There's a growing global recognition that it's time for banks to stop funding coal: it's financially risky and implicates them in serious environmental and human rights abuses. But the largest global investment banks continued to finance coal mining and power last year.
As the 2015 Coal Finance Report Card, The End of Coal?, published by Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, and the Sierra Club, makes clear:
VANCOUVER — Two potential geothermal energy projects near Pemberton could generate electricity for about seven cents a kilowatt hour — only slightly higher than the 5.8 cents to 6.1 cents a kilowatt hour cost estimate of the Site C dam project.
That's the conclusion of a recent Kerr Wood Leidal Associates study on the economic viability of geothermal resources in B.C., which considered nine of the most favourable geothermal sites in the province.
This week, a year almost to the day since the ground-breaking Supreme Court of Canada decision affirming aboriginal title in the Tsilhqot’in case, another B.C. First Nation will be in federal court trying to prevent yet another destructive project that is being aggressively pursued without aboriginal consent.
Ontario is eyeing a deal to buy hydroelectric power from Newfoundland and Labrador, a first step toward implementing the newly signed Canadian Energy Strategy to build energy integration between provinces.
For Ontario, the deal would represent one move in a longer process of boosting electricity imports, in hopes of driving down greenhouse gas emissions and controlling skyrocketing power prices. For Newfoundland and Labrador, it would mark a stride towards the province’s goal of becoming a major exporter of emissions-free power.
An oil spill in evergreen forest of northern Alberta has ratcheted up concerns over pipeline safety as Canada’s premiers seek consensus on plans to pipe oil-sands crude to eastern ports in massive volumes.
Chinese-owned Nexen Energy ULC late on Thursday said a pipeline ruptured at its Long Lake oil-sands project, spewing about 31,500 barrels of bitumen, produced water and sand across a 16,000-square-metre area roughly 36 kilometres southeast of Fort McMurray. Nexen is owned by state-run CNOOC Ltd.
ST. JOHN’S—After a “vigorous” debate, the nation’s premiers have finalized a Canadian Energy Strategy that tries to balance tackling climate change with safely getting fossil fuels to market.
“It’s a huge step forward,” Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne told the Star in an interview here Friday at the Council of the Federation meeting.
Her comments came after the 13 provincial and territorial leaders unveiled the 35-page strategy that mentions “greenhouse gas” 24 times, “climate change” 20 times, “oil” 11 times, and “natural gas” and “pipelines” four times each.
I was about to head inside the Calgary Petroleum Club for an interview Tuesday when a man dressed up as a cowboy accosted me on the sidewalk, stunned look on his face. This is common during Stampede, even in the afternoon.
It happened to be an oil industry lobbyist, who had just left an investor’s forum where Premier Rachel Notley had delivered her first major (private) speech to an industry crowd, two months after her New Democrats won.
Alberta’s slowing economy and climate change were at the top of the agenda as Premier Rachel Notley met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the first sit-down between the two leaders.
Some federal Conservatives have been openly critical of initial moves taken by the NDP government, including the elimination of the provincial flat tax on income, but Ms. Notley said both leaders stuck to areas of common ground.