Renewable energy will never be Alberta’s main source, Danielle Smith says

We’re going to begin in Alberta where Premier Danielle Smith is rejecting the federal government’s plan for a clean power grid by 2035. calling it quote unconstitutional irresponsible and utterly out of step with reality the premier of Alberta Danielle Smith joins me Premier welcome back to Power and politics

Thanks for having me the federal government Premier Smith has given provinces 75 days to respond to its draft clean electricity regulations what feedback will Alberta be giving same feedback that I’ve been giving to environment Minister Stephen gibeau and Justin Trudeau Jonathan Wilkinson and Dominic LeBlanc every time I’ve met with

Them is that these these aggressive targets that seem to have been pulled out of the air are just not achievable for Alberta we recognize that other provinces are in a bit of a different position with their power grid our power grid is 90 natural gas we’re just going

To need a little bit more time to reach 20 50 targets so and we hope that they’ll be working with us to make sure we can do that so is the 2050 date versus the 2035 the wholesale rejection of that schedule because the minister stated when he brought these in last

Week that he had specifically listened to Alberta sought to strike a balance and be flexible with exemptions to bring you in not sufficient no he did not I think one of the things we have to remember is that we aggressively went off cool many years prior to the original Target there was

Even one coal company that had to retool their plants six months after they’d opened because of the surprise changes to the rules and it’s cost our our rate payers billions of dollars we’re still paying that off for the stranded Assets Now to do the same thing for our natural

Gas plants I just don’t think that’s reasonable it’s not going to result in affordability it’s not going to result in reliability and the provisions that the the minister has put forward would essentially allow for gas plants to run about 18 days a year and that is not

Going to be enough to be able to to back up wind and solar which are far more unreliable and more intermittent than that so look at those Clauses with me if you would exactly to that last point you were making because as I was looking at the draft regulations you had sought to

Have natural gas plants used Beyond 2035 and again as you look at these drafts gas plants with carbon capture technology can keep Opera rating units can keep operating if they’re operational by 2025 they’d be exempt for 20 years so that would continue into the 2040s they could continue even without

Carbon capture peaker plants you’ve spoke of that just referencing there they would be allowed to operate Beyond 2035 at times when consumer demand is highest so are these not the provisions that you have been calling for and I’m wondering where the discrepancy is well the discrepancy is the limitation

On the hours he he says that they can only operate 450 hours or to 150 000 tons and in fact that might be even less than the number of hours that that has been prescribed and we have to remember that our grid part of the reason we’ve

Been able to add wind and solar on is that when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine the natural gas peaker plants come on when I looked at the numbers for 2022 solar operates about 13 of the time wind operates about 33 percent of the time so that’s not going

To be anywhere near enough to make sure that we’ve got a reliable grid and that’s got to be our number one goal is to make sure that we don’t end up with rolling blackouts so we need to do a bit more work to see if we can if we can

Come to an agreement on that so is that your approach right now what will be how will you proceed then if there is the gap as you’ve laid out how will you continue to work with the federal government well our feedback to the federal government was we are happy to align

With a 2050 Target we think that’s reasonable we think that’s realistic we think that allows for us to work with our neighbors in British Columbia and Manitoba to see if we can bring in transmission lines so that we can use hydro we think that’s enough time to develop a regulatory framework for small

Modular nuclear which will be rolling out at the end of this decade we think that that will allow us to perfect carbon capture utilization and storage technology but these things can’t be done at the drop of a hat it’s 12 short years that they’re proposing to be able

To have all of this in place that’s just simply not enough time but we have talked with our power generators and they think that 2050 is a reasonable amount of time we’ve got to be we’ve got to be mindful of that and we’ve got to make sure that we’re putting forward

Policies that are realistic rather than fairy tales and unfortunately what has been pulled out of the air here it doesn’t make sense for our Province and and that’s the reason why we’re going to be charting a course to 2050. yes fairy tales you said at your news conference earlier today utterly Auto

Step with reality irresponsible is how you’ve characterized these draft regulations and you also use today the word that you used on a couple of occasions in the statement You released last week and that is unconstitutional previously you have said if Ottawa issues laws and regulations you consider unconstitutional you will invoke the

Alberta sovereignty Act is that what you’re signaling here well I can tell you that I look at the Constitution not as an advisory document it’s how our country is supposed to work the act that I passed in the fall was to let the federal government know that we

Would be defending our areas of constitutional jurisdiction it says right there in section 92 a uh that we that we are going to allow for electricity generation to be the exclusive domain of the provinces there’s a reason for that we all have different natural endowments we have different geography we’ve got different

Priorities we’ve got different abilities and so I think that the federal government should take it as a win that we want to work with them on 2050 and not try to be unrealistic in in trying to advance a proposal that is going to be extraordinarily costly we estimate

200 to 400 billion dollars and likely unachievable I think that they should work with us so that we can achieve the the the objective that they want to seek by 2050. just to be just to be clear on the sovereignty act have you at this point instructed or will you instruct

The province his lawyers to look into this on this matter right now well we just saw in terms of reference with the federal government to come to the table for eight to 12 months to see how we can get into alignment I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m going to go into that with

Good intentions and with good faith in hoping that they are reasonable and that they are are going to meet us part way at the moment I’ve been I’ve been disappointed that despite all of the feedback that we’ve given them that they have not met us uh where we need to be

And so I’ll see how that process plays out but we’ve got a little bit of time to be able to negotiate and I’m hopeful that once they they see our modeling and once they see the reality that they’re going to work with us on 2050. in addition to the sovereignty act though

I’m wondering are you looking at any other illegal challenges in what legal basis you would have for those any other constitutional arguments you mentioned section 92 of the Constitution for example are there other options you’d explore legally well look I mean there’s lots of things that that we can do in our Province

We’ve been managing our electricity grid without the the federal government’s help or oversight uh ever since our founding and we’re going to continue managing our electricity grid that’s what I have a mandate to do is to make sure that we have reliable affordable energy people need to know when the they

Flick the switch that the lights are going to come on they need to have some confidence when it’s minus 30 that we’re not going to have intermittent power and a failing power grid and those are the things that that I have as my mandate those are the things that the

Constitution gives me the obligation to do and so we’re going to do whatever we can to make sure that we achieve those objectives I just I just wonder if raising the word constitutional and singling signaling rather potential legal arguments isn’t moot at this point because none of the regulations as you

Yourself indicate they won’t be coming into effect for a dozen years and there’s nothing official to challenge so they can’t be challenged in court until there’s something in law to challenge that’s not quite true I mean they’re anticipating that all of this is going to to begin to to take effect as of

January of 2025. my understanding is that they’re not going to allow any unabated natural gas to come onto the grid unless it’s put been put in place beforehand that means anybody who’s conceiving of a project today has to operate under the new rules it’s just not possible to get something conceived

And built within essentially a a a 16 or 18 month time frame so these are real and present it’s going to have a real and meaningful impact on our investment climate we’re already seeing it I look at my my grid of the number of projects that are backed up for approval and

There’s 23 000 megawatts of wind and solar and virtually no base load that’s already an indication to me that the federal government’s Chill on investment is having a major impact on us and so we’re going to have to find a way to make sure we get more base load power

That’s got to be our number one target when you mentioned Chill on investment that has been the concern raised by many within the Renewables industry after the pause of the moratorium on large-scale renewable energy projects instituted just a few days ago until the end of February 2024. if it’s impossible as you

Say to achieve a clean Grid in Alberta by 2035 you are at the same time pausing the renewable sector which could help move you in that direction do you see an inconsistency there I don’t I mean if you look at the seven times that our power grid almost failed

In the last year on two of those days when it was -30 wind and solar were generating less than 100 megawatts of power even though there’s 5 000 megawatts of installed if I had 10 or 20 or 30 000 megawatts of installed solar and wind and the wind isn’t blowing and

The sun isn’t shining it’s not going to produce any more power that’s the reason why wind and solar have always had to have natural gas as a backup in our Province because they’re unreliable and if we can’t bring on a significant amount of natural gas to completely back

Up wind and solar when they’re not working then that’s the the problem that we’re facing with the federal government they have to understand reality that wind and solar investment in this province is dependent on being able to ensure we have base load wind and solar investment in the province as we’ve been

Outstripping elsewhere in the country it’s been booming and then some of the criticism from within industry about what has happened as a result of the moratorium that thousands of jobs are at risk billions of dollars of investment both now and perhaps a making of confidence for the investment climate in

The future what Fallout from this pause do you anticipate well look other provinces have been able to decarbonize their grid with base load power in Ontario and and Quebec Manitoba British Columbia they rely on hydroelectric in Ontario it’s nuclear there’s there’s no province that is conceiving of building out a power grid

Entirely reliant on wind and solar intermittent power that would be absurd for a province to do that quite frankly the only way you can bring on at a reasonable amount of solar and wind is to make sure that you’ve got base load backup and at the moment we don’t have

Anybody proposing those projects and I think it’s because the federal government has created so much uncertainty that’s what we’ve got to address and as soon as we’re able to address that come to terms then we’re going to be able to take the pause off and and and people will know what the

Rules are for where they cite their projects how they have to make sure that it stays off of prime agriculture land and they’re going to have to have rules around Reclamation because these are massive projects if you look at one solar farm in Southern Alberta it takes

Up 3 200 acres of land if you look at a wind project a 47 turbines the size of the of the CN Tower or the Calgary Tower like these are these are these are are significant projects with massive liability costs for Reclamation and we don’t have a framework for how we’re

Going to see those cleaned up so it would be irresponsible of me not to make sure that we everybody knows the rules and that’s what we need those are the same concerns same concerns when oil and gas was taking off and booming in the province in terms of reclamation we know

What has been left from abandoned oil wells for example but there was never a moratorium announced in the expansion of oil and gas even as it boomed and there were problems and you sought regulation at no time was there a pause do you believe that Renewables will ever become

The dominant form of energy in Alberta no they can’t I mean we have uh uh when you we get down to -30 and we have a heavy air mass over our Province the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine you you can’t be in a situation where you’re relying 100 on intermittent

Power we have to bring base load power on no when in solar I think are complementary as long as they’ve got natural gas backing them up so that they can work in tandem together but we also have made uh we made policy in our Province where we’re demanding that our

Oil and natural gas companies clean things up they have to clean up three percent per year of their liability so we’ve already addressed that why would we want to make the same mistake that previous governments have made and not holding wind and solar to a similar accountable standard is part of your

Planning at all presently or your calculation for the future Premier Smith the possibility of a pierre-pauliev government in two years you know what I’m I have to deal with the government that’s there and from everything I can see they’re intending to to stay on for the next two years and

So I I owe it to albertans to work with the federal government to come up with a plan that will allow us to achieve our joint objectives 2050 is a reasonable Target and we want to invest in carbon capture utilization and storage and hydrogen geothermal as as well as make

Sure that as nuclear develops that we have the a framework for us to bring that on on the grid here too I mean we’re working in the same direction it’s just a matter of the time frame and so I think that we can come to a an agreement

As long as the federal government remains reasonable

Danielle Smith is rejecting Ottawa’s 2035 net-zero power grid regulations, stating that the time frame is unreasonable for Alberta to meet. ‘That’s what I have a mandate to do, to make sure we have reliable and affordable energy,’ Smith told Power and Politics.

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