The federal government’s ideas to make major electricity regulations more flexible and responsive to provincial and industry concerns did not win over Alberta.
“This report makes no meaningful corrections to the most destructive piece of Canadian electricity regulation in decades,” said Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz in an emailed statement to Canada’s National Observer.
The federal government is getting mixed reviews for proposing major regulatory changes that offer up more flexibility for power producers to burn natural gas and embrace carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, but contain no specifics on how the revisions would affect greenhouse gas emissions.
A better headline for this might be "EVs, Highways, and Pre-Election Squabbling" - Gene McGuckin
Feb. 18, 2024
Canada's environment minister stepped into an essential conversation on traffic, congestion, climate pollution, and highway funding. He got political theatre and sacrificial sound bites in return.
It’s going to be that much harder to get climate solutions done when no good deed goes unpunished.
Last week, heeding the call of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), Angus tabled a private member’s bill in the House of Commons to prohibit fossil fuel advertising. As doctors and other health professionals across the country have been saying, “Fossil fuel ads make us sick.”
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) carries up to 2.7 times the global warming impact of burning coal, according to a draft science paper released on the heels of U.S. President Joe Biden’s landmark decision to apply a climate test to a massive, new LNG export terminal in Louisiana.
Warn anyone in the USA about the coming energy crisis and you’re likely to see eyes roll. “What energy crisis? That was half a century ago! Markets and technology won. Today we’re back among the top oil suppliers!”
All true, but the response gives a false sense of security that has policymakers and publics sleepwalking toward a cliff. An energy crisis is likely ahead, no matter our rank (currently third) among oil supplying nations. Seeing the coming crisis requires looking beneath the veneer of oil supply claims and asking some deeper questions.
Demand for federal cash to help defray the cost of home energy renovations spiked in recent months, forcing the government to close applications for the program almost a year earlier than expected.
With more than half a million applications for the Canada Greener Homes Grant already in, the program is nearing its $2.6-billion budget.
Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) has signed up more than 100,000 households in six months for an electricity demand management program that is now Canada’s biggest virtual power plant, and North America’s fastest-growing.
![Jon Sullivan/flickr The federal government is getting mixed reviews for proposing major regulatory changes that offer up more flexibility for power producers to burn natural gas and embrace carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, but contain no specifics on how the revisions would affect greenhouse gas emissions. The 11-page update [pdf] on Ottawa’s proposed Clean Electricity Regulations (CER), released on a Friday afternoon before a long weekend, was billed as a “what we heard” report from the first](https://ecosocialistsvancouver.org/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/article-image/gas-plant-jon-sullivanflickr-800x570.jpg?itok=pc1pupEn)
