Alberta coal mine to suspend operations Christmas Eve; 220 people to lose jobs

[B00Mer]

Alberta coal mine to suspend operations Christmas Eve; 220 people to lose jobs

GRANDE CACHE, Alta. — People in a remote, small town in northwestern Alberta are in shock after learning the Grande Cache Coal underground mine is to shut down on Christmas Eve.

More than 220 people are to lose their jobs at a time when the community is already trying to deal with about 250 layoffs at the company's strip mine and coal-cleaning plant earlier this year.

"It is devastating for us and we are still in shock as we figure out how this is going to play out," Grande Cache Mayor Herb Castle said Tuesday.

"It translates to paycheques to workers to families to homeowners to the grocery stores to the gas stations. Everyone is going to be affected here in some way."

Grande Cache Coal cited deteriorating market conditions for its decision to "temporarily suspend" operations on Dec. 24, but noted it does not have a timeline for when production might resume.

The company was taken over in September by Up Energy Development Group Ltd. after it purchased a controlling interest last fall for just $2 from Marubeni of Japan and Winsway Coking Coal Holdings Ltd.

The two firms had paid $1 billion for the mine in 2012 when coal prices were booming.

The metallurgical coal mine is one of the few major businesses in the area. Once the layoffs take effect, the town's largest employer will be the Grande Cache Institution, a federal medium-security prison.

Grande Cache Coal said it is considering building a new mine in the region sometime in the future.

"Our technical team will continue to work on developing mining plans and preparing applications for new mining permits and licences," the company said in an emailed statement. "We will prepare GCC for bigger future operations when the market returns."

Gary Taje, a spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America Local 2009, said workers have been told the layoffs are indefinite.

He said the company told the union that work on a new mine could perhaps begin in about six months, but he said his members can't pay a mortgage or feed a family on speculation.

"My members are basically all unemployed now," Taje said.

"People are leaving, looking for greener pastures. They will not be able to sit in Grande Cache and wait."

There are no job prospects for coal miners in Western Canada right now, he said, and some of his members are considering applying for jobs at a new coal mine that is to open next year in the Cape Breton area of Nova Scotia.

Castle said the community will do what it can to hang on during the economic downturn. He noted the Grande Cache area has other employers, including a forestry mill and oil and natural gas companies.

"This just may be a blip and we are hoping that coal prices will recover. We are hoping that this company will get some traction and go forward.

"This is very much out of our control."

source: https://www.baytoday.ca/national/al...s-christmas-eve-220-people-to-lose-jobs-72616

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Wow!! More job losses for Alberta...

Seems all the companies are closing up shop for 4 years.. or at least until the NDP are out of power..

A "Capital Strike" pulling their capital out of Alberta..

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MbXbB-CFpo

 

[Mowich]

 

[B00Mer]

...and in the mean time Albertans lose their jobs & homes. Alberta 1980's

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaM_yWN8ldc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpmXjEWwGXI

 

[captain morgan]

Oi Vey!!!... Vhat can I say?

 

[AnnaG]

Poor AB.

 

[B00Mer]

Poor AB.

Yeah I know... maybe that's why I'm in Eastern Ontario.. but miss AB so, so much..

 

[WLDB]

Its coal. Its about time people moved on from that one.

 

[MHz]

'Tiny Tim' in a setting like that would be a walking tall kind of 'Tim', interesting. Can they keep the trucks they were driving? Need to move some finished hemp products down to the wetter parts of Mexico. If we straddle out ruts the road should be 'flat' after we pass.

 

[B00Mer]

Its coal. Its about time people moved on from that one.

28,488.46 WIND TURBINES NEED TO BE BUILT IN ALBERTA TO REPLACE COAL FIRED POWER PLANTS

NDP can't sneak climate plan past Alberta votersBY LORNE GUNTER , POSTMEDIA NETWORK

Before we get into the New Dems’ horrendous, damaging, expensive, impossible Climate Leadership Plan, let’s talk about the absolutely cowardly way Premier Rachel Notley and her party chose to announce it.

On a Sunday afternoon.

During the CFL’s Western Final between the Edmonton Eskimos and the Calgary Stampeders.

Notley insisted the timing was dictated by her need to fly off for meetings with new Liberal PM Justin Trudeau and the other premiers in Ottawa. She was not trying to sneak the report past the public.

Then why not release the plan —to introduce a huge new carbon tax — last Friday?

The cynicism would have made the Redford Tories balk.

I don’t know which is worse, the addition of $600 a year in new “green” taxes on the average Alberta family or the New Democrats’ snickering belief that voters are stupid enough to believe that story.

There is so much in the Notley plan that is ridiculous and disgraceful. Let’s start with the claim the $3 billion in new taxes on gasoline and home heating will be revenue neutral.

To be revenue neutral, every dollar a new tax raises must correspond to a dollar that is lowered in an existing tax. If a government is bringing in $50 billion a year in revenues before the new tax, it must still be bringing in just $50 billion after.

But there will be no reductions in existing taxes under this plan, just $3 billion in extra taxes for the NDP to spend.

It is the NDP’s contention that this constitutes “revenue neutrality” because the $3 billion raised will be reinvested in Alberta. But by that definition, every tax dollar is neutral.

The $3 billion will go to carbon-tax rebates for the lowest 60 per cent of income earners. It will go to clean energy research and “green” infrastructure projects the government chooses. It will go to programs the government thinks will help residents reduce energy use. It will go into an “adjustment fund” for small businesses and into government payments to First Nations and government cheques for coal workers who lose their jobs.

In other words, the $3 billion will go into a complex set of government spending priorities designed to mitigate all the damage the government’s own climate plan will do. Far better to just leave all the money in Albertans’ pockets in the first place.

When all that compensating and rebating is done, not much will be left for reducing carbon emissions.
The other outrage is that all this pain will achieve very little.

We are going to follow Ontario down the wind-turbine path. We are going to shut down 18 coal-fired power plants that generate 55 per cent of our electricity. To replace that much electricity, we will have to erect thousands upon thousands of tall, ugly, expensive, landscape-destroying, bird-chopping wind turbines everywhere in rural Alberta.

Everywhere.

Landowners won’t want the turbines. County and municipal councils will resist their construction. So the Notley government will likely have to do what the Ontario Liberals did – change the law so property owners and local governments have little right to resist. Whether or not they want them, they will be forced to accept the turbines.
The damage to due process and property rights will make the former Alberta Tory government’s attempts to force transmission lines through rural Alberta look lame.
And when all is said and done, it’s unlikely wind can replace coal. So the NDP plan relies on all Albertans dramatically changing their lifestyles to make up for the lost power.

Added to all the taxes, regulations, minimum-wage hikes, royalty increases and other NDP initiatives, the Climate Leadership Plan will postpone Alberta’s economic recovery for years.

lorne.gunter@sunmedia.ca

Ok I did just a little research and most if not all of it came from the Alberta government’s website, no not the NDP site Government of Alberta Home.

IF you read all this great lol but the point is wind turbines are not free and what tax money will be given away to subdizies them and how much more will we have to pay in taxes to build them and what happens when the wind is not there we lose 55% of the power in the province we will go black out

MOST if not all this is take from articles I did not write!!!

Numbers do not lie folks math is true as it can get, well unless you are in Star Trek and get close to a worm hole. But I believe we will not get close to a worm hole to bend these numbers and time soon!

WE have 18 coal fire power plants which produce 55 % of all power in the province, this equals 44,442 Gigawatts hour(GWh) 2014
To build a wind turbine that produces 1.56 GWh per yr, it takes mim of 241.85 tons of CO2. Now not included the emissions of the mining of the raw materials or the transportation of the fabricated materials to the turbine site so the emission calculation above would be on the low end at best. The article does not even consider the manufacture of the thousands of pylons and tens of thousands of kilometres of transmission wire needed to get the power to the grid. And what about the land space needed to house thousands of these bird chomping death machines? OR the cost of building the service roads to each turbine and maintenance of said roads
You see, renewables like wind turbines will incur far more carbon dioxide emissions in their manufacture and installation than what their operational life will ever save.
Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t the “cure” of using wind turbines sound worse than the problem? A bit like amputating your leg to “cure” your in-growing toe nail?
Metal emission stats from page 25 from the 2006 IPCC Chapter 4 Metal Industry Emissions report.

Cement and concrete stats from page 6 & 7 from the 2012 NRMCA Concrete CO2 Fact Sheet.

Andy’s Rant

If you take the 44,44s GWH produced in Alberta by coal fire plants and divide it by the 1.56 GWh a this wind turbine produces you will need to build 28, 488.46 wind turbines in Albert to replace the coal fire production of power (44,442 / 1.56 = 28, 488.46)

Now take 28,488.46 X 241.85 = 6,889,934.42 tons of CO2 which will happen again in 20 years as wind turbines life span is 20 years.
Wind by the numbers in Alberta (September 2015)

Number of Installations: 37
Number of Wind Turbines: 941
Total Installed Capacity (MW): 1,471
Average Turbine Capacity (MW): 1.56

Even before the blades start spinning – the average wind farm clocks up thousands of tonnes of CO2 emissions: “embedded” in thousands of tonnes of steel and concrete. So, every wind farm starts with its CO2 abatement ledger in the negative.

Here’s Andy’s Rant with a breakdown of just how much CO2 goes to build one of these things.

So what’s the carbon foot print of a wind turbine with 45 tons of rebar & 481m3 of concrete?

Andy’s Rant

4 August 2014

Its carbon footprint is massive – try 241.85 tons of CO2.

The article does not even consider the manufacture of the thousands of pylons and tens of thousands of kilometres of transmission wire needed to get the power to the grid. And what about the land space needed to house thousands of these bird chomping death machines?

You see, renewables like wind turbines will incur far more carbon dioxide emissions in their manufacture and installation than what their operational life will ever save.
Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t the “cure” of using wind turbines sound worse than the problem? A bit like amputating your leg to “cure” your in-growing toe nail?
Metal emission stats from page 25 from the 2006 IPCC Chapter 4 Metal Industry Emissions report.

Cement and concrete stats from page 6 & 7 from the 2012 NRMCA Concrete CO2 Fact Sheet.

Andy’s Rant

Data released by Alberta Environment and Parks on Thursday show that coal power continues to be the largest single source of emissions in Alberta, pumping 40.9 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2014.