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Canada Plans To Phase Out Coal-Powered Electricity By 2030 (theguardian.com)
Last week, French president Francois Hollande announced that France will shut down all its coal-fired power plants by 2023. This week, Canada's environment minister, Kathleen McKenna, announced that Canada plans to phase out its use of coal-fired electricity by 2030. The Guardian reports: [McKenna] said the goal is to make sure 90% of Canada's electricity comes from sustainable sources by that time -- up from 80% today. The announcement is one of a series of measures Justin Trudeau's Liberal government is rolling out as part of a broader climate change plan. Trudeau also has plans to implement a carbon tax. "Taking traditional coal power out of our energy mix and replacing it with cleaner technologies will significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, improve the health of Canadians, and benefit generations for years to come," McKenna said. Four of Canada's 10 provinces still use coal-based electricity. Alberta had been working toward phasing out coal-fired electricity by 2030.
They don't even use the word "electricity" up there. They call it "hydro".
I think you should be modded "-1 fucking ignorant moron".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The UK switched to gas years ago. It was Thatcher and her successor John Major who phased out the British coal industry since it was uneconomical. Odd that in America the preservation of coal is seen as a conservative ideal, whereas in the UK it was the left that was trying to keep it alive in the interests of the workers. I guess the definition of conservative in America must require anything that beats the crap out of the environment whether it pays its way or not.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Yes, Saskatchewan has the last pseudo-skeptic Premier in the country. Of course, the pseudo-skeptics like Postmedia (the Canadian oil industry's advertising branch masquerading as a newspaper chain) is cheering for Trump to kill the US's involvement in the Paris agreement, and naturally insisting "Well, there's no point to Canada fighting climate change, because the US won't".
Meanwhile, the very same newspaper chain is reporting that the Arctic is 20 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year.
I keep thinking that some point really soon the mounting evidence of serious climate shifts will override even the hardest critics, but then again, AGW pseudoskepticism has become a sort of a cult of its own, which follows the same bizarre and idiotic credo of the Creationists, both groups declaring almost every other day "Any day now, that nasty scientific theory I hate is going to be disproven."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Looking out my window I see frozen nitrogen falling like snow into a darkness that has never felt the warmth of a star. This global warming is a lie!
Wait... wrong channel.
I see sandworms. Yep, global warming.
No, we're not heading for another ice age, and no "real scientific evidence" proves it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Because there's no other way at all to heat a home...
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
See here. So good luck with that. There are limits to the amount of pollution folks will tolerate. China and India have long since reached those limits.
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Because there is still ice at the poles, we are still in an ice age.
I don't live there, but it sounds like a good thing.
It's a good thing until it turns into drought.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Yes ... let's keep kicking those environmental issues down the road. Fourteen years should give plenty of opportunity to blame some other government when this (and many other distant promises) don't actually happen ...
Your own private definition of "ice age"? Suggest you try this one instead: ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in both northern and southern hemispheres. By this definition, we are in an interglacial period
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Coal is the lame duck. It should be easy to get rid off it. Natural Gas? No way we are giving it up. Imagine heating up all these homes in the winter with anything other than natural gas.
Natural gas emits about half the greenhouse gas as coal per thermal unit and burns considerably cleaner, but is still a problem.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Well, one could just feed upgraded biogas into the system.
Someone had to do it.
It's actually not a conservative thing. It's that the Republican Party, which is sort-of conservative, is controlled by a few monied elite that have significant fossil fuel interests. Therefore, in the U.S., fossil fuels = conservative cause, but not because it has anything to do with actual conservative ideology.
I don't live there, but it sounds like a good thing.
By many measures, Canada and Russia are the biggest "winners" from global warming. They benefit from warmer temps, longer growing seasons, more land in the cultivation zone, etc. So it is a bit ironic that Canada is making commitments to reduce CO2, while America (a big net loser) is backsliding.
> as I write this post, it's snowing heavily outside and there's over a foot of snow on the ground.
So because it's cold somewhere, global warming doesn't exist, excellent logic. Countervailing point: When I moved to Vancouver 30 years ago nobody needed air conditioning and winters saw about 1-2 weeks of snow. The last 10 years there's been annual runs on all stores in the summer where they can't keep air conditioners in stock, and I haven't seen a single flake on the ground in 6 years.
However, as you wrote that post it is also TWENTY DEGREES warmer than it should be in the arctic.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/north-pole-20-degrees-warmer-than-normal-as-winter-descends
Note, that's also the National Post, the right wing rag of Canada, so if THEY are publishing it, there must be some fire behind that smoke.
When the fossil fuel dividends finally start to dry up due to more and more competitive renewables, so will much of the yelling fade. The only ones left will be the poor tools who were zealots without getting paid for it.
Someone had to do it.
Odd that in America the preservation of coal is seen as a conservative ideal
That is just political pandering. Coal is dying because of simple economics. It can't compete with cheap shale gas, and Trump can't do a damn thing about that. The coal miners in Appalachia need to get on the bus and move somewhere that has jobs.
I keep thinking that some point really soon the mounting evidence of serious climate shifts will override even the hardest critics, but then again, AGW pseudoskepticism has become a sort of a cult of its own, which follows the same bizarre and idiotic credo of the Creationists, both groups declaring almost every other day "Any day now, that nasty scientific theory I hate is going to be disproven."
I think that calling them pseudoskeptics bestows too much grace on them. What they really are is anti-science denialists.
And they (like the Creationists) are not waiting for their least-favorite scientific theory to be disproven. They simply reject the parts of science that are inconvenient to them.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
not unless they have more bombs than us anyway. Reparation payments are made by folks who lack military and/or economic power. The United States has both. Given the enormous natural resources we have that's not likely to change. We're also the only nation with a proper navy (though China's catching up).
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The UK switched to gas years ago. It was Thatcher and her successor John Major who phased out the British coal industry since it was uneconomical. Odd that in America the preservation of coal is seen as a conservative ideal, whereas in the UK it was the left that was trying to keep it alive in the interests of the workers. I guess the definition of conservative in America must require anything that beats the crap out of the environment whether it pays its way or not.
No, it was just a cynical pumping of the people who may have lost their jobs by the conservatives. They aren't going to get their jobs back, but thanks for the vote. Also, the people who own the Conservative politicians have a pretty big self interest in preserving coal use, so its a core principle.
Regardless, automation has done more to eliminate coal jobs than anything else. What once upon a time took armies of men, digging with pickaxes and dinky cars is now accomplished by a few people.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Coal is the least efficient and highest polluting method of power generation in the commercial market and everyone should be trying to eliminate it everywhere on the planet. If there was ever one method of power generation to eliminate, it's coal power.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Trump 2020.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The joke's on you. We're about to have CLEAN COAL starting January 21.
You are welcome on my lawn.
but not because it has anything to do with actual conservative ideology.
Actually, there are those in the Republican party who view environmentalism as a New Age, satanic cult. They equate it to a worship of Mother Earth, and therefore view it as inherently evil and unGodly.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
Sorry, that is the exact thing I was trying to say (from memory reading it a long time ago. IANAC).
And to continue the quote from wikipedia...the Holocene—of the ice age that began 2.6 million years ago at the start of the Pleistocene epoch, because the Greenland, Arctic, and Antarctic ice sheets still exist.
Do they count hydrocarbon exports in this? If I'm not burning any myself, but I'm selling them to others, is that any better?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I don't live there, but it sounds like a good thing.
By many measures, Canada and Russia are the biggest "winners" from global warming. They benefit from warmer temps, longer growing seasons, more land in the cultivation zone, etc. So it is a bit ironic that Canada is making commitments to reduce CO2, while America (a big net loser) is backsliding.
A lot of Russia is trapped, frozen methane and an increasing amount of it is thawing and venting. Not a good thing if it increases. Canada has been seeing more & larger forest fires and coupled with the die-off of trees from infestation, wildfires are going to get worse over time.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
"They simply reject the parts of science that are inconvenient to them"
I keep hoping some of them will find gravity inconvenient.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I increasingly believe /. needs a "+1 True, but depressing"
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
I love ground source heat pumps, I really do, but they are expensive to install. Especially in an urban setting. Last year I replaced my natural gas furnace and I looked into the options available to me. The ground source heat pump was about five times the price of a lower priced high end natural gas furnace and A/C when you added the cost of having a company come in and drill the holes for the loops. The newer air source heat pumps which are now able to handle most of Eastern Ontario winters are about twice the price of furnace and A/C but then you have to add in the cost of backup furnace for the short times when the temperatures are too cold for the pump.
If you are building a house in an area that doesn't have a natural gas connection then the ground source heat pump becomes more viable. It depends on the cost to hook up the house to the pipeline. The other option is if a builder is putting up a bunch of homes at once. They can get the drilling company to come in and do all of the holes at one time or do some sort of centralized system which would spread the cost out.
The one thing that I hate to see is the large buildings that don't use a ground source heat pump. I would love to see it mandated for them to use the heat pump.
France and Germany are removing all fossil fuel not just coal. Canada needs a deeper commitment as does the US. We also need to be planting tens of millions of trees and bamboo as well. Conditions in California are so bad that we will probably have to find unusual methods to irrigate forests in California, as they are rapidly losing all of their forests. But let's all chant together. There is no global warming ! After all Frankentrump has declared it so. Or is it Trumpenstein?
so setting up a 10-15 year game plan so its phased out and lowers job loss ...obama shoulda done this instead of dropping the hammer on a whole industry
If only our government was smart and set some policy settings encouraging the building of renewables (we have plenty of places in this country that would be perfect for baseload solar setups plus wind power, biofuels, geothermal and more) rather than digging yet more coal out of the ground and burning it (or using coal seam gas which is almost as bad)
Note, that's also the National Post, the right wing rag of Canada, so if THEY are publishing it, there must be some fire behind that smoke.
National Post hasn't been right-wing for almost 3 years. Just a FYI. They decided to start pushing lefty agendas and people are fleeing in droves from the paper. Just like they've fled Toronto Star and Globe and Mail. NAPO in it's wisdom decided to even double down, and subscriber and page views continue to drop.
I live in Ontario, we've got 2cm on the ground you're welcome to take. Then again, you dig back through the historical records and you'll quickly find that your weather is normal. The snow was not. Just a heads up though, plotting actual nominal weather for BC is pretty hard, being that most of the data is less then 150 years old.
Om, nomnomnom...
Weather is not climate and Global warming doesn't mean that everywhere gets warmer all the time; the term "climate change" is better as it discourages such misunderstandings.
Sorry we passed peak Truth a while ago and are rapidly entering the post-truth era, the Postfactocene.
I thought you science-y people always tell us knuckledraggers not to equate weather with climate. Which is it?
They benefit from warmer temps, longer growing seasons, more land in the cultivation zone, etc.
I wouldn't be so fast at calling that simply benefits - when the permafrost thaws, it causes a large number of issues, such as soil instability, ecological upheavals etc etc, not to mention the potentially huge release of methane from gas hydrates and other sources that are now kept frozen. Warmer climate may sound good, but there will be a transition period in which things are going to look grim, and it won't be over in a few years - it can probably go on for centuries.
After Americans find he's sold the roads, bridges, etc. from his infrastructure "expenditure" to companies (and given them tax reductions for the privilege of owning these assets), it isn't clear he'll have a mandate for anything except the retirement home...which he'll have built for himself at government expense and for which he'll charge admission for visits.
Well, we more or less assume you'll come to accept evolution to some degree, but it is clear being "knuckledraggers", it hasn't yet happened for you.
And it'll be YUUUGE.
That's what "insightful" was supposed to be.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
This is the biggest nonsense you ever wrote.
Spring starts how many days earlier in Canada and Russia? One day? Two days?
What about winter? Yes winter is significantly later in terms of temperature. But not regarding daylight.
And the extended 'warmths' is irrelevant: harvest time is when harvest time is.
In other words: the climate change has no effect right now on food production. Perhaos in 20 years when we can plant differnet crops that fitt the new climate and has a better yield.
But I doubt it. Limiting factor in the far north is sunlight, not temperature.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
... Trump will ramp up coal based energy production big time. Let's make America dirty again!
we call this not being selfish.
Odd that in America the preservation of coal is seen as a conservative ideal
That is just political pandering. Coal is dying because of simple economics.
So was slavery. Doesn't meant the South won't go to war over it.
Yes and no.
Perhaps a bit of a gamble that didn't pay off and perhaps it could have been implemented better, but the environmental impacts are real. Unfortunately so is the economic impacts. It isn't exactly short term thinking, but the negative impacts are. Could still see some longer term gain. What is at odds are those generation contracts that basically subsidize green generation in Ontario making it attractive to investors. The idea was to bring "green" jobs to Ontario. However most of the generation stations that are wind or solar have little staff outside of initial construction, and most of the material is produced outside of Ontario and imported in. Had they perhaps attached some strings as to number of jobs, or percentage of Ontario made material it might have been more effective.
At any rate, the entire blame can't be put on the Liberals (though another example of total blame might be the politically motivated gas plant scandal to the tune of 2 Billion I believe)... Power generation and specifically Hydro One (and whatever it was called before that) has been mismanaged by both political stripes over the years. Look at what the employees make at these "corporations" in addition to CEO and executive compensation... I recall long before the Liberals took power having to pay "debt repayments" as part of my bill which is ridiculous. The whole privatization of the industry by the Conservatives was a huge bungle, not to mention the distribution services that preyed on consumers so much that they actually had to make a law specifically to help consumers from being ripped off by private distribution companies.
So yeah, there is some blame to share, but the Liberal green strategy isn't the only cause, and at least as said there has been some positive environmental impacts.
Lastly, "putting farmers out of business"? Really. I doubt it. Is farming really that electrically intensive an operation? I know in Northern Ontario they made the same point about the forestry pulp and paper industry, which is a bit more credible as it is much more power intensive... However even with subsidies you have to wonder just how uncompetitive they are if their margins are so slim and perhaps while power increases highlight the issue, it is a bit more complicated than that.
Who are the 'monied elite' in the Democratic party?
So was slavery. Doesn't meant the South won't go to war over it.
The South lost the war, and slavery ended. The same will happen with coal.
Albertan here. No, global warming is bad for us. In the south, where a lot of land is cultivated for hay and animal feed, it's been a dustbowl, there were news stories about ranchers selling off their cows for pennies on the dollar, otherwise they would starve to death. In the west, the warmer temperatures mean that the pine beetle has breached the mountains and is now in Alberta forests, this bug kills pine trees dead, in Yoho there are vast forests that have been killed by the beetle. The bug is kept in check naturally by cold temperatures.
In the north, where there are forests larger than some American states, forest fires unlike anything we have ever recorded has ripped through the area and one city, 60.000 people were forced to evacuate as a forest fire leveled 20% of the city, Canada's most expensive natural disaster.
In the central region, where I live, farmers are just now finishing pulling in their crops because of unseasonable rain and general crap weather.
In my city, there is huge concern over increased rainfall because our infrastructure was never designed for it. The city recently released previously restricted flood plain plans and I found out that my house is on the very tip of a giant lake that would appear in the 1 in 100 year storm scenario, and all of my neighbors across the street would be underwater. We are expecting the 1 in 100 year storm any old day now, next July is a likely date.
Given a choice, any Albertan would go back to the way things were.
I can only imagine the reasoning behind running away from coal, how does one actually use the word sustainability and any other Technology other than coal? Scientists have worked tirelessly to produce clean burning coal plants and Cole is abundant, Coal employees people. If you look at this from a statistical standpoint and compare it against things like nuclear energy I think it is pretty clear that Coal is far more sustainable. I'm sure nuclear power is and option however with our government agencies being bought off regulating these companies is a challenge and they will only return as much as they have to into the business to maintain operations. The United States Nuclear Power Plants are aged and it is questionable that they have been maintained properly. One disaster at a nuclear power plant throws that whole sustainability equation out the window. Now let's look at solar energy now here's a joke, any of you people in technology have to be able to see that solar energy is a nightmare in proportions, It does not scale and is it expensive. Now, natural gas this is a wonderful resource, however this resource is absolutely destroying something far more precious than polar ice, it is a definite whereas, climate change and global warming is just a theory and that precious commodity is absolutely essential for life, that is water. Fracking for natural gas to which President Bush and Pres. Obama along with Dick Cheney (heavily invested in these companies) Open the floodgates with little to no oversight and regulation for this destructive form of extracting natural gas. These companies have been allowed to exploit our federal lands, OUR lands. If you want talk about sustainability, natural gas by means of Fracking, Will ultimately destroy nearly all of our natural aquifers and underground water supplies by polluting them with poisonous chemicals. THIS IS A FACT, this is happening right now and can be proven unlike this theory of global warming. It is time to look at what is really happening instead of having our heads in the clouds worrying about what may happen, listening to scientists who have been caught fudging numbers in order to have research results agree with the theory... I live in Milwaukee Wisconsin, Milwaukee sits beside one of the greatest natural resources we have, a great lake, Milwaukee is now a hub for freshwater research. Now, why in the world would people be investing in fresh water research? The reason is not global warming, The reason is that water is going to become scarce and has nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with our obsession with weather modification and our destruction of our natural water supplies due to hydraulic fracturing or Fracking. We already see large freighters from other countries filling football field sized bladders and towing the freshwater out of the country, this practice began after our President relinquished the great lakes to the United Nations. So, Canada is going to see their way past coal power, good for them. How about we make some smart decisions instead of the hip and trendy decisions.