Ottawa is preparing to relax regulations governing the release of effluent from some Tar Sands tailing ponds. It was bound to happen in the Great Northern Petro-State of Canada. Ottawa and the Alberta government are in the early stages of crafting new rules with industry to authorize discharges of treated
Continue readingTag: Athabasca Tar Sands
The Disaffected Lib: Ford Says Ontario Has Done Enough.
At least there’s something Doug Ford can thank his Liberal predecessor for – cutting Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions. He’s positively boastful about that, to the point where he’s shining an unwanted light on his anti-climate tax comrades, Kenney and Moe. Doug Ford’s government in Ontario is now insisting the province
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Those Ever So Tarry Sands
You know your country has descended into a petro-state by the arguments it invokes to excuse itself. The classic Tory line that’s now the Liberal line is that, gee shucks, Canada is such a minor player that even if we stopped flogging bitumen it wouldn’t really change much. Even Environment
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Norway Shines a Light We Don’t Care to See
Little Norway and it’s big sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, are once again leading the way, this time by plunging into alternative clean energy investment. Not for the first time Norway is demonstrating how screwed up Canadian energy policy has become and will continue to be until we get
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Good News for the Environment = Bad Tidings for Prime Minister Pipeline
If it’s as good as they say it is – and, with these “breakthroughs” that’s always a very big “if” – the fossil energy industry could be kaput. Sorry, Justin. Sorry, Rachel. Sorry, Jason. Sorry, Andrew. Sorry, Big Oil. WooHoo, British Columbia. An article in Financial Post claims a BC company
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: A Venture Capitalist on Why Kinder Morgan’s Pipeline and the Tar Sands Make No Sense.
The CEO of Chrysalix Venture Capital says “let’s get honest about the outlook for the Alberta oil sands and Trans Mountain.” In Wal van Lierop’s opinion, neither makes any financial sense any longer. In other words, Trudeau and Morneau appear to be leading Canada into a huge economic blunder. If
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Hey, Canada is in the Spotlight Again. In Case You Couldn’t Guess It’s About the Tar Sands.
The Guardian does like to periodically remind us that, when it comes to climate change, nice, decent, oh so polite Canadians are utter swine. And they’ve got a point. Justin, he’s all for the Tar Sands. Why, that’s how Canada is going to have a green future. Why didn’t he just
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Lies. And Trudeau-Trump lies.
You have come to expect it in the daily reports from the American White House. You know that the man in the White House tells lies. You just do not expect it from the guy in charge in Ottawa. And you already knew that the guy in charge at the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Norway’s StatOil Bails on Tar Sands, Takes Half-Billion Dollar Loss
The Norse know a couple of things about oil – how to make money from oil and how to hold onto it. It’s how their government amassed the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund now worth a million kroner for every man, woman and child in the country. We, especially Alberta,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Stephen Harper’s Oily Comeuppance
A Saudi prince once said that the Stone Age didn’t end because man ran out of stones. The Age of Oil may be headed for the same fate. A Goldman Sachs outlook suggests the price of crude oil will hover around $45 a barrel for the next year or so
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: "Extraordinarily Dirty" – What Obama Thinks of Athabasca Bitumen
Barack Obama didn’t pull any punches in giving his opinion about Alberta’s bitumen. Obama said he was still not sure whether he would approve Keystone, the $8-billion TransCanada Corp. project that would send oil from Alberta and the Northern U.S. to refineries in Texas. But he was more critical than
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Newsweek’s Obituary for the Athabasca Tar Sands
Is it time for the Barons of Bitumen to wave the white flag? That seems to be the case according to an article from the latest NewsWeek, “Keystone and the Riddle of the Tar Sands.” …some of Alberta’s crude has made its way to market, but so much slower than
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Whether You Support Pipelines or Not, Here’s Something We Can Surely Agree On.
No secret I’m opposed to both Kinder Morgan and Northern Gateway. A sizeable majority of British Columbians are of the same mind but a significant minority supports the pipeline initiatives. In situations like this it can be helpful to seek out areas of agreement, common ground. Here’s an idea we
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: B.C. Economist Slams Bitumen Scam
She’s even using the “F” word, as in fraud. And Robyn Allan says the fraud, on the Canadian people, is being perpetrated by the federal and provincial governments, Big Oil, Enbridge, a rightwing think tank, a major bank and, of course, their media waterboys. In her latest critique Allan makes
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Washington and Beijing Talk the Talk, Now Must Learn to Walk
They’re the world’s two biggest national economies and the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. It’s encouraging then that the United States and China have announced an agreement to “accelerate action to reduce greenhouse gases by advancing cooperation on technology, research, conservation, and alternative and renewable energy.” Their joint
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: There’s Still a Chance
Here’s what you need to know. Today there is 25 per cent more atmospheric CO2 than there was in 2000.On the books right now are plans for the construction of 1,200 more coal-fired power plants that will create emissions equal to anoth…
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Giant Tar Sands Lakes for Athabasca
Big Oil has figured out it’s way too expensive to fill in their bitumen mines with soil and far, far cheaper to simply transform them into lakes. Here’s the kicker. Big Oil says we’ll have to wait for several generations to find out whether these lakes turn into pristine ponds
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Hey Canada, Do You Really Want to Talk?
Having a conversation with a bitumen booster is like talking to a climate change denier. It’s impossible to have a broad-reaching discussion, covering all the bases. That’s because the Tar Sanders have some bases they want to bypass. They want to narrow the conversation to play into their greatest strengths
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Bitumen’s Oh So Dirty Little Secrets
There are some things that never come up when discussing the Athabasca Tar Sands or shipping bitumen to China. The difference between bitumen and conventional oil never comes up. Bitumen isn’t oil. In it’s processed, or upgraded, form its a sludge that has to be diluted and heated in order
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Cooking the Carbon Books
Maybe it’s time to put a cork in China’s hydrocarbon pipelines. A study published in Nature reveals that irregularities in China’s energy consumption data suggest total carbon emissions from the People’s Republic could be as much as 20% greater than stated. That would be the equivalent of the CO2 emissions of Japan,
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