Canada's National Energy Board (NEB) on Thursday approved two applications for 25 year natural gas export licences. A licence was approved for Aurora Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd (Aurora LNG) to export liquefied natural gas (LNG), for a maximum term amount of 849.82 109m3. The export point would be in the vicinity of Prince Rupert, British Columbia at the outlet of the loading arm of a proposed liquefaction terminal.
The number of species at risk has doubled over the past decade in the Salish Sea, generating calls for a special international body to co-ordinate research and conservation issues in the 17,000-square-kilometre area that includes the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Strait of Georgia and Puget Sound.
For the first time, scientists have documented that souring seas caused by carbon-dioxide emissions are dissolving pteropods in the wild right now along the U. S. West Coast. That is damaging a potentially important link in the marine food web far sooner than expected.
“Pipeline spills can have both positive and negative effects on local and regional economies, both in the short- and long-term,” the company states in its submission to the National Energy Board, the federal government’s Calgary-based regulatory agency. “Spill response and cleanup creates business and employment opportunities for affected communities, regions, and cleanup service providers.”
Professors at the University of Victoria (UVic) are demanding the school’s administration freeze all new investment in fossil fuels and initiate a three-year divestment of all fossil fuel holdings. The university endowment fund has approximately $21 million currently invested in fossil fuels.
The actions of a young, tough-talking First Nations leader in northeast B.C. last week, that sparked the embarrassing reversal of a cabinet decision to fast-track natural gas plants, appears to be rallying province-wide Aboriginal opposition to Liquified Natural Gas plans. On April 16, 33-year-old Fort Nelson Chief Sharleen Gail held up an eagle feather at an LNG industry summit in her territory as she emotionally ordered B.C. government officials to exit the conference, to the sound of Dene drummers.
District of Kitimat Council voted four to one Monday night to officially oppose the Northern Gateway pipeline, terminal and tanker project. After a lengthy debate, Mayor Joanne Monaghan, Councillors Phil Germuth, Mario Feldhoff and Rob Goffinet voted in favour of the motion. Councillor Edwin Empinado voted against the motion. Councillors Mary Murphy and Corrine Scott were absent due to illness.
The decision removes a major legal hurdle that the environmental group Ecojustice said stood in the way of the $7.9-billion Northern Gateway pipeline project that would bring 550,000 barrels of diluted bitumen crude from Alberta to Kitimat.
'Oil, tar sands, coal, natural gas: What's behind the expansion drive of Canada's and North America's fossil fuel industries?' talk by Roger Annis of Vancouver Ecosocialist Group, at University of California Santa Barbara, April 11, 2014
