Between 2004 and 2017, the quantity of natural gas produced increased by 64% and the royalties, which once measured over $1.5 billion annually, disappeared.
Continue readingTag: natural gas
In-Sights: Corporate interest outranks public interest
Many citizens — although not In-Sights readers — will be shocked to learn that credits owed natural gas producers soared by more than $1 billion from April to November 2018. That increase is two and a half times more than the total gas royalties received by government in the three
Continue readingIn-Sights: The race to the bottom is over
In the fiscal years 2016 and 2017, natural gas royalty payments totalled $291 million. However, credits owed producers increased $748 million so, if the province bothered to record these obligations as was recommended by the Office of the Auditor General, the royalty account had a two-year deficit of $457 million.
Continue readingIn-Sights: Hypocrisy of politicians exposed
Politicians demand ordinary citizens pay increasing amounts of carbon tax — supposedly to reduce fossil fuel consumption — while at the same time they dish out billions of dollars in subsidies to ensure gas companies produce more fossil fuels.
Continue readingIn-Sights: Billions of debts and unconscionable messes
A series of provincial administrations and the politicians and bureaucrats we-the-people employ have consistently lied to us by both commission and omission. By wilful blindness, they have put and are putting lives at risk…
Continue readingIn-Sights: Taxing and subsidizing carbon
While BC consumers of carbon pay an ever increasing tax — $10 billion since 2009 — carbon producers are enjoying billions of dollars in subsidies. In the fiscal years 2007 through 2017, natural gas companies quietly received benefit of tax expenditures worth almost $8 billion dollars, 71% of that used
Continue readingIn-Sights: Fossil fuel pollution we forget
After Canada’s federal government and its energy regulator chose to examine broader environmental effects of Trans Mountain’s Energy East pipelines, including upstream and downstream emissions, the American owned company abandoned the project. According to Alberta politicians and their fossil fuel puppeteers, investigating all impacts of oil and gas development are an
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Nat Gas Killed Coal. Now It’s Time to Kill Off Nat Gas.
Natural gas remains widely seen as a helpful “bridge fuel” during the transition from high carbon fossil fuels to alternative, clean energy. That myth is based on end use comparisons. Natural gas power plants emit much less greenhouse gas than coal-fired power plants, ergo nat gas is cleaner. Here’s the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Albertans lose money while energy companies continue to let escaping methane make climate change worse
PHOTOS: Gas wells a-flaring in the United States’ Bakken Field (Photo: U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric and Administration). Below: Canadian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna (Photo: Wikimedia Commons) and Progress Alberta Executive Director Duncan Kinney (Photo: Progress Alberta). CALGARY Methane released from oil and gas operations in Alberta represents lost natural
Continue readingIn-Sights: Ending natural gas giveaways?
On the campaign trail, Christy Clark had some words while speaking in Fort St. John. She said: We have a party (the NDP) that doesn’t believe in natural gas. They want to put a moratorium on even getting it out of the ground. Had she wished to be accurate, these
Continue readingIn-Sights: Before Clark, after Clark
When Encana’s founding CEO Gwyn Morgan became Christy Clark’s transition team advisor, natural gas producers knew they’d bet on a good thing. After six years of Clark, we now see just how good that thing was for gas companies. 12 Years Gas Revenues By the way, these numbers are created
Continue readingIn-Sights: When regulators don’t believe in regulation
When a new government takes office, there is often a significant change at senior levels of the civil service and among OIC political appointments. One person still employed by the Horgan government may surprise more than a few people. Accordingly, I dug this out of the archives. By Order in
Continue readingIn-Sights: BC’s natural gas revenues
This is a communication that I sent to the office of British Columbia’s Auditor General: I note that one of your works in progress is an examination of public revenues from forestry. In FY 2016, net revenues from natural gas royalties were less than the increase in amounts owed producers
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: CVRD Must Stand Up For Lake Cowichan-Youbou-Honeymoon Bay Residents Facing BC Hydro Ripoff Rate Hikes
The BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) is charged with independently examining issues connected with BC Hydro and making their views and rulings on behalf of the public interest. At least that is what they used Read more…
Continue readingIn-Sights: Gas sales in new fiscal year begin on a sour note
Stephen Hume Premier Clark and friends are organizing demonstrations, trying to keep the LNG fantasy alive with voters, at least for another year. BC Liberals won’t admit economic reality but producers have already passed judgment on the future of the BC gas industry. Looking at monthly sales of gas rights,
Continue readingIn-Sights: Gas sales in new fiscal year begin on a sour note
Premier Clark and friends are organizing demonstrations, trying to keep the LNG fantasy alive with voters, at least for another year.BC Liberals won’t admit economic reality but producers have already passed judgment on the future of the BC gas industr…
Continue readingIn-Sights: Gas sales in new fiscal year begin on a sour note
Stephen HumePremier Clark and friends are organizing demonstrations, trying to keep the LNG fantasy alive with voters, at least for another year.BC Liberals won’t admit economic reality but producers have already passed judgment on the future of the BC…
Continue readingIn-Sights: Know and ‘No’ to LNG
An articulate letter published by by the Terrace Standard, a Black Press property. Excerpts follow but I urge you to read the entire letter HERE: I was saddened to witness the “yes to LNG” rally held March 16, not only because I know that the Petronas Pacific NorthWest LNG proposal
Continue readingIn-Sights: Know and ‘No’ to LNG
An articulate letter published by by the Terrace Standard, a Black Press property. Excerpts follow but I urge you to read the entire letter HERE:I was saddened to witness the “yes to LNG” rally held March 16, not only because I know that the Petron…
Continue readingIn-Sights: Know and ‘No’ to LNG
An articulate letter published by by the Terrace Standard, a Black Press property. Excerpts follow but I urge you to read the entire letter HERE:
I was saddened to witness the “yes to LNG” rally held March 16, not only because I know that the Petronas Pacific NorthWest LNG proposal for Lelu Island is wrong-headed and dangerous but because it shows just how susceptible to propaganda we are and how willing some are to mistake sound bites and promises for reality.
…To gamble away our world class treasure of a river and the cultural and economic values that are sustained by it for a relatively few short term jobs that will leave us with less than nothing when they end, to give away our birthright to a corporate entity some call the Malaysian Mafia, to imagine that there is anything natural about fracked methane, that thousands of kilometers of pipeline across wilderness will leave streams and rivers and wildlife habitat intact, that massive dredging and construction in the Skeena estuary will have “no significant effect” on salmon and other species, that the earth can somehow afford yet another huge dump of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, or that this will somehow benefit our children and grandchildren, is to live in a dream world.
…Yes to alternative energy investments, yes to wilderness tourism, yes to wild salmon and the jobs and cultures they sustain, yes to local food production, yes to parks, yes to small businesses, yes to resolving land and treaty issues with First Nations in a respectful rather than coercive way, yes to healthy communities yes to local decision making.
Know and ‘No’ to LNG.
David Bowering MD. MHSc.
Terrace, B.C.
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| Photo credit to Warrior Publications. |
Hat tip to Merv Adey for this letter. If you don’t regularly read Merv’s BC Veritas and follow him on Twitter, you should do so.
Another opinion on LNG in the Skeena https://t.co/aNeQgsOHoE Impact of boom and bust cycles and propaganda. #bcpoli— Merv Adey (@MervAdey) April 6, 2016