RE:RE:RE:VW panics as auto industry disruption continuesFree energy is like free beer.
Once in a while you may get a free beer from your friend, but at some point you will need to pay for a round.
This video is so misleading, it should come with a warning. There is no free energy, and there is no free beer.
So this was obviously made one sunny windy day, and the high output from windmills and solar produced more energy than the load for a short period of time. Yes, it happens. This is the brief moment in time he is talking about, where those companies that have made significant capital investments wait patiently on a calm day for the wind to blow when power rates are high to cash in, then when it does, power rates drop through the floor. They won't be in business for long. This happens exponentially more often than when oil goes to zero, which takes a global pandemic and everyone staying at home washing their hands to drop oil consumption a mere 7%.
These renewables simply cannot consistently provide energy 24 hours a day, and will always require another source as a standby base load when the wind does not blow, or during night.
Battery technology is improving, however is still many many times more costly to install compared to fossil fuel alternatives or nuclear alternatives. I have been trying to install a battery storage system here in my big solar build for my pool, and although I have access to many of th enewest inexpensive Chinese products, there is no way I can justify it cost wise. Batteries will need to be replaced way before they pay for themselves, even assuming there are no issues with the cheap Chinese components. It is at best a novelty feature, as is my waterfall volcano over the cave.
The fact that there is this kind of thinking out there scares me to imagine just what our leaders have planned for the millions of Canadians living in the Northern regions.
Even in Edmonton mid winter, the sun is barely seen a few hours of the day as it pokes up barely above the horizon through the ice fog for weeks of a windless -30C cold snap. The roof solar panels are buried under a foot of snow and ice, where even metal becomes brittle and shatters and snaps in the extreme cold. EVs are extremely inefficient in these conditions if they run at all.
It seems our energy policies are on track so many of those in the North must freeze in the darkness for months until the sun comes up in the spring. Imagine batteries in the snowmobiles and vehicles all dead, not even a headlamp can be recharged. Are we really going to abandon the North due to our anti oil policies? Meanwhile China and India build 150 new thermal coal plants, and the millions in Africa demand more cheap, easy, and reliable energy. They refuse to be burdened with the associated high cost of the renewable infrastructure the west wants them to use. Of course, this might work if we just buy it for them.
Just as the ESG investing movement has collapsed as it was heading off the rails into a quagmire where money simply goes to die, I think that with shortages and increasing demand, the reality of energy security and the discovery of this high transition cost will hit this insane anti oil movement like a cold bucket of ice water thrown in the face.
I think a recession will only delay or reduce the inevitable increase in energy demand from happening, as well as delay the significant rise in future energy costs of all types.
I will relax knowing I will own companies providing us with long term energy security. I prefer this as opposed to the present future direction in store for many Canadians, choosing whether to be warm and starve to death, or eat and freeze in the dark. They will wait for the sun to return or the wind to blow, while being told it is good to be comfortably numb as it is saving the planet.
Obscure1 wrote: matt: "what would the price of WTI be if Canada wasnt sending in that 3.7M bbls/day?"
Basically zero for Canadian produced WCS and SCO. In the short term, the USA would have to scramble, but scramble they would. Why would the USA or any country for that matter allow another country hold a proverbial knife to their throat in regards to energy supply when "virtually free" energy is coming much sooner than anyone reading this can imagine.
It wasn't long ago (April 2020) when US oil futures contracts turned negative because there was no place that would accept the oil
People should never confuse the fact that it is convenient for the USA to import heavy oil from Canada due to pipeline access with a belief that Canada has the US over a barrel (hehe).
Trudeau guaranteed that Canada will always be vulnerable to the whims of America when it comes to oil and gas. Maybe Trudeau recognized the fact that the USA has bigger guns so there was no sense in pretending that Canada actually has a say in the matter.