ENMAX solar power – a different definition of affordable
Today, I received a nice offer in my mailbox from utility company ENMAX. These offers often make me angry because I find that they prey on people’s lack of information regarding electricity units and pricing. Today was no exception.
Your oilsands royalty primer
Bitumen royalties accounted for 10% of total Alberta government revenues in 2010-2011, and that is expected (according to the most recent Alberta Budget) to climb to approximately 20% of total government revenues, or $9.9 billion dollars by 2014-2015. Both royalty revenue estimates and royalty rates make for contentious subjects in Alberta, and this post is intended […]
Questions I’ll be asking #abvote candidates
What will determine my vote on April 23rd? I suppose it will surprise no one that I will vote based on the energy and environmental policies of the parties. My key issue list includes 5 categories: 1) Savings, transparency, and accountability; 2) Market access; 3) Local environmental management; 4) Global environmental credibility; and 5) Getting […]
Some clarification please, Mr. Mulcair.
Yesterday, NDP leadership candidate and environmental hawk Thomas Mulcair announced his intention to implement a, “new comprehensive plan to combat climate change.” According to his press release, “Mulcair’s new plan would still be industry-focused and based on the principle that ‘polluters pay’, but it would expand beyond the 700 largest emitters in Canada to cover […]
Are you smarter than an energy 101 student at U of A?
I often get asked, “what do you teach?” I thought that a good way to answer this question might be to let you have a look at the midterm questions I asked my Energy 101 class yesterday here at the Alberta School of Business. This is a new course, created last year, which aims to […]
Alberta PC Leadership Q&A
With the co-operation of each of the PC Leadership candidates, I will be putting together an Energy and Environment Q&A on the Globe and Mail‘s Economy Lab site. This evening, I have sent the following three questions to each of the candidates, and asked that they respond, in 200 words or less for each question, […]
My latest in The Globe and Mail: Oil sands monitoring plan a good step forward
Environment Canada has released the second of two phases of a proposed environmental monitoring plan for the oil sands, and one need only look at the second name on the list of authors on the first page to understand its significance: Dr. David Schindler. Dr. Schindler is one of the most high-profile and well-respected personalities […]
The AUC and Maxim Power: No steps forward, 3 steps back.
Last week, on June 30th, the Alberta Utilities Commission approved the Milner Expansion Project, a 500Mw coal-fired generating facility, to be built 20km north of Grande Cache, west of Edmonton. This decision raises more issues that I can possibly cover in a single post, so I’ll narrow it down to my top 3. First and […]
Attn: Andrew Nikiforuk. If you’re going to make accusations, you should back them up.
In this article in The Tyee, Andrew Nikiforuk levels some very serious allegations with respect to the National Energy Board, suggesting that the Board has been captured (see * below for definition) by industry, that it cannot be objective because it is industry-financed, and that it does not appropriately balance the interests of energy companies […]
Gas prices, fuel economy, electricity prices, etc.
Last night, I posted a simple calculation to Twitter. Based on gasoline energy content of 32.2 MJ/l LHV, and a conversion of 3.6 MJ/kWh, I calculated 8.94 kWh/l of gasoline, and thus stated that $1.30/l gasoline was approximately equivalent to 14.4c/kWh electricity. This had, in a sense, the desired result. Many of my followers followed […]