All we need to do in order to prevent forest fires is give all of our money to multinational corporations so they can spend it on useless bullshit that doesn't do anything besides increase electricity rates.
I've been watching as many people in Ontario switch away from electricity to fossil fuels to heat their homes because the cost of electricity has skyrocketed, and a massive increase in in situ diesel generation so companies can switch off of carbon neutral sources of energy during peak times.
It does something....something bad. More fossil fuels are being burned because of the mass mismanagement than if they'd done nothing.
It does something....something bad. More fossil fuels are being burned because of the mass mismanagement than if they'd done nothing.
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Doesn't really matter for the purposes of what we're talking about if everyone is switching to natural gas or propane or diesel.
A friend of mine heated his house with electricity, electricity generated by hydroelectric. Eventually, his hydro bill was $700 a month. He ended up switching to fossil fuels to heat his home, and with the massively reduced power bills and the tiny fuel bills comparatively speaking, his entire setup paid for itself in the first year alone and then some.
There are a lot of people right now who are living in homes where a relatively reasonable power bill for heating turned into a mortgage payment. And as a result they are switching to Fossil fuels. You tell me if that's a big win for green energy. And even with the carbon taxes that are dragging everyone into the dirt, they're still coming out ahead. And they will continue to come out ahead unless fossil fuels become so expensive that we're all dead.
A friend of mine heated his house with electricity, electricity generated by hydroelectric. Eventually, his hydro bill was $700 a month. He ended up switching to fossil fuels to heat his home, and with the massively reduced power bills and the tiny fuel bills comparatively speaking, his entire setup paid for itself in the first year alone and then some.
There are a lot of people right now who are living in homes where a relatively reasonable power bill for heating turned into a mortgage payment. And as a result they are switching to Fossil fuels. You tell me if that's a big win for green energy. And even with the carbon taxes that are dragging everyone into the dirt, they're still coming out ahead. And they will continue to come out ahead unless fossil fuels become so expensive that we're all dead.
The point is not to do nothing. The point is to do things that are effective instead of things that are going to end up making someone a lot of money.
Virtually every province in Canada somewhere has the geography required for hydroelectricity. Hydroelectricity that we know in the past and for decades produced enough electricity to heat people's homes in winter. Instead, we're chasing after solar powered heaters which is absurd and stupid. 100 years ago we had electric trolleys, for 40 to 50 years the city that I'm in right now had electric buses. They ran off of power lines above the streets. Instead, we're chasing battery powered electric vehicles that are much higher maintenance, require fantasy technologies that don't exist yet, that are much higher cost.
I've been pretty consistent about this for a long time. You can find posts going back years talking about it. In my view, the technologies that we need to dramatically improve everyone's lives and reduce reliance on fossil fuels already exists. We should be looking at them, in particular in Canada hydroelectricity. If we ended up having the common good of large-scale hydroelectric everywhere, it would have nothing but positive effects. People would be able to heat their homes in winter without having to choose between and food. Those homes that are heated with electricity today, they were built when electricity was an economical way to heat your home. Instead we are chasing magic environmentalism boxes, and literally tilting at windmills.
So why are we focusing on all of these high technology moonshots? Because it makes people a whole lot of money. It is relatively trivial to use all of these existing technologies which is by the way advance a lot from the days that they were widespread. But no one is going to be lining the pockets of politicians.
Virtually every province in Canada somewhere has the geography required for hydroelectricity. Hydroelectricity that we know in the past and for decades produced enough electricity to heat people's homes in winter. Instead, we're chasing after solar powered heaters which is absurd and stupid. 100 years ago we had electric trolleys, for 40 to 50 years the city that I'm in right now had electric buses. They ran off of power lines above the streets. Instead, we're chasing battery powered electric vehicles that are much higher maintenance, require fantasy technologies that don't exist yet, that are much higher cost.
I've been pretty consistent about this for a long time. You can find posts going back years talking about it. In my view, the technologies that we need to dramatically improve everyone's lives and reduce reliance on fossil fuels already exists. We should be looking at them, in particular in Canada hydroelectricity. If we ended up having the common good of large-scale hydroelectric everywhere, it would have nothing but positive effects. People would be able to heat their homes in winter without having to choose between and food. Those homes that are heated with electricity today, they were built when electricity was an economical way to heat your home. Instead we are chasing magic environmentalism boxes, and literally tilting at windmills.
So why are we focusing on all of these high technology moonshots? Because it makes people a whole lot of money. It is relatively trivial to use all of these existing technologies which is by the way advance a lot from the days that they were widespread. But no one is going to be lining the pockets of politicians.
It doesn't matter whether most homes are heated with fossil fuels or not. A lot of houses (entire cities In some cases) in Quebec and Manitoba and in Ontario where heated with electricity, and that was practical up until recently. The last couple decades of seen electricity prices skyrocket so stuff that was perfectly reasonable in the past is no longer reasonable.
Things have been so utterly mismanaged that we're moving backwards. A typical family used to be able to live a reasonably carbon neutral existence with respect to home heating and lighting and so on. Now people are having to switch to Fossil fuels. That's a change, and it's a change for the worse. All you can really call it is incompetence considering these people keep on screaming from the rooftops about how much they care about this topic.
With respect to battery powered EVs as buses or mains power busses, when you're dealing with something that doesn't have this giant set of batteries that are going to be destroyed relatively quickly, I would say that that's definitely the best. We don't need to go digging up strange stuff out of child labor mines, we can dig up the materials here, we can manufacture them here, we can use them here, and when they're done we can recycle them here. Winning all around.
Things have been so utterly mismanaged that we're moving backwards. A typical family used to be able to live a reasonably carbon neutral existence with respect to home heating and lighting and so on. Now people are having to switch to Fossil fuels. That's a change, and it's a change for the worse. All you can really call it is incompetence considering these people keep on screaming from the rooftops about how much they care about this topic.
With respect to battery powered EVs as buses or mains power busses, when you're dealing with something that doesn't have this giant set of batteries that are going to be destroyed relatively quickly, I would say that that's definitely the best. We don't need to go digging up strange stuff out of child labor mines, we can dig up the materials here, we can manufacture them here, we can use them here, and when they're done we can recycle them here. Winning all around.
A party voted in to end green policies that were harming common people ending green policies that were harming common people isn't incompetence. And when the party that created those policies are so badly pantsed that they aren't even a real political party anymore that isn't some fringe group of radicals who voted against them.
I've warned before that there are political consequences for ignoring the reality of the common man. Keep on pretending reality doesn't exist and denying reality people experience, a guy like Ford will be PM and do exactly what he's elected to do.
I've warned before that there are political consequences for ignoring the reality of the common man. Keep on pretending reality doesn't exist and denying reality people experience, a guy like Ford will be PM and do exactly what he's elected to do.
Were you at all aware of all the sweetheart deals the green energy guys got? They were getting like 50 cents a kilowatt hour at one point (sold for 4 cents a kilowatt hour wholesale), and those particular contracts were locked in for like 25 years. It's obvious that doing that is going to have to get paid for somehow, and guess how it got paid for? The ratepayers. Hydro rates shot up.
That harmed people. You can keep on pretending that the last 20 years didn't happen, but they did. In Ontario isn't the only place that happened. I used to heat my home with electric in a very far North community where I didn't have much of a choice. Electricity rates climbed up a very quickly over the past 20 years, and now a lot of people are looking at replacing their electric heaters with fossil fuels because the cost of electric has gone up so much compared to general inflation.
This is only difficult if you're trying making it hard intentionally. Otherwise it's really easy: to get people to stop using fossil fuels, you need abundant inexpensive green energy, people will use that energy because it makes the most sense. The sort of inexpensive abundant green energy that has been powering Quebec and Manitoba for a century. The sort of inexpensive abundant green energy that until the 1970s was the workhorse of Ontario electrical production. The inexpensive green energy used abundantly in British Columbia and Newfoundland. It's something that Canada has in Mass abundance, we just need to use it. And then, Canada can become one of the world leaders in green energy, the per capita carbon footprint drops, and with enough energy we can gain a competitive advantage producing normally carbon intensive things using green energy, helping us punch above our weight and take some of the dirtiest energy production in the world in Chinas coal power plants offline.
That harmed people. You can keep on pretending that the last 20 years didn't happen, but they did. In Ontario isn't the only place that happened. I used to heat my home with electric in a very far North community where I didn't have much of a choice. Electricity rates climbed up a very quickly over the past 20 years, and now a lot of people are looking at replacing their electric heaters with fossil fuels because the cost of electric has gone up so much compared to general inflation.
This is only difficult if you're trying making it hard intentionally. Otherwise it's really easy: to get people to stop using fossil fuels, you need abundant inexpensive green energy, people will use that energy because it makes the most sense. The sort of inexpensive abundant green energy that has been powering Quebec and Manitoba for a century. The sort of inexpensive abundant green energy that until the 1970s was the workhorse of Ontario electrical production. The inexpensive green energy used abundantly in British Columbia and Newfoundland. It's something that Canada has in Mass abundance, we just need to use it. And then, Canada can become one of the world leaders in green energy, the per capita carbon footprint drops, and with enough energy we can gain a competitive advantage producing normally carbon intensive things using green energy, helping us punch above our weight and take some of the dirtiest energy production in the world in Chinas coal power plants offline.
You're definitely missing key facts, and you're wrong on others.
One of the core tenets of the Maguinty liberals green energy plan was massively overpaying for electrical power from Green energy. In 2011, the guaranteed amount provided for a certain set period of time was 80 cents, and in 2012 they changed that to 50.4 cents. They ended up signing contracts that were 20 years at the agreed upon rate.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-to-cut-rates-paid-for-wind-solar-power-1.1157717
What you said about the prices of electricity in Canada is simply wrong. If you are paying attention to Saskatchewan and alberta, then Ontario is competitive. But at no point have I been referring to Alberta or saskatchewan which are mostly fossil fuels. I've been referring to all the different provinces that utilize hydroelectric power. Quebec, Manitoba, British columbia, and Newfoundland are all almost entirely renewables, those renewables are primarily hydroelectricity, and almost all of them have significantly lower electricity prices than Ontario (Newfoundland is an outlier I believe is caused by the fact that Labrador has all the hydro and Newfoundland is isolated)
https://www.hydroquebec.com/data/documents-donnees/pdf/comparison-electricity-prices.pdf
Here's some data on electric heat. It shows that two thirds of homes the province with the most hydroelectricity in the lowest electricity prices are heated with electric.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-402-x/2007/1741/ceb1741_003-eng.htm
About 45% of Canada's carbon emissions come from burning fossil fuels to release energy, and that includes for building heating.
The real-world data speaks for itself. Several provinces are at 90%+ renewable electricity generation and have lower electricity prices than the other provinces. That's achievable using hydroelectric today, without magical thinking or praying for new technological innovations.
One of the core tenets of the Maguinty liberals green energy plan was massively overpaying for electrical power from Green energy. In 2011, the guaranteed amount provided for a certain set period of time was 80 cents, and in 2012 they changed that to 50.4 cents. They ended up signing contracts that were 20 years at the agreed upon rate.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-to-cut-rates-paid-for-wind-solar-power-1.1157717
What you said about the prices of electricity in Canada is simply wrong. If you are paying attention to Saskatchewan and alberta, then Ontario is competitive. But at no point have I been referring to Alberta or saskatchewan which are mostly fossil fuels. I've been referring to all the different provinces that utilize hydroelectric power. Quebec, Manitoba, British columbia, and Newfoundland are all almost entirely renewables, those renewables are primarily hydroelectricity, and almost all of them have significantly lower electricity prices than Ontario (Newfoundland is an outlier I believe is caused by the fact that Labrador has all the hydro and Newfoundland is isolated)
https://www.hydroquebec.com/data/documents-donnees/pdf/comparison-electricity-prices.pdf
Here's some data on electric heat. It shows that two thirds of homes the province with the most hydroelectricity in the lowest electricity prices are heated with electric.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-402-x/2007/1741/ceb1741_003-eng.htm
About 45% of Canada's carbon emissions come from burning fossil fuels to release energy, and that includes for building heating.
The real-world data speaks for itself. Several provinces are at 90%+ renewable electricity generation and have lower electricity prices than the other provinces. That's achievable using hydroelectric today, without magical thinking or praying for new technological innovations.