Do Dogs Think?

Do Dogs Think?  A gleaning from the excellent book “How Dogs Think” by Stanly Coren.  You own a dog?  Get it!

Smell: Dogs can separate scents in their Left and Right nostril.  This gives them insight into direction.

Dogs with pointy ears (like mine) do not scent as well as say, a Beagle with long flopping ears.  The latter lifts ground scent up to its nose!  The more the ears flop, the more air moves around its head.

Pheromone scent is present in humans (armpits; groin mostly) where a dog and most animals have these transmitters spread all over their bodies; at the base of every hair!  Yes, your dog will smell like a dog to you but to other dogs, it smells like a large personality book.  

Yet again, the Pheromone is carried in the dog’s urine and feces.  And the Dog’s fur leaves a lasting record of their presence at the spot when they have rubbed against a twig or branch or Chesterfield. This is why Dogs try to pee high on the post or rail or tree; to have the scent into the wind.  It is in every truth a mailbox for the animals.

These scents will ID male, female and what their status or physical state is. On your walk, let your dog use its nose!

Tests were done on tracking abilities based on scents.  Beagles, Bassett’s and Bloodhounds could locate a mouse in a minute in a maze.

Terriers, on the other hand, took 15 minutes!  That’s not shoddy considering the least of them can sense Odor at 1 in 2 million parts while the best of them can sense odors at 1/10 th of that!  That is detecting a specific odor in an area the size of a large city!

Sight: Dogs are not color blind. They see color but not as much as humans do.  Humans see rainbow colors as violet, blue, blue-green, green yellow, orange and red and dogs see it  as dark blue, light blue, gray, light yellow, darker yellow (sort of brown)

Right now one of the most popular toys for dogs is a bright fluorescence orange used for traffic cones and even hats for hunters. Yet when we throw this gaudy ball for the dog to fetch it runs right past it until it is found eventually with its nose. Reason?  For a dog, the bright orange is seen as nearly the same color as the grass!   

Shades of blue will work best when thrown on grass.  A toy that is blue and yellow with white strips would be perfect for a throw toy.

The dog that chases the orange Frisby can’t see the Frisby but can see the little logo on them. That is pretty clever to my mind.
No Segway into this one:  Dogs with a white coloring and black spots are prone to blindness!  Dalmatians with blue eyes have a 50% chance of going blind while those without the blue eyes range in the 40% - 30% range of being blind at least in one eye!  Dalmatians seem to be the most popular house pets due to the movie which doesn't mention their propensity for blindness.

So, do dogs think?  I choose to think so as their world is thousands of times larger than ours because of their acute hearing; acute sense of smell leaving vision as a bit of a bonus.

Carbon cap and trade the Conservative doomed plan.

#Carbon cap and trade allows one corporate identity to gain a smaller carbon footprint and give the credit for that footprint to its parent company who may be in the USA or China for that matter.  This financial dance is virtually un-auditable.  There is nothing here to trade!

It does, however, allow one corporate identity to transfer taxpayers money to a cross-border destination without any taxes and virtually no accountability.  Once across that border, it is likely the receiver won't have to declare the money as they will also be exempt on credit move to Canada.  Something, the conservatives seen to lean to in every situation.

This is serious stuff.  As the world, we are in deep, very deep trouble.  It should not be taken lightly.

Some insights to the US economy and looking closer at Trump’s blather.

Coal is a 19th-century technology on its way out being recently priced out of the market by natural gas.  In the Appalachians, coal mines have dropped from 580 to just over 300.  The biggest coal mines and generation plants are owned by companies on the west coast of the US, nowhere near the Appalachians in the central east.

The #Appalachians were/are run by the coal Barron’s who have managed to convince the courts they can keep the pension money set aside for their laid off workers.  These #pension grabs have left a million people desolate living in misery.

Unlike Alberta, the US has not tried to institute a #retraining program for these people who knew nothing but coal mining their entire life!   This abysmal political record is thought of as being “just American”

Putting coal miners back to work was an empty election promise.   The market pressures killed the coal jobs, not climate change regulations.  The latter at the forefront because the climate meetings in Paris which Trump is in full denial of, put forward the conclusion “If we do away with coal fired power we can curb the climate change”  This same group of 100 countries said NO to cap and trade as it was nothing more than a scam allowing for the movement of large sums of money across borders without taxation.  Instead, they endorsed a carbon tax.

There is no real Segway into the Galveston and Huston flooding in Texas but; here goes.

The Americans and Conservatives, in general, refuse to acknowledge climate change.  That could be why the link   https://albertathedetails.blogspot.ca/2017/01/climate-change-and-state-of-world-is.html has taken thousands of hits, mostly from the US.

The oceans have already risen 3”.  Doesn’t sound like much; However, it allows for a much greater wave action.  This same wave action brings about an earlier breakup in the Arctic caused by a thinner ice cover.   The cliffs of Herschel Island are falling into the water along with 1000 miles of Arctic coast line erosion.  This dirt into the water will make it darker and will escalate the whole warming thing,

Multiply the much greater wave action by several hundred times when the high and persisting winds swept the ocean into the flood plain of Galveston/Huston effectively blocking drainage of the rivers which had flow increased by heavy and ongoing rains.

This flood plain has been known for close to a hundred years yet; no one Government has stepped up to do anything about it.   By comparison, The Netherlands is more than 50% below sea level with the ocean engineered to stay out.

If the US had taken the problem in hand as the Netherlands did they would not have to be concerned as much about flooding!

Instead, the attitude is  “It is Un-American to engineer our country”   Storms?  No.  The Americans are authors of their own misfortunes including Trump.

Hinton, AB. a casualty of the times?

It has been reported to me there is a great influx of Americans into the town of Hinton AB.  People formerly employed in the oil industry have found it necessary to sell their homes and move on.

The attraction to this town is its proximity to Jasper National Park. 

This will certainly have a forward cost on Albertans access to the park and the associated accommodation prices in Hinton.

Google is not only wasting my time but is rude and aggressive

Occasionaly I get close to a person who wants to discuss my business with me.  This after dozens of recorded messages who's tone is to harass rather than fix anything.

For the record, loud and clear to Google in the clouds:  I am not a business, I am not associated with a business and if you want me to take down Alberta the Details to keep  your ignorant family happy; I will be pleased to move it all over to Word Press.  Your choice; send me a text and stop to the BS!

I want to opt out of ad-sense immediately.  4 dollars does not mean that much to me.

And, on my page which associates my equipment.  I have shut down the LG G3 as you guys used it more than I did.

The "New Conservatives"

'are mostly the same bunch that bilked the Heritage Trust Fund for some 760 billion dollars leaving office while thieving 7 billion from Government held pension funds.

On the latter, they denied it was stolen cash they were using until they were threatened with court action.  Only then did they admit to the thievery from AIMCO and made arrangements with the Unions to put the cash back.

AIMCO at the same time posted a loss of 7 billion dollars attributing it to bad investments when every other segment of their industry was showing a 3%  profit.   That's what tweaked me to the scam.

Even more important, they have not had a whisper out about climate change and what they plan on doing about it. The Alberta NDP has put Alberta at the top of the world in proactive cures for climate change and the NDP Alberta plans are being studied and adopted around the world.

Meanwhile, we are close to a full recession in the world, not just Alberta and Canada.
Yet the Conservatives talk about deficit financing.  They would much prefer to have the breadlines of the 30s back on our streets.

Much of the NDP problems come because of the lack of the Heritage Fund which is a Conservative fault; not NDP.  How easy it would be if we had that 760 billion to work with now!

The Wild Rose Party started off on a pack of lies foundation of which was they were going to do with the Equalization payments.  Alluding to Alberta having a large fund that is transferred to Ottawa every year.  No such thing exists nor has it ever existed!  The payments come from general tax revenues and are paid by Ottawa.

Another inherited problem of the NDP was the lack of infrastructure spending by the Conservatives. Now when we don't have money schools and hospitals have to be replaced or repaired!  Most outstanding are the High River Flood.   The Conservatives knew of this for 15 years and did nothing!  And, because of this, your house insurance went up 30% to pay for it.

In fun to sit and complain at Government but when you hold the Conservatives up for a comparison the NDP look really, really great and are doing an equally great job.

Graphics on earth orbit and climate change.

I had previously indicated we have been moving away from the sun for a couple of years.  In truth when we were in a more circular orbit, or, Year 0   was in 1952.

We have been moving away from the sun for 65 years and we are still heating up rather than cooling.

Deficit financing is a global plan, not an accident.

That is correct!  Every country in the world with exception of Luxembourg is heavily involved in deficit financing now and too many years into the future.  Even Norway!

The world economy has crashed!  Trading partners went broke.  The most sought-after customers or accounts are those with the heaviest deficit!  China who can rock the world's boat easily is the highest deficit while embarking heavily on financing Nuclear plants around the world, a profitable segment for them.

William Vickrey, awarded the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, commented:

Deficits are considered to represent sinful profligate spending at the expense of future generations who will be left with a smaller endowment of invested capital.

This fallacy seems to stem from a false analogy to borrowing by individuals. Current reality is almost the exact opposite. Deficits add to the net disposable income of individuals, to the extent that government disbursements that constitute income to recipients exceed that abstracted from disposable income in taxes, fees, and other charges. This added purchasing power, when spent, provides markets for private production, inducing producers to invest in additional plant capacity, which will form part of the real heritage left to the future. This is in addition to whatever public investment takes place in infrastructure, education, research, and the like. Larger deficits, sufficient to recycle savings out of a growing gross domestic product (GDP) in excess of what can be recycled by profit-seeking private investment, are not an economic sin but an economic necessity. Deficits in excess of a gap growing as a result of the maximum feasible growth in real output might indeed cause problems, but we are nowhere near that level.

Even the analogy itself is faulty. If General Motors, AT&T, and individual households had been required to balance their budgets in the manner being applied to the Federal government, there would be no corporate bonds, no mortgages, no bank loans, and many fewer automobiles, telephones, and houses.

— 15 Fatal Fallacies of Financial Fundamentalism^[2]

This leaves in Alberta the Wild Rose Party and the Conservative Party whining doom and gloom but neither will  step up to the plate and tell the people it was their policy and their extravagance and philosophy that put us in this situation; worldwide; not just Alberta and Canada who both are in better shape than most of the world.

What can you expect out of a Jason Kenny?   He views Trump as a success by every measure.  Worships Trump you might say.  And, you can expect him to follow Trump's example in finance and administration to the letter right up until Trump is impeached.

Keep in mind Alberta would be in a much different position had the Conservatives not drained the Heritage Trust fund dry of some 780 billion dollars!  And, on Kenny's advise Trudeau marched out a whole string of lies about our economy and his phantom surplus.  (Kenny is noted for writing much of Harper's speeches and press releases.  His biggest asset is an Ego, a very large one.

Trump has ripped up all the Environmental agreements because there is nothing we can do about it anyway.  Trump has cut funding to seniors, the poorest feeling the largest cuts.  For some reason, his daughter now has access to all the top secret defense data in the US.  This is why I suggest an impeachment is sure to follow.

Climate change and the state of the world is drastic.

Due to continued rising sea levels and accelerated calving of glaciers increasing wave action; I predict the locations of the massive flooding in the US will soon become uninhabitable and the source of mass migration unlike any we have seen to date!  Likewise islands and coastal cities throughout the world.

I'm adding this excellent link which is animated in such a way as to be mind-boggling and in support of my article.

For years we have been told to turn down our heat, don't idle our vehicles so long etc. and nothing came of it! Now we have no choices. There is a hope the carbon tax will encourage this kind of thinking.  Conservative rail against it but offer no solutions.  The Wild Rose Party are in complete denial as are most Conservatives.  Their policy and action come from the LDS Church as does most of their candidates. The Mormon church has more cash on hand than most countries!

The arctic tundra is melting which can release a further 2.5 times the CO2 than is present in the atmosphere.  Earth orbit is elliptical and we are moving away from the sun as we should be but, rather than cool off we are still heating up! Ocean currents are changing, the oceans are rising!  Currents and changing and sharks and "southern" species are showing up in "northern" waters.

Greenland's ice is melting fast as is Antarctica and the arctic causing sea level to start rising.  Along with our glaciers where we get our drinking water from, receding rapidly adds greatly to our problems.
If we don't get this heating under control we will fail as the human race! Cities by the ocean will start flooding and you will witness a migration that will stagger your imagination!

Waves are gnawing at the cliffs of Herschel Island!  The town of Tuktoyaktuk which for comparison was palm size is now thumb size and the tundra, in general, is eroding now; into the arctic ocean.  This, in turn, will accelerate heating of the Arctic because of the dark particles in the water.
Earth orbit is elliptical; we are moving away from the sun as we should.  We are into a 5000-year journey to apex  But; we are still heating rather than cooling as we should be!  Then, it's 5000 years back to circular around the sun.
Conservatives tried, and even argue for carbon cap and trade with does nothing for the environment and gives corporations a huge tax deduction at one end and a huge tax credit on
The world, not just  Canada and Alberta is moving towards carbon charges. There is no other way.  PM Trudeau was recently in meetings with the Saudi.  The Saudi announced billions to invest in silicon sun generation was one outcome.  Get used to wearing a sweater and turn down your dam thermostat and air conditioning. 

Pumping carbon dioxide down the hole in as they do in Saskatchewan results in an explosion of carbon dioxide out of the hole running for many hours ahead of any oil showing up and sounding like a jet plane but conservative is after the residual oil in those fields.
On the other hand, there is news of mixing carbon dioxide with cement; holding it firm and making the cement last longer too.
And more:
A satellite image of Herschel Island, Yukon, showing huge sediment plumes in the shallow water areas. (NASA Worldview)
Fritz said the majority of the coastline on Herschel Island, like much of the Arctic, is subject to erosion in the summer when the sea ice retreats.
"Since 2007, we've seen one minimum after the other regarding sea ice distribution in summer on the Arctic Ocean. That gives rise to higher waves, more storms that can affect the coast to erode it."
When that coast is eroded, the nutrient-rich soil mixes with the seawater and creates massive plumes of sediment. Fritz said the effect that murky water has on the marine ecosystem is unknown.
"With that sediment comes a lot of carbon and lot of nutrients, and those nutrients and pollutants will affect the water column," he said.
"We ask ourselves the question 'with this higher load of sediments, of nutrients and also of pollutants, what is happening with the food web' and we don't know."

Scientists are predicting catastrophic lake drainage now.
When Conservatives rail against a carbon tax, they are in denial of our circumstances.   Our economy will adjust to the new realities and ongoing abrupt changes.  Abrupt? Yes; they will accelerate.

All this on top of a world presently in recession and a position of universal deficit spending again, not just Canada and Alberta but the world!!
And to put it on an entirely different scale:  Thirty years ago there was little or no conversation on Climate Change.  A few scientists were shouting through the darkness about it but, nothing showing up in the weather!
In just this 20 years we have progressed to wild weather patterns, all extremes.  Floods, Fires, tidal surges and wave actions.  Tornados and Hurricanes around the world.

Now we see the Arctic Tundra melting which has two times as much Carbon Dioxide and Methane in it as does our present atmosphere!  

What kind of a horrid situation are we going to be facing in just another 20 years?

A lesson in US Civics:

What happens when the losing candidate gets most votes?  Well, Trump is not president until December 19^th and any time up to and including that date the Electoral College can change their minds but; you can be sure they won’t.   

This is the 5^th time in US history that this has happened.

Proposals are out to do away with the Electoral College which is a group of people bound by the Federal Law (Judges, Generals, Fire Chiefs, Mayors) or by the state, by pledges or law, to vote for a specific candidate chosen by the people. (Popular vote 26 states out of 50 have such laws in place) You can see the excitement over these states during the election.

These states are:

Electors in these States are bound by State Law or by pledges to cast their vote for a specific candidate:

ALABAMA – Party Pledge / State Law – § 17-19-2
ALASKA – Party Pledge / State Law – § 15.30.040; 15.30.070
CALIFORNIA – State Law – Elections Code § 6906
COLORADO – State Law – § 1-4-304
CONNECTICUT – State Law – § 9-175
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA – DC Pledge / DC Law – § 1-1001.08(g)
FLORIDA – Party Pledge / State Law – § 103.021(1)
HAWAII – State Law – §§ 14-26 to 14-28
MAINE – State Law – § 805
MARYLAND – State Law – § 8-505
MASSACHUSETTS – Party Pledge / State Law – Ch. 53, § 8, Supp.
MICHIGAN – State Law – § 168.47 (Violation cancels vote and Elector is replaced.)
MISSISSIPPI – Party Pledge / State Law – § 23-15-785(3)
MONTANA – State Law – § 13-25-304
NEBRASKA – State Law – § 32-714
NEW MEXICO – State Law – § 1-15-5 to 1-15-9 (Violation is a fourth degree felony.)
NORTH CAROLINA – State Law – § 163-212 (Violation cancels vote; elector is replaced and is subject to $500 fine.)
OHIO – State Law – § 3505.40
OKLAHOMA – State Pledge / State Law – 26, §§ 10-102; 10-109 (Violation of oath is a misdemeanor, carrying a fine of up to $1000.)
OREGON – State Pledge / State Law – § 248.355
SOUTH CAROLINA – State Pledge / State Law – § 7-19-80 (Replacement and criminal sanctions for violation.)
VERMONT – State Law – title 17, § 2732
VIRGINIA – State Law – § 24.2-202
WASHINGTON – Party Pledge / State Law – §§ 29.71.020, 29.71.040, Supp. ($1000 fine.)
WISCONSIN – State Law – § 7.75
WYOMING – State Law – §§ 22-19-106; 22-19-108

This proposal has been put forward over 700 times!   However, it takes a @constitutional change to enact a law to remove the College.

#To change the US constitution, requires the house and senate to both approve the change with 2/3 majority plus the change, if it gets that far it must be ratified ¾ of the states.  Canada is much more straight forward but the Wild Rose Party would like to take us in the US direction.

 

The Electoral College was put into the Constitution to protect the voting public (can you believe?) from demigods or very corrupt presidential candidates.

Speaking of demigods.  @Trump has ripped up all the US environmental agreements even though the Arctic Tundra is melting and earth’s elliptical orbit is on track and; we are still heating up!

During the election, Trump told the U S that #global warming was a farce dreamed up by the Chinese to injure US economy. Now he is saber rattling about the South China sea pointedly taking US attention off the middle east.  It is easy to see why his comradeship with Mr. @Putin was so easily formed.

His policies are the epidemy of protectionism complete with walls and fences.  Wait until he goes to work on the rest of his rhetoric.  @Saudi’s will have to dig in.  Perhaps the US will be an unwelcome guest on their middle east airports and military bases?  New middle east alliances?  @Turkey

How I see the results?

China can put more onto Trump’s plate than the US is capable of handling.  Starting with pulling or selling off their US dollars.  A crippling move!

I must explain the US has a half dozen ways of measuring unemployment but you really have to dig for the totals.  Their popular figure is 2% where in fact that is just one iconic measurement. There is a large segment that have used up their equivalent of EI so are not counted as unemployed.

Trump took office with 8 million Americans unemployed.  Perhaps he’s ready for war?  I don’t know.  But, he may see a robust military build up and engagement as being a way  out of recession which, has been proven so many times, not to work at all.

If he follows up in his present course, it will leave Russia to get rid of ISIS and anyone not friendly with Assad and firmly install the old regime (Assad) who Russia backs and it will be left to Israel to clean up a mess.

The next 4 years are going to be hell on earth!

Carbon Tax vis Cap and Trade and Trumps position on it.

 A carbon tax is mostly recoverable if people change their living habits.  Turn down the heat in your home; don't idle your vehicle so long. Or more extreme shut your vehicle off on long traffic waits.
Get used to wearing a sweater around the house.  Turn down your hot water tank.  If possible invest in new technology in a vast number of areas.

If you get into a real self program of turning off the heat, you will break even probably under a carbon tax.

Conservatives prefer the cap and trade vision on a world wide scale.  That is because true to Conservative form it is basically a scam.   It allows business to transfer money across borders with no tax penalty.

An example.  A US parent company declares they have reduced their carbon footprint by X number of tonnes per year.   If the price on cap and trade is set at 20.00 per ton (it will be a higher number than the carbon tax for PR purpose. And, frankly it doesn't matter what number they put on it as its meaningless.  

To continue; a Canadian company, a subsidiary of the mentioned  US parent company, Comes close to showing a profit.  This company takes real cash 20.00 times X tonnes and transfers it to the US parent.

In Canada this company cries "we are close to broke"  "no raises possible because of our carbon penalty" etc.  Canadian profit shipped to US parent company giving the Canadian company a tax deduction and the  US parent avoids taxes on this amount as that is what cap and trade is about.   And it does nothing for our huge problems in the environment.

And to compound this we  have an insidious complication in Trump's election.

The world's financial state now, is very similar if not the same as the disastrous financial situation of the world  prior to World War 2.   And, then we throw in a wild card, a man who demonstrated his own ignorance on an unprecedented level, could easily step into the role of Hitler if just a little of what he said during the election is to be believed.

Western Canada's Journalists.

For your reading pleasure I highly recommend:

@https://susanonthesoapbox.com/
and
@http://albertapolitics.ca/

 Rabble is nonsense on the other hand.
#Enjoy good journalism/\.

Devon Trails; the new section.

 About 250 all weather steps down to River Level

 Map at head of the Stairs

 Uniform; Beautiful.

 My companion listening for a mouse, earthworm.  Who knows for sure?

Ample Park benches and Dog Bins along the trail

 New Addition to a great walk.

 New Addition side view.  Hole appears to be 1 1/4"  Not sure what they are trying to attract.

 Still another design on trail to day 1" opening will attract lots of birds

My Dog (Giant Decker) getting a cool down.

Shaw.ca is not the Shaw.ca you came to know over the years!

Shaw.ca was purchase by a US company who sees great opportunity in profiting in a reduced economy.  As with the Dentist and the News Papers its simple. Charge the consumer more.

This morning I found my voice mail was cut off.  This is because I am told I never paid for it specifically.   It was not included in our original deal of "all of the phone services" and I must be mistaken, its my fault.

This company has paid the Shaw Family big bucks even as they are swamped with cancellations.

I would estimate 250,000 customer base at 6 dollars per customer on average will return them 1.5 million dollars every month!

There are other alternatives for TV Telephone and so on.  I would suggest  you do some shopping including the start up companies.

A million and a half a month is not going to satisfy them!   There will be more line charges like call notice call hold not to mention the wide open tv Directory assistance is up to 1.00  That .15 cent increase will net them 37,500. a month if everyone calls information once.

Thats moving close to 300,000 a month or 3.6 million a year.  More than anything its a insult to think Canadians are such an easy mark!

Nuclear Power - Why NDP direction is wrong!

The public at large are misinformed, ignorant and kept that way because it serves the NDP purpose (whatever that is)  The newly built wind farm in southern Alberta is being rebuilt at who's expense?

The world is going Nuclear! http://www.ksl.com/?sid=40282731&nid=148&title=utah-energy-group-pursues-nuclear-power-project

A nuclear plant would outlive a wind farm by 90 years!  The point I'm trying to make with this article is that if the NDP does not change direction somewhat, we will not be competitive in the world for marketing anything.  

The 3-mile island misadventure was one of many of its day.  The reason being the US Government turned over to private industry the design of the US Submarine power plants and the go-ahead to build the same nuclear reactors that were installed in US submarines.

The US Navy complied but never told the industry that design had inherent heating problems which remained unfixed!  Once built and put into production these plants overheated. In most cases, the companies reduced output by 50%  to accommodate inadequate heating.   Many of these companies went broke; had no money left to trim trees etc.

Since those early days, there have been many innovations allowing plants a near 100-year lifespan

The "rods" are hollow tubes filled with ceramic beads that have a minuscule amount of radioactive material embedded within. Militarily of no value.

These tubes are changed out about every 3 years in operation.  One design on some new plants is to have storage on site for 40 years of spent tubes.  Speaking of which, the tubes start at 4% and are pulled out at 1%.  A years operation of such a nuclear facility would produce enough spent rods to fill a family refrigerator at 2000 MW production for a full year.  Rods preform for 3 years!

Canada's Candu Reactor design recharges its own tubes so there is no waste to the process.

When the cooling water circulates around the reactor it picks up free radical oxygen molecules.  This is what corrodes the cooling pipes.   3M  have recently come up with a diaphragm that fits in the cooling system and pulls out these same oxygen molecules.  This gives a reasonable view of a 100-year operating life and 1/4 or less of the present maintenance schedules.

NDP bloggers say all this is good but where will you find a company to build and pay for one?  Notley makes it a point to hire people of "like thinking" which seriously limits any ability for innovation.  Public pressure is needed!

Uranium is abundant and natural in sea water.  Now it is being extracted for use as atomic fuel.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-seawater-extraction-makes-nuclear-power-completely-renewable/#792e448346e2  The supply is endless and as renewable as sunshine!
It's not here yet; but soon.

Financing new nuclear power plants   

There is a range of possibilities for financing, from direct government funding with ongoing ownership, vendor financing (often with government assistance), utility financing and the Finnish Mankala model for cooperative equity. Some of the cost is usually debt financed. The models used will depend on whether the electricity market is regulated or liberalized.

Apart from centrally-planned economies, many projects have some combination of government financial incentives, private equity and long-term power purchase arrangements. The increasing involvement of reactor vendors is a recent development.

Some options are described in the WNA 2012 report: http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles.aspx

How much is the Alberta Government paying towards its new wind farms?  Does the Taxpayer own them?  What kind of financing is in place?  The industry is sure as hell not giving away freebie deals.

Drawing again on Finland's experience which is expensive.  I will be using cents per kWh rather than the EUR/cent/KWh
Cost of Wind Generation  5.01 cents per 1000W/Hour
Cost of Coal                       4.43 cents per 1000W/H
Natural Gas                        3.92 cents per 1000W/H
Nuclear                               2.37 cents per 1000W/H
And, going to US Nordpool (Oil)                    4.24 cents per 1000W/H

Source:R. Tarjanne& K Luostarien, Lappeenante University of tech 03.07.2003

A World Nuclear News editorial in February 2015 addressed this issue helpfully.

Deregulated electricity markets with preferential grid access for renewables have left some utilities with stranded assets, which can no longer be used sufficiently fully to be profitable. As a result, many are being decommissioned, eg about 9 GWe by E.On and RWE in Germany in 2013, and a further 7.3 GWe expected there (apart from nuclear capacity).

The economic rationale for electricity from any plants with high capital cost and long life does not translate into an incentive for investment unless some long-term electricity price is assured. This has been tackled differently in various countries.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/facts-and-figures/world-nuclear-power-reactors-and-uranium-requireme.aspx

South Korea is now building 4 nuclear reactors.  China has 32 Nuclear Reactors with 22 more being built now!  

Germany:

• The cost of attempting to replace nuclear power with renewable is estimated by the government to amount to some €1000 billion without any assurance of a reliable outcome, and with increasing reliance on coal, especially lignite.

• Mexico has two nuclear reactors generating almost 4% of its electricity.

• India has a flourishing and largely indigenous nuclear power programme and expects to have 14.6 GWe nuclear capacity on line by 2024 and 63 GWe by 2032. It aims to supply 25% of electricity from nuclear power by 2050.

Alberta and climate change.

Through out the years, Alberta has nourished a healthy agricultural industry.  But, why?

Alberta has only been less than 1 inch of moisture away from desert conditions!  Agriculture worked well not because of the amount of rain which we received but, the fact that it always arrived when we needed it.

Climate change has effected all that regularity.  What does the future hold?

Post Media on hard time; pulling coin from your pocket.

Post media to their credit dropped home delivery from 500 dollars a year to 400 dollars a year. That is sizable but still too high.  I cut my subscription.

They are pushing their on line readership at 120.00 per year for one paper.  If you decide you want the Financial Post or National Post that will be double thank you.

I am not subscribing to that either.

There are other news sources available.  Take the time, save a bundle and look.

The World is in Dire Straits!

Reported in detail on the CBC  the Northern coastline of Canada is showing hard evidence of global warming.  The Tundra is warming up; thawing out and re-freezing again and again.

As it gets warmer the amount of Tundra will become larger.

Canada's Tundra stores more than half of the World's methane the singular worst of the global warming gasses.    Add to this the millions upon millions of tonnes of Carbon Dioxide that is frozen into that same Tundra.

If we do not arrest global warning it will be the end of civilization as we know it.  And, it's not going to take centuries to accomplish this dubious end!   A few years should put us around the corner!

The significance of what is happening will affect the world at large and cannot be understated.

How much carbon is stored in frozen ground?

There is a huge amount of carbon stored in permafrost. Right now, the Earth's atmosphere contains about 850 gigatons of carbon. (A gigaton is one billion tons—about the weight of one hundred thousand school buses). We estimate that there are about 1,400 gigatons of carbon frozen in permafrost. So the carbon frozen in permafrost is greater than the amount of carbon that is already in the atmosphere today. That doesn't mean that all of the carbon will decay and end up in the atmosphere. The trick is to find out how much of the frozen carbon is going to decay, how fast, and where.

How will additional methane from permafrost affect global warming?

There are several opposing processes at work, which make this a hard question to answer. Warmer temperatures mean that permafrost can thaw and release methane to the atmosphere. But warming also means that the growing seasons in Arctic latitudes will last longer. When the growing season is longer, plants have more time to suck up carbon from the atmosphere. Since carbon in the air is what plants use to grow, it can also act as a sort of fertilizer under certain conditions. Then plants to grow faster and take up even more carbon. Right now, the Arctic takes up more carbon than it releases. This means that plants take up carbon during the growing season, but do not release as much carbon through decay. So we say that the Arctic acts as a carbon sink.

But if the Earth continues to warm, and a lot of permafrost thaws out, the Arctic could become an overall source of carbon to the atmosphere, instead of a sink. This is what scientists refer to as a "tipping point." We say that something has reached a tipping point when it switches from a relatively stable state to an unstoppable cycle. In this case, the Arctic would change from a carbon sink to a carbon source. If the Arctic permafrost releases more carbon than it absorbs, it would start a cycle where the extra carbon in the atmosphere leads to increased warming. The increased warming means more permafrost thawing and methane release.

if governments around the world knew how much methane could be released from permafrost, it could help them decide what to do about it. For example, they would know how much we need to reduce fossil fuel emissions from human activities. They would also need to know how much carbon the Earth is emitting on its own.

In addition to this pressing evidence, there is still more proof on the earth it's self!

Earth travels in an elliptical orbit.  Right now, we are moving away from the sun right on schedule but, instead of cooling down as we should be, we are warming up.  We either get a handle on this or totally lose our glaciers and associated potable water on the short term.

Greenland glaciers are diminished, gone into the sea as water or icebergs.  This is diluting the Arctic waters and the northern currents.  Water is migrating south to the higher gravity regions which, is throwing off earth's gravity!

Rachel Notley claims power lines over built is the high cost of the lines; BS!

This is Notley's tax now; not the Conservatives.

In March 2015 ago it was announced there would be a $30 addition to every power bill in the province as a power line build tax. There is no ending date on this. There are 1.5 million meters spinning in this province which means a billion-dollar rip off every 2 years!

http://albertathedetails.blogspot.ca/2015/04/up-to-date-summary-with-players-mapped.html

Notley would like to say the powerlines are over built but their design is to improve profitability of the generation people see: http://albertathedetails.blogspot.ca/2015/05/just-how-free-is-oiles-free-ride-in.html 

When our Government is bigoted!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/XELWyJeKSV0?rel=0&showinfo=0

This is a great post by the Rebel it is showing  us the unholy ignorance of our NDP Government.

We can learn from this info; I don't think the NDP are capable of new learning.