Solar the way to go
I know that it is an extremely popular activity to deny the environmental crisis we are in. Somehow there has been a disconnect created between our human activity and environmental degradation. That disconnect has no greater example than the “clean coal” technology of premier Brad Wall’s government.
Despite the propaganda about clean coal technology, burning coal never has been, or ever will be, clean. Solar generated electricity is.
Wall has long championed clean-coal technology for energy as opposed to renewable energy technology to the point that he has spent, reportedly, 1.4 billion tax dollars in his carbon capture program at Boundary Dam. Construction setbacks, persistent design and technical issues are forcing the Saskatchewan government to pay up to $18 million before the end of the year because it cannot fulfil its carbon contract to oil extraction company Cenovus.
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If you take $1.4 billion and divide it by $20,000, which is approximately the cost of installing enough roof-mounted solar electricity to power an average modern bungalow, that would be 70,000 houses that could have free electrical production installed on those homes. That would be the equivalent of 82 percent of the houses in Regina.
For fun let’s include the $18 million in contract penalties and we can add 900 more houses for free production every time we have to pay that much in penalties. That is three or four reserves.
If we installed that amount of solar, the existing demand on our present aging generating system would be reduced, not just the equivalent of the kilowatts generated by the sun. Additional savings are realized when energy is produced on site, as opposed to huge resistance losses in the hundreds of miles of transition lines that bring the power from Boundary Dam to your house.
Local employment of Canadians to install solar to 70,900 homes would stimulate the Saskatchewan economy that the foreign employment being used for the carbon capture program does not.
This previous dialogue is considered on the basis of Sask Power still owning the entire system, solar included for the $1.4 billion of your money it has spent. If Sask Power would offer progressive incentives to advance the solar industry, individuals could own and generate as much electricity as they wanted to, selling back the excess to Sask Power at a profit.
The technology and cost of solar electricity is getting better, more efficient and cheaper every year. Solar energy is space age technology with a bright, clean, expanding, endless and renewable future.
Another wonderful thing is that solar is only one way of creating clean environmental saving energy. There are many clean, renewable energy options.
Do the math. Consider our grandchildren.
Greg Chatterson
Fort Qu’Appelle, Sask.
Faux climate conference
Re: Paris climate Change conference Nov. 30 to Dec. 11.
The conference is reminiscent of the Copenhagen climate change gathering in 2009, with 192 countries involved, each with its own agenda. In addition, 46,000 people were hoping to crash the meeting’s Bell Centre, which holds 15,000.
The 2015 Paris conference is bound to attract the same participants with increased requisitions.
It resembled Quebec and Ontario denouncing Alberta for its contribution to Canada’s two percent of the world’s greenhouse emissions, while accepting their equalization payments — a large portion which was provided by Alberta.
The world’s most gluttonous leaders were there demanding trillions of dollars to assist in green development. If foreign aid was any indicator, the money would simply disappear down some untraceable trail of squandering and embezzlement.
The huge amounts of money being extracted from hardworking people for climate control — bucking nature with no positive, visible results — makes the validation of such meetings debatable.
In relation to Arctic ice depletion, consider April 1912, when the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic. Today, icebergs of the same magnitude appear in the same water from the same source. Consider further, in the same century, with the claim of global warming, human lifespan has increased by more than a decade. Food production records show increase by more than 75 percent.
Regardless of fear tactics and high volume of climate change rhetoric about global warming, the use of fossil fuel burning equipment will continue and increase far into the future. The manufacture of automobiles, tractors, airplanes, water transport equipment and home comfort is a must to sustain life and reproduction on earth.
John Seierstad,
Tag options reviewed
The Canadian National Goat Federation wishes to follow up on the article posted Oct. 22 in the Western Producer titled Producer’s test tagging options in goat traceability trial.
The article indicates that Canadian National Goat Federation will only be trialling radio-frequency identification tags for potential approval as official identifiers. Recognizing the need for RFID and lower cost tagging options, we will also be trialling a number of visible or non-RFID identifiers. Two such situations that call for lower cost tags is when very young kids are moved into commerce, or when a goat is sold bearing a tag used for management purposes that is not approved as an official identifier.
CNGF appreciates the varied needs of goat producers. Characteristics of certain breeds will require tail tagging options — many producers in the goat dairy industry require RFID leg bands; and low value animals will require a very low cost identification option for producers.
The CNGF would like to assure producers that we are working to provide tagging options to meet the diverse needs of the goat industry. The careful consideration and process we are following for tag selection will provide producers with both RFID and visible/non-RFID tagging options.
Beth Peers
CNGF President
Virden, Man.
