Category Archives: Energy and Resources

Without Keystone XL, oil sands face choke point

Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, Tar Sands,
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From the Globe and Mail – June 8, 2011

by Nathan Vanderklippe and Shawn McCarthy

Amid the controversy engulfing TransCanada Corp.’s (TRP-T42.02-0.43-1.01%)
Keystone XL pipeline, which this week suffered another potential
setback at the hands of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, an
uncomfortable prospect is arising for Canada’s oil patch.

If the
$7-billion (U.S.) project is not built, the energy sector faces the
prospect of being “landlocked in bitumen,” with no way to get mounting
crude production to market. Without the massive new line, whose
environmental impact has become the subject of heated debate in the
U.S., existing pipelines could be constrained in as little as four
years.

That’s in part because oil sands producers likely only have until
2015 before they run out of customers in existing markets, as refineries
in the Midwest reach their capacity for processing Canada’s heavy oil.
They would then be stuck with growing volumes of oil, waiting for other
options to materialize. Some of those alternatives would be uncertain
and could take years to achieve, such as building new pipe across
contentious areas of British Columbia.

And a backup in crude, if
it were to happen, would almost certainly lead to diminished profits.
History has shown that pipeline restraints can lower the price of a
barrel of oil by multiple dollars – a consequence that speaks to the
importance the industry has placed on getting XL built. Billions of
dollars in spending are predicated, in part, on having that new pipeline
capacity in place.

“Unless we get increased [market] access, like
with Keystone XL, we’re going to be stuck,” said Ralph Glass, an
economist and vice-president at AJM Petroleum Consultants in Calgary.

“We’re
heading into the same situation with crude oil as we did with natural
gas, in that we’re going to hit a wall at some point in time and our
production is going to be the one backed out of the system, like natural
gas has been backed out of the U.S. system. I think it will have a
dramatic impact.”

For the oil patch, the possibility that the XL
project will falter is so outside expectations that many haven’t even
considered it. Indeed, companies have already signed up for the majority
of its capacity.

“None of us are really planning for that,” Devon Canada president Chris Seasons said.

TransCanada
argues that the pipeline’s contributions to U.S. employment and oil
supply will prove too compelling for the Obama administration to turn
down.

“We do not believe there will be a ‘world without Keystone,’
” TransCanada spokesman James Millar said in an e-mailed comment. “We
cannot see a scenario where the U.S. would say no to jobs and energy
security in getting oil from a stable nation in Canada.”

Yet the
pipeline has stirred a rancorous debate in the U.S., with critics
questioning whether it would imperil key water resources and further tie
that country’s economy to hydrocarbons. More questions arose this week
when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to the State
Department, which is charged with approving the project. The letter
outlined a lengthy list of concerns about XL and argued that the State
Department’s draft environmental impact statement is seriously flawed
and needs more work.

That has set the stage, some believe, for a
likely delay in the final approval decision, although the State
Department still expects to make that decision later this year.

On
that decision hangs not just a major source of future revenue for
TransCanada. In many ways, Canada’s entire oil and gas industry could be
affected. For example, Brian Ferguson, the chief executive officer of
Cenovus Energy Inc., has said Keystone XL is essential to allow future
oil sands growth. Tens of billions of dollars hang in the balance.

Building
new pipelines is so critical to Alberta’s future that the province’s
Energy Minister, Ron Liepert, thinks it needs national consideration.

“If
there was something that kept me up at night, it would be the fear that
before too long we’re going to be landlocked in bitumen,” he said.
“We’re not going to be an energy superpower if we can’t get the oil out
of Alberta.”

Mr. Liepert, who is co-hosting a meeting of federal
and provincial energy ministers in Kananaskis, Alta., in July, is urging
his counterparts to adopt an energy strategy that would make the
development of crude oil-export pipelines a matter of national
importance. He is also hoping Ottawa will strike a continental energy
pact that would commit the U.S. to providing market access to Canadian
oil in return for security of supply.

Were such a strategy to be
struck, it might alleviate “these project-by-project delays that I think
are just going to get longer and longer,” Mr. Liepert said, noting that
oil sands growth forecasts suggest several more XL-sized projects will
be needed in future years.

For Canadian producers, some other
options are available, including expanding and reconfiguring Enbridge
Inc.’s pipeline system to push oil farther east, where it can displace
some Atlantic imports.

But one of the most serious concerns lies
in getting heavy oil sands crude to refineries that can process it – an
issue likely to grow in importance in coming years. Keystone XL would
bring oil to the Gulf Coast, home to the world’s largest refining
complex. Most of today’s exports flow to the Midwest; several proposed
new pipes could bring more volume to the Gulf Coast – although it may be
a brief reprieve, since the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
expects existing pipelines to be full by 2017 or 2018.

Problems
are likely to arise long before then, however, especially since
Midwestern refineries are likely to reach their heavy oil limit by 2015
amid a surge in U.S. domestic light crude production, according to work
by IHS CERA.

“Therefore it is even more important that heavy crude
like the Canadian oil sands can get to a market that can process it,”
said Jackie Forrest, Calgary-based director of global oil for the
international research firm.

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Globe & Mail: Enbridge still short on pipeline support from First Nations

Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, Tar Sands,
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From the Globe and Mail – June 9, 2011

by Nathan Vanderklippe


Enbridge Inc. (ENB-T30.42-0.32-1.04%)
is struggling to win aboriginal support for its Northern Gateway
project, despite major financial promises and efforts to curry support
through sponsoring golf tournaments, powwows and rodeos, regulatory
documents filed by the company show.

The $5.5-billion pipeline, designed to transport Alberta crude to the
B.C. coast for export to Asia and California, has garnered major
industry support, but substantial opposition from first nations that
believe it will endanger the environment.

Enbridge has pledged some $1-billion in financial sweeteners to first
nations, including a 10-per-cent equity stake in the project and
promises of hiring guarantees and hundreds of millions in spending on
aboriginal businesses. It has promised economic benefits to any B.C.
group with reserve land within 80 kilometres of the proposed right of
way.

But documents filed with the National Energy Board by Enbridge, which is
seeking regulatory approval for the project, show that a surprising
number of groups do not appear interested in the offer, which was first
made public in February.

Enbridge has presented its benefits-package offer to 35 groups and first
nations. As of March 31, another 13 had not received the benefits
package. Many, including a series of coastal nations, have outright
refused to meet with the company.

And even some of those who initially agreed to look over the offer now
say they aren’t interested. Take the Tl’azt’en Nation. It is listed as
having received the benefits package. But its chief, Ralph Pierre, says
bluntly that his people have “rejected it and refused to even go through
the package.”

The Enbridge documents say the Tl’azt’en have invited Enbridge to speak
with leaders about financial specifics in the package. But Mr. Pierre
said the package is “still sitting right here in front of me right now
and I’m just not interested in opening it, to tell you the truth.”

Discerning how many first nations actually support Northern Gateway has
been challenging, in part because Enbridge has declined to provide
numbers. But the document suggests the tally is low.

Two groups – the Macleod Lake Indian Band and the Alexis Nakota Sioux
Nation – have requested that the company relocate pumping stations onto
their land, as a way of increasing the benefits that could flow their
way.

But when Enbridge held an all-expenses paid weekend in Banff earlier
this year for a “Best Practices in Aboriginal Business and Economic
Development” conference, only five nations were represented. Enbridge
spokesman Paul Stanway says the company invited only half a dozen whose
“fit was established based on the focus of the Banff program and
corresponding identified aspirations of invitees.”

Critics, however, took the short list – which included several nations
known to be pipeline supporters, as well as the Tl’azt’en, where a
leadership change has eroded support – as evidence that Enbridge has few
on its side.

“What it indicates to me is that, after six years of trying, they’ve got
five nations showing up to these things. So for love or money, they
can’t get solid support,” said Eric Swanson, a campaigner for the
Dogwood Initiative, a Victoria-based environmental lobby group.

Enbridge, however, says first nations interest in business opportunities
are substantial. An aboriginal business summit held in early 2010
brought out representatives of 42 communities along the pipeline route.

“In March, 2011, Northern Gateway polled some of the aboriginal groups
to determine the level of interest for a second aboriginal business
summit,” the company says in the filings. “All aboriginal groups
contacted expressed a strong interest.”

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Rafe on Being Old, Fixed Elections and Christy Clark’s Mandate

Canada, Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, WATER, Western Canada, ,
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I received an email recently saying I was too old and should begone – not his precise words but that was the gist of what he said. And I suppose that requires an answer.
 
I am old and will be 80 on New Years Eve; there it is – make of it what you will.
 
Having confessed, perhaps my correspondent would say whether his criticism goes to my antiquity or the message I bring. That will always be your issue and I accept your verdict. OK, let’s get down to business.
 
Gordon Campbell brought in a fixed term for elections to avoid election by ambush. It just wasn’t right that governments could pick the most propitious time (for them). Fairness was the test. Now Premier Clark, who was in cabinet when this decision was made, is prepared to forget all about this and will go to the people soon, probably this fall.
 
She will ask for a mandate and it’s critical that we know just what that mandate actually will be, not the one she claims.
Here are some of the issues she and Liberals will avoid like the plague in hopes voters will ignore them too.

  • The private Energy Policy will continue
  • Large corporations will continue to desecrate our rivers and the ecology they support
  • BC Hydro will continue to be forced to buy the private power under a “take or pay” clause meaning it must either use it at a much higher cost than they can make it for themselves or export it at a huge loss
  • BC Hydro, now technically bankrupt (their raising of rates is all that keeps them afloat), will be broken up and the most valuable parts sold off
  • New private schemes will be approved and new construction will begin
  • Site C Dam will be built to supply shale gas, coal mining and the Tar Sands – flooding 11,000 acres of vital farmland in the process
  • New fish farms will be licensed and there will be no effort to make the existing ones to go to closed-containment
  • The Prosperity Mine (Fish Lake) will go ahead
  • The two Enbridge pipelines from the Tar Sands to Kitimat will be approved.
  • The Kinder Morgan pipeline to Burnaby will be hugely expanded and the company will construct a “spur” also to go to Kitimat
  • Huge tankers will ply our waters using the most treacherous coast line in the world
  • Massive oil spills on land and sea will become a certainty
  • Desecration of the Agricultural Land Reserve will continue

The obvious plan is to push ahead on so many fronts that opposition will be badly divided.
 
The voting public ought to be forewarned and understand that no matter what Premier Clark says is the mandate she wishes, the forgoing is the mandate she will get.
 
Can she be stopped?
 
Of course she can by simple “X’ on a ballot on a piece of paper.
 
This old fart is going to help leaders like Alexandra Morton, Rex Weyler, Joe Foy, Gwen Barlee, Erik Andersen, Donna Passmore, First Nations and so many others with whatever strength he can muster to carry the fight to the people.
 
This is what we all must understand – those proud to call themselves environmentalists are not some wild eyed anarchists or loony left-wingers. This is how we’ll be portrayed because the government has no answers except ad hominem attacks. These are not issues of left or right but right or wrong.
 
Let me end on the “old man theme”.
 
The numbers speak for themselves and I can’t change them. I can only ask you to judge these issues on their merits not on birthdays.

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New York Times: Oil Sands Project in Canada Will Go On if Pipeline Is Blocked

Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Tar Sands, , , ,
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From the New York Times June 7, 2011

by Ian Austen

OTTAWA — One way or another — by rail or ship or a network of pipelines — Canada will export oil from its vast northern oil sands projects to the United States and other markets.

So the regulatory battle over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which
would link the oil sands to the Gulf Coast of the United States, may be
little more than a symbolic clash of ideology, industry experts say.
Even if the Obama administration rejects the Keystone plan, the pace of
oil sands development in northern Alberta is unlikely to slow.

Oil producers in Canada have several alternatives for reaching the
United States market. And recent investments by Chinese companies in the
oil sands suggest that a growing alternative market lies across the
Pacific.

“The Canadian oil sands will continue to be developed irrespective of
whether the pipeline goes ahead,” said Russell K. Girling, the president
and chief executive of TransCanada, the company behind the $7 billion project.

That determination to proceed has become almost beside the point in the
battle over Keystone XL’s fate, which has dragged on since November
2008.

Environmentalists are using the project as a proxy for their general
antagonism toward oil sands production, which consumes large amounts of
water and energy and can be destructive to the boreal forest that sits
on top of the tarry rock from which the oil is extracted.

“This is really a campaign against tar sands expansion rather than a
single pipeline,” said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, the director of the
international program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an
environmental group that is a leading American critic of the process.

Advocates, meanwhile, say that oil sands extraction is getting cleaner
and represents a potentially major source of oil from a politically
stable ally that will help ensure America’s energy security.

The stakes are enormous. The oils sands have reserves of 171.3 billion barrels, according to estimates
by the provincial government of Alberta — enough to change the balance
of world oil markets, some energy experts say; by comparison, Saudi
Arabia has reserves of 264.2 billion barrels.

Because of that, the debate over the pipeline has been unusually
protracted and fractious, and, according to some analysts, characterized
by hyperbole on both sides.

“This situation has reached such talismanic significance that whatever
the U.S. government does will be read far more deeply than the substance
merits,” said Michael A. Levi, the senior fellow for energy and the
environment at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The State Department, which must approve the project because it crosses
international borders, is nearing the end of its environmental review
and then will examine national interest questions. It has said it
expects to make a ruling by the end of the year.

As the world’s largest importer of oil and a next-door neighbor of
Canada, the United States is the most attractive and logical market for
oil sands crude and already buys virtually all that Canada exports. But
producers are eager to move their product all the way to the Gulf of
Mexico, where there are more refineries capable of handling the
unusually thick crude.

It is now shipped through an existing pipeline — an earlier part of the
Keystone project — to Cushing, Okla., where large storage facilities are
fed by a variety of pipelines. There, it is priced against lighter oil
and generally commands a lower price.

Because demand for oil in the United States is unlikely to fall
significantly in the foreseeable future, Canadian producers are sure to
look for other ways to ship their oil south if the Keystone XL project
is rejected. While backup plans are not fully developed, other options
do exist.

Shipping by rail is one. Last October, in a joint venture with the
Canadian National Railway of Montreal, Altex Energy, an oil shipping
company, began shipping relatively small amounts of tar sands crude
along Canadian National’s tracks directly to the Gulf of Mexico.

Not only does rail avoid billions of dollars in infrastructure
investment, it also escapes any regulatory reviews in the United States.

“It’s no different than shipping grain,” said Glen Perry, the president of Altex, which is based in Calgary, Alberta.

Mr. Perry acknowledged that rail was considerably more expensive than
pipeline shipping. Pipelines, however, require the oil sands crude to be
diluted with chemicals that thin it and make it flow more easily. Rail
cars do not.

In addition to rail, there are other pipelines available. The Trans
Mountain pipeline owned by Kinder Morgan already moves Alberta oil,
including tar sands production, to ports on Canada’s Pacific Coast. Some
of that travels by sea to refineries in the United States.

While that pipeline is operating at near capacity, Kinder Morgan is considering increasing its capacity to the coast and has already upgraded the line inland.

Enbridge, another large Canadian pipeline company, is proposing its own
line, from just north of Edmonton, Alberta, to the northern British
Columbia port of Kitimat.

While both of those projects have encountered opposition from
environmentalists and some aboriginal groups, the political climate
favors the energy industry. Last month Canadians re-elected a
Conservative government that has its traditional power base in Alberta,
which has staunchly promoted the oil sands.

Other pipeline projects could develop if Keystone XL does not. It is technically feasible to convert one of two natural gas
pipelines to eastern Canada to carry oil. Once there, shipments could
enter the United States through existing trans-border crossings in
Ontario and Quebec.

Ronald Liepert, the energy minister in Alberta, said that while Canada
would prefer to sell its oil to the United States, “this commodity will
go someplace.”

In particular, he said, China is already a major consumer of other
Canadian natural resources and a small investor in the oil sands. “I can
predict confidently that at some point China will take every drop of
oil Canada can produce.”

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Enbridge oil spill in NWT could top 1,500 barrels

Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Tar Sands,
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From the Calagary Herald – May 6, 2011

by Dina O’Meara

CALGARY — An oil leak in a remote area of the
Northwest Territories could reach up to 1,500 barrels — substantially
more than the four barrels originally reported by pipeline operator
Enbridge Inc.

The Calgary-based pipeline
operator said Monday its original estimate was based on oil found on
land at the leak site, located about 50 kilometres south of Wrigley,
NWT, and didn’t take into account seeping into the soil.

“Based
on current estimates provided by the third party experts on site,
Enbridge anticipates the release volume could range from a minimum of
700 barrels to a maximum of 1,500 barrels,” said spokeswoman Gina
Jordan, in an e-mail late Monday. “Based on its current analysis,
Enbridge anticipates the probability that the maximum volume would be
exceeded to be low.”

The company has removed about 100 barrels of oil from the site, she said.

Enbridge
last year faced an environmental and public relations nightmare after
its Line 6b ruptured in late July, spewing almost 20,000 barrels of oil
into Michigan waterways.

Jordan said the NWT leak was contained along the pipeline right of way and no watercourses were threatened.

The
Norman Wells to Zama, Alberta line was restarted May 20th, but is not
at full operations due an outage on the Zama to Hardisty, AB Rainbow
line, operated by Plains Midstream Canada.

Rainbow
was shut down in late April after a leak was detected on the system
near the community of Little Buffalo in northwest Alberta. The 28,000
barrel spill was the largest in Alberta for decades.

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U.S. order keeps Keystone pipeline shut down

Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Tar Sands,
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From the Montreal Gazette – June 3, 2011

by Sheldon Alberts

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration issued an order Friday
preventing Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. from restarting its massive
Keystone oil pipeline after an investigation into two spills in less
than a month found “serious” concerns about safety in pump stations
along the 3,450-kilometre line.

“After evaluating the
foregoing preliminary findings of fact, I find that the continued
operation of the pipeline without corrective action would be hazardous
to life, property and the environment,” Jeffrey Wiese, the associate
pipeline safety administrator with the U.S. Department of
Transportation, wrote in a letter to TransCanada executives.

The
order to keep the 600,000-barrel-per-day pipeline shut down comes after
investigations into separate spills at Keystone pumping stations in
North Dakota and Kansas determined “cyclical fatigue” contributed to the
failure on pipe fittings at both facilities. It requires TransCanada
meet 14 conditions before the pipeline can resume operations.

The
problems along the existing Keystone pipeline come at a critical time
for TransCanada, which is seeking a presidential permit approving the
construction of a second major pipeline, the Keystone XL, across the
U.S. Great Plains to the Gulf Coast in Texas.

The U.S.
State Department is completing public consultations on Monday into an
environmental impact study of the proposed Keystone XL Line.

Environmental
groups and landowners along the planned route of the new pipeline fear a
major spill could cause irreparable damage to sensitive ecosystems like
the Sand Hills in Nebraska. There are also concerns, particularly in
Nebraska, about environmental threats to the Ogallala Aquifer, a major
groundwater source for residents in the Great Plains states. Keystone XL
would cross the aquifer.

“We recognize that these
instances would lead to negative public perception about our pipelines,”
TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha said Friday afternoon. “But we take
these things very seriously and we are taking the necessary steps to be
done to ensure the integrity of the system.”

The original
Keystone pipeline — which began delivery of oilsands crude from
Hardisty, Alberta, in June 2010 — has so far had 11 breaks along the
2,100-kilometre U.S. portion of the line.

The pipeline was
shut down May 7 after about 400 barrels of oil spilled at the Ludden
pump station in Sargent County, North Dakota. The pipeline was restarted
on May 13.

TransCanada was forced to shut down the
pipeline again following the failure of another fitting at the Severance
pump station in Doniphan County, Kansas.

About 10 barrels
of oil were spilled in Kansas, and TransCanada officials said this week
they hoped to restart the pipeline again within days.

The
Department of Transportation order revealed a third, previously
unreported leak, on May 25 at the Roswell pumping station in South
Dakota. That spill was not big enough “to meet reportable criteria,” but
it was also caused by cyclical fatigue on a transmitter fitting.

“I’m
concerned about the environmental risk. There have been 11 spills in
TransCanada pipelines in the last year, I believe. That seems to me to
be a rather high number,” said Bill Avery, a Nebraska state senator who
opposes the construction of the new Keystone XL.

“The
spills validate some of the concerns that a number of us have had all
along. Maybe TransCanada is not leveling with the public . . . about the
safety of its pipeline.”

The corrective ordered issued on
Friday “prevents TransCanada from restarting operations on their
Keystone crude oil pipeline until (the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials
Safety Administration) is satisfied with the ongoing repairs and is
confident that all immediate safety concerns have been addressed,” Julia
Valentine, a Department of Transportation spokeswoman, said in an
emailed statement.

“In addition to immediate repairs and
testing, PHMSA’s order requires TransCanada to perform metallurgical
testing and root cause failure analysis, review other parts of the
pipeline system for concerns similar to those involved in the recent
failures, make permanent repairs and continue ongoing monitoring.”

The
North Dakota spill in early May was sourced to a small “swaged nipple”
on piping that had cracked “as a result of over-torque during
installation,” the Department of Transportation said.

TransCanada
determined “the cyclic bending stress fatigue due to normal operational
vibration propagated the cracks to failure,” according to the
corrective action order.

The Keystone break in Kansas on May 29 was on a half-inch diameter nipple that also indicated “cyclical fatigue.”

In
the corrective action order, Wiese writes that there is “potential for
the conditions causing the failures to be present elsewhere on the
pipeline.”

TransCanada must now send the U.S. government a
detailed “re-start plan” including information about repairs, evidence
of proper pump station monitoring and communication with local emergency
officials along the route.

“I don’t have a timeline as to
when the start-up will be taking place,” said Cunha. “But we are
implementing all the 14 conditions outlined, and hope to have them
implemented right away so that way we could have the system up and
running as soon as possible.”

The pipeline has, as of
Friday, been shut down for six consecutive days. TransCanada remains
hopeful Keystone can “deliver all of our obligations for the month of
June,” Cunha said.

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U.K. Company Suspends Fracking Operations after Possibly Triggering Earthquakes

Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Water and Hydrocarbons,
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From The New York Times – June 6, 2011

by David Jolly

PARIS — A British company said Wednesday that it would temporarily halt
the use of a controversial gas exploration technology after indications
that it might have set off two small earthquakes near a test well in
Lancashire, England.

The company, Cuadrilla Resources,
which is exploring for gas in shale formations deep underground, said
it would postpone hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, operations at the
Preese Hall site near Weeton.

“We take our responsibilities very seriously,” Mark Miller, the chief
executive of Cuadrilla, said in a statement, “and that is why we have
stopped fracking operations, to share information and consult with the
relevant authorities and other experts.”

Fracking is a procedure in which water, chemicals and sand are injected deep underground to free oil or gas trapped in dense shale formations.

The technology is widely used in the United States, where it has contributed to a boom in natural gas
production. It has been criticized because the fracking chemicals are
believed to have the potential to contaminate groundwater.

“We have discussed this with Cuadrilla and agreed that a pause in
operations is appropriate so that a better understanding can be gained
of the cause of the seismic events,” the British Department of Energy and Climate Change said in a statement.

Experts from the British Geological Survey, the government and Keele University are examining the data, “and we will need to consider the findings into the cause of the event,” the department said.

The halt was called after the British Geological Survey recorded an earthquake early on May 27 at a depth of about 1.25 miles, with a magnitude of 1.5.

“Any process that injects pressurized water into rocks at depth will
cause the rock to fracture and possibly produce earthquakes,” the survey
said on its Web site.

Brian Baptie, the top seismology official for the organization, said in a
statement that measuring instruments had been installed close to the
drill site after a magnitude 2.3 earthquake occurred on April 1.

“The recorded waveforms are very similar to those from the magnitude 2.3
event,” Mr. Baptie said, “which suggests that the two events share a
similar location and mechanism.”

The two quakes were barely perceptible to humans.

Industry officials say Europe is a decade or more behind the United
States in its effort to recover “unconventional” hydrocarbons like the
oil and gas in shale. Governments and energy companies have viewed
technologies like fracking as a means to reduce European Union
dependence on imported oil and gas, but there can be no certainty that
exploitable deposits exist without further testing.

Cuadrilla’s announcement came as the French Senate on Wednesday began a debate on a proposed fracking ban.

The lower house of Parliament on May 11 passed its own bill,
which would prohibit fracking in the exploration and recovery of oil
and gas, and would revoke existing exploration contracts that relied on
the procedure. The Senate, though, is considering a measure that would
leave open the door to fracking for research.

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The Need for Civil Disobedience Throughout History…and in BC Today

Canada, Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, WATER, Western Canada, ,
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I favour civil disobedience if it’s done responsibly and for good reasons.
 
Civil disobedience was practiced by Jesus; more recently Henry David Thoreau, the 19th Century American philosopher, is seen as father of the modern art of flouting authority. Thoreau had a strong impact on Mohandas Gandhi, who led protests first against South Africa’s laws against Indians (Gandhi lived there between 1893 and 1914) and later effectively against colonial powers in India. Gandhi and Martin Luther King are seen as 20th Century leaders in this field but one must include the entire civil rights movement and especially that in the Southern US in the 50s and 60s.
 
One must also remember the many acts of civil disobedience in BC in recent decades, especially those against killing old growth forests and the good that’s come of them.
 
Precise principles are hard to make but here are a couple from my own research and thoughts.
 
The cause must be “just” – not an easy word to define at the best of times – and has these elements:

  • It is clearly a debatable issue in our society.
  • There is a clear philosophical underpinning such as civil rights, immorality, an intrinsically evil law or policy.
  • The public has been deprived of a fair hearing.
  • There is no reasonable alternative.
  • It is non-violent, which is a better word than peaceful.

The other side of the coin is the need of members of society to obey laws and only change them through the Legislature or Parliament. This “law and order” theme is the song of the “establishment” through whom unjust policy and law is manna from heaven and works substantially in their favour.
 
Until this day, slavery in economic chains of those who were freed from formal slavery is justified as “the law” but contains within itself my basis truth – this issue alone tells us how long it takes to get equality before the law and the impotence of decent people who simply want that for everyone. Unions and civil rights leaders have fought for basic justice for many years with every step painful and blocked by those who complain that they are outlaws – overlooking, conveniently, whose interests those laws support and how they came to be passed.
 
An interesting example is that of Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, a British banker and politician who was, in 1857, refused his seat in Parliament because, as a Jew, he could not (so the established MPs decided) take the Christian oath. Catholics were similarly rejected. Disraeli’s father had him baptized in the Church of England to avoid this problem.
 
Would anyone see these laws as supportable just because a parliament passed them?
 
Another famous case was Gandhi’s protest in 1930 in order to help free India from British control. He proposed and led a non-violent march in clear defiance of a Salt Tax which essentially made it illegal to sell or produce salt, allowing a complete British monopoly.  Since salt is necessary in everyone’s daily diet, everyone in India was affected. The Salt Tax made it illegal for workers to freely collect their own salt from the coasts of India, making them buy salt they couldn’t really afford. This protest set Gandhi and the Congress Party on the pathway to Indian independence.
 
Could anyone seriously claim that this law, being passed by a colonial power, must be obeyed?
 
British Columbians today face huge assaults on their environment from those who control our legislatures. Let me deal with just two – pipelines and tankers, and private power producers (IPPS). In each case the environmental damage is monumental.
 
With pipelines and tankers, huge irremediable environmental catastrophes are not just a risk but a mathematical certainty with immense and lasting consequences.
 
IPPs are destroying – not just impacting – our rivers.
 
What chance to protest has been given the citizen? When did the citizen have the opportunity to affect IPPs politically? Their MLAs and MPs are not bound to the public’s interests but the party line from which they dare not deviate.
 
These same questions pertain to pipelines and huge oil tankers.
 
The answer is that worse than having no hearings at all are the phony hearings which permit no discussions of the merits (if any) of these proposals.
 
The argument is made that our legislators speak for us – the very argument used by the establishment to sustain slavery, keep black children out of “white schools”, outlaw labour unions because they were a conspiracy to interfere with employers’ right to set wages and working conditions, keep Jews from Parliament, to deny women the right to vote, to allow restaurants to keep Blacks out, and on it goes…
 
It’s interesting how the law deals with these matters today:

  • First, legislators on the government side pass laws dramatically helpful to those whose money gets them elected.
  • Second, they give away that which they hold in trust for us, to these corporations to desecrate for their own very profitable use.
  • Third, people protest by getting in the way of the contractors’ relentless, uncaring and lawful abuse of our environment.
     
  • Fourth, the corporation goes to Court and gets an injunction against the
    protesters. (These hearings give no opportunity for the public to deal
    with the “merits” of the project.)
  • Fifth, the protests continue.
  • Sixth, turning a civil act into a crime, the corporation seeks and gets an order to imprison these “criminals” – not for breaking any law, but for “contempt of court”. 

Before this year is out I think we’ll have protests where decent, contributing citizens, wanting no more than to pass the province they love to future generations without the scars of private power development or spilled oil. They will go to jail for as long as it takes them to admit their “error”, as in other times, with similar legal machinery (Galileo confessed his “error” when he said that earth went around the sun instead of the other way around).
 
That’s right, these “criminals”, our friends and neighbours are sent to jail forever unless they recant and apologize.
 
It is thus democracy is practiced in our fair land.

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About Fracking Time for an Investigation

Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas,
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From TheTyee.ca – June 1, 2011

by Ben Parfitt

As British Columbia Premier Christy Clark makes her debut in the provincial legislature this week, the media spotlight will likely be on the predictable verbal sparring between her and Adrian Dix, the NDP’s recently minted leader, over the Harmonized Sales Tax.

Meaning that Independent MLAs Bob Simpson and Vicki Huntington will have their work cut out for them trying to maintain media focus and public attention on their welcome non-partisan call for the appointment of a special legislative committee to thoroughly investigate unconventional natural gas developments in the province.

It’s a call that 21 organizations and prominent British Columbians — including First Nations, leading environmental organizations, local citizens groups in the natural gas-rich northeast corner of the province, and individual town councilors — all support, and one that we at the B.C. Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives have also endorsed.

For years, the policies of provincial NDP and Liberal administrations alike have been squarely focused on increased exploitation of B.C.’s natural gas resources, which are primarily situated in the Peace River and Northern Rockies regions of the province — an extensive but remote part of B.C. that is larger than the state of Nebraska. This fact may help to explain why it has fallen to Simpson and Huntington to propose that the time has arrived for a sober assessment of the industry’s activities and the role that provincial policies play in shaping them.

It was under the NDP that the one-stop-shop for regulatory energy industry approvals — the Oil and Gas Commission — was created in an effort to eliminate the alleged red tape of multiple agencies reviewing applications by natural gas companies to drill gas wells, build roads and situate pipelines. Dan Miller, under whose tenure as energy and mines minister the OGC was created, would go on to do lobbying work for mining and energy company clients, including Enbridge Inc., the company hoping to build an oil pipeline from Edmonton to Kitimat.

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Kinder Morgan’s Grand Plan to Pipe Oil Sands Crude

Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers,
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From TheTyee.ca – June 2, 2011

by Mitchell Anderson

A quiet application to the National Energy Board (NEB) may soon vastly expand oil tanker traffic through the waters of Burrard Inlet, making Vancouver the major conduit of oils sands crude and bitumen to China.

Trans Mountain Pipeline, a subsidiary of Kinder Morgan that operates the 300,000 barrel per day (bpd) pipeline from Alberta to B.C. and Washington State has applied to the NEB to enter into long-term buying contracts called “firm service.”

They are also requesting to divert more Alberta crude and bitumen capacity to the Westbridge tanker terminal in Burrard Inlet and away from existing land-based refineries in B.C. and Washington. If approved, this would immediately expand crude capacity through Vancouver from 52,000 bpd to 79,000 bpd — an increase of more than 50 per cent.

Documents filed by Kinder Morgan also state that revenues from this new funding model would be used to further expand the pipeline capacity to the Burnaby tanker terminal to 450,000 bpd — a six-fold increase.

Power point reveals aims

A power point presentation for investors by Ian Anderson, president of Kinder Morgan Canada Group, provides a wealth of information that has not been widely shared with the general public or local governments:

• Kinder Morgan plans to dredge Second Narrows channel to allow larger Suezmax tankers that can carry 1 million barrels of crude — four times as much as spilled from the Exxon Valdez.

• These larger vessels will save shippers $1.50 per barrel.

• Tanker transits through Vancouver will increase to 216 per year in 2016, up from 71 in 2010 and 22 in 2005.

• Port Metro Vancouver is “supportive of expansion.”

• “Trans Mountain can be expanded in stages to access growing demand offshore in China.”

All of this is happening with remarkably little scrutiny or even awareness in the Lower Mainland. Of the 18 legal interveners in Kinder Morgan’s application, 17 are oil companies and one is from the Alberta government.

The B.C. government specifically declined to be involved in the decision that would greatly scale up tanker traffic off our coast, through our largest city. No environmental or public interest groups applied to be involved in the NEB application.

‘Rearguard’ pipeline to Kitimat

While there has been enormous interest and opposition to the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, this project is likely years away and must overcome pending legal challenges from several First Nations along the route.

In fact, these obstacles are being trumpeted by Kinder Morgan to their investors. They point out that expanding their existing pipeline to Vancouver is cheaper by $1.5 billion than the proposed Enbridge pipeline, and avoids mounting opposition to constructing a new right of way.

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