Morning folks, greetings from the great solar north. Here's bit of good news amidst the daily doom and gloom.

As you may know, Canada's bad boy province is Alberta. It is our most conservative province (Texas wannabes - oil and cattle) and has coasted on oil revenue from the dirty tar sands in the province's north for decades. Alberta was run by it's conservative party for 40 years until our democratic socialist party, the New Democrats under Rachel Notley won power in 2015. The north looks mostly like the moon if the moon was hell - the usual outcome of corporatist politics - and it's pollution has spread widely through air, water, and land.

It's economy tanked when oil prices fell in the Saudi's effort to kill alternative oil and gas production. Premier Notley now has to clean up a 40-year catastrophe before the next elections. Funny how democratic socialists only win elections after corporatists have destroyed an economy and then get the blame for not fixing it fast enough. Sigh.

Anyway, Alberta needs jobs and solar is here to help. Here is news from one of our progressive news organizations, the National Observer.
http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/03/28/news/solar-industry-says-7000...

Over the last six years in Alberta, it (solar) has grown by 84 per cent annually and If this trend continues, Howell estimated that the province would have 2,000 megawatts of PV capacity installed by 2024 – enough power for 275,000 homes or over half of all Calgary’s households. That would be 220 times today’s nine megawatts of PV installed capacity.

A solar industry lobby group estimated this could bring up to $5-billion in new investment and 70,000 new jobs for Alberta. But the industry faces fierce competition in the province’s deregulated electrical market as well uncertainty surrounding the climate change policies of Alberta Premier Rachel Notley's NDP government. It also hasn't yet announced details of any incentives to encourage more renewable energy as it pursues plans to phase out coal power plants.

New jobs in Alberta would be welcome in the fossil fuel-rich province, pummeled in recent months by the decline in global oil prices. Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau noted in his recent budget that paid employment in the province had fallen by about 65,000 since October 2014 when oil prices started their precipitous decline. Over 95 per cent of those positions were lost in industries directly related to the oil sector, the budget said.

It's a beginning, for which we are grateful. As you could imagine, The Great White North isn't exactly sunny Arizona. But it's doable: we have to change and change fast.

Source: Natural Resources Canada

More from National Observer:

But in Vulcan, Alta., EDF Energy Nouvelle Canada (EDF EN) is planning a project 30 times larger. The company is a subsidiary of Électricité de France S.A. – the largest worldwide power producer with $350 billion in assets.

EDF EN has proposed a 60 megawatt solar farm, 50 kilometres north of Lethbridge. It would produce enough power for 8,520 homes. The company aims to have the project operating by the Fall of 2018 at a cost of $150 million.

David Warner, a development manager with EDF EN, said that solar power is competitive in some southern US states. He added that the costs are continuing to drop.

“We’re confident those savings will soon find their way north of the border,” said Warner.

EDF EN hasn't made a final decision on its proposed farm, but Warner said he was confident the project would be approved.

However, EDF EN isn’t alone. Suncor, BlueEarth Renewables Inc., SunEdison Inc., and GTE Power Corp are also proposing large solar farms. The five firms have proposed a total of eight separate projects, including the Vulcan solar farm. Together, these projects, if completed, would require up to $900 million in new spending by the companies. They would also produce up to 352 megawatts of electrical generating capacity.

These developments will put pressure on our traditional fossil energy providers to get in the game or increasingly lose market share. Our problem is two-fold. We have to convert to renewable energy (other than hydro, of which we have lots). And then, we have to learn how to harden our renewable energy production facilities to survive, as Hanson put it so memorably in his book title, the "Storms of Of My Grandchildren." Get RE up fast. Then harden it for the coming storms. Yikes. We have to roll up our sleeves and get to work. And do something about our national curling teams, whose usual world dominance has taken a bit of a tumble recently. (About which, do watch our movie "Men With Brooms" by national treasure Paul Gross.)

Have a great day.

Peace be with us, if we work for it with peaceful hearts, (I always say that, not because I'm good at it, but because I'm so bad at it :=)
gerrit