about green energy
Refer to Bill Gates book on this. I have only read some of his summary but it is the best thing I have seen so far. Green energy is only a relatively small part of the effort to reduce the carbon footprint of the 8 + billion people in the world. As part of a power generation system, green energy is only able to reduce our carbon footprint when it is operational. Green energy cannot be depended on to deliver power under all conditions. Power systems need to be designed to deliver power under ALL conditions or esle you are going to have blackouts. Power systems are demand based. Green power will be much more useful as part of the power mix when there is a mature energy stotage technology. There is no mature energy storage technology now. Another technology to improve power system efficiency would be room temperature superconductive transmission lines where lossless power could be whipped around the continent where it is needed. This technology currently does not exist. Massive solar arrays in the desert and who knows what else. New battery technologies that are designed to be viable long term ( no rare earth metals, etc .. )
It is not clear to me whether carbon generating industries needed to be killed or just managed carefully. I would like to believe that it can be managed. A massive engineering challenge that is being put forward to largely reduce our current levels of carbon and polution in general. Everyone has to accept this. As Jim Croce said, you don't tug on superman's cape. Reducing the carbon footprint of the world will be the issue of the day for the foreseeable future. It will not go away. So, as soon as they figure out they need to give engineers money to make increments improvements to reduce green house gases. The carbon tax has to part of the solution but 100 % of that money should be going back to industry and researchers to develop technologies and methodologies to reduce our carbon footprtint. You cannot push water up hill and you cannot ignore climate change. Be part of the solution or get run over.
I am a maritimer. I have worked in Alberta and Saskatchewan. I have a great admirition for the hard working people of those provinces. My older brother had his career as a drilling fluids engineer due to his experiences working in Alberta. It has been very distressing to me to see how Alberta has been thrown under the bus by so many Canadians. I have even wrote to my MP threatening to vote Conservative for the first time in my life if the liberals did not support the TMX pipeline. That is the only time I have written to a MP in my life and I am not young. It is my belief that the attack on the Alberta oil sands was a cynical political move by environmentalists bacause it represented winning conditions. The oil sands are undoubtally ugly, Canada judiciary has a left bent ( unlike the US ), a hostle environmentalist neighbor in urban BC and there was no way they were going to be successful in shutting Texas energy developments. When Texas was going all out fracking the Permanian in the last 5 years flaring gas to beat the band , there was virtually no discussion on this by our climate emergency citizens. Just pipelines and tar sands are the issue. Hypocrisy, geez. And I thought polution came from consumption, not production. Must be the new math.
Wishing the best for the Canadian energy industry. And get your carbon footprint down every year, that is the way to go. I have complete faith our very competant engineers will get this done as they have solved hundreds of other problems. I have faith that in the long term Canada will be able to compete in a low carbon world by doing what we have always done in the energy world. Among the best always. Here is to better days.