Alberta’s environment minister, Rebecca Schulz, is in Germany today, getting set to celebrate the opening of a large geothermal electricity-generating project that uses technology designed by a Calgary company.
At the same time, back home in Wild Rose Country, geothermal projects are among the categories of renewable electricity generation projects, along with solar and wind, that the Alberta government is refusing to approve for a seven-month period.
This is more evidence that irony is dead in Alberta.
“I look forward to strengthening relationships with key partners and celebrating a successful geothermal project in Germany made possible thanks to made-in-Alberta technology,” Ms. Schulz enthused in the canned quote assigned to her in the news release published just before her trip. “The world needs more secure, reliable energy, and Alberta can help deliver it.”
Meanwhile, the corporations that just short weeks ago were in a rush to build renewables projects in Alberta are said to be contemplating heading for the exits, which may actually be what the government of Premier Danielle Smith had in mind when it declared the seven-month moratorium on Aug. 3.
The Reuters news agency reports that that seven-month freeze “has caused four major international companies at various development stages to stop work on their plans.”
The London-based international news agency’s source didn’t name the companies but it quoted the Calgary-based Pembina Institute saying the freeze has already stopped 15 projects that were awaiting approval and put 91 at risk.
The Wall Street Journal also published a story on the weekend, unfortunately behind its impregnable vault-like paywall, describing Alberta as pushing back against renewables projects – you know, like the one in Germany that Ms. Schulz’s news release was touting.
The Alberta government’s news release marvelled that Chancellor Olaf Scholz will be at the opening of the $290-million project tomorrow in the Bavarian town of Geretsried, located about 40 kilometres south of Munich. Maybe he’ll get a chance to chat with Ms. Schulz and ask if they’re distant cousins.
On Friday and Saturday, the release says, Ms. Schulz will be in “meetings and briefings” in Munich, the nature of which was not disclosed. Not, one would hope, with the Munich-based International Democrat Union, the sinister neoliberal internationale headed by Stephen Harper that works to undermine Mr. Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, among others.
News media in Alberta, however, were much more taken with the revelation federal finance minister Chrystia Freeland got a ticket in Alberta for going 132 km/h on a stretch of highway between Grande Prairie and Peace River in northwestern Alberta.
That’s 22 kilometres over the posted speed limit and – oh my gosh! – Ms. Freeland says she doesn’t own a car and likes to ride her bicycle!
Virtually all reporters who wrote breathless accounts of the ticket noted this, apparently unaware that many people who ride bicycles and even walk a lot have nevertheless learned how to drive a car and some of them even have drivers licenses in their wallets. Licenses are also handy in Ontario liquor stores, which insist on checking everyone’s IDs, even obvious septuagenarians like your blogger.
But I digress, this unironic irony explains why the story of a speeding ticket on a highway where, well, everybody speeds, makes this newsworthy, embarrassed scribes explained.
Naw, it makes them look petty and unaware of the real ironies that abound in Alberta.
Unspecified “Meetings and briefings”….maybe having lunch with Christine Anderson??
Re: Chrystia– I wonder if she was trying to get away from someone— ?-just a thought! Happened to me on a trip from Edmonton to Calgary, I was delayed leaving, it was rather late at night, they (2scruffies) were drinking and waving at me to pull over; when I got a chance to try to lose them, the officer who pulled me over was more interested in giving me a speeding ticket than going after the drunk driver, go figure.
It is unfortunate that ground breaking Alberta technology is banned here for now, by a shortsighted government determined to cut off its nose to spite and provoke the Federal government any way it can.
I suppose at least Alberta cabinet ministers can go to Germany to see it being implemented. Perhaps that is some consolation, or further evidence of the foolishness of their party and its current leadership.
As for Frida being a bit of a speed demon on those rural Alberta roads, somehow I am not at all surprised. After all she also eluded the KGB years ago. At least she has the good sense so far not to get tickets around school zones in Edmonton, unlike some of her former provincial counterparts.
Yeah she worked for the CIA? A literally criminal organization with a rich history of plotting coups, assassinations, selling drugs… coooool
Also in Germany: in response to the war in Ukraine and gas shortages the German government recently gave the green light to restarting 27 coal plants until March 2024.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2022/09/02/despite-climate-commitments-the-eu-is-going-back-to-coal_5995594_19.html
More to the point Ms Schulz should visit the village of Lützerath, the scene of recent protests over plans to destroy the village in order to get the coal underneath. She could have made a pitch for Alberta coal.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/14/europe/lutzerath-germany-coal-protests-climate-intl/index.html
Don’t think Olaf Scholz has much time for Stephan Harper these days or any of the shenanigans of the IDU. He’s far too busy taking orders from the US State Department.
Does it escape you ronmac, that the ‘pretend’ Environment Minister from Alberta, is there to observe the opening of a geothermal electricity source in Germany, that will be a step towards backing away from that TEMPORARY fall back to coal plants? How totally absurd that the technology on display there comes FROM ALBERTA and yet the premier that you elected, is shutting down that possibility right in your own province for the next 7 months. You seem to think your comment is a ‘gotcha’, but it only demonstrates yet again, that you aren’t really thinking this situation through. ‘Spin’ does not equal facts.
Who do you think the IDU takes their marching orders from ? Also the state dept…
You’re probably right. Not to mention the German greens. Suffice it to say Scholz is happy to be getting his orders directly from the US State Dept and not through some intermediary like Harper. As befitting his importance on the world stage.
ronmac: Your references are dated. It takes a bit of time to shift a national energy grid away from fossil fuel, including nuclear. Germany is well on its way.
“Germany sourced 52.3% of its power from renewable sources for the first six months of 2023, data has shown.”
https://www.power-technology.com/news/renewables-over-half-german-power/?cf-view&cf-closed
In spite of the UCP loons, Alberta was heading in the right direction, although too slowly and with most of the benefits going to electrical companies rather than consumers. That is the fault of a corrupt and captured state, not renewable generation technologies.
The personal and corporate income taxes collected by the GoA are not enough to pay the bills. We rely on resource revenue to make up the difference. Wind, solar and geothermal do not pay any royalty (yet?). When the oil and gas revenue stream dries up in this province we will have to implement a PST or some other tax and the party in power at the time will suffer the consequences, they will never see power again. That is the reality, keep the oil and gas revenue stream alive or perish.
@Cornell Van Ryk
Sounds like poor planning to me. I seem to recall one of the first, if not THE first act/s of some eastern carpetbagger was to reduce corporate taxes from 12 to 8%. {without asking anything at all in return – no jobs for Albertans – nothing}. I believe he also was also involved in a massive cash give-a-way to some pipeline company in the U.S.. Also managed to arrange back room deals with foreign corporations to destroy mountain tops in protected areas so coal could be mined. I believe there were lawsuits by a couple of the multinationals after these backroom deals came to light and were ‘supposedly’ stopped. I don’t recall the GoA crowing that the lawsuits were dismissed so I am assuming that extra contingency fund in this years budget of $1.2 Billion might have already been quietly spent. The next stranger-to-the-truth premier has already indicated that Billions will be given to oil companies so that it won’t cost them a cent to clean up wells which they had ALREADY agreed to clean up. I expect that since Albertan taxpayers pockets will be emptied to fulfill the excited utterances of the current TBA/FAS puppet, all that remains to be determined is whether or not the $20 Billion promised to the oil/gas companies will come with any ‘conditions as to what the money has to be spent on’………….but who knows? The current government is already eyeing the theft of Canada Pension funds that belong NOT TO THEM but to the individual people who contributed to them.
“So, you are saying Alberta voters behave like children.” – N.S. Sherlock
Uh no genius the implication is they will have to raise taxes and no longer be one of the lowest taxed jurisdictions on the continent, that forces the working class of this province to pay for the largesse of the corporate class. What a tragedy that will be.
Cornell Van Ryk: Had these phony Conservatives and Reformers not cheated us out of our oil and tax wealth, and continued to get the rates that Peter Lougheed was getting, we wouldn’t be out of around $800 billion. I’m not the only one who is aware of this.
Alberta has failed Albertans in not preparing for a ‘non-oil future’ unlike the Norwegians who are also an oil export country. Norway nationalized and then banked every nickel of the profits from their oil and now have a tidy nest egg of $1 trillion dollars. Money for investing and maintenance of their country as they move away from their oil investments. When oil production eventually winds down, Albertan’s will be left scrambling as they are forced to reinvent their economy.https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jun/12/worlds-biggest-sovereign-wealth-fund-to-ditch-fossil-fuels
So at a time when O&G companies are making more money than at any time since 2014, the UCP saw its mandate to reduce corporate tax to 8% from 12%. In light of your comments, any particular reason why?
I see Nuthink!
As noted in the article included below, the Excited States is the place to go when you are fed up with the idiocy of the Alberta UCP. Good for them!
https://www.juancole.com/2023/08/capacity-renewables-majority.html
Bruce: If I were a renewable energy electricity generation company, I would be cautious about the United States, too. Someone not very nice or smart could soon be running the country from jail. DJC
The UCP are great at doublespeak. Who knew?
We have been a fool’s paradise led by cons clinging to the myth that we can continue without a sales tax.
Ah ok they’re both getting their orders from the state dept, truly important leaders are vassals of foreign governments rather than being beholden to their people, he’s very important I’m sure. The Americans treat all their allies like they are their betters, have you missed this ?
We don’t. A sales tax is a regressive tax on the poor what we need are progressive taxes on the rich, and corporations. A sales tax is a lovely ask for people who don’t want to fight the rich and can afford to pay a bit more because they themselves are not working class. To everyone else sales tax is a shot across the bow. It’s class war
The headlines should actually read “Bumpkin Politician From Backwards Canadian Province Goes On German Vacation On Taxpayers’ Dime”. Pretty much what this amounts to. And you’re right DJC, irony is now dead in this province. As is decency, honesty, honour, integrity and truth (I’m sure I’m leaving out a host of others).
Hey everyone, I will say it again, Alberta is a failed petrol state. The petroleum companies are feted and coddled whilst their up and coming competition is shown an unfair gradient. When conventional petroleum is exhausted as a resource, it will be much as the late Rene Levesque predicted- Alberta will be in the same state as Oklahoma. Bankrupt and without a future. Her political class, and business class having been unable to see the future portents.
Irony dead in Alberta?
And sarcasm, too?
But with Calgary exporting alternative energy technology to Germany and a UCP minister there to brag about it whilst stopping the development of the same tech in Alberta, surely perversity isn’t dead, too!
High speeds on highways kill people. We lived in Grande Prairie for several years, and I remember driving from Grande Prairie to Kananaskis at Christmas. We drove by the wreckage of three traffic collisions on the highway. One of the sets of wrecked cars beside the road was the scene of several deaths a couple of days previously. The collision was well documented on the news, and the location and description of the vehicles were unmistakable. Driving at excessive speeds on the highway is not a joke. What would have happened if she had been in a collision and had killed someone?
The fact that we don’t have widespread use of passenger trains in this country when like, what nearly 80% of the country lives within a what like 150 k of the border and in convenient corridors that used to be, checks notes* served by rail is a crime against humanity.
The STAGGERING resources per capita in this country and these politicians have the NERVE to plead poverty. It’s ridiculous, on its face.
Gawd have you seen her Wikipedia entry? Chock-full of boilerplate from the UCP website.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Schulz
Meanwhile, Albertans pay the 7th highest electricity rates among Canadian provinces. Saskatchewanites pay the highest.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/516279/electricity-costs-for-end-users-canada-by-province/
Incredible, now Stephen Harper runs socialism parties in Germany. That is not just an impressive leap, but incredulous. Love to see the receipts on that one.