Results: This is part 2 of a survey on power supply. Part 1 discussed ways to increase supply to meet increasing demand and/or demand can be reduced. Part 2 is how lobby groups and other interests are working to sabotage existing supply based on naive assumptions.

Between 2005 and 2020, utilities halved emissions from power generation, largely by phasing out coal and oil-powered plants. The loss of capacity while demand increased caused rolling blackouts in some areas. As the world increasingly electrifies, so will the need to power devices, homes, workplaces and cars. To supply that energy while moving away from fossil fuels will require the construction of more than 2,000 wind turbines and 160 10-megawatt solar farms (a combined 650 hectares of solar panels) EVERY YEAR across Canada, according to the report. What are your thought regarding what would be needed to meet this goal?

It took Tesla et al rather than politicians to create demand for electric vehicles. Only when owning one provides better value and creative financing makes purchasing one within reach will there be the switch in North America we see in Europe (where distances are shorter, gas prices higher and traffic more congested.) Until then ownership remains beyond reach. Just as well. A wholesale switch to electric vehicles is beyond the capacity of the power grid. For example during a winter cold snap in Alberta where ave. temps were -22 C for 3 weeks it needed an average supply of 10,500 MW (megawatts) .When running at MAX capacity, solar can provide 736 MW and wind 2,269 MW. But during these biting cold days, solar ran at just 2.64 % of capacity and wind ran at 29.5 per cent of capacity. If we relied on solar and wind, we would have had rolling blackouts and people would have died But fossil fuels came to the rescue. Alberta's gas generators operated at 71 per cent. and coal operated at 87.5 per cent. In total, during those 3 weeks, gas provided 69.7 per cent of our power, coal 18.7 per cent, wind 6.4 per cent, biomass 2.7 per cent, hydro 1.6 per cent, dual fuel (coal-gas co-generation) 0.7 per cent, and solar just 0.1 per cent. Are our climate goals dangerously naive? What would be more realistic?

Rather than pit climate change deniers against fanatical tree-hugger environmentalists and provide welcomed headlines for the media we all should look for solutions in the middle ground. Rather than pick on one or two sources of emissions and force them to reduce by a drastic and nonviable amount, why not look outside the box and find 100s of items where we can reduce emissions by a small percentage. These small incremental changes when added together could be significant. After all, how do you eat an elephant - one bite at a time. Some changes may require products or processes that do not currently exist but if there is a demand for them (and government keeps out of the way) they will be developed. Here are some suggestions. Which ones can you support and what ideas do you have of your own?

Here is an example of a wind turbine we could put in many places including a bus shelter to light it at night, an RV when boondocking (camping on land with no facilities). Do you prefer many of this type to replace one of those giant ones that make a visit to the mountains so depressing?