Tag Archives: featured

Elon Musk buys solar company to build large-scale panel factories

June 17, 2014Energy and Resources, RenewablesfeaturedCanadian Press

Elon Musk buys solar panel maker — SolarCity Chairman founder Elon Musk

By Jonathan Fahey, The Associated Press

NEW YORK – The energy world is not keeping up with Elon Musk, so he’s trying to take matters into his own hands.

Musk, chairman of the solar installer SolarCity, announced Tuesday that the company would acquire a solar panel maker and build factories “an order of magnitude” bigger than the plants that currently churn out panels.

“If we don’t do this we felt there was a risk of not being able to have the solar panels we need to expand the business in the long term,” Musk said Tuesday in a conference call.

Musk is also a founder and the CEO of the electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors, which is planning what it calls a “gigafactory” to supply batteries for its cars.

In both cases, Musk’s goal is to make sure that the components critical to his vision of the future — electric cars and solar energy — are available and cheap enough to beat fossil fuels.

Musk’s future customer could ignore traditional energy companies completely. They’d have SolarCity panels on their roof that would generate enough power to also charge up a Tesla in the garage. A Tesla battery could then power the home at night with stored solar power.

It’s a far-off vision — solar power is still much more expensive than conventional power, even before the enormous cost of a battery backup. And electric cars are just a fraction of the total auto market. But Musk has made a career of thinking far into the future. He is also the CEO of SpaceX, the rocket company with an ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.

SolarCity, based in San Mateo, Calif. is one of the nation’s largest installers of rooftop solar systems. It was founded and is now run by Musk’s cousins, CEO Lyndon Rive and Chief Technology Officer Peter Rive. The company also offers financing for solar systems, and last year it bought a manufacturer of mounting systems used to hold panels in place.

The acquisition of Silevo is a risk for Musk and SolarCity because it gets the company into panel manufacturing at a time when a global glut of panels has decimated the profits of panel makers. Some, including onetime industry leader Suntech Power, were forced into bankruptcy. Others were forced into solar development and installations, the kinds of things SolarCity already excels at.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. SolarCity shares were up almost 14 per cent in midday trading Tuesday.

SolarCity says it won’t try to turn out more of the garden-variety panels now clogging the market. Instead, it wants to make panels that are more efficient, and make them at a low cost in huge factories in order to reduce the overall cost of solar electricity. Silevo’s relatively complex panels generate more power per square foot than typical panels.

SolarCity said it is negotiating with the state of New York to build what would be among the biggest factories in the world in the next two years. It would manufacture enough panels each year to produce 1 gigawatt of peak power — roughly enough panels to outfit 200,000 homes with a typical-sized rooftop system.

That would be “just a start,” Musk said. Future factories would produce 10 gigawatts worth of panels.

And these panels wouldn’t even look like typical solar panels, he said. Just as he drew customers to electric vehicles by making sleek, fast sports cars, Musk wants to attract homeowners to solar with pretty panels.

“We want to have a cool-looking esthetically pleasing solar system on your roof,” he said.

Are pipeline spills good for the economy, as Kinder Morgan says?

June 15, 2014Economics, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersfeaturedDr. David Suzuki

Are pipeline spills good for the economy, as Kinder Morgan says — Health concerns plague many who worked to clean up the BP oil spill (photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Energy giant Kinder Morgan was recently called insensitive for pointing out that “Pipeline spills can have both positive and negative effects on local and regional economies, both in the short- and long-term.”

The company wants to triple its shipping capacity from the Alberta tar sands to Burnaby, in part by twinning its current pipeline. Its National Energy Board submission states, “Spill response and cleanup creates business and employment opportunities for affected communities, regions, and cleanup service providers.”

[quote]It’s not about going back to the Dark Ages. It’s about realizing that a good life doesn’t depend on owning more stuff.[/quote]

Sad but true

It may seem insensitive, but it’s true. And that’s the problem. Destroying the environment is bad for the planet and all the life it supports, including us. But it’s often good for business.

The 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico added billions to the U.S. gross domestic product! Even if a spill never occurred (a big “if”, considering the records of Kinder Morgan and other pipeline companies), increasing capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels a day would go hand-in-hand with rapid tar sands expansion and more wasteful, destructive burning of fossil fuels — as would approval of Enbridge Northern Gateway and other pipeline projects, as well as increased oil shipments by rail.

[signoff3]

The company will make money, the government will reap some tax and royalty benefits and a relatively small number of jobs will be created. But the massive costs of dealing with a pipeline or tanker spill and the resulting climate change consequences will far outweigh the benefits.

Of course, under our current economic paradigm, even the costs of responding to global warming impacts show as positive growth in the GDP — the tool we use to measure what passes for progress in this strange worldview.

It’s not about going back to the Dark Ages. It’s about realizing that a good life doesn’t depend on owning more stuff

Full steam ahead with fracking, pipelines

Horn River fracking — A fracking drill in BC’s Horn River Basin (Two Island Films)

And so it’s full speed ahead and damn the consequences. Everything is measured in money. B.C.’s economy seems sluggish? Well, obviously, the solution is to get fracking and sell the gas to Asian markets. Never mind that a recent study, commissioned by the Canadian government, concludes we don’t know enough about the practice to say it’s safe, the federal government has virtually no regulations surrounding it and provincial rules “are not based on strong science and remain untested.”

Never mind that the more infrastructure we build for polluting, climate-disrupting fossil fuels, the longer it will take us to move away from them. There’s easy money to be had — for someone.

Conservation must be top priority

We need to do more than just get off fossil fuels, although that’s a priority. We need to conserve, cut back and switch to cleaner energy sources. In Canada, we need a national energy strategy. And guess what? That will create lasting jobs! But we must also find better ways to run our societies than relying on rampant consumption, planned obsolescence, excessive and often-pointless work and an economic system that depends on damaging ways and an absurd measurement to convince us it somehow all amounts to progress.

It’s not about going back to the Dark Ages. It’s about realizing that a good life doesn’t depend on owning more stuff, scoring the latest gadgets or driving bigger, faster cars. Our connections with family, friends, community and nature are vastly more important.

Yes, we still need some oil and gas

Yes, we need oil and gas, and will for some time. Having built our cities and infrastructure to accommodate cars rather than people, we can’t turn around overnight. But we can stop wasting our precious resources. By conserving and switching to cleaner energy, we can ensure we still have oil and gas long into the future, perhaps long enough to learn to appreciate the potential of what’s essentially energy from the sun, stored and compressed over millions of years.

If we dig it up and sell it so it can be burned around the world, we consign ourselves to a polluted planet ravaged by global warming, with nothing to fall back on when fossil fuels are gone.

Waste not, warm not

Scientists around the world have been warning us for decades about the consequences of our wasteful lifestyles, and evidence for the ever-increasing damage caused by pollution and climate change continues to grow. But we have to do more than just wean ourselves off fossil fuels. We must also look to economic systems, progress measurements and ways of living that don’t depend on destroying everything the planet provides to keep us healthy and alive.

Written with Contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.

Woodfibre LNG: Public comment period begins for Squamish project

June 12, 2014Energy and Resources, LNG, Oil&GasfeaturedDamien Gillis

Woodfibre LNG - Public comment period begins for Squamish project — Citizens recently lined the highway outside Squamish to oppose Woodfibre LNG (My Sea to Sky)

The BC Environmental Assessment Office is now open for public comment on the proposed Woodfibre LNG project near Squamish, BC. The comment period, which includes an open house session in Squamish on June 18, will run for 30 days (more info here).

The project, designed to cool and export gas from BC to Asian markets where prices are currently higher, would be built on the 212-acre site of an old pulp mill at the head of Howe Sound. It is part of conglomerate of companies under the Pacific Oil & Gas Ltd. banner, controlled by Indonesian magnate Sukanto Tonato.

BC LNG’s ‘Trojan Horse’?

With a 25-year licence to export 280 million cubic feet of gas per day, which the proponent received last December, Woodfibre is on the smaller end of proposed LNG projects in BC. Because of its size and a decision to power the plant with hydroelectricity instead of burning some of its own gas, the project is being held up as a positive example of the proposed industry for BC.

But the BC Tapwater Alliance’s Will Koop sounds a cautionary note:

[quote]Woodfibre is the Trojan Horse of BC LNG – the project Premier Clark is using to open the door to a much larger industry in the province.[/quote]

No small footprint

Its environmental impacts would also be significant – from local marine pollution to noise and light pollution for residents, not to mention the impacts of increased fracking in northeast BC to provide the feedstock for the plant.

And despite the effort to minimize carbon emissions from the plant, the considerable energy requirements for cooling gas into liquid will add pressure to develop several local private river diversion projects, which have been shown to cause significant damage to fish populations.

Howe Sound faces industrial onslaught

Moreover, the proposed LNG plant and hydro projects are just two among a wide range of industrial projects that threaten the ecology, tourism, and recreational values of Howe Sound – including a proposed gravel mine at nearby McNab Creek, a waste incinerator at Port Mellon, a 4,000 home development at Brittania Beach, and Fortsis BC’s $350 million Eagle Mountain gas pipeline expansion to supply the Woodfibre plant.

As The Common Sense Canadian’s Rafe Mair, a resident of Howe Sound’s Lions Bay, recently remarked:

[quote]A revitalization program – partly official, mostly just people taking care – has brought Howe Sound back, not quite to where it was when I was a boy, but considerably back to where it should be. Herring came back, salmon increased, Orcas abound and humpback whales have appeared for the first time in years. The fishing industry has restarted. This, unfortunately, was not to last. Industry has reappeared, big-time.[/quote]

Howe-Sound-industrialization-map — Map of Howe Sound with proposed industrial projects (with help of Future of Howe Sound Society)

Woodfibre threatens sustainable economic alternatives

All this proposed industrial development – and specifically the $1.7 Billion Woodfibre LNG project – raises concerns amongst local residents like Tracey Saxby that the region’s sustainable tourism and other modern industries will be pushed out, just as they’re gaining real momentum.

[signoff3]

Representing local citizen group My Sea to Sky at a recent summit on LNG at SFU’s Habour Centre campus, Saxby told the crowd of 250, “Squamish is such a special place and this is such an exciting time to be there. It’s a community in transition from the old way – the extraction and resource-based industries – to a new economy that has a broader economic base and more diverse and resilient economic base,” Saxby explained, noting the various new industries being developed in the community – from academia to the emerging recreation technology sector, to enticing entrepreneurs with the region’s spectacular wilderness.

[quote]These things make sense. LNG does not.

[/quote]

Proponent promises 100 jobs

For its part, the proponent is promising 600 jobs during the construction phase and 100 long-term jobs operating the plant, which it is aiming to have up and running by 2017, assuming it secures its environmental permits.

At a recent conference on LNG which her government hosted, Premier Clark and other government spokespeople hinted that Woodfibre is expected to be the first LNG project completed in the province.

Submitting feedback

Comments can be submitted by online form, by mail, or by fax – see details here. The open house takes place on June 18 from 5-8 pm at the Executive Suites Hotel (40900 Tantalus Road, Squamish, BC).

I will also be speaking on the project and LNG development in general alongside the Wilderness Committee’s Eoin Madden at an event hosted by My Sea to Sky on Sunday, June 27 (details here).

$Haida stand with Fort Nelson First Nation on LNG, fracking concerns$

Haida stand with Fort Nelson First Nation on LNG, fracking concerns

June 11, 2014Energy and Resources, First Nations, Fracking, LNG, Oil&GasfeaturedDamien Gillis

$Haida stand with Fort Nelson First Nation on LNG, fracking concerns$

The Council of the Haida Nation (CHN) is vowing to support The Fort Nelson First Nation’s tough stand on proposed Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) development and the 600% increase in controversial shale gas fracking it would represent for their northeast BC territory.

According to The Northern View, a recent visit to Haida Gwaii by FNFN Chief Sharleen Gale was met with sympathy from the Haida audience. Gale was there to bring to light the upstream implications if CHN were to support the province’s vision for LNG development, which would also mean significant tanker traffic through Haida waters.

The chief shook up the LNG debate several months ago when she put the BC Liberal government on notice that no development would proceed without proper consultation with her community (see video below).

Haida concerned about upstream impacts of LNG

CHN has been mulling its official position on LNG over the past year. The elected government of the Haisla Nation – across Hecate Strait from Haida Gwaii – has bought into the industry, forging partnerships for LNG terminals in Kitimat. The Haisla quit the Coastal First Nations alliance in 2012 over internal disagreement around LNG development.

Meanwhile, other First Nations along the proposed pipeline routes are opposing this development – many of them citing growing concerns about the upstream implications of these decisions, as support for LNG would mean vastly increased fracking in northeast BC to supply the feedstock.

CHN and other Coastal First Nations members have also been examining the potential impacts of the LNG industry on the coast – everything from air quality and climate issues to the impacts of tanker traffic and dumping bilge water in the marine environment.

Province’s ‘less-than honourable dealings’

According to The Northern View, CHN President Peter Lantin and Vice-president Trevor Russ have twice ventured to northeast BC to learn about the impacts of LNG development on Treaty 8 and Fort Nelson First Nation territories.

“It would be irresponsible for us to take a position without understanding the effects on the people most affected,” said Lantin following Chief Gale’s speeches to CHN and public gatherings in Massett and Skidegate.

Added Russ:

[quote]Their story is of a people and landscape being overrun by natural gas exploration and extraction and less-than honourable dealings from the provincial government.[/quote]

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, went one step further at a recent town hall meeting on LNG at SFU’s downtown Vancouver campus. “The economy of this province is being built on the destruction of the Northeast,” said Phillip. “The pipelines that are being contemplated by LNG will further destroy the North.”

No support for LNG until First Nations’ concerns addressed

Following these Haida Gwaii meetings with Chief Gale, the Haida Nation decided not to take an official position supporting or opposing LNG “without ensuring that the interests of the people at the source of the LNG are taken care of,” says The View.

Four choices for shaping the climate future we want

June 11, 2014Climate Change, Climate SciencefeaturedRay Grigg

Choices are one of the many benefits provided by our modern, affluent, consumer culture. A television universe of 500 channels should provide something for everyone’s viewing preferences. Toothpaste? More different kinds than can be imagined. Breakfast cereal? The varieties are overwhelming. Cars? A model with specifications for every possible need. Don’t like the long cold seasons? Just choose a warmer place for a winter holiday.

Such choices are more than comforting. Beyond lightening the burden of inconvenience, reducing the stress of adapting, and creating the illusion of security, our choices come with a satisfying sense of control and plentitude. And now, thanks to the wonders of technology, we can even chose our climate.

Yes, just like adjusting a thermostat, turn to the desired temperature, wait patiently for the greenhouse gases to take effect, and that’s the climate we’ll get. Furthermore, the science is so accurate that it even offers a range. This is why the October 2013 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provided choices between 0.3°C and 4.8°C by 2100. It all depends on what we want.

The IPCC does regret the rather slow response but that’s the best they can do given the complexity of climate dynamics and the geophysical inertia to be overcome. But they have done their best. And now, in collaboration with the thoughtful people at NewScientist (Catherine Brahic, Oct. 5/13) and the expertise of Dr. Richard Moss of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., we are provided with four — not two or three but four — distinct and easily identified climate options for 2100.

Option One: The quick response

A heavy investment in renewable energies and R&D, with some geo-engineering and considerable political resolve to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, has held atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at 400 ppm — they are now falling due to new sequestration technologies. Billions of trees have been planted, forests revived, meat consumption reduced, and the world’s population stabilized at 9 billion. Arctic sea ice has stopped melting, Antarctica has stabilized and ocean acidification has slowed. Sea level rise has been limited to 0.26 – 0.55 metres. Temperature increases have been held to 0.3 – 1.7°C.

Option Two: A slight delay

A slow response in transitioning to renewable energies and implementing climate treaties are having measurable effects. Increasing efficiencies and the widespread use of natural gas, together with nuclear power and other green technologies have stabilized carbon dioxide levels at 550 ppm. Less pastureland, more compact cities, better mass transit and a general endorsement of a low-carbon economy have slowed the rate of climate change. Sea level rise is between 0.32 – 0.63 metres. Global temperature rise is 1.1 – 2.6°C.

Option Three: Too little, too late

Fossil fuel use continued unabated until late in the 21st century, then dropped to 75 percent of energy consumption in the last few decades — not much less than the 82 percent in 2011. Lifestyle changes were largely unaltered until extreme weather events prompted panicking governments to institute unambitious controls on inefficiencies, greenhouse gas emissions and even travel. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is at 650 ppm. The global population is 9.5 billion, oceans continue to acidify, sea level rise is 0.33 – 0.63 metres. The temperature increase is 1.4 – 3.1°C.

Option Four: Addicted to carbon

Fossil fuels still energize a booming economy that is structurally similar to 2014. The global population of 12.5 billion is proud of its consumer and high-tech identity. With carbon dioxide levels at 950 ppm, human health is suffering, food production is faltering, water shortages are acute, and biodiversity crashes are threatening essential “ecosystem services”. Extreme droughts and floods are creating widespread political instability.

Tropical diseases and pests have become common in northern latitudes. Ocean acidification is severe with primary marine ecologies in jeopardy. The Arctic has not had summer ice for decades. Melting has accelerated in glaciers, Greenland and Western Antarctica. Sea level rise of 0.45 – 0.82 metres is displacing cities, settlements and agriculture in coastal regions. Because the temperature increase of 2.6 – 4.8°C is registered as an average, some places have become too seasonally hot for human habitation.

These options for 2100 will be the consequences of our choices, the ones we make in the succession of moments that constitute the unfolding importance of the present — a particularly special present because it is pivotal in the history of humanity and our planet. We obviously have some crucial choices to make — or to not make.

Canada’s choice: Develop the tar sands

The choice of Canada’s federal government is to develop Alberta’s tar sand and make BC’s West Coast an export terminus for its bitumen. Several pipelines are being planned: the Norther Gateway from the tar sands to Kitimat; the Kinder-Morgan Trans Mountain from Calgary to Burnaby; David Black’s proposed refinery at Kitimat would require at least two more pipelines, one for dilbit and another for natural gas; and the proposed LNG plants for northern BC ports would require more gas pipelines.

Meanwhile, the BC government continues to encourage the mining and export of provincial coal, while using its southern ports as conduits for the offshore shipment of American coal. Such choices will determine the future choices we have — or do not have.

We cannot be faulted for the unpredictable consequences of our choices — this is why we excuse children for their innocence of cause and effect. But fully functioning adults, those who know, or should have known, or could have known, are not excused from responsibility for their choices. Intentional denial and willful blindness are not defences in law, are dubious excuses in morality, and are harshly judged in history.

This is the sobering side of our modern, affluent, consumer culture. Because its information density educates us in unprecedented ways, many of the choices we now make carry a weight that can no longer be excused by innocence or ignorance. Sophisticated climate science is able to accurately describe the inescapable consequences of our choices. Of the four options suggested, which one would you choose?

Enbridge battle far from over, even if Harper approves pipeline

June 9, 2014Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersfeaturedCanadian Press

By Dene Moore, The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER – Some time in the next 10 days, the federal government is supposed to announce its final decision on the Northern Gateway pipeline — the multibillion-dollar political minefield dividing the West.

Even detractors expect the federal government to give the $7-billion project the go-ahead.

But the nod from Ottawa would not be the crest of the mountain Northern Gateway must climb before the oil — and the money — begin to flow. The path to the British Columbia coast has many hurdles left for Calgary-based Enbridge (TSX:ENB) and its partners.

Panel recommendation came with 209 conditions

A joint review panel of the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency recommended approval of the project six months ago, subject to 209 conditions.

“The bottom line is there are 113 conditions that need to be met before construction can begin. That’s going to take a lot of time,” said company spokesman Ivan Giesbrecht.

If approved, that would be merely one more step in an ongoing process, Giesbrecht said.

“We have a lot of work to be done before we would be able to begin construction.”

There are also the five applications before the Federal Court for judicial review of the federal panel recommendation, and further court challenges are likely.

Pipeline faces years of legal challenges

The opposition of environmental groups was always a given. Expansion of Alberta’s oil sands has become an international target for climate activists.

“Approval seems obvious. At the same time, opposition is so strong,” said Nikki Skuce, a resident of Smithers, B.C., and a campaigner for the environmental group Forest Ethics Advocacy.

[quote]It’s going to be caught up in the courts for years and it’s going to be ugly on the ground. People are willing to do what it takes.[/quote]

That is no idle threat in a province that saw a decade-long War in the Woods over logging of old growth forests, which ended with new government regulations.

And opposition is not limited to environmentalists and First Nations.

Kitimat showed resolve of communities to block Enbridge

Another crippling blow to the project came from the residents of Kitimat — the B.C. city with the most to gain as the pipeline terminus — when they voted to reject the project in a non-binding plebiscite.

Kitimat is no stranger to industry, born of an aluminum smelter in the 1950s, but for a majority of those who voted the risks outweigh the rewards.

Liberal govt flip-flops on pipeline

Even the provincial government officially opposed the project at review hearings.

Victoria appears poised to reverse itself, deploying key ministers to a flurry of recent federal announcements on marine and pipeline safety. But the Liberal government may be waiting to see which way the political wind is blowing before they change direction.

“There’s a question of whether going along with the approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline will make LNG development in B.C. more challenging by angering First Nations so adamantly opposed to the oil sands pipeline,” said George Hoberg, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s school of forestry and founder of UBCC350, a group pressing for action on greenhouse gas emissions.

There is deep resistance in B.C., he said.

[quote]I think it’s likely to be approved, but I would not be shocked if it was delayed or even denied.[/quote]

The product that the pipeline would carry is a hurdle.

The pipeline west would transport molasses-like diluted bitumen. Studies and previous spills have found that dilbit sinks in turbulent water conditions.

First Nations remain firmly opposed

Opponents like Art Sterritt, director of Coastal First Nations, have said a tanker spill is possible — even likely — and cannot be cleaned up. His coalition of nine aboriginal communities remains vehemently opposed.

The greatest obstacle is the unflagging opposition of First Nations. Hamstrung by the federal government’s failure to negotiate treaties in decades of talks, the company has been left in a legal limbo.

The company said the project has 26 aboriginal equity partners and consultations continue but Clarence Innis, acting chief of the Gitxaala Nation on the North Coast, said they haven’t heard from anyone and no talks are planned.

“We’re going to do whatever we need to do to protect our territory,” said Innis, whose community is located on an island at the mouth of the Douglas Channel.

The Gitxaala are already preparing a legal challenge.

“We played by the rules,” Innis said. “We’ve been ignored.”

The fight is far from over on either side. There are hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, the company has said.

“It’s in the national interest to be able to diversify the markets that we have for our most valuable natural resource,” Giesbrecht said.

“We believe the project is the right thing for Canada, we’ve felt that way right from the very beginning and that’s why we’ve pursued it.

Farley Mowat’s last words

June 6, 2014Species At RiskfeaturedRay Grigg

Farley Mowat's last words — Captain Paul Watson (left) with Farley Mowat, on the ship named after the author (Photo: Sea Shepherd)

When Farley Mowat died on May 6, 2014, at age 92, his incessant flow of writing stopped, words about him shifted from the present to the past tense, and an examination of his life and influence began. But some conclusions were immediately obvious. There was only one Farley — mention Farley anywhere across Canada and it had to mean Farley Mowat.

He was also one of the world’s first eco-warriors. And, as a writer, he will probably have the last word because of the enduring character of print — 17 million copies of 44 books translated into dozens of languages will ensure that the echo of his presence will influence many others well into the future.

The young nature lover

For a man who seemed so overt and uninhibited, the deeper Farley was, in many ways, a private person. But we get clear glimpses of his thoughts, feelings and commitments. At 13 he was already writing about nature, had started a magazine called Nature Lore, and as a young teen was publishing a nature column in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix — he used the $5.00 per column to buy feed for starving geese and ducks.

Nature and writing were the two passions of his life. The other formidable experience in his life was war. Like his father who had been indelibly scarred by the First World War, Farley’s perspective of humanity was forged by the five years he spent as a Canadian soldier fighting his way northward through Italy during the Second World War. “I came back from the war rejecting my species,” he said. “I hated what had been done to me and what I had done and what man did to man.”

On crying wolf

After the war and a university education, he immersed himself in the Canadian North where he wrote about the wilderness, wild species and aboriginal people uncontaminated by civilization. This long therapeutic session focused and clarified his attitude about humanity. “We are a bad animal,” he confided, “— a really bad animal.” In Never Cry Wolf he wrote, “We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be — the mythological epitome of a savage, ruthless killer — which is, in reality, no more than the reflected image of ourself.”

He has described us as “an evolutionary mistake” and “a dangerous abomination.” So, for the rest of his life, he said, “I transferred my allegiance to the other — the 99.9 percent of life that is not us.” And the more he learned of nature, the less he thought of humanity. He frequently warned that we must learn to live in harmony with the natural world or we perish. “It’s a matter of survival,” he declared.

[quote]Either we learn to do this, or we cease to exist. We have no God-given right to survive forever. We have screwed up so badly in so many ways so obviously that only an utterly stupid species would consider that we have much of a future, as things stand. Only by recognizing how far off-track we’ve gone, are we likely to be able to recover our footing and carry on.[/quote]

Creating a ‘persona’

For his own survival as a wild, shy and private animal illuminated in the headlights of fame, Farley invented a persona. In his later years, he candidly described a conversation he had with his publisher, Jack McClelland: “I think we were having one of our liquid lunches, and we reeled back toward the office. Jack said, ‘You have to present an image.’ So I listened and I worked out my image: a kilt-wearing, swaggering, mooning, drinking Farley Mowat. It was always a cardboard cutout, and it was very useful. I could carry it in front of me, and be my own self behind it. I don’t need it any more.”

The elder Farley

Age has a way of dissolving the persona of cardboard cutouts. And the authentic Farley became clearer as he aged. At 92, with millions of books sold and a solid reputation as an prescient environmentalist, he had no legitimate rationale for maintaining an artificial image. His energy, vitality, irreverence, mischeviousness and incisive opinions were even more sharply expressed with the passing of years.

As Shelagh Rogers of CBC radio confided when interviewing Farley, “I never knew what I was in for.” These encounters with the media in his later life are full of deep insights as he continually contrasted nature’s wisdom with humanity’s folly. “Our tragedy is our loss of animality.” In his judgment, “We’re under some gross misconception that we’re a good species, going somewhere important, and that at the last minute we’ll correct our errors and God will smile on us. It’s delusion.”

Animal nature

Facts, too, were delusions for Farley. “Most people are wedded to the idea that facts are truth. Don’t trust people who say they have the facts.” From Farley’s perspective, facts are the instruments used to exploit nature and manoeuvre ourselves farther from the very foundation of our being. “Nature,” he pronounced, “is life.” The only credible fact is nature’s wisdom; everything else is our deviousness.

So, ever true to his animal nature, he declared that, “I am what I feel I am. Knowledge comes to me through feeling.” His feeling for the future was not so much bleak as biological. He pronounced us “an evanescent species”. In the unfolding of nature, “Our own species will disappear,” he concluded. “Every species is born to die. Nothing ends. It’s all one continuous flow.”

“I haven’t saved the wolf”

As for his 92 years in this “continuous flow” — 79 years as an eco-warrior — he deemed his life’s work to be ineffective. “I could honestly say I’ve fought the good fight,” he concluded shortly before his death.

[quote]But in the end, my crusades have accomplished nothing. I haven’t saved the wolf, the whales, the seals, primitive man or the outport people. All I’ve done is to document the suicidal tendencies of modern man. I’m sure I haven’t altered the course of human events one iota.[/quote]

But he has, of course. The world would be a less conscious place had Farley not been here. Granted, he couldn’t alter human nature — history is the process of defining what that might be — but he was, if nothing else, a hopeful part of it.

Pipeline debate hits local streets with Kinder Morgan, Spectra spats

June 4, 2014Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersfeaturedDamien Gillis

Pipeline debate hits local streets with Kinder Morgan, Spectra skirmishes — Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan is taking a tough stand against Kinder Morgan (Photo: Vimeo)

A pair of skirmishes over access for pipeline companies to landowners’ properties in the Lower Mainland suggests the debate over Canada’s energy future is washing up on local streets.

Today, we learned that Burnaby Council – long an outspoken opponent of Kinder Morgan’s plans to expand its TransMountain pipeline to a tanker facility in Burrard Inlet – is blocking the company’s access to Burnaby Mountain. In yet another proposed route change, Kinder Morgan is now mulling tunnelling through the mountain, for which it requires permits from the city.

Meanwhile, a group of local farmers has brought a countersuit against gas pipeline operator Spectra and its subsidiary Westcoast Energy. The claim, filed in BC Supreme Court last week, is in response to Spectra’s attempt to force its way through the courts onto Fraser Valley farmland in order to install new pipeline equipment – a step it resorted to after failing to negotiate mutually agreeable terms with landowners.

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Both incidents foreshadow the future landscape of pipeline disputes, as they filter down to local streets, farms and backyards.

“Every inch of the way”

Despite Kinder Morgan’s claims of longstanding good relations with Burnaby, Mayor Derek Corrigan tells a very different story. Ever since it spilled oil in north Burnaby’s streets in 2007, Corrigan and council have been wary of Kinder Morgan. Now, with plans to triple the flow of Alberta bitumen through the community, Burnaby’s municipal leaders are upping the ante. “We’re fighting them every inch of the way,” Corrigan told The Vancouver Sun.

[quote]We’ve made it clear we are opposed to the pipeline, and they’ve made it clear they want to impose it on us whether we want it or not.[/quote]

Now the company says it’s prepared to take the extraordinary step of going over the city’s head to the National Energy Board, which in rare cases can trump municipal authority over such matters. The move can hardly improve relations with Burnaby, so it looks increasingly like we’re in for a long, nasty battle in the trenches of a local community.

Existing pipeline damaged soil, hinders farming

Meanwhile, in the Fraser Valley, farmers claim that the old Westcoast Energy pipeline, which carries gas from northeast BC to the Lower Mainland, has violated the terms of its easement. They claim the pipeline has:

Damaged soils
Increased soil temperature, leading to crop mutation
Segmented harvesting, which raises costs to unfeasible levels
Wrought other constraints on harvesting

They further claim that Westcoast has failed to provide adequate compensation for these impacts – all of which add up to a breach of the original terms of the easement, meaning the company has forfeited its right to further access.

The landowners are seeking an injunction to block Westcoast and its agents from accessing their properties until these historical impacts to their land have been rectified.

The NEB’s big stick

While the above dispute is playing out in BC’s courts, the National Energy Board is being asked to intervene in the Burnaby matter, marshalling special federal powers it holds for such situations.

The NEB may wield a big stick for “resolving” local disputes on the land – but it should carefully consider the impact of using it. The Board’s recommendation of the proposed Enbridge pipeline, despite some 96% opposition – through the thousands of official submissions and public comments during the review process – has irked everyone from citizens to expert engineers to scientists, 300 of whom recently called out the panel for its unscientific reasoning.

Early on, the NEB review of Kinder Morgan’s project has already met with similar criticism for rejecting many of the applicants who sought to contribute to the process. Local NDP MP Kennedy Stewart has called out the review panel repeatedly for frustrating public participation and giving Kinder Morgan special treatment.

Backlash brewing

We’re starting to see a backlash on the ground in local communities who want to exercise their own democratic say on these issues – including Kitimat’s recent plebiscite, which rejected the proposed Enbridge pipeline. Judging by the considerable resources and boots on the ground Enbridge invested in its losing campaign there, pipeline companies are wary of the power local communities can wield, even where the law is not technically on their side.

In communities like the Hazeltons and the Kispiox Valley in northwest BC, local landowners and First Nations are getting riled up over TransCanada and Spectra’s attempts to push through gas pipelines bound for LNG terminals on the coast.

With municipal elections looming around the province, we can expect to see these energy issues play out on an increasingly local level. Alberta energy companies dominated campaign funding on both sides of BC’s recent provincial election. Now watch for Kinder Morgan, Enbridge, TransCanada, Spectra and their emissaries to start investing heavily in municipal politics this year. But in doing so, they risk further polarizing the debate and galvanizing local opposition, as they’re already beginning to see.

300 scholars to Harper: Enbridge recommendation based on junk science

June 3, 2014Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, UncategorizedfeaturedCommon Sense Canadian

In an open letter, 300 scholars poke holes in the Joint Review Panel’s recommendation of the proposed Enbridge pipeline, urging PM Stephen Harper to reject its final report.

May 26, 2014

Dear Prime Minister Harper:

Based on the evidence presented below, we, the undersigned scholars, have concluded that the Joint Review Panel’s (JRP) assessment of the Northern Gateway Project (the Project) represents a flawed analysis of the risks and benefits to British Columbia’s environment and society. Consequently, the JRP report should not serve as the basis for concluding that the Northern Gateway Project is in the best interests of Canadians. We urge you in the strongest possible terms to reject this report.

The Canadian electorate expected the JRP ruling to present a balanced and appropriate consideration of the risks and benefits of the Project, drawing upon the best available evidence, and expressing a cogent rationale for the final ruling.

By our analysis, the Canadian electorate received a ruling that is not balanced or defensible due to five major flaws. The Panel’s review:

Failed to adequately articulate the rationale for its findings,
Considered only a narrow set of risks but a broad array of benefits, thereby omitting adequate consideration of key issues,
Relied on information from the proponent, without external evaluation,
Contradicted scientific evidence contained in official government documents,
Treated uncertain risks as unimportant risks, and assumed these would be negated by the proponent’s yet-to-be-developed mitigation measures.

Below, we expand on these five fundamental flaws that invalidate the report as an appropriate basis for your Cabinet to approve the Project.

1. Failure to articulate a rationale

The panel failed to articulate a rationale for numerous findings, and failed to satisfy the criteria of “justification, transparency and intelligibility” expected of administrative tribunals. Such a rationale is fundamental to both scientific and legal judgment. The Panel’s charge was to determine whether the Project is in the public interest of British Columbians and Canadians, based on a critical analysis of the Project’s economic, environmental and social benefits, costs and risks over the long term. Instead of such a balanced consideration, the panel justified its recommendation of the project by summarizing the panel’s understanding of environmental burdens in five short paragraphs and judging that these adverse environmental outcomes were outweighed by the potential societal and economic benefits. Without a rationale for why the expected benefits justify the risks (e.g., why must an environmental effect be certain and/or permanently widespread to outweigh economic benefits that themselves are subject to some uncertainty?), any ruling of overall public interest is unsupportable.

2. Consideration of narrow risks but broad benefits, omission of key issues

The panel included in its deliberation a broad view of the economic benefits, but an asymmetrically narrow view of the environmental risks and costs. The need for the Project as stipulated by Enbridge includes consideration of the enhanced revenues that would accrue from higher prices for oil sands products in Asian markets. These enhanced revenues are benefits to producers from production. The environmental risks, however, were only considered if they are associated with transport, not production or later burning/consumption. All negative effects associated with the enhanced production of oil sands bitumen, or the burning of such products in Asia, were excluded, as were greenhouse gas emissions generally. This exclusion of the project’s contributions to increased atmospheric emissions undermines Canada’s formal international commitments and federal policies on greenhouse emissions. Other key issues omitted include the difficulty of containing freshwater spills under ice, as has already been demonstrated on the Athabasca River from oil sands developments.

3. Reliance on information from the Proponent, without external evaluation

On critical issues, the panel relied on information from the proponent without external assessment. For example, on the pivotal matter of the risks of a diluted bitumen tanker spill, the panel concluded that a major spill was unlikely. Yet, a professional engineers’ report concluded that the quantitative risk assessment upon which the panel relied was so flawed as to provide no meaningful results. Regarding the consequences of such a spill, the panel relied on the proponent’s modeling to conclude that the adverse consequences of a spill would not be widespread or permanent, even as it acknowledged that there is much uncertainty about the behavior of diluted bitumen in the marine environment. That modeling discounted the prospect that diluted bitumen could be transported long distance by currents, when the product submerges, as it does under a wide range of conditions. Thus, the panel may have underestimated the scale of potential damages. Because the proponent is in a clear conflict of interest, an independent assessment of potential oil spill damage should have been commissioned.

4. Contradiction of official government documents

A decision on the potential for significant adverse environmental effects on any species or habitat must be consistent with the government’s own official documents. The panel’s conclusions that marine mammals in general will not suffer significant adverse cumulative effects stands in direct contradiction to the government’s own management and recovery plans. For example, the Recovery Plan for large whales (blue, fin, and sei whales—species-at-risk under the federal Species at Risk Act, SARA) lists “collisions with vessels, noise from industrial … activities, [and] pollution” as imminent threats —all three threats are associated with the NGP proposal. Contamination has also been identified as a threat for other marine mammals: the management plans for both the sea otter and the Steller sea lion identify a risk from marine contamination—in particular the acute effects of large oil spills, but also from the toxicity of smaller, chronic spills that are likely to increase proportionally with vessel traffic. The panel also failed to account for newly identified critical habitat of the humpback whale and failed to specify how the proponent’s mitigation plan would reduce the significant risks from increased shipping, a serious threat identified in the recently published Recovery Strategy for the species. A plan to manage the threats to the species and its habitat is a legal requirement given that the humpback whale is a species of Special Concern under SARA.

5. Inappropriate treatment of uncertain risks, and reliance on yet-to-be-developed mitigation measures

The panel effectively treated uncertain risks as unimportant. For instance, Northern Gateway omitted specified mitigation plans for numerous environmental damages or accidents. This omission produced fundamental uncertainties about the environmental impacts of Northern Gateway’s proposal (associated with the behaviour of bitumen in saltwater, adequate dispersion modeling, etc.). The panel recognized these fundamental uncertainties, but sought to remedy them by demanding the future submission of plans. However, the panel described no mechanism by which the evaluation of these plans could reverse their ruling. Since these uncertainties are primarily a product of omitted mitigation plans, such plans should have been required and evaluated before the JRP report was issued. To assume that such uncertainties would not influence the final decision of the panel, is to sanction the proponent’s strategic omissions, and effectively discount these potentially significant risks of the Project, to the detriment of the interests of the Canadian public.

Conclusion

The JRP report could have offered guidance, both to concerned Canadians in forming their opinions on the project and to the federal government in its official decision. However, given the major flaws detailed above, the report does not provide the needed guidance. Rather, the JRP’s conclusion—that Canadians would be better off with than without the Northern Gateway Project given all “environmental, social, and economic considerations”xvii—stands unsupported.

Given such flaws, the JRP report is indefensible as a basis to judge in favour of the Project.

Sincerely,

Kai MA Chan – Associate Professor, University of British Columbia

Anne Salomon – Assistant Professor, Simon Fraser University

Eric B. Taylor – Professor, University of British Columbia

Read original letter with 300 additional signatories and supporting evidence here.

Read: Engineers poke holes in Enbridge tanker safety

Read: It’s all about the economy…no evidence required

Obama gets tough on coal plant emissions with 30% reduction goal

June 2, 2014Carbon Tax - Cap and Trade, Climate Change, Energy and Resources, RenewablesfeaturedCanadian Press

Obama-gets-tough-on-coal-plant-emissions-with-30-percent-reduction — President Obama visits Copper Mountain solar plant (Photo: Sempra U.S. Gas & Power)

By Dina Cappiello, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday rolled out a plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 30 per cent by 2030, setting the first national limits on the chief gas linked to global warming.

The rule, expected to be final next year, is a centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s plans to reduce the pollution linked to global warming, a step that the administration hopes will get other countries to act when negotiations on a new international treaty resume next year.

Despite concluding in 2009 that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare, a finding that triggered their regulation under the 1970 Clean Air Act, it has taken years for the administration to take on the nation’s fleet of power plants. In December 2010, the Obama administration announced a “modest pace” for setting greenhouse gas standards for power plants, setting a May 2012 deadline.

Power plants are largest source of greenhouse gases

Obama put them on the fast track last summer when he announced his climate action plan and a renewed commitment to climate change after the issue went dormant during his re-election campaign.

Said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defence Council, which has drafted a plan that informed the EPA proposal:

[quote]The purpose of this rule is to really close the loophole on carbon pollution, reduce emissions as we’ve done with lead, arsenic and mercury and improve the health of the American people and unleash a new economic opportunity.[/quote]

Power plants are the largest source of greenhouse gases in the U.S., accounting for about a third of the annual emissions that make the U.S. the second largest contributor to global warming on the planet.

New rule tough on coal

Yet the rule carries significant political and legal risks, by further diminishing coal’s role in producing U.S. electricity and offering options for pollution reductions far afield from the power plant, such as increased efficiency. Once the dominant source of energy in the U.S., coal now supplies just under 40 per cent of the nation’s electricity, as it has been replaced by booming supplies of natural gas and renewable sources such as wind and solar.

“Today’s proposal from the EPA could singlehandedly eliminate this competitive advantage by removing reliable and abundant sources of energy from our nation’s energy mix,” Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, said in a statement issued Sunday.

Partisan battle ahead

The White House said Obama called a group of Democrats from both the House and Senate on Sunday to thank them for their support in advance of the rule’s official release, which is expected to be rigorously attacked by Republicans and make Democrats up for re-election in energy-producing states nervous.

EPA data shows that the nation’s power plants have reduced carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 13 per cent since 2005, or about halfway to the goal the administration will set Monday. The agency is aiming to have about 26 per cent cut by 2020.

But with coal-fired power plants already beleaguered by cheap natural gas prices and other environmental regulations, experts said getting there won’t be easy. The EPA is expected to offer a range of options to states to meet targets that will be based on where they get their electricity and how much carbon dioxide they emit in the process.

Plan contains range of flexible solutions

While some states will be allowed to emit more and others less, overall the reduction will be 30 per cent nationwide.

The options include making power plants more efficient, reducing the frequency at which coal-fired power plants supply power to the grid, and investing in more renewable, low-carbon sources of energy. In addition, states could enhance programs aimed at reducing demand by making households and businesses more energy-efficient. Each of those categories will have a separate target tailor-made for each state.

Obama has already tackled the emissions from the nation’s cars and trucks, announcing rules to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by doubling fuel economy. That standard will reduce carbon dioxide by more than 2 billion tons over the life of vehicles made in model years 2012-25. The power plant proposal will prevent about 430 million tons of carbon dioxide from reaching the atmosphere, based on the 30 per cent figure and what power plants have already reduced since 2005.

The EPA refused to confirm the details of the proposal Sunday. People familiar with the proposal shared the details on condition of anonymity, since they have not been officially released.

Beinecke spoke Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” before details of the proposal became public.

The proposal was first reported Sunday by The Wall Street Journal.

Associated Press writer Josh Lederman contributed to this report.