Can green energy in Ontario avoid the same fate as Commodore?
In this column in today’s Toronto Star, James Biggar of Leadnow.ca calls on Ontario to, “embrace the green future,” and to avoid becoming the, “Commodore 64 of the world economy, sitting on the trash heap of history.” I agree, but perhaps not for the reasons you expect.
David Roberts and Stephen Gordon are saying almost the same thing about green jobs
Over the last couple of days, my Twitter feed has been swamped with discussion about green jobs. Yesterday, Worthwhile Canadian Initiative blogger and Laval Professor Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) posted a piece on the Globe and Mail’s Economy Lab arguing that presenting, “the employment opportunities generated by a set of proposals…as an additional benefit of the […]
Twice the offsets, half the credibility for the offset system
The Governments of Alberta and Canada announced today that a final funding formula had been reached for Shell’s Quest project, a carbon capture and storage operation housed at Shell’s Scotford Upgrader in Fort Saskatchewan. The fact that the funding model has been agreed upon is great news, since although I have been critical of Alberta’s […]
EEDC Oilsands Event Recap
This morning, join 650 other interested and engaged people at Shaw Conference Center, for Edmonton Economic Development Corporation’s “Oil Sands: What’s Really Going On?” event. As you can see from speaker line-up, it bound to interesting day. It lucky enough to attend as guest of David Kane and EEDC, for grateful. Click below for recap, […]
Attn: Andrew Nikiforuk. If you’re going to make accusations, you should back them up.
In this article in The Tyee, Andrew Nikiforuk levels some very serious allegations with respect to the National Energy Board, suggesting that the Board has been captured (see * below for definition) by industry, that it cannot be objective because it is industry-financed, and that it does not appropriately balance the interests of energy companies […]
Gas prices, fuel economy, electricity prices, etc.
Last night, I posted a simple calculation to Twitter. Based on gasoline energy content of 32.2 MJ/l LHV, and a conversion of 3.6 MJ/kWh, I calculated 8.94 kWh/l of gasoline, and thus stated that $1.30/l gasoline was approximately equivalent to 14.4c/kWh electricity. This had, in a sense, the desired result. Many of my followers followed […]
My latest @ The Globe and Mail – Facts take a hit in debate over Keystone XL
As the deadline for comment to the U.S. State Department on TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline loomed, prominent environmentalist Bill McKibben and NASA climate scientist James Hansen each voiced calls for the Obama Administration to turn down TransCanada’s request for approval to build the pipeline. As has become the norm, their objections were supported by […]
On the potential for oilsands to add 200ppm of CO2 to the atmosphere
Over the last few days, posts by Bill McKibben in the Guardian and by NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen on his own website at Columbia have again brought forward the statistic that, “the tar sands are estimated to contain at least 400 GtC (equivalent to about 200 ppm CO2).” That’s true but, in the context […]
Time for Minister Liepert to come down hard on TransCanada
Alberta’s Energy Minister Ron Liepert has certainly been aggressive in his support of the Keystone XL project, urging US President Obama to, “sign the bloody order,” and saying the the President was, “out of touch with Americans,” who he insists want the pipeline to go ahead. Liepert went on, in the same interview, to say […]
My Alberta Oil column on oilsands reclamation
The Alberta government’s revision of the Mine Financial Security Program (MFSP) continues down a wrong-headed path where the province is willing to take on environmental risk to enable oil sands development. It would be unacceptable if the government were underwriting oil sands firms’ pension liabilities to accelerate development. It should be unacceptable for the environment […]