Ep 19 – Good News! Beautiful big solar farms popping up in Canada, aerial tour
In this episode we travel to Alberta, and ironically into the heart of Canada’s oil and gas country, to witness some very good news on the climate change front.
Alberta has had one of the most coal, oil, and natural gas focused industrial bases and governments on this planet, for a very long time. The subsidies going to these heavily carbon emitting industries are staggering. 5 years ago 95% of Alberta’s electricity was produced from burning: coal – about 60%, and natural gas – about 35%.
Then something beautiful happened. Globally the cost of large scale solar farms had been coming down rapidly. The point was reached where even in Canada, with massive coal and gas subsidies, at 50 degrees North latitude, new solar power plants could simply produce lower cost electricity than the old carbon burning systems. A new sustainable technology had crossed the line into commercial dominance. In 4 years, Alberta’s electricity grid, consisting of about 10,000 Megawatts of total demand, has gone from basically 0 solar, to 1,650 Megawatts of solar today, with over 6,000 more Megawatts under development! These solar farms did not require subsidies to out-compete existing subsidized coal and gas generators. Instead of burning chunks of our planet, like coal or gas, the only fuel that these solar farms will ever need is sunshine!
Almost a third of the world’s human carbon emissions come from making electricity. What we see here in Alberta offers such good news, and hope, for the amazing planet that this channel explores! A world running on cheaper, more accessible, electricity, generated with no carbon emissions, offers profound change for the better. Instead of conserving electricity, we’ll be able to do so much more, from water desalination, electric transportation, to bitcoin mining, etc.
The 5 solar farms that we capture in this video are each well over 100 hectares in size, so a drone based aerial tour was the way to go.
Southern Alberta, with its expansive unobstructed prairie, is also known for some high winds. These were encountered during some of the flights, challenging the drone and pilot, as you may notice in some of the footage. If you only have a minute, maybe check out 33:10, 48:40, or 52:24.
Here are some key moments:
1:59 – Conrad solar farm 41 MWac
7:24 – Snowshoe hare, bottom right
8:04 – Two, then three more Snowshoe hare, center
8:30 – Snowshoe hare, center right
20:47 – Hull solar farm 25 MWac (Canada’s second non-subsidized solar farm ever built)
22:57 – Vauxhall solar farm 22 Mwac (Canada’s first non-subsidized solar farm ever built)
23:17 – Clydesdale solar farm 75 Mwac, with the drone battling 70 kilometre/hour gusts of wind
29:14 – Strathmore solar farm 41 MWac
33:10 – Nice view of Strathmore solar farm
36:18 – Sheep grazing under the solar arrays at Strathmore solar farm
45:00 – Sunset begins over Strathmore solar farm
48:40 – Nice low pass over Strathmore solar farm
52:24 – Closing sunset sequence over Strathmore solar farm
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17 Comments
Amazing! Truly doing the most for bettering the world❤️
excellent job 🤟
🙊🙊🙊🙊🙊
💥💥💥💥💥💥
This is so nice to see! It really does offer some hope, and inspiration, toward a better future. The world is one community!🌈☀
Like it
how is your video quality so good
Beautiful sharing. Big thanks 😊 ❤❤❤❤
Great drone tour. Thank you for sharing.
Very nice big solar! Regards from Palma de Mallorca! Full watch!
Big Like my friend,I'd like hear this great news from Alberta. What a huge solar farm, those are !!!,You did a great job, One less traveled by👏👏👏
Good use of solar energy, good video, friend. 56:02.
Awesome
Hello dear friend, thank you for your hardwork,
dedication and for sharing this wonderful video!
Wishing you success and happiness!
Have a wonderful day ❤
Press 554 like to support.
Really great to see these beautiful solar farms 👌👌thanks for sharing with us, have a good day my friend
Such inspiring progress and the solar farms look impressive from the air. It's great to see renewable energy growing in Canada. Thanks for sharing this uplifting view with us 😀👋
Where is the backup gas plant when this is not generating?