leadership, and makes upgrades a hard sell.
The Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based clean-energy think tank, first intervened in a coal plant regulatory process in the late 1990s and, in 2009, published the first major proposal that showed the province could move to an unabated coal-free grid by 2030.
When the New Democratic Party came to power after the 2015 provincial election, they got to work delivering on a plan to accelerate the elimination of coal.
Federal and provincial programs to support workers during this transition were made available, while community economic diversification and growth in jobs in other sectors have helped to offset some of this change.
Phasing out coal in Alberta was supported by good policy design driven by carbon pricing and regulations with clear targets that offered necessary certainty to the industry and stakeholders.
Neither Albertans nor our climate can afford to be locked in to burning greenhouse gas-emitting natural gas when we have better, lower-cost alternatives.
Canada is also behind on building interties between jurisdictions – an approach that supports resilient systems and allows us to benefit from our complementary strengths across the country in hydro and other renewables.
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So no coal... just means now they're using other non-renewable resources to generate their power. Either in the form of natural gas to supplement processes, or in the form of all the minerals/materials required to build/maintain wind/solar infrastructure.
"Natural" gas is still a fossil fuel, still emits byproducts we dont want in the atmosphere, and has become the primary form of green-washing industries. It must be safe because they named it "natural" right?!