Other stories below: Rio +20 shows little sign of living up to original Earth Summit; wind energy tax credit could be extended
Canada PM vows to ensure key oil pipeline is built
Canada’s prime minister on Friday made his strongest comments yet in support of a proposed pipeline from oil-rich Alberta to the Pacific coast, saying his government was committed to ensuring the controversial project went ahead.
Enbridge Inc’s Northern Gateway pipeline, which is strongly opposed by green groups and some aboriginal bands, would allow Canada to send tankers of crude to China and reduce reliance on the U.S. market.
An independent energy regulator — which could in theory reject the project — last month started two years of hearings into the pipeline.
In remarks that appeared to cast some doubt on the regulator’s eventual findings, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it had become “increasingly clear that it is in Canada’s national interest to diversify our energy markets”.
He continued: “To this end, our government is committed to ensuring that Canada has the infrastructure necessary to move our energy resources to those diversified markets.”
Rio+20 shows little sign of living up to original Earth summit
It is easy to be cynical. Back in 1992, more than 100 world leaders, including George H.W. Bush, showed up for the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It was a two-week mega-event that attracted huge attention, highlighted by the signing of two groundbreaking treaties on climate change and biodiversity and grand declarations about creating a future green and equitable world.
To put it mildly, the subsequent two decades have not lived up to the promises. George W. Bush effectively broke the climate treaty signed by his father, refusing to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol. Emissions have soared, resource plundering has intensified, nature is still on the retreat, the world has become less equitable, and climate change has gone from distant prospect to frightening reality. While the population bomb may be being defused, the consumption bomb is primed to destroy us all.
The 1992 Rio summit’s aspirations were left in the hands of a new body: the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD). You have probably never heard of it. That’s not a good sign, since the commission is now in charge of a new event, Rio+20, which is being billed as the next step in making the planet fit for future generations.
Wind-energy credit could be extended
Members of the Colorado congressional delegation are calling to extend the wind-energy production tax credit as part of the payroll tax extension.
Eight members of the delegation, including Democratic Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennett, as well as Democratic Reps. Diana DeGette, Ed Perlmutter and Jared Polis signed a letter to the chairmen of the conference committee.
Also included are Republican Reps. Cory Gardner, Scott Tipton and Mike Coffman. Coffman joined the other members of the delegation late Tuesday in their letter. The wind-energy production tax credit gives wind-energy farms a 2.2 cents-per-kilowatt credit on their taxes each year for the first 10 years and will expire at the end of the year.
In January Vestas Wind Systems, the largest wind turbine manufacturer, threatened to lay off 1,600 people if the tax credit is not extended. It has four manufacturing plants on the Front Range and employs 1,700 people in Colorado.
Evangelical group holds firm on ‘pro-life’ link to EPA rule
A green evangelical group won’t bow to conservative anti-abortion-rights leaders or Republicans who are pressuring them to stop casting support for new EPA pollution rules as a “pro-life” position.
The Environmental Evangelical Network (EEN) is under attack from the religious right over its campaign in favor of EPA’s new restrictions on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants – rules that EEN calls vital to protecting the health of the unborn.
Alexei Laushkin, an EEN spokesman, said in an interview Thursday that the group won’t back off the way it frames support for the rules issued late last year.
“We believe protecting the unborn from mercury poisoning is a consistent pro-life position,” he said. “An issue that impacts the unborn – that’s where we resonate as a pro-life organization.”
Cuban Oil: Country’s Ambitions Endanger Florida Coral Reefs and Coast
Cuba’s fledgling oil industry has for the first time dropped an offshore rig into the waters off the Florida Keys, a move that has U.S. officials and environmentalists warning that the island nation’s energy ambitions could come at the expense of the ecologically sensitive region at the tip of the Florida Peninsula.
“Cuba cannot be trusted to provide even the bare essentials to its own citizens and it certainly can’t be trusted to oversee safe and environmentally sound oil drilling only 90 miles off our pristine Florida coast,” said Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation.
Clean energy also needs political focus
Whether it is the Keystone XL pipeline, the Northern Gateway pipeline or securing an export market in China, the oil sands have dominated much of the recent energy discussions in Canada.
What might surprise many is that Canada is quietly emerging as a renewable energy leader, but it will take the same political focus currently being put toward oil sands to ensure we retain and grow the jobs that are being created in the country’s emerging clean energy sector.
In 2011 Canada was sixth in the world in wind energy installations, and as recently as November 2011, Ernst & Young ranked Canada as the eighth-most attractive country in the world for renewable energy in-vestment, ahead of some traditional leaders including Den-mark, Spain and Japan.
Despite having fewer than 35 million people, Canada has the sixth-largest electricity sys-tem on the planet, behind only China, the United States, Russia, Japan and Germany. Given the size of our electricity system, perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Canada ought to be one of the leading markets for renewable electricity.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
There’s a surprise. Whoever could have predicted that if we didn’t take the tars sands oil that the Chinese would want it?
They always wanted it. Getting the Canadian pipeline built ain’t gonna be easy.
Note that Harper has been listening to Frank Luntz, calling a toxic sludge pipeline a way to enable “energy resources”.
I’ve got friends in British Columbia, including coastal First Nation members and progressives in Vancouver. They loathe Harper, and Albertans, for that matter. Northern Gateway will be opposed with everything they’ve got, and they expect to stop it.
It’s as if Bush/Cheney decided to send Texas and dirty North Dakota oil through the redwoods, and dredge Humboldt Bay for supertankers. Ain’t gonna happen.
Correct-o-mundo!
Im so tempted to put up some death ray eyes on this image of Lord Sauron. Then a clunky animation where scores of old forest trees get burned by precise rays. Herds of fleeing and screaming animals…
Maybe Lord Doom fits the theme better.
John Abraham: Science, Civility and Courage Baffle Monckton’s Minions
http://climatecrocks.com/2012/02/10/john-abraham-science-civility-and-courage-against-denial-ignorance-and-fear/
As the article on the Canadian tar sands development hints at (a little), the Northern Gateway pipeline (and the Keystone XL extension) are actually just about getting Brent Crude Oil prices for Canada’s tar oil. Brent Crude is the normal world price for oil. Canada is currently getting West Texas Intermediate pricing for their oil with the existing two US tar sands pipelines to midwest refineries, which is substantially less ($10 – $20 less per barrel).
Supposedly the tar sands breakeven price point is $80-$90 a barrel for oil. At West Texas Intermediate pricing (which is what Canadian tar oil companies get right now) tar oil is marginally profitable for them. If they can get that oil via the XL (to gulf refineries and export thereafter) and / or Northern Gateway at Brent Crude Prices and also decrease the supply to the US midwest refineries so they can pay Brent prices the Canadian tar oil companies win all around – taking a marginally profitable tar oil sands operation to a very profitable operation.
As an aside, the current situation, where the midwest refineries pay a substantially lower price for crude than much of the US or the world market sounds like it should result in lower gas prices for consumers in the midwest (great thing right?), unfortunately that is not the case because the refinery companies in the midwest pocket the “spread”, sell the refined gasoline at Brent prices and their stock prices reflect this. ;-)
The average break-even price for Canadian oil sands projects range somewhere between $45-70 a barrel. See Wood Mackenzie (2009) “The cost of Canada’s oil sands: the calm after the storm?”
An addition $10-20 a barrel is a significant increase in profits. This is why big oil is pushing so fiercely for Keystone XL.
Well, well, now look who is talking….
““Cuba cannot be trusted to provide even the bare essentials to its own citizens and it certainly can’t be trusted to oversee safe and environmentally sound oil drilling only 90 miles off our pristine Florida coast,”
And what is the US record of handling or preventing oil spills? Or disaster management, many more lives are lost in the US than in Cuba due to hurricanes…
The best thing the US could do would be to lift the embargo to Cuba and start collaborating.
>The best thing the US could do would be to lift the embargo to Cuba and start collaborating.
But it is working so well . . .
Axis of oil… The lowdown of Canadian oil
http://greenparty.ca/media-release/2012-02-09/axis-oil-poses-significant-problems-and-questions-canada
Maybe its the circles I move in here in British Columbia, but I don’t know anyone who supports the Northern Gateway pipeline. Aside from the obvious and gross environmental risks of pipeline and tanker spills, the project will accelerate tar sands expansion and CO2 emissions, create only a handful of permanent jobs, and it simply doesn’t make sense from an EROI perspective:
http://thetyee.ca/News/2012/02/06/ROI-On-Bitumen/
I know we can be polite to a fault, but I get the sense that Harper may have a civil war on his hands if this pipeline gets pushed through.
I’d add that the Joint Review Panel will accept Letters of Comment on the project until 21 August 2012, so pipe up!
http://gatewaypanel.review-examen.gc.ca/clf-nsi/prtcptngprcss/lttrfcmmnt-eng.html
KINDER-MORGAN ALTERNATIVE:
WHAT IS DELAYING APPROVAL OF KINDER-MORGANS
EXPANSION OF THEIR CURRENT PIPELINE TO VANCOUVER WHICH IS OPERATING NOW!?
THEY HAVE A PROVEN TRACK RECORD OF EXPANDING THE JASPER LOOP AND OPERATE TERMINALS??
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/kinder-morgan-plans-pipeline-expansion-to-bc/article189229
Breaking Story, Joe i suggest you reblog this revealing story:
Case Study: Anthony Watts and Info-Fascism in Action
http://climatecrocks.com/2012/02/09/case-study-anthony-watts-and-info-fascism-in-action/comment-page-4/#comment-6772