SaskPower’s plans: more of your views
I’d like to respond to the June 4 letter, “Smart energy plan”, by SaskPower CEO Robert Watson. He stated that wind is not a stable or constant source of power due to its intermittent nature. While power output from a wind farm can fluctuate from day to day, an accurate yearly prediction of power output can be made through analysis of wind data collected over a year or longer.
Many locations in southern Saskatchewan are blessed with an excellent wind regime, due to it being quite flat, with few natural barriers obstructing the wind flow. It is also important to point out that the wind we feel on the ground is significantly different from the wind at higher heights, a concept known as “wind shear.” This is precisely why largescale wind turbines are mounted on towers 70 to 135 metres high.
Wind power has major advantages over coal and natural gas. First, the fuel is, and will always will be, free. The price of carbon-based energies will only increase as these resources become more difficult to obtain, and regulations regarding pollution become more strict. Second, wind-power generation creates zero carbon dioxide and other toxic emissions, while carbon capture and storage is still very expensive.
Wind farms can be geographically dispersed. Therefore, if the wind isn’t blowing in one area of the province, it most likely will be blowing in another.
While I am not suggesting that Saskatchewan move to 100-percent wind generation, wind-power capacity should be significantly increased.
Michael McKinlay, Regina
I have just checked the wind speed near Saskatchewan’s largest wind farm near Swift Current. The speed was 9 km/hr. These wind turbines do not have an output below a wind speed of 15 km/hr. The output follows the cube rule. So there is little output until a very brisk wind speed is reached.
Our power is being generated by fossil-fueled turbines that are always online and spinning. Wind is a dud. Most of the world has learned this, but not SaskPower CEO Robert Watson (“Smart energy plan”, June 4). He wants to double wind-power capacity. He should ask his operators what they think of that idea.
Watson’s letter contradicts Tom Shelstad (May 27 letter), who condemned SaskPower’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) plans. Well, the CCS idea is a expensive bust that will drive up the price of electricity. It achieves nothing. The idea has never worked. It is not needed.
More and more people are coming to the conclusion that anthropogenic (human-induced) global warming is a myth. In fact, the world temperature trend is down. CO2 is an innocuous gas that is used by flora to flourish. Let it go.
Twenty-odd years ago, they built Shand Power Station with capacity to add another turbo alternator. It’s about time it was installed. Jim Brennand, Regina Brennand is a retired electrical engineer.
In reply to the June 4 letter from SaskPower CEO and President Robert Watson, let me say that I respect the efforts of SaskPower to adopt more sustainable green policies. The object of my original letter was to highlight the fact that it is perverse that we, as a society, are using various policies, including taxpayer dollars to reduce carbon emissions, while at the same time promoting private profit-taking that involves producing even more emissions.
The conservative governments of Stephen Harper, Brad Wall, and Alison Redford are all helping to finance carbon-capture technologies, while at the same time actively promoting a six-fold expansion of the Alberta tar sands projects by 2030. Such an expansion will increase Canadian carbon emissions by 35 per cent over and above any increases coming from the rest of us by 2030.
So people, forget your twisty, curly light bulbs, your Prius and your effort to recycle and compost, because if there is a six-fold tar sands expansion, your efforts will be swamped.
It also seems to me that man-made attempts at carbon capture based on the expected scale of the tar sands output will be too expensive. It would be far cheaper and more efficient to not produce such levels in the first place.
Tom Shelstad, Swift Current