Weekend Mailbag: Jan. 30, 2021

By Letter to the Editor on January 30, 2021.

Weekend Mailbag is a new online feature at the Medicine Hat News which includes letters to the editor that could not be fit into the paper in a timely fashion. Check back each Saturday for more thoughts from the community, or share yours by submitting a letter to the editor by email at letters@medicinehatnews.com.

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What is the future for Alberta’s energy sector?

Dear editor,

We Albertans need to stop crying in our beer about lost pipeline projects, and raise our heads to look around for opportunities for future prosperity.

It is time for Premier Kenney to stop giving Albertans false hope that U.S. President Biden will reverse his stand on Keystone XL. Biden has no choice but to follow through on long-standing promises to stop Keystone. At this stage of his presidency he has to appear decisive, strong and firm in his resolve to make the changes Americans elected him for. Biden cannot backtrack on Keystone without raising doubts about his leadership. He will not backtrack.

So what is the future for Alberta’s energy sector?

We need to recognize that ‘dirty’ oil production will never be the growth industry that it was in the past century. The future is cleaner, more environmentally-friendly energy sources. Global warming is a real threat.

Alberta is already working on alternate sources of energy but the government is doing a terrible job of making Albertans aware. In particular, Alberta has enormous potential for the production of hydrogen, a totally ‘clean’ fuel source, and potential for underground hydrogen storage in depleted gas and oil reservoirs. Hydrogen production and storage deserve massive investment in research and development of infrastructure, which Alberta has barely begun.

Medicine Hat city council is considering the sale of the city’s power plant. The production of ‘blue’ hydrogen, using natural gas for generation of the required electricity, is an emerging technology. For Medicine Hat to use its power plant to contribute to producing ‘blue’ hydrogen could be a potential gold mine for the city.

Before our leaders rush into making a fast buck by selling off the power plant, Hatters need to be given the opportunity to become informed about possible future benefits from maintaining ownership. Medicine Hat could be a potential site for very profitable development of ‘blue’ hydrogen production facilities.

Other parts of the world are already ahead of us in developing these new energy sources. We Albertans need to finish our diluted beers, roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Michael Seitz

Medicine Hat

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Thoughts of selling power utility should be deferred

Dear editor,

Many years ago the city council of the day made a wise decision to not join the provincial electrical grid. Power plants were being constructed throughout Alberta to meet the needs of a surging economy, plant location required the construction of transmission lines and a grid to ensure continuous power to its customers. These costs, plus maintenance costs, were recovered from the users in the per kilowatt hour charge. As the city had little transmission costs, local electrical bills were lower, creating the ‘Medicine Hat advantage.’

In recent years, the city adopted the current method of charging for electricity by using a rate slightly less than other suppliers within the province. Remember, the rates being used for comparison include transmission and grid costs. That differential guarantees that every locally-produced kilowatt results in an enhanced profit, now known as the dividend. This also makes this asset very attractive to other companies.

The dividend thankfully has been used to offset other city financial needs. The concern of green energy is a little overstated. None of the typically green companies are building facilities, hoping to recoup their investments by selling standby power, instead they recover funds by supplying continuous power. If a sale occurs, it has been stated that funds received would be used to generate a legacy fund. Based upon the rates the city has been receiving to date, it is doubtful the legacy fund would keep up with inflation. The current dividend would cease, which begs the question, what other funds would be used to fill the dividend void in city finances. Any thoughts of selling the city’s electrical utility should be deferred for a minimum of five years. A final reminder is that any surplus electricity that can be sold into the grid is being generated at some of the cheapest rates in Alberta. Let’s keep the dividend.

Bryan Laidlaw

Medicine Hat

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Take a shot for the team, it wasn’t always a choice

Dear editor,

I’ve seen and read all of the latest efforts to contain the spread of that evil ‘bug’ known as COVID-19. I’ve also heard and read about the difficulties some politicos, as in MLAs of the UCP persuasion, had following the serious advisements re: any international travel – while Joe and Mary Blow were expected to follow

them, and did. I’ve also read and heard of the difficulties getting the already ‘in place’ vaccines out of ‘storage’ and into the arms of even the most vulnerable, like, for example, our frontline workers. All of that, and then followed by protest marches against the wearing of masks and the reluctance – and often just refusal – of getting those first and second ‘shots.’

Well, perhaps what many of the very much older immigrants from some authoritarian regimes – in my case, for example, the regime in place immediately after the end of WW2 in Germany, in what had been the areas occupied by the Soviet forces – will remember what it took to get the populace, every man, woman and child, to get to the very, very long line-ups for the ‘needles’ required to ‘end’ the many

epidemics that ravaged the entire country – typhus, diptheria, cholera, whooping cough, you name it.

I was just a kid then, but I remember, in every detail, the many abandoned and partially destroyed factory halls, empty school gyms – whatever had a roof still in place – that were required to be turned into emergency treatment shelters. My sister and I also remember the many school mates we lost to all those, now very

preventable, potentially fatal bugs, viruses and bacteria.

We also realize that was in ‘the stone ages,’ the ‘long agos,’ the ‘yesteryears’ and are also aware that in a ‘free, democratic’ society, it would not do well to employ such ‘drastic’ measures as I’m going to describe here:

Food was very scarce and any farmer who sold or traded his produce on some ‘black market’ risked being shipped off to a remote prison camp, never to be heard from

again. Any of a farmer’s produce had to be delivered to the ‘state’ and the ‘state’ would issue ration cards. As you can imagine, those rations were not what one would now consider as adequate.

Every man (there were not many young men… too many of them perished in the war, badly wounded, were still in prison camps or listed as missing) and woman, no matter what age – and also any children – were ordered to present themselves to a vaccination station. Anyone who did not would not receive any ration cards. My mother always fainted whenever she was required to have this or that needle, so she promptly did just that, she fainted, making the job of the mostly Soviet nurses a lot easier, all they had to do was bend down and stick that hypodermic in any part of my Mom’s anatomy that was accessible.

The threat of no food ‘did it,’ so to speak. Soon after, there were very few new cases and eventually every one of those epidemics was under control. The only problem left was what to do about the scarcity of burial sites and how to dispose of all those contaminated straw mattresses without causing too much smoke (which was also considered contaminated).

I would truly hope that drastic measures as described above, not even the necessity of declaring martial law, will, if the situation doesn’t improve soon, become a reality.

Ted Kohlmetz

Medicine Hat

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