Read on Twitter
It's totally unhelpful, for two main reasons:
1) It perverts the AESO’s 2022 net-zero analysis
2) It is hiding its own analysis that it commissioned in the summer of 2022 to be delivered to them by February, but it hasn’t released.
1) It perverts the AESO’s 2022 net-zero analysis
2) It is hiding its own analysis that it commissioned in the summer of 2022 to be delivered to them by February, but it hasn’t released.
There isn’t much to say about #2, except that we can only assume that their own analysis (#3) takes a more optimistic view of the path to net-zero electricity. If they are interested in a constructive conversation around net-zero electricity, why not release the report?
On #1, there are a 3 key things that make their use of this report totally misleading and inaccurate, all related to assumptions that the AESO openly uses but fails to acknowledge when concluding its headline cost.
First, the AESO report inflated the cost of net-zero by assuming very low input costs in its “baseline” (non-net-zero) analysis. In particular, it uses natural gas prices that start at $2.97/GJ, a price we haven’t seen since August 2021.
Since October 2021, NG prices have mostly been 33% to 100% higher than that. Only by 2035 do they see NG prices reaching $3.75/GJ (nominal), a lower price than in 14 of the last 17 months. economicdashboard.alberta.ca/dashboard/natu… (HONESTLY, why not just do a sensitivity analysis on this?)
Second, the AESO report assumed in the base-case that carbon emissions would be free for combined cycle gas generators and only $50/t for higher emitters, for perpetuity, despite that prices under Alberta law (set by the UCP) are now scheduled to rise to $170/t by 2030.
Correct for both of these errors together, and you can account for around 90% of the “additional” costs that the analysis suggests would come from a net-zero grid. I.e., the costs are overstated by 10-fold.
Third, the AESO overestimated the costs of renewable energy resources (especially solar) by as much as double, a demonstrable, recurring and repeated error committed by the agency for the last several years, inflating net-zero costs.
Given this history, they likely do the same with storage and other emissions reduction technologies for electricity. It doesn't take long before there is no cost difference between BAU and net-zero at all.
The perniciousness of this misleading rhetoric is as follows: our current and prospective investors expect emissions-free electricity within their facility operating lives.
We can either have a thoughtful conversation about how best to pursue that, or we can slag and demean the technologies and investments (including solar, wind, storage, carbon capture, and hydrogen) that will get us there.
Albertans are optimistic about its innovation and ability to tackle challenges. Unfortunately, the UCP is not, making derogatory comments about reducing natural gas power emissions. /end
OK, not end. The Navius report they reference was commissioned by the UCP caucus. When was this commissioned? Did they get the ICF report (that government, rather than caucus, commissioned) and didn't like the results, so then caucus juiced a Navius analysis? #abpoli
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
