Federal Government & Politics II

[MonkeyRonin]

If you can look past the clickbaity headline, this raised some good points to explain the increasingly uneasy "mood" in the country right now. Which, to bring back to politics, is the sort of sentiment that would spell doom for pretty much any incumbent:

• Video Link

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by Docere

Interestingly Rachel Notley will not be leading the Alberta NDP in the next election.

The NDP is rebranding, including a new name.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Hydro is easily the best baseline power for the future. It can even act as a battery during times when solar and wind are at high production.

The issue is HV interconnects between power suppliers and users. That's where we need a national strategy IMO.

Depends whether it is run of the river or dam based. Hydro projects based on dams creating shallow reservoirs create significant GHG emissions (which are of course exempt from carbon taxes)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...enhouse-gases/

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I honestly don't understand all of the blind passionate support for Big Oil and hostility to the electric transition both here on SSP and elsewhere in various forums. Are there really that many people whose personal fortunes are inextricably tied to the legacy oil and gas sector?

It's easier to understand why the discord is so ridiculous on this country when you see the petrosexual fan fiction our national press puts out. This is why we give our newspapers subsidies I guess:



https://nationalpost.com/opinion/chr...going-anywhere

[Truenorth00]

Population up by 430k last quarter.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10179377/...tion-spike-q3/

And bizarrely the government, in 2019, seems to have assumed that population growth would level off, without any policy changes:



https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/sta...Z2vwvxCqQ&s=19

No idea what the LPC gameplan is. But if the country is growing by 1.6M annually come the next election, I'm wondering if they'll have enough support left to keep party status.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

It's easier to understand why the discord is so ridiculous on this country when you see the petrosexual fan fiction our national press puts out. This is why we give our newspapers subsidies I guess:



https://nationalpost.com/opinion/chr...going-anywhere

A lot of what he says is in fact true. But what's crazy is the extreme hostility to seeking out any alternatives that could potentially be better.

[niwell]

It's technically true but also reads like a newsreel from the 1950s.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Like I said earlier. It's all culture war nonsense. I mean you can't have an intelligent discussion about EVs with somebody who actually believes that you need 6x as many EV chargers as gas pumps. People like that are either climate deniers, hate tech or hate the Liberals, so they'll say anything to oppose whatever cleantech policy is put forward by the Liberals.

As you know, I'm a culture wars guy. But I base my views on specific individual assessments of the issues. I don't blindly follow some leader or "side" and then accept the whole basket of stuff they support without thinking for myself.

There isn't really anyone who has my support on everything they are gonna say.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Acajack

A lot of what he says is in fact true. But what's crazy is the extreme hostility to seeking out any alternatives that could potentially be better.

It's a giant strawman piece that pretends we're trying to completely get rid of oil.

Short of actual crazies like eco-terrorists, I've never seen anybody any forecast that says we'll ever stop entirely consuming oil. The goal is simply to minimize burning as much of it as possible. Oil going into plastic toys is not contributing to climate change. Sure, there will be some extremists who will argue against all oil. But that's not the majority view among those pushing climate policy.

[Truenorth00]

Why the drama queens act up about any news about EVs is pretty simple:



https://rmi.org/insight/x-change-batteries/

[casper]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Why the drama queens act up about any news about EVs is pretty simple:

Obviously that it is future of the auto sector. Large transport trucks, trains and ships will turn to hydrogen.

The US just announced major investments in hydrogen hubs.

While the oil sector will never go away it will become a smaller part of the overall economy.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by casper

Obviously that it is future of the auto sector. Large transport trucks, trains and ships will turn to hydrogen.

The US just announced major investments in hydrogen hubs.

While the oil sector will never go away it will become a smaller part of the overall economy.

While not disagreeing with most of your points, short-haul large transport trucks may also go electric, rather than hydrogen, for local deliveries. As well as Pepsi's Tesla semis for example, Tim Hortons has bought electric Volvo semi trucks for Vancouver and Toronto, and Walmart are operating Freightliner semi-trucks from their Surrey distribution centre

[Truenorth00]

Hydrogen is not taking off anywhere without fueling infrastructure and nobody is really investing in it. Some maybe built at ports. But inland, there doesn't seem to be much interest. And trucking already seems to be going down the battery route. The longer hydrogen takes to build out a distribution network the more markets they will lose. Passenger vehicles and local delivery are lost. Long haul trucking is starting to slip away. If this keeps some shipping and short haul aviation might be lost to batteries too.

[1overcosc]

Container shipping using hydrogen is also looking less promising now that shipping companies are looking at nuclear powered container ships.

Hydrogen has a lot of industrial potential in things like steelmaking and fertilizer production. But not transportation it seems. Even space travel seems to be more likely to be going down a route of synthetic methane and/or nuclear. NASA has resumed serious research into nuclear pulse propulsion spacecraft half a century after the original research was abandoned.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Population up by 430k last quarter.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10179377/...tion-spike-q3/

And bizarrely the government, in 2019, seems to have assumed that population growth would level off, without any policy changes:....


https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/sta...Z2vwvxCqQ&s=19

No idea what the LPC gameplan is. But if the country is growing by 1.6M annually come the next election, I'm wondering if they'll have enough support left to keep party status.

No doubt the Libs think they've created enough new Canadians to vote for them. It's no surprise many "progressive" parties at all levels of government continue to float the idea of giving permanent residents the right to vote.

[casper]

Originally Posted by whatnext

No doubt the Libs think they've created enough new Canadians to vote for them. It's no surprise many "progressive" parties at all levels of government continue to float the idea of giving permanent residents the right to vote.

No one (including the Liberals) would view immigration as a way of increasing the number of voters. Those on temporary visas are years away from voting for anyone.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by whatnext

No doubt the Libs think they've created enough new Canadians to vote for them. It's no surprise many "progressive" parties at all levels of government continue to float the idea of giving permanent residents the right to vote.

I haven't really seen much about giving permanent residents the right to vote. The only thing I've heard was a few years ago and it was about giving the right to vote to property owners and renters in municipal elections in Ontario for permanent residents. But I think that the idea was actually put forward by the Doug Ford PCs.

[casper]

Originally Posted by Changing City

While not disagreeing with most of your points, short-haul large transport trucks may also go electric, rather than hydrogen, for local deliveries. As well as Pepsi's Tesla semis for example, Tim Hortons has bought electric Volvo semi trucks for Vancouver and Toronto, and Walmart are operating Freightliner semi-trucks from their Surrey distribution centre

I agree local delivery is going to be battery. When I say hydrogen I am thinking inter-city.

Here on Vancouver Island, the major food wholesaler has one electric truck.

• Video Link

Interesting read. This trucking company, at today’s prices, diesel for the route it would typically use would costs $136 a day. Running the Lion6 (EV) on the same route costs only $4.50 a day.

The truck costs $477,000. About $200k more than a similar natural-gas based truck.

Source: https://www.trucknews.com/equipment/...ct/1003166840/

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Hydrogen is not taking off anywhere without fueling infrastructure and nobody is really investing in it. Some maybe built at ports. But inland, there doesn't seem to be much interest. And trucking already seems to be going down the battery route. The longer hydrogen takes to build out a distribution network the more markets they will lose. Passenger vehicles and local delivery are lost. Long haul trucking is starting to slip away. If this keeps some shipping and short haul aviation might be lost to batteries too.

International cargo ships are the most likely. But yes, the infrastructure needs to be there for it to work. Railways are another are where there is still potential.

[Loco101]

Most recent poll and maybe the last one this year. From Léger:

https://legermarketing.wpenginepower...-20th-2023.pdf

CPC: 38%

LPC: 28%

NDP: 18%

BQ: 6%

GPC: 5%

PPC: 2%


--------------------


Who would make the best Prime Minister?

Poilievre: 25%

Trudeau: 20%

Singh: 16%

May: 3%

Bernier: 1%

Other: 4%

None of the above: 13%

I don't know: 15%

I prefer not to answer: 2%


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[Loco101]

If PP is only getting 25% for best PM then he is performing very poorly as party leader under the current conditions. Many conservative supporters obviously don't like him as leader. Notice that a full 30% of respondents couldn't or wouldn't give an answer so we really don't know where things are going.