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Economy imploding

$alvador

TD Member
So maybe you noticed the BoC rate cut against the backdrop of the gov't failing to post a budget. Or the slide of oil into oblivion, or the cooling down of the housing market that started in December. I guess I'm not much of an economist but it kind of looks like we're fucked when you expect the gov't to say what's up and instead they are looking at each other nervously. Just how fucked do you think we are?
 

Brades

Bailer
Staff member
Well... in my business I've received maybe 5 inquiries total from Alberta in the past few months. Before the big drop in the price of oil, I was receiving around 3-5 inquiries per week from Alberta.

:rip: Alberta
 

MetalLobster

TD Admin
I don't know, there aren't any reliable ways to quickly learn about this kind of stuff. The state of econ. is complex

I've noticed the CAD is falling in value and that's got me a bit wondering what's going on.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
 

Noob.

TD Member
As an Albertan it boggles my mind how anyone thinks that such a drastic drop in oil is good for the economy... Alberta has been driving the economy and contributes large sums of money to the federal redistribution plan or whatever the hell it's called.

On the news they said the government expected the manufacturing (I think this was the sector they said?) sector to not quite balance, but to grow enough to almost offset the drop in oil prices. The growth in manufacturing didn't though, which is part of the reason why the government is in oh shit mode...

Oil will bounce back, it always does. It probably won't get as back as high as it was for quite a while (which as a consumer I'm ok with), but it will come back. As for the housing, I know here they've been saying it's been overvalued for a while, so the market is correcting itself.

For what it's worth, I think this is a very good time for the goverment (both Alberta and Canada) to realize how dangerous it is relying so heavily on oil, and to diversify their interests so that when oil gets back up there it's just surplus rather than being such a driving force.
 

ᴰᴳᴺ Church of KFC

DARKLY Regular
Reminds me of this lol. In all seriousness though, I'm scared for the economy. It's fucking terrible atm, I know that, and I'm not even an adult! It's like the government isn't even trying to fix it... as if they want the economy to go shit... Lets hope they're not planning another big war behind our backs, eh?
 

Brades

Bailer
Staff member
Ontario's economy is built around manufacturing, yet the Liberal government thought it would be a good idea to implement the green energy act, thus raising our electricity rates. Who would want to manufacture any product in Ontario when electricity rates are double that of neighbouring provinces and states?

:fuckingbrains:
 

Tick Tock Man

Senior TF2 Admin
Staff member
Ontario's economy is built around manufacturing, yet the Liberal government thought it would be a good idea to implement the green energy act, thus raising our electricity rates. Who would want to manufacture any product in Ontario when electricity rates are double that of neighbouring provinces and states?

:fuckingbrains:

Because an integral part of that legislation is incentives to build energy efficient/alternate energy supplied facilities - yes, assuming you intend to manufacture using techniques and a power distribution grid that hasn't changed substantively for 100 years, it will cost more - than was the intent, because most businesses will not make the move to a more sustainable production model unless you use economic leverage to force them to do so....
 

Brades

Bailer
Staff member
Because an integral part of that legislation is incentives to build energy efficient/alternate energy supplied facilities - yes, assuming you intend to manufacture using techniques and a power distribution grid that hasn't changed substantively for 100 years, it will cost more - than was the intent, because most businesses will not make the move to a more sustainable production model unless you use economic leverage to force them to do so....

The Ontario government awarded billions of dollars to foreign companies to build solar farms and wind turbines and then they pay these companies a ridiculous amount of money for their generated electricity and the OPA sells it back for much less than what they bought it for.

Would you run a reselling business where you bought a product for $100 and the next day you sold it for $15? Nobody in the right mind would do this... except Ontario.

Btw... green energy projects create only temporary construction jobs. It takes very few skilled people people to run a solar or wind farm.

The Canadian and Ontario government had a good program called the EcoEnergy Retrofit Program... but they both fucked up and cancelled it. It provided rebates for home-owners to improve energy efficiency in their homes.

Good article... http://business.financialpost.com/2...ing-power-rates-under-the-liberals-direction/
 

Tick Tock Man

Senior TF2 Admin
Staff member
The Ontario government awarded billions of dollars to foreign companies to build solar farms and wind turbines and then they pay these companies a ridiculous amount of money for their generated electricity and the OPA sells it back for much less than what they bought it for.

Would you run a reselling business where you bought a product for $100 and the next day you sold it for $15? Nobody in the right mind would do this... except Ontario.

Btw... green energy projects create only temporary construction jobs. It takes very few skilled people people to run a solar or wind farm.

The Canadian and Ontario government had a good program called the EcoEnergy Retrofit Program... but they both fucked up and cancelled it. It provided rebates for home-owners to improve energy efficiency in their homes.

Good article... http://business.financialpost.com/2...ing-power-rates-under-the-liberals-direction/

2 things - the green energy act isn't about jobs, it's about leaving breathable air and a livable environment for future generations. I am not suggesting the the policy regarding outsourcing independent power generation is a good thing - it a mixture of greed and stupidity - what I am talking about is on-site power generation where the facility owner installs and benefits from the alternate energy production. This decentralized method of power production makes the entire system more efficient and resilient, and at the same time helps the individual production facilities recover the installation costs in the short run, and reduce power costs in the long run.

The "debate" over this approach suffers from the same lack of critical review and objective analysis that the energy debate here in the US does - the loudest voices are those of people with a financial stake in maintaining the status quo, they cite "research" funded by partisan groups which emphasizes anything they perceive as beneficial while ignoring the majority of available info that doesn't...

Just as a general note - any article that announces it's partisan leaning in the title is unlikely to provide an objective review of the available facts - reality is neither liberal nor conservative, it's only the human ego that seeks confirmation of what it wants to believe that views it as such.
It is also worth noting that the reality of our situation, and the consequences of our choices will not be altered in the slightest by the labelling of the currently popular poltical cliches - reality doesn't give a fuck how you market bad choices, it is unimpressed with bumper-sticker philosophy or catchphrases - which is why these are poor substitutes for a sober critical review of how we procede..
 

Brades

Bailer
Staff member
2 things - the green energy act isn't about jobs, it's about leaving breathable air and a livable environment for future generations. I am not suggesting the the policy regarding outsourcing independent power generation is a good thing - it a mixture of greed and stupidity - what I am talking about is on-site power generation where the facility owner installs and benefits from the alternate energy production. This decentralized method of power production makes the entire system more efficient and resilient, and at the same time helps the individual production facilities recover the installation costs in the short run, and reduce power costs in the long run.

The "debate" over this approach suffers from the same lack of critical review and objective analysis that the energy debate here in the US does - the loudest voices are those of people with a financial stake in maintaining the status quo, they cite "research" funded by partisan groups which emphasizes anything they perceive as beneficial while ignoring the majority of available info that doesn't...

Just as a general note - any article that announces it's partisan leaning in the title is unlikely to provide an objective review of the available facts - reality is neither liberal nor conservative, it's only the human ego that seeks confirmation of what it wants to believe that views it as such.
It is also worth noting that the reality of our situation, and the consequences of our choices will not be altered in the slightest by the labelling of the currently popular poltical cliches - reality doesn't give a fuck how you market bad choices, it is unimpressed with bumper-sticker philosophy or catchphrases - which is why these are poor substitutes for a sober critical review of how we procede..

The green energy act was promoted by the Liberals as creating tens of thousands of jobs...

Leaving breathable air? lol come on... Canada will always have liveable breathable air. The polluted air in we get in Canada comes up from the American coal plants. Go to China or India and talk about air quality in Canada when you come back.

Please tell me how you run a business on power from wind or solar? What do they do when the sun isn't shining or the wind is not blowing or blowing too hard? The only way to get a decent payback on a wind/solar system is to sell the generated electricty to the grid using the feed-in-tariff program... if you are using the electricity yourself then the system will not payback its original cost. The simple fact is you can't get reliable power by using renewable energy generation systems.

The article I posted showed numbers that don't lie...


Btw, I went to school for this shit, and my father is an environmental advisor for the largest electricity producer in Ontario. I'm not spewing out random shit like most ignorant save the planet hipsters. I know my shit on this subject...
 

MetalLobster

TD Admin
Let's not forget Harper's amazing Temp. Foreigners worker program, or the fact most jobs can be replaced by someone overseas willing to work 14 hour days for 3 dollars an hour. /s

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
 

Tick Tock Man

Senior TF2 Admin
Staff member
The green energy act was promoted by the Liberals as creating tens of thousands of jobs...

Leaving breathable air? lol come on... Canada will always have liveable breathable air. The polluted air in we get in Canada comes up from the American coal plants. Go to China or India and talk about air quality in Canada when you come back.

Please tell me how you run a business on power from wind or solar? What do they do when the sun isn't shining or the wind is not blowing or blowing too hard? The only way to get a decent payback on a wind/solar system is to sell the generated electricty to the grid using the feed-in-tariff program... if you are using the electricity yourself then the system will not payback its original cost. The simple fact is you can't get reliable power by using renewable energy generation systems.

The article I posted showed numbers that don't lie...


Btw, I went to school for this shit, and my father is an environmental advisor for the largest electricity producer in Ontario. I'm not spewing out random shit like most ignorant save the planet hipsters. I know my shit on this subject...


I have been to China, Guangdong in fact, which is a highly industrialized area with incredibly bad air quality - it's also a fact that it hasn't always been that way - in living memory the area used to be pristine, but the reliance on traditional power plants and a centralized power grid neccessary to power the production facilities located there made a huge difference in a fairly short period of time...

As for how you run a production facility on renewable/alternate energy - for a person who "knows their shit" on this topic this is a remarkably naiive question, using a combination of geo-thermal, wind turbines, solar arrays and a battery storage systems thousands of production facilities around the world are managing to do just that - but maybe Alberta just isn't up to the task, perhaps the same physics don't apply there.

As for whether alternate energy systems pay for themselves - again I have to wonder... but just for the sake of argument, if as you claim in your inital post I responded too - the outsourced power generation at exorbidant cost seems to supply your answer - if you don't have to buy overpriced power because you produce your own - where do you imagine the savings go? I mean if you aren't paying for metered power (which you will pay for indefinitely) but rather paying off a system capable of producing your own power (which has a finite cost) then once your system is paid for any additional power you produce is at considerably lower cost - this is rather basic economics here...
 
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Brades

Bailer
Staff member
I am been to China, Guangdong in fact, which is a highly industrialized area with incredibly bad air quality - it's also a fact that it hasn't always been that way - in living memory the area used to be pristine, but the reliance on traditional power plants and a centralized power grid neccessary to power the production facilities located there made a huge difference in a fairly short period of time...

As for how you run a production facility on renewable/alternate energy - for a person who "knows their shit" on this topic this is a remarkably naiive question, using a combination of geo-thermal, wind turbines, solar arrays and a battery storage systems thousands of production facilities around the world are managing to do just that - but maybe Alberta just isn't up to the task, perhaps the same physics don't apply there.

As for whether alternate energy systems pay for themselves - again I have to wonder... but just for the sake of argument, if as you claim in your inital post I responded too - the outsourced power generation at exorbidant cost seems to supply your answer - if you don't have to buy overpriced power because you produce your own - where do you imagine the savings go? I mean if you aren't payining for metered power (which you will pay for indefinately) but rather paying off a system capable of producing your own power (which has a finite cost) then once your system is paid for any additional power you produce is at considerably lower cost - this is rather basic economics here...

China's environmental laws are a joke compared to Canada or USA... not sure why you even try to compare Canada or USA to China. Maybe if Canada allows 500 million immigrants in next year and constructs a new coal power plant with no scrubbers every week you can compare the two countries.

Can you provide examples of manufacturing companies that have access to the grid but choose to go off-grid? Companies that do this without any subsidies/grants. That is pretty awesome if they are able to do this and make a profit. (I'm genuinely interested in this)

I don't think you realize the initial cost to implement a geothermal/PV/wind setup... It doesn't make sense for an ordinary Joe to invest $60,000 + to go off-grid for something that takes 20 years to pay off and has a 25 year lifetime if you're lucky... you do realize these systems do not last forever right? and they have regular maintenance that is required. Nobody that has access to the grid is setting up pv panels so they can go off-grid... it makes no economic sense.
 

Tick Tock Man

Senior TF2 Admin
Staff member
Let me point out that you made the comparison to China...and let me also point out that China recognized the fallacy of "unaffordable" renewable energy and is now leading the world in alternate energy production and R&D to make the same ever more efficient & affordable. Environmental laws are needed to prevent calcified thinking from stopping progress towards more sustainable and efficient energy production - and yes they were pretty lax in China, until the airborne particulate count made such oversight an untenetable position.

Go to China or India and talk about air quality in Canada when you come back.

Can you provide examples of manufacturing companies that have access to the grid but choose to go off-grid? Companies that do this without any subsidies/grants. That is pretty awesome if they are able to do this and make a profit. (I'm genuinely interested in this)

This is one of the least imaginative arguments against alternate energy - and I'm a little emabarassed to have to point this out to you, but ok...
Just because the technology currently available doesn't relieve any company of 100% of it's energy consumption does not mean that we aren't getting there quick - numerous companies are already using these techniques to power individual facilities (Google, Microsoft, Intel) and like any technology the more investment and public use the better and more affordable the tech will become...

The argument that "it isn't perfect right now so why bother" is childishly simplistic - computers first did very little and cost a lot, using this train of thought they would still be the size of a motel and could only do basic math - cell phones were for the very rich and had a 10lb handset and only worked in a very small number of locations - cars initially only did 15 mph and had a range of just couple of miles - for that matter the first power distribution grid only covered one town and delivered about 10 watts to each location....
This absurd approach to alternate energy is backwards, unrealistic and runs counter to the entire history of technological development. It's a pipe dream of the conventional power producers to think that this ONE area will not be subject to the same forces of innovation and progress that every other sector is - it's either willful self-delusion or abysmal stupidity.

I don't think you realize the initial cost to implement a geothermal/PV/wind setup... It doesn't make sense for an ordinary Joe to invest $60,000 + to go off-grid for something that takes 20 years to pay off and has a 25 year lifetime if you're lucky... you do realize these systems do not last forever right? and they have regular maintenance that is required. Nobody that has access to the grid is setting up pv panels so they can go off-grid... it makes no economic sense.


Actually I do, I have some experience in both designing and installing alternative energy systems, from residential solar arrays with backup systems to bio-mass conversion units, and geothermal heating/cooling systems to passive air circulation systems based on thermal absorbtion. I have been a part of converting 3 different company's facilities to solar, and I am well aware of the maint costs - and in every instance I am aware of for companies in and around the Research Triangle Park (where I was directly involved) - the conversion to solar/biomass/geothermal systems has been economically beneficial. For several of these companies it has been a matter of converting one or two buildings at a time to be energy independent - for one it's been a matter of testing their own products - but without exception it has been a benefit and the trend is accelerating.

Let me just add that because YOU don't see how it can work doesn't mean that it can't work, it just means that YOU can't see how.
 
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Brades

Bailer
Staff member
I compared China's air pollution to Canada's... I found it funny that you suggested our air quality could become equal to theirs.

Not sure why you are saying I am against renewable energy... I went to school for a program that heavily promoted it... I am not against it at all and I know it will be a viable source of electricty in the future if we discover an economic way to store the power. I am just being realistic... and I am against the green energy act. It's obvious you have a heavy bias towards this subject as you just stated you make a living from renewable energy projects... and you scold me for posting an article that you think is bias because it shows Ontario's green energy act in a negative light, even though it's backed by facts. You aren't being bias at all are you? lol... nice one...

You listed companies that pull in billions of dollars of profit a year... you are blind if you believe they are doing it for the good of the environment. They are doing it to make themselves look "green". Green is a buzz word and their marketing dept. is taking full advantage of it.

The green energy act was introduced during a global recession to buy votes with promises of jobs and make it look like the government was doing something to reduce its environmental impact.


Tl;dr - Tick Tock Man has bias towards alternative energy - Green energy act ridiculous and makes no sense, it rewards the wealthy for setting up made in China PV panels and taxes the rest of us hard working Ontarians.
 

TurboTaco

TD Admin
Worked for a bogus solar panel co from china during the green initiative. Essentially brades said it right n straight up.

The subsidies offered by ontario to retrofit or install solar panels for residential (micro solar projects) users was a great initial idea. Have your home fitted with solar panels, sell your own generated elec back to your local grid at a fixed subsidized price, then enjoy the offset in makin $ and payin the elc bill.

Issue is that solar panel installations failed to provide the conservative estimates provided by the types of company i worked for. A bunch of apps for the subsidies were in place with a lot that got canned or cancelled. So some ppl ended up with panels on the roof n make little to no $ for selling back to grid and have an ammortization schedule of like 25 yrs of solar panels with a breakeven point of 15-20 yrs

This debate over environtmental subsidies affected the overall economy minimally in comparison to recent events....oil n gas makes up 1/3 of canadas gross revenue which is mainly supplied from alberta.

Recent crash in oil prices have a mixed effect on consumer economics but a major impact on foreign investment and infrastructure/exploration projects in canada by foreign companies

Talks of housing bubble burst with home price slides r in regards to basically all provinces except ontario and bc. Feel bad for midwest because if you bought a home recently in the last couple years near a mining or gas company, you likely will see a housing crunch. Less jobs in these industry sectors means less ppl affording homes in those new areas. Lots of supply n no demand makes for shitty sellers market. Toronto gta and vancouver is estimated to see housing prices flatten or continue growth at a smaller pace

Majority of our oil and gas assets are wholly owned by foreign conglomerates. I believe there are just two truly canadian owned oil n gas companies remaining wheras most are being taken over by larger deep pocketed foreign companies.

Either way the title of this thread i feel is personally exaggeratted. The economy is terse at best, but thats how it is always going to be viewed by some analysts. Canada has always been a piggyback economy in the sense our markets rely heavily on US export and foreign direct investment.

We arent going into another recession right away but other global factors could ruin or negate the growth n gains made over the last 2 years. Aka russia, ukraine, greece + eurozone, china & japan and new upcoming imf policies to prevent tax circumvention for multinational corps.
 

Brades

Bailer
Staff member
The subsidies offered by ontario to retrofit or install solar panels for residential (micro solar projects) users was a great initial idea. Have your home fitted with solar panels, sell your own generated elec back to your local grid at a fixed subsidized price, then enjoy the offset in makin $ and payin the elc bill.

It was only a good idea for the people that could afford the initial investment... A good idea would have been to keep the EcoEnergy Home Retrofit program... which gave rebates to home owners that replace their old energy sucking appliances and improve the energy efficiency of their home by upgrading attic insulation, basement insulation, weather-stripping, windows, etc. This was a brilliant program that created thousands of skilled jobs such as HVAC Techs, Energy Auditors, General Contractors, and increased manufacturing of appliances and materials... all of which created tax income for the government. There was actually a study done on this that showed even though the government paid money for rebates... they actually made more money from tax on the new products and jobs. They ended up cancelling the program because it became too popular. It's all about politics... what a joke.
 

TurboTaco

TD Admin
Yup, actually the micro solar project subsidies for homeowners was super popular if you got in early. Forget the actual numbers but you could pretty much make money (notnjob quitting fuck you boss income) but enough to have 'free' elec for your home and then some to paydown your mtg or for vacay.

Govt quickly realized they would bleed cash and started to reduce the amount rec'd for selling back to the gris to outright stopping the applications.

I agree the retrofit program was far better for the avg canadian. Most people cant afford to buy or finance $20-80k worth of solar panels. But most canadians can afford. $2500-5000 to replace windows or an old low effic furnace or to redo insulation etc. if majority of cdns did that the savings from energy inefficiencies was far greater than the few micro solar projects and the giant solar farms up north.
 
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