The battle lines are drawn, and Northern B.C.'s pristine wilderness is the latest front. With hearings underway into the proposed $5.5-billion, dual 1,172-kilometre Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project to transport bitumen from the Alberta tar sands to Kitimat and imported condensate to dilute it from the coast back to Alberta, the fossil fuel industry and its supporters have stepped up the rhetoric. Environmentalists and people in towns, rural areas, and First Nations communities in B.C. have lined up in opposition.
It's not just about potential damage from an oil spill along the pipeline route or from a supertanker plying the precarious fiords and waterways along our northern coast -- as critical as those concerns are. The larger issues are about our continued reliance on polluting fossil fuels and the economic impact of rapidly exploiting and selling our resources and resource industries.
It's about Canada's national interest. With lax royalty structures and massive subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, not to mention foreign ownership of tar sands operations and lobbying by foreign companies, Canadians are not enjoying the real benefits of our oil industry. In fact, increasing reliance on the tar sands is hurting other sectors of the economy, manufacturing in particular.
Thanks to the government's support for the fossil fuel industry, ours is a petro dollar that rises and falls with the price of oil. The high price of oil has increased our dollar's value, and that has hurt the more labour-intensive manufacturing sector, which relies on exports. Not only have hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs been lost over the past few years, Canada has also been missing out on opportunities to join the boom in production of renewable energy technology.
And when we build infrastructure such as pipelines to support the fossil fuel industry, we increase the incentive to use fossil fuels for a longer time and decrease the incentives to invest in cleaner energy.
Industry adherents have come up with many arguments supporting the Northern Gateway project. Some have more holes than an oilfield.
Take the jobs argument. Even Enbridge admits that most would be in short-term construction work. Only about 35 to 40 long-term jobs would be created at the Kitimat marine terminal, with some additional jobs in pipeline maintenance. It hardly seems worth risking tens of thousands of jobs in tourism and the fishing industry, among others, for a few short-term and even fewer long-term positions.
Most economic benefits from increased tar sands production would go to the companies and their shareholders, including firms from the U.S., Korea, and China. In fact, state-owned PetroChina, which already operates in the tar sands, has just bought 100 per cent of the MacKay River project.
The "ethical oil" argument is so absurd as to be hardly worth mentioning, but it's one the government has latched onto. Oil can't be ethical or unethical. People, and by extension the companies they own and operate or the governments they represent, can behave in ethical or unethical ways, but a product can't.
The Northern Gateway project, and much of the recent and pending tar sands expansion, will help companies owned by the government of China dig up the bitumen and send it there for refining and use. The ethical oil folks admit that China is a police state, so why do they support selling them our industry and resources? Canadian tar sands companies also do business in the countries tagged by the ethical oil folks as being unethical -- often in partnership with state-owned companies.
The anti-American conspiracy theories are even more absurd. Saying that opposition to the Northern Gateway is a plot by U.S. funding agencies to protect America's access to Canadian oil is just idiotic in light of the fact that many of the same groups and funders also oppose the Keystone XL pipeline project that would carry oil from the tar sands to Texas. It's odd to see such anti-Americanism coming from conservatives who apparently support Communist China!
The only real argument for Northern Gateway is that it will increase profits for the oil industry, and hand over more of our resources and the associated profits and jobs to China. The arguments against it are so numerous we've barely touched them here.
Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Editorial and Communications Specialist Ian Hanington.
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You have a Phd. in genetics - Dr. Patrick Moore ( co-founder of Greenpeace ) has a Phd. in ecology . I'll trust him before I trust you mainly because he actually studied environmental science and more importantly , he doesn't take money from foreign business groups who are in competition with the Canadian oil industry.
The reality is that if the pipeline is built Canada will be able to establish a world benchmark for oil much like Texas Intermediate and Brent Sea . The Univ. of Calgary's School of Public Policy has estimated that it will add 131 BILLION dollars to the Canadian economy in 15 years. That's money OPEC and other US interests will lose out on. That's also tax revenue for schools , hospitals, transit, etc. - tax money that organizations like yours , Greenpeace, WWF, etc. don't pay because you're a "nonprofit" organization.
Hey, how's that ' North Pole is melting' fund raising campaign going ? This morning the temperature there was -45 C . Given your penchant for stretching the truth I'm going to have to call you on the manufacturing job loss statement and the tens of thousands of tourism jobs lost.
You're paid millions to protest the pipeline - you're not impartial.
Also, quoting numbers from a group paid by those that will profit from those very numbers isn't very intuitive, post numbers from a group that doesn't care about either side, one that is unbiased, doesn't take money from oil or environmental groups and you'll have credible numbers (many universities out there mostly qualify, although any around the oil hug would be in question).
http://polaricecapsmelting.com/
http://darÂyanenergybÂlog.wordprÂess.com/caÂ/part-8-msÂr-lftr/8-4Â-the-isotoÂpe-separatÂion-plant/
It is clear that D A Ryan started out with an agenda against LFTR and that he is either deliberately trying to misrepresent some of the claims he is making or has not bothered to understand the concept he is denigrating. Given that he doesn't provide any credentials and that his critique is riddled with errors or misrepresentations I wouldn't place much value on his claims.
That said, there are indeed many hurdles to be overcome before we produce our first gigawatt from LFTR. However a much more lucid and learned assessment of the hurdles to be overcome can be found in the following video by Dr. David LeBlanc, a physicist at Carleton University.
http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com/ThoriumSite/TEAC3.html
http://daryanenergyblog.wordpress.com/ca/part-8-msr-lftr/8-4-the-isotope-separation-plant/
it's not ready for at least 10 years. It won't then go into production for another ten years. Solar will be 2 cents per KWH hour by then.
I have a few problems with solar, the foremost being cost. Currently to offset that cost Ontario has a $0.80 /KWH feed in tariff. In other words, based on the wholesale price, solar is being subsidized by the taxpayer to the tune of about $0.77 /KWH. This is a long way from the 2 cents/KWH you claim. Ontario's $7 billion deal with Samsung will produce only 0.5 GW (peak) of solar power. Ontario's 2006 peak demand was 27 GW.
Another simple fact is that a 1 KW solar array produces that KW only when the sun's rays are exactly perpendicular to the panel. The output will fall off with the cosine of the angle between the sun and a perpendicular to the panel. IOW your 1KW panel will produce near that 1KW only for a brief period once a day for a few days a year. On average it will produce significantly less ( and this time of year nothing for most of the day) in Canadian latitudes. And then of course there are those inconvenient cloudy days. So solar (and wind) requires some form of energy storage. Current battery technology is simply too expensive although the vanadium redox battery might someday be up to the job. But any battery technology has losses.
This grin energy combination solar wind waste and efficiency, can supply clean safe, chap 24/7 energy forever. land, water and carbon negative.
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/06/10/solar-power-graphs-to-make-you-smile/
energy source amounts: http://cleantechnica.com/2011/08/23/solar-power-intro-3-key-solar-power-points-top-solar-power-news/
Nonsense!
You are talking about only electrical energy generation and ignoring transportation and heating demands. Wind and solar are too expensive. Furthermore, where are you going to get your electricity at night if the wind isn't blowing?
Ontario has committed $7Billion to a deal with Samsung that will provide only 2.5 GW, slightly less than 10% of the province's current peak demand, by 2016. And that is only Ontario and only electric power generation.
Fossil fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and kerosene have a high energy density. We currently have no means of replacing these. The Chevy Volt for example has a range of only 60 Km on battery. And imagine what electric demand might look like if everyone were driving electric cars!
Sorry, but we truly do need nuclear. There is an undeveloped nuclear technology that promises to mitigate most of the problems currently associated with nuclear power. That is the molten salt thorium breeder reactor. Educate yourself before dismissing it, we really do need it and the sooner, the better because deployment will take decades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
Using bio-sourced carbon and heat from nuclear reactors we could produce transportation fuels and methane for domestic heating using the Fischer Tropsch process. This is our only possible means of becoming carbon neutral.
Waste bio char system are best used in a distributed fashion , and that means the heat can be used from the process. Waste heat is used all over the world, NYC for instance heat the city with power plant heat.
7B$ for 2.5GW is far cheaper than nukes 7$ per W. Odd example.
Obviously they need to commit ten times that. It will save money over nukes.
Waste bio char bio fuels are bio diesel in particular are the same energy density and will work in the existing vehicles and generators.
Using waste bio char to create bio fuels is carbon negative, dump land negative and is 3-10 times energy positive, providing heat electricity, bio liquids, gasses and char to bury and enhance some soils. Nukes total needed or wanted. Nukes high density would require more transport for the bio wastes. http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/biochar-alone-could-offset-12-of-all-human-greenhouse-gas-emissions-study.html
energy source amounts: http://cleantechnica.com/2011/08/23/solar-power-intro-3-key-solar-power-points-top-solar-power-news/
Look are my recent comments for more details.
Your position is one which is born from the inability to comprehend a future without cheap energy. Solar, wind, etc, make GREAT sense in certain areas, on a decentralized scale. Just like hydro-electric makes sense for BC, it doesnt make sense for Arizona.
I'd encourage you to try and find some factual substantiation for your assumptions presented in your post. In the process, you will find the answer is nowhere as simple as you would want to believe.
It's just a spring clean from the May Queen
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on
Led Zeppelin Stairway To heaven
http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2010/09/athabasca-river-how-many-politicians_07.html
As the mining process increases in size, so does the problem no matter the ultimate destination of the oil or the routing of the pipeline that gets it there.
There are so many billions of dollars invested in the tar sands now and much of it has been invested by China, the U.S. and others, that there is no going back now. The tar-sands will be extracted every day for decades, unless the price of oil drops below the tar-sands extraction price.
My concern is a spill over pristine land or sea. For that reason, an oil pipeline with supertankers is out of the question. If tar sands product is going to be exported to China (it will be, trust me on this) an oil pipeline and supertankers are the absolute worst way to go. What makes way more sense is to highly upgrade the tar sand material to highly-refined ethane and send it to Kitimat by high-pressure gas pipeline. LNG tankers are innocuous compared to crude oil tankers! In case of accident, ethane evaporates (unless ignited) into the air instead of destroying thousands of miles of coastline and countless sea-life.
Even exporting the raw tar-sand itself - delivered by rail to the port and carried inside bulk carrier ships (the same way as coal is exported every day in BC) is light-years better than shipping crude oil!!
Exporting crude to China from Kitimat, really is the worst option of all the available choices.
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/01/12/HughesReport/
Until N. Americans want to radically curb their consumption of all energy will we use less oil. Everything else is a greenwash.
SolarReserve’s unique CSP technology allows energy from the sun to be stored and delivered to the grid on-demand, not just when the sun is shining.
SolarReserve’s technology offers several important benefits:
Energy Storage: By utilizing liquid salt to store the captured solar energy, energy can be delivered as needed, day and night.. The stable electricity supply reduces grid reliability impacts from other intermittent renewable energy sources.
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US-made: SolarReserve’s technology utilizes components primarily manufactured in the US, as opposed to competing technologies which use mostly imported components...
http://www.tonopahsolar.com/the_technology.html
There is no 'green' solution to our massive levels of consumption.
consume less.
http://www.greenillusions.org/description/
They are also sidestepping real job creation in Alberta and Canada by sending the raw bitumen out of the country. There has to be a reason for this as it is glaringly obvious to anyone who glances at the story.
The other problem as noted by David S is that this pipeline (and XL) if completed are just extending the time we seriously tackle the end of the fossil fuel era. We are digging at the bottom of the barrel right now and need to transfer all those billions in subsidies, tax loopholes etc to greener tech.
In many areas of our resource economy we as Canadians stupidly exploit our resources both finite and renewable to enrichen others with nary a thought to using our tremendous intellectual and creative abilities to maximize the value of the resource in question. The fact we even entertain sending bitumen offshore is an insult to all of us and even more to our children when we have the capability to finish the process and build a refining capability that is world class.
If you don't know already a little background to refining in Canada. Currently our home grown refining capacity is maxxed out and in fact due to the aging infrastructure it can be argued it is a declining capacity and no oil company be they domestic or international will build new ones in Canada, yet the feedstock for it is in our back yards.