Manitoba Hydro

[Justanothermember]

Sorry, I feel like this thread as been derailed, so I'll keep the discussion of Sio Silica to the 'other Manitoba developments' thread going forward.

[Sasquatch]

Originally Posted by drew

It's also Oil (Norway) versus Hydro (Manitoba). But I am sure it will be pointed out I am wrong about that.

You are correct, sir. Norway is no different than Alberta in that it is basically a petro-state. Abundant oil and gas royalties can be used to paper over all of the excessive costs created in centrally planned systems and hand out so much "free stuff" that your average taxpayer won't notice or care. Manitoba has no such recourse.

[dennis]

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[dennis]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

Here's the energy mix and price of our nearest neighbors. IE: Our target customers. (Yes I know MB Hydro does SOME export, but it should be 10x higher).

Here's the reality: Coal will convert to Wind. It's the cheapest LCOE, fastest to deploy and most reliable. But wind needs "Baseload". To supply when the wind isn't blowing.

That's where MB Hydro comes in with pumped hydro storage. We store our neighbor's excess peak wind generation, and sell it back at a profit when their wind isn't blowing.

There's no other utility energy storage system on the planet that can compete with pumped-hydro. Not batteries, or any other energy snake-oil. Anyone can build wind generation. But no one can store it. Only us (and the Great Lakes).

Manitoba is sitting on a monopolized gold mine, and doesn't even realize it.

Doesn’t Manitoba have some wind farms? St. Joseph comes to mind. Also are the coal or now natural gas generators in Selkirk and Brandon still operating?

[bomberjet]

Brandon is still operating. Is/was being used as of a few months ago due to low water levels. Selkirk is closed IIRC.

There are some diesel plants in the north for remote communities.

[cheswick]

Maybe I'm completely imagining this, but I thought Manitoba imported coal power at night due to the nature of how coal stations work, and they can't ramp down so there's an excess at night so MB imports it on the cheap since they can store hydro power with the dams.

I remember reading that somewhere but for the life of me can't find any evidence, so I could be completely wrong.

[bodaggin]

Originally Posted by Sasquatch

You are correct, sir. Norway is Abundant oil and gas. Manitoba has no such resourse.

Wakey wakey guys. The world rapidly transitioning to electrification. All those EV's need clean utility power. Oil, Coal and Gas are switching to Hydro, Wind, and geothermal. Solar in the deserts.

THAT'S US. WE HAVE HYDRO. HYDRO IS OUR OIL.

Any of our neighbors can deploy wind, as can we. But wind needs baseload. We're the only ones on that map who has it in the form of pumped hydro. Or traditional hydro. That's our resource.

Originally Posted by dennis

Doesn’t Manitoba have some wind farms? St. Joseph comes to mind. Also are the coal or now natural gas generators in Selkirk and Brandon still operating?

2 wind farms, total 237 mw of our total 6,500mw or 3.6%. A rounding error.

Selkirk gas is shut down. Brandon is emergency backup only. At 280mw again it's a rounding error.

Build and export this resource while the market is screaming hot.

[bodaggin]

Here's the topline revenue just on developing most of our untapped traditional hydro potential and exporting it. That's roughly 4,000mw at ~60% capacity factor.

4000 mw * 60% = 2400mw/hr
2400 * 24hr * 365day/yr = 20,024,000mw/yr

Market rates for our neighbors are 70% to 130% higher than our in-Manitoba rates. That's MONEY! Rates range $150/mw to $220/mw, as per map.

So 20,024,000mw/yr @ $150 = $3.15 billion annual revenue.
Or 20,024,000mw/yr @ $200 = $4.20 billion annual revenue.

For perspective MB Hydro current topline revenue is $3b to $3.8b.
Manitoba Gov topline revenue is $22 billion.

So we're talking doubling MB Hydro's revenue and hitting the equivalent of 15% of MB Gov's revenue. And this is solely on untapped traditional hydro. It doesn't include wind or PSH. It's also at current rates, which are likely to surge as electrification progresses. We have a money maker here.

[Sasquatch]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

Wakey wakey guys. The world rapidly transitioning to electrification. All those EV's need clean utility power. Oil, Coal and Gas are switching to Hydro, Wind, and geothermal. Solar in the deserts.

THAT'S US. WE HAVE HYDRO. HYDRO IS OUR OIL.

Any of our neighbors can deploy wind, as can we. But wind needs baseload. We're the only ones on that map who has it in the form of pumped hydro. Or traditional hydro. That's our resource.




2 wind farms, total 237 mw of our total 6,500mw or 3.6%. A rounding error.

Selkirk gas is shut down. Brandon is emergency backup only. At 280mw again it's a rounding error.

Build and export this resource while the market is screaming hot.

If I hadn't been hearing this same refrain for 30 years, I'd be tempted to buy into it this time. But I've been disappointed once too often.

If hydro was the ticket to riches, this would have already happened. One reason it did not was that hydro has to compete with resources like natural gas for electricity generation. Thanks to the fracking revolution, natural gas has become wildly abundant and prices have been falling for many years.

[bodaggin]

Originally Posted by Sasquatch

If hydro was the ticket to riches, this would have already happened. Natural gas prices have been falling for many years.

NG wasn't falling last winter at $10/mmbtu, up 500% on the 10yr chart. Sure it's low again this winter. But let's settle on "natty gas prices prices fluctuate greatly."

NG aside, there's 23gw of coal within 900km of MB's border. All coal is going offline in the coming years. This is inevitable. Some will convert to NG, but others want clean reliable power to replace it. That's us, if we position accordingly. Also don't forget, an 80% EV transition will effectively double grid based power draw. Meaning soaring power prices. We want to sell into that.

Our green energy won't make MB filthy rich. But it can be a major budget contributor, and get us off that $3B per year transfer payment nipple. Which could effectively be rugged at any time if public sentiment changes.

[Sasquatch]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

NG wasn't falling last winter at $10/mmbtu, up 500% on the 10yr chart. Sure it's low again this winter. But let's settle on "natty gas prices prices fluctuate greatly."

NG aside, there's 23gw of coal within 900km of MB's border. All coal is going offline in the coming years. This is inevitable. Some will convert to NG, but others want clean reliable power to replace it. That's us, if we position accordingly. Also don't forget, an 80% EV transition will effectively double grid based power draw. Meaning soaring power prices. We want to sell into that.

Our green energy won't make MB filthy rich. But it can be a major budget contributor, and get us off that $3B per year transfer payment nipple. Which could effectively be rugged at any time if public sentiment changes.

Whose coal is going offline? All of the US? Why wouldn't they just switch to NG whose price chart you posted shows a long term declining price trend.

Where did you come up with an 80% EV transition? Over what period of time and where?

[bodaggin]

Originally Posted by Sasquatch

Whose coal is going offline? All of the US? Why wouldn't they just switch to NG whose price chart you posted shows a long term declining price trend.

Where did you come up with an 80% EV transition? Over what period of time and where?

lol Because natty gas and coal both have emissions. It makes no sense to swap ICE vehicles for EV, only to charge them them using coal and nat gas. Defeats the whole point. The entire world is going EV, in one form or another. Some will be BEV. Others will be PHEV. But EV, charged by utility, will power the majority of the miles we drive.

Over 95% of vehicle trips are under 45km. And 60% are under 10km. Commutes, errands, events, etc. EV excels at this use case. Cross country road trips, which EV's suck at, are a very small percentage of vehicle usage en masse.

Even a PHEV with 60km battery range will power 80-90% of the miles it drives with electricity, due to this usage curve. Therefore they need to be powered by clean grids. Which Manitoba is blessed with, while others are not.

[bodaggin]

To understand how massive this electrification transition is, consider this:

USA annual electricity consumption: 4 trillion kilowatt/hours.
USA annual oil consumption: 12.4 trillion kilowatt/hour equivalents. (7.3 billion bbl @ 1700kwh/bbl.)

And 2/3 of all petroleum consumption is for transportation.

So 8 trillion kwh equivalents, or double the current grid capacity could electrify. Electrification is massive. It's literally oil 2.0 in every essence.

[bodaggin]

Danielle Smith announces a replica of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund for O&G revenue. A page of Handlingsregelen. She is absolutely killing it out there for AB. Smart and no BS.

It's time for MB to start acting with this level of decisiveness and shrewdness on an economic front. Starting with Hydro. Build Baby Build.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvkx5PB8hvE

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

Didn't see a thread. So here we go.

What an utter mess of an organization. $25B in debt. Mismanaged Keeyask. Mismanaged Bi-Pole. And in an era of rapid global electrification what's their mandate? Gotta keep those rates low.

Alberta has oil, Manitoba has Hydro. If you want to dig MB out of "Have-Not" status, Hydro how you do it.
.

Dude, Alberta mismanages oil as much or worse than Manitoba. If Walmart were run by a large oilsands company, it would go broke within a year. I recall when I was working at one of the camps, and personally witnessing all the mismanagement,and ineptitude going on.

You are acting if our hydroelectricity would make us the second coming of Alberta booms, if it were not for the incompetence of Manitoba Hydro. This is just false and ridiculous. If hydroelectricity were worth anywhere near Alberta's oil reserves, investors from China, USA, Saudi Arabia, and Europe would be lined up to get a piece of the action.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

Danielle Smith announces a replica of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund for O&G revenue. A page of Handlingsregelen. She is absolutely killing it out there for AB. Smart and no BS.

It's time for MB to start acting with this level of decisiveness and shrewdness on an economic front. Starting with Hydro. Build Baby Build.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvkx5PB8hvE

lol....let me guess. You have not lived in Alberta since 2015. Danielle Smith is batshit crazy, mismanaging nearly everything she touches, and driving industry away from the province. If anything, Alberta is thriving right now IN SPITE of her.

Did you also agree with her wacky conspiracy views regarding COVID being a hoax, or the UCP moves to ultimately privitize health care?

Or how about Smith telling the media that she understood Indigenous people better than nearly anyone, since she was part Cree. Of course, it was discovered she had absolutely no Indigenous blood in her. But hey, in a world where Marjorie Taylor Greene and others are elected to political office, why not try to outdo each other in being a fruit loop.

[blueandgoldguy]

OT to the thread, but it will be interesting to see how well Nenshi does in the next provincial election in Alberta in a few years given how popular he was as mayor of Calgary.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by blueandgoldguy

OT to the thread, but it will be interesting to see how well Nenshi does in the next provincial election in Alberta in a few years given how popular he was as mayor of Calgary.

I never thought I would vote for the NDP, until I witnessed the bat shit crazy policies of the UCP and Danielle Smith. For the life of me, I cannot understand how she was even elected. Sadly, American politics often influence ours, but it is nowhere as evident as it is in Alberta, which is arguably the only province where Trump and the MAGA clan is wildly popular in some rural areas, and defintely popular with certain demographics of people (rural Alberta, people with less than a high school education, racists, people who believe in conspiracy theories, antivaxxers, etc). The same people tend to be hardcore UCP supporters and politicians.

Nenshi was a great mayor, and I pray he is voted in next election. Notley did very well during her tenure as Premier (2015-19). The problem Notley experienced, is she was the victim of circumstance. The NDP were elected shortly after the collapse of the oil and gas industry in 2014-15. The province was in a bust cycle while she was premier, and of course, with the election of Donald trump in the US, the UCP built their campaign on appealing to the type of citizens that would have elected Trump. It ultimately worked.

it should be noted that Danielle Smith was one of the main reasons for the collapse of the PC party, which ruled Alberta from 1971-2015. When she convinced half of the Wildrose Party to cross the floor, and join Jim Prentice and his new PC Government, it backfired so much that the NDP rode a huge wave of momentum to victory.

[pspeid]

An interesting choice to head Hydro:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...-ceo-1.7258441

I'm hoping he sees the role private enterprise might play in a publically-owned MB Hydro's rejuvenation without being "dogmatically" private enterprise (or "dogmatically" public ownership, for that matter).

He apparently has a big job ahead of him. I wish him luck.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by pspeid

An interesting choice to head Hydro:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...-ceo-1.7258441

I'm hoping he sees the role private enterprise might play in a publically-owned MB Hydro's rejuvenation without being "dogmatically" private enterprise (or "dogmatically" public ownership, for that matter).

He apparently has a big job ahead of him. I wish him luck.

MB Hydro should look at models such as Fortis in Newfoundland and Emera in Nova Scotia; two provinces where the private sector play a major role in the electric power generation and distribution.