LNG - Fracking

Existing in an almost tranquil atmosphere compared with the uproar surrounding plans to build crude bitumen pipelines to the Pacific Coast, British Columbia’s LNG sector may be in for a jolt. A small aboriginal community, with only 800 residents, is locking horns with the British Columbia government and the industry over the use of water for hydraulic fracturing.

As far back as October 2012, the B.C. Liberals knew that ambitious plans to develop natural-gas reserves could push greenhouse-gas emissions past the government’s reduction targets for 2020.

The admission comes in the form of a B.C. Ministry of Environment “information note” obtained through a freedom-of-information request filed by NDP environment critic Spencer Chandra Herbert.

A new law set to be introduced in the spring would, for the first time in B.C., impose fees for the use of groundwater and allow for government to restrict water use in times of scarcity. But it’s not likely to rein in the practise of hydraulic fracturing, which is critical to the development of LNG.

In the lifespan of multibillion dollar projects, five years is a relative blink. It’s why committing to big infrastructure projects is so nerve-wracking–the world can change in a hurry. Consider that only five years ago, plans were in place to build a terminal outside Quebec City to receive liquefied natural gas from Russia. At the time, natural gas prices were close to double digits and the skies ahead looked clear and profitable. The shale gas revolution, of course, changed that essentially overnight.

By the time Bob Ackley crossed the Harlem River into Manhattan he’d been up for nearly four hours. It was still dark, not yet seven on a Sunday morning: the best time of the week to go sniffing for gas. The back seat of his hatchback was littered with hi-tech equipment. Plastic hoses and cables connected a web of instruments: a laser spectrometer, a computer, GPS equipment, a pump, and a fan. The jumble of gadgets purred reassuringly as he drove.

VANCOUVER, COAST SALISH TERRITORIES – This morning, activists with Rising Tide-Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories dropped a banner reading “Coal, Oil, Gas: None Shall Pass” outside Port Metro Vancouver’s head office at Canada Place, in opposition to the proposed Fraser Surrey Docks coal terminal. “This coal export project is part of a push to make BC a gateway to profits for the fossil fuel industry.

More than 1,900 children at nine schools in British Columbia’s northeast are at risk from toxic sour gas tapped by wells either already drilled or planned for the province’s liquefied natural gas strategy, warns the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre. The warning is part of a blunt report prepared with the Peace Environment and Safety Trustees Society and set to be delivered to Premier Christy Clark Thursday morning. By way of context, it points out that in a single recent five-year span there were 73 documented sour gas leaks in B.C.

How much methane is leaking?

This is a complicated and controversial question. Complicated because there are hundreds of thousands of natural gas wells and thousands of miles of pipeline in the U.S. This precludes direct measurement of all sources.

A juggernaut of industrial development in northwestern BC is overwhelming environmental groups, First Nations, and other citizens trying to keep up with environmental assessments.  There was a time when they could concentrate of one or two projects without allowing several others to slip past them unnoticed. Not any more. Shannon McPhail and her colleagues at the Skeena Watershed Protection Coalition worked hard for several years supporting the Tahltan Nation’s fight against Shell Canada’s proposed shale gas project in the Sacred Headwaters.

WASHINGTON -- Buried beneath the world's oceans and the Arctic permafrost lies a global energy source that many think might dwarf today's fracking revolution: huge reservoirs of natural gas trapped in ice crystals. They're called methane hydrates and are sometimes known as "flammable ice." If tapping methane hydrates ever becomes feasible, it once again would change the geopolitical map of the planet. Nations like Japan and India that lack their own conventional oil and gas resources suddenly could become energy power players.