After years of heated political battles over the oilsands, a question looms — are passions cooling for a more peaceful future?
In the last decade, the oilsands have landed in the crosshairs of environmentalists who have taken aim at Alberta over the province’s high greenhouse gas emissions and tried to block pipeline projects intended to open new markets for its bitumen resource.
What an exciting few months it's been in the fight against liquefied natural gas (LNG). Two massive projects at the mouth of the Skeena River have been scrapped thanks to shoddy economics and fierce opposition.
VICTORIA — The B.C. Utilities Commission moved quickly Wednesday to block public access to the uncensored version of an independent review it commissioned into Site C.
At 8 a.m., the communications director for the commission, Erica Hamilton, called Robert McCullough, the Portland, Ore.-based energy expert who’d posted an unredacted copy of the report by Deloitte LLP on his website.
She asked him to take down the offending version of the report and he obliged.
VICTORIA — B.C. Hydro was nine per cent over budget and already dipping into contingency funds from day one on the main construction contract at Site C, according to the uncensored version of a report to the B.C. Utilities Commission.
The troubles continue to the present day, with the $1.8 billion main civil works contract having run through three quarters of its contingency budget with only one quarter of the work being done.
A new study from UBC analyzed more 1,000 aquatic species for vulnerability to the effects of climate change, and the news for three B.C. food fish is not good. William Cheung — an associate professor at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries — brought together biological data relevant to adaptability and applied “fuzzy logic” to the computations. The exercise identified 294 marine species worldwide that are most at-risk due to climate change by 2050. Here are some highlights for species native to B.C. waters:
The National Energy Board has issued a stern warning to the company building a major west coast pipeline expansion about apparent violations of federal law.
The federal regulator called Kinder Morgan to task this week for installing mats in streams to discourage fish from spawning where the pipeline is to be built.
The B.C. Utilities Commission barely made the cabinet-imposed deadline for a preliminary report on Site C this week, posting the findings just four hours before the clock ran out at midnight Wednesday.
VICTORIA — The B.C. Utilities Commission barely made the cabinet-imposed deadline for a preliminary report on Site C this week, posting the findings just four hours before the clock ran out at midnight Wednesday.
