While this is clearly the case in the UK, it’s interesting in Aus: Our domestic gas prices are now in excess of what we receive for LNG export. If the government were to change the gas reservation regulations so all the cheap gas can’t be sold by multinationals as LNG for Japan and China - as already happens in Western Australia - then the nation could solve its exposure to the international gas market overnight. Currently there is some noise but not yet direct political will to do this - I’m suspecting something may happen by the end of the year.
Sounds okay in principle but I think a better approach is a carbon tax that very predictably and significantly increases each quarter to send very clear price signals to drive long term green investments. Plane travel and (depending on the country and circumstances) other isolatable luxury usage should attract an additional super tax. We cannot sustain a world where people fly around the place regularly - perhaps killing international plane tourism would drive innovation toward renewable flight but if not then sorry I don’t think we can just assume that we are entitled to ignore the tyranny of distance. Covid and its aftermath highlights just how entitled and destructive so much of the middle class need for short term ‘travel’ is. I strongly suspect that my kids generation won’t be able to just hop on a plane the way almost the entire Australian (and other OECD countries) adult population has grown entitled to over the last 30 years.
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here you’re all worried about jet travel and pollution…yet over here is China and nobody is talking about it… Until they’re willing to come to the table, the rest is just spinning your wheels. 25% of the world’s energy consumed by one country.
Well, sure. But they are also a lot closer to 25% of the world’s population than most of the West is to a population-appropriate energy use. Canada is less than 0.5% of global population, and we are the 6th largest consumers of primary energy in the world. If a global budget was distributed, China would not have to make many reductions for a status quo budget.
It is sort of absurd to suggest that no one is talking about it when it has been a right-wing talking point for at least a generation. It has been talked about ad nauseum. China isn’t going to do anything drastic without the West doing something meaningful, but has in fact outperformed much of the West in relative reductions - often for purely economic reasons, not altruism.
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And is the only country in the world which compares with the UK for off shore wind generation. Really rather shameful for the likes of Canada, USA, Russia, Norway, Sweden et al.
60% of Canada’s energy generation is renewable. What kills me is we produce 632 terawatts of hydroelectric energy but it’s very difficult to determine how that compares to our consumption as it’s measured in petajoules… the conversion doesn’t make any sense.
disagree. Canada is a massive country for our population so our infrastructure costs are much higher. the fact that 60% of our electricity is renewable just from hydroelectric alone is a good acheivement for a young country. We have windmill farms in many different areas (Dawson Creek/Tumber Ridge, for instance) but everyone is so spread out it’s become a bunch of smaller grids trying to be self-sufficient instead of fewer, larger concentrations for power generation.
That said, the SiteC hydroelectric station is going to be massive. As is Revelstoke.
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Canada is what, the second largest country in the world by area, with a coastline somewhere between 2 and 3 times that of the country with the second longest coastline?
It’s hydroelectric potential (including tidal) is off the charts but it really ought to be leading the world in wind energy generation.
My electric bill last month was $150 more than my previous max. Looking back over my historical records, my usage is fairly predictable, but around mid July there was a massive spike in usage that wasnt explained by the recorded max temperature (a useful tool to map energy usage relative to temp highs and lows). I’ve had the AC guy out twice but they can find no issue and so I dug into my old useage reports deeper and saw something. While no single day is an outlier, what I’m seeing is long runs with every day at the high end of the normal summer temperature range. I think what Im seeing is that overall cooling requirement is masked by looking at isolated day temperatures and instead the overall heat AUC is considerably higher meaning my system never gets the chance to rest. I think we’re probably also dealing with problems of lack of efficiency trying to cool from this high an average temperature. The result is I;m using literally 25% more energy to cool my house every day of July this year than I did in previous years. At this point the only thing I can do is pay, or turn up the thermostat to “sweaty balls in your own living room” level.
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our coastline is largely inaccessible except by water. the logistics of building a wind farm on our coastal areas isn’t really realistic. I’ve had this conversation with two of my cousins, both of which work(ed) for APPlus in wind turbines. One of them maintains the two farms at Tumbler Ridge area. need regular access to the turbines themselves and it’s not feasible in many locations you may think would make sense. (salt water aside)
This is why many of the big farms you see are on mountain ridges, because the wind has to be consistent and forceful.
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Offshore generation is just getting rolling in Canada, but what your comment misses is just how much on-shore there is. We have very, very different constraints here compared to the UK regarding where a wind farm can be built. In the UK, land is scarce, transmission assets are plentiful, exactly the reverse in Canada.
Similar situation in the US, which has incredible wind generation potential in the Great Plains region - it is only now that the additional incremental expense of off-shore makes much sense.
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We do have a load of renewable energy…but we are still per capita one of the highest GHG emitting countries in the world.
1TWh = 3.6 PJ
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Most of that coast line is not particularly well suited to wind power, even leaving aside the lack of transmission infrastructure to the vast majority of it. We have used a tiny fraction of our much more accessible on-shore potential, and even not far from load centers, the real constraint is transmission capacity. Most of that potential is just not economically viable in the foreseeable future, and Canada already exports a massive amount of electricity.
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Not a whole lot that can be done when so much of that difference is the wholesale price.
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I’m aware of the conversion rate, that’s easy to find. But the annual hydroelectric generation compared to the daily usage numbers just don’t add up when I looked. makes you wonder who does these statistics…
Again when you have such huge distances to cover for supply chain, there’s not much you can do about greenhouse gases when it comes to distribution of goods and services. we have to truck so much of what we eat and use over long distances. closest major city to Vancouver is 900km away (Calgary)
I like your thought here but how do you go about monitoring it, I am guessing something related to a smart meter.
I am being jovial here, but I am trying to delay my GF moving in with me because she has 15minute showers, was as little as 2 items in the washing machine backed up with a good tumble dry 
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Our energy exports (and imports at times) make our energy statistics very difficult to decipher, in terms of matching generation to consumption - especially regarding electricity.
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What kind of monster does that???
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Ermmm….i am contemplating my response here. As she can not hear, my misses 
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My brothers partner is worse, walking across the threshold into their house is like stepping from the Antarctic into Africa