Brian Zinchuk: Alberta wind and solar produced 76 megawatts out of a theoretical 2,605 megawatts at noon on New Year’s Eve, with cold warnings all over the province

New Year’s Eve proved, at least in Alberta, that for each and every megawatt of wind and solar power installation installed, you absolutely must have reliable backup generation, principally in the form of natural gas-fired power generation.

We cannot take the risk, ever, of enduring what Texas went through this last February. If we lost power here for days and weeks on end, during the coldest part of the year, we could see thousands die. This province would, in a matter of hours, become uninhabitable. Not uncomfortable. Uninhabitable. We cannot, and must not, set up our grid such that there’s any possibility of that happening.