Jason R. Wang
@jrwang
Climate, #RethinkingEconomics 📊, decisions under uncertainty | Program Manager @brccanada.bsky.social ⚡️🔋💨☀️ Also: @ModellingEnergy @pembina.org | Views my own
Thinking of all the folks out east today – air quality in Thunder Bay, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and southern Ontario (especially K-W) are horrendous right now. PM2.5 sensors reading well over 200 μg/m3 in most places and even over 650 in a couple of spots. 😷
📱 I’m impressed so far by the City of Edmonton’s new 311 app for iOS! It’s slick and simple to use. And there was no need to download a new app – updating was enough. Well done to everyone involved! 👏
☀️ Great to see plug-in solar gaining momentum in Canada with Edmonton City Councillor Michael Janz's motion to find pathways to make it possible!
Wow, it’s windy today in Edmonton (~8 bft). There are four EPCOR outages right now and I’m sure their electricians are on the job – a reminder of what distribution fees on our electricity bills pay for! #YEGwx
Air quality was kinda poor this morning. Did anyone else smell smoke? I think it was due to a temperature inversion we had overnight. All the more reason to support public transit and mode shift!!! #YEGwx Pictured: windy.com ECMWF airgram forecasted a temperature inversion this morning.
EVs running on Alberta and Saskatchewan’s grids are still more GHG and energy efficient than combustion cars.
Oof – it's been looking bad for flu in Alberta this year. Test positivity rates are high! Best to listen to Dr. Vipond's advice below.
💨 The wind came back in Alberta on Saturday morning and has been providing 25-35% of our grid electricity since, putting electricity prices below 2¢/kWh since. There's another cold snap coming, but for now, it's not looking to be as severe as last week's.
💨 Looking ahead, the wind should pick back up by Saturday morning and put Alberta back in a position of exporting electricity.
💆♂️ Prices were stable throughout this period and none of our battery units were activated, though they were ready. Thanks, interties!
⚖️ As the wind stilled this morning, gas units ramped up 🏭 and Alberta called upon our small connections to B.C., SK, and Montana for support. Through much of the last two days wind was providing 20-30% of our hourly generation in the daytime, so Alberta was actually exporting to our neighbours.
😌 It's Friday now and it seems like we're through the coldest part of this snap. The folks at Alberta's electricity system operator have done a great job keeping the lights on 📊 Looking at the data on ets.aeso.ca and on @electricitymaps.com, 3 things stand out to me:
TL;DR – the AESO's current outlook is that they've got it covered w/ Friday expected to be the toughest. Usually in cold snaps, we see ⬇️ flexibility in AB that is vulnerable to sudden, unexpected outages that are more likely to occur, notably in Jan. 2024 with two gas plants.
🦉 Interesting today that Alberta Parl. Sec. de Jonge's mandate letter has a change in tone from Minister Neudorf's letter. Instead of "how nuclear energy can" fit into Alberta's energy mix," there's "if and how nuclear energy may". 🦅
The former holds ~2% growth y-o-y while the latter's boom-bust rollercoaster is obvious. 🎢
I took a quick, lazy look at total Canadian jobs vs. mining, quarrying, and oil and gas jobs between 1997 and 2024 based on StatCan data. To be honest, I'm a little surprised – there's been tremendous net growth in other sectors. www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/t...
Air quality in Jasper and Squamish are horrendous right now. And in Vancouver, Yellowknife, Alberta, and more. Take care, folks. And a loved one or neighbour too, if you can.
UPDATE: it's the lowest since June 2021 – a whole four years ago. AESO removed links to project queues from before January 2023 so I needed to dig into my archives to find the older data.
As of last Friday, Alberta's renewable energy development queue hit the lowest it has been since at least February 2023. For more on the downward trend, the spikes, and ways to grow development interest again, see: www.pembina.org/pub/down-not...
We’re mostly good now! Still above the WHO recommended 24 hr avg figure of 15 μg/m3 though. #YEGwx
The smoke and air quality warning in Alberta is getting to a lot of us. I hope you all take a moment to check in with a friend, family member, a neighbour. We need community to mitigate and adapt together. It does seem like cleaner air is coming to Edmonton from Ft. McMurray though.
Reminder to anyone looking at today's Alberta oil sands emission intensity report: emissions intensity has barely budged since 2014.
Looks like the prairies and the NWT are going to be the hottest places in Canada this week with highs above 30ºC. I hope the rain on Thursday doesn't come with too much thunder – seems bad for fire risk. (I use ICON and MBLUE forecasts on windy.com) #YEGwx
Low-carbon hydrogen is important for decarbonization, but it should be deployed where it can make the most impact – industrial decarbonization, not light duty vehicles or home heating. I always recommend folks look at the Hydrogen Ladder: www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrog...
Outside of clean electricity, I spend a lot of time climbing. So stoked to see the UIAA Ice Climbing World Cup in Edmonton this weekend. Today’s semi-finals and finals are being live streamed if you want to tune in! www.youtube.com/live/sz1JsMh...
Alberta's "snow squall" is also bringing high forecasts for wind and solar generation! We've been nearing 5 GW in maximum wind and solar output for a few months but I doubt we'll crest today.