The Peace River Valley is one of Canada’s most fertile regions (Damien Gillis)
Keeping the Peace Valley’s farmland and ecosystems intact would be worth $7.9 billion to $8.6 billion a year, says a new study from the David Suzuki Foundation.
Region’s ecosystems provide many valuable services
Industrial impacts throughout Peace region – indicated in red (from previous DSF report)
This latest report, which involved 3 years of intense data collection, analysis and review, tabulates the economic value of preserving what remains of the valley’s natural values. “These ecosystems play a critical role in providing clean air, clean water, habitat for wildlife and many other ecological benefits that sustain the health and well-being of local residents, and contribute to the cultural and traditional ways of First Nations,” says DSF.
The services provided by the 5.6 million-hectare region’s diverse ecosystems include “water supply, air filtration, flood and erosion control, habitat for wildlife and agricultural pollinators, carbon storage and other benefits.”
“We’re concerned because the strain on the Peace River Watershed’s farmland and natural ecosystems will only increase with the B.C. government’s plan for increased oil and gas development, including liquefied natural gas, as well as large infrastructure projects such as the proposed Site C Dam,” says the Foundation’s Dr. Faisal Moola.
Farmland could feed a million people
At the environmental assessment hearings into the $8 Billion proposed Site C Dam, expert agrologists Wendy Holm and Evelyn Wolterson told the Joint Review Panel that the land in the proposed flood and impact zone could feed a million people. This is due to the extraordinary soils and climate conditions of the valley, Wolterson explained.
[quote]These are all elements of this valley that make it absolutely unique…not only in the region but in all of British Columbia, and perhaps Western Canada…It is our opinion that the public interest is better served [by] agriculture and other uses for this valley, rather than a hundred years of power production.[/quote]
$7 Billion/year in carbon sequestration
The Suzuki report also calculates the value of the region’s forests, grasslands and wetlands in terms of carbon storage, pegged at $6.7 billion to $7.4 billion a year, with other ecosystem services contributing $1.2 billion a year.
Says Moola, “…our study shows that remaining farmland and natural areas have an incredible ability to generate natural wealth.”
[quote]We’re concerned because the strain on the Peace River Watershed’s farmland and natural ecosystems will only increase with the B.C. government’s plan for increased oil and gas development, including liquefied natural gas, as well as large infrastructure projects such as the proposed Site C Dam.[/quote]
Site C review panel worried about cumulative impacts
While the Joint Review Panel opted not to render a definitive verdict on the dam in its report, released in May, it did echo DSF’s concerns about the cumulative effects of multiple projects in the region, compounding the dam’s impacts. “Whether the Project proceeds or not, there is a need for a government-led regional environmental assessment including a baseline study and the establishment of environmental thresholds for use in evaluating the effects of multiple, projects,” the Panel stated.
First Nations back report
Chief Roland Wilson of West Moberly First Nations echoed the Suzuki Foundation report, noting that his people “have been blessed with forests, rushing rivers and rolling grasslands that have sustained our communities for thousands of years. However, the cumulative effects of industrial development in our territories have been massive and can’t be mitigated. They’ve had an enormous impact on our treaty rights as First Nations people.”
According to Moola, various aboriginal representatives helped guide the Suzuki report with their traditional knowledge of the area. “First Nations helped decide the study area, identify data sources, and review the work – including ensuring that we accurately reflected the place names, and other references to their Dane_Zaa culture”.
Many of these aboriginal voices are represented verbatim in the 2013 DSF-published report, Passages for the Peace, which includes interviews with elders, hunters, artists and other community members describing the role the land plays in their lives and the value of natural capital in their culture and economy.
The federal Cabinet is expected to render a decision on the dam in September. Says Moola, “We hope this report encourages discussion about how natural areas and farmland in B.C.’s irreplaceable Peace Region are valued — and undervalued — when decisions are made that could destroy the region’s natural wealth.”
Seeing red: The roof on BC Place Stadium is just one of many cost overruns on the BC Liberals’ watch
Oh, for the days of the fast ferries…compared to what we have now.
Most British Columbians will recall Premier Glen Clark’s late 1990’s boondoggle, which saw the construction of three new coastal vessels balloon from a projected $210 million to nearly $460 million.
How could we forget? After the relentless salvos from pundits like Vaughan Palmer and Mike Smyth led to the NDP government’s collapse, in every election cycle since, the incumbent BC Liberals have dragged out these ghost ships to bolster their own economic credentials. To Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark, the fast ferries are the gift that keeps on giving.
Liberal fiscal record sets new lows
The Fast ferries scandal sank the NDP
The only problem is the Liberals’ own fiscal fiascos absolutely dwarf those of their NDP predecessors – though they’re consistently able to get away with it.
Sure, Mr. Palmer has poked holes in the government’s laughable election promise of a debt-free BC and raised red flags over the government’s routine cost overruns, but the pundits’ knives have been decidedly less sharp over the past 13 years. Unlike the NDP, Liberal governments face no real consequences for their misdeeds.
With the Liberals on track to double the $34 Billion provincial debt they inherited from what history would now suggest was a surprisingly restrained NDP, it’s high time for an update to their fiscal report card. (That debt doesn’t even include an additional $100 Billion in contractual taxpayer obligations, like private power contracts, which they’ve swept under rug).
This is especially important with projects like the $8 Billion proposed Site C Dam currently under review (and if you believe that sticker price, I’ve got some pond-front property in northern Alberta you may be interested in).
“If you look back over the last 10 or 12 years to every project of any magnitude, it’s ballooned right out of proportion – two times, three times is not uncommon,” Fedderly noted. “This is a pattern that’s appearing on project cost management.”
Contrasting the government’s track record with his own companies’ construction projects, he acknowledged a 10% margin for error was acceptable – but no more than that.
[quote]In the real world of people building houses, they don’t double in price.[/quote]
How bad is the government’s legacy with major capital projects? Pretty darned awful. Here are a few lowlights:
1. Port Mann Bridge/Hwy 1 widening: 550% of initial estimate
Artist’s drawing of new Port Mann Bridge
According to The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, “Originally, the government said the cost of improvements to the Port Mann would be $600 million. That ballooned to $1.5 billion in 2006 when the government announced it would twin the bridge. Now, the total cost of the project is expected to be $3.3 billion” (that’s $2.46 Billion, rising to $3.3 Billion including operation and maintenance costs).
Extra demerits for a serious design flaw that led to falling ice bombs, putting passengers at risk and ringing up $400,000 in insurance claims for ICBC.
2. BC Place Stadium roof upgrade: 514% of initial estimate
While the official line is that the upgrade to BC Place Stadium skyrocketed from $365 to $514 million, a January 2008 letter from operator PAVCO’s Chairman David Podmore to Vancouver City Manager Judy Rogers pegged the total cost at just $100 million. I’m no architect, but that seems like a reasonable price, whereas $514 million does not. After all, Seattle built a perfectly good stadium for its Seahawks in 2002 for just $360 million. All we got is a roof.
3. Northwest Transmission Line: 182% of initial estimate
Crown corporation BC Hydro’s construction of the Northwest Transmission Line – designed to power an assortment of proposed mines in the Sacred Headwaters region of the province – has nearly doubled from initial estimates of $404 million to the most recent tally of $736 million (expect the final number to be considerably higher).
Extra demerits for management error that could cost BC $130 million in federal “green infrastructure” support for the project. The Liberal government received the grant to electrify the village of Iskut, getting it off diesel power. All the province had to do was file a plan for the spur with the feds by June 30, 2012 – but it missed its deadline by nearly a year, meaning that, technically, the BC public is on the hook to repay the entire $130 million.
4. Vancouver Convention Centre: 178% of initial estimate
What’s worse, all this could have been avoided if the Liberal government simply followed its own critique of the NDP’s fast ferries experience – namely, not having people without construction experience overseeing the project (i.e. Liberal powerbroker Ken Dobell) and being sure to have finalized plans for the contractor to execute. Lacking the latter, a fixed-price contract proved impossible to nail down.
5. South Fraser Perimeter Road: 169% of initial estimate
Perhaps the only way for the Liberal government to assert it’s on time and on budget with a major project is to lie about it, as this unnecessary, convoluted truck highway through Delta and Surrey demonstrates. Laila Yuile, a blogger and one of the province’s shrewdest transportation project watchdogs, recalled last year that initial estimates for the project ranged from $700-800 million.
[signoff3]
By the time it was completed in 2013, it was a year late and the cost had risen to $1.264 Billion – significantly more than a revised estimate of around a billion dollars. But that didn’t stop the government from boasting that its project was “on time and on budget”. As Vaughan Palmer quipped at the time, “Regular readers of this space will be familiar with the more flexible approach that the B.C. Liberals have taken toward the concept of being on time and on budget.”
Why won’t the NDP stand up for itself?
Perhaps the biggest mystery in all of this is the NDP opposition’s failure to call the government out for its dismal fiscal record. How “Mr. Nice Guy” Adrian Dix saw fit to let the Liberals off the hook for this series of blunders that make the fast ferry overruns look like pocket change is baffling. It cost them the last election, as I noted in the aftermath of that sorry affair.
Liberal record a harbinger of Site C boondoggle
Proposed Site C Dam on Peace River
These numbers and examples of the Liberals’ fiscal ineptitude should be of real concern to BC taxpayers today as we ponder projects like Site C Dam – whose $8 Billion estimate (making it one of the highest-priced government infrastructure undertakings in Canadian history) is surely only the tip of the iceberg. Dams, as a rule, are highly prone to cost overruns – the World Bank estimates an average of 27% around the globe.
The following is a July 15 open letter to Premier Christy Clark from the District of Hudson’s Hope – near the location of the proposed Site C reservoir.
Dear Premier Clark,
Re: British Columbia Utilities Commission Review of Proposed Site C Dam Project
I am writing to urgently request that you refer the proposed Site C Dam Project to the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) for further review of project costs, alternatives to Site C, and related issues prior to making a decision on this project.
Prudent fiscal management requires further review of Site C
The District of Hudson’s Hope, a community of 1,100 people in the heart of the Peace River Valley, will be more adversely impacted than any other municipality by the proposed Site C dam.
Understandably, we wish to ensure that these adverse community and environmental impacts and the $7.9 billion cost of the proposed Site C project are justified and necessary for meeting British Columbia’s future electricity needs.
The proposed $7.9 billion Site C project may also be the largest provincial public expenditure of the next 20 years, adding over 10% to our growing $62 billion provincial debt. BC taxpayers, whether they live in Hudson’s Hope, Penticton, Surrey, Comox, Coquitlam, Prince George, Vancouver, Delta, Victoria or any other BC community, reasonably expect the government to subject Site C project costs and alternatives to open, rigorous and independent review with full procedural safeguards before committing to such a large capital expenditure.
[signoff3]
Rating agencies such as Moody’s call this prudent fiscal management. When Moody’s reaffirmed B.C.’s triple-A credit rating in May of this year, it was accompanied by a negative outlook due to accumulation of provincial debt. Moody’s said:
[quote]The negative outlook reflects the risks to the province’s ability to reverse the recent accumulation in debt given a softened economic outlook, weaker commodity prices and continued expense pressures.[/quote]
What better way to demonstrate prudent fiscal management than to subject Site C project costs and alternatives to open, rigorous and independent scrutiny by the BCUC?
Yet this is not what has happened – at least to date. The Site C Joint Review Panel (JRP) was prevented by a combination of BC law, public policy, terms of reference, and a lack of information from fully scrutinizing key project elements including project costs and alternatives to Site C (1).
However, this did not prevent the JRP from flagging its concerns about project costs: “The Panel cannot conclude on the likely accuracy of Project cost estimates [by BC Hydro] because it does not have the information, time or resources. This affects all further calculations of unit costs, revenue requirements and rates.”
Or asking questions about alternatives such as natural gas:
[quote]Finally, if it is acceptable to burn natural gas to provide power to compress, cool, and transport B.C. natural gas for Asian markets, where its fate is combustion anyway, why not save transport and environmental costs and take care of domestic needs?[/quote]
To ensure proper scrutiny, the JRP recommended on May 1st, 2014 in its 457 page final report that a number of matters be referred to the BCUC for further review (2).
The JRP noted,”… available resources could provide adequate energy and capacity until at least 2028″ and accordingly there is time available for the BCUC to do this work. However, Minister of Energy and Mines, Bill Bennett was quick to dismiss further scrutiny. On May 8th, 2014, the same day as the report’s public release, Minister Bennett said:
[quote] …I think that the work has been done and I think subjecting it to another review after all the years the project has been studied is not a good use of public money …[/quote]
Madame Premier, this defies prudent fiscal management. BC needs to complete its homework on Site C.
Hudson’s Hope, BC taxpayers and rating agencies such as Moody’s need to be fully satisfied that this $7.9 billion project will not be characterized as a white elephant that transformed the beautiful Peace River Valley into a dam reservoir, increased the provincial debt by over 10%, and put BC’s strong fiscal management record at risk.
Urban Systems report supports need for BCUC review
Recognizing these major uncertainties, the District of Hudson’s Hope retained Urban Systems Ltd. to review the findings of the JRP Report, and compile information from the proposed project’s Environmental Impact Statement, BC Hydro’s Integrated Resource Plan, and other relevant resources and data to examine the following key question:
[quote]Are the anticipated community and environmental impacts, and high-costs of the proposed Site C project justified and necessary for meeting British Columbia’s future electricity needs?[/quote]
The JRP concluded that BC Hydro has not fully demonstrated the need for this project on the timetable set forth and Urban Systems has also concluded that a commitment to the proposed Site C is project is likely premature: “The material cited within this document suggests that a commitment to the proposed Site C project is likely premature before the British Columbia Utilities Commission undertakes a review of the proposed project costs and long-term energy needs, including the comparative costs and benefits of potential alternatives. And as the JRP notes there is time to do this work.”
Urban Systems reviewed 5 alternative scenarios to Site C including retrofits and upgrades, geothermal, other renewables and enhanced demand side management, natural gas/cogeneration, and emerging technologies. Urban Systems concludes: ” … there are likely alternatives which could be cost-competitive and viable to meet future electricity needs.”
A preliminary comparison of selected alternatives to Site C suggests that BC could pursue these alternatives and potentially save over $ 5 billion in project costs. The “accumulation of debt” by the province would be significantly reduced. Please refer to Table A.
Finally, Urban Systems cautions that emerging trends could result in a risk to ratepayers: ‘
[quote]Three trends are occurring simultaneously that could substantially reduce the need for the proposed Site C project and affect BC Hydro’s forecasted revenues, thus limiting its ability to pay for such an asset over its 70 year amortization period. These three trends include: increases in BC Hydro electrical rates, the decreasing cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules, and the commercialization of micro grid enabling technologies.[/quote]
Conclusion
With the benefit of the information contained in this letter, I urge you to do what is fiscally prudent and makes common sense – refer the proposed Site e project to the BeUC for open, rigorous and independent review of project costs, forecasted revenues and less costly alternatives to Site e prior to making a decision on this project.
To do anything less for the largest and most expensive public project in Be in the next 20 years is imprudent, especially for a government that prides itself on its triple-A credit rating. I would appreciate a written response from you by July 31st, 2014.
_______________________________
1 JRP findings:
• The Panel concludes that, basing a $7.9 billion Project on a 20-year demand forecast without an explicit 20-year scenario of prices [by BC Hydro] is not good practice. Electricity prices will strongly affect demand, including Liquefied Natural Gas facility demand.
• The Panel concludes that demand management does not appear to command the same degree of analytic effort [by BC Hydro] as does new supply.
• The Panel concludes that a failure [of BC Hydro] to pursue research of the last 30 years into B.C.’s geothermal resources has left BC Hydro without information about a resource that BC Hydro thinks may offer up to 700 megawatts of firm, economic power with low environmental costs.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (left) and former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson
By Jonathan Fahey, The Associated Press
NEW YORK – Climate change is likely to exact enormous costs on U.S. regional economies in the form of lost property, reduced industrial output and more deaths, according to a report backed by a trio of men with vast business experience.
The report, released Tuesday, is designed to convince businesses to factor in the cost of climate change in their long-term decisions and to push for reductions in emissions blamed for heating the planet.
It was commissioned by the Risky Business Project, which describes itself as nonpartisan and is chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Thomas F. Steyer, a former hedge fund manager.
Among the predictions: Between $66 billion and $106 billion in coastal property will likely be below sea level by 2050, labour productivity of outdoor workers could be reduced by 3 per cent because extremely hot days will be far more frequent, and demand for electricity to power air conditioners will require the construction of more power plants that will cost electricity customers up to $12 billion per year.
“Every year that goes by without a comprehensive public and private sector response to climate change is a year that locks in future climate events that will have a far more devastating effect on our local, regional, and national economies,” warn the report’s authors.
The analysis and calculations in the report were performed by the Rhodium Group, an economic research firm, and Risk Management Solutions, a catastrophe-modeling company that works for insurance companies and other businesses. It was paid for by the philanthropic foundations of Bloomberg, Paulson and Steyer, among others.
The report analyzes impacts of climate change by region to better show how climate change affects the businesses and industries that drive each region’s economy.
The Northeast will likely be most affected by sea level rise, which will cost an additional $6 billion to $9 billion in property loss each year.
The Southeast will likely be affected both by sea-level rise and extreme temperatures. The region, which has averaged eight days of temperatures over 95 degrees each year, will likely see an additional 17 to 52 of these days by midcentury and up to four months of them by the end of the century. This could lead to 11,000 to 36,000 additional deaths per year.
Higher temperatures will reduce Midwest crop yields by 19 per cent by midcentury and by 63 per cent by the end of the century.
The Southwest will see an extra month of temperatures above 95 degrees by 2050, which will lead to more frequent droughts and wildfires.
The report does not calculate the cost of these droughts or wildfires, or many other possible costs such as the loss of unique ecosystems and species and the possible compounding effects of extreme weather conditions. Nor does it calculate some of the ways economies could adapt to the changing climate and reduce the costs of climate change.
“There’s a whole litany of things not calculated in the assessment,” said Gary Yohe, an economics and environmental studies at Wesleyan University and vice chair of the National Climate Assessment, a U.S. government project set up to study the effects of climate change. Yohe was not part of the Risky Business Project report, but he was asked to review it.
Still, he said, “The general conclusions are right on the money.”
And he said that while other groups have also attempted to calculate the financial impacts of climate change around the world, this report is notable because of the business and financial experience of the people behind it. Beyond the three co-chairs, the members of the group’s risk committee include Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, former Cargill CEO Gregory Page, and George Shultz, former treasury secretary and secretary of state.
“These are people who have managed risk all their lives and have made an enormous amount of money doing so,” Yohe said.
Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard is putting green jobs on the back burner (Photo: facebook)
One thing Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau, BC Premier Christy Clark and new Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard all share in common is the dated notion that economic and sustainable development are competing concepts that need to be reconciled, with great difficulty. And in hard times, the economy must take precedence.
New Quebec government disappoints with green jobs policy
Among its first public statements on the natural resource sectors and environment, the new Quebec Liberal government announced:
A one-year strategic environmental evaluation study (SEE) of the development of fossil fuels in Quebec to be completed in 2015
The continuation of the strategic environmental evaluation (SEE) of the shale oil potential of the pristine Anticosti Island
A new variant of the previous Charest goverment’s Plan nord, a key component of the Liberal an economic development plan calling for the development of mining potential in Quebec’s northern most regions
Approvals for small hydro facilities on rivers all over Quebec.
What has become clear with the above and other pronouncements by the Couillard government to date is that it is preparing the terrain with inadequate or smoke screen environmental analyses to facilitate full-tilt fossil fuel and natural resource development in the province.
China invests $70 billion a year in renewable energy
It will do so without assessing the economic costs and benefits – only paying lip service to the opportunities of the green economy. With regard to the latter point, China is now the world leader in clean energy technologies, having installed 28 GW of new wind and solar capacity in the single year of 2013 while also being a world leader in electric vehicles. Meanwhile, there are currently 3.5M jobs in the EU green sectors.
Accordingly, in a May 30, 2014 press release, the Liberal government stated that while it is favourable to the development of fossil fuels in Quebec, it wanted to assure the population that the environment would be protected and safety would be addressed.
As for the rationalization of its interest in the development of the fossil fuel sectors, the Couillard government argues that while awaiting the shift to a green economy, it’s best that Quebec produce its own fossil fuels, rather than importing them. A rather strange line of reasoning since the prime focus on fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources diverts funds that could otherwise be directed towards to the high-growth and high-job-creation green sectors.
Investing in the green economy would offer better returns on public funds and the logic of Couillard’s yesterday’s economy club could entrench new fossil fuel economic dependencies, thus further impeding the migration to a green economy.
Shale gas and oil moratorium in jeopardy
Quebec currently has a moratorium on shale gas development. But all the signals are that the new Quebec government wants to put an end to this moratorium, under the guise of an environmental report which said that with certain precautions and regulatory tweaking, all will be well. Nothing to worry about.
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Indeed, Couillard and company want us to think that a one-year strategic evaluation study (SEE) on the development of fossil fuels in the entire province will be more exhaustive than: 1) the two-and-a-half-year study on the development of the shale gas in the St-Lawrence River valley; and 2) the findings of the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) (the public consultation office on the environment), which is now reviewing shale gas issues a second time.
Some very substantive, scary, empirical evidence is coming to the fore, but, as with the case of the early reports on the impacts of smoking on human health, the private and government lobbies for shale gas development are implying that the absence of hard, one-to-one cause-effect data means the practice of fracking is safe.
Concerning shale oil, the Quebec Liberals said they will be an investment partner with the private sector to explore the shale oil potential on the of the pristine and huge Anticosti Island. The exploration will proceed this summer, long before the Strategic Environmental Evaluation on the matter is completed in 2015!
As for the much-touted economic benefits of the industry, we only have to look south of the border to see that the shale gas sector in the US is going through a boom to bust cycle, because after one has drilled to get to an easy to access sweet spot in a given well, it’s too expensive to go after the rest. US shale oil is on the same path and a decline in shale oil production may come as early as 2016.
Offshore oil development: Old Harry
The Old Harry potential offshore development area is on the Quebec-Newfoundland border, not very far from the Îles-de-la-Madeleine (Magdalen Islands), an area for which the economy is largely about fishing and tourism.
Couillard has already indicated he will sign an agreement with Harper for the development of fossil fuels in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence. The 2014-15 Budget confirms this intention.
Proposed offshore oil development at Old Harry (Council of Canadians)
With the possibility of developing Old Harry on the horizon, a 3-year, 800-page strategic environmental evaluation report on the Gulf, published in 2013, highlighted the deficiencies of exploration and development technologies – and the biological and human impacts of spills in the region. These risks are particularly high, given the region is covered with ice for much of the year. The study concluded that Quebec does not havethe capabilities to deal with a tanker spill.
The fishing industry in the Gulf represents $1.5 billion/year and tourism $800 million, while the development of Old Harry site on the Quebec side of the border would only generate about $300 million
Included in the “package” of Coulliard’s gung-ho development of the fossil fuel sectors are favourable views on pipelines running through Quebec to ship tar sands oil for export as well as meet Quebec “needs”. Such is the case with respect to the TransCanada Energy East pipeline to bring Alberta bitumen to the Cacouna port, in the eastern section of the St-Lawrence River.
In this region, any spill would be devastating to both the fragile beluga population and a dozen important natural marine habitat zones. A spill during the winter would be especially destructive, since there aren’t any adequate means to clean up bitumen in the presence of ice. It would also be devastating to the tourism industry, with $80 million in annual revenues.
Under the Couillard government – not all that different than the position of BC’s Christy Clark government on pipelines – Quebec would take all the risks as a transportation region for the sake of something in the order of 200 jobs. The main beneficiaries would be the exporters of the bitumen to foreign markets via tankers from Cacouna, carrying 80,000 to 200,000 tons of bitumen.
Despite Quebec’s surplus electricity capacity, for which hydro power represent 94% of the supply, the new Quebec government favours building more dams – much like the BC Liberal government’s private “run-of-river” policy.
Carried over from the preceding PQ government without any changes proposed by the Liberals, on Hydro Quebec’s, site one finds a glowing synopsis from Hydro-Québec on the 1550 MW Rivière Romaine projects. The web site informs us that, in the name of sustainable development and clean energy supplies for future generations, the 3 new power stations make sense. No mention is made of Québec’s electricity surplus or that the Romaine is one of Québec’s last “damable” wild rivers.
Not content with having targeted all of Quebec’s great rivers with high hydro power potential, the new Couillard government has also announced approvals for small hydro facilities on rivers with modest hydro potential.
In this regard, this article – “10 Things You Should Know About Dams” – offers a global portrait on dams to the effect they are are far less environmentally friendly than their proponents care to admit.
Plan nord, Version 2.0
The Couillard government picks up where Jean Charest left off, with an enhanced version of the former Liberal premier’s Plan nord. What Couillard has not factored into his economic vision is the fact that natural resource prices – relative to the prices of finished products manufactured with these very resources – have been declining for the last half century.
Subsidizing cement factories, cutting electric car budget
Last but not least are the following two amazing decisions of the Couillard government.
First, there is the amazing approval under an Liberal austerity Budget 2014-15 of the Port-Daniel cement facility, in the easternmost part of Quebec – the Gaspésie area. The government allotted $450M to support the $1B project, despite the fact that existing cement factories in Quebec are operating at 60% of capacity.
Moreover, the intention is to use the petecoke residues from petroleum/tar sands bitumen refining as a fuel. Petcoke is cheaper than coal but has much higher emissions.
Second, to keep his promise to the preceding PQ government, Couillard has agreed to maintain the transport electricification initiative. However, unlike the PQ, which allocated $500M for this initiative, the Couillard government has de-funded it, with responsibility transferred to Hydro-Québec. Meanwhile, the Liberals are putting a similar amount of funding into the unnecessary and high-GHG emission Port-Daniel cement plant.
This while China’s BYD is manufacturing electric buses and cars and recently built an electric bus manufacturing plant in California. Meanwhile, two Quebec urban transit commissions – the STM serving the Montreal area and the STO serving the Gatineau area – have run pilots projects with BYD electric buses.
That said, battery manufacturing and electric motor stakeholders in Quebec all have to take a back seat to the top priority given to the mining industry under Plan nord. So does the Volvo-owned Nova Bus urban transit facility in Ste-Eustache, which is working on the development of an electric bus.
Also reflecting Couillard’s sense of priorities are the nomination of his economic Executive and Cabinet ministers, with the Minister of Finance Carlos Leitao, President of the Treasury Board, Martin Coiteux, and Jacques Daoust, Minister of l’Économie, de l’Innovation et des Exportations (Economy, Innovation and Exports). All of them have strong economic backgrounds.
By contrast, the Minister of Développement durable, de l’Environnement et de la Lutte aux changements climatiques (Sustainable Development the Environment and Climate Change), David Heurtel, has no background in environmental fields.
As for the Minister of Énergie et des Ressources naturelles (Energy and Natural Resources) Pierre Arcand, he was the Environment Minister in the previous Liberal Charest government, where he played the role of an eternal apologist for weaseling out of the responsibility for defending the environment.
It’s clear that the environment will not play a key role in Philippe Couillard’s government – despite the clear financial benefits of investing in the green economy.
Health concerns plague many who worked to clean up the BP oil spill (photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Energy giant Kinder Morgan was recently called insensitive for pointing out that “Pipeline spills can have both positive and negative effects on local and regional economies, both in the short- and long-term.”
The company wants to triple its shipping capacity from the Alberta tar sands to Burnaby, in part by twinning its current pipeline. Its National Energy Board submission states, “Spill response and cleanup creates business and employment opportunities for affected communities, regions, and cleanup service providers.”
[quote]It’s not about going back to the Dark Ages. It’s about realizing that a good life doesn’t depend on owning more stuff.[/quote]
Sad but true
It may seem insensitive, but it’s true. And that’s the problem. Destroying the environment is bad for the planet and all the life it supports, including us. But it’s often good for business.
The 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico added billions to the U.S. gross domestic product! Even if a spill never occurred (a big “if”, considering the records of Kinder Morgan and other pipeline companies), increasing capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels a day would go hand-in-hand with rapid tar sands expansion and more wasteful, destructive burning of fossil fuels — as would approval of Enbridge Northern Gateway and other pipeline projects, as well as increased oil shipments by rail.
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The company will make money, the government will reap some tax and royalty benefits and a relatively small number of jobs will be created. But the massive costs of dealing with a pipeline or tanker spill and the resulting climate change consequences will far outweigh the benefits.
Of course, under our current economic paradigm, even the costs of responding to global warming impacts show as positive growth in the GDP — the tool we use to measure what passes for progress in this strange worldview.
It’s not about going back to the Dark Ages. It’s about realizing that a good life doesn’t depend on owning more stuff
Full steam ahead with fracking, pipelines
A fracking drill in BC’s Horn River Basin (Two Island Films)
And so it’s full speed ahead and damn the consequences. Everything is measured in money. B.C.’s economy seems sluggish? Well, obviously, the solution is to get fracking and sell the gas to Asian markets. Never mind that a recent study, commissioned by the Canadian government, concludes we don’t know enough about the practice to say it’s safe, the federal government has virtually no regulations surrounding it and provincial rules “are not based on strong science and remain untested.”
Never mind that the more infrastructure we build for polluting, climate-disrupting fossil fuels, the longer it will take us to move away from them. There’s easy money to be had — for someone.
Conservation must be top priority
We need to do more than just get off fossil fuels, although that’s a priority. We need to conserve, cut back and switch to cleaner energy sources. In Canada, we need a national energy strategy. And guess what? That will create lasting jobs! But we must also find better ways to run our societies than relying on rampant consumption, planned obsolescence, excessive and often-pointless work and an economic system that depends on damaging ways and an absurd measurement to convince us it somehow all amounts to progress.
It’s not about going back to the Dark Ages. It’s about realizing that a good life doesn’t depend on owning more stuff, scoring the latest gadgets or driving bigger, faster cars. Our connections with family, friends, community and nature are vastly more important.
Yes, we still need some oil and gas
Yes, we need oil and gas, and will for some time. Having built our cities and infrastructure to accommodate cars rather than people, we can’t turn around overnight. But we can stop wasting our precious resources. By conserving and switching to cleaner energy, we can ensure we still have oil and gas long into the future, perhaps long enough to learn to appreciate the potential of what’s essentially energy from the sun, stored and compressed over millions of years.
If we dig it up and sell it so it can be burned around the world, we consign ourselves to a polluted planet ravaged by global warming, with nothing to fall back on when fossil fuels are gone.
Waste not, warm not
Scientists around the world have been warning us for decades about the consequences of our wasteful lifestyles, and evidence for the ever-increasing damage caused by pollution and climate change continues to grow. But we have to do more than just wean ourselves off fossil fuels. We must also look to economic systems, progress measurements and ways of living that don’t depend on destroying everything the planet provides to keep us healthy and alive.
Written with Contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.
TransCanada CEO Russ Girling promoting Energy East (Canadian Press)
MONTREAL – A new report says proposals to pipe oilsands crude to Quebec refineries would only deliver negligible economic benefits to the province.
An economist who co-authored the study says job creation and spinoffs from several active pipeline-and-processing proposals would be insignificant to Quebec’s overall economy.
At the same time, Brigid Rowan says a pipeline accident could cost lives and put taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars — particularly if a spill takes place in an urban area like Toronto or Montreal.
The report was conducted by California-based consulting firm The Goodman Group Ltd. at the request of the Greenpeace and Equiterre environmental organizations.
Earlier this year, the National Energy Board approved Enbridge’s controversial plan to reverse the flow and increase the capacity of Line 9, a project that would transport crude eastward to refineries in Ontario and Montreal.
The board said its decision would allow Enbridge to “react to market forces and provide benefits to Canadians, while at the same time implementing the project in a safe and environmentally sensitive manner.”
The federal government welcomed the decision, saying the project would protect high-quality refining jobs in Quebec, open new markets for oil producers in Western Canada and replace more-expensive foreign crude.
Opponents of the Line 9 project often highlight Enbridge’s 2010 spill in Michigan, where 20,000 barrels of crude leaked into the Kalamazoo River.
If the definition of good governance includes the sound management of public monies and resources, then Canada has very bad governance.
The manufactured health care crisis is a case in point. Solutions to challenges of cost, quality, and access are fairly straightforward but wilfully ignored, and current trajectories towards corporatization are leading us in the wrong direction.
If the challenges are responsibly addressed, every Canadian will have access to exemplary health care, based on need rather than ability to pay. Additionally, Canadians will save money, and the economy will be positively impacted.
3 big ideas
Dr. Danielle Martin – family physician, V.P of Medical Affairs and Health Systems Solutions at Women’s College Hospital, and Assistant Professor in Medicine and Health Policy at the University of Toronto – is eminently qualified to offer solutions.
She argues that we could immediately implement “Three Big Ideas” within an expanded medicare system. Martin describes these ideas as follows:
“20 Drugs to Save a Nation”
“Less is More”
“Sick with Poverty”
The first idea, “20 drugs to save a nation” would save lives while improving the economy.
Currently, one in ten Canadians can not afford their prescription medications.
Consequently, their medical conditions often worsen, which invariably leads to more expensive care, including hospital admissions. A study by the New England Journal Of Medicine, appropriately titled “Dead Man Walking” , shows that when heart attack patients fail to adhere to their prescriptions, they are more likely to be readmitted to hospital.
National public drug coverage also saves lives. As Alan Cassels explains in “Opinion: A prescription for cutting costs” , public drug plans screen drugs for value and safety better than their private drug plan counterparts. He explains:
[quote]… out of the top 50 most costly drugs covered by private drug plans, several of them wouldn’t merit coverage by public drug plans because of their poor value: they were branded drugs which had cheaper equivalent generics.[/quote]
The Vioxx tragedy
The tragedy of Vioxx resonates with this opinion: premature release of the brand drug Vioxx caused between 4,000 – 7,000 deaths in Canada.
Bulk buying through a public drug plan also means that one purchaser (versus many) can secure lower prices for medications. New Zealand, for example, pays 2.4 cents for one Lipitor pill, while Canada pays 32 cents for the same pill.
A national pharmacare program with first dollar coverage (a best case scenario) would save Canada as much as $10.7 billion per year.
Dr. Martin’s “Drugs to Save a Nation” plan would be a first step towards national pharmacare. She argues convincingly that we could start bulk-buying 20 generic drugs, and that such a step would not only improve patient-adherence rates to medications – and their health – but it would save a substantial amount of money.
Less is More
The next idea, “Less Is More”, would also save money, and lives. According to Martin, numerous medical tests, treatments, and procedures are administered more often than necessary. Consequently, health outcomes can be negatively impacted, and additional costs accrued. A sobering study by Dr. Ray Sahelian reinforces the message. He notes that “Radiation from CT scans done in 2007 will cause 29,000 cancers and kill nearly 15,000 Americans.”
The top five tests, treatments, and procedures that are done more often than necessary are:
The final big idea, “Sick with Poverty” explains that poverty is basically a disease. The corollary of this is that if poverty can be eliminated – and 1 in 7 Canadian children live in poverty – then we will be a much healthier (and productive) society.
Canada’s failure to understand this aggravates and perpetuates an unnecessary situation – poverty. If all Canadians had adequate income, housing, nutrition/food security, as well as early childhood education, our population would be healthier, while societal costs for health care, policing, and other social services would be reduced, and we would collectively be more productive.
Evidence shows that Canada would save $7.6 billion per year on reduced health care costs alone if the lowest group of earners moved up by one “quintile” (to two) on a scale of earnings with the top quintile being five.
This could be financed by discarding Canada’s current welfare system
And replacing it with a Guaranteed Annual Income system which would redistribute monies through taxes.
Clearly, we have the tools and the funds to make Canada a better and stronger nation, but it won’t happen until the current theology of predatory economics that is poisoning the economy, and our collective mindset, is rejected.
Instituting Dr. Martin’s “Three Big Ideas” would be a huge step in the right direction.
BC Minister of Natural Gas Rich Coleman opens his government’s LNG conference (BC govt flickr photo)
Last week, the BC Government held its second annual LNG In BC Conference, with over 1,400 delegates representing some of the world’s top players in the natural gas industry. The province’s Minister of Natural Gas Development Rich Coleman noted that this year’s conference saw an increase of almost 1,000 delegates.
Most panels centred on the potential opportunity for a BC LNG industry, but the elephant in the room at the Vancouver Convention Centre was a natural gas pipeline deal signed between Russia and China on the eve of the conference. Though barely addressed from the stage, it provided a powerful reminder to delegates of the competitive international market the province will have to navigate to make its LNG vision a reality.
Bad timing for BC LNG players
Russia’s completion of a $400-billion deal to satisfy approximately one third of China’s gas needs is bad timing for BC LNG, as companies such as Chevron and Petronas look towards final investment decisions over the next year.
Natural gas will be supplied to China for the low cost of $10-$11 a unit, providing China a bargaining advantage to reduce energy prices from other potential trading partners in North America. Canadian exporters has their hopes set on $16/unit, based on the higher prices Japan is paying following the Fukushima-driven shutdown of its nuclear sector.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin said that this is the biggest contract in the history of the country’s gas sector, a reality which was absent from virtually all conversation on the global natural gas market discussed at the conference.
Clark downplays contract’s significance
Premier Clark and Shell Oil Company CEO Marvin Odum (BC govt flickr)
Premier Clark brushed off questions as to whether this agreement would have a negative impact on BC’s race to export LNG, saying that her government had anticipated the deal. Much of this hinges on whether the province can secure final investment decisions and nail down competitive tax rates quickly enough to be a credible player in the LNG market. Given that many of these details are far from being confirmed, questions arise as to whether LNG is the ‘generational opportunity’ it is being presented as for BC.
With 14 LNG projects proposed alongside intense global competition, Premier Clark acknowledged that so far, only two of these projects are nearing final investment before the next election. The smaller Woodfibre LNG near Squamish looks like the best bet for the first project, but it is meeting with growing opposition from local groups.
Pressure to speed up BC LNG
These delays don’t bode well for BC, a fact which Andy Calitz, CEO of the Shell-led partnership LNG Canada, responded to by saying, “That is why we need to move quickly.”
For her part, Premier Clark suggested Canada is potentially a more reliable supplier than politically volatile Russia:
[quote]I don’t think there is a country in the world that today wants to depend on Russia as their sole supplier of natural gas.[/quote]
Whether BC can be a reliable supplier, however, depends on whether these LNG projects actually come to fruition. Clark is depending on LNG to fulfil the election promise of a ‘debt free BC’, a multi-billion dollar prosperity fund, jobs and economic development. The fact that news of this Russia-China deal dropped right before the conference with minimal discussion of its effect on BC LNG may be symptomatic of the government’s desire to sell LNG instead of fostering a frank conversation about its opportunities and challenges.
Honest discussion in short supply
China has long been considered an important market for BC, and the impact of billions of tonnes of natural gas that will flow from Russia to China must be analyzed. One of the only comments made by Natural Gas Development Minister Rich Coleman on the deal came at the end of the conference:
[quote]We beat the Russians at hockey and we’ll beat them at liquefied natural gas.[/quote]
Determining the potential for a BC LNG industry requires frank discussion and tough questions, not more hot air about this cold gas.
Listen to the rebuttals against opponents of oil pipelines, coal, and fracking and a familiar refrain emerges – it goes something like this:
[quote]It’s hypocritical to attack fossil fuels, because we all depend on them and will continue to do so well into the future.[/quote]
In other words, renewable energy is too pie-in-the-sky to solve our present energy challenges, so quit standing in the way of much-needed expansion to our fossil fuel infrastructure.
The problem is that this sort of thinking is based on where renewables were at a decade ago, ignoring the enormous, lightning-speed progress the sector has made – pretty much everywhere in the industrial world, except Canada.
Here are 6 reasons why renewable energy is the real deal:
1. Solar is really, really cheap now
The combination of advancements in photovoltaic technology and the mass-production of solar – with China leading the way – has contributed to a remarkable decline in the cost of solar. According to the Huffington Post:
[quote]In the last 35 years prices have gone from $77/ watt to around $.75/ watt. That makes solar 99 percent cheaper than it used to be. Since 2008, the cost of coal has risen 13 percent. In some parts of the market, solar has already reached parity with coal![/quote]
Ironically, the cost of solar has fallen so much that to some, it’s almost too cheap. China’s exports of low-cost solar technology have sparked trade tariffs from the US and Europe, each trying to protect their own booming clean tech industries.
China leapt from 1% of the global solar market in 2004 to a staggering 50% – of a much bigger market – by 2012, demonstrating the rapid scalability of the industry, given the right public policy and investment capital.
2. (Green) jobs, jobs, jobs
It used to be – and still is in some corners of the world, like Canada – that the argument for fossil fuels was all the jobs they create. Well, by far the biggest job opportunities today lie in the renewable sector, not oil and gas.
[quote]In 2011, there were 372,000 people working in [Germany’s] clean energy sectors and the projections are such that these numbers are expected to be in the 400,000 to 500,000 range by 2020.[/quote]
Many of us have heard about Germany and Denmark in the wind space (28% of Danish electricity comes from wind), but Spain has also become an overnight wind energy success story.
China, for its part, had generated 150,000 jobs in the wind sector by 2009, which is predicted to rise to half a million by 2020.
Now, a cautionary note about the cost of renewables, particularly in Europe, where we’re seeing a rise in “energy poverty”. In places like Germany and Spain, there is mounting criticism that policies directed toward promoting clean tech – such as feed-in-tariffs – are unnecessarily driving energy costs out of reach for less affluent consumers. This problem highlights the need to achieve an effective balance between renewable energy promotion and social equity. Certainly, higher power costs can help stimulate conservation, but there is a point where that can go too far, souring citizens on green energy.
But these are problems that affect any energy choices we make: questions of scale, cost, environmental benefits vs. trade-offs, and, importantly, fairness to the citizen and energy consumer. Policies that neglect these concerns will only hinder the potential of renewable energy in the long run.
4. America gets in the game
Besides China and Europe – the clear global leaders in the green economy – the US is catching up.
According to Will Dubitsky:
[quote]Renewable energy capacity in the US doubled in the 5 years from 2008 to 2012…Between 2007 and 2012, oil consumption as a percentage of total US energy consumption dropped from 39.3% to 36.7%. The consumption of coal also dropped from 22.5% of total US energy consumption in 2007 to 18.1% in 2012.[/quote]
Meanwhile, the world’s largest solar array was just completed in the desert outside of Phoenix, Arizona. The Agua Caliente plant is set to power up to 230,000 homes at its peak capacity of 290 megawatts.
The Agua Caliente solar power array, near Phoenix, Arizona
According to Scientific American, the plant’s world record likely won’t last for long. “Other massive solar panel facilities, such as Antelope Valley Solar Ranch One in California’s Mojave Desert, are rapidly springing up across the Southwest.”
Adds Robert Margolis of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, “This series of large plants that are being built really mark the transition from the technology being something experimental to real energy on the grid.” Scientific American expects to see solar’s contribution to the US electrical grid – currently just 1% – rise dramatically in the coming years.
[quote]The average amount of electricity consumed in U.S. homes has fallen to levels last seen more than a decade ago, back when the smartest device in people’s pockets was a Palm pilot and anyone talking about a tablet was probably an archaeologist or a preacher.[/quote]
5. The Solutions are real
In spite of all of these examples of the miraculous growth of renewable energy, you may be thinking, “Yeah, but can it really replace fossil fuels?”
In a word, “Yes”.
I interviewed Professor Robert Howarth at Cornell University last week. Howarth is famous for changing the way we think about “natural” gas, demonstrating that fracking has a much higher carbon footprint than coal, as a result of “fugitive methane emissions” – small but persistent leaks of the potent greenhouse gas, throughout the extraction and transmission processes (methane can be up to 86 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2, over a 20 year period).
The fact that these fugitive emissions are actually between 3.6% and 7.9% – much higher than previously thought – renders the terms “clean” or “natural” gas oxymorons, putting to bed the idea of gas as a “bridge fuel” (anything over 2.8% and gas is worse than coal).
But Howarth and a group of US Ivy League professors are doing much more than complaining about greenhouse gas-intensive fossil fuels. They are also the braintrust behind the “Solutions Project”, which is developing real, customized plans for each US state to get 100% off of fossil fuels by 2050. On their website, they show exactly how we could realistically get there.
Meanwhile, according to CNN, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren said climate change “already is affecting every region of the country and key sectors of the economy.”
The government’s fixation on fossil fuels is puzzling, given that job creation is the sole justification on which it hangs its hat. When the National Energy Board recommended in favour of the proposed Enbridge diluted bitumen pipeline from the Alberta oil/tar sands to the west coast, the only reason we were given was that it was in Canada’s economic “national interest”.
But, as we’ve observed in these pages, the evidence doesn’t support this dogmatic notion. On the contrary, Canada saw just 16,500 jobs created in the entire oil and gas sector from 2000-2011, while it shed 520,000 manufacturing jobs over the same period. Even Industry Canada acknowledges that something like a third of those manufacturing jobs were lost due to “resource-driven currency appreciation” (i.e. our petro-dollar is artificially high, thus hampering exports).
It would seem that Canada is locked into a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy feedback loop. We tell ourselves we must invest in fossil fuels because that’s where all the jobs are…which is because we refuse to create jobs in alternate, sustainable sectors.
The necessary project of transitioning off of fossil fuels is no mean feat, to be sure. It requires a network of related solutions – reducing energy demand through public transit, urban density, more efficient homes, businesses, and machines; not only diverting fossil fuel subsidies to renewable energy, but pricing carbon effectively; finally, taking advantage of the amazing improvements and cost-reductions in renewable energy.
That and we’ll have to be willing to make a few sacrifices – but not the kind that necessarily diminish the richness or quality of our lives; in fact they may offer surprising improvements in these areas.
But we’ll only get there if we have the necessary public and political will. And that begins with no longer allowing governments and representatives of the fossil fuel industry to get away with tired, old cop-outs, like renewables are impractical for providing our future energy needs.
Renewable energy is no longer a joke, just like climate change is no laughing matter.
