Category Archives: Energy and Resources

Japan’s Fukushima radiation crisis: a Good News/Bad News story

September 11, 2013Energy and Resources, Nuclear, Ocean Health, OceansDamien Gillis

Fukushima Crisis: At least the world is finally paying attention — Fukushima’s crippled Reactor 4, which contains 1,500 precariously-perched, radioactive fuel rods

Addiction experts say the first step toward recovery is recognizing you have a problem.

In that sense, perhaps we’re finally making some progress on what may be the greatest single threat humanity has ever faced: the nuclear catastrophe at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

In recent months – partly driven by fresh concerns about radioactive water leaking into the Pacific Ocean and drifting toward North America’s shores – the media and governments beyond Japan have started to pay attention.

Worst-case scenario concerns surrounding Fukushima have moved from the realm of tin foil hats to accepted reality. The trouble is the science is scarce and much of what little information we do have comes via TEPCO – the private company at the root of the disaster – whose data has been openly questioned by Japan’s nuclear regulator.

As a result of this increased scrutiny, I expect we’ll soon see a crisis management overhaul, with international agencies becoming more involved, while TEPCO receives greater oversight or cedes operational control to the Japanese Government (though there’s a running debate as to who has screwed up worse, TEPCO or the government).

Under the glare of the TV lights, we’re now seeing a heightened urgency in developing and implementing the long-term fixes needed to stem a potential nuclear armageddon.

All this is relatively good news.

The bad news: it’s still the greatest single threat humanity has ever faced. And we’re a long, long way from being out of the woods.

Chernobyl x 10

I first wrote about the crux of the problem 2 years ago in a story titled, “Fukushima Reactor 4: The most important story nobody’s talking about”.

Yet, as was the point of my piece, the mainstream media and political establishment simply weren’t talking about it, leaving TEPCO – the inept, fraudulent private company that created this debacle – to manage and botch the emergency response. (These are the geniuses who put the back-up generators needed for cooling radioactive fuel on the ground floor of nuclear reactors in Tsunami Alley).

At the time, US Senator Ron Wyden and a pair of former Japanese diplomats were about the only political figures raising the spectre of Fukushima.

In a nutshell, they warned there are some 1,500 highly radioactive, spent fuel rods being stored atop the badly damaged Reactor 4 in cooling tanks that could easily crack, should another sizeable earthquake hit. The rods would quickly overheat, exploding gazillions of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, eventually coating the globe with more radiation than we could ever fathom.

A former top advisor at the US Department of Energy, Dr. Robert Alvarez, explained the nature of the threat after conducting his own review of the Fukushima situation: “If an earthquake or other event were to cause this [No. 4] pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cesium-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.” (emphasis added)

Former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland and Senegal, Mitsuhei Murata, wrote to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

[quote]It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on No. 4 reactor.[/quote]

So all that stands between us and an unimaginable cataclysm is an earthquake. In one of the world’s most seismically active regions.

Polluting the Pacific

Another, more immediate problem would emerge – radioactive water seeping (gushing of late) from the plant into the Pacific Ocean.

Fukushima radioactive water crisis returns — Radioactive water is leaking from these containment tanks at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant (Kyodo/Reuters)

This issue is related with the seismic one in several ways. First, this radioactive water is likely flowing from one or a number of steel tanks holding water used to cool melted nuclear fuel. Another earthquake, should it cause any of the 1,060 metal tanks to burst, would lead to a significant infusion of contamination into the Pacific.

Of more immediate concern is the liquefaction occurring beneath the plant as a result of TEPCO’s crude efforts to bar the radioactive water from entering the ocean. The company has built a subsurface barrier – using chemicals to solidify the ground and block the flow of groundwater – with the unintended consequence of saturating and destabilizing the ground upon which the hobbled Reactor 4 and others teeter.

It is largely this issue that has woken up the world’s media and political leaders in recent months. Suddenly, we’ve seen a torrent of investigative journalism on the subject – from National Geographic to Japan’s national papers, The Washington Post, Guardian, CNN and wire services like Bloomberg and Reuters. The Chinese Government has been weighing in, expressing shock at the inadequate response by its neighbour’s leaders.

Suddenly, everyone is paying attention.

The International Olympic Committee is rather an anomaly in not being phased by the the increasingly alarming situation at Fukushima – having just awarded 2020 Games to Tokyo.

Radioactive fish

Questions about the health of fish caught in the Pacific Ocean have begun to surface – while South Korea recently took the significant step of banning the import of fish from the Fukushima region of Japan.

These are hardly idle concerns. Last year, Stanford University researchers found 15 out of 15 bluefin tuna they caught off the coast of California tested positive for elevated levels of cesium-134 and cesium-137.

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Both Tepco and Japan’s political leaders face intensifying scrutiny for their respective roles in the initial disaster and its aftermath.

Just last week, in response to heightened pressure around this issue, the Japanese Government stepped up, pledging to invest close to half a billion dollars to build a 27 meter-deep frozen wall to hold back contaminated water ,while maintaining (we hope) some structural integrity to the soil below the plant.

It may prove a harebrained scheme, reminiscent of BP’s increasingly comical tactics in an attempt to stem the flow of its Deepwater Horizon well blow-out (remember the golf balls?). But I’ll take the Japanese Government getting off its ass as a generally positive sign.

Heads rolling, things changing

Fukushima has already brought down one government and countless officials in Japan. The prime minister who presided over the initial disaster and recovery efforts, Naoto Kan, recently dodged criminal charges stemming from Fukushima, as did other senior politicians and TEPCO officials. That doesn’t mean they’ll evade the raft of civil suits headed their way.

Shinzo Abe — PM Shizo Abe is talking tough on Fukushima – will it translate into action? (photo: Tokyo Times)

It’s an ongoing debate as to which entity is more to blame for the disaster – TEPCO or the Japanese Government. Of late, the scales of public disapproval are tipping in the direction of the Abe administration. A recent poll by Asahi News found that 72% of Japanese people believe the government’s response to recent concerns of leaking water was “late”.

But, again, thanks to this heightened pressure, things seem to be changing – and quickly.

As of now, Tepco is still in charge of the clean-up and decomissioning operation (if you can call it that in their hands) – but just this week, the Japanese Government announced it is striking a special team to oversee these efforts going forward, a welcome development so long as it follows through in a meaningful way.

Prime Minster Abe is certainly signing a different tune from his predecessor, calling into question TEPCO’S future management of the situation:

[quote]Instead of the ad hoc approaches that have been taken in the past, we put together a basic policy today that will offer a fundamental solution to the problem of contaminated water. The world is closely watching to see whether the decommissioning of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, including the contaminated water problem, can be achieved.[/quote]

In June, the Abe government announced it was speeding up efforts to remove those scary spent fuel rods atop Reactor 4 – perhaps the best news yet on the Fukushima file.

Light at the end of a very long tunnel…if we’re lucky

Part of the problem underlying the slow response to this enormous threat may be that it’s just too awful to contemplate. Makes for bad cocktail conversation. Really, who wants to discuss the nut-and-bolts of a situation that could be 10 times worse than Chernobyl? And even if we do talk about it, what can we do?

On the other hand, perhaps talking about it is the most valuable thing us regular folks can do. It’s through this pressure – much of which has built through independent media, grassroots groups, and concerned citizens – that Japan is starting to look alive in their response.

Yet, despite Prime Minister Abe’s assurances that the crisis will be resolved by the 2020 Olympics, experts warn that a successful decomissioning of the site will likely take decades – if we can get over the intial danger posed by the water leaks and unstable fuel rods.

Complicating decommissioning efforts is the high level of radiation around the plant (which recently spiked) – making it dangerous for workers to spend much time on site, even with state-of-the-art safety gear.

If we’re lucky, this will evolve into a long emergency that takes 40 years or more to resolve.

At Chernbobyl, they burried the problem – literally – in a massive concrete sarcophagus (which is now due for a rebuild, as it turns out). With Fukushima’s proximity to the ocean and strong movement of groundwater beneath, it’s like having a trap-door under the tomb – so Fukushima will be far more complicated.

But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done – to some extent at least – with enough political will, technical and financial dedication.

Time for other leaders to step up

Given the global consequences if Fukushima continues to spin out of control – and the magnitude of the engineering feat required to prevent that from happening – we need proactive leadership from beyond Japan. What role did Fukushima play in the recent G20 talks compared to, say, Syria?

In Canada, we need to see some serious action from Prime Minister Stephen Harper – in terms of joining the chorus of international leaders pressuring Japan, but also offering support wherever possible.

On the homefront, it’s time to get serious about the possible health impacts for Canadians. Instead, we’re headed in the opposite direction, scaling back ocean pollution monitoring – one piece of a larger war on science being waged by Canada’s Conservative Government.

Even the BC public health officer overseeing concerns about Fukushima – who has warned that fears about fish contaminated by Fukushima are overblown – is now asking the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to conduct another round of testing.

The public needs to know that our governments are taking this issue seriously – and their “see no evil, hear no evil” approach to date is insufficient.

It’s a start

Even if Canada isn’t taking Fukushima seriously, others are starting to. The Olympics may be a positive motivator too, as they raise the stakes and international pressure on Japan to get the situation under control.

And compared to two years ago, the amount of media attention – from the world’s top outlets – is a welcome change.

In the end, our fate depends at least partly on luck. Can we move quickly enough to address the biggest single challenge in our history, before what would be the most devastating earthquake of all-time? (I say “we” because we all need to start thinking that way, as a global community facing a common threat).

At least, with this heightened sense of awareness, urgency and action, we can say our odds are improving.

Rafe: Union bosses fall for Clark’s LNG pipe dream

September 10, 2013Energy and Resources, LNGRafe Mair

Rafe: Union bosses fall for Clark's LNG pipedream — BC Premier Christy Clark and BC Fed President Jim Sinclair (photos: CP, Glen Baglo/PNG)

When I read that BC Federation of Labour President Jim Sinclair and Tom Sigurdson, head of the BC-Yukon Building Trades Council, had arrived at a deal with Premier Clark on training workers for the liquefied natural gas (LNG) business we’re told is coming, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Now let me make this clear – there is northing wrong and a lot right when traditional political foes shake hands on a deal that is beneficial to them or to the people of BC, or both. Way back in the 70s, Socred Labour Minister Allan Williams worked well with labour because there was trust.

Kicking Dix in the family jewels

The question this latest deal raises is more fundamental than simply making a deal that may never happen, complete with photo-ops in which, I might say, Mr. Sinclair looked most uncomfortable.

That this meeting kicks NDP Leader Adrian Dix right in the family jewels is obvious. Mr. Sinclair’s position goes way beyond NDP inner-politics and raises some interesting questions.

In his remarks, Mr. Sinclair talked about his members “building things”, as a basis for supporting LNG. He then went out of his way to attack Dix for opposing for the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion to Vancouver.

Let’s look at a couple of issues that make me think Mr. Sinclair is for anything that can be built.

The risks of LNG

What if, as I believe (and I’m not alone), no LNG plant goes ahead? Apart from the fact that he will have a lot of fences to mend with his own members, Mr. Sinclair will be tied to a failure.

What evidence does he have about what an LNG pipelines and plants will do environmentally? If Mr. Sinclair doesn’t give a damn and his position is simply an attack on Mr. Dix, that’s one thing – but if he believes some LNG pipelines and plants will be built, surely his members and the public-at-large should know about these fatcors.

[quote]According to Bloomberg, the Asian price for LNG should collapse to the point where we’re actually losing money – right about the time we enter the market.[/quote]

Apart from LNG pipeline builders, who will mostly come from outside BC, and a few non-union white-collar jobs at the plant, where are the jobs for British Columbians?

For an LNG pipeline and plant to make sense, one must know what market there will be years ahead, when the plants are finally operational. If there are firm deals made – and open to public scrutiny – we must know what the price will be five years down the road.

Incidentally, according to Bloomberg, using the best data available, the Asian price for LNG should collapse to the point where we’re actually losing money, right about the time we enter the market.

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What if the LNG entrepreneur wants to bring his regular crew in to construct the project? Is it Mr. Sinclair’s position that they can be barred to make way for local workers? Has Premier Clark guaranteed this? In advance of any action on the project?

Mr. Sinclair makes it pretty clear that he’s not concerned about the environment – if there’s something to be built, then let’s build it. He’s given his blessing for LNG projects before most of the dozen or so proposed have gone through environmental assessment of the plants or the pipelines associated with them. And that’s saying nothing of the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), which would supply these pipelines and plants.

What about Fracking?

Let’s look at the last piece.

Environmental concerns are not piddling matters. Fracking involves deep drilling then using huge quantities of chemically-laced water. Where does that water come from? Where does it go? What about the stability of the ground around the extraction?

I infer from your comments, Mr. Sinclair, that you approve of the new Kinder Morgan pipeline and the Enbridge pipeline. I realize that you’re from Ontario and thus not as concerned about the beauty of this province as natives are. So are you saying that ”building” trumps environmental concerns?

Surely, you don’t insult the intelligence of the public by saying that Government/Industry environmental processes actually work! We know, for example, that Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver and our Prime Minister have said that the Enbridge Pipeline will go ahead regardless of the findings of the Joint Review Panel hearings.

What you say, Mr. Sinclair, whether you think so or not, is that all members of the BC Federation of Labour must support LNG, the Enbridge pipeline and the Kinder Morgan expansion. The thousands of British Columbians who have strong environmental concerns must, if they are union members, change their evil ways and all get behind whatever project will allegedly get them jobs.

To meet with the government and try to get a good deal for your members is a very good idea, unless you’ve been played for a fool – which you just have been.

Neil Young: ‘Fort McMurray is a wasteland’

September 10, 2013Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, Tar SandsCanadian Press

Singer comes out swinging against Keystone Pipeline.

OTTAWA – Neil Young is singing a new tune, claiming he’s seen the pipeline and the damage done.

The Canadian music legend has waded into the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline with inflammatory comments that compare Fort McMurray, Alta., to the scene of an atomic bomb strike.

Young declared himself “against the Keystone pipeline in a big way” as he described a recent driving visit to Fort McMurray, home base to northern Alberta’s oil sands development.

“The fact is, Fort McMurray looks like Hiroshima,” Young, 67, said at an event Tuesday in Washington hosted by Democratic Senator Harry Reid and the National Farmers Union.

[quote]Fort McMurray is a wasteland. The Indians up there and the native peoples are dying. The fuel’s all over, there’s fumes everywhere. You can smell it when you get to town.[/quote]

“Fort McMurray is a wasteland. The Indians up there and the native peoples are dying. The fuel’s all over, there’s fumes everywhere. You can smell it when you get to town.”

tarsands industry-kris krüg — Tar Sands infrastructure near Fort McMurray (photo: Kris Krüg)

His comments came the same day that Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver was in the American capital talking up Canadian environmental policy and TransCanada’s Keystone project, which is designed to carry Alberta oil sands bitumen to refineries on the Texas gulf coast.

“This is truly a disaster and America is supporting this,” Young said of the oil sands.

“It’s very unfortunate that this is where we get the majority of our fuel from.”

Oliver, through his office, issued a short email response Tuesday.

“I am a fan of Neil Young’s music,” said the minister.

“But on this matter we disagree because Keystone XL will displace heavy oil from Venezuela, which has the same or higher greenhouse gas emissions, with a stable and secure source of Canadian oil.”

Young’s graphic description of Fort McMurray also left some locals scratching their heads.

“I’ve lived here nine years. I’ve raised my kids here,” said Will Gibson, a spokesman for Syncrude, who related how his morning jog Tuesday included a fox sighting. “It’s a beautiful community.”

Air-quality readings are better than most metropolitan cities, said Gibson.

“I would have loved to give Mr. Young a chance to see the Fort McMurray I know,” he said.

[quote]Young, in his address, likened the jobs that will be created by the $5.4-billion Keystone pipeline project to digging a bottomless pit.[/quote]

Young, in his address, likened the jobs that will be created by the $5.4-billion Keystone pipeline project to digging a bottomless pit.

“I’ve seen a lot of people that would dig a hole that’s so deep that they couldn’t get out of it, and that’s a job too. And I think that’s the jobs that we are talking about there with the Keystone pipeline,” said Young.

Young, who has lived in the United States since his early 20s but remains a Canadian music icon for songs such as Helpless, After the Gold Rush and Heart of Gold, has a long history of wading into politically sensitive territory.

He’s been involved with Farm Aid, an organization to save family farms, for decades.

In 1970 he wrote and recorded a raging ode to four students shot dead by National Guardsmen at Kent State University during protests of the Vietnam War. The song, Ohio, hit the airwaves within three weeks of the shooting, further inflaming an already impassioned U.S. debate.

His songs Southern Man and Alabama, about racism in the American south, prompted a blistering musical riposte from the band Lynyrd Skynyrd, Sweet Home Alabama.

His 1975 song Cortez the Killer was banned in Spain by Gen. Francisco Franco because of its dark depiction of Spanish imperialism.

Young recorded a tribute single in 2001 to the doomed passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

His 2003 album Greendale was a folksy indictment of environmental degradation, government corruption and the news media, and in 2006 his Living With War album took aim at the continuing military morass in Iraq, including the less-than-subtle song, Let’s Impeach the President.

Young said he drove his hybrid 1959 Lincoln Continental, which runs on ethanol and electricity, up to Fort McMurray while traversing the continent from his California home to Washington over the last two and half weeks.

“That’s a long way, I still feel it,” he said of the long detour north.

With all this Oil and ‘Energy Security’, where’s the Money?

September 10, 2013Economics, Energy and Resources, Oil&GasKevin Grandia

With all this Oil and 'Energy Security' where's the Money — Prime Minister Stephen Harper, discussing trade on a visit to China (Sean Kilpatrick/CP)

Ask yourself this: why, if Canada has the third largest proven oil reserves in the world, is our country in such massive debt?

Why do post-secondary education prices continue to soar for our youth?

Why is our health care system continually going on life support?

Why does Canada have some of the highest child poverty rates amongst the so-called developed nations?

[quote]If Canada has the third largest proven oil reserves in the world, why is our country in such massive debt?[/quote]

After all, as our government will tell you, we are the Saudi Arabia of the North.

Right?

Canada leaking oil profits

While the tar sands do create much-needed jobs for some, for the most part Canadians get nothing for handing over our oil reserves to foreign oil companies to ship overseas. Most countries ask oil companies for a large percentage of their profits in exchange for access to the country’s oil.

Alberta Tar Sands — Canada gets all the environmental impacts and few of the benefits from operations like this one in Fort McMurray, Alberta (photo: Chris Krüg)

For instance, in Norway, they ask oil companies for about 70% of their profits. That might sound high, but the oil sector in Norway is a booming success and a major driver of the economy.

In Canada, our country does not collect any royalties. Alberta collects a pittance – about 12%.

Instead of money, the outlook for Canadians and oil is not wealth, it is the long-term consequences of pollution, lakes of toxic sludge, foul air and polluted waterways. We’ll be dealing with those issues long after the likes of Petro-China have moved on.

The longterm outlook for Norway is very different from ours. Despite having only the 22nd largest proven oil reserves, Norway is on track to have stowed away more than $1 trillion for their people and future generations. Note: that is a “t”rillon, not a “b”illion. As the Business Insider said just today, “Norway has more money than it knows what to do with.”

Canada a Petro-State?

Why has it come to this you ask? Why is Canada so oil-rich, but so poor?

I would propose that our politicians are to blame. And Stephen Harper is the latest in a long parade of politicians who rely on the deep pockets of the oil industry to fund their political campaigns. If a politician was to propose higher royalties for oil and gas companies, they would see campaign money dry up from not only the oil companies, but the companies behind them, like the banks and large investment firms.

However, if a leader was to emerge and demand that we make the tar sands work for Canadians and not PetroChina, Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum, that person could reap the support of millions of Canadians who agree with this injustice.

If we had a leader that stood up for Canadians, instead of oil companies, we too could have more money than we know what to do with and could start to repair the damage wrought on us by politicians addicted to oil.

The Common Sense Canadian is proud to introduce Kevin Grandia as a new contributor!

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Beaver Lake Cree case reveals environmental review flaws

August 28, 2013Energy and Resources, First Nations, Oil&Gas, Tar SandsDr. David Suzuki

Beaver Lake Cree case reveals flaws in environmental review process — Fort McMurray, Alberta (photo: Kris Krüg)

In the 1980s, oil companies looked to the Arctic and made plans to drill in ecologically sensitive areas like Lancaster Sound. The sound is icebound for much of the year, but during its brief summer months, it offers near-constant sunlight, providing habitat for birds, fish and mammals to flourish. Fossil fuel exploration and development would threaten that entire web of life.

For a Nature of Things television episode called “Arctic Oil”, I interviewed a spokesman for Panarctic, one of the companies that wanted to drill in this unforgiving environment. Pressing his pencil onto a map of the projected site, he said the environmental consequences of a single test well were insignificant, less than the impact of the dot. He was probably right.

For a program on the proposed Great Whale Dam in Northern Quebec, Hydro Quebec’s CEO showed me a map and offered a similar argument: Although the dam would flood thousands of hectares, considering the massive size of the largely uninhabited north, it was a small area. Again, he may have been right, in a limited sense. But while the human population was sparse, I saw the area as fully occupied by countless plants and animals that had evolved to thrive in that specific location, and people who had lived there for millennia.

This illustrates a fundamental flaw in the environmental assessment process: It focuses on each proposed development as something that stands alone. But an individual well or dam is not separate or isolated from its surroundings – air, water, plants and animals pay no attention to our imposed, artificial boundaries.

We only have limited understanding of the exquisite ways in which everything on Earth is interconnected. Suppose environmental assessments had been conducted before we sprayed DDT onto open fields or topped up spray cans with CFCs. We didn’t know about biomagnification or chlorine degradation of the ozone layer until long after these technologies were approved. This is a fundamental problem. We can’t anticipate long-term consequences of any major technology if we are ignorant of how the world works and too impatient to invest the time and effort to learn more through scientific research.

A second defect in the EA process is the case-by-case examination of projects as if there were no collective impacts. In Alberta, energy review boards rubber-stamp proposals to drill wells. Again, each individual well might have a tiny effect on surroundings, but wells drag a lot with them, including seismic lines, electrical wires and roads that later entice hunters and adventurers in four-wheel-drive vehicles.

A lawsuit launched by the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, described by Carol Linnitt in a DesmogBlog article, illustrates the problem. The Beaver Lake people are suing the federal and provincial governments for failing to uphold indigenous rights, guaranteed by treaties and the Constitution, to fish, hunt, trap and gather plants and medicines. The BLCN contends that “cumulative impacts” of the Alberta tar sands are destroying activities governments are legally bound to protect.

BLCN lands cover an area the size of Switzerland and overlap the tar sands. The territory now yields 560,000 barrels of oil a day. Industry wants to raise that to 1.6 million. BLCN land already has 35,000 oil and gas sites, 21,700 kilometres of seismic lines, 4,028 kilometres of pipelines and 948 kilometres of road. Traditional territory has been carved into a patchwork quilt, with wild land reduced to small pieces between roads, pipes and wires, threatening animals like woodland caribou that can’t adapt to these intrusions.

As Alberta scientist David Schindler and others point out, provincial and federal government programs monitoring the impacts of tar sands development on air, water and land are so desultory that the data they collect are essentially meaningless. This echoes the federal government’s evasive approach to climate change. The idea seems to be that if proper studies aren’t conducted, we won’t learn what’s happening, so we can ignore any problems. That can’t go on.

The BLCN court case makes us look at the impact of development in a cumulative, holistic way. As BCLN lawyer Jack Woodward said, the case “is based on protection of the entire ecosystem.” If we don’t take that perspective, our hacking away with small cuts will destroy the underpinnings of the whole system.

The Thorium reactor energy option

August 27, 2013Energy and Resources, NuclearRay Grigg

The Thorium Reactor Energy Option — a thorium proton accelerator

Nothing summarizes the nuclear power debacle better than the old adage, “…as we begin, so shall we go.” For half a century, the electrical power industry has been trying to make success of failure, safety of danger, and efficiency of wastefulness because it chose the wrong nuclear fuel to produce electricity from reactors. Instead of using thorium, it used uranium, and the economic, political and environmental costs of this mistake have been incalculable.

But “mistake” is technically not the correct word. The decision to use uranium rather than thorium was more a tragic misjudgment, a foolish choice based on the worst of reasons. At the end of World War II, the United States was flush with political and military power — and the atom bomb.

Uranium was the element that released the explosive power of this bomb, and it was the element favoured by the military because it produced the fissile plutonium needed for escalating the nuclear arms race that came to be called the Cold War. Prototypes of thorium reactors had been operated successfully and their safe production of electricity had already been demonstrated. This was the reactor favoured for commercial use by physicists like Alvin Weinberg, a thorium proponent (Superfuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source of the Future, by Richard Martin). But a proliferation of thorium reactors was opposed by military minds such as Hyman Rickover, an admiral in the US navy, who wanted to preserve the dominance of uranium reactors because its byproducts could be easily weaponized — not one of thorium’s qualities. When the upper echelons of the military migrated to the corporations building nuclear reactors, they brought with them their preference for uranium, even though it was a far more unstable and dangerous fuel than thorium.

History has demonstrated this danger. The arms race effectively contaminated the energy equation so that we now have the worst of both possibilities. We have a planet loaded with nuclear bombs, massive amounts of persistent radioactive wastes, reactors capable of catastrophic meltdowns, unmanageable radioactive contamination, expensive power, terrorist threats, and weaponized political brinkmanship. We also have a continuing dependence on fossil fuels, the filthy and polluting energy that creates a host of its own messy problems.

Although most of the world’s 400-plus uranium-powered nuclear power stations have produced electricity safely, the exceptions of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima Daiichi have been sufficiently traumatic to make the public wary of all nuclear power. The storage and disposal of radioactive wastes, far more plentiful and enduring than from thorium reactors, continue to be an unsolved problem.

Thorium reactors, their proponents argue, are far safer than uranium reactors, are incapable of melt-downs, are much cheaper to build (most of the construction costs of uranium-based reactors are in safety features), can be scaled down to fit the energy needs of small communities, need almost no maintenance, consume all their thorium fuel, would produce only 10 percent of uranium’s radioactive wastes, and are even capable of utilizing existing uranium wastes as a supplemental fuel. Furthermore, thorium is about four times more plentiful than uranium and can be found almost anywhere (NewScientist, May 26/12).

The secret to thorium’s safety is its reluctance to become fissile — nuclear science deems it “fertile” rather than “fissile”. Unlike uranium-235, which is neutron rich and unstable, thorium’s emission of neutrons during radiation breakdown is termed “sub-critical”, not sufficiently plentiful to cause a chain reaction and an uncontrolled meltdown. To make thorium fissile enough to generate energy, neutrons must be forcibly added to it, so a simple safety feature that removes the neutron source causes a thorium reaction to die down. By using neutrons from the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of dangerous nuclear wastes created by the world’s uranium-based reactors, thorium reactors could be designed to convert most of this waste to useful energy.

Given the present threat of global climate change from the excessive burning of fossil fuels for energy, thorium appears to be a tempting option in the world’s energy equation. Thorium’s radioactive wastes would be dangerous for a mere 200 years rather than the tens of thousands of years for uranium’s wastes, and its byproducts would provide almost no fissile material for making bombs. China and India are now building models of thorium reactors with the intention of testing their promising capabilities.

The current candidate presented to the Department of Energy in the US is a so-called SSTAR thorium reactor, an acronym for “small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor”. It is a large cylinder about 3 metres in diameter by 15 metres long, weighing about 500 tonnes. The price for this 100 megawatt reactor could eventually be reduced to about $220 million, one-fifth the cost of a conventional uranium reactor. It would be moveable by truck, rail or ship, does not need containing walls, could be used safely within ordinary industrial buildings, or even be buried for 20-year periods without maintenance. Its size could be scaled down for specific uses — a 5 tonne thorium reactor of 1 megawatt output could provide power to a small town and cost as little as $250,000.

Thorium reactors may not be the perfect energy source. But, if we cannot find sufficient renewable power to fill the needs of our energy-hungry civilization, thorium reactors would be a far better alternative than uranium reactors, and preferable to unleashing the catastrophic environmental effects of burning fossil fuels.

Media asleep as Alberta oil companies bought BC election

August 22, 2013Energy and Resources, Media, Oil&Gas, Politics, Western CanadaRafe Mair

How Alberta oil companies bought the BC election - and the media missed it — Premier Christy Clark tours BC’s natural gas industry during 2013 election campaign (photo: Justin Tang/CP)

I started the week pissed off – make that Tuesday morning when I saw an article in the Province from a guy named Marsden who writes in the Calgary Herald and tells us in British Columbia that we ought to be grateful for the opportunity of transporting Alberta’s Tar Sands – that atmosphere-ravisher and source of catastrophic leaks – to market. I don’t begrudge him his opinion – what I’m sick to death of is the Postmedia press.

Where the hell are the sharp-eyed journalists of old that would have eaten this guy alive? Our local guys are almost all let go. We have no political cartoonist unless you count Harrop in the Sun, who’s incapable of drawing faces, and we have two editorial pages that serially kiss the ass of business. On the question of cartoonists, where is Krieger, who is brilliant? The last time I asked that question the Province sued me – yet, I ask again, where is Krieger?

I ask the editors of the two excuses for newspapers this simple question: would you please scour the morgue and find me one line of criticism editorially or by your two political columnists of fish farms, “run of river projects” and the slow-but-steady bankrupting of BC Hydro, of pipelines and tanker traffic? Just a line.

I recognize that Palmer and Smyth have families to feed and kids to educate and were I in their shoes I probably would write what my editor wanted and I would ignore topics that were, wink, wink, off limits. But, gawdamitey, Palmer almost singlehandedly brought NDP premier Glen Clark down and did so by holding his feet to the fire. Nothing sensational, just good old journalistic skepticism.

What happened? Ten years on the NDP’s case but, since 2001, 12 years of canoodling with the Liberals!

The week got worse when Damien sent me some stuff about out of province corporate donations from oil barons to both the BC Liberal Party and the NDP.

And where did he get this information? From the Vancouver Sun? Nay.

From the Province, then?

Nay again, it was from 24 Hours – the throwaway free paper which, along with Metro and the occasional bit in the BC section of the Toronto Globe and Mail (it is very occasional), are the “journals of record” for this news-starved province.

One man, Allan Paul Marking, an Alberta Oil dude, gave $150,000 to the Liberals. Alberta oil companies Encana and Cenovus gave them $68,000 and Texas based Spectra Energy gave $33,000. Many made donations to the NDP too, just in case.

No one can be surprised at these gifts – after all it’s all neat and legal. What I do criticize is the lack of mainstream media attention.

This isn’t brain surgery here. The man who pays the piper calls the tune. If you think that this money doesn’t make Premier Clark think nice things about them when she’s making her pipeline decisions, you must believe in the Great Pumpkin.

What is extraordinary about all this is that for the public to get the truth they must read online journals like this one and thetyee.ca, which, along with many others, do a first class job. They may not get the readership of the Postmedia papers – yet – but that’s because the old papers do stuff on cars, stock markets, real estate, etc, that are beyond the ken of these websites.

It’s bad enough that we have such crappy papers that rely on “foreign” columnists, but the killer is that the great issues of the world pass unnoticed and uncriticized. The press has unusual protection, constitutionally giving them wide freedoms to keep the “establishment” reasonably covered, yet they consistently flout these rights and have become house organs for big business, government and the “establishment” in general.

It is truly to weep.

LNG plant’s comment period extended over missing river

August 21, 2013Energy and Resources, LNG, Pipelines and SupertankersDamien Gillis

LNG plant's comment period extended over missing river controversy — Petronas/Progress Energy’s proposed Lelu Island LNG plant -artist’s rendering

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) announced today that it’s extending the public comment period for a controversial, proposed Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) plant near Prince Rupert. Concerns were raised last week by West Coast Environmental Law (WCEL) over an incorrect map in the project description documents, which made Canada’s second largest salmon river, the Skeena, disappear.

As The Common Sense Canadian reported on Friday, the plant, proposed by Malaysian energy giant Petronas’ Canadian subsidiary, Progress Energy, would be situated amid vital salmon habitat in the Skeena estuary. According to WCEL, that would have been a red flag for many citizens and environmental groups had the project documents accurately reflected this important fact. As a result, the federal agency reviewing the proposal received less feedback than a project of this nature would ordinarily elicit – a point CEAA conceded with its announcement today that public comments will now be accepted until September 20.

Funding applications for groups and individuals to engage with the project’s environmental assessment process will also now be accepted until September 20.

“We are very pleased that CEAA has acknowledged the potential confusion that resulted from this incorrect map,” says WCEL Executive Director Jessica Clogg. “It’s a small piece of good news for the Skeena salmon…Flora Bank, which sits directly adjacent to the proposed project, is critical salmon habitat that was omitted from the original map.”

Clogg’s enthusiasm is tempered, though, by larger concerns which remain around the lack of big-picture review for the whole LNG program, which contains up to 12 different proposals in Kitimat and Prince Rupert.

“The ‘Case of the missing Skeena’ may have been resolved in the short term, but we still have this piecemeal approach to reviewing myriad projects, which makes it harder for people to catch things like a missing river. What we need is a process that takes a strategic look at all of the potential cumulative impacts on the things that British Columbians care about – our salmon, water, air quality and climate.”

The engineering firm that produced the faulty map, Stantec, blamed the mistake on an error that arose from combining incompatible federal and provincial mapping data sets, as senior principle Ward Prystay explained yesterday to Metro News:

“The provincial data sets and the federal data sets in this specific area didn’t compliment each other,” he said, explaining that after using layers that show First Nations communities, provincial parks, roads, railways and tidal lines, the Skeena somehow disappeared.

“…Where there was missing data they actually inserted a blue background on it to be able to get the water to show up looking like blue on the [revised] map.”

According to Karen Fish of CEAA, “The corrected map has also been included retroactively in the original project. Both the original map and the new revised map will be made available on the Agency’s website, along with a notice referring to the revision and the date on which it took place.”

Petronas makes Skeena River disappear in LNG proposal

August 15, 2013Energy and Resources, LNG, Oil&GasDamien Gillis

Malaysian energy giant makes Skeena River disappear in LNG proposal — Petronas/Progress Energy’s proposed LNG plant on Lelu Island, near Prince Rupert, BC (artist’s rendering)

You would think Malaysian energy giant Petronas would have learned a lesson from fellow fossil fuel pipeline and coastal export terminal proponent Enbridge’s “disappearing islands” debacle last year. Enbridge was caught downplaying the risks of its Northern Gateway proposal by making 1,000 square km of islands vanish from the Douglas Channel in a digital animation of its tanker route from Kitimat.

Curiously, Petronas is following in Enbridge’s infamous footsteps with a blatantly inaccurate project description document for its proposed Pacific Northwest LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) terminal near Prince Rupert. The document, submitted earlier this year to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) by Petronas’ newly-bought Canadian subsidiary, Progress Energy, made Canada’s second largest salmon river, the Skeena, disappear.

The inaccurate map was later corrected via a statement on CEAA’s website,but remains within the original project description document. The two maps are shown here, side-by-side.

West Coast Environmental Law, acting on behalf of its client, T. Buck Suzuki Foundation – an intervener in the LNG project’s environmental review – is calling for an extension to the now-closed window for public comment on Petronas’ project description and applications for funding for concerned groups and individuals to engage with future environmental hearings. In an August 14 letter to the federal agency overseeing the review, staff lawyer Andrew Gage wrote:

[quote]Notice is a key requirement of procedural fairness, and an inaccurate map that fails to indicate the proximity of the project to such a key environmentally significant feature fundamentally undermines that requirement…In our view, the Agency has an obligation to invite further public input related to the draft EIS and further opportunity to apply for participant funding.[/quote]

The mighty Skeena River, which flows from the Sacred Headwaters, near the community of Iskut in northwest BC, to the Pacific Ocean near Prince Rupert, is in dire straits these days. Its once-plentiful salmon stocks are in their worst condition in several decades this season, raising concerns about the impact of Petronas’ enormous proposed LNG terminal and associated tanker traffic through vital estuary habitat.

Central to that habitat is the second largest intact eel grass bed in BC, located at Flora Bank, right next to Petronas’ proposed project on Lelu Island. Out-migrating salmon smolts depend on this eel grass sanctuary to adjust to saltwater habitat as they head out to sea.

For this very reason, a proposed coal terminal on a neighbouring island was rejected by federal fisheries officers 40 years ago. A May, 1973 report summarized the likely impacts on key habitat from the smaller project: “Inverness Passage, Flora Bank and De Horsey Bank, in that order, are habitats of critical importance for the rearing of juvenile salmon. The construction of a superport at the Kitson Island-Flora Bank site would destroy much of this critical salmon habitat.”

The potential impact of Petronas’ project on Skeena salmon habitat is compounded by several other massive LNG terminal proposals nearby – including BG Group’s plant on Ridley Island and plans from major Asian and Australian natural gas players.

West Coast Environmental Law’s contention is that groups and individuals who would have otherwise been concerned about impacts of Petronas’ plant on the Skeena River may not have made submissions to the initial call for comments and intervener funding, based on misleading information about the project. “As a result of these inaccurate notices, it may well be that individuals who might be concerned about the Skeena River may have failed to appreciate the Project’s proximity to the river and failed to make comments, or to apply for participant funding, as a result.”

It remains to be seen whether CEAA acknowledges these complaints and determines further opportunity for public engagement is required as a result.

Canada’s Green Economy needs public investment

August 14, 2013Canada, Climate Change, Economics, Energy and Resources, International, Politics, RenewablesWill Dubitsky

Both the Intergovernmental Panel and Climate Change and the International Energy Agency have concluded that public policies, rather than the availability of resources, are among the key determinants for a shift from fossil fuels to clean technology development and deployment. Public banks are critical agents for change along these lines.

Public financial institutions and the green economy around the world

Starting with some of the largest public banks, in July 2013, both the World Bank and the European Investment Bank announced that they will limit to the bare minimum investments in fossil fuel projects, while shifting the lion’s share of their respective energy investments to renewables.

The World Bank’s Jim Yong Kim – the first scientist to head the institution – said it is impossible to tackle poverty without dealing with the effects of a warmer world. “We need affordable energy to help end poverty and to build shared prosperity. We will also scale-up efforts to increase renewable energy and improve energy efficiency – according to countries’ needs and opportunities.”

Based on perspectives not very different from that of the World Bank, in July 2013, The European Investment Bank (EIB), in line with the current European Union climate policy, announced it will implement new lending criteria that skew heavily towards renewables and screen out nearly all coal and lignite plants.

The significance of the EIB shift is illustrated by the fact that the EIB invests, lends and leverages $13.2B/year for energy initiatives. The leveraging of EIB investments in turn fosters private financing, especially important for the capital-intensive offshore wind sector. Many offshore wind projects have benefited from the low cost EIB loans in recent years.

In the UK, the Green Investment Bank, headquartered in Glasgow, was created in 2012 with $3.6B (£3B) in initial capital to carry it through until 2015. Its mission is to respond to the specific financing challenges of commercial green infrastructure projects by tackling the finance gaps which remain despite the advent of new government policies. Like the EIB, this mission includes leveraging its investments to bring in other lenders and investors.

To raise additional capital, GIB’s capital base is, and will be, regularly reinforced with pollution permit proceeds and the newly announced carbon tax revenues. Beginning in the 2014-2015 period, bonds will be issued to raise additional capital.

In Germany, the state bank, kfw, is backing offshore wind development to the tune of $7.2B (5B€).

Meanwhile, the Chinese Development Bank (CDB) has been a key player in making China the world’s largest clean tech player. In 2012, total investments in renewables was $67.7B, compared to its closest rival, the US, with $56B in investments in that same year.

The CDB is a formidable player, especially because it appears to have no limits on the billions of dollars with which to work. About 2 years ago, the CDB committed a whopping $45B over 5 years to smart grid development and deployment. Smart grid platforms are the key to the massive integration of intermittent renewable energy production, such as energy from wind and solar sources, by storing surplus energy for redeployment as required.

More recently, the CDB provided Goldwind, a state-owned wind turbine manufacturer, with $6B to finance international business development. Similarly, Ming Yang, a smaller Chinese turbine manufacturer, acquired $5B from the CDB for loans and credit facilities between 2011 and 2015 to prepare for its entry into international markets.

This significant CDB support for China’s clean tech sectors has contributed to accusations of global clean tech dumping – specifically from the US and the European Union. Both the US and the EU have responded to the alleged dumping by imposing steep tariffs on imports of clean tech products from China.

By contrast, Canada has taken an opposite course by being oblivious to the problem of dumping of clean techs by China. To this effect, the proposed Canada-China trade deal stipulates that there will be no commercial barriers applied to environmental technologies. Evidently, the Harper regime is prepared to give China what it wants, in order for Canada to sell tar sands oil them. Either the Harper administration is unaware of the significance of China’s request, it simply does not care, or a combination of both!

Yet another innovative model for public financial institutions to support domestic clean tech manufacturing is that of Brazil’s Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Economico e Social. As of January, 2013, Banco Nacional requires that wind turbine manufacturers source 60% of components in Brazil and produce or assemble in Brazil at least 3 of the 4 main wind technology components – towers, blades, nacelles and hubs – between now and 2016. Under the Banco Nacional model, turbine makers have to meet the staggered manufacturing phases established by the bank, which will be stepped up every six months, until 2016.

Turning to the US, there the US Export-Import Bank, which represents 7 US government agencies, was created to finance renewable energy projects in emerging markets and, most important, to support the US clean tech industry with its requirement for 30% US content. India, one of the bank’s 9 key markets, accounted for approximately $7B of the its worldwide credit exposure as of the end of fiscal 2011. Another example of Ex-Im Bank loans was the $1B credit package to fund wind power development in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, in collaboration with the Vietnam Development Bank.

Lastly, there is the pension fund green investment model, such as that established by Denmark’s Dong Energy. Dong is 75% owned by the Government of Denmark and is involved in 30% of all offshore wind projects in the world. Currently, Dong uses Danish pension funds for its financial activity in offshore wind projects in Denmark and partners with the Japanese trading firm Marubeni for equity financing for projects outside Denmark.

These government and pension fund connections have translated into Dong being a very special kind of energy investor in that 85% of its current portfolio is associated with fossil fuels and 15% renewables – but its mission is to reverse this ratio by 2040.

Canada falling behind

With the examples of the World Bank, the European Investment Bank China, the UK Green Investment Bank, Germany’s kfw, the Chinese Development Bank, the US’ Ex-Im Bank and Brazil’s Banco nacional, showing the way to the effect that publicly funded investment institutions can play critical roles in assuring a migration to renewables and clean techs, the question to raise in Canada is as follows: Why can’t Canada do similar things via the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and Export Development Canada?

Indeed these Canadian investment vehicles offer excellent options for the financing the development of Canada’s clean tech sectors. The BDC, like the other institutions mentioned in this article, could leverage its venture capital funds to attract additional support from Canada’s private banks and financial cooperatives. What an excellent way to take on the challenge of reaching US equivalency with regard to 20% of venture capital activity in 2011 and 2012 going to clean tech sectors.

As well, the BDC could take a page from Brazil’s Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Economico e Social and include Canadian content requirements, thus assuring optimal benefits for Canadian economic development and job creation. It is conceivable that BDC-supported local economic development along these lines could fly under the radar of free trade agreements.

As for an approach for supporting Canadian exports of clean technologies, the models described like those of the Chinese Development Bank and the US Export-Import Bank, may be tough acts to follow, since these institutions have billions of dollars to work with. Nevertheless, the fact that the US Ex-Im Bank brings together 7 US national government organizations, suggests this US model could provide some insights for a made-in-Canada model. For example, if the Canadian International Development Agency would partner with Export Development Canada, the Government of Canada would be able to support the setting up of clean energy micro-grids in isolated communities without necessitating the prohibitively expensive land infrastructure connections to distant, centralized electricity generation plants.

Canada’s pension funds could also have a role to play, along the lines of Denmark’s partially pension-funded Dong Energy. There are Canadian precedents for major investments of pension funds in clean tech sectors. For instance, in February, 2013, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec – the financial arm for Quebec’s pension fund – invested $757M to purchase half of Dong Energy’s 50% share in the world’s largest offshore wind energy project, the UK’s 850 MW London Array. Just prior to that, in January, the Caisse purchased $500M in shares of 11 Invenergy wind farms in the US and Canada, representing 1500 MW and including 2 wind projects in Canada, one of which is in Quebec.

This raises a second question: why can’t the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) create a clean tech portfolio to optimize Canadian participation in one of the world’s fastest growing industries for job creation, the clean tech sector?

From my previous dealings with the CPPIB, I know that their answer is that their job is to get the maximum return for pensioners and, consequently, no particular preference is given for Canadian investments. This is faulty logic for 2 reasons.

First, it is not unusual for investment vehicles to be associated with more than one objective. Second, and most importantly, investments in growth sectors in Canada that offer high-paying jobs would bring additional revenues for the CPPIB in the form of greater contributions from both employers and employees – in addition to the traditional form of returns on investments. Indeed, from time-to-time, the Caisse has adopted priorities for investments in Quebec with similar motivations.

It can be done

In conclusion: 1) innovative clean technology roles for the BDC and EDC to support and leverage venture capital and finance exports and 2) the creation of a clean tech portfolio for the CPPIB, could both significantly help Canada catch up to its competitors in the global migration to the high-growth and high-job creation green economy, all while making good money in the process. Earnings from completed projects would in turn finance more projects. These are opportunities that make good sense for Canada to embrace.

As Jack Layton used to say, “Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.”

Will Dubitsky worked for the Government of Canada on sustainable development policies, legislation, programs and clean tech innovation projects/consortia. He lives in Quebec.