Coals to Newcastle!

Back during the Industrial Revolution in the 19th Century, the British city of Newcastle was the coal supply and exporting hub of the country!  Thousands were employed loading coal bound for the hundreds of new factories around the country.   If you needed coal, go to Newcastle!  Thus any foolish idea which came up was compared to "sending coals to Newcastle."

Yet the same foolish idea occurs here in Canada!

Eastern Canadians vehemently oppose the import of Alberta oil into their provinces yet they happily buy oil from overseas markets! To me that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I don't think that it is environmentally safer to bring oil into the Maritimes with these huge oil tankers. A pipeline from Alberta could do the job more safely and more efficiently. Maybe Arab oil is easier to refine or maybe it's cheaper right now.

To me sending oil to a oil rich country like Canada is akin to "sending coal to Newcastle"!

Fighting the Giants

You might recall that in the story of Don Quixote, the beleaguered knight was forced to battle giants who were threatening all around.  He took out his trusty (but rusty) sword and went off to battle these giants, along with his trusted companion Sanchez.  

The giants turned out to be windmills.

Now it's my turn to battle the giants, but these giants are hurting others!  I'm talking about the giant wind turbines which are springing up all over the continent providing green power to the grid.  I heard a rumor that it would take 6500 wind turbines to replace one coal fired power plant.  If that is true we might see thousands of these things appear across Alberta.  Before we agree to have these built around here, I suggest that we all travel out to one of the existing wind farms and see these turbines in operation. 

The first thing you notice is the sound.  The "whomp-whomp-whomp" sound is quite loud and very permeating.  Would you like to live close to that?   Many municipalities in Eastern Canada have put guidelines of how far away from a residence these turbines can be built.  That distance ranges from one half a kilometer to five kilometres.

The second thing you'll notice is the dead birds and bats littering the site.  These critters appear to be disoriented by the sounds created by the huge rotors and collide with them.  It is estimated that thousands of bats and songbirds are killed each year by wind turbines.

I am going to be asking that Beiseker Village council create a bylaw prohibiting these large wind turbines within our village limits but I'm concerned about their possible location just outside the village in the county.

I don't know what guidelines the County has for wind turbine construction, but I'm going to find out!  Stay tuned.

A Greener Alberta?

We are being inundated by adds from the provincial government telling us that we can look forward to a greener, more diversified Alberta economy with the Climate Leadership Plan.  They show us pictures of wind powered generators, solar panels, and hydroelectric facilities. 

They seem to have forgotten one of Alberta's biggest sources of energy; oil and natural gas.  What is our government doing to help the petroleum industry find ways to make their products greener?  I know for a fact that such research and development exists, where is our government on this? 

With these huge oil, coal, and gas reserves in Alberta, it would seem logical that the Alberta government be encouraging and financing research to find ways to make those products environmentally friendly.

Their biggest contribution appears to be their new Carbon Levy which, in my opinion, discourages any research into making petroleum greener.  It instead encourages us to buy less petroleum products to avoid the tax.  I'm having a problem seeing the logic here.

Does our new NDP government expect the big oil companies to shut down oil production and start building windmills?