cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/12553230
Decision by premier Danielle Smith further pits Canadian province against environmental groups pushing green energy
Alberta will block renewable energy projects on “prime” agricultural land and limit the placement of wind turbines to preserve “pristine viewscapes”, a decision that increasingly pits the western Canadian province against environmental groups pushing green energy – and the companies investing in it.
The decision, announced by the premier, Danielle Smith, and utilities minister, Nathan Neudorf, on Wednesday, follows a controversial six-month ban on new renewable energy projects that is due to expire on 29 February.
Alberta’s moratorium, announced in August, left energy companies uncertain about billions in future investment, even as the region, with its clear skies and an abundance of wind, led the country in new renewable projects.
Nearly a third of Alberta’s grid is now powered by renewables and the province has shifted away from coal at a far faster rate than expected.
In my opinion, renewables, especially wind mills, look incredibly aesthetically pleasing on a landscape. They are extra pretty because you know they are replacing coal/oil and how can clean energy not be amazingly beautiful in that regard?
I always feel like I’m driving in the future going through wind farms
QUIT ELECTING MORONS, you morons.
Literally nobody in the public voted for her in the first term at least.
Edit: WTF, Lemmy. I’m factually correct. Look at her Wikipedia page if you don’t believe me.
She was appointed when Jason Kenney resigned. She won in the second term, not the first term. In the first term, the public was not given a chance to vote for her or not.
Interesting. Politicians just come in to existence already in power? This explains so much.
Nope. Originally her party was elected when somebody else was at the helm, and then when Jason Kenney retired, she was just kind of put there.
Literally no one in the public voted for her originally.
I’m in Alberta but I vote NDP.
Before he left, Kenney was actually warning that the crazies were trying to take over. Hell, we thought Kenney was crazy. Turns out he was right about this one thing.
But it will be perfectly acceptable to put an oil well there which will be abandoned and left to rot after a few years I bet.
She is such a fucking plague on this country. If Canada was a dictatorship like all of here followers believe, she would have been rounded up and thrown in a camp last year.
She is a plague on us all, CO2 doesn’t care about provincial boundaries. My children will suffer from her decisions.
I assume the same “pristine viewscapes” bullshit will apply to oil & gas and coal mines etc. (of course it won’t)
The oil pipelines and open mines add character to the “prestige viewscapes”.
The oil sands are known as a vacation spot for a reason.
There’s nothing prettier than a swath of land stripped bare with the barren limestone exposed, the pristine reflections of the sun on the undisturbed tailing ponds, the piles of black mud with lines of tire tracks running through it, with the silence broken only by intermittent booms to keep the birds from landing in the toxic sludge.
Or how about the oil derricks in the north, placed delicately in the middle of the boreal forest, within a clearcut square of stripped down below the soil, creating a beautiful bare patch 100m in every direction from the derricks.
and the province has shifted away from coal at a far faster rate than expected.
Because solar and wind are dirt cheap compared to traditional energy generation methods. Using renewable energy is, put bluntly, just good business sense. If you have plentiful sun and/or wind and you’re not making use of solar or wind generation then you are pissing away good money opportunities.
But if there is one thing the conservatives love more than resisting change, it’s sitting around doing nothing while they beg the federal government for more money so they can subsidize their failure of a fossil fuel sector. That entire province just evokes the mental image of repeatedly slamming your foot on a rake and complaining how much it hurts each time.
Don’t forget, all while blaming everyone else for putting the rake there
Solar and wind are dirty cheap until it’s night time and they is no… wind. It’s not a predictable source of energy and it’s often associated with gas to compensate that.
For those who are curious about Energy and Alberta, I strongly suggest to listen to this podcast https://open.spotify.com/episode/3VBL33s0ch5BQCbg4AZJz2?si=GlWvXmM3Q1mxPwK6EMDFTw
Man, even just reducing gas usage by having solar / wind even if it’s half the time, is STILL HALF THE USAGE.
How many farmers will this piss off? Like seriously. I’m south of the border and any farmer that likes making money LOVES renting out a tiny portion of their land to turbine companies for all that sweet passive income.
Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!
Because when the oil industry does it to more than 140 thousand square kilometers that’s fine.
The year is 6000BCE. Time traveling Danielle Smith rallies against planting farms to preserve natural beauty. Insists hunting is a much more practical food source and will continue to serve humanity’s needs indefinitely.
That would actually be less dumb. Being a peasant sucks, yo.
Being a hunter-gather sucks more.
