oilsands

Alberta needs to do more than tell Ottawa, “hands off the golden goose!”

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This article, by Jason Fekete and Darcy Henton, discusses the Alberta Government’s growing anxiety with respect to the coming Federal GHG regulations for the oil and gas sector. Premier Stelmach and the Alberta Government may be late to the game, but they have moved quickly in the past to head off federal action with regulatory changes in the province.

As I wrote during the election, the Conservatives have committed to a regulatory model, which could be similar to the EPA approach in the US, although details for Canadian regulations have yet to be released.  If you want to know what source performance standards will look like in the oil and gas sector in the US, look here.

What should concern Alberta is the fact that regulatory approaches generally look at each facility and ask what that facility can afford to pay. Alberta has some of the highest value uses of carbon emissions in the country – you don’t have to look far to see a story about how profitable the big oil companies are today. Under a regulatory approach, oil and gas facilities can afford to pay a great deal more than, for example, steel mills in Eastern Canada. I wrote then, and I still believe it to be the case now, that we should not be too quick to assume that the oil sands will be the first to get special treatment.

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Tory platform’s dirty secret – my latest Economy Lab post

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There’s a hole in the Conservative platform…a hole so big, you could fit Canada’s oil and gas sector or every single one of our fossil-fuel power plants into it. The hole is projected to get bigger, and will be large enough to fit every single car, truck, SUV, train, bus, and ATV in Canada into … Read more

Oilsands debate in Edmonton Centre

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I was very happy to see this discussion posted on line on the Edmonton Journal YouTube Channel. The video features each of the candidates in Edmonton Centre weighing in with their positions on the oilsands. I can’t resist the chance to look at some of the arguments, and provide context on each relative to the parties’ positions.  I should make very clear that I am not a resident of Edmonton Centre, that I am not member of any political party, and that I am not a supporter of any of the candidates.   This post should, by no means, be taken as an endorsement of any of the candidates in the race.

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My latest Economy Lab post

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The corporate tax implications of each of the parties’ greenhouse gas (GHG) policy proposals will run in the billions of dollars per year. GHG policies will induce significant expenditures, whether they follow the regulatory approach proposed by the Conservatives, the cap-and-trade approaches proposed by the Liberals and the NDP, or the broad carbon pricing approach … Read more

Common sense on Keystone XL and GHGs

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The US State Department released its Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Assessment on the Keystone XL oil pipeline today, and it contains a lot of good news for Alberta.  You can read the Executive Summary of the Assessment here or the full report may be accessed here.

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Liberals’ significant climate plan cloaked in silence

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My second Globe and Mail Economy Lab post on the new Liberal Platform is available here.  After this piece was posted, Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell posted a response to some of the questions I raised here. Rick Szostak posted another response detailing how revenues from the auction of permits would remain in Alberta here.

Think the President supported your view of the oilsands?

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President Obama’s speech yesterday had something in it for everybody, and the most remarkable thing for me on the day after the speech is that both the oil powers in Calgary and their usual allies the NRDC agreed that it was a positive development.  At least the objections of Greenpeace USA restored some balance to the universe. I think, in many cases,  interested parties were simply listening for what they wanted to hear.

The figure below shows a tag cloud of the top 50 words used in the President’s address. When you see words like clean, biofuels, reducing oil dependence, and alternative being used, that is generally not good news for the largest exporter of oil to the US.  The words domestic oil production, drill, and clean coal are not generally on the positive side of the ENGO lexicon.  I think that, as people digest the President’s remarks, people will realize that his remarks amount to a lot of aspiration, a little realism, some retail politics, and little else. In the end, I don’t think that it was really good news or bad news for anyone.

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An evening with Jack

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Last night, I decided to head downtown the NDP campaign launch to hear Jack Layton speak, to local NDP candidates, and their supporters. (I was also caught on tape by Gloria Galloway of the Globe and Mail) For those of you who know my politics, you will likely be surprised to hear that went to NDP event at all. I was little surprised too.

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