LNG Plan Baffling

While Prime Minister Trudeau and BC Premier Horgan are proudly congratulating themselves on building the Canadian economy with the announcement of a multibillion dollar LNG plant, the rest of us are wondering what the hell is going on here.

These two climate warrior leaders are celebrating plans for a massive carbon bomb that will make it impossible to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets.  It will ensure Canada continues as a climate fossil dinosaur in world opinion.

Also baffling is that only a year ago BC NDP politicians were saying don’t worry about LNG (liquified natural gas), the projects are ‘uneconomic’. It costs much more to frack, pipeline, compress and liquify the gas than the world price. The Petronas’ plan for Prince Rupert was cancelled just last year because it wouldn’t make money.

BC gas remains expensive in world terms where Australia, the US and Saudi Arabia are well ahead in projects and production.

Now Shell and partners including Petronas say they are going ahead with a Kitimat compressing and shipping plant, LNG Canada.  The former BC Liberal government and the current BC NDP government have promised incredible royalty breaks, drastically cutting the provincial share of gas sales, to bring the plans into the black.

But perhaps the hidden subsidy to LNG Canada will come from another baffling uneconomic mega project: the Site C dam on the Peace River. This dam’s electricity production costs are far higher than solar costs, but the Horgan government chose to go ahead. While BC was approving Site C, the government in neighbouring Alberta was signing a contract for solar electricity that is far cheaper.

Baffling for sure. Perhaps the plan all along has been to provide the electricity at less-than-cost to the LNG plant to make that project viable.   It looks like BC is going to flood a giant BC valley that is a unique agricultural asset, to subsidize Shell profits from producing fossil fuels that will completely blow the province’s climate change plan.

It makes the head spin.

Keith Wiley, Nelson, BC