Let's see how long it takes them to realize they should have gone with the latest nuclear power tech and will eventually be unable to meet demand with anything but coal or nuclear (unless something changes).
I'm wondering what scenario you're considering that natural gas won't suffice but coal will. Alberta is celebrating simply transitioning from one fossil fuel to another, slightly cleaner burning, one.
They are certainly still struggling with renewables when they are needed the most, such as -35 at 7PM, long after the sun has gone down and the wind turbine's hydraulics are too cold to function safely and all our furnaces are running and everyone is cooking and doing laundry. This is also when nuclear isn't a great solution, as it's a huge spike in demand.
> This is also when nuclear isn't a great solution, as it's a huge spike in demand.
Overproduce electricity, then burn off the excess to match load to demand.
It's counter-intuitive, but the cost structure of producing electricity via nuclear is different from fossil fuels. The unit costs per kW/h of nuclear is negligible compared to the capital costs of building a plant. Making it economically viable to "waste" electricity to match load to demand.
At some point down the road, people will do the cost benefit on capturing excess production in battery packs vs expanding the existing nuclear facilities to meet demand.
Sorry, I did some research, it's not just hydraulics, but at below -30 materials experience significant changes in strength and many become brittle and prone to breaking, demanding that they be shut down.
My mechanic father has a saying - badly maintained stuff breaks down at -30 C, but everything can break at -40 C.
Well, then you'd better choose materials that are appropriate for the location. There are wind turbines in Antarctica. It's just a matter of engineering.
You... know how big Alberta is, right? It's twice the size of Germany/the same size as Texas, with a population of only a little over 4 million, with a pretty much linear trend in population for several decades now, so you're going to have to do a bit more work if you want to make the argument that they're going to run out of the power necessary to serve the province any time soon.
Alberta’s population growth trend in the last 5 years is anything but linear. It has accelerated significantly driven in large part by new to Canada immigrants and those escaping higher cost of living provinces like BC and ON.
That page shows population change measured in several tens of thousands, not several hundreds of thousands, so as a year over year increase that's basically still linear, just with a slightly higher coefficient, but nowhere near enough to scream population boom. Just an above average increase.
If we look at the population numbers for the last 24 years there's nothing particularly out of the ordinary going on [1].
Sure, the last two years could be the start of an explosive increase, but the drop in year-over-year increase as indicated by the charts from your own link suggests it's far more likely to return to the overall trend.
But of course: even if the population doubled over the next 5 years, Alberta is still the size of Texas, and has plenty of room to address those energy needs using renewables.
I'm not debating the merits of renewables, I'm just stating that the population growth in Alberta is not linear. And the population IS growing by hundreds of thousands annually. To quote directly from Alberta population statistics:
"Alberta’s population growth continues to accelerate. In the 12 months preceding April 1, 2024, the province’s population expanded by 204,677 people, or 4.41%." [1]
"This represents a significant increase from the previous year (3.67% between 2022-23) and the highest April 1 year-over-year growth rate since 1981. Alberta’s population expanded by 49,138 residents over the first quarter of 2024, or 1.02%." [1]
The vast majority (over 160,000) of those new residents of Alberta were immigrants to Canada, driven by the federal government's massive immigration ramp-up. The immigration levels plan targets a continued increase in immigration through 2026 [2] and with Alberta having a comparatively low cost of living and very high quality of life, it's hard to believe that trend in population growth will not continue.
They are certainly still struggling with renewables when they are needed the most, such as -35 at 7PM, long after the sun has gone down and the wind turbine's hydraulics are too cold to function safely and all our furnaces are running and everyone is cooking and doing laundry. This is also when nuclear isn't a great solution, as it's a huge spike in demand.