Thoughts on the 6 month Moratorium on the Alberta Renewable Energy Projects

This moratorium is living rent-free in my head even though I am definitely not on board with companies getting to set policy by default. Communities should be able to appeal to the government to regulate the industry - even though it's an industry that I support. I expect they're so used to O&G demanding provincial funding that they didn't realize energy companies could thrive without it and by the time they did - welp a hard brake is a good way to get rid of competition. The UCP is all about perception. The perception they're helping rural communities while forgiving debt owed to them by oil companies. Allowing leaks into the waterways feeding First Nations because they're pretty isolated. Air pollution is no big deal because it's mostly invisible and by the time it's noticeable the polluters can create all kinds of plausible deniability. 

These complaints are from southern Alberta. In Medicine Hat, Smiths's riding, there's a turbine quite close to a road on the edge of town that people regularly see. People who are heavily invested in being Gas City with the accompanying low utility rates. Imagine having a turbine this close to a road you regularly drive on... Plus in Alberta, wind farms have lots of turbines. It seems the standard is lots at different angles so only a few are active at a time. But the perception is the possibility of ALL of them running at the same time.

6 months is actually not long to review material and provide a report and any new regulation will take longer to implement. If Smith's stand on COVID is any indication, the sources they look at will cite a bunch of misinformation so it will be a quick hammer smash making it onerous to comply with new rules. Projects in the planning stages are easy to relocate. This isn't like oil where there are physical constraints - you can do solar anywhere. The US has a big push on and even SK has a range of projects coming online. I hope the Solar industry that remains is ready to capitalize on distributed solar in urban areas because rural projects are likely to be dead until O&G decides to enter the game.