“Enmax turned off power to about 25,000 Calgary customers for about 14 minutes…Epcor shut off power to about 20,000 customers across Edmonton for less than 30 minutes…"
Reminds me of the time my wife was visiting a 3rd world country, El Salvadore, and the power was on and off every day. Never thought we'd see any similar operational problems in America or Canada.
Also, I have to be fair by saying that the last 10 years of my professional career have been in electric power, which is where my questions or points often spawn from. I find it truly frustrating that the vast majority of the elites pushing wind and solar power, while simultaneously trying to erase fossil generation, haven’t even spent 10 minutes in the industry to understand how it works. I find it even more frustrating that there are quite a few brilliant-minded people in this industry, far more than my pea brain, who seem to just go along with it rather than advocating for truth like you have here.
You hit the nail on the head when you said follow the money; it never lies. Further, if people would learn how to follow the Megawatts, they would see that they don’t lie either.
I hope you can forgive me for ranting like I have. I respectfully attribute my rant to your very well written work. The way you have explained the event along with your visuals leave nothing to chance for any reader; willful denial would be the only roadblock.
The most important principle is the fact that electrical energy is not stored in the hundreds of thousands of miles of wires that comprise our grid. Using myself as an example, I live within the PJM RTO footprint and if total demand is 5000MW, then all generation capacity within the footprint has to meet that demand at that time. Otherwise, you get into the same situation as what happened in Alberta: shedding load and/or putting people in the dark to not lose critical load pockets.
Depending on wind and solar to meet demand is like depending on your drunk uncle Phil to deliver the wedding cake. Eliminating fossil generation whilst replacing it with more wind and solar is like getting drunk uncle Phil to do the entire wedding. It’s not going to end well 😬
You did a phenomenal job with how you explained this event; very much enjoyed the wedding-planning analogy. The elites who are advocating for this dystopian, wind-powered and/or all-electric future have only gotten as far as they have due to their ability to push the climate-change narrative while obfuscating every idea and principle that surrounds it, all by design. If climate change were explained using layman’s terms or fantastic analogies such as yours, it would collapse because there is nothing like that to support it. The elites could fabricate some cheesy analogy, I’m sure, but it would be just as ridiculous as the entire concept of climate change, which we all know started as “global warming.”
My last thought and then I’ll shut up: They (the elites) can make it make sense on paper but the dollars, statistics such as the amount of CO2 in the air, sea levels, etc. are what constantly refute this absurdity. For example, global CO2 levels are currently 0.04%, which plant life will start to die if it drops to 0.02%; this doesn’t strike me as what they are now calling a “crisis.” These people are so in love with themselves that they literally think they are God, and that they should be able to command or employ the use of anyone or anything they choose. Building turbines doesn’t command the wind; but a pile of coal or millions of cubic feet of natural gas, I have some say in what I can do with that. Their hare-brained logic fails yet again.
Thank you for the kind words! Unfortunately, I don’t think most have even heard the questions you raise. But it’s math, dealing with part per million, something that’s hard to fit into a nice political slogan.
And of course, it’s follow the money! A very big reason people are going down the green road is taxpayer subsidies and mandates!
On the other hand, it is much more likely that the elites or ruling Overlords as I like to call them, sometimes called the Globalitarian Misanthropists, have a devious agenda of impoverishment & enslavement, of which Climate Change/Energy Poverty are just more invented crises, to achieve that. Sounds a lot like the Covid bioweapon. And the Ukraine proxy war.
They take advantage of the morality of good people because they have none; and while growing up, they never had to do anything/work for anything meaningful in their lives because they already had it all. Their false sense of superiority is rooted in hatred for themselves because they have no sense of being.
Just my opinion in compliment of your very good point.
The plant’s owner hasn’t officially said so we’re not sure.
Apparently, the plant was operating just over its nameplate capacity just before the trip. The plant is rated at ~ 395 MW. Earlier in the morning, the plant was operating with about 40 mw of contingency reserves. But shortly before the trip, the plant had a bump of 404 MW and settled around 397 MW of output. The plant is back online the next day.
Here is a source for individual power plant outputs for Alberta plants output in real time.
I don't understand your takeaway -- there never would have been an issue if the gas plant hadn't tripped. Doesn't that mean that we overestimated the reliability of both the gas and the wind estimates?
All plants can get stressed and trip or fail. So a grid should have a margin of error to cover its largest plant and then some. But when your ‘largest plant’ is wind, and it comes up 900mw short, you’re in trouble.
In 4/5/25, the grid became stressed when 900 mw of wind didn’t show up. That put the grid in stress since it no longer has a margin of error. The Keephills # 2 plant ( 395mw) ramped up in response to the grid stress from ~ 80% capacity to just over max capacity before it tripped. In response to the missing wind, the plant was running itself without a margin of error on a grid that had no margin of error.
Ultimately, one of the biggest issues is relying on the wind forecast. Wind is very difficult to predict. If a grid operator plans a grid around wind, you’ll probably come up short.
Here’s an article on the perils of wind forecasting:
The shut down gas plant was pushing it's envelope of safe operation due to that wind reduction. As usual with smart people captivated by stupid ideas, the system designers won't recognize that there are no safe assumptions about unpredictable power sources. This folly creates the predictable effect of over utilization of dispatchable power leading to forced shutdown which only magnifies the original problem, in this case - no wind. This will be repeated in Canada and the US over and over. What's worse, since gas generation in cold climates now relies on electricity for pumping rather than use of that gas being tapped to run the pumps means there is greater likelihood of gas shutdown due to freezing temps and no electricity which happened in NY in 2022 nearly creating a catastrophe never before seen in US history. Texas should have been the perfect test case for decision making about dispatchable power in North America, but the Lord's of Zero Emissions don't really care about reliability, they want cred. from their peers.
Depending on wind and solar is like planning an outdoor wedding without a large enough backup indoor venue.
Exactly!
“Enmax turned off power to about 25,000 Calgary customers for about 14 minutes…Epcor shut off power to about 20,000 customers across Edmonton for less than 30 minutes…"
Reminds me of the time my wife was visiting a 3rd world country, El Salvadore, and the power was on and off every day. Never thought we'd see any similar operational problems in America or Canada.
Yes, it is a terrible shame and a preview of the movie that’ll play unless we select something else
Yes indeed!
Also, I have to be fair by saying that the last 10 years of my professional career have been in electric power, which is where my questions or points often spawn from. I find it truly frustrating that the vast majority of the elites pushing wind and solar power, while simultaneously trying to erase fossil generation, haven’t even spent 10 minutes in the industry to understand how it works. I find it even more frustrating that there are quite a few brilliant-minded people in this industry, far more than my pea brain, who seem to just go along with it rather than advocating for truth like you have here.
You hit the nail on the head when you said follow the money; it never lies. Further, if people would learn how to follow the Megawatts, they would see that they don’t lie either.
I hope you can forgive me for ranting like I have. I respectfully attribute my rant to your very well written work. The way you have explained the event along with your visuals leave nothing to chance for any reader; willful denial would be the only roadblock.
Appreciate you very much again.
We should let the people who know how a grid operates - the people with real time in the trenches- build the grid, not politicians 1000 miles away.
Amen to that!
The most important principle is the fact that electrical energy is not stored in the hundreds of thousands of miles of wires that comprise our grid. Using myself as an example, I live within the PJM RTO footprint and if total demand is 5000MW, then all generation capacity within the footprint has to meet that demand at that time. Otherwise, you get into the same situation as what happened in Alberta: shedding load and/or putting people in the dark to not lose critical load pockets.
Depending on wind and solar to meet demand is like depending on your drunk uncle Phil to deliver the wedding cake. Eliminating fossil generation whilst replacing it with more wind and solar is like getting drunk uncle Phil to do the entire wedding. It’s not going to end well 😬
No it’s not!
You did a phenomenal job with how you explained this event; very much enjoyed the wedding-planning analogy. The elites who are advocating for this dystopian, wind-powered and/or all-electric future have only gotten as far as they have due to their ability to push the climate-change narrative while obfuscating every idea and principle that surrounds it, all by design. If climate change were explained using layman’s terms or fantastic analogies such as yours, it would collapse because there is nothing like that to support it. The elites could fabricate some cheesy analogy, I’m sure, but it would be just as ridiculous as the entire concept of climate change, which we all know started as “global warming.”
My last thought and then I’ll shut up: They (the elites) can make it make sense on paper but the dollars, statistics such as the amount of CO2 in the air, sea levels, etc. are what constantly refute this absurdity. For example, global CO2 levels are currently 0.04%, which plant life will start to die if it drops to 0.02%; this doesn’t strike me as what they are now calling a “crisis.” These people are so in love with themselves that they literally think they are God, and that they should be able to command or employ the use of anyone or anything they choose. Building turbines doesn’t command the wind; but a pile of coal or millions of cubic feet of natural gas, I have some say in what I can do with that. Their hare-brained logic fails yet again.
Really enjoyed your article, thank you!
Thank you for the kind words! Unfortunately, I don’t think most have even heard the questions you raise. But it’s math, dealing with part per million, something that’s hard to fit into a nice political slogan.
And of course, it’s follow the money! A very big reason people are going down the green road is taxpayer subsidies and mandates!
On the other hand, it is much more likely that the elites or ruling Overlords as I like to call them, sometimes called the Globalitarian Misanthropists, have a devious agenda of impoverishment & enslavement, of which Climate Change/Energy Poverty are just more invented crises, to achieve that. Sounds a lot like the Covid bioweapon. And the Ukraine proxy war.
Yes indeed, I couldn’t have said that any better!
They take advantage of the morality of good people because they have none; and while growing up, they never had to do anything/work for anything meaningful in their lives because they already had it all. Their false sense of superiority is rooted in hatred for themselves because they have no sense of being.
Just my opinion in compliment of your very good point.
Great piece!
Thank you!
Any idea on what caused the gas plant to trip offline?
The plant’s owner hasn’t officially said so we’re not sure.
Apparently, the plant was operating just over its nameplate capacity just before the trip. The plant is rated at ~ 395 MW. Earlier in the morning, the plant was operating with about 40 mw of contingency reserves. But shortly before the trip, the plant had a bump of 404 MW and settled around 397 MW of output. The plant is back online the next day.
Here is a source for individual power plant outputs for Alberta plants output in real time.
https://www.dispatcho.app/assets
I don't understand your takeaway -- there never would have been an issue if the gas plant hadn't tripped. Doesn't that mean that we overestimated the reliability of both the gas and the wind estimates?
All plants can get stressed and trip or fail. So a grid should have a margin of error to cover its largest plant and then some. But when your ‘largest plant’ is wind, and it comes up 900mw short, you’re in trouble.
In 4/5/25, the grid became stressed when 900 mw of wind didn’t show up. That put the grid in stress since it no longer has a margin of error. The Keephills # 2 plant ( 395mw) ramped up in response to the grid stress from ~ 80% capacity to just over max capacity before it tripped. In response to the missing wind, the plant was running itself without a margin of error on a grid that had no margin of error.
Ultimately, one of the biggest issues is relying on the wind forecast. Wind is very difficult to predict. If a grid operator plans a grid around wind, you’ll probably come up short.
Here’s an article on the perils of wind forecasting:
https://penguinempirereports.substack.com/p/injecting-chaos?r=2og74c
The shut down gas plant was pushing it's envelope of safe operation due to that wind reduction. As usual with smart people captivated by stupid ideas, the system designers won't recognize that there are no safe assumptions about unpredictable power sources. This folly creates the predictable effect of over utilization of dispatchable power leading to forced shutdown which only magnifies the original problem, in this case - no wind. This will be repeated in Canada and the US over and over. What's worse, since gas generation in cold climates now relies on electricity for pumping rather than use of that gas being tapped to run the pumps means there is greater likelihood of gas shutdown due to freezing temps and no electricity which happened in NY in 2022 nearly creating a catastrophe never before seen in US history. Texas should have been the perfect test case for decision making about dispatchable power in North America, but the Lord's of Zero Emissions don't really care about reliability, they want cred. from their peers.
You make a lot of excellent points!