Alberta Has More Than one Reason to Feel Guility

But apparently doesn't, according to the Globe's Time to Lead Piece of September 12.2011:

"Alberta is the land of coal production and consumption. It’s also Canada’s dirtiest province for greenhouse gases, producing a third of the country’s emissions with a tenth of its population. The single-largest culprit isn’t from the province’s booming oil and gas sector, however. It’s a coal power plant that generates more emissions than any oil-sands facility.

Coal provides just over 70 per cent of Alberta’s power. It’s cheap (existing plants can keep running at about a third of the cost per kilowatt hour of building new nuclear, for instance) but dirty. It’s why a day of air conditioning an Alberta home can produce an entire ton of carbon pollution, and the average home’s washer, dryer and flatscreen TV often produce as much GHG as a family car. Buying an electric car in Alberta makes little difference – a Chevy Volt is just 25 per cent better than an internal combustion engine when plugged into Alberta’s coal-fired power grid."