Friday Free for All – Nov. 25th
Friday, November 25, 2016 @ 12:00 AM
It is Black Friday, a wild shopping day started in the U.S. but quickly adopted by Canadians. If you aren’t planning to head out to cash in on some bargains, it is the perfect time to share some thoughts on issues that matter to you.
It is time for the Friday Free For All.
You pick the topic, but obey our simple rules:
Keep it clean
Keep it legal
No Bullying
Comments
Christy Clark and her government spent 14 years fighting teachers in the courts, in a losing cause, for her government to arbitrarily increase class sizes and the number of special needs students per class. Now that the teachers have won, she says she is “excited” about the possibility of smaller class sizes and more special needs teachers in the classrooms??? More on her uncanny ability to be a two-faced hypocrite can be viewed in the following news article:
ht tp://www.cknw.com/2016/11/11/premier-responds-to-bctf-supreme-court-win
And why is it that you think that the ministers and their staff did not make the case to act the way the government acted?
“Christy Clark and her government spent 14 years fighting teachers”
The government, maybe. Not Christy Clark. Not 14 years!!!!
Question: Who was the Education Minister in 2002, when the BC Liberals decided to rip up the government’s legally binding collective agreement contract with the BCTF, and then proceeded to illegally remove class size and composition from the agreement and collective bargaining process?
Answer: Christy Clark was the Minister of Education, when these illegal acts took place under her watch, and within her ministry portfolio.
Christy was the Minister responsible when the government decided to unilaterally break a contract with the teachers because its provisions did not fit with her view of the Universe. When was that? Was it 14 years ago? She is now the Premier and is personally responsible for continuing the fight to the Supreme Court since she couls have stopped it at any time. True, there was a hiatus during her years as a right wing talk show host but she was there at the beginning and at then end. So yes, 14 years and fully responsible for the consequences to come.
All of those who have held the office of premier since Glen Clark gifted the bctf with this have been opposed to it saying that it oversteps the rights that a pubic union should have….essentially giving them the right to set spending priorities of the government and even taxation levels.
The premiers have been from both sides of the political spectrum which speaks volumes, the four being James, Dosanjh, Campbell and C Clark. This says the deal made is bad for the province politics aside.
What the SCOC ruled that it was wrong for the province to unilaterlly remove that clause from the contract. Once reinstated the conditions would be open to negotiations between the two sides.
The position of the province in the coming negoations should be that the education budget is x billions and any money that is to go toward class size and composition will be paid for via savings in other parts of the budget. If they cannot settle on that then perhaps it’s time to think outside the box.
Year round schooling with one month off in summer and a week at xmas. Huge savings made in districts like Surrey as fewer new schools required because of better utilization of existing buildings. Under this model it would be easy to graduate after 11 years instead of 12 saving a bunch more money.
Serious look at mainstreaming special needs students and if the ends justify the means. Are there real and measurable benefits by having these students in a regular class or is it just a feel good thing for some. Having a TA for each student costs a lot when one TA could attend the needs of two or three students in a special needs class.
Back to basics education with focus on the 3 R’s eliminating things like music, foods, etc. There are tax breaks for after school programs for those still interested. With programs like the CTC/CNC partnership shop classes in high school can also go. Drama is another one that can be cut, anyone that has had a high school aged kid knows there is plenty enough drama already;)
Go back to 2002? To heck with that nonsense!
The BCTF and it’s supporters want to reestablish conditions that were removed in 2002. I say that we go back to 1999 and restore the contract provisions that existed before the Glen Clark Government’s clearly unaffordable “sweetheart” deal gifted to the BCTF!
Some of you think we need to restore things to pre-2002! Why can’t we restore things back to pre-1999?
Looks like another fight with the Americans over softwood lumber. Likely another round of mill closures. Might not be many well paying jobs left around these parts soon.
Canada should just sell the lumber to other countries, I doubt it would be that hard. Same with hydro and gas.
You would think someone in government over the years would have had the smarts to realized putting all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, was not that smart to do.
Canada already sells as much lumber to other countries as we can, China taking almost as much as the US.
Do you really think the lumber companies just ship it all south and don’t look for other markets?
How do you sell hydro (electricity) to countries not connected to Canada??? Besides which we don’t have a continuous surplus generating capacity.
We’re trying to sell gas to other countries but that requires building the pipelines to the coast, liquefying it and shipping it by tanker, which the lefty political parties and environuts have managed to delay to the point where it likely won’t happen.
Yawn… there you go again Dirtman, letting your political bias distort reality! It is the “dirt” cheap price of LNG that is preventing these LNG projects from moving ahead. I am attaching a news article about an LNG company “shelving” its commitment to move ahead with a LNG project in BC because of very poor world market LNG prices. However, you will ignore reality and continue to blame a left wing government that has not been in power for 16 years, and all those scary environmentalists.
“AltaGas Ltd’s joint venture partner, Idemitsu Kosan Co., says it has stopped work on the Triton liquefied natural gas project in northern British Columbia… Jess Nieukerk says AltaGas had been focused on the smaller scale Douglas Channel LNG project that also falls under the joint venture, although it had also suspended work on that project in February due to POOR MARKET CONDITIONS.”
www .ctvnews.ca/mobile/business/japanese-oil-company-backs-out-of-b-c-liquefied-natural-gas-project-1.2896527
Thanks to fracking, the world has an overabundance of natural gas. The first suppliers to bring their LNG to the marketplace would get the contracts, the rest would be left out of the market. The price of NG is determined by the law of supply and demand, everyone knew the price would tank as more and more of the stuff came on the market, but those with established supply lines and contracts would still do well.
BC was poised to be one of the winners in that competition. Because we have so much gas and because we have a stable political and economic system that ensures constant, uninterrupted supply, potential customers preferred to get it from us. But thanks to the delaying tactics of the above-mentioned parties, we’re too late.
OMG, did BeingHuman really just state “Yawn… there you go again Dirtman, letting your political bias distort reality!”
Peeps, you should be the very last person to ever accuse anybody of letting political bias distort reality!
Thanks for the laugh of the day!
I think we should start talking to Trump right away about the possibility of a rail link to Alaska and Asia. Dust off all our old plans. He talked about this once on one of his previous White House bids.
Take him on a tangent and get him all caught up in the negotiations around rights and trade involving north south rail traffic between Asia and North America via Alaska and BC. Pump the benefits of diversified export markets, and taking ships off the ocean, and nuclear screening safety for overseas trade… and then slip in the bit about free trade in lumber as an issue relating Alaska’s public forests with the public forests of BC in log markets with local milling realities.
Try and get free trade in lumber by tie’ing it in with other issues that Trump views favorably like national security and making America great again.
How many things has tRump already backtracked on ?
– well, parts of the wall might be fencing
-well, parts of Obama care are okay
-well, I’ll settle that tRump U thing
-well, I’m not going to go after the Clintons
-believe me folks, believe me……
And, tRump is refusing intelligence briefings. Insert your own joke here….
Trump still says he is building a wall… due to geography some of it will be fending.
Trump has always said everyone will still be able to get their health care. He plans to open up competition between states to start with.
The Trump U settlement was a generous offer on his part to put it behind him so he could move on to being president. He accepted no guilt and paid out more than he ever made.
Trump says he is not vindictive for the Clinton’s. Its not the presidents role to inject himself into criminal matters. Where the FBI investigation into the Clinton foundation goes; where the congressional investigations go, and how the Attorney General responds are what matter for the Clinton’s.
1200 miles of the US/Mexico border runs down the middle of the Rio Grande river, there never was going to be a wall or fence built there.
Mostly what Trump plans to do about that is enforce existing laws, which will be a considerable change from the present administration.
Digitus impudicus, how many things has Justin already backtracked on?
The list is at least as long as your list! How about we just start with one, it’s a doozy! Remember his pre-election modest deficit promise!
How about his open and honest government? Hmmm, they’ve just put a gag order on 235 military and government personnel!
“The Liberal government has brought in an unprecedented gag order that prevents 235 Canadian military personnel and federal workers from ever talking about the program, now underway, to replace the country’s fighter jets.”
ht tp://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/more-than-200-officials-forced-to-sign-lifetime-gag-order-on-fighter-jets
Ya, sounds like we might be buying 16 super hornets from Boeing to get us by during this F-35 fiasco. Should have been buying super hornets from the beginning, but the Harper Gov was pretty lousy at military procurements.
Eagle….did you know that North American railroads use a different gauge of track than your Russian railroad ? The goods would still have to be unloaded, loaded on a barge and reloaded on the other side. Besides, the province of British Columbia has broke itself at least three times in our history attempting to have a north-south railroad running the length of the province.
I should correct myself. Both the Conservatives and Liberals have been horrible with military procurements. At least for the 5 decades that I’ve been around.
Good morning everyone. I hope all of you are very careful driving this morning. Conditions greatly vary but can be quite tricky in places.
Have a good weekend.
gu-na b a good day. no monolog by eagleone yet. WOO HOO!
Oh… and when the aliens come I am sure you will make a good pet….
OK, now that’s funny.
u need better meds
good one
oooops it did work. sorry. :-/
My brother is a professional truck driver doing long haul based out of PG and I asked him where he thought the worst drivers in BC are and without missing a beat he said the bad drivers start from Hope and all points south. PG he said has its share of bad drivers but at least most drivers in the city know and respect the big trucks. Kamloops in his opinion has way worse drivers and way more dangerous drivers than PG has.
As he spends a lot of time on the roads both day and night and he puts a lot of miles on every week I believe him over what drivers say that regularly drive locally and don’t see what he sees on a regular basis
Bad drivers here are rank amateurs compared to Boston drivers.
Boston drivers often make left turns across traffic immediately after the light turns green. I eventually got used to that when I visited family there. It is done in heavy traffic instead of waiting for the yellow signal. With drivers running red lights, any crashes are at lower speeds and not deadly.
:-)
Thanks for sharing that with us. I think our driving conditions probably contribute to making most of us fairly decent drivers (snow, ice, wildlife, long distances, etc. etc.)
Yet another senseless death on our local roads! This time, a collision between a tractor trailer unit and a pickup out on Hwy 16 east of town!
All driver’s including those of the “professional drivers” classification need to slow down and drive to road conditions!
Condolences to the family of the life lost!
There seems to be an accident each day of the week in PG. And I’ll admit we have some lousy drivers in Abbotsford. There are a lot of muscle cars and very aggressive drivers but its unusual to hear of a traffic accident at an intersection .
But like I have said before the traffic signals in PG need a new maintenance crew to set the lights up properly with the proper timing. Our traffic signals are controlled by loops in the road way which counts every vehicle that means the timing can be adjusted to traffic flow and not by a timed camera. There were loops in the roadway when I did the traffic signals maintenances in PG but I guess they have all been a banded..
We have been here for four years and I have never seen an accident at an intersection. I guess someone will tell us that’s BS. We have accidents but most are on the Freeway where there is a problem with merging. Have a nice day
Cheers
Trumps speech to the New World Order… I remember him giving this about a week before the election, the day after the Billy Bush tapes came out. This was how he hit back at them.
A classic speech future generations will look back and remember him by.
ht tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYozWHBIf8g
I would like to know who dropped the ball on the new crossing on the Willowcale? How does the city go from a three month completion project to over six months. How much will this delay add to the project cost’s?
It’s the City, they have an endless revenue stream.
Have you heard about this thing call rain? It is almost impossible work at a normal pace with the amount of precipitation we have had. No different with the highway project at Mapes Road near Vanderhoof, very poor summer weather has caused many delays.
The worst part about Trump getting elected? Not that he got elected, its listening to people whine about Trump getting elected.
The entitled generation didn’t get what they wanted and now they’re throwing a hissy fit.
I call this comment “A Divided Country”. This comment comes from someone in the United States, and it reflects just how much a racist, bigoted, misogynistic, xenophobic presidential candidate, and now elected leader, has polarized his own country!
“I am not mad at you that Clinton lost. I am unconcerned that we have different politics. And I don’t think less of you because you vote one way and I vote another. No… I think less of you because you watched an adult mock a disabled person in front of a crowd and still supported him. I think less of you because you saw a man spouting clear racism and still backed him. I think less of you because you listened to him advocate for war crimes (torture, waterboarding), and still thought he should run this country. I think less of you because you watched him equate a woman’s worth to her appearance and you got on board with that. It isn’t your politics I find repulsive. It is your personal willingness to support racism, sexism, and cruelty. You sided with a bully when it mattered and that is something I will never forget. So, no… you and I won’t be “coming togeather” to move forward or whatever. Trump disgusts me, but it is the fact that he doesn’t disgust you that will stick with me long after this election.”
Congratulations to you Donald Trump, you may have won the election, but you divided your country!
The country was already divided by the “progressives” like the Obama administration who were all about divisions. Trump was elected because the country was divided.
Did anyone see Notley on tv after Trump got elected? I thought she was going to cry, that was the first time I have seen her without a smirk on her face. Notley was all about the Keystone pipeline when Obama was in power because she knew Obama would never approve it. Now that Trump said he is in favour of the Keystone pipeline Notley and her NDP enviro freaks don’t know what to do.
In the good old US of A they are still counting ballots…trying to reverse the outcome of the election?
The election is not over yet. The vote was only for the electoral college. I think the electoral vote election is December 19th. The democrats and Soros are funding electors to switch their vote arguing that Clinton is the real winner of the popular vote thus justifying electors voting for her rather than how their state voted. This is the reason for the big rallies by the Soros groups, so as to create the perception of public will for turning the election. Only 22 states have it in law that the electors have to vote the way the state voted. So far the Clinton team claims to have flip a dozen electors. In the entire history of the electoral college only 270 have flip their vote and most of those where when a candidate died.
The election is over. Every since the original 13 states instituted the Electoral College all elections have used the method. It is final, just like previous elections were judged final when the Electors had cast their votes.
“Democrats are having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that they lost the presidential election. Now they are threatening to kill Republican electors unless they switch allegiance and vote for Hillary Clinton when the electoral college meets on December 19. The Detroit News reports:”
ht tp://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/11/desperate-democrats-turn-to-death-threats.php
Will the city please fix the turn lane from Carney to 15th. Make it the same as Carney to 5th. It is a very frustrating intersection and people take chances they shouldn’t have to
Very good point being made here.15th and Carney is very hard to turn at without taking a chance.
I never have a hard time turning at 15th and Carney. I wait until it’s safe to do so. Just like everyone should do.
It is not trouble turning, it is the people turning block the straight through until cars behind them start going around which is dangerous to people turning on the other side – because the straight and turn left are the same lane and there is a dedicated turn right lane. Where at 5th and Carney there is a deicated turn left lane and a shared straight-turn right lane which is much smoother
USA wants to re-negotiate, cancel different Trade deals. Canada should pick one to re-negotiate, like: Electricity deals. I heard years ago, power leaving WAC Bennnett Dam goes to the US, at a fifty year old rate, I guess that rate is written in stone. There are several large transmission lines leaving different Dams in BC that carry Electric Power south, likely all on very old aggreements.
I don’t think any power from the WAC Bennett dam goes to the US. Besides which it hasn’t been there that long. That would be Columbia River Treaty you’re referring to.
At one time 70% of the power generated by the Bennett dam was shipped south of the border due to energy agreements in recent years that number has dropped but a significant amount of power is put on the grid to the US under current energy agreements
A significant amount of power from the grid. Surplus power on the spot market and the like.
I have a hard time believing that 70% of the Bennett dam power was sold.
BC was actually not electrically independent, we imported from Alberta at times of peak demand. I don’t know if that’s still the case.
Where is the world is our dear leader? What is he upto. Jetting all over the world thinking he is some puffed up personality with reverence? Is he digging for a Nobel Peace Prize? How about head of the UN? All on our dime. I remember if Harper even stepped out of his office the Liberal would start wailing, now silence.
Now he is going to buy some Super Hornets as an interim measure. Well they are just a newer F-18 but still obsolete. A gross waste of money. For those criticizing the F-35 well if it was no good, Japan and Israel would not be buying them, two countries serious about their defense. Remember when the liberals cancelled the helicopter contract to a penalty of 500 million and we wound up buying helicopters anyhow, as they where sorrily needed.
To the liberals whats a few billion here or there.
He is travelling to those countries which have been ignored or snubbed before our PM got elected. He is making an effort to have a better relationship with other countries, including trade relations. Like with the huge market of EU. Not a bad idea just in case we get stone walled by our friends to the south.
“Tof the liberals what’s a few billion here and there.”
Fortunately Harper was so efficient and frugal that he resisted the temptation to add roughly 160 billions to our Federal Debt!
He is out collecting millions of dollars for the Trudeau Foundation in exchange for Canada’s Natural Products. Does Clinton ring a bell here.
About the debt our dear leader is putting us into
ht tps://youtu.be/t_JWeOIuySc?t=39
it just gets worse and worse!
I wonder if Justin gets word of these September numbers while he is once again out of country trying to act like a big shot?
“Ottawa’s monthly deficit double last year’s on higher spending and lower revenue”
ht tp://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/ottawas-monthly-deficit-double-last-years-on-higher-spending-and-lower-revenue
Lower revenue but lot’s more spending that sure doesn’t seem to be doing us much good! Perhaps we should ask Justin to keep his spending in Canada?
And also while Justin is jet setting around the globe:
“The Liberals have dropped 5.4 per cent nationally over the last month, according to a new poll from EKOS — a statistically significant decline that’s benefited the Conservatives but likely wouldn’t translate into more seats.”
I’m sure that Justin couldn’t care less! After all, he plans on being the President of the United Nations General Assembly in a bit less than 3 years!
The island of Ta’u and it six hundred residents have just thrown the switch on its new solar and battery facility ending a multi generation reliability on unreliable supply of diesel and generator . They will no longer be living in energy poverty . They will no longer burn 109500 gallons of extremely expensive diesel per year . Their ROI will be at least half the time as the price of shipping the oil is more than the cost of the oil . They now have electricity all day and all night . Ta’u is just one of thousands of islands doing the same across the globe .
Makes sense. Diesel generation is expensive and they don’t have their own so it’s even more expensive without security of supply.
Yes, but what do they mean by “almost all”? With the 8 million dollar estimated price tag – to pay it off will take over 10 years at a price of 7.27 per gallon for diesel for the utility. It makes sense for smaller islands, but does it change the price they pay for electricity as a user? No discussion on that yet that I can find anywhere.
To do it on a large scale, PG for example at 1,000 times larger, would require a land mass the size of our city just for the panels and a cost higher than Site C.
Oops sorry 100 times larger – can’t trust phones autocorrect nowadays.
Check out KIUC for Hawaii, the plan is for Tesla to build a solar array on 50 acres and supply power at 14.5 cents a kWh on a 20 year purchase agreement. I though solar was getting cheaper, not more expensive???
Makes sense for Ta’u. The best solution for them.
Would make absolutely no sense for us.
So Ta’u has gone “almost” entirely renewable!
A quick look at Google Earth reveals a very small, steep, mountainous volcanic island, with 3 small clusters of homes/buildings.
I suspect that the people of Ta’u do not enjoy much in the way of what we consider modern conveniences including such things as televisions, air conditioners, refrigeration, electric stoves, washers and dryers and computers! I highly doubt that they also have much need for central heating systems.
So, what would it take, cost and consume in order to provide, oh let’s say a city the size of Prince George with year round reliable power?
Please tell me what Country likes to invade us, if you say the Russians, I don’t care how many new or old Planes you buy, we wont stand a chance .
We have a new type of Invasion going now, we are invaded by Money!
Really we do have commitments with Norad and Nato or would you rather we play dead. Our military has mostly always been in a sad state of affairs no matter the government but buying super hornets as an interim measure is just a colossal waste of money. But hey for our dear leader whats a billion here or there.
Looks like the F35s they cancelled are back on the table – but now the delivery date is pushed further down the road so we require interim planes – smart
Buying the super hornets was the best decision this government has made. The F-35’s are a disaster that still can’t fly safely, are the slowest heaviest fighter on the market. The new Russian radars make their stealth obsolete.
Canada needs proven reliable cheep and fast twin engine interceptors and that is what the Super hornet provides. Stand off over the horizon radar and missiles do the rest.
F-35 is for stealth attack.. We don’t need that in Canada. The single unreliable engine is unsustainable in the far North. A Russian su-50 would simply out fly the f-35 and we would never be able to catch it. A least with the f-18 we can stay within weapons range chasing an intruder.
There are a great number of NATO members and all of them have committed to the the terms of mutual assistance under NATO if a member country is attacked by another country! I see only a few of them in action physically in Iraq! Which is the NATO COUNTRY that has been attacked militarily by another COUNTRY? I put the emphasis on country because 9/11 was a terrorist attack, not an attack by a country. Reality therapy. We have about 1,000 food banks in Canada and many poor and desperate people. Perhaps we ought to look after our country first before we engage in costly and dangerous foreign adventures, especially when we have a choice because no member country has actually been attacked or is under attack. The
Yes eagleone – except for the fact that the super hornets are a temporary airplane to fill the void between the current and future fleet
Stocks of wind and solar companies plunged in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s victory in the November election. What does that tell us about the viability of these companies absent government support? It tells me how dependent wind and solar power companies are on continued government largesse. Despite decades of government subsidies, mandates, and support, electricity generated by wind and solar power companies is still more expensive than that produced by conventional fuels like coal, nuclear, hydro, and natural gas.
ht tp://blog.heartland.org/2016/11/trump-wins-wind-and-solar-stocks-enter-freefall/
————————————————–
Yup, without massive subsidies they can’t compete.
so Ataloss please tell us about your solar system, details, how you live with out being tied to the evil grid, oh wait what system. Just a story.
Here is a great read on the problems of costly inefficient renewables has brought to those areas what went all in. Long but very informative.
ht tp://notrickszone.com/2016/11/24/analysis-adding-more-solar-wind-power-increases-dependence-on-fossil-fuels-doubles-co2-emissions/#sthash.0NpSrtZ1.GYmHD9Qy.dpbs
Oh this article does not get into the environmental issues of wind and solar.
Ataloss that is an isolated island with no energy intensive industry and they kept the diesels as backup.
I imagine your Condo strata council wouldn’t allow you to put up a clothesline for sun drying , let alone solar water heater or PV panel . I can understand your jealousy but don’t expect to live vicariously through my successes as the world passes you by . You have my sympathy . I have always had a soft spot for whining mutts .
All I asked was a simple question, your solar system. Still waiting.
Oh I use very little energy no need for much more costly unreliable alternatives. I pay a utility for easy access to power, just a simple switch on the wall, easy peasy. Let someone else deal with the supply, maintenance issues.
Still waiting.
that made me laugh
The heartland institute is a fossil fuel funded think tank that tells mostly lies . As their market continues to shrink as it has been , they will become more shrill with their lies . They are all about depletion and ever more extreme energy at higher cost of production . Nuclear is the most expensive of all the extreme energy production . Wind is cheaper than the cost of transmittion and so is solar . Ta’u now gets free delivery every day . No fossil can compete on that playing field and the fossils know it . So the only thing they can do is lie through their proxies like the heartland institute and hope that some one believes those lies . I guess that some one is you and the rest of the mathimaticly challenged .
As usual Ataloss, knowing the weakness of his position, resorts to an ad hominem in lieu of information.
So are you saying this claim from the site is wrong?
“Shares of the nation’s largest maker of solar panels, First Solar, fell 6.5 percent the day after the election and shares of another large solar power manufacturer, SunPower, dropped approximately 18 percent. Stocks in the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer, Vestas Wind Systems, fell as much as 14 percent in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s election before settling 6.6 percent lower at the close of business. About 41.3 percent of Vestas’ revenue comes from the Americas.”
If solar and wind are so economical they should be doing just fine.
Here’s another one for you:
“An award-winning Surrey company that described itself as a “world leader” in wind turbines has gone out of business.
A bankruptcy notice on the front door of Endurance Wind Power in the Campbell Heights industrial area on 24th Ave. near 192 St. confirms that the company’s operations are now being overseen by trustee Grant Thornton Ltd.
Endurance chief executive Brad Bardua said the company suffered after government subsidies to small-scale wind turbines dried up in Britain, the company’s prime market. The sharp decline in the British pound also didn’t help.”
ht tp://vancouversun.com/business/local-business/award-winning-surrey-supplier-of-global-wind-turbines-goes-bankrupt#pq=YISbG9
You guys contstantly point to some self proclaimed world leaders going bankrupt thinking that is the whole market . It is not . When Donald won the whole market swooned and the smart money rushed in and made a killing on the fear trade after waiting for a couple of months . Now the markets are the highest they’ve been in a hundred and twenty years , not because of Donald but because of Obama . I would bet that you have no clue as to who the main producers are like Vestas , Siemens, General Electric and on and on . The fiskar electric car company went bankrupt . Did that slow the adoption of EVs , no . It is excelerating . In a few short months the e-golf VW will be selling in canada .
Yeah, wind and solar are sooooo competitive.
Right.
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The only way wind and solar could ever reliably provide base-load is through the deployment of economically sustainable storage systems. Battery packs are one of the favored “solutions.” Li-ion battery prices have “plunged”since 2010 from $1,000/kWh to just over $200/kWh. Bloomberg New Energy Finance is ecstatic about this.
Words fail me. Well, maybe not totally fail me. We currently pay about 10¢ per kWh for electricity. Our electric utility can afford to sell us electricity for 10¢/kWh largely due to the fact that natural gas-fired power plants generate electricity for about 6¢/kWh. The Energy Information Agency forecasts that solar PV power plants entering service in 2022 will be able to generate electricity for 8.5¢/kWh. This would make solar PV competitive with natural gas… Right? Nooooo. Natural gas combined cycle has an average capacity factor of 87%. Solar PV’s average capacity factor is 25%. So, you would have to deploy at least 3 MW of solar PV to offset 1 MW of natural gas. Then you would have to deploy a storage system to deliver electricity when “the Sun don’t shine.” At $200/kWh, solar PV with storage would run about $58/kWh to fully offset natural gas at $0.06/kWh…
ht tps://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/19/battery-pack-prices-plunge-down-to-200kwh/
Ataloss…..markets rallied because of Obama??? You clearly are as deluded as usual. USD spikes huge, emerging markets tank, bonds have their worst correction in 15 years and these factors are attributed to what? Do you know what derivatives are and the trillions that are offside from this spike in bond yields? Do you know about short covering is or was that not cover in John Turners micky mouse book. Markets never tanked with the election except in the futures market as the ballots were counted. November 8 the dow was up around 250 points. You say you made a fortune..sure you did. If you made money its more luck than brains for you.Not sure what constitutes a fortune for you but in the real world its likely the square root of dick.
Jealous? I gets worse for ya Dow . I’m still on the right side of the arbatrage spread and growing .
Did you mean mathematically?
So how come all those countries and provinces that went heavily into costly, unreliable, inefficient renewables have the highest energy costs?
Read mu link above and refute it with facts, not emotion.
Fact only 2% of the worlds energy supply is so called renewable and that includes hydro.
Germany building coal, India, China, Philippines, coal. Cheaper and reliable.
I see that the big dipper Horgan poked his head out of his Tora Bora hiddy hole to say that he approves of the Woodfibre LNG development moving forward. I bet this pleased Andrew Weaver as the greens will be the main beneficiaries of those jumping the dipper ship.
All this left vote splitting will mean another term for CC! 👍👍
theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bc-ndp-under-fire-for-pricey-fundraising-event/article33045874/
$10,000.00 a plate cash for access ndp resource industry fundraising event. Smacks of hyprocrisy after what they said about liberal fundraising.
Hello one and all..hope everyone is having a great day.. be safe out there.
Now our dear leader wants to institute an irrational carbon tax using that cover for a tax grab. Now for those irrationally worried about life giving C02 Canada only contributes 1.6% of man made c02 so just what would the tax grab accomplish?
Considering how other countries are pumping out c02 our dear leader is very irrational.
1 Oct: Townhall: Paul Driessen: Green pixie dust energy policies
Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Obama unilaterally ratified the Paris climate treaty on September 3. Barely three weeks later, China said it can no longer afford current levels of wind and solar subsidies, and so is sharply reducing renewable power generation. Instead, it plans to increase its thermal coal production by 182 million tons per year. Meanwhile, Chinese banks and construction companies are financing and building hundreds of new coal-fired generating units in Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Africa, Latin America and beyond—including nearly two dozen in the Balkan countries.
India has become “the center of the world’s oil demand growth,” says Citigroup. Its economy will likely expand by 8% per year through 2021, its domestic coal production even faster, and coal demand for factories and electricity generation is rising so rapidly that India is financing a major coal mining operation in Mozambique.
Southeast Asian fossil fuel consumption is expected to double by 2040, to 1,070 million tons of oil equivalent per year. Oil, gas and coal will then represent 78% of the region’s energy mix, up from 74% today…
Japan has joined this Asian bloc. Instead of reopening nuclear power plants or expanding renewable power generation, it is using coal and natural gas for 75% of its power, compared to 54% in 2011.
Meanwhile, Mr. Obama’s “Power Africa” initiative has been a dismal failure. In 2013 he promised that the USA would bring the continent “more than 10,000 megawatts of cleaner, more efficient” renewable electricity. (By comparison, total US generating capacity is 1,069,000 MW.) So far, the project has provided less than 400 MW—4% of what was promised, and 0.04% of US capacity…
It’s time we had some grownup thinking and policies, instead of green pixie dust.
ht tp://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2016/10/01/green-pixie-dust-energy-policies-n2226185
The trouble with only reading right wing fossil blogs and opinion pages is that you have little idea as to what is actually going on in places like Africa . One can of coarse point to horror stories from there but as its a continent that’s not the whole story . As is timely solardaily.com has an article that could if read enlighten you on the subject . Also so see Morocco Noor1 . Those guys are going to be rich ! They are making the power and the European grid will buy all that they can produce .
Not having been in Paris myself, I cannot speak of how they marked the end of their tormented consultations, whether they wafted a few puffs of invisible carbon dioxide over the steeple of the Eiffel Tower, or burnt a few outdated physics texts to mark the beginning of the new era their meeting signified. But they surely could not have ended without pointing to the example — the evidence-based example I should stress — of what happens when governments take the Dogma of New Green seriously.
The experience of Ontario, as underscored by the very timely report of its auditor general — released as the great Throng was chewing over these very questions — had to have been an inspiration and a comfort. For Ontario provides, as it were, a case-study of what happens to reason and policy when a government truly gives itself over to the new Meditations. Ontario as all the world knows went Green with fervour, with former premier Dalton McGuinty and his successor, Premier Kathleen Wynne, fancying themselves something of the Copernicus and Tycho Brahe of the New Green Learning. And was it not learned from the auditor general that their great dive into a solar and wind powered future has cost the innocent citizens of Ontario a mere $37 billion more than it should have, which could give rise to another, extra $133 billion by 2032?
If one wishes to learn the true value of what a commitment to the New Learning actually involved, then Ontario is both laboratory and experiment. By what fraction of a degree did the world’s temperature actually lower itself — was it 0.01 per cent, 0.001 per cent or any fractional mite in between? — for that $37 billion?
ht tp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/rex-murphy-the-high-church-of-global-warming
Seamuttt… I am thinking you actually love Trudeau.. you seem to be almost stalking the fellow all the time..lol
That all you got for my post, how cerebral.
This was an interesting Friday Free For All. Dirtman had some good posts as well as many others. Good reading!!
I’m waiting for the day when I go to the “Free For All” and it says “Comments for this story are closed”. It is truly going overboard with the “Protect my ass” theme of this site. Yah Yah Yah, don’t want to get sued, blah blah blah.
I find the endless tirades about renewable energy and non-renewable fossil fuel based energy to be useless and worn out! For instance there are 460 million fossil fuel powered vehicles in the USA alone, more are beingredients sold daily. This existing fleet will be using fossil fuels for at least another couple of decades and potentionally even longer. Ipso ergo the fossil fuel industry has absolutely nothing to worry about, nobody has to come to its aid or defense!
While this fossil fuel industry is motoring along as usual there is nothing wrong with another industry establishing itself in parallel as a viable alternative! Renewable energy is available in wind, wave, tidal, geothermal and solar methods. Nobody will be successful in trying to stop this natural progress.
Have a great sunny weekend!
Nobody objects to another type of energy industry establishing itself. If it’s viable it will be done.
What the debate here is all about is whether or not it is viable. The example Ataloss gave above of the island of Ta’u is a good example where it makes sense, the best choice for their situation.
Here it would make no sense whatsoever, but Ataloss et al keep trying to make the case for it anyway and we just keep shooting them down.
If you’re really so tired of the “endless tirades” on the topic, then I suggest you don’t read them. You do have a scroll function, do you not?
Great to see that you get it DM . i don’t know why some frown on the whole micro grid revolution that solar and batteries have enabled . With billions of people getting electrified bc is poised to gain being that , that’s , going to need one hell of a lot of copper and bc has a bit of that .
Yes, actually you do. You and your fellow Cons posting on this site are rabidly against these alternative technologies succeeding. I could almost hear you creaming yourself with joy as you announced that a BC based wind turbine company went belly up. The only thing that makes you and the likes of Seamutt and the other Con nutters on this site happy is if Canadians remain woodcutters, hole diggers and hole drillers.
I have no objection to alternative energy sources succeeding. I know of a number of situations where they are the best alternative. But thus far, they are no substitute for conventional sources of energy nor can they come close to competing in price. To shut down coal generation as Ontario did and Alberta is doing is unutterably stupid.
It has to do with their inefficiencies, unreliable, highcost, environmental issues that are overlooked. Where ever so called renewables have been installed to any degree energy costs have greatly increased causing industry to shut down and or relocate. Power systems becoming unstable. People having to decide to eat or heat.
I, like probably everybody else on the planet, understands the need for new technologies and advancements. Change will happen, as it always does! Hmmm, sounds a bit like climate change, right?
The electric vehicle has it’s place, albeit an extremely small place at this point in time. The same holds true for solar and wind electrical generation. But in time, they will both play bigger roles in our lives, if we are still alive by that time and if something better doesn’t come along!
Some of the fanatics, ie Ataloss, insist that this change is going to take place overnight. I acknowledge the change, but I suspect that it will take much longer than the fanatics think it will.
To get a better grasp of the irrational thought from the fanatical side of the argument, one should read David Booth’s “Motor Mouth” article in today’s Vancouver PROVINCE newspaper, page 2 of the DRIVING Section.
“EV crowd unplugged from reality”
“LIVING IN LA-LA LAND: Pie-in-the-sky prognostications at Automobility conference laughably absurd”
It’s a good read, rather comical I might add! Enjoy!
You sure could fool me. Your rabid obsession with attacking anything involving alternative energy generation makes it look like you are somehow personally threatened if any of these nascent technologies become established.
You want alternative energy industries to fail and that is all there is to it.
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