Energy

[One webpage editor's note: Three items below - Tzeporah Berman's new position in Alberta, 'astroturfing'  by some US unions, and the promoters of a bitumen refinery who include the then-President of  the paperworkers union I was a member of for years.]

The surprising composition of Alberta’s new oilsands GHG advisory group

by JNW staff, jwenergy.com, July 14, 2016

A new leak provides further confirmation that the pro-corporate TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the U.S. and European Union would result in "a giant leap backward in our fight to keep fossil fuels in the ground."

With growing urgency, governments across the globe are setting bold targets for renewable energy. However, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says that smart development will be needed to ensure the right mix of low-carbon electricity generation to cut emissions and to avoid unexpected environmental problems.

On June 10, 2016, KAIROS released an Open Letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and British Columbia Premier Christy Clark urging them to suspend construction of the Site C dam on the Peace River until Indigenous peoples’ rights have been respected and the B.C. Utilities Commission has conducted a thorough review.1 This Briefing Paper will explain why KAIROS and other civil society organizations are taking action on this issue.

[Webpage editor: Here is only the text; go to link for the original.]

VICTORIA, June 27 — For all of Premier Christy Clark’s vow to advance the Site C project past the point of no return before the election, the New Democrats maintain they would subject the $9 billion B.C. Hydro project to independent review before deciding whether to let it proceed to completion.

June 23, 2016 - The backers of several proposed petrochemical refineries in the Northwest are pitching their projects as environmentally responsible investments that would reduce global warming pollution. Billed as a cleaner means of creating methanol, the proponents allege that they will enable Chinese manufacturers to produce olefins, a precursor to plastics manufacturing, with much less pollution than current methods.

June 17, 2016 VICTORIA — While B.C. ‘s carbon tax has drawn praise from around the world, the pioneering measure does not come close to meeting the claim of revenue neutrality the B.C. Liberals made for it at the outset.

B.C. Hydro’s Site C project is going to leave ratepayers a $7-billion bill for power that can’t be sold for what it costs to produce.

Harbir Chhina helped develop the game-changing steam technology that allowed companies to tap the world’s third-largest reserves in Canada’s oilsands. It was a moonshot that paid off.

Now the oilsands industry, still recovering from last month’s wildfires, needs another one. Without a technological breakthrough like steam injection three decades ago, the flows that have transformed the country’s economy could slow to a trickle. In a world that has plenty of cheap crude, and increasingly demands cleaner energy, the oil sands look dirty, as well as expensive.