Alberta has phased out its last coal-fired power plant, six years ahead of a federal deadline to get the dirtiest fossil fuel off the grid.
“The quiet end happened over the weekend when the Genesee plant west of Edmonton completed a conversion to natural gas,” CityNews Edmonton reports.
“Great news,” federal Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said on social media. “Phasing out coal doesn’t only drastically reduce emissions, it delivers more affordable, reliable, cleaner power.”
The Genesee facility was last in the news in May when Edmonton-based Capital Power announced it was giving up on a C$2.4-billion carbon capture and storage project that was meant to sequester up to three megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year from another gas-fired unit at the plant. While gas still delivers about 75% of Alberta’s electricity, analysts still marked the coal phaseout as an important turning point.
“It’s a really substantial change,” University of Calgary economist Blake Shaffer told CityNews. “You really don’t have to go far back in time where people truly thought this was not going to be possible, or if it did [happen], it would be catastrophic.”
Shaffer attributed the change to two influences: an abundance of cheap gas, and the carbon tax introduced by the former NDP government of premier Rachel Notley.
“Many people said it’s impossible to phase out coal,” said Alberta NDP energy critic Nagwan Al-Guneid. “But here we are. Alberta succeeded in phasing out coal, while reducing emissions, while attracting billions of dollars in investments in renewables.”
Affordability and utilities minister Nathan Neudorf said the fast phaseout cost Albertans more than $2 billion—the value of the remaining lifespan in the now-retired coal assets. But he still took a small victory lap to mark the moment.
“Today is yet another milestone as we build a more reliable, affordable, and sustainable system for all Albertans,” he said in a statement.
