Read this Dec. 9 story from the UK’s Telegraph on predictions that global oil prices will continue tumbling. The Opec oil cartel no longer exists in any meaningful sense and crude prices will slump to $50 a barrel over the coming months as market forces shake out the weakest producers, Bank
Continue readingTag: Energy and Resources
The Common Sense Canadian: Harper: It’s “Crazy” to apply climate laws to oil and gas industry
Read this Dec. 9 story from The Globe and Mail on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s statement that it would be “crazy economic policy” to apply climate regulations to the oil and gas sector. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has retreated further from his pledge to regulate carbon emissions in the oil industry,
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Christy Clark admits Site C not needed for LNG; Cracks forming in her support for project: Bloomberg
BC Premier Christy Clark would choose the LNG industry over Site C Dam According to this Dec. 10 story from Bloomberg, BC Premier Christy Clark remains bullish on the beleaguered LNG industry – but, more notably, she has finally given up on the notion the Site C Dam is needed
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Alberta won’t appeal Jessica Ernst’s right to sue over fracking: Nikiforuk
Environmental consultant Jessica Ernst on her land in Alberta (Colin Smith photo) Read this Dec. 10 Tyee story by Andrew Nikiforuk on the Alberta government’s surprise announcement that it will not be appealing a recent court ruling enabling landowner and scientist Jessica Ernst to proceed with her lawsuit over fracking
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Latest Harper Omnibus bill guts regulations for coal, LNG ports
Neptune coal terminal (Image: Dan Pierce/Wilderness Committee) By Andrew Gage and Anna Johnston – republished with permission from West Coast Environmental Law On October 23, 2014, the federal government introduced Bill C-43, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 11, 2014 and other measures (also called the
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Calgary paper dispenses free parenting advice to BC’s Kinder Morgan opponents
Kim Fink-Jensen (left) and daughter Kate pose with MP Kennedy Stewart after protesting the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline at Burnaby Mountain (Photo: Kim Fink-Jensen/facebook) I say two cheers and a hey nonny nonny for the Vancouver Province. How good it was of them to re-print, on the op-ed page yesterday a
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Western Canadian regulators band together to reduce “pipeline delays”
As if Western Canadian regulators weren’t already friendly enough to energy projects, they are now uniting to address what they see as growing “pipeline delays”. Check out this Dec. 2 story from Bloomberg on their recent pact. Canada’s provincial energy regulators are banding together to cooperate amid hold-ups in constructing
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Clark govt, Science World selling LNG Kool-Aid to kids
Ministers Rich Coleman and Shirley Bond watch a recent demonstration on the “science of LNG” (BC Govt) The BC Liberal government’s all-out push to build an LNG industry is extending into the province’s classrooms and the minds of its students. The latest partner in this effort, Science World, is co-hosting a series of
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: First Nations react to LNG approvals with highway blockade
Highway 16 blockade on Saturday (Photo submitted) A group of 65 Gitxsan First Nations and supporters, led by several hereditary chiefs, showed up on an icy December Saturday to block Highway 16, near Hazelton. They were peacefully registering their opposition to the recent granting of 3 new environmental certificates for proposed LNG
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: What’s the NDP thinking jumping on Liberals’ sinking LNG ship?
BCNDP Leader John Horgan talking LNG at UBCM meeting (Photo: BCNDP) I suppose it’s not unusual for an electorate to feel swindled. It sure as hell happens often enough. The BC electorate has every right to feel swindled in the election of 2013 by the Christy Clark government’s solemn promise
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Industrial logging threatens Port Alberni drinking water: Alliance
Since 2011, the Watershed Forest Alliance has been focused on protecting the last pockets of old growth on Island Timberlands’ private forestlands around Port Alberni, Vancouver Island. They are also pushing for an end to industrial logging in the community’s watershed, where the citizens of Port Alberni get their drinking
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Even Clark’s Black Friday LNG tax giveaway couldn’t satisfy Petronas
Video by Kevin Logan Common Sense Canadian LNG commentator Kevin Logan threw together this little spoof of BC Premier Christy Clark’s Black Friday address, which brought to a close legislative debate over her government’s plans to further slash a proposed export tax on liquefied natural gas (LNG). During the last
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: National Energy Board clearly doesn’t serve Canadians
The 3-member NEB Joint Review Panel for the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline The National Energy Board (NEB) is supposedly an independent legal body constituted by the government of Canada to consider evidence on proposed energy projects and then to objectively decide if such projects as oil or gas pipelines
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Alberta Premier Prentice goes East to rescue TransCanada pipeline
Jim Prentice meeting with Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard (Twitter) This story is republished with permission from Desmog.ca. By Derek Leahy Alberta Premier Jim Prentice begins an Energy East lobby tour today in Quebec City to try to woo the premiers of Quebec and Ontario into supporting TransCanada’s 1.1 million barrel-per-day
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe to Christy: Spare the kids, parents your Kinder Morgan lectures
11-year-old Kate Fink-Jensen (CTV) and Premier Clark (Lyle Stafford, Postmedia) Premier Christy Clark has taken it upon herself to criticize the parents of two 11-year-olds who protested the Kinder Morgan action in Burnaby and were only not arrested because the police chose to refrain from doing so. The premier is
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Global gas glut threatens future LNG exporters…like Canada
LNG tankers undergoing maintenance near Ras Laffan in Qatar Read this October 21 Foreign Policy story on the looming global gas glut that calls into question the business case for would-be LNG developers like Canada. Companies around the world are spending billions of dollars in a scramble to start exporting ever-greater amounts
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: Critics of Burnaby Mountain citizens are out of touch with public will for change
84 year-old retried librarian Barbara Grant getting arrested at Burnaby Mountain (Burnaby Mountain Updates/facebook) I’m inspired, if that’s the right word, from two quite irreconcilable sources. First, the Vancouver Sun editorial of last Thursday, and secondly a wonderful movie called Revolution, by Canadian Rob Stewart, which I urge you to
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Kinder Morgan pulling out of Burnaby Mountain with work unfinished
Photo: Jonathan Hayward/CP Read this Nov. 28 story from The Vancouver Sun on Kinder Morgan’s decision to pull its drilling equipment off of Burnaby Mountain one day after losing its bid to extend the injunction it had in place against protestors. VANCOUVER — Kinder Morgan has stopped drilling on Burnaby Mountain and
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Kinder Morgan loses on injunction extension, civil contempt charges
Burnaby Mountain Caretakers locked to Supreme Court doors in Vancouver today (Burnaby Mountain Updates) Read this Nov. 27 story from CBC.ca on American pipeline giant Kinder Morgan’s rough day in court. An application by Kinder Morgan to extend an injunction keeping protesters away from two drilling sites on Burnaby Mountain was
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: BC approves Petronas LNG plant and 2 more gas pipelines
Petronas CEO Shamsul Abbas shakes hands with BC Premier Christy Clark Read this Nov. 26 Reuters story on the BC Liberal government’s approval of multiple LNG infrastructure applications. VANCOUVER — British Columbia has approved a liquefied natural gas export terminal being developed by Malaysia’s Petronas, along with two pipelines to service
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