Thoughts on BC Politics and More

USED WITH PERMISSION of the authors -- originally published in the Calgary Herald Greta Thunberg, the teenaged Swedish environmentalist, has focused global attention on the climate change debate like never before. So, as she tours Alberta, what better time for a reality check than to look at a country that is furthest ahead in already adapting steps that Greta is advocating. That country is Germany. And it’s not a pretty sight. Germany embraced the rush to renewables before anyone else, and did so with gusto. The result? Germany’s largest news magazine Der Spiegel published an article on May 3   of this year entitled “ A Botched Job in Germany .” The cover showed broken wind turbines and half-finished transition towers against a dark silhouette of Berlin. Germany’s renewable energy transition, Energiewende, is a bust. After spending and committing a total of US $580 billion to it from 2000 to 2025. Why is that? Because it’s been a nightmar...

We rarely hear about the dark side of renewable energy sources like windmills. Governments and the media are determined to convince us that wind power is part of our future and refuse to admit that there may be problems that affect our ecosystems. Our hysterical approach to climate change as an emergency precludes realistic assessment of the risks that wind farms entail. Hysterical people toss common sense, critical assessment and reason out the window. That is why our government talks of climate change in terms of “ an emergency ”. They don’t want us poking around and finding the multitude of flaws in their policies and positions. Fortunately, we have enough cooler heads to question the government’s motives and their position is increasingly difficult to justify. We will see many governments crash and burn long before pred...

TORONTO—Despite rhetoric that renewable energy is cheap, wind and solar power generation comes with large—yet often ignored—costs that increase electricity prices for residents and businesses, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank. “Electricity systems are complex, and too often policymakers pursue renewable energy sources such as wind and solar without understanding their true costs,” said Pierre Desrochers, Fraser Institute senior fellow, associate professor at the University of Toronto Mississauga and co-author of Generating Electricity in Canada from Wind and Sunlight: Is Getting Less for More Better than Getting More for Less? The study finds that while wind turbines and solar panels are relatively cheap to operate—given their fuel source is free—they’re costly to build and connect to the power grid. And crucially, because the wind won’t always blow and the sun won’t al...