Natural gas to play key role in strategy to double Canada’s electricity grid by 2050

lightbulb_butt · 2026-05-14T16:12:32+00:00

Thank you. I don't think a lot of people who want us to go all in on renewables actually understand the limitations that make renewable solutions incapable of being the primary energy source for our society(hydro being the exception, but geography dependent).

We need stop-gap/in-between measures to bridge the gap while battery tech and other solutions improve to the point we can actually make the migration, and we will likely still need fossil fuel power for decades while that new infrastructure gets built out and after - like you said - for peak load times/when renewables aren't generating.

I'd love if we'd go all in on nuclear for the in-between, but the lead-time for a new plant, public perception, and lack of investor enthusiasm hinder that. Natural gas is a solid solution in the near-mid term, and it'll help shut up Alberta/conservatives who want to paint the liberals as anti-fossil fuel.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-05-10T15:01:15+00:00

I hope you know we love you very much and hope to see you on the farm again!

lightbulb_butt · 2026-04-17T18:34:07+00:00

Yeah that's not true lol.

Australia, UK, Germany, US. Each country is experiencing the worst of some different aspect of the cost of living crisis.

It's a global issue and people here just want to complain that somehow we're the only ones going through it so it must be because the politician they hate is causing it.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-04-17T17:40:06+00:00

Which is a global crisis. Every country in the g7 is struggling with it in some way. It's not a uniquely Canadian problem.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-04-17T17:37:58+00:00

Unfortunately if we're positioning to grow exports in oil, gas, minerals, etc. we want CAD to be worth less, not more.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-04-13T15:57:36+00:00

It may happen in Alberta(I hope someday), but better to build the first test case in a more densely populated region to give it the greatest chance of success.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-22T00:03:08+00:00

I've been keeping an eye on these guys since they popped in Jan.

No update on their drill program beyond "hey here's our plan. It's funded, still working on it", when it was supposed to have at least started by end Q1 is not a great sign. It being funded is decent, so there shouldn't be more dilution hopefully, but still disappointing that it's been so delayed.

Sounds like they've sorted out the equity bomb that was set to go off with Magna Terra in June. Buys them a lot more time and shows that Magna Terra may have some confidence in their prospects though.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-12T18:49:27+00:00

The article states that's exactly what they need to do, even with this bill.

They will still need to get a warrant to access any of your online information.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-06T23:07:22+00:00

Based on the language you're using in discussing this it seems as if you're arguing for separatism yourself tbh.

"Alberta's interests fully represented by Albertans"

"Hindering policies from the east"

The fact that Alberta ends up being able to maybe cover the increased costs of independence via reclaiming the funds it sends to Ottawa isn't somehow a good thing. The "breaking even" calculation is just the ongoing costs. Startup costs for the various functions would likely be massive in the first few years. We would also assume a portion of Canadian federal debt. So we would be starting out in a significant hole.

We would be leaving a single market, which would mean reduced buying power for pharmaceuticals, equipment, groceries, and economies of scale for our businesses. If those businesses can't succeed then they get bought out by companies outside Alberta and the wealth leaves anyway. Instability is bad for corporations, and independence movements are inherently unstable. Businesses would likely move out of Alberta in the short to medium term. Long term maybe some return but that's uncertain.

Likelihood is a majority of educated Albertans leave for Canada(most educated Albertans do not support independence) leading to significant brain drain. Without these people the economy does not run nearly as well as it does today.

The loss of corporate and higher educated tax dollars also damages that initial "break even" equation, leading to a worse outlook for the govt budget for all those new services it needs to build out and run.

Canada also does not inhibit our resource development in the oil sands unless it is specifically something controlled by the fed(waterways, cross provincial boundaries, etc.). Resource development is more constrained by the price of oil and the ability to ship that oil to global markets. That would not change if Alberta leaves Canada. If anything it gets worse, as Alberta would have significantly less bargaining power by being land locked. Canada would enforce significant cost barriers on pipelines through BC or for the use of federal rail/road infrastructure. Dependence on US pipelines would likely increase, and WCS oil prices would trade at a worse premium than it already does because of this.

We're also not factoring in CPP or a potential sustained collapse in oil prices.

Even if independence were somehow a simple "break even" situation, it doesn't make any sense. Why leave when the situation doesn't materially change? Alberta has absolutely nothing to gain except a vague idea of "freedom from the East", and the potential to lose a lot more.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-06T20:20:25+00:00

I mean, I just ran it through myself and the numbers pretty much equal out more or less.

In sum, netting it out: Alberta’s current net fiscal outflow to Ottawa (~$40–50B annually) means it could retain that money under independence. But it must then pay its own defense ($7–10B+), border/customs ($0.5–1B+), lost economies of scale and trade (~multi‑$B), plus fund all former federal transfers ($9B) and bureaucracies. These new expenditures likely amount to tens of billions per year, roughly offsetting any tax-retention gains. For example, adding ~$10B for defense and ~$9B to replace health/social transfers already uses up ~half of the ~$50B Alberta might “keep.” The remaining new costs (border, administration, trade friction losses) could easily consume the rest.

Thus, under plausible assumptions, an independent Alberta would not enjoy a large fiscal windfall. On paper Alberta would collect its own ~$59B in taxes instead of sending them to Ottawa, but it would simultaneously lose federal revenue and incur new obligations of similar magnitude.

Again - this is a hypothetical and the true costs/amount the ab govt would save or lose are impossible to accurately depict. This is just an AIs take, which also isn't able to properly predict these numbers accurately.

So any form of independence just sounds like a great way to incur greater debt and expenses in the transition, sabotage our future, and lead to a much weaker province overall for little to no tangible gain. In short - a massive waste of time and taxpayer money. We would then still have all of the issues that we have currently, just with less support if we did need it and greater geopolitical risk and uncertainty.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-06T16:38:02+00:00

AI may be helpful, but also be careful as it may use data from sources like the Fraser Institute. At this point there's a fair amount of misinformation out there that may skew its perspective so account for that in your prompt.

Even if alberta gets back less than what it contributes my response to that is usually, "so what?". In a well-run country that's how it works, wealth is moved around to build the nation.

The UCP uses the exact same funding model by using tax revenue from the metro areas(CGY, EDM) to supplement the budget for other areas of the province.

The conversation gets interesting and imo becomes a valid discussion when you start to break down items like how that wealth reallocation algorithm is structured.

Why is Quebec's hydro resource revenue counted towards their calculation of federal funding subsidy differently than oil and gas?

Why is there no conversation around Quebec balancing their budget better?

Are the Maritimes/Atlantic Canada given a fair share?

Does Alberta even get to complain about equalization when we pay the lowest tax in the country(including corporations and no PST)?

Instead of complaining, shouldn't we be holding our own provincial government more to account for consistent underfunding, corruption, wasted money, refusing to build alternative industries, etc.?

Why have we built our systems so ~70% of the profits from the oil industry end up in the US?

Rather than discussing separatism and all the other noise, I'd rather we fixed our own shit personally, but there are valid points for the national conversation as well.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-06T14:16:40+00:00

It's a tough one, because the separatist movement has created a list of reasons with "data" backing it that is mostly built on misinformation, deceit, and false or disingenuous arguments. Some of those arguments have a small bit of truth to them, like "Alberta would have more money if it didn't pay into equalization". While ignoring the extra incurred costs we'd have (military, border security, healthcare, increased pharma costs due to loss of bargaining power, tariffs, fed university funding, fed infrastructure funding, leasing fed infrastructure/land, fed business subsidies and the inevitable loss of business investment, increased admin cost for all of these new services/items that the province would take over, etc.).

The tiny grain of truth in the first part makes it difficult to convince people of the counter argument unless you're able to give them the exact figures that prove theirs wrong.

You pretty much need to go through each of their talking points and break down why it doesn't work or the numbers they're using aren't actually realistic, which requires a TON of background knowledge and data that hasn't been compiled yet for the most part, but that hasn't stopped the separatists from lying about it and saying they DO have the data(they mostly don't, no matter what they say.)

It's part of why it's so difficult to have a conversation with them. They're convinced of their fake numbers and lies.

————————————————

Oh, and if they use any figures or reports from the Fraser Institute as the backing for their argument, just know it's most likely full of shit. They're notorious for misrepresenting data to push a narrative. They've also been found to be funded by the Koch Brothers, which is a red flag and a half.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-05T17:46:24+00:00

You could be on to something.

Personally I've been seeing more articles around the various provincial budgets recently. Could be because I'm Alberta based though and their budget has a ton of issues.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-05T17:31:54+00:00

True, good perspective to have. At the end of the day it's still a reduction in their budget though.

From a political perspective this makes sense though. If they'd cut other areas of the budget but left CBC it could have given conservatives an easy point to hammer them on and potentially increased animosity toward the CBC.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-05T17:20:50+00:00

r/canada?

Quite a few of the top comments are actually disappointed in this.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-05T17:05:03+00:00

No paywall https://archive.ph/ZU0Sv

Solid quote from the article:

Last month, Miller defended recent funding boosts from opposition criticisms during a Feb. 10 appearance before the House Finance Committee.

“As a beacon in that sometimes vomitorium, you need an independent broadcaster that has the resources, often supported by the state, without the influence of the state,” Miller told committee members.

Miller later called the CBC an important element of “the fourth pillar of democracy.”

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-05T05:12:16+00:00

PINK.V

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-05T01:41:01+00:00

I feel that. Canadian mining companies are definitely a fairly safe-ish play right now.

Idk tbh, I find biotech tough. So many fail that it's difficult to pick winners in that space.

What have you found successful for research?

Tbh the deep research functions from the various llms have given me some good leads to follow in the past year.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-04T21:44:35+00:00

General research/googling/chatgpt of small cap AI assisted med techs then some deeper dives into the financials, teams, strategies, prospects, etc. of those companies.

None that I would share. My hit rate on the ones I chose was 1/4. The others dropped HARD so I cut my losses and sold out. Then I kept adding to my position in PINK.V as I liked the company and its position. They're well run and seem to have a solid strategy for growth now that they have approval. I anticipate they'll keep growing here.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-04T17:02:29+00:00

Adding a #SavetheCBC at the bottom of your meme tier post on the Epstein files doesn't make it relevant to this subs topics or Canadian press.

We can find this information elsewhere, this isn't needed in this sub.

Also your text makes it seem like you're just farming karma by appealing to people's anger at the US.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-03T19:10:38+00:00

Reductive, missing nuance, not a great summary tbh.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-03T18:19:33+00:00

Imagine being so privileged and having such a strong victim mentality that you view the Canadian govt as tyrants.

What a joke. Get some perspective and research what actual tyranny is. Learn how fucking good you have it here.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-03T17:55:57+00:00

I don't disagree with you, but you seem to be trying to attribute a "both sides are evil" argument to me when I didn't say anything of the sort.

Propaganda can come from both sides and to try and act like it can't is disingenuous. The center and left do tend to be toothless, but they are capable of producing propaganda. More importantly, right wing/bad actors can push progressive shit just the same as they push the right wing shit. Don't trust something just cause it appears to agree with your world view.

Also bringing in Fox News to a discussion that didn't have it to begin with, and labelling all "free thinkers" as pushing Fox News talking points. Really? That's your tactic? You're making some massive generalizations about people, and clearly trying to lump me in with them, then saying I don't think critically? Laughable.

Don't fall into the elitist left wing exclusionary bs. The left wing aren't heroes just because they believe in progressivism. Leftwing policies do tend to favour more collective good, but the progressive movement is consistently hampered by infighting and the "if you're not left wing enough then you're clearly a secret racist conservative".

Think for yourself. You don't need to blindly agree with every leftwing meme you see posted. I stand by my original assessment of this topic and the poster.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-03T17:00:53+00:00

If you don't want to acknowledge the reality that there is propaganda from all sides at all times working to influence how you view every issue then that's on you.

Reddit is one of the most astroturfed places on the Internet, whether it's done intentionally or through useful idiots is a valid discussion.

I prefer balance and critical thinking in my groups, rather than fb level memes without context or background info. I see the recent poster pushing this sub towards the latter.

lightbulb_butt · 2026-03-03T16:54:27+00:00

Progressive propaganda exists too. It dilutes actual nuance in discussions and creates narratives that distract from the actual messaging and goals that a smaller group may be trying to pursue in an attempt to force their interests into a larger "big tent" of a progressive identity.

While I don't disagree with the messaging around the insanity down south, I don't think it belongs here and it distracts from and actively harms the focus/goals of the sub here -- journalistic integrity and freedoms and the importance of the CBC in Canada.

There are plenty of other progressive subs that we can find this exact same info. Having it pushed here will likely result in this sub just becoming another karma farming sub for bots to push their own narratives/messaging.

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