If you have a glance at the real-time Alberta Electricity Supply-Demand Report, look to see how much electricity is being produced by Suncor No. 1 and Syncrude No. 1 at their oilsands plant from their off-gasses. Then compare those generation figures with those of the coal plants.
The real-time data shows that both Suncor and Syncrude produce and put onto the electrical grid over and above what they use themselves, amounts comparable to a coal-fired generating plant each. The electricity moves south from Fort McMurray to Edmonton and beyond. As more oilsands developments are built in Fort McMurray and as these plants seek to reduce their carbon footprint by using their own off-gasses to produce electricity, even more electricity can be produced in Fort McMurray and moved south. So why does the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) say that we need to spend billions building a line that will take dirty coal power from Wabamum north to Fort McMurray?
Something does not add up here.
This illustrates why the Stelmach government’s Bill 50 is bad law. It moves the technical assessment of whether power lines are truly needed from the public scrutiny of the Alberta Utilities Commission into the backroom of the cabinet. Remember that when the cabinet approves these lines, “without any independent scrutiny of need or cost,” it is consumers and businesses that pay for the full cost of the line. And the utility company owns the line after we pay to build it. That same company then gets to charge us for the electricity moving through the line.
Sweet deal for utility companies — bad deal for Albertans.
P.A. Murray, Sturgeon County
