Category Archives: WATER

Campbell & IPPs: The Big Lie

Canada, Politics, WATER, Western Canada, ,
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As Bridge players say, may I review the bidding?

Gordon Campbell has gone into retirement but anyone who thinks he won’t be rewarded by industry for all his hard work for them ought to be showing some interest in Florida swamp lands.

The part of Campbell’s tenure that most concerns me is his record on Independent Power Projects (IPPs), where he employed the well known theory that if the lie is big enough and you let it run for enough time, people will believe it.

On the IPP issue Campbell not only used the “Big Lie” technique, he was much aided by a tame if not captive media. It’s important to note this, for one can fool the public either by dealing with the issues thoroughly or not at all. The BC mainstream media has chosen the latter method and it’s worked magnificently for Campbell.

 There is a new factor which I’ve dealt with in the past but it’s come to the fore forcefully thanks to economist Erik Andersen.

 First let’s examine what we know about IPPs.

  • They create environmental nightmares      
  • They have sweetheart deals with BC Hydro which has been mandated by the government to give them
  • Most IPP power comes at a time BC Hydro doesn’t need the power
  • Even though it doesn’t need the power, under the “take or pay” clause BC Hydro must take it
  • BC Hydro, having been forced to take IPP power has two choices – export it at less than half of what it was forced to pay for it or use it at 12 times what it can create its own power for.

I can’t believe this situation which rivals and perhaps exceeds the crooked mayor who gives long term sweetheart deals to his brother-in-law.

What Campbell has done is to bury these facts from the public by stating the egregious falsehood that BC needs private power because it must import power. This scares people who fear that without IPPs we will literally be in the dark. The crucial point is that if BC was short of energy, the last place they could get it would be IPPs which produce the bulk of their power during the annual spring run-off.

A new wrinkle has been added: BC Hydro is seeking permission from the BC Utilities Commission for massive rate increases, ostensibly for renovations and stuff like that.

In their proposals and indeed in their other financial statements you see the Sherlock Holmes famous dog barking scenario where the whole point of the case was that the dog didn’t bark. So it is with these sweetheart deals. For what’s missing from this whole mess is a financial statement from BC Hydro that shows the ever increasing liabilities of some $50 BILLION to these IPPs which will cost it well in excess of a billion a year for up to 40 years! We’re talking about in excess of $1 billion a year and growing! . As the late American senator Everett Dirksen once said “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.”

All of these deals have a COLA clause to cover any inflation that might occur!

Pretty neat, huh! How would you like a deal like this where, no matter what you do, you can’t go broke?

There is no doubt that under these circumstances if BC Hydro were in the private sector it would be seeking bankruptcy protection. The only reason BC Hydro is not bankrupt is that it has a steady flow of income which can be raised if necessary – you and me and BC industry who must pay more and more to cover BC Hydro’s commitments and shortfalls.

Why aren’t we being told by the government about this mess – about how we are sacrificing our environment so that companies like General Electric can literally steal our power?

In fact it’ worse than that for governments are actually granting money to these huge wealthy companies.

We’ve been taken for fools by the Campbell government and the pliant media. Gordon Campbell gets praise whereas he should get his second sojourn in the slammer.

The dog hasn’t barked and the biggest giveaway BC has ever seen goes unexplained by the government and unnoticed by the media.

 

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Gasland Filmmaker Josh Fox in Lethbridge: Solidarity, determination needed to halt fracking

Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Water and Hydrocarbons
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From the Lethbridge Herald – March 25, 2011

by Sherri Gallant

Josh Fox, the Pennsylvania producer of the Oscar-nominated documentary
“Gasland,” told those assembled Thursday at a conference on fracking in
Lethbridge that stopping the controversial drilling practice will take
solidarity and determination.

The sought-after filmmaker explained
to the crowd – mostly First Nations people from the Blood Reserve – how
his movie began as a grassroots project that started when he was asked
to lease his land for natural gas. His investigations took him down a
road he hadn’t anticipated, and the project quickly evolved into a force
for change, the notoriety of which has brought him both praise,
criticism and outright attack.

Today, he’ll be filming segments in southern Alberta which could end up in the “Gasland” sequel he’s working on.

“These interviews were so compelling and the stories started to become
so vast, I started showing them to people, friends of mine, with a
little voiceover that sort of explained the situation, and they said,
‘what have you got your hands on here? You have the ‘Inconvenient Truth’
on your hands, you have to set some time aside and work on this.'”

It wasn’t an easy commitment to make. Fox’s film and theatre company had
several long-term projects on the go and the fracking iceberg showed
signs of being a hulking monster under the surface. But he knew he
couldn’t ignore it.

Hundreds of hours of interviews and 15 months
on the road later, the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival – an
immense coup.

“We were making a project for our friends, for our
neighbours, for our community, so that people could see what was
happening – and not just our community, but then our friends and
neighbours that we met in Colorado, and Wyoming, and Texas. So that they
had a resource, because information about what was happening with
hydraulic fracturing wasn’t available, it was scarce.

“Anyway, all of a sudden, everybody starts talking about fracking. The festival was a great success.”

Before long “Gasland” aired on HBO, was picked up in Canada, Australia
and the U.K. Fox has taken it on tour to 110 cities in all those
countries.

“I’ve witnessed such an unbelievable outpouring of
concern and support,” he said, “and resilience and integrity and dignity
on behalf of an enormous amount of people across the world. Hundreds of
thousands, if not millions who are right now directly in the crosshairs
of a huge natural gas development campaign that rivals anything that’s
ever happened before.

“I did find the same story again and again –
water contamination, air pollution, health problems, a sense that the
people had been lied to. And governments that were unresponsive to their
plights.”

People need to invest in and use renewable forms of energy, he said, and lobby their governments to make the same commitment.

“It’s no longer about ‘oh, don’t drive so much,’ or ‘conserve energy at
home.’ This is right here. It’s going to be a defining struggle for the
next 20 or 30 years. How do we get away from fossil fuels? We know we
have to. We can see what’s going on with climate change. We can see
what’s going on with all the toxic poisoning. The Gulf of Mexico.
Nuclear is the not the answer. The solar fields in Germany generate as
much power as that whole reactor in Japan.”
Every house, he said, can be its own power plant.

In a special naming ceremony after his talk, Fox was given the
Blackfoot name Ih Ka Mo Dahm (phonetic spelling), meaning survivor or
people who have survived. Elder Martin Eagle Child said it was chosen
not only because of the work Fox is doing, but because his father and
grandparents were survivors of the Holocaust.

The Blood Tribe
Conference on Fracking was organized by Kainai people in response to a
deal made by band chief and council with two oil companies to allow
fracking on two thirds of reserve lands. The deal came with a
$50-million signing bonus and potential for further revenue down the
road. A full slate of speakers throughout the day included Fiona
Lauridson, producer and director of the film “Burning Water,” which will
be screened tonight at 7 p.m. at the Lethbridge Public Library as part
of the International Film Festival.

Tribal officials have stated
they will go through every environmental step necessary to make sure the
drilling is safe. To date, no public notice has been made of any actual
applications to drill under the new agreement.

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Public Power for the Public Good

Canada, Politics, WATER, Western Canada,
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The Common Sense Canadian is pleased to provide the following guest article by BC NDP leadership candidate Mike Farnworth, detailing his vision for the future of our energy policy in BC. We hope to provide you with statements from the other NDP leadership candidates in the lead-up to the party’s April 17 vote.

—————————————————————

There’s a discussion that needs to take place in this province around the legacy of one of British Columbia’s greatest builders.
 
That person was W.A.C. Bennett. Partisan politics aside, all British Columbians owe the first Premier Bennett a debt for his leadership in creating B.C. Hydro, and establishing the importance of public, large-scale hydroelectric power to both our province’s economic development and environmental protection.
 
The vision that he showed back in the 1950s and 60s has served this province well to the current day, and that vision is public power for the public good. It is a vision that I believe in, and one I am committed to fighting for as leader of the BC NDP, and as Premier of the province.
 
It’s a vision we need to build on, but also one we need to protect. As I’ve said throughout my campaign, I believe that our social and economic development must be developed through the key lens of sustainability. And public power is one of the most sustainable public assets we have, one that must be protected.
 
That is why a key part of my extensive environmental policy platform has been to protect these assets. I have committed to:

  • Ending the sell-off our public assets by placing a moratorium on all new independent power projects (IPPs);
  • Ending the secrecy surrounding IPPs by opening up all existing power purchasing agreements to public review and scrutiny, and, where possible end or amend agreements that don’t serve the public interest; and,
  • Reinstating independent oversight of the BC Utilities Commission.

The development of independent power projects, and in particular the run of the river projects, have largely taken place behind closed doors, and in a vacuum of a broader strategic discussion about the true nature of our energy needs in B.C.
 
The question of the downstream benefits, and the Columbia River Treaty, is up in 2024. Those benefits will then return to us. When we look at how our energy policy should be shaped, at what direction public power development should take, we need to be taking these factors into account, and openly engaging the public.
 
And because this is such a vital public resource, the public does have a right to transparency where the existing IPP contracts are concerned. The government should be able to answer the questions about what’s in the contracts, why are we paying more, and should we be paying more. We need to bring some clarity and some openness into the IPP agreements that have been signed. We need to have somebody independent going in and looking at them, such as the Auditor General for example, and determining whether those contracts are in the public interest.
 
We also need to restore the oversight capacity of the B.C. Utilities Commission. When you strip away public oversight, as the BC Liberal government has done, and you strip away environmental oversight on projects under a particular size, people rightly start asking questions. We need to return people’s faith to public power.
 
Because at the end of the day, this is a public resource. We own it. Public power has been one of the best economic advantages this province has had, and can and should continue to have for generations to come.
 
It can generate energy for many, many years. We buy power in the middle of the night, when the generators are going. We turn off the generators on our dams, and our reservoirs fill up. And in the morning, we sell our own power at peak price. That’s a good business deal to me, it’s a good deal for our environment, and it’s a good deal for British Columbians.

You can find out more about Mike Farnworth’s comprehensive plan for the environment here.


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IPP’s to cost BC Hydro almost $1 billion annually by 2014

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From the Whistler Pique – March 22, 2011

by Jesse Ferreras

BC Hydro’s investment in green energy is expected to cost it almost $1 billion by 2014.

In a Revenue Requirements Application filed with the B.C. Utilities
Commission that is expected to garner the power authority a 32 per cent
rate increase from 2012 to 2014, BC Hydro indicates that it will be
spending progressively more on electricity generated by Independent
Power Producers (IPP’s) in every year that the rate increase occurs.

In the 2010 fiscal year, BC Hydro spent $567.4 million on electricity
from independent power producers. Those purchases climb to $781.8
million in 2013 and finally to $939.8 million in 2014.

Asked for comment, a spokesman with BC Hydro declined to explain the
increases. He said only that parties involved with hearings before the
B.C. Utilities Commission in the coming weeks would address the
increases and that the power authority would address concerns at that
time.

BC Hydro says in the application that the majority of the cost
increases between 2013 and 2014 are attributable to projects that were
extended electricity purchase agreements (EPA’s) under the 2009 Clean
Power Call. Several new projects approved through that process are
expected to come online between 2012 and 2014.

Independent power producers reach electricity purchase agreements
with the power authority under various requests for proposals such as
Clean Power Calls and the Standing Offer Program.

Programs such as these have resulted in facilities such as the
Fitzsimmons Creek run-of-river project in Whistler and the Rutherford
Creek run-of-river project near Pemberton.

The Upper Lillooet cluster, a series of run-of-river facilities being
pushed by Creek Power Inc. on streams surrounding the Lillooet River
north of Pemberton, is among the projects that obtained an electricity
purchase agreement under the 2009 Clean Power Call. It is currently
undergoing an environmental assessment and must obtain a certificate
from the Environmental Assessment Office before it is allowed to
operate.

But the 2009 Clean Power Call isn’t the only place where costs are
rising for BC Hydro when it comes to purchases from IPP’s. In fact,
costs are rising for BC Hydro on every single call to solicit green
energy from the private sector except for the 2002 Customer-Based
Generation program.

For example, in 2010, BC Hydro spent $38 million on projects approved
under the 2006 Clean Call. That number climbs to $154.2 million in
2011, $215.4 million in 2012, $221.2 million in 2013 and $236.7 million
in 2014.

Marjorie Griffin Cohen, a political science professor at Simon Fraser
University and former BC Hydro board member, said it makes “no economic
sense” for BC Hydro to be purchasing so much electricity from
independent power producers.

“It’s wrong on all kinds of levels,” she said. “First of all, it is a
tremendous cost. These contracts are also indexed, which means they
will never get cheaper. They are sometimes as much as 30 times what BC
Hydro can sell the power for.

“This isn’t BC Hydro’s fault, this is the government’s fault. BC
Hydro would never have chosen to do this because it makes no economic
sense for them.”

Purchases of electricity from IPP’s actually supply BC Hydro with
more power than it expects domestic customers will actually demand
between 2012 and 2014.

In each of these years it expects to generate 52,600 GWh through
“heritage assets” – that means publicly-owned facilities such as the
Revelstoke and WAC Bennett hydroelectric dams.

Residential, commercial and industrial customers are expected to
purchase 54,494 GWh of electricity in 2012. BC Hydro will have 62,814
GWh to provide in this year alone thanks to 10,114 GWh in IPP purchases.

Sales in 2013 are projected to reach about 56,000 GWh. BC Hydro
expects to generate 62,541 GWh of electricity that year, with 9,941 GWh
coming from IPP’s.

Then, in 2014, sales are expected to reach about 58,000 GWh worth of
electricity. BC Hydro expects to generate 63,668 GWh of electricity in
that year, with 11,068 GWh coming from IPP’s.

There, too, Cohen had some questions. She recently attended a session
in which BC Hydro showed forecasts for consumer demand as part of its
Integrated Resource Planning process.

“It’s hard to know what they are basing their increase in demand on,”
she said. “Sometimes they’re talking about the need for total
electrification of cars, so there are other kinds of things they’re
talking about that have to be looked at very carefully to see if that
huge increase in demand is significant.”

These demand figures, however, don’t take into account energy
conservation programs such as Power Smart that are aimed at decreasing
consumption of electricity. Power Smart works to educate the public
about energy efficient technologies and conservation actions. BC Hydro
believes such a program will lower demand for electricity.

BC Hydro CEO Dave Cobb continues to maintain that its rates will
remain the cheapest in North America even after the rate increases. He
has maintained in media appearances that the B.C. Utilities Commission
must approve the rate increases.

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Clark Administration: Early Election, BC Hydro

Canada, Politics, WATER, Western Canada, ,
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Rumors are flying as Christy Clark hits the premier’s office running, including an election for next September. This will happen if the premier decides that as time goes on her chances of winning will not likely improve.

The NDP leader will not have had much time to present his platform.

The NDP may emerge from their leadership convention snapping at each other – which is normal for them.

Premier Clark may have won the HST debate.

After some time in the Legislature, the new Liberal government, whose best argument is that Campbell has left, may present a new and better image even though they all participated in supporting him.

The downers are significant, one of which could be fatal – the combination of a strong NDP leader and a threat to the right wing by a John Cummins-led Conservative Party.

There is, of course, a huge issue Premier Clark wants to avoid until she has a mandate…it’s called BC Hydro.

Hydro, were it in the private sector, would now be heading for bankruptcy protection. And this leads to another rumor this time from Cope 378 (the union representing many BC Hydro workers) which raises the specter of BC Hydro being split in three and some if not all of the pieces being sold privately. An interesting fact is that when Hydro puts its case to what’s left of the BC Utilities Commission they conveniently overlook the some $50 BILLION in commitments to private power companies.

This raises the name Rich Coleman who is the new Minister of Energy and has made noises about holding Hydro’s feet to fire re: their proposed significant raise in electricity charges. Minister Coleman is seen as a tough, hard-nosed guy whose appointment is supposed to have telegraphed a message to a population not too keen about an increase in rates that BC Hydro will have to deal with.

I smell a rat – no offense Mr. Coleman.

If the minister truly wants the public t know about their energy company he will announce that he will release the cozy contracts virtually given to private companies and will do so immediately. He would restore zoning rights to local governments. He would make it clear that as government policy Independent Power Producers (IPPs) would receive no licenses and no environmental permits until the whole energy plan is out in the open. He would also restore independence to the BC Utilities Commission.

I don’t believe these things will happen because Premier Clark does not want the Energy policy and the ruinous, sweetheart contracts to be an election issue. My bet is that Coleman will mount some sort of inquiry which delays public debate until the election is, safely he hopes, behind him. Coleman will bob and weave and avoid. A combative man by nature – so I’m told – Coleman will bluster, equivocate, play the role of the Ink Fish and generally confuse the voting public.

This technique will be met with opposition from the Common Sense Canadian, opposition which will take Damien and me around the province. After recent events on Vancouver Island in Port Alberni and Tofino a couple of weeks ago, will be in Williams Lake and Quesnel this coming weekend, followed by the Okanagan the week after. By the time we’re finished we’ll have visited every region of the province carrying the message of the financial horror the government has visited on BC Hydro and showing the calamitous environmental damage this policy causes.

We will support politicians who stand for saving BC Hydro and our environment and oppose those who don’t. No more complicated than that.

But there is more to it than just that. We cannot with our limited resources fight all the battles under the environment ‘brolly but we stand with those who fight fish farms, battle to keep the ALR intact and stand by opposition to shipping Oil Sands crud by pipeline and tanker through BC and down its coast.

Does this mean we’re anti-business? An emphatic no! We’re against bad business.


Fish farms can stay if they’re in closed-containment. If the fish farmers say they can’t handle that we say this means you need BC to subsidize you by allowing you to ravage the environment and our wild fish. In effect, the damage that happens to our wild salmon becomes a dividend in the hands of foreign companies.

With pipelines one must remember that there are no risks involved but certainties waiting to happen. The consequences will be – not might be – horrific damage to our precious environment.

We stand shoulder with those who fight to preserve farmland. Quite apart from all other valid arguments, why would we, given what we see happening around the world, jeopardize our food supply?

Neither Damien or I support any political party and certainly not socialists. I ran and won against the NDP twice and if the circumstances were the same today as they were in 1975 and I was that young again, I’d do it all over again.

BUT…the issues we at the Common Sense Canadian are concerned with are not about left and right but right and wrong.

As we go into the campaign flat out, I hope you will support us as we battle to save our power company and our environment.

 

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Rich Coleman revisiting many a B.C. Hydro controversy

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Fromt he Vancouver Sun – March 15, 2011

by Vaughn Palmer

Newly appointed B.C. Energy Minister  Rich Coleman indicated Tuesday
that Premier Christy Clark has asked him revisit a number of
controversies regarding B.C. Hydro.

The list includes Hydro’s proposal to hike energy rates by 50 per
cent over the next five years, smart meters, and the exclusion of major
B.C. Hydro projects from scrutiny by the independent B.C. Utilities
Commission.

Coleman also said that he believes there needs to be a significant
improvement in communications between the giant utility, its board of
directors, executive suite “and the shareholder” — meaning the public,
via the provincial government.

He added that it is too soon to say what will be done about those and other matters.

Othat everything is on the table. Not having dealt with Hydro or energy matters before, he’s going in with a lot of questions.

Coleman made his comments during a media scrum on his way in to the
first meeting of the B.C. Liberal caucus since the swearing in of the
new premier and cabinet Tuesday.

His answers,  preliminary, as they were provided a possible clue as
to why Clark chose him and not returning B.C. Liberal MLA Blair Lekstrom
for the energy portfolio.

Lekstrom was serving as energy minister last spring when he resigned
from the cabinet and caucus in protest over the handling of the
harmonized sales tax.

He returned to caucus following the convention that chose Clark as
the new premier. He  was thought to be angling to be reappointed to the
energy portfolio.

But Lekstrom was closely associated with the energy policies of
departing Premier Gordon Campbell, many of them embodied in the Clean
Energy Act passed by the legislature amid great controversy last year.

By appointing a new minister, Clark was able to give him a freer hand
to revisit the policies– green energy, energy self-sufficiency —
 that have driven many of the rate increases, as well as the Campbell
decision to weaken the independent scrutiny of Hydro.

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News from Japan is not good for nuclear power proponents

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From the Vancouver Sun – March 14, 2011

by Stephen Hume

Exactly what’s happening with the nuclear emergency after the
magnitude 8.9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan last week isn’t
entirely clear, but whatever it is, it’s bad.

Bad for Japan’s
energy infrastructure; bad for those citizens unfortunate enough to live
in proximity to nuclear reactors damaged by the great earthquake and
very bad, indeed, for those who have been advocating for a renaissance
in nuclear energy here in North America.

Proponents of nuclear
power are likely going to have to limp back into the shadows where
they’ve been biding their time since serious nuclear accidents at Three
Mile Island in the United States and Chornobyl in Ukraine drove them
from the limelight.

It’s true that the probability of nuclear
accidents appears to be relatively low, but it also seems true that when
they do happen, they have the potential to be catastrophic.

And
so, it seems certain in the aftermath of the great Sendai earthquake of
2011 that North America’s nuclear industry won’t be ramping up rapid
expansion any time soon, at least not without fierce opposition.

That’s
not to say that there shouldn’t be a rational discussion of the nuclear
option as world energy demand rises inexorably. It is to say that the
promise of nuclear power will quite properly face a rising tide of doubt
and skepticism from the public.

When I last checked late Sunday,
estimates for the number of people evacuated from the country
surrounding Japan’s Fukushima complex of nuclear power stations
following a meltdown in a reactor core when cooling systems failed had
exceeded 200,000.

To make things worse, fears were growing that a
second meltdown in another reactor core was underway at Fukushima. Then
another emergency was declared at the nearby Onagawa nuclear power
plant.

The government was handing out anti-radiation pills while urging the public to remain calm.

Japan
is probably the best prepared nation on the planet for great
earthquakes and tsunamis. By comparison, British Columbia is woefully
behind the learning curve.

So witnessing the disastrous
consequences in Japan, citizens on the West Coast have every right to
doubt the security of any nuclear power infrastructure and earthquake
preparedness here.

There are half a dozen nuclear plants on the
U.S. West Coast -some have been decommissioned -where earthquakes of
similar magnitude to the one just experienced in Japan are not uncommon.

Since
1899, there have been five earthquakes of magnitude 8.0 or greater in
an arc ranging from Mexico to Alaska. There is disagreement over whether
the 1906 temblor was magnitude 7.9 or magnitude 8.3 but whichever it
was, it flattened San Francisco.

On the other hand, there’s little
argument over the magnitude 9.2 earthquake that occurred in Prince
William Sound, Alaska, in 1964 with a subsequent damaging tsunami.

In
1899, the North Coast experienced three great earthquakes over eight
days along the Alaska-Yukon border -the most powerful is estimated at a
magnitude of 8.0 -which spawned a 10.6-metre-high tsunami in Yakutat
Bay.

And in 1949, a magnitude 8.1 earthquake occurred just off
Haida Gwaii. Federal government records show the shaking was so severe
and prolonged that cows were knocked off their feet, a geologist working
with the Geological Survey of Canada reported being thrown to the
ground and unable to stand, and hundreds of kilometres inland, people
described standing on the street as being similar to standing on the
heaving deck of a ship at sea.

Should the public be concerned? Yes. And for Canadians, all this should be considered in one troubling context.

In
2008, when Linda Keen, head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission,
refused to approve a nuclear reactor at Chalk River unless emergency
backup power was installed for pumps cooling the nuclear reactor core,
the Harper government fired her.

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B.C. shale gas holds promise of new era in resource investment

Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, WATER, Water and Hydrocarbons, ,
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From the Vancouver Sun – March 14, 2011

by Gordon Hamilton

METRO VANCOUVER – Locked within the shale deposits of northeastern
British Columbia lies a natural gas reserve of unparalleled wealth that
could push the province into a resource boom unrivalled since the
development 50 years ago of the pulp-and-paper industry.

This
resource is nothing more than individual, tiny bubbles of hydrocarbon,
all that remains of a single organism that lived and died in a
primordial sea and was buried in the mud millions of years ago.

But
the accumulation of billions of such organisms over time adds up to gas
deposits of 250 trillion cubic feet to 1,000 trillion cubic feet,
according to the provincial energy ministry.

How much of that is
recoverable is a work in progress as companies drill into it. But even
at today’s low price for natural gas of $3 per 1,000 cubic feet at the
wellhead, those reservoirs could have a value beginning at $750 billion.

And the more companies drill, the more gas they find.

“We
haven’t finalized booking the reserves in the shale gas plays,” said
Ken Paulson, chief engineer and deputy commissioner at the B.C. Oil and
Gas Commission. “We are still getting information from some of the plays
which allows us to refine our estimates as to how much hydrocarbon is
actually in these reservoirs. But it’s a lot.”

Energy Minister Steve Thomson said shale gas is becoming mainstream development for the petroleum industry in B.C.

“The
magnitude and nature of B.C.’s shale gas resources creates
opportunities for long-term development planning by both industry and
government,” he said in an email to The Sun.

Northeastern B.C.
contains four major gas formations: The Montney basin near Dawson Creek,
the Horn River and Liard basins northwest of Fort Nelson, and the
Cordova Embayment, east of Fort Nelson. But the promise of wealth that
they offer is tempered by several facts: They are far from North
American markets for gas; they are more costly to get out of the ground
than conventional reserves; and the way the gas is being extracted is
drawing growing public concern.

The shale gas deposits have
triggered a slew of deals worth billions of dollars as global companies
jockey to gain a foothold in this new resource gold rush. Petro China’s
$5.4-billion investment with Encana, for a 50-per-cent stake in one B.C.
gas deposit alone, is the largest, while South African synthetic fuel
producer Sasol’s $2-billion investment in two of Talisman Energy’s gas
holdings perhaps brings the most promise.

Sasol is a world-leader
in technology of converting natural gas to synthetic diesel, and it has
agreed with Talisman to conduct a feasibility study around the economic
viability of a facility in Western Canada to convert natural gas to
liquid fuels.

“It’s exciting, innovative stuff,” said Travis Davies of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Development
of the shale gas deposits brings with it a whole new way of looking at
the province’s resource wealth. But it also brings questions on how the
gas is being extracted and whether it will trigger a round of
value-added investment similar to the sprouting of pulp and paper mills
that came when new provincial forest tenures and policies spurred
logging in Interior forests in the 1960s.

Or, will the gas simply be exported as a raw commodity, the equivalent of exporting logs?

The
province has three options: Tap into new offshore markets where gas
prices are higher, add value by converting it to liquid fuels, or use it
to generate electricity.

“We need to find new markets. There are a
number of projects on the books right now … such as a liquefaction
plant and possible export terminal in the Kitimat area. These projects
have big implications for markets for gas, not just for B.C. gas but
North American gas, ” said Paulson.

The potential for a
petrochemical plant converting gas to liquid fuel in the province’s
northeast is particularly tantalizing, but B.C. has no policy framework
to encourage a petrochemical plant here. It could be built in Alberta.

The
third alternative, using gas to generate electrical energy, is far from
being a perfect solution. It’s cleaner than coal, but is still a fossil
fuel releasing greenhouse gases, even if only half those of coal. But
when the price of gas rises above the equivalent price of coal, power
producers can switch back to burning coal.

To access B.C. shale
gas, companies use a technique called hydro-fracturing, or fracking, to
release the trapped bubbles, which can be in shale deposits one to two
kilometres below the surface. The technique involves drilling a vertical
well about 18 centimetres wide until it reaches the shale layer. The
drill bore then is gradually curved to horizontal, where it can go for
another two kilometres through the shale.

Water, sand and a lubricating solution are then pumped at high pressure into the well.

The
water pressure fractures the shale into tiny pieces, creating millions
of surfaces, which release their gas. The sand keeps the pieces apart
and the gas within the shale is then forced to the well by the pressure
of the rock above.

But fracking is raising concerns over the
chemicals being used and the wisdom of fracturing part of the earth’s
crust. (Some are blaming it for a series of mini-earthquakes in
Arkansas, a region that is generally quake-free.)

Further, environmentalists fears of contamination of the aquifer if gases or chemicals escape.

Last
week, the province of Quebec placed a two-year moratorium on fracking
in shale gas deposits in that province while it develops regulations.

Energy minister Thomson said the situation in Quebec is far different than here.

“This
is a province where oil and gas exploration has been taking place for
decades. Quebec, on the other hand, is only beginning to establish an
oil and gas sector,” he said in the email. “It makes sense for Quebec to
take a prudent approach as they do not have the background and
regulatory structure in place like we do.”

Paulson said the province has kept abreast of technological change by expanding its regulatory regime to include fracking.

The
Oil and Gas Activities Act, which came into effect last October,
contains regulations that specifically address drilling of shale gas
wells and hydro-fracturing, Paulson said. Water stewardship is addressed
in regulations and companies are required to dispose of chemicals
safely.

Companies keep their chemical solutions secret, saying
they are proprietary. It amounts to less than one per cent of what is
injected, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

The
commission does not require them to divulge their chemical mix, but
they must keep on-site a list of the chemicals they use in fracking. If
for example, cross-contamination by one fracture full of fluid extended
into an adjacent fracture created by another well, then the commission
would want to know what exactly is in the solution.

That has never happened, Paulson said.

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AbitibiBowater NAFTA settlement has privatized Canadian water, trade committee hears

WATER,
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From The Council of Canadians – March 8, 2011

Ottawa – The record-setting $130-million NAFTA settlement with
AbitibiBowater has effectively privatized Canada’s water by allowing
foreign investors to assert a proprietary claim to water permits and
even water in its natural state, says trade lawyer and Council of
Canadians board member Steven Shrybman, in a presentation to Parliament
today.

“It would be difficult to overstate the consequences of
such a profound transformation of the right Canadian governments have
always had to own and control public natural resources,” says Mr.
Shrybman in his presentation to the Standing Committee on International
Trade, which is studying the AbitibiBowater NAFTA settlement from last
August.

“Moreover, by recognizing water as private property,
the government has gone much further than any international arbitral
tribunal has dared to go in recognizing a commercial claim to natural
water resources.”

In 2008, AbitibiBowater, a Canadian firm
registered in the United States, closed its pulp and paper mill in
Grand Falls-Windsor, NL. The company asserted rights to sell its
assets, including certain timber harvesting licenses and water use
permits. These permits were contingent on production. More importantly,
under Canada’s constitution they are a public trust owned by the
Province, not by private firms. So the Newfoundland government moved to
re-appropriate them as it has a right to do under Canadian law.
AbitibiBowater sidestepped the courts to challenge the Newfoundland
government.

“The case clearly put the concept of water as a public
trust on a direct collision course with treaty-based corporate and
commercial rights. However, rather than defend public ownership and
control of water, the federal government has agreed to settle
AbitibiBowater’s claim,” says Mr. Shrybman. “By stipulating that the
payment of compensation is on account of rights and assets, the
government of Canada has explicitly acknowledged an obligation to
compensate AbitibiBowater for claims relating to water taking permits
and forest harvesting licenses.”

By settling with the company rather than
challenging its case, we have no response from the federal government
to refute the company’s proprietary claims to water and timber rights,
explains Mr. Shrybman. The settlement also fails to identify the
particular rights for which compensation will be paid, and makes no
attempt to exclude any of the company’s claims, “thereby acknowledging
the validity of the claims.”

“Moreover, by recognizing a proprietary
claim to water taking and forest harvesting rights, Canada has gone
much further than any international tribunal established under NAFTA
rules, or to our knowledge, under the rules of other international
investment treaties,” he says.

A statement by the government that the settlement shall
not set a precedent is “entirely ineffective,” because of NAFTA’s
National Treatment clause which grants foreign companies treatment no
less favourable than national companies in like circumstances.

“It is not therefore an overstatement to describe the
consequences of this settlement as effectively representing a
coup-de-grace for public ownership and control of water and other
natural resources with respect to which some license or permit had been
granted.”

Shrybman suggests water takings by tar
sands operations in Alberta, a golf course in Ontario or a water
bottling plant in Quebec are other examples of where even a partial
recovery of water rights by the provinces could detrimentally affect
business. If any of these companies were foreign owned they could claim
compensation on the same terms granted AbitibiBowater.

***

The Council of Canadians strongly believes there is no
place in existing or future trade agreements for such overstretching
investment protections. It has repeatedly called on the federal
government to reopen NAFTA to remove the investor-to-state dispute
process. The Council also recently joined several other Canadian
organizations in writing to all members of the European Parliament
urging them to reject the inclusion of NAFTA-like investment
protections in the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
(CETA), which could be signed by the end of the year.

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Vancouver Sun Still Reluctant to Take on IPPs

WATER,
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The Vancouver Province has, belatedly to be sure, attacked the BC Energy policy and called it “folly”. I felt it might be appropriate, then, to offer an op-ed article to the Vancouver Sun, which I did on March 1 and which I followed up on March 6 by emails to Fazil Milhar, the Vancouver Sun editor in charge of their editorial page. Having not even received the courtesy of a reply I sent another email Friday last saying that if I didn’t receive a reply by the 14th I would feel at liberty to make all this known.

My letters have been polite and respectful and merely asked for the opportunity his pages give to the BC Fish Farmers, for example.

Mr. Milhar was policy analyst for the Fraser Institute for several years. There’s nothing wrong with that except to say that putting a person with such deep right wing biases in charge of what opinions will be printed on the op-ed page of the Vancouver Sun seems unfair.

In fact, it is unfair. Surely the op-ed page is to allow all sides if the issue to have their say and refusing us is patently unfair and, in the absence some other explanation we must conclude that Mr. Milhar’s right wing beliefs are taken out against beliefs he doesn’t agree with.

Unlike Mr. Milhar, we at The Common Sense Canadian would be pleased to have him contribute his views to our website.  

What ever happened to the tough reporter, the fearless columnist, the editor and publisher who held authority to account?

Why is it the fourth estate has become part of the “establishment”?

Did it start in Canada with the Meech Lake/Charlottetown Accords when Brian Mulroney declared that to oppose these plans would be almost treasonous?

In the Charlottetown Accord debate one of the large Central Canadian media companies, MacLean/Hunter actually signed on to the “Yes” side; so much for its journalistic integrity!

Here were two efforts to change the country dramatically and no newspaper, TV outlet or radio station would even question the issues with a faintly jaundiced eye –  I must except radio station CKNW where I broadcasted. Even then, though my program kept the 50-50 balance CKNW put on a well known pro-Charlottetown person to counteract my forthcoming editorial. So even they were onside Mulroney’s packages.

I don’t believe that a free society with this kind of media can remain free; an unquestioning media that persists in the US and to an increasing degree in UK “journalism” erodes democracy.

Is the Internet the answer?

The trouble is that the Internet is so messy with blogs by the gazillion on every manner of question.

The hope is that more solid Internet outlets, like TheTyee.ca and, of course our home at TheCanadian.org, both for which I write, will become better and better known. The Internet’s problem is that major advertisers are leery that the free speech associated with the Internet will hurt them. That will change for as the mainstream media declines, so will advertisers’ interest in it.

The big advantage of a website is that its stories are archived. While today’s newspaper is quickly put on the bottom of the birdcage, we’re there for a long time.

My sense of it is that main street “journalism” will continue its slow but steady downward slide to the profit of free papers like Metro, 24 hrs, and websites like The Tyee and The Common Sense Canadian.

It’s ironic, having gone through all that pain of new printing technology, that now, as technology increases, the newspapers decline.

For us at The Common Sense Canadian we know that we can and do make the Internet work when people who support us pass our columns and documentaries to others asking them to do the same.

With the refusal of Mr. Milhar to even deal with my request we must continue and expand our efforts to be our own media.

It works. 

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