New Land Advocate; Anne Murray Fights Wind; ATCO Power Strong
Alberta landowners upset with how the province takes over their land will soon be able make their concerns known through a property rights advocate. Environment Minister Diana McQueen said Tuesday the government will introduce legislation this week to create the advocate job. McQueen said the bill reflects the feedback a panel of government MLAs heard last month when they toured 10 communities to hear landowners’ concerns. She said the government will also review the property rights elements of the Expropriation Act as well as the Surface Rights Act.
Canada’s Songbird , Anne Murray,has written Premier Darrell Dexter asking him to halt the proposed $85-million project, which would be about three kilometres from her summer home. Pugwash Wind Farm Inc. wants to install 11 or 12 turbines, which would generate up to 33 megawatts of electricity, on a site about two kilometres east of Pugwash. Construction could begin in 2013. The singing legend, who spends three or four months a year in the area, said she fears the wind project would hurt tourism and the area’s popularity as a retirement area. A top-notch celebrity golfer, Murray also expresses concern in the letter about the development’s possible impact on the Northumberland Links course. The developer says wind turbines will now be at least 1.2 kilometres from shore and two kilometres from the golf course. Most cottages will be more than 1,000 metres from the nearest tower and all of the structures are more than 600 metres from homes, the minimum setback required by municipal bylaw.
ATCO Ltd. reported record earnings for 2011 led by worldwide increased activity for ATCO Structures & Logistics, higher earnings in ATCO Power and additional infrastructure investment in the utilities to support Alberta growth. ATCO Power recorded higher power pool prices and related spark spreads for electricity generated at its Alberta plants.
Read MoreOilsands Unlikely to Cause Global Warming
Sundance#4 went offline at 03:59 Sunday and came back online at 10:29 Monday.
A commentary in the journal Nature by one of the world’s top climate scientists says emissions from Alberta’s oilsands are unlikely to make a big difference to global warming. Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria and a colleague calculated that if all the hydrocarbons in the oilsands were consumed, the carbon dioxide released would raise global temperatures by about zero-point-3-6 degrees. His paper concludes that burning all the globe’s vast coal deposits would create a 15-degree increase in temperature. He says his analysis suggests it is an increased dependence on coal — not the oilsands — that governments have to worry about.
Mustus Energy has selected Lockheed Martin to build a new 41.5MW biomass power plant in Alberta. Lockheed Martin will support Mustus in procuring materials, equipment and other required services, and it will also manage the construction of the power plant. The power plant is expected to commence commercial operations by the fall of 2013 and will provide base-load electricity to the Alberta grid.
A Carmel not-for-profit that monitors the electric grid in 11 states and Canada has revealed to federal regulators that a mechanical failure caused more than $11 million in damages to the high-tech facility. In a Feb. 7 public filing, the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator Inc., or MISO, told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that the data center became contaminated in September. MISO said a mechanical failure of an air-handling unit in the facility damaged information technology equipment, in addition to the physical structure of the data center.
Read MoreIPCAA Continues Fight
The battle over two, high-voltage, transmission lines proposed between Edmonton and Calgary isn’t over yet. Sheldon Fulton, representing larger oil and gas companies, said he will seek a meeting with Energy Minister Ted Morton in the next two weeks to discuss a new report by an independent review panel that endorsed the government’s plans to construct two 500-kV, direct current north-south power lines. The IPCA members, mostly larger companies, will much higher transmission costs for the next 30 years to cover their share of the $4-billion grid expansion if it goes ahead. Rather than face that bill, many companies will opt to build their own power generating facilities on-site and pull out of an “expensive, overbuilt” central grid. With another 800 megawatts of new powering coming on stream near Calgary with Enmax’s Sheppard plant, Fulton also questioned the need to build two north-south lines quickly.
Low US power prices due to low nat gas price and warmer winter are good news for companies that sell power to retail customers. But they’re terrible for power-plant operators who sell electricity on the wholesale market. While prices remain low, power plant operators are focusing on sales to end-use customers, which are more profitable. They’re also putting plans for new power plants on hold, which could lead to electricity shortages in Texas and other regions in the next few years, executives at power companies have warned. Analysts are predicting that natural gas prices will remain low this year and next, as gas demand slowly catches up with supply.
Read MoreCommittee Says Build Two Transmission Lines; CB of C Says Canada to Spend $347B in Upgrades
Alberta needs two more high-voltage power lines and it needs them right now, a government-appointed panel recommended Monday. Brian Heidecker of the Critical Transmission Review Committee said with Alberta’s population and business booming, the lines are a must. The next move will be from provincial Energy Minister Ted Morton, who must decide whether to accept the recommendations and, if so, ask the Alberta Utilities Commission to proceed with the lines. The panel was also asked to review Bill 50, and said the government should revert to the old method of public hearings under the Alberta Utilities Commission, or AUC.
The Conference Board of Canada, in a report issued Monday prepared for the Canadian Electricity Association, said that investments to repair, upgrade and expand the nation’s power grids will boost the economy and create a “steady stream of high-paying jobs.” The board looked at growth and asset replacement plans by utilities across Canada including BC Hydro, Hydro-Québec, and Ontario Power Generation. It added up all the numbers, and determined that by 2030, the utilities will collectively spend $347 billion – more than a third of a trillion dollars – on power generation and trans-mission projects. The report said BC Hydro’s biggest outlay will be for investments to expand large scale hydroelectric power generation – on Monday, Premier Christy Clark announced that the province has taken another step toward development of the Site C hydro mega-project on the Peace River. Alberta’s principal focus is on new natural gas generation. Ontario is following the same path, replacing aging coal-fired generation stations with natural gas-fired stations. Quebec and Manitoba, like B.C., will focus on new hydro projects.
Read MoreSundance#4 Off and On Line; Alberta Fixed Price; REA’s Worry About Survival
Sundance#4 went offline at 21:23 Friday and after several attempts came back online at 22:09…Ontario Power Generation Feb. 7 shut down Unit 8 at the 3,100 MW Pickering nuclear power plant for a planned maintenance outage.
Andrew Leach, University of Alberta energy expert, said fixed rates will not be cheaper. “They’re not offering you a discounted electricity price, they’re offering you a fixed electricity price – like any insurance policy you’re going to pay something for that. If you sign a fixed-price contract you should expect to pay over the course of a year. You’re actually going to pay more for your power than a fluctuating system, but you’re going to have that certainty.” A comparison of fixed electricity rates and regulated-rate options are available on the Utilities Consumer Advocate website at ucahelps.alberta.ca.
Rural Electrification Associations are uniquely Albertan – they do not exist elsewhere in Canada but they were, and remain today, the backbone and driving force that delivers electricity to thousands of rural Albertans, farmers and business owners alike. However, the REAs continued existence is threatened. The rules in Alberta are working against the REAs because of the increased investment levels and the profit-maximizing investment of the multinational utilities. Government needs to thoroughly review the current legislation and revise the recent changes in legislation that have allowed this to happen. These multinational utility companies have the added advantage of benefiting from their own defined, protected service areas under current legislation, where they operate as a monopoly providing an essential service to consumers without a choice. Correspondingly, the ability of the multinational utility companies to raise their investment levels in the past couple of years now effectively allows them to also utilize these levels to purchase REAs and rewards them for doing so.
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