A few weeks ago, a simple question was posed in this column.
What’s the most cost-effective way for Alberta to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (and other atmospheric pollutants) by 30% by 2030?
Is it by ending all coal-generated electricity (currently producing 60% of Alberta’s power) by 2030 and replacing it with renewable power (wind and solar farms) and natural gas, as is planned by the New Democratic provincial government?
Nobody is even pretending this is a least-cost model. To shut down six coal plants prematurely, the province has just announced it will compensate three power companies to the tune of $1.36 billion ($97 million a year over 14 years). The money is to come from the impending provincial carbon tax.
Would it be cheaper to meet environmental targets by replacing all coal plants with natural gas?
Would a “blend” of coal, natural gas and renewables make the most economic sense?
I had never seen any cost comparisons – at leas ...
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Wheat Garden Noodle & Dumpling Bazaar
10703 103 St.
780-757-8166
Wheatgardenyeg.ca
11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Closed Tuesdays
Food: 4 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 2 of 5 Suns
Service: 2 of 5 Suns
Dinner for two (excluding beverages and tip): basic, $20; loaded, $40
Intrigued by the descriptive name and encouraged by optimistic reviews from well-known food blogs linda-hoang.com and letsomnom.com, off we set Saturday to Chinatown to try the relatively new Wheat Garden Noodle & Dumpling Bazaar.
The food is very good, but for ambience and service, I recommend take-out.
The exterior of Wheat Garden looks fine as you pass by – it’s the familiar bright-red house on the northeast corner of 107 Avenue and 103 Street that formerly housed the Old Szechuan Restaurant.
But as you head up the short flight of outside stairs to the restaurant, you realize this is an old, worn-out building with minimal maintenance and no upgrades.
The dining area – allegedly renovated — is w ...
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There’s something about St. Albert’s Connie Stacey, founder, owner and “mad scientist” at Growing Greener … her buoyancy, enthusiasm and intelligence.
The 42- year-old mother of two young’uns lights up a room with her presence.
Born in Newfoundland, raised in Fort McMurray, Connie has invented, developed and is now selling the Grengine™ 1000 Ultra-Lite, the world’s first battery-powered, light-weight, no-noise, no-fumes portable generator … that will last for days without a recharge.
When re-charging is needed, it can be done back at an electrical outlet or via a solar panel.
Other battery-powered generators are on the market, but most are powered by one big, heavy rechargeable battery with limited hours of operation.
Growing Greener’s secret is a patent-pending battery pack design, a novel method of stacking and interlocking light lithium-ion battery packs under the Grengine™ 1000.
The stacked battery packs work as one, giv ...
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Besides their cooking, all the Christmas in November celebrity chefs at Jasper Park Lodge this past weekend shared one undeniable talent.
All were all expert communicators – using humour, home-spun stories, bantering with the guests to create the most entertaining of cooking demonstrations.
Up in Jasper, Christmas in November is an enormously successful Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge tradition.
The three-day program in North America’s most beautiful wilderness lodge includes all food and wine, gala dinners, accommodation, gifts and, at the heart of the matter, a choice of seven cooking classes with the 14 guest chefs.
After 28 years, Christmas in November’s popularity is such that it has grown into three packages of three days each – the opening weekend, mid-week and the closing weekend. Each session sees 400 to 500 registered participants filling Jasper Park Lodge and kicking off its Christmas festivities during a traditionally slow time of year in the mountains.
Thanks to ...
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Please, no more hysterics.
The sky is not falling.
American President-elect Donald Trump could be very good for Alberta.
Did we happen to mention the Keystone XL pipeline?
Alberta’s biggest challenge is not climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, but the need for new pipelines to get our stranded oil and natural gas to market.
Outgoing American President Barack Obama vetoed the Keystone XL pipeline – carrying up to 1 million barrels of dilbit (diluted bitumen) a day from the oilsands to under-utilized upgraders/heavy-oil refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. Trump has promised to reverse that decision as soon as possible.
Trump believes fossil fuels will continue to play a major role in providing cheap energy to America and the world.
Trump will take a very different environmental stance than Obama, with an underlying assumption that environmental concerns can be met without excessive government interference and subsidy.
Trump will embrace the “greening” of ...
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Syphay – Thai and Lao Cuisine
6010 104 St.
780-438-8338
syphay.com
Mon. to Fri. 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Sat. 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Sun. – closed
Food: 4 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 3 of 5 Suns
Service: 2.5 of 5 Suns
Dinner for two (excluding beverages and tip): Basic $30; Loaded, $60
My previous experience with Laotian food was unfortunate.
I’d ordered a minced meat salad. It looked innocent enough. But a zealot in the kitchen had poured a few dozen teaspoons of chili powder into the mix. My mouth – and I do enjoy extremely spicy Thai and Indian cuisine – was on fire for hours.
One bad experience should not a life-long bias form! It was time to explore this national cuisine once again.
Laotian food has its fans. Several of the city’s top Thai restaurants – Syphay, Viphalay, and Boualouang - are advertised as “Thai and Lao cuisine.”.
Laos itself is mysterious and appealing. The small, mountainous land-locked coun ...
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I love subtle change.
Not the big, bold, brash look-at-me, look-how-trendy-I-am, change only for the sake of change.
The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge (JPL as it's known to the locals), located just outside the Jasper townsite in Canada's Jasper National Park, is among the most classic and iconic hotel architecture in North America.
The main lodge dates back to 1923, then was rebuilt after a major fire in 1953. Around it, on a huge manicured 700-acre wilderness campus, are guest cabins of all sizes and shapes - 446 units in all.
But absolutely central to JPL's wilderness beauty is the keeping of all its cabins to the same classic visual exterior and interior themes - verandahs, browns and greens, cottage-like. To photograph any cabin in isolation is to know immediately that it is a Jasper Park Lodge cabin.
Over the last five to seven years, 90% of Jasper Park Lodge has been updated, renovated and refurbished. But it hasn't been made a big deal. While attending the annual &n ...
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The famous three-day Christmas in November celebrations at the Fairmont Jasper Place Lodge, the same package repeated three times (Nov. 4-7, Nov. 7-10 and Nov. 10-13) this year, is a hoot-and-a-half of getaway fun – with 400 to 500 people per time slot out to thoroughly enjoy themselves with receptions, galas, dances, food and craft demonstrations and wine, wine, wine.
But, face it, for 27 years Christmas in November has been primarily designed and attended by women. It works mostly as a three-day getaway for small groups of female friends, and family combinations.For whatever reasons, food and decoration themed events don’t hold that much interest to men.
Except … times are changing. More men enjoy being hobby chefs, even outside of the summer BBQ months. More men are beginning to come to the Jasper Park Lodge’s Christmas in November with their wives or significant others.
The organizers this year came up with a bold new concept – why not a “Man Cabi ...
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Wine-tasting: Wines from Brazil's Vinicola Salton winery
By Graham Hicks
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
First posted Nov. 7, 2016
hicksbiz.com
graham.hicks@hicksbiz.com
@hicksbiz
Edmonton wine stores have shelves upon shelves of Canadian, American, Italian, New Zealand, Australian and French wines. There’s fewer Chilean, South African, German and Spanish wines, but still some choice.
But when it comes to Brazilian wines, you’ll be lucky to find a few brands on a back shelf.
Which is why Mauricio Salton and Cesar Baldasso, of Brazil’s Vinicola Salton winery, found themselves 11,000 kilometres away from home, tucking into tapas at the Bodega Highlands tapas bar and kitchen on a cool November evening.
Producing 1.25 million cases of wine annually, Salton is one of the biggest wineries in Brazil and definitely the oldest, started by Mauricio’s great grandfather and his great grandfather’s brothers in 1910.
Brazil likes its home-grown wines, especially sparkl ...
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How interesting that it took a 69-year-old independent businessman to build the first new major hotel in downtown Edmonton in 25 years, the 255-room (including 32 suites), 12-storey Hyatt Place at 9576 Jasper Avenue.
How interesting that Prem Singhmar was willing to break new ground, to be the first developer to make a major ($55 million) investment in The Quarters, the City of Edmonton’s vision for the Downtown East. Hyatt Place is one block east of the Shaw Conference Centre. And the new hotel has opened in the middle of a province-wide severe economic downturn.
Prem professes to no particular financial acumen, but his track record is one of successful real estate and land development, one project after another.
Starting with a chicken farm near Redwater on his arrival from India, via Libya, in 1985, Prem’s UAM Enterprises now consists of hotels, commercial and residential buildings and construction throughout Metropolitan Edmonton, plus agricultural holdings.
“I am n ...
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