Recent proposals to use B.C. hydropower as a substitute for coal power in Alberta should be viewed in light of new research showing that in the long-term, B.C. has little energy to spare, and that any substitute power would in fact be originating from the United States.
[Website editor: Alberta could 'potentially reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of oilsands operations by 13 to 16 per cent' by using hydroelectric power. Why trash just one region when we can trash two in order to trash the world's climate even more?]
VICTORIA — The B.C. Liberals have lately promoted building a new electrical transmission link to Alberta as a way to sell green power to a neighbour while attracting federal infrastructure dollars for job creation.
April 13, 2016 - When Rachel Notley's NDP came to power last spring in Alberta, Gordon Laxer's book, After the Sands: Energy and Ecological Security for Canadians, on ecological renewal and Canadian petro-politics was already at the publisher. And so, he was given a week to do some major rewriting because he had not foreseen this political earthquake in the making.
“I won’t let up,” Alberta Premier Rachel Notley told delegates to the NDP’s national convention last week. “We must get to ‘yes’ on a pipeline.” She repeated that message Saturday, asking the convention to support “pipelines to tidewater that allow us to diversify our markets.”
In doing so, Premier Notley just became the latest Canadian politician to play games with pipelines. She’s telling Albertans a pipeline to tidewater can cure what ails the industry. It won’t — it can’t — because the problem a pipeline to tidewater was intended to address doesn’t exist anymore.
The idea that greater pipeline capacity and access to tidewater would maximize the value Alberta receives for its tar sands crude is a standard talking point for industry, politicians, and other commentators in the ongoing oil price-induced recession in Alberta.
This briefing note counters this argument with analysis that shows that even if Alberta had expanded access to tidewater today, in the form of pipelines to east or west coasts, it would not be any better off.
I was there the day it was sworn in, when thousands of people filled the legislative grounds. I was there when the first cabinet with full gender parity in Alberta’s history was sworn in. I cheered when - after years of an unfair tax system creating unequal burdens – the government raised corporate taxes. I cheered again when your government helped get the money out of politics.
Gordon Laxer has just written a new book titled After the Sands: Energy and Ecological Security for Canadians. In it, the founding director of the Parkland Institute and long-time Council of Canadians Board member, argues for the need to plan beyond the tar sands, which he refers to as the Sands.
CALGARY — Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, once a reluctant defender of the oilpatch, now says she won’t take no for an answer on getting a bitumen pipeline to tidewater.
The NDP premier made the pledge in a televised speech to Albertans on Thursday evening, a week before presenting a budget that will come with a $10-billion-plus deficit and help for the needy as the once oil-rich province struggles with a price shock that has destroyed government revenue, investment and jobs.
Beijing has high hopes for the new Trudeau government.
On October 20th, 2015, Prime Minister-elect Justin Trudeau received a congratulatory call from China’s ambassador Luo Zhaohui. The next day, the state-run China Daily newspaper celebrated “improved prospects for a Free Trade Agreement with China” under Canada’s new Liberal government. A week later Premier Li Keqiang himself picked up the phone.
Gordon Laxer has just written a new book titled After the Sands: Energy and Ecological Security for Canadians. In it, the founding director of the Parkland Institute and long-time Council of Canadians Board member, argues for the need to plan beyond the tar sands, which he refers to as the Sands.
