Eliminate Electricity Production, Shift to Electric Cars

Toronto Star: Ontario energy grid emissions set to skyrocket 400% as Ford government forced to crank up the gas

Since all renewable energy projects were cancelled when Premier Doug Ford was elected, the province currently has no other way to compensate for the looming shutdown of a major nuclear reactor in Pickering, responsible for roughly 16 per cent of province-wide power. Only natural gas is available to meet rapidly growing demand for electricity, according to the IESO projections.

The projections show that the province’s natural gas plants — which only operate about 60 per cent of the time now — will run non-stop by 2033.

“The province has ignored energy planning for the last four years because there was no need. We had an energy surplus,” said Gord Miller, Ontario’s former environment commissioner — an independent watchdog position eliminated by the Ford government. “But now we’re in an energy squeeze. When Pickering turns off, we have no plans … and the default option is to up the gas.”

The story of how Ontario went from being a polluter to a beacon of green energy and back again is a political one that spans almost two decades and three premiers.

It starts in 2003, when then-premier Dalton McGuinty went out on a political limb to announce the complete phaseout of coal-fired generation. Over the next 12 years, carbon emissions from the electricity sector dropped precipitously — from more than 35 megatonnes of carbon in 2005 down to six in 2014, when Ontario became the first jurisdiction in the world to completely wean itself off coal.

But the cost of this achievement — a tripling of electricity rates — demanded a political price.

Green ideology is retarded because it is infested with central planning mentality and functions more like a religion. It fails on so many levels because it is irrational, faith-based and anti-scientific. Even if they were correct on the threat from CO2 emissions, which they wildly overstate, they are politically incompetent. Physics, logic, politics, on every level the plans are ludicrous. 

One does not eliminate electricity supply while increasing electricity demand via electric cars and expect anything but wholesale disaster. The Toronto Star article is trying to lay blame on the current premier, but the ultimate blame belongs on the morons who came up with this policy mix. I'm leaving out the possibility that people behind these policies are evil, but it is hard to imagine people being this stupid. A shift to electric vehicles has a range of outcomes. What if electric cars prove very popular? What if a tech breakthrough drops the price quickly and adoption accelerates? Where will extra power come from? Unless there's idle hydro power laying around, I don't see how anyone thinks this is possible without nuclear, natural gas or, the ultimate backfire, a return to coal. 

Look at the chart above. I'm eyeballing it, but it looks like there's barely a rise in electricity demand ex-transportation. The entire problem is being caused by electrification of transportation. Since markets are priced on the margin, a small deficit can create very large price increases. 

ESG and alternative energy are the biggest scams going. An economic agenda created by an anti-science, anti-physics, anti-capitalist, anti-human religious cult. It seems impossible today, but I really wonder if coal will make a major comeback. Not a full comeback, but maybe a serious player in the energy market. 

China Using Prices to Curb Electricity Demand

Caixin: Regional China Utilities Get Nod to Raise Prices in Hope of Easing Outages

Electric utilities in a handful of Chinese provinces are raising power prices after a nod from the nation’s top economic planner, which is grappling with the contribution of record-high coal prices and withering stockpiles to a worsening power crunch.

Coal-fired power plants in Ningxia, Shanghai, Shandong, Guangdong and parts of Inner Mongolia have increased their fixed rates charged to grid operators by 10%, the maximum allowed under national regulations, a Caixin analysis shows.

...The agency said on Monday it will start a new mechanism in October that will link the coal market to industrial power prices. Once prices for coal bought by power plants surpass 1,300 yuan ($201) per ton, for every 50 yuan increase, electricity sale prices will increase by 0.015 yuan per kilowatt-hour (kWh).

China's policy response is the right one. This is a good illustration of why I am both bearish on China, while remaining long-term bullisho their rise as a nation because they apply common sense solutions. Using common sense in the West will get you branded a racist, extremist, transphobic terorist.

I can't call it a wager yet because I don't have a trade on, but I'm watching the forex markets like a hawk for a sign of spillover. I am currently long calls on DXY, but that is not a China-specific trade.