VANCOUVER – A plebiscite defeat for the company proposing a $6-billion oil pipeline across northern British Columbia may have opened the door for another mega-project.
Supporters of a First Nation-backed alternative to the Enbridge (TSX:ENB) Northern Gateway Pipeline are expected to make an announcement today in Vancouver.
Chiefs from two northern B.C. First Nations will join officials from aboriginal-owned and controlled Eagle Spirit Energy Holdings to announce the plans.
Eagle Spirit formed in late 2012 to promote its vision of a First Nations-managed energy corridor across northern B.C., carrying everything from fibre optic, electrical and water lines to pipelines moving liquefied natural gas and Alberta oil.
David Negrin, president of the privately held B.C.-based Aquilini Group, and a former chief operating officer with Alaska’s Alyeska Pipeline Service, will attend the announcement.
Northern Gateway officials say they have some work to do after a non-binding weekend plebiscite suggested about 60 per cent of Kitimat residents disapprove of plans to make their community the west coast terminus of Enbridge’s pipeline.
Mother earth has stated she can no longer tolerate the rape pillage and plunder of her body. Do you think she is just a lump of clay to exploit? The first nations are really not the first nations. Inner earth and many on the service are ancients monitoring there breach of proper stewardship of mother earth.
We have alternative technologies held back by governments that can run our homes, businesses, industries and vehicle for free without dangers to our planet or ourselves yet they continue to show blatant ignorance towards our planet and us.
We have had money available to all first nations struggling to support there people yet they do not like the government want to collaborate which also breaches spiritual and common law. I am asking for common sense and spiritual wisdom to prevail.
It is time for indigenous groups to understand that there day of demanding special treatment above the rest of us is over. Many have proven that they can not be trusted with honouring mother earth instead of being in bed with criminal exploiters for money. I am encouraging a class action lawsuit against all first nations that hold profit and elistism over the rest of us to be charged under prime creator law and common law that threatens the life liberty and freedoms of all Canadians.
Sincerely Tami Dickson http://www.galacticfriends.com
Biodiesel? Essentially, burning food as a motor fuel, when the world is short on food… to displace motor fuel, when the world has no shortage of motor fuel… it isn’t just stupid, it is immoral. It is one of the three great holocausts being committed upon mankind by the green environmentalists.
Ed Nichols, just make sure they don’t dirty the creek. Development does not have to ruin the creek.
Damien: I applaud your efforts to minimize your waste-footprint. I challenge you to open your mind, though, on the “carbon footprint” concept. Living well while minimizing waste, doing things in a way that keeps the pristine environment clean… these are good things. Minimizing your “carbon footprint” simply for the sake of reducing how much carbon dioxide your actions release, that is misguided. Carbon dioxide, even that from fossil fuels, is not harming anything, and is, in fact, greening the earth. It is plant food. That doesn’t mean that the oxides of nitrogen, the sulphur dioxide, or the particulates (like diesel soot) are good… those are pollution, and we should work on cleaning them up… but CO2 is not the issue. Those who say CO2 is a problem are misguided, or are misguiding you. While it it pretty obvious that the earth has warmed up a bit, one would expect that, since we’re coming out of ‘the little ice age’ … nothing to be concerned about. CO2 increases will not warm the earth any more, even if the concentrations double, twice over. CO2’s effect is noticeable for the first 100 ppm or so; after that, the effect diminishes into the noise. ‘Severe weather’ is actually on the decline – hurricanes, tornados, all that. Polar bear populations are way, way up, and since the species survived through prior warm periods (much warmer than what we have today) they are not threatened by the minimally-warmer period we’ve had recently. Oceans will never, ever, EVER be acidic, CO2 or not… Oceans are alkaline now, and will remain alkaline. Deepwater Horizon & BP made a bit of a mess, but did you notice, the world did not end? Oceans have bacteria that eat oil. It isn’t good to make such a mess, but – realize that HALF of all the oil messing up the oceans, even when you take in the Deepwater Horizion and the Exxon Valdez oil spills, HALF (or more) of all the oil messing up the oceans comes from NATURAL SEEPS. That doesn’t justify mankind’s messy half, but… the best way to stop the oil coming out of the seeps is to poke a hole, suck out the oil, and burn it… to use it as motor fuel instead of burning food. The earth, especially the arctic areas, have been much warmer in the recent geologic past, and the world did not end then, either. Methane hydrates did not spew forth and ruin everything, so the little warming we’re experiencing now won’t produce a hydrates-hell, either. Methane’s infrared absorption (some call it a ‘greenhouse gas’ but that is really incorrect; the effect is one of radiant energy absorption, and re-emission) … is in two narrow bands, completely dwarfed by water vapor’s absorption and re-emission in those bands and adjacent wavelengths; methane is removed from the atmosphere by photochemical oxidation, so methane is nothing to worry about, be it from bison butts or hydrates. I can go on and on… so worry about real pollution and waste, not CO2. Focus on making the development of hydrocarbon resources responsible, low-impact, and non-polluting. Don’t worry about the CO2 part.
Biodiesel? Damien, you lament the ‘billions of litres’ of fresh river water that will be mixed with chemicals and injected deep into the earth, forever… Your concern about water seems to be misplaced. The creation of biodiesel consumes thousands of litres of fresh water to produce one litre of fuel. Something on the order of five thousand to nine thousand litres. (According to a study of the US Department of Energy, up to 9,100 litres of water are required to produce one litre of biodiesel.) The creation of ethanol to displace gasoline also consumes many litres of fresh water to produce one litre of ethanol. Pierre Langlois, in “How Much Water to Produce Biofuels” (2009) says 785 litres of water for one litre of ethanol. But there is another factor in the equation… burning any hydrocarbon, be it coal, natural gas, gasoline, diesel… if done perfectly, produces carbon dioxide and water… The water comes from the combination of the hydrogen-part of the hydrocarbon, and atmospheric oxygen. This produces litres of fresh water (vapor, which becomes rain)… these litres of fresh water are not recycled water, not water from the hydrological cycle, but NEW water, created from the raw chemicals… a net benefit to the earth. Every gallon of gasoline burned creates almost exactly a gallon of water. Pretty much the same for diesel. As a bonus, each gallon of fuel liberates about twenty pounds of precious plant food (carbon dioxide).
I’d be interested in some substantive discussion of the Eagle Spirit / Aquilini proposal and its messaging strategy.
So far, we’ve seen a rather muted response from folks who’ve been all over Enbridge or the Black fantasy refinery proposal.
Does this constitute a partial success for the proponents? Does just having a large component of symbolic FN packaging (e.g. the singing/drumming/costumes at the press conference) disarm critics that easily? Or is this just being viewed as another sideshow that will sink without at trace in a few months?
I believe first nations shall have to not pay for hydro or gas..the companies today are going to destroy our traditional territories without cause of where first nations hunt gather n fish.. which in turn will cause us to travel farther n unknown territories to gather our traditional food ..
If some one delivered a load of firewood to your door cut from the bush, would you expect to pay for it or is everything “free”? I think you would pay. Stick to the basic problem of massive destruction of the North just to support the consumer culture here and in other countries.
Approximate quote, “I wish we could’ve done the trip on biodiesel”, pick up trucks don’t run on biodiesel? Please stop coming up with excuses for use of fossil fuels whenever it isn’t convenient for you. Either stop using petroleum or don’t but quit telling other people to make sacrifices when you aren’t willing to yourself.
That said, come up with a real solution. Obviously this is all still going to happen, either here or in other parts of the world. Even the PowerPoint slides weren’t created without fossil fuels, the boat that Gerald Amos took them out on was built with materials taken from the earth in open pit mines and was fueled with gasoline, the list goes on. The world needs fossil fuels and a hydrocarbon economy. Opposing pipelines, LNG, mining and logging on principle alone is a foolish waste of time and money. Come up with something new, a fresh approach to how to handle these projects.
Give me a break, Greg. The fact that we all continue to use some fossil fuels because our entire socio-economic system has been built that way for the past 70 years should not preclude us from investigating and questioning that system.
What you’re suggesting – that anyone who uses fossil fuels today – should be barred from having an opinion on our fossil fuel economy is preposterous and ensures that nothing will ever change.
We all make choices. I chose not to own a car, not to fly other than for what I consider important work, to shop locally, to minimize my use of plastics – in short, to cut down my carbon footprint wherever possible; while lobbying for public investment in transportation and economic systems that don’t depend on fossil fuels.
If renting the occasional pick-up truck makes me a hypocrite in your eyes, I can live with that 😉
That Is so True! So many People Opposed To LNG, Oil And Oil Pipelines. They them selves use Oil products on a daily basis, Cars ,Boats ect….
Stop The Lame excuses and lets get on with developement.
We don’t even produce enough fuel for our own North American consumption and we are willing to permanently damage the North to dramatically expand production for markets around the world. That is dumb. We will be paid in US dollars which will allow us to buy more crap at Wallmart. The oil and gas will be shipped out of our North American market and away from the Taxman ensuring that all profit disappears from the Canadian citizen. ( Christy is already being told that 7% on gas is uncompetitive! ) The world market will take everything we have and pay us nothing except for a hole in the ground and a dirty creek. We don’t have to do it. We don’t have to give everything away just so we can slap down some American Dollars at Wallmart.
In 2011-12 there was a tunnel built under skeena river east of kasik! Who said YES?? I didn’t vote for this ??