bc2009

Kitimat project could be worth more than $1b to first nations

COMMENT: In early April we criticised the provincial government for forking out $32 million to buy First Nations an equity stake in this pipeline. (link). It's bad on a number of important fronts:

- it is outside the treaty process, so it does nothing to effect reconciliation of previous insults to aboriginal title and rights, and does nothing to respect or improve the status of those rights in the future.

- it is just a payoff, a bribe, to those First Nations - the only citizens who have sufficient legal clout to stop the pipeline. We imagined a government agent slapping bills on the table until the First Nations couldn't say no.

- it runs contrary to the actions necessary to reduce BC's contribution of greenhouse gases. Natural gas today accounts for a third of the BC's total GHG gift to the world (about 60+ million tonnes each from the natural gas we produce, the coal we mine, and all of our other domestic activities.) and with ramp up of shale gas production, the natural gas component is scheduled to increase substantially. This pipeline will serve to move more of that gas to markets. Think of the $32 million as coming from the carbon tax and give your head a shake.

- it is completely opportunistic and non-strategic, accomplishing no social, economic or environmental goals for the province.

Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
April 30, 2009

Deal would inject more money into communities than the stalled treaty process

An artist's rendering of the Kitimat LNG Terminal storage tanks, jetty and associated buildings on Haisla First Nation property at the deep sea port of Kitimat. (Handout illustration, Vancouver Sun)

Some first nations stand to gain more than $1 billion in profits, taxes and business opportunities from a proposed liquid natural gas project in northern British Columbia, The Vancouver Sun has learned.

Proponents of a $4-billion project that includes a 463-kilometre gas pipeline and a liquefied natural gas plant at Kitimat are still ironing out final details of a landmark agreement among aboriginal groups, including Carrier Sekani Tribal Council and Haisla First Nation.

But the B.C. government has already committed $32 million on behalf of first nations who are seeking a 30-per- cent equity share of the pipeline as well as tens of millions of dollars in annual benefits when the liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant is built.

B.C. announced April 8 an accord with 16 first nations along the proposed route which would carry gas from northeastern B.C. to a new deep sea terminal at Kitimat. Once natural gas is turned into a liquid, it can be transported by ship to foreign markets, including Asia.

B.C.’s announcement, however, did not capture the true magnitude of the deal, according to spokesmen for Carrier Sekani and Haisla.

The deal takes place outside of the belaboured B.C. treaty process which has yielded a scant handful of treaties after spending $1 billion on lawyers, meetings and interim measures over nearly two decades of negotiation.

If the Kitimat project is successful, the cash it generates over 30 years for participating aboriginal governments will dwarf the amounts awarded in any of those treaties.

According to Carrier Sekani Tribal Chief David Luggi, first nations along the pipeline route could realize cash flows of $540 million to $553 million over the life of the deal.

They’re using $32 million from the province as an initial ownership stake in the line and are hoping the federal government will match that amount.

Both the pipeline and the LNG plant have environmental approvals from the provincial and federal governments, and proponents are currently in the process of booking capacity on the pipeline.

Greg Weeres, a vice-president with Pacific Northern Gas, which is developing the pipeline portion of the project, said the company “has yet to execute our definitive legal agreement with the first nations.”

“We are confident that there is more good news to come and we are just working at trying to coordinate when we may be able to execute those agreements,” Weeres said.

Luggi said that in order for the Carrier Sekani to fully participate in the project, they will seek investors to help finance a 30-per-cent share of the proposed pipeline.

He noted that Carrier Sekani pulled out of the B.C. treaty process two years ago after concluding a treaty would not provide sufficient benefit for future generations.

“A treaty is forever. This proposal is for three decades,” Luggi said, adding that an environmental accord with the pipeline’s developers is pivotal to the deal — including mitigating the impact that pipeline construction will have on traditional territories of Carrier Sekani bands along the route.

“This is resolving the proposed ongoing infringement of our title, and the cash flows in those three decades for all 16 first nations along the route would be in the range of $540 million to $553 million.

“The government is shifting our rights to investment in a company, in a proposal like this, for nation-building.”

The LNG plant would be situated on Haisla First Nation property at the Kitimat deep sea port.

Haisla Chief Steve Wilson said his people could receive up to $4 million annually in lease payments and $14 million to $18 million per year in property taxes. The Haisla are also seeking a marine transportation contract worth $12 million a year, he said.

“This has nothing to do with treaty. It is a business deal,” Wilson said. “When it comes to reconciliation of rights and title issues, this shows it’s possible to enter into [business] agreements that reconcile interests.

“What this does is set the foundation for our business community. It allows us to start building our own internal economy.”

The chiefs made their comments in interviews during a recent visit to Vancouver.

B.C. Energy Minister Blair Lekstrom said that the deal shows the progress B.C. has made in shaping negotiations among first nations, industry and the province towards economic development benefitting all residents of the province.

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

Read Scott Simpson's energy blog here.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Beyond the Carbon Tax

Tax energy, not just carbon?

Two enviros argue it's 'fluff' and 'blackmail' and no real fix for climate change.

By Michael M'Gonigle and Blake Anderson
TheTyee.ca
April 30, 2009

Despite the economic doom and gloom, catastrophes in fish farms and wild rivers, controversial multi-billion dollar highway schemes, in this election no one seems to care. Instead, the first 10 days of the election have been "virtually a referendum on the carbon tax" reported UVic political scientist Norman Ruff.

Yikes! In a world running amok, this is it? With seemingly pivotal decisions facing BCers on every front, the carbon tax debate shows the depressingly low level of the climate change conversation -- and of our politics. For their shared fixation is on symptoms not causes. If you are willing to look, the problem is clear: over-production and over-consumption, the real issue being not carbon, but energy and the economy that mainlines it.

We are told that we need a response akin to a wartime emergency. Well, if so, a carbon tax is designed to fight a phantom war that diverts us from thinking about, let alone fighting the real one. The enemy? Business -- and life -- as usual.

The political challenge is not Liberal vs. NDP vs. Green but what it will take for an increasingly conservative environmental movement to shake off its political complacency, and lead the charge.

Where is everyone?

Requiem for the carbon tax

In their Climate Action Plan, the provincial Liberals wax poetic that their plan will allow businesses to "capture new opportunities in fields such as clean energy and energy-efficient technology." Their de facto academic spokesperson, SFU's Mark Jaccard, is even more effusive that a carbon tax is fine because Canada's "economy would continue to grow rapidly."

But, of course it will. At a time when the price at the pump can fluctuate 10 cents per litre in a week -- with no reason except our deference to the global law of economics -- the carbon tax is only 2.5 cents per litre. And it will climb by a few cents over the next few years to its peak of 7.25 cents per litre. Whew! We can handle that.

And what happens to this money? Not spent on public transit (as the GVRD mayors recently requested of Premier Gordon Campbell) or energy efficiency for low-income housing or rental units (that might satisfy NDP leader Carole James). No, this is a "revenue neutral" tax, with $300 million in carbon taxes translating into almost $500 million in tax cuts this past year. Whew! We can still do our trip to Italy.

With some good caveats built in (like refunds for low-income earners and Northerners), one might give credit for at least doing a wrong-headed policy somewhat right. The economists are happy. But what will it achieve? If it works (and this is a big IF), its proponents hope to see a 33 per cent reduction in CO2 by 2020 and an 80 per cent reduction by 2050. 33 per cent will be the easier part -- you know, the "low hanging fruit" stuff -- and that would (could) be a significant reduction.

But the big part -- the 80 per cent -- now that's a lot. But 2050? That's 41 years from now. Forty-one years ago, Richard Nixon had just become president, and Barack Obama was six years old. The Vietnam War was raging and the Beatles had just released Sergeant Pepper's. The Americans hadn't even landed on the moon. 2050? Like, this is two generations away! Some wartime emergency.

Carbon colonialism

Unfortunately, the experiences with similar technical initiatives indicate that these targets will be neither achievable nor enforceable. Despite lofty claims from politicians and economists, pricing is a fickle game that in practice has yet to provide solutions.

The Transnational Institute (TNI) in Paris reports that Europe's experience with its related "cap and trade" is a documented disaster -- emissions have increased, large polluters have made massive windfall profits, energy costs rose for consumers, while innovation waited on the sidelines to see where all this policy dust settled. This past week, the world's second largest reinsurer, Swiss Re, closed its carbon trading desk due to lack of business.

Meanwhile, Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute decries the carbon offset market that allows one, for example, to pay to plant trees to "offset" the carbon emitted on one's travels. Carbon offsetting projects have been redundant, ineffective, unproven, unmonitored, although they have spawned a highly-motivated and lucrative new "green" industry selling cheap absolutions to the frequent flyer.

'Carbon colonialism'

Calling it "carbon colonialism," one TNI critic of the impact of offsets on southern development projects noted that "instead of building wells, rich countries can now plant trees." Ironically, the most prolific flyers that we know are climate scientists, followed by climate lobbyists (environmentalists) and climate academics. They are, they say, "on the road to Copenhagen" (the site of the next Kyoto conference). Like millions in our generation of jetsters, they are carbonizing their way to distant meetings -- but important ones, of course.

As a result, the TNI urged California to reject both "the fundamentally flawed trading and offsets approach." It won't be long before we hear the same thing about carbon taxes. Even, staunch advocate Jaccard, admits that for them to work, they will have to impose carbon pricing that are perhaps 400 per cent greater than now permitted. And they will have to be accompanied by "strong complementary regulations and public investments."

Carboniferous politics

But such policies are not on the agenda. Instead, at just 2 plus cents per litre, the carbon tax is all show. Without actual bite, the carbon tax doesn't demand the investment of real political capital. And without that, there isn't serious debate. It's carbon fluff.

Although the NDP rejected the carbon tax, their shallow political calculations are less than inspiring, and their analysis has been less than informative. Meanwhile, respected organizations like the David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute remain staunch carbon tax advocates, despite all the evidence to the contrary, making support for this tax the litmus for environmental correctness.

How often have we been told (erroneously) that any rejection of the Liberals would be devastating for political innovation anywhere on climate change? This is carbon blackmail.

From our review, only the Dogwood Initiative's Cliff Stainsby has set a higher bar. He advocates an awkwardly named "cap and dividend" strategy that would set a cap on CO2 emissions at a point where they enter the economy, and emission permits auctioned off, the money raised to go directly into transitional adjustment assistance that also reflect the social impacts. Stainsby also calls for a ban on such emissions as a toxic substance, old-fashioned direct regulation in Europe having had dramatically greater success with other pollutants (like acid rain) than America experience with cap-and-trade programs.

But even this analysis skirts the main point -- that it's about energy, and our insatiable demand for more and more, and more still. Where will this demand take us? When will it end? What are the alternatives?

Post-carbon politics

One place it will go is a diversion on every usable stream, a windmill for every hilltop, perhaps a nuke for every metropolis. BCers don't like the thought of run-of-river hydro power fuelling electric cars to jam the new $3 billion Gateway freeways into Vancouver. The proposed 10 lane Port Mann bridge is even justified by the government because it will "reduce vehicle emissions by reducing congestion-related idling." Yikes again!

And BCers are not alone. Just ask how the farmers and residents of the Niagara Escarpment feel as they plod off to yet another public meeting to oppose the imposition on them of another politically correct "solution." A UNESCO biosphere reserve, and once an iconic protected area just north of Toronto, the area's once draconian planning powers have been stripped away by a provincial government intent on clearing the area for massive windmill developments to fuel the city. From that huge bluff, and certainly from the top of any windmill fueling the city, you would be able to see Highway 401, its 22 lanes still crowded with traffic late into the evening.

What we should really do

So why not just skip right past all this tax shifting that merely fiddles with new supply lines while the planet burns? Let's cut straight to the quick-- a real economic transition strategy that reduces demand. Now there's an election topic, if only we had a functioning democracy that was up to the reality of the 21st century.

Let's scrap Gateway (now), and put that money into a 200 kilometre light-rail network that the UBC's Design Centre for Sustainability argues could blanket the Lower Mainland for the same price -- and take thousands of cars off the road, millions of litres of gas out of the pipelines, and tonnes of CO2 out of the air.

Let's repeal the $300 million plus in annual provincial subsidies and $1.4 billion in federal subsidies for new energy exploration and development. Dogwood calls these subsidies that co-exist with carbon taxes as B.C.'s number one "climate contradiction." Yes, we need to use energy, but the question is whether we should be subsidizing new use, rather than fostering initiatives that will generate new non use. And let exploration follow the dictates of the much-loved market, but a changed market that now works in the context of an energy-frugal, innovation economy.

And let's have a meaningful "energy transition levy" that has no pretense to revenue neutrality but is explicitly designed to kick-start a collective endeavor to grow an eco-economy. Imagine the pride of making B.C. a showcase of a sustainable, just and practical economic model for the 21st century.

The tools are there -- smart meters, differential pricing (say for urban gas commuters and rural residents, and according to the environmental impact of the energy source), identified targets for direct investment that can dramatically increase efficiency and low-income supports, public transit opportunities, and much more.

Let's cut energy demand by a quarter, fast

So, let's put 2050 aside, even 2020, and focus on 2015 -- and a real reduction in energy demand by that date. How about 25per cent?

The tools are there, but where are the people? Beyond provoking an outcry over jobs and deficits, such a dramatic economic transition strategy that takes seriously the climate challenge should also provoke a debate about our real deficit -- the democratic deficit.

In this election and beyond, we must move past the half-thought-out carbon policies and the artificial divisions they sew. We need a real referendum on our collective future, and a process that gets us there with not just the usual environmental suspects but a whole host of characters -- social housing advocates and green entrepreneurs, investment gurus and tech wizards, visionary politicians and engaged citizens.

Rather that fine-tuning a broken carbon instrument, it is time to reinvent our democracy beyond carbon.

But then maybe climate change isn't all that urgent and we can just wait until Barack turns 86, and most of us are dead.

Tapping Our Wild Rivers Can't Fix Climate Change
Veteran enviro M'Gonigle says no to Tzeporah Berman's 'PowerUp' logic.

BC's Clashing Shades of Green
How 'run of river' and global warming are splitting enviros this election.

In Canada, a Push for Obama-style Green Stimulus
PM to get plan backed by 850,000 group members.

Michael M'Gonigle is a professor at the University of Victoria, and a director of the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance. Blake Anderson is a graduate student at UVic and researcher at POLIS.

Ban Carbon Emissions, Don’t Price them: Why Cap and Dividend is the Best Approach

By Cliff Stainsby
Dogwood Initiative
April, 2009

'Cap & Dividend' can address the limitations of carbon taxes and 'Cap & Trade' and allow us to dramatically reduce our skyrocketing emissions quickly

First in a series on climate policy

The current debate over carbon taxes versus "Cap and Trade" is wrongheaded on two counts; (1) it treats global warming as an economic issue, and (2) neither carbon taxes nor "Cap and Trade" will solve the problem.

There is a solution that does work and which is rapidly gaining public support once understood—the ‘Cap and Dividend’ system (which I describe below).

But first we must see what is wrong with the current approach.

The proper way to eliminate toxic substances is to ban them. One’s income – ability to pay a tax – shouldn’t determine one’s right to poison the environment. Dealing with toxins is not a matter for economics and the market. Toxic substances, such as DDT, PCBs, and Dioxins, are properly dealt with by prohibiting their use. And, frequently, that is exactly what has been done.

Cliff Stainsby is a long time activist who was in vanguard of getting BC ENGOs and trade unions to recognize global warming. Cliff is recently retired and when not working on climate policy spends most of free time in his magnificent garden

We have now reached the point where man-made Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions are toxic. Our environment is already overloaded with CO2, the major cause of global warming. Adding more CO2 threatens civilization.

Time is of the essence. Scientists believe we have already ‘overshot’ safe levels. To stabilize global temperatures below dangerous levels (widely considered to be 20C above pre-industrial levels) we need to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations from the current 385ppm (parts per million) to 350ppm or lower. In other words, current levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are much higher than safety permits. Thus, current CO2 emissions are toxic.

Yet, CO2 emissions continue to increase. Since 2000 emissions per year have been increasing more than three times faster than in the 1990s.

There is no avoiding it; we must ban CO2 emissions. (Other greenhouse gas emissions must be eliminated too, most notably nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4). For simplicity’s sake, from here on I will use CO2 as a surrogate for all greenhouse gases.)

Ordinarily we could rely on our oceans, forests and soils (‘natural greenhouse gas sinks’) to keep atmospheric greenhouse gases in balance and temperatures within a safe range. Unfortunately, these sinks are being overwhelmed rapidly by increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and are no longer up to the task. Furthermore, atmospheric CO2 is increasing ocean acidity threatening marine life, the basis of much of our life support system.

Our civilization must be quickly weaned off the fossil fuels on which it was built; the scientific evidence suggests by no later than 2050, and sooner is better.

The overarching question for humanity today – what is the best way to eliminate CO2 emissions quickly?

A greenhouse gas-banning plan must meet 5 criteria. It must:

1. Scale – be able to eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions;
   
2. Urgency – be able to eliminate all emissions by 2050, at the latest;
   
3. Certainty – provide certainty in reducing emissions; we no longer have time to fiddle with carbon taxes until we find a tax-level that achieves the required reductions;
   
4. Simple and transparent – be understandable to everyone and easily audited; and importantly
   
5. Fairness – be fair, particularly to those least able to adapt to change.

Carbon taxes fail these criteria miserably. They cannot respond to the required emissions reduction urgency, they do not provide reductions certainty, and if manipulated to be fair in today’s almost incomprehensibly complex economic context, will fail the simplicity and transparency test.

Furthermore, a carbon tax that addresses the scale of the problem is not politically palatable, witness the sustained attack on the puny, ineffective, Liberal carbon tax in BC and the ease with which the carbon tax proposed by the Federal Liberals was turned against them in the last Federal election. In neither of these proposals were the carbon tax rates within an order of magnitude of those required to address the scale of the emissions reduction problem.

And, even if such a tax rate were proposed, it would not provide the certainty required as the emission reduction response to any particular tax rate is highly speculative and would change as economic circumstances change, for example in times of recession versus times of prosperity.

If it weren't for the fact that society is in thrall to economics, the inability of carbon taxes to address global warming should not be of much concern because, as noted earlier, this is not fundamentally an issue of economics, markets, or supply and demand. Some issues, including those of global warming and the release of toxic greenhouse gases into the environment, are moral issues, matters of right and wrong. Allowing global warming to persist would be a wrong of epic proportions. It would continue the destruction of lives in the sub-tropics and tropics that are already being devastated by floods, droughts and storms.

Failure to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions will also devastate future generations whose prospects grow dimmer with each molecule of greenhouse gas we cast skyward.

Compounding the immorality of continued greenhouse gas emissions is the fact that the majority of sufferers are not the historical large emitters. Most of the billions of people in the tropical and sub tropical regions have an almost infinitesimally small responsibility for the current global warming problem, and future generations bear no responsibility whatsoever for the disaster and hard times they stand to inherit.

Economics and economists do bear a significant share of the blame for our global warming problem (eg. their silly myths of sustainable growth and infinite resource substitution on a planet fixed in size and resource endowments), but really have very little to offer by way of solutions. Except in the vastly under populated discipline of ecological economics, there is no meaningful connection in economic theory between the economy and markets and the real biological/physical world we live in. Where such connections are claimed, they are generally through rather pathetic and utterly inappropriate attempts to apply dollar values to ‘ecosystems services’ and the biosphere.

There are, of course, no human made substitutes for our physical and biological life support systems and there is no dollar value equal to life on earth. Healthy air, clean and plentiful water, healthy and abundant soils, and functioning ecosystems are a natural endowment, not an economic construct. What sense could it possibly make to trade sustainability for dollars? What use does a planet devoid of civilization have for dollars to spend? What dollar value have our children and grandchildren? How about the millions of other species with whom we share this planet?

We must regulate the elimination of greenhouse gases just as – actually much more effectively than – we do other toxic chemicals. Regulation, unlike taxes, can be based on our collective morality and values and on the best available scientific information about our planet — in this case, information about global warming.

Our values, I hope, place the highest importance on the well being of all peoples on earth, whatever their location and circumstances, and on future generations. Our global warming regulations ought to reflect those values. If they do, we will reduce greenhouse gas emissions massively, quickly and with certainty.

Because elimination of greenhouse gas emissions is, unfortunately, not possible overnight, we must regulate their elimination over time.

Caps on carbon emissions are a regulatory approach and, in effect, are a way of saying ‘one may not emit’ greenhouse gases, unlike carbon taxes which, in effect, say ‘one may emit greenhouse gases if one can afford to pay the tax’; thus under a carbon tax regime the well off can continue emitting. However, adding ‘Trade’ to the ‘Cap’, to create ‘Cap and Trade’, once again creates a market and an inappropriate response.

More important in the short run is the fact that "Cap and Trade" schemes also fail to meet the five criteria. They tend to be anything but simple and transparent, they will be difficult to implement quickly in order to meet the urgency criteria, and they set up a fierce and bitter struggle between interests and sectors over which must be capped, and at what levels, and whether permits will be grandfathered, auctioned or whether some mix of auction and grandfathering applied. Debates also arise as to what the trade rules should be.

Combining a "Cap and Trade" regime with a carbon tax regime merely increases the battles and the confusion. And, sorting this out would take time, which means the urgency test is failed. These approaches remind one of the current financial debacle which no one, not even the ‘experts’, seems to understand fully because the contributing rules of finance, if there were any, were complicated and obscure.

Making a "Cap and Trade" system fair would require considerable regulatory and economic complexity, making satisfaction of the fairness and simplicity and transparency criteria difficult or uncertain. And, unless the Cap is applied at the source of the emissions, achieving the required scale of reductions will, also, not be achieved.

Neither a carbon tax nor "Cap and Trade" meet the five criteria. Fortunately, there is one proposal that does; it is called ‘Cap and Dividend’.

The Cap and Dividend “policy has three basic steps:

• First, ... carbon emissions are capped at a level that gradually declines over time.

• Second, based on the Cap in a given year, permits are auctioned to firms that bring fossil carbon into the economy (whether through domestic extraction or imports). The supply of permits in a given year is fixed by the cap; their price depends on the demand for them.

• Third, revenue from the sale of permits is deposited into a trust fund and paid out equally to every woman, man, and child in the country. In addition, some fraction of the revenue initially may be earmarked for other uses, such as transitional adjustment assistance.

Cap and Dividend will work because it fulfills all the criteria:

1. Scale: it caps all CO2 emissions at the point they enter the economy – the oil and gas wells, the coalmines, and the border. Consequently there are very few emissions sites to monitor and enforce, and the emissions are well known.
   
2. Urgency: it can respond to the urgency because caps are required at relatively few sites.
   
3. Certainty: a legislated enforceable cap can provide emission reduction certainty, and an easy to determine path from today to zero emissions in 2050. (Unlike carbon taxes for which no one can guarantee the emission reductions that will result from any particular specified tax rate.)
   
4. Simple and transparent: the plan is straightforward; all the elements – cap, auction, and dividends – can easily be made public and audited.
   
5. Fairness: the dividend ensures that low-income people receive protection from increased energy costs.

Public support for Cap and Dividend is building. The “Cap and Dividend Act 2009” is being submitted to the US Congress and a massive public campaign is underway to support it. (Details of the proposal can be found at http://www.capanddividend.org/)

If we are serious about addressing global warming we too will push for a similar, simple, fair, effective Bill in BC and Canada.

---

Why carbon taxes won’t work

Cliff Stainsby
Dogwood Initiative
April, 2009

Campbell's Carbon Tax won't work

Second in a series on climate policy

“Ban Carbon Emissions, Don’t Price them: Why Cap and Dividend is the Best Approach” identified five criteria for evaluating various plans to reduce heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions: scale, urgency, certainty, simplicity/transparency, and fairness. A response suggested that my claim that carbon taxes do not meet these five criteria was mistaken, and in particular that carbon taxes can be simple and transparent. I maintain they cannot, for the following reasons.

The context is that climate science strongly indicates that the survival of our civilization requires us to stop dangerous global warming by entirely eliminating greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Getting ‘close’ to that target is no better than missing it by a great deal; anything less than a 100-percent or at worst a 95-percent reduction by 2050 is a failure, because of the risk of positive feedback loops. Many analysts, including Dr. James Hansen of NASA, think these are already happening and that we are in ‘overshoot’ with a very limited time to get atmospheric CO2 levels back down to 350ppm from the current 385 ppm.

In this urgent context, my response to any assertion that ‘simple and transparent carbon taxes’ can achieve the necessary goal, is the following sincere challenge: please describe a non-complex, transparent and fair carbon tax regime that can deal with the problem. For the following reasons I believe it cannot be done.

Most carbon tax regimes and proposals set prices far too low. The Princeton economists who developed the Cap and Dividend proposal referenced in “Ban Carbon Emissions, Don’t Price them” have suggested that a $200-per-tonne ($200/tC) tax would obtain just a 7% reduction in emissions. A recent Australian study suggests that, for transportation, a $600/tC carbon tax will get in the order of a 50% reduction. Based on these estimates, what tax would be required to achieve a 95-to-100-percent reduction?

For reasons I’ll expand on next, we cannot reasonably say, but we can readily tell that the figure would be far, far too high to be palatable to anyone, particularly politicians. And if such a tax were applied, the consequential tax amendments for equity adjustments would be so convoluted as to void any hope of simplicity.

There are many other reasons why carbon taxes won’t work. Economists (including those in government finance departments) determine taxes and their impacts using economic models that rely on many basic inputs including, for example, forecasts of changes in Gross Domestic Product, Employment, and the Consumer Price Index. In a best case scenario, any forecasted reduction in emissions related to a carbon tax, is only as good as these various input forecasts. And remember, in these economic forecast models, errors in any of the inputs such as GDP become compounded.

Early last year, I reviewed three forecasts that had been made by the BC Provincial government in February for the provincial Budget for fiscal 2008/2009. Later I reviewed and compared the 2008 September First Quarterly Report forecasts for the same three variables, which were all done and completed well before the general financial collapse.

What did I find? For the three basic forecasts of changes in GDP, CPI, and Employment over the seven-month period, the government had changed its forecasts substantially. Remember, these forecasts were made for basic economic parameters, and they were made in 2008 for the year of 2008, i.e. they were reviewed in the same year the forecast was made, before the year was even complete. One couldn’t select a much shorter review period. Yet the predictions varied enormously

|GDP +29%
|CPI -22%
|Employment -47%

I used to do this kind of analysis regularly for Union bargaining conferences and the actual results were always unpredictable. The variances shown above occurred over the very short period of seven months. Given the recent financial turbulence, who could derive a short-term or long-term forecast now?... With what expected accuracy? Roll the dice...

These are only three of many basic assumptions that go into economic modeling and forecasting. Modeling provides the economic context for tax rate setting, in this case carbon tax rates, and for expectations for emission reductions and carbon tax revenues. Unfortunately, one reliable rule of forecasting is that forecasts become increasingly unreliable as one goes further into the future.

In the case of carbon taxes and targets for 2050, we are talking about forecasting 41 years ahead. Has there ever been an economic forecast that was even remotely successful over such a long period?

Let’s try to imagine (seriously) an economic forecast that accurately predicted the impact today on government revenues, resource use, or on any variable for that matter, of a tax imposed in 1969! Then let’s ask ourselves, why would an economic forecast made today provide any better reliability for outcomes in 2050?

And then let’s introduce the inevitable impacts of already unavoidable global warming—impacts of more severe and more frequent events even than the current BC Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic, the deadly European heat wave in the Summer of 2003, the devastation of New Orleans by hurricane Katrina, and the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Darfur due to drought and starvation induced by global warming. These three latter events were all attributed to global warming by Sir David King, who was until recently the chief Science Advisor to the UK government.

Add to all this the prospect that any errors in the impacts of carbon emission reductions will be compounding, year after year.

If we’re not yet convinced about the non-efficacy of a carbon tax in curtailing global warming in the face of all this mounting uncertainty, consider that all of the unknowns reviewed so far seem almost trivial against the fact there is no established reliable relationship between a carbon tax and a change in carbon emissions, beyond the experienced generality that as prices rise emissions can be expected to fall.

There are some estimates of a correlation, but they are varied and speculative, even in the short term. They have no track record, even in more-or-less normal circumstances. In fact, a mere 10 years ago, many, if not most, economists were saying that gasoline demand was largely insensitive, or inelastic, to price (a notable exception in the early 1990s being Ernst von Weizsacker of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, and Energy). And the sensitivity of demand to price is completely speculative in the context of long-term, continuous requirements for dramatically reduced emissions.

To review, the uncertainties related to establishing appropriate values for carbon taxes are immense. They include:

• Uncertain forecasts of basic economic parameters, which are used as inputs to models upon which tax rate setting are based;
  
• highly uncertain relationship between carbon prices and carbon emissions, which also changes as emissions decrease, reflecting increasing public resistance to reducing emissions as further reductions begin to affect not just casual, luxury or ‘easy-to-forego’ expenditures, but basic lifestyles;
  
• Heightened fluctuations in the already uncertain overall economic context, due to already entrained global warming impacts—more pine beetle kills and damage from other species, other diseases and pests and interactions with other parts of the world; more Katrinas; more storms and droughts and floods; more heat waves on the 2003 European scale; increases in food prices, less certain supplies of food with more food riots and more starvation; increasing energy costs with impacts on the reliability of supply due to peak oil and higher costs of trade due to increasing costs of fossil fuels.

The survival of civilization is now dependent upon definite, dramatic reductions in greenhouse gases, not just for the next 41 years, to 2050, but well beyond, out 91 years to 2100. Certainty, one of my five criteria, is a central, indispensable feature of any survival plan. Can we imagine the chaos if we subject that survival to all of the uncertainties associated with reliance on taxing carbon?

Unfortunately in this regard, many in the environmental community have seemingly become infatuated by such economic mechanisms—which have no touchstone with biophysical reality—and by the associated but categorically compromised appeal toward ‘getting the price of carbon right’. Wrong!! We must get the emissions of carbon right! And that is a task that economics is simply not equipped for; for the reasons cited here, carbon taxes in particular cannot provide anything remotely like the certainty we need to quickly implement dramatic quantifiable reductions in carbon emissions.

To add to the difficulty, a recent paper by scientists from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change and published by the Royal Society, “Reframing the climate change challenge in light of post-2000 emission trends”, by Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows, reports that reduced carbon emissions from agriculture will be extremely difficult to achieve; they could see only a 50% reduction in that sector which, given the unrelenting requirement for the elimination of emissions, is very ominous. If this is the case, the rate of reductions elsewhere must be greater to compensate. In effect, this requires negative emissions, which are suggested also by Dr. Weaver’s work at UVic.

The Anderson and Bows paper stated: ”Even atmospheric stabilization at 650 ppmv CO2e demands the majority of OECD nations begin to make draconian emission reductions within a decade. Such a situation is unprecedented for economically prosperous nations. Unless economic growth can be reconciled with unprecedented rates of decarbonization (in excess of 6% per year), it is difficult to envisage anything other than a planned economic recession being compatible with stabilization at or below 650 ppmv CO2e.“

The Anderson-Bows paper was published last fall. In some of the literature, including that paper, 650 ppm equates to about 4 degrees C of warming. There is no science to explain how, with that much warming, we could avoid the positive feedback loops that lead to even higher temperatures. To state the obvious, 650ppm is almost double the 350ppm considered to be the maximum safe level.

Our plans to reduce emissions must endure reliably through the already inevitable impacts of now unavoidable global warming, which are going to severely stress our ability to govern ourselves. Growing political and social tensions will make it difficult for a carbon tax regime to succeed. Imagine for a moment pine beetle kills exacerbated three or four times, the consequent reductions in employment and government revenues, and the accompanying demand for increased government expenditures. How would we fund our health care, education and the legal system? Moreover, our infrastructure, which is already falling apart, needs to be rebuilt to be carbon emission free—this applies to urban centres, transportation and food systems.

Fitting any workable carbon tax into all this (never mind ‘simple and transparent’) presents an insoluble problem when we already know how difficult it is to forecast the impacts of taxes in recessions vs. boom times, let alone when the world begins to realize (if it ever does) that economic growth itself is a big part of this problem.

In summary, carbon taxes can’t work, they don’t meet the crieria. The related uncertainties I have identified are insurmountable. Economic modeling and forecasting are already rife with inherent uncertainties that will compounded by the unprecedented unknowns of unavoidable global warming both in the biophysical world and the world of politics and international governance. Any attempt to solve any of these problems means making the tax regime more complicated, and so less transparent. Worse, any government’s credibility will become progressively stretched every time it has to change a tax structure that hasn’t achieved the necessary emission reductions—probably every year or so for the next 40 years.

By comparison, the ‘Cap and Dividend’ system does a far better job of meeting the five criteria, readily lending itself to effective implementation of a scheduled series of known specific emission reductions over time, and with a much greater likelihood of maintaining transparency, fairness and social acceptance throughout. Now is the critical time to choose a path that works over one that demonstrably will not.

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Bullfrog Power Brings New Choice to British Columbians

COMMENT: A month ago, Bullfrog Power announced that it would be selling green electricity in British Columbia. (See the company's news release, below, "Bullfrog Power Brings New Choice to British Columbians", March 24, 2009).

In BC, though, most of our electricity already comes from non-greenhouse gas producing sources. And by policy, going into the future, most of our electricity will continue to be green. So what the heck is Bullfrog Power selling that BC Hydro isn't also selling? Selling cheaper, I might add. Nada, folks.

Also, for independent power producers (IPPs) in BC, the companies which are producing all that new green energy, an electricity purchase agreement (EPA) with BC Hydro is the magic token that investors look for, it's the GO button to secure the water rights, start construction, etc. Without the EPA, there's basically no project. IPPs are not in the business of selling power to Bullfrog or anyone else.

So where does Bullfrog intend to get the green power it must ensure gets on the grid to offset its sales? The news release says "twenty per cent of Bullfrog’s power mix will come from wind generation facilities located in Pincher Creek, Alberta, and the remainder will come from low-impact hydro in B.C." Really. Selling us exactly the same power that BC Hydro is also buying? And which IPPs are these? Even more intriguing: importing power from Alberta! Isn't that working against the energy plan which calls for BC to be more than self-sufficient in electricity by 2016?

An article from the Toronto Star (also copied below), "Tiny Bullfrog Power making a mark" says that Bullfrog "sells pricey energy to those who want a green feeling." That's in Ontario, where coal and nuclear are a big part of the energy mix. In BC, what Bullfrog is selling is more analagous to bottled municipal tap water. Not quite a scam ...

Where these guys come from, Ontario, the American Bullfrog is an indigenous frog. In British Columbia, folks, it's an undesirable invasive species which has taken over most of the smaller warmer lakes in the southwest of the province. The Capital Regional District even funds a program costing tens of thousands of dollars each year to keep the Bullfrog out of the CRD water supply area.

If Bullfrog Power intends to do business in BC, it should rethink everything, from the ecological significance of its name in this province to the redundancy of its product. Doesn't leave it with much, does it?

News Release
Bullfrog Power
March 24, 2009

Bullfrog PowerTM launches 100 per cent low-impact, renewable electricity offering in B.C.

Vancouver, March 24, 2009 — Bullfrog Power, Canada’s leading provider of 100 per cent green electricity, announced today that it is now offering British Columbia residents and businesses a new way to take a stand in support of low-impact renewable electricity and reduce their environmental impact. Bullfrog provides British Columbians with the first and only choice to support new wind power.

Bullfrog Power is the only company that allows all British Columbians to choose to support low-impact renewable electricity rather than electricity from higher impact hydroelectric generation facilities or greenhouse gas-emitting electricity from fossil fuel-powered sources. When B.C. homes and businesses become “bullfrogpoweredTM”, Bullfrog ensures that low-impact renewable electricity is injected into the electricity grid to match the amount of power consumed.

“We’re thrilled to be able to offer a new choice to British Columbians that allows them to take a stand for low-impact renewable energy,” said Tom Heintzman, President, Bullfrog Power. “Consumer choice is a powerful force for change. Bullfrog has already used the collective demand of its customers to cause five new wind power facilities to be built in Ontario and Alberta and our goal is to do the same in British Columbia.”

The generation facilities supplying Bullfrog Power are all certified under Environment Canada’s EcoLogoM program to ensure that they are emissions free and have a minimal impact on the environment. With the support and growing demand of Bullfrog customers, Bullfrog Power’s goal is to advance the development of new wind power in B.C., just as it has in Ontario and Alberta. To date, 8,000 homes and 900 businesses in Ontario and Alberta have provided the demand for five new wind generation projects. At launch in B.C., twenty per cent of Bullfrog’s power mix will come from wind generation facilities located in Pincher Creek, Alberta, and the remainder will come from low-impact hydro in B.C.

Several businesses have already “bullfrogpowered” some or all of their operations in B.C., including Walmart Canada, TD Bank Financial Group, BMO Financial Group, RBC Financial Group, The Lark Group, Moksha Yoga, Coastal Ford, Good Earth Cafés, Halsall, Christie Lites, WWF-Canada, Urban Barn, Fraser Health, The Pembina Institute, Left Coast Naturals, the David Suzuki Foundation, Salt Spring Coffee, Ethical Bean Coffee, Junxion Strategy, KineSYS Pharmaceuticals, Eclipse Awards, Co-operative Auto Network, Design HQ, Frogfile, Frog on the Bog, Green Table Network and Saul Good Gift Co.

TD Bank Financial Group has made a significant commitment to Bullfrog Power in B.C., expanding on existing agreements in Ontario and Alberta, by bullfrogpowering all of its business operations in British Columbia, including 139 TD Canada Trust branches and its network of automated bank machines.

“TD was the first bank in Canada to commit to going carbon neutral and we have set that goal for 2010,” said Raymond Chun, Senior Vice President, Pacific Region, TD Canada Trust. “We believe the environment and the economy are closely linked, and our partnership with Bullfrog is an important investment that supports both TD’s social and environmental efforts and Canada’s renewable energy industry and its continued development.”

British Columbia households have also begun to sign on with Bullfrog.

“I want to make choices that help to create a cleaner and healthier planet for me, my kids and future generations,” said Ian McSorley, a Vancouver homeowner. “That’s why I chose to bullfrogpower my home with clean, renewable electricity. It’s one simple action I can take to make a difference.”

Several prominent environmental organizations have chosen to support low-impact renewable energy with Bullfrog Power. The David Suzuki Foundation, WWF-Canada and The Pembina Institute have all bullfrogpowered their operations in B.C. In addition, Bullfrog Power partners with these organizations to educate Canadians about the environmental and health benefits of clean, renewable power.

“In order to solve critical issues such as climate change, Canada will need to make a significant shift toward renewable energy sources,” said Peter Robinson, Chief Executive Officer, The David Suzuki Foundation. “Bullfrog Power provides individuals and businesses in British Columbia with a simple but powerful way to take a lead in supporting the development of renewable energy and reducing their own environmental impact.”

Bullfrog Power is also pleased to once again partner with The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) as a community sponsor for The 2009 JUNO Awards. This year, in addition to all JUNO Awards Weekend Events, Bullfrog will provide low-impact renewable electricity for the television broadcast, which airs live on CTV, March 29, 2009, from Vancouver B.C.

Contact Bullfrog Power

To arrange interviews with a Bullfrog representative or any of Bullfrog Power's commercial customers, please contact

Meghan Ney
Media Relations Specialist, Bullfrog Power
Tel: 416.360.3464 ext 221
Mobile: 416-648-5453
meghan.ney@bullfrogpower.com

Mary Sturgeon, Junxion Strategy
Tel: 604.263.0303
Mobile: 604.831.6516
mary@junxionstrategy.com

About Bullfrog Power

Bullfrog Power is Canada’s leading 100 per cent green electricity provider. Founded in 2005, Bullfrog Power is the only company providing everyone in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia with a 100 per cent low-impact renewable electricity choice. Bullfrog Power supplies bullfrogpowered customers exclusively from wind and hydro facilities that have been certified by Environment Canada under its EcoLogoM program instead of from carbon-intensive sources like coal and natural gas or higher impact hydro facilities. Bullfrog Power customers are providing the demand to enable new generation facilities to be built in Canada. Thousands of Canadian homeowners and hundreds of businesses have made the decision to become bullfrogpowered™.

www.bullfrogpower.com

http://www.bullfrogpower.com/09releases/bc_launch.cfm

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Tiny Bullfrog Power making a mark

Peter Gorrie
Environment Reporter
Toronto Star
May 26, 2008

Sells pricey energy to those who want a green feeling

This is Energy Conservation Week and, once again, the green frog has leaped into the spotlight.

The cartoon amphibian is the logo of Bullfrog Power, the purveyor of "green" electricity that in less than three years has made itself synonymous with renewable power, despite being a tiny swimmer in Ontario's energy pond.

BY THE NUMBERS Year One (Sept. 2005-2006) Commercial: Just over 80 organizations Residential: Close to 1,500 homes Year Two (Sept. 2006-2007) Commercial: More than 400 organizations Residential: Almost 5,000 homes Today Commercial: About 600 organizations Residential: Just over 6,000 homes SOURCE: BULLFROG POWER

The company handles a minuscule fraction of the electricity generated in the province – just three ten-thousandths of a per cent, or 0.0003. Yet, it's de rigueur for those who wish to be on the side of the environmental angels to announce they're "bullfrogpowered." Among recent high-profile clients: the Nelly Furtado Earth Hour concert, three York Region civic buildings and condo builder TAS DesignBuild.

The company's curious growth strategy relies on getting consumers to pay a 50 per cent premium for electricity, without any promise of paybacks or government rebates. Their only reward is the warm, fuzzy feeling they've helped to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

"I do see it as remarkable. It never would have happened five or six years ago," Rob Wilson, a marketing professor at Ryerson University, said of the company's success.

Like the evening cacophony produced by puny spring peepers, Bullfrog, a privately held, for-profit company, makes a marketing noise that belies its 30-person size.

The Conservation Week news: It has joined EnWise Power Solutions, which provides energy-saving home retrofits, to offer customers discounts on each other's services.

From the start, Bullfrog has followed the lesson preached by U.S. marketing guru Seth Godin – in a field of black and white Holsteins a purple cow gets all the attention.

"We tried to create something unique," president Tom Heintzman said during an interview in the company's new offices at Spadina Ave. and Adelaide St., where the décor is smart, the office furniture second-hand and the space large enough for the company to grow.

"First and foremost was to create a product that's as environmental as we could get it, and attractive to consumers. Then, we tried to create a company that would be different from the standard utility."

How different? About 700 people showed up last October for the company's second annual Bullfrog Bash.

"When was the last time anyone went to a party for their utility?" Heintzman asked.

Like Direct Energy and other providers, Bullfrog buys power in bulk and resells it, with the energy going into the grid, not directly to customers' homes. But unlike other resellers, all its electricity comes from wind-powered or small hydro generating stations.

Homeowners pay 8.9 cents per kilowatt-hour (the amount of energy needed to keep 10 100-watt bulbs burning 60 minutes). Most of us pay no more than 5.9 cents, the current standard price set by the Ontario Energy Board.

As of last month, those in apartments or condos, whose hydro bills are embedded in rent payments or maintenance fees, can have their consumption estimated, then shell out 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour to Bullfrog – again, for nothing in return other than a fuzzy feeling.

The company charges the higher rate because it's selling expensive power. To encourage renewable sources of electricity, the province generally pays green energy providers 11 cents a kilowatt-hour. To compete, Bullfrog must match or exceed that price, Heintzman said. Bullfrog also invests in new renewable-energy projects.

"It's the nature of creating a green market," said Heintzman, a lawyer who spent three years with the advocacy group Sierra Legal Defence (now EcoJustice). "We're prepared to pay generators more than the market rate, which allows them to increase their return on capital and get into projects that otherwise might not be economic."

Despite the green frog's prominence, only about 6,000 residential customers and 600 businesses and government agencies have signed on. That lets the company support the generation of less than 10 megawatts of electricity – not even a flicker in the province's total capacity of about 31,000.

"Our revenues aren't yet enough to sustain the business," said Heintzman.

It's not for a lack of creating buzz, achieved partly by mimicking non-profit organizations. If they choose, its customers are listed on its website as Founders Club members.

"It's not only to publicly recognize them, but it's also important to promote the sense of collective action," Heintzman said.

The club, "is part of the branding," said Peter Clarke of environmental consultants ICF International. "It's helping you to feel good instead of just getting a bill. You're not just buying a commodity, you're part of something."

But doubters wonder if Bullfrog will keep attracting customers if the economy sinks. After all, Clarke noted that Bullfrog isn't the cheapest way to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Its customers spend about $127 for each tonne of reductions. That's nearly four times the current price for carbon offsets on the international market – money that is invested in reforestation, efficient stoves, solar power or other projects in developing countries.

Some customers do all they can to cut consumption before buying from Bullfrog. But, like offsets, for others it can amount to a guilt payment: Use as much electricity as ever but keep a clean conscience because your supply is green.

Heintzman says it's all to the good: The more customers he has, the more Ontario moves away from conventional electricity.

He remains convinced people will keep buying what Bullfrog is selling.

"We're just scratching the surface, moving from start-up to adolescence. There's a lot of growth to do."

The devil is in the details of environmental policies

Kathryn Harrison and David Green
Vancouver Sun
April 28, 2009

Voters have been presented with a bewildering array of environmental policies in the B.C. election.

The Liberals stand behind their carbon tax, though they've also committed to joining the Western Climate Initiative's cap-and-trade program.

The New Democrats have promised to "axe the tax," to adopt their own cap-and-trade program, and to subsidize good environmental behaviour through their Green Bonds.

But which policies are the most effective and least expensive? Let's begin with a review of the options.

With subsidies, consumers are offered money to encourage them to undertake environmentally friendly behaviour such as insulating their homes.

With regulation, the government mandates lower emissions from producers.

Cap and trade starts out like regulation by allocating a fixed number of emissions permits among polluters, but polluters are then allowed to buy and sell those permits.

Both approaches will raise the price of carbon-intensive goods, because firms will pass their costs on to consumers. Under a carbon tax, fuels are taxed in proportion to their carbon emissions. This, too, raises the price of goods that involve heavy use of fossil fuels, again giving consumers and firms incentives to conserve energy and switch to cleaner fuels.

The first key point is that all approaches involve costs to ordinary British Columbians -- there is no free lunch. We need to make substantial changes in how we live if we want to pass a habitable planet on to our children, and those changes will cost money.

Most serious commentators agree that subsidies are the most costly approach, because governments end up compensating a significant number of individuals and firms for activities they were going to do anyway.

Regulation ensures we will meet our emissions goals, but it, too, is relatively costly because it imposes a "one size fits all" approach. It would be cheaper to require greater reductions by firms that can reduce their emissions at the least cost.

By raising the price of carbon emissions, both provide incentives for firms and individuals to change their behaviour efficiently and for firms to invent clean technologies. Assuming cap-and-trade permits are auctioned by the government, both approaches bring revenue into government coffers than can be used to offset impacts on the poor, build public transit, or provide cuts in other taxes.

The two approaches differ in their ease of implementation. The carbon tax can be readily administered under the existing tax system.

In contrast, for cap and trade, a bureaucracy will have to be created to monitor compliance and prevent Enron-type gaming of the market.

A carbon tax provides certainty about the price of carbon and allows firms, consumers and governments to plan their investments accordingly.
However, it is harder to know the exact effects on carbon emissions.

The opposite is true for cap and trade. We know what reductions will be achieved, but not the cost. A more important advantage of cap and trade is ease of harmonization with other jurisdictions that are already employing this approach, including the European Union and the U.S.

The devil clearly is in the details and some important details remain unclear.

Will the Liberals commit to continuing to raise the carbon tax -- and increasing compensation for low income citizens -- as needed to achieve B.C.'s emissions goals?

And will the NDP clarify which sources will be covered by its cap-and-trade program, and with what impact on British Columbians, including those most vulnerable?

David Green teaches in the economics department and Kathryn Harrison teaches in the political science department at the University of British Columbia.

B.C. projected to rival Alberta for gas production

By Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
April 25, 2009

The province has large-scale reserves that are only beginning to be developed

British Columbia could rival Alberta as Canada's largest producer of natural gas within 10 to 20 years, a Vancouver Board of Trade energy forum heard Friday.

EnCana Canadian Foothills division president Mike Graham said improved technology is setting off a "renaissance" of natural gas production in North America, and B.C. is poised to benefit from it.

The province has large-scale reserves that are only now beginning to be developed as a result of sophisticated new extraction methods. And they are coming into production at a time when natural gas is gaining favour as an alternative to heavier fossil fuels, Graham said.

He noted that B.C. is the only Canadian jurisdiction -- and just one of three in North America -- to record an increase in production last year. The others were Texas and Louisiana.

"No surprise there, as both those states have unconventional shale gas plays, as does B.C.," Graham said.

He cited Horn River Basin shale gas and Montney's gas-saturated silt as "two of the hottest plays in North America."

"Between the two, there is more than 800 trillion cubic feet of gas in place. To put that into perspective, B.C.'s annual production is one trillion cubic feet of gas."

At present, B.C. accounts for about 20 per cent of annual Canadian gas production, but Graham expects that to make a substantial jump.

"The potential exists for natural gas production to grow in B.C. by a factor of two to three times in the next 10 to 20 years, challenging Alberta as Canada's largest gas producer.

"Investment in the industry here is up to about $8 billion a year. Natural gas has become a significant component of B.C.'s diversified industry and export base, accounting for upwards of $4 billion a year."

He noted that natural gas has "significant potential to displace coal for power-generation purposes."

Many U.S. utilities are trumpeting it as a transitional fuel that could cut greenhouse-gas emissions by half, bringing North America closer to its emission targets without a major technological advance.

Spectra Energy vice-president Gary Weilinger noted that energy is now "by far B.C.'s largest single source of provincial revenue and its fastest growing industrial sector. And our province boasts massive deposits of clean, natural gas."

"We're all in favor of renewable energy sources that help us reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, but we need to be realistic," Weilinger said.

"Even by 2030, renewables are expected to account only for eight to 10 per cent of global energy supply.

"The reality is, natural gas is typically the backup at wind and solar facilities to deal with the fickleness of nature."

Terasen Inc. president and CEO Randy Jesperson described gas as a "foundational energy form which will underpin the needs of society for the foreseeable future."

Jesperson noted that globally accepted greenhouse-gas reductions are projected to reach 80 per cent by 2050, and that "we cannot possibly achieve these levels of reductions by focusing on large emitters" because half of Canadian emissions "stem from use of fossil fuels in homes, businesses, and institutions."

David Demers, chief executive officer of Westport Innovations, said the biggest market for the company's natural-gas engine technology has been garbage and recycling trucks. "Every manufacturer of these vehicles in North America now offers our engines as an option."

Demers said natural gas-fuelled vehicles could take a substantial bite out of greenhouse-gas emissions.

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

Blog: www.vancouversun.com/energy

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Tapping Our Wild Rivers Can't Fix Climate Change

By Michael M'Gonigle
TheTyee.ca
April 20, 2009

Veteran enviro says no to Tzeporah Berman's 'PowerUp' logic.

A week into the provincial election the person grabbing headlines is not a politician but an environmentalist. Tzeporah Berman helped lead the Clayoquot protests of '93 and then protect the Great Bear Rainforest but lately she's been slamming the NDP for opposing the carbon tax while throwing her weight behind a huge new energy strategy embraced by the Liberals: run-of-river (RoR) power production.

M'Gonigle of UVic: 'Power down!'

And she's pulling a lot of others with her -- while getting many others fired up in disbelief and anger.

Berman and her influential allies want us to believe that only by harnessing renewable "green" energy can we reduce global warming. And that the time for debate is past; now we must just do it.

I'm one long-time environmentalist who couldn't disagree more.

As one of the founders of Greenpeace International, EcoJustice, Smart Growth BC, the Dogwood Initiative, and other B.C. groups, I embrace real solutions to our environmental challenges, including climate change, and the movement to make them happen.

But in pressing for run-of-river, Berman and allies are only accelerating us down a doomed path that will destroy precious natural ecologies in British Columbia without making any significant dent in global warming, and undermine the work of many environmentalists in the process.

There is a far better course of action, however, that would not divide environmentalists but excite them and motivate the larger citizenry. Let me explain.

Climate myopia

At first glance, run-of-river power seems pretty benign. Without recourse to large dams, RoR diverts stream water into turbines, and then returns it to the river downstream. In many rural areas, such projects have been in operation as small-scale sources of power for generations.

But as proposed in B.C., RoR is on a far larger scale. And its numerous side effects are now well known: Destructive construction in wild rivers and intact habitats, new roads and penstocks carved through wilderness areas, long transmission lines.

The list of concerns for RoR in B.C. goes on: the potential privatization of up to 500 streams and rivers, the realization that the systems will work well only during spring run-off, the gold rush mentality that has identified some thousands of potential sites across the province, the industrial scale of most of the projects, and the government/industry push that eschews careful planning by removing local decision-making authority.

Recently Berman's new organization, PowerUp, held a well-attended meeting in Vancouver to promote RoR on a massive scale in B.C. Berman gets lots of support from power companies, political leaders and climate scientists, including UVic's Andrew Weaver who, in a Vancouver Sun article, attacked "so-called environmentalists" (like me, I guess) who don't agree with "what science shows to be necessary." He dismisses as "outlandish" and "insidious" our concerns for protecting wilderness rivers and aesthetic viewscapes. We haven't done "the math"; proposed policies "are very well understood."

I would call this state of mind climate myopia -- where climate change is essentially treated as the only environmental issue we face that, if we could somehow solve it, would allow us to get back to business as usual. Old growth forests, overfishing, fish farms, wild rivers? Back burner issues. We have to focus on climate change or else it's all over.

All right then, let's focus on really solving climate change -- and why Berman and her allies are dead wrong.

Don't raise supply, lower demand

As a "solution," an important distinction must be made here, for RoR is a so-called supply-side solution, one to produce more energy. And even here, B.C.'s green energy won't displace existing local sources of carbon-emitting energy because the power is destined for export to California. Despite this, a group of high profile environmentalists wrote in The Sun of the need for this new power because "our electric cars are going to have to get juice from somewhere." These advocates do acknowledge the need to promote solutions on the demand side by conserving energy. They note approvingly that the province plans to meet "more than half of BC's new electricity demand with efficiency."

Supporters of "alternative energy" also argue that it will create new "green jobs." But what jobs? Construction workers in remote camps blasting rights-of-way through grizzly habitat to build RoR facilities on undeveloped rivers to provide seasonal power for export to Los Angelites who can now crawl in their electric cars guilt free along the freeway?

Environmentalists have long been fond of saying that the economy is a subset of the ecology. But not Berman's brigade whose RoR strategies take the economic growth trajectory (and its accompanying energy trajectory) as a given. At best, Berman calls for "more sustainable development."

But wait. Is "more sustainable development" about new electric cars, new power supplies, new energy exports, efficiency to meet new demand? Is there not a problem here? In a country with some of the highest per capita energy usage levels on the planet, where is the discussion of seriously reducing energy demand overall and doing it for the long term?

Increasing efficiency and generating new "alternative" sources of supply will never get us past the climate crunch because they confront a central contradiction: continuous economic growth that will just swallow up whatever gains are made, all the while upping the environmental impacts.

Can someone please explain how we can get past this contradiction except by reducing total energy demand, and developing economic strategies that will allow us to do so permanently?

Naming the problem

Taking the problem of economic growth seriously will not make you popular with the mainstream. But doing so actually offers tangible lessons. Here are three obvious ones:

1) We should not embark on destructive new supplies until demand reductions have been exhausted -- to death.

2) We should not look at just simple efficiency gains in existing processes but at whole new ways of designing our economy that inherently reduce energy flows.

3) We should consider new sources of supply only later and only where each renewable watt is directly tied to retiring an old carbon-based one.

So the climate emergency may not be about building more river utilities after all. Maybe we would do better to work together to stop new infrastructure investments like the new 10-lane Port Mann Bridge, a bridge for more cars, and without light rail. And to do this as part of a full-on campaign to refashion the whole face of urban transportation not just in the Lower Mainland but worldwide.

But this doesn't fit with the one truth that all political leaders agree on: we must keep the growth machine on stimulants.

A new model of development

These leaders have successfully exported this ideology to places like China, the most populous place on earth. With China's commitment to a coal-fired future of ever increasing production and consumption, exports and trade, a car for every household, one must ask: What have we unleashed here? Is there any vision of development that is both as universal and as inappropriate to the survival of the planet as this?

Talking about how we might get past this ideology and its contradictions is a taboo. But no one was talking about Wall Street's duplicity a year ago either. It took a collapse for that.

For B.C., this contradiction has a very specific import: given China's growth trajectory, what sense could it make to compromise one of the great river regions on the planet for minimal practical effect? It IS one atmosphere after all.

Climate scientists do not like to think about this. But when you do, you see the second, and more difficult, "inconvenient truth" of climate change -- the limits of a model of development that depends on always more growth, and more energy to fuel it. That is to say, the PowerUp strategy.

Just as global warming was until recently marked by widespread denial, so too denial of the problematic of growth economics is omnipresent today.

Confronting the tough truth of economic limits by actually trying to think and work past the growth paradigm opens up great possibilities. Call it the strategy of "growing into no-growth."

Instead of blasting in new supply projects to fuel electric cars, why not talk about how to build "car-free" cities? Here we might start to save the earth, and save money too. After all, if a car costs about $10,000 per year to own and run, a "demand reduction" strategy could reduce not only energy needs, but financial burdens on people. A strategy with a "double dividend," long term.

Instead of seeking more profits from power exports to California, why not work like crazy to reduce our food imports from that distant state with a massive commitment to enhance local food production right here? The same energy reduction benefits would result, and creating a true green economy (literally).

Who's being 'realistic'?

The retort, of course, is that such ideas aren't politically realistic.

Not so, says one of the gurus of energy planning, Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba. On the contrary, he argues that the history of creating new energy supply systems has shown that the challenges are so enormous that "none of the promises for greatly accelerated energy transitions will be realized." Message: it's the renewable energy folks who aren't realistic.

Meanwhile, the distinguished American geographer David Harvey points out in an April 2 interview in DemocracyNow! that the global economy was worth $4 trillion in 1950 and is now at $56 trillion. With all hands on deck to stimulate it way past even that, and to do so for as far into the future as anyone can contemplate, we are hitting the "limits environmentally, socially, politically…. In other words, we have to think about a zero-growth economy." Message: it's the whole economistic agenda that's unrealistic.

In the competition of unrealities, I will throw my lot in with those who would create new political possibilities. At least we would be working with the feedback we are getting from nature, not continuing to work against it.

Environmental politics for this century

To ensure the success of avowedly green energy projects, governments in British Columbia and Ontario now promise to pay big subsidies for more power, and they have rewritten provincial legislation to prevent local communities from deciding whether they want these development proposals. In contrast, in the United States, the federal government is looking at new forms of neighbourhood governance that might refashion all forms of resource and energy use at the community level.

Actually empowering citizens to try out new things where they live entails a form of what Harvard law professor Roberto Unger calls "democratic experimentalism." DemocracyNow! calls it "deep democracy." Not here.

For citizens in this province, a choice presents itself. Does climate change demand an impossible technological response to "power up" new sources of energy to fuel an impossibly expanding political economy?

Or does it demand an active democratic response that can inspire a new movement to "power down" into a calmer economy, and a livable future?

When you push past our collective denial, most people know the answer here. But they don't know how to do it. As the climate clock ticks, this is the real work to be done.

PowerUp? No thanks.

PowerDown? Sign me up!

NDP jolt to power producers just what critics want

MARK HUME
Globe and Mail
April 13, 2009

VANCOUVER -- It didn't take independent power producers long to respond when the NDP released its campaign platform last week.

Minutes after NDP Leader Carole James handed out the document, a news release was sent out by Steve Davis, president of the Independent Power Producers Association of B.C., with a glaring headline that stated: "NDP POLICIES WOULD DESTROY B.C.'S GREEN POWER INDUSTRY."

What followed was a vigorous attack on the election platform, and a warning by Mr. Davis that "the NDP's policies would freeze investment overnight, leaving us to continue importing coal and gas fired electricity from the U.S. and Alberta and exporting investment dollars and B.C. jobs to those jurisdictions."

It was a remarkably rapid and blunt response by the IPPBC, but then they had seen it coming.

The NDP has long been voicing concerns about the Liberal energy plan, which has triggered such a stampede to harness B.C. rivers for private power generation, that it has been called a liquid gold rush.

Ms. James has given several speeches in which she has attacked the government's energy policies and she has said the whole plan needs to be re-examined. She has also showed up at several public rallies, promising to help fight the growth of independent public power.

More than 8,000 potential power-generating sites have been identified on B.C. rivers, and at least 200 of those have been staked out by independent producers, who are being offered inflated prices for energy by BC Hydro to promote development.

The Liberal argument that British Columbia needs these projects hasn't resonated with the public, largely because BC Hydro was already doing such a good job of meeting the province's needs, producing some of the cheapest hydropower in North America.

The NDP, which seems to have a much better read on the public mood than the Liberals, was quick to label the energy program a giveaway of a public resource.

The platform released by Ms. James pledges to halt new independent power projects "until a full review of anticipated supply and demand is completed."

Existing contracts would be honoured, but those projects that haven't yet been approved might never be.

The NDP would also end the continuing privatization of BC Hydro, and would remove restrictions that are keeping the Crown corporation from competing with private producers in developing alternative energy sources.

"Gordon Campbell has forced BC Hydro to purchase all new energy from private producers," the platform states. "This puts British Columbians in a lose-lose situation: We're losing our resources and we're paying more for private power."

Despite the job-loss fears raised by the IPPBC, the NDP platform is probably going to generate a lot of voter support because it taps into a growing protest movement.

When Northwest Cascade Power Ltd. proposed putting a string of dams in the Pitt River watershed and a power line through a park, there was an overwhelming public outcry, with more than 1,000 people turning up at one community meeting in March, 2008. (The project seemed dead when the Liberal government refused to allow the proponent to cross the park, but it is back with a revised plan to tunnel under the park.)

In recent months, a public campaign to stop Plutonic Power Corp., from building 18 run-of-river dams in Bute Inlet has generated a groundswell of protest, with former talk show host Rafe Mair leading the charge. Mr.
Mair, a former Social Credit cabinet minister under the Bill Bennett regime, has gone so far as to urge people to follow his lead - and vote NDP.

Just last month environmental groups launched the 10,000 Voices campaign over the Internet, which tried to drown Liberal MLAs in a flood of e-mails, faxes and phone calls protesting the development of private power in British Columbia.

A lot of that human energy can now be expected to flow to the NDP, which has promised to deliver just what the critics want.

No wonder the platform sent a shudder through the IPPBC. They know that if the NDP get in, a lot of independent power projects will be dead in the water.

mhume@globeandmail.com

Kitimat LNG pipeline takes another step forward

COMMENT: What is the provincial government doing now? While the legal duty to consult is a government responsibility, the task of bringing First Nations onside (ie, the accomodation part of the negotiation) with projects like this pipeline has been left up to the proponent. As it still is, at least on the surface, and at least for the moment, with IPPs and hydro projects.

But with this pipeline, the provincial government is kicking in $3 million to cover FN's costs, and $32 million to buy an equity position for FNs in the pipeline. Good grief.

It invokes an image of government and companies slapping dollar bills on the table, one after the other, until First Nations' opposition just wilts away. What is bribery?

And what about the greenhouse gas emissions aspect? Isn't this expenditure greasing the rails for combustion of more fossil fuels? BC-produced fossil fuels. Square the circle with those virtuous electricity policies, please.

Don't natter at folks who are concerned about the impacts of hydro projects on streams around BC, don't argue that there's a higher imperative to ramp up renewable energy generation to reduce BC use of fossil fuels. Not when you're making statements like this from the other side of your face.

Wouldn't this be a better target for Tzeporah Berman and her PowerUP brigade?

Blast away!

Scott Simpson,
Vancouver Sun
April 9, 2009

Project receives overwhelming support from first nations along line

A proposed $1.2-billion natural gas pipeline took another major step forward on Wednesday with the announcement of overwhelming support from first nations along the route.

The Kitimat to Summit Lake pipeline, proposed to carry gas from northeast British Columbia to a liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal at Kitimat sea port, already has federal and provincial environmental approvals.

Proponents still need customers to sign up to run their gas through the line, and a commitment from proponents of the LNG plant, but obtaining the assent of aboriginal communities along the 463-kilometre route across the province was equally crucial.

"This is a pretty unique project that has 15 of 17 first nations onside and I think that speaks volumes to the work that's been done on the project on the front end, and the recognition by first nations of the benefits it can bring to those people," said Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Blair Lekstrom.

The province is kicking money into the pipeline -- $3 million to cover the first nations' costs to examine the project, and $32 million to provide them with what Lekstrom described as an "equity position" in both the construction and long-term operation of the proposed pipeline.

Total estimated value of the project, which envisions piping gas from the northeast, liquefying it, and shipping it to markets in Asia, is $4.2 billion, including the pipeline, improvements to Kitimat port terminal, and the LNG plant.

"We have to work with first nations. If they didn't see a benefit in it, the project would not likely be able to proceed, or certainly if it was, not at the same magnitude," Lekstrom said.

Greg Weeres, vice-president of operations and engineering for pipeline proponent Pacific Northern Gas, said the company is now working with LNG terminal proponents to sign up customers to book space on the pipeline and capacity at the terminal.

"We have certainly addressed many of the environmental issues we needed to address up front," Weeres said.

"Now we are putting our focus on finalizing the commercial arrangements."

He said the pipeline and the terminal could be in operation by 2013.

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

Boralex closes the acquisition of its first hydroelectric power station in British Columbia

News Release
Boralex,
Reuters
Mon Apr 6, 2009

MONTREAL, April 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Boralex Inc. ("Boralex" or the "Corporation") has concluded the acquisition, previously announced in June 2008, of the Ocean Falls hydroelectric power station located in Northern British Columbia.

The power station has an installed capacity of 14.5 MW of which 2 MW are currently being generated and sold primarily to BC Hydro under a long-term energy sales contract. Given its hydroelectric potential, the installed capacity of this power station could potentially be increased to more than 35 MW over the course of the coming years. At the same time, Boralex also acquired the development rights for two other hydroelectric projects in the same region, representing an additional 10 MW.

Patrick Lemaire, President and Chief Executive Officer of Boralex, said: "Boralex aims to initially optimize the 2 MW currently being generated by the Ocean Falls power station. Subsequently, our goal is to bring on-stream the additional 12.5 MW. The future development of the remaining capacity will be done over the next few years."

About Boralex

Boralex is a major private electricity producer whose core business is the development and operation of power stations that run on renewable energy. Employing over 300 people, the Corporation owns and operates 22 power stations with a total installed capacity MW of 365 MW in Canada, in the Northeastern United States and in France. In addition, the Corporation has more than 300 MW of power projects under development. Boralex is distinguished by its diversified expertise and in-depth experience in three power generation segments - wind, hydroelectric and thermal. Boralex shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BLX. www.boralex.com

Boralex also holds a 23% interest in Boralex Power Income Fund, which has 10 power stations with a total installed capacity of 190 MW in Quebec and the United States. These sites are managed by Boralex.

SOURCE BORALEX INC.

Ms. Patricia Lemaire, Director, Public Affairs and Communications, Boralex Inc., (514) 985-1353, patricia.lemaire@boralex.com

First of its kind tidal energy project closer to reality in Campbell River

COMMENT: I am keenly in favour of government support for emerging technologies, particularly with ocean energy - tides and waves. This is one place that BC still has a chance to develop knowledge and technology which can be deployed and marketed globally. It's nearly a decade too late for BC to take any leadership with wind energy, and a century too late with small hydro.

Various financial methods have been devised to bridge the gap between the cheaper methods and mature technologies for electricity generation and emerging technologies. The simplest are feed-in tarriffs. These subsidies kick in only when electricity is being generated and fed into the grid.

The Canoe Pass proposal has no immediate aspirations to sell electricity to BC Hydro. It certainly could, in the future, if it works, but without a feed-in tarriff, there is no way it could deliver that power for anything close to the already pretty steep rates that BC Hydro is paying for new energy these days.

The problem with this proposal, is that it is completely motivated by federal and now provincial grants and funding opportunities. There is no revenue stream anticipated in the business plans that I have seen. And the problem with that is, when the funding runs out, the project is kaput.

So, it is a workable concept - though it's unfortunate that it's a Calgary company providing the turbines - but it has the most unbusinesslike business proposal.

In my view, the proponents should be told to go away and come back with a business plan. If a subsidy, a feed-in tarriff is required, let's browbeat our government to implement one. It's long overdue.

Campbell River Courier-Islander
Saturday, April 04, 2009

A $2 million funding announcement Friday by the provincial government will help make Campbell River a leader in the national and global tidal energy field and result in the deployment of the first commercial scale tidal current electrical turbine in North America.

BC's Ministry of Small Business, Technology and Economic Development awarded Canoe Pass Tidal Energy Corporation (CPTEC) of Campbell River the money under its Innovative Clean Energy (ICE) Fund and the company plans to have its turbines in place before the end of 2010.

The site of the project is in the tidal channel between Quadra Island and Maude Island, just north of Campbell River. It will utilize a causeway constructed between the two islands for the 1958 Ripple Rock explosion that blew the tops off of under water twin peaks in adjoining Seymour Narrows. The peaks had played havoc with navigation through the tumultuous passage, and claimed many lives over the years. The causeway is still in tact and will provide a still water environment for construction and installation.

The tidal movements in the area are among the strongest and most reliable on the west coast, a key element in the powering of the turbines.
This will also mean an economic boost for the Campbell River area as goods and services requirements of the project are apportioned out to local suppliers.

The plan, called the Canoe Pass Commercialization Project, will see two 250 kW tidal turbines installed on the causeway and CPTEC president Chris Knight said the ICE fund money is definitely a green light for one of the greenest sources of energy there is.

"We're extremely pleased with the ICE Fund's decision," said Knight. "This is the final piece of the project's funding requirements. We hope to have the turbines in the water and operating before our Olympic year is over."

The project is being implemented by the Canoe Pass Consortium that includes New Energy Corp. of Calgary. New Energy has developed the EnCurrent Turbine system upon which the 250 kW model is based. Also included in the consortium is Rivercorp, the City of Campbell River's economic development corporation.

New Energy Corp. CEO Clayton Bear said the funding will enable the consortium to implement its leading edge technology and move toward the ultimate goal of providing green energy power to the BC Hyro grid.

"We have built complete water to wire systems at 10, 15 and 25 kW outputs," said Bear. "The Canoe Pass project will enable us to validate our technology at a commercial power project scale and in a marine environment."

CPTEC is a founding member of the Ocean Renewable Energy Group, Canada's unique ocean energy sector organization. Knight, was its first chairman, and he said all the parties involved are anxious to finally begin on-site development of the technology.

"The project has four objectives," said Knight. "Validate the technology at commercial scale in an ocean environment, model the project review and permitting process, demonstrate the reliability and quality of power through connection to the BC Hydro grid and create a data base for environmental interface and impact assessment through a rigorous monitoring and evaluation program."

The project could not have happened without wide-spread community support, including Canada's first rezoning of land for tidal power generation. Local involvement and support are a key aspect of this project's development, said Knight.

"This project, so far, could not have happened without community and regional support," said Thor Peterson, a director of Canoe Pass. "Everyone is behind it because they know tidal energy is probably one of the greenest forms of electrical generation there is and our coast has lots of potential in that field. The regional district even re-zoned the site for tidal power generation, that's the first time that's been done in Canada."

The project continues to proceed through national and provincial review and permitting processes, Detailed engineering design and technology scale-up are the next steps, said Knight.

© Campbell River Courier-Islander 2009

BC sells Powell Lake to California

Powell River Peak
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

GREEN BUDDIES: BC Environment Minister Barry Penner [right] and Premier Gordon Campbell [middle] have sealed an agreement with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to supply water from Powell Lake to the drought-plagued American state.

Multi-billion dollar deal unfolds in two phases

BC Premier Gordon Campbell and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger have signed an agreement that gives California full rights to Powell Lake.

The multi-billion dollar, multi-phased deal gives California water rights over the entire lake. It flows from the memorandum of understanding on climate change Campbell and Schwarzenegger signed in 2007.

California is entering its third consecutive year of drought and in February Schwarzenegger proclaimed a state of emergency and ordered immediate action to manage the crisis. "This drought is having a devastating impact on our people, our communities, our economy and our environment," he said. "This is a crisis, just as severe as an earthquake or raging wildfire and we must treat it with the same urgency by upgrading California's water infrastructure to ensure a clean and reliable water supply for our growing state."

The first phase of the deal between BC and California involves supertankers docking at Catalyst Paper Corporation's deep-water port to fill up with fresh water that will bolster California's reserves.

The second phase involves the construction of a pipeline down the coast of North America to California to transport water directly from Powell Lake.

The agreement sustains BC's economy in the middle of the worldwide downturn, as well as provides benefits for the environment, said Campbell. "We are pleased this agreement benefits both California and BC," he said. "Every day, it becomes more and more urgent that we find a long-term solution that works for the environment and the economy."

The financial benefit to the City of Powell River was not disclosed when the announcement was made today.

California rejects B.C. green power claims

By Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
April 2, 2009

State senate won’t amend renewable energy bill that would approve run-of-river hydroelectricity sales

While the California state senate opted for a regulation that disqualifies hydro projects producing more than 30 megawatts, new B.C. projects are typically 50 megawatts or larger. (Photograph by: Handout photo, Vancouver Sun files)

British Columbia’s effort to promote its hydroelectric energy exports to California as green power is failing.

The California senate last week rejected calls by electrical utilities in the state to amend a renewable energy bill to incorporate power from sources such as run-of-river hydro from B.C. as part of their obligation to generate 33 per cent of retail electricity sales from renewable sources by 2020.

Pacific Gas & Electric, in particular, sees B.C. power as central to a $4-billion B.C.-to-California transmission system upgrade carrying an enormous quantity of supposedly green power — equivalent to half of B.C.’s present generating capacity — to the state by 2016.

PG&E’s promotion of supposedly green B.C. power is a central aspect of the provincial government’s plan to develop the province as a major exporter of renewable energy.

However, the presence of a willing buyer who can pay premium prices for green power is critical to B.C.’s initiative, particularly in the massive California electricity market.

Western Canada Wilderness Committee national campaign director Joe Foy said the California senators’ decision confirms his group’s misgivings about run-of-river power.

The wilderness committee is a vocal opponent of the large-scale drive to develop run-of-river power resources under the umbrella of BC Hydro’s power acquisition mandate on the premise that it’s causing unnecessary damage to streams and forested areas.

“Once again this so-called run of river, this river diversion power, has been been judged and been found not to be green,” Foy said. “The environmental footprint is too big.

“They tried to wiggle it past the Californians and were unsuccessful. Californians had a closer look.”

The senate opted for a regulation that disqualifies hydro projects producing more than 30 megawatts — new B.C. projects are typically 50 megawatts or larger. The senate bill is now being reviewed by the California state assembly and a final decision could be months away.

The wilderness committee obtained a letter to the assembly from B.C. Environment Minister Barry Penner who is attempting to assure legislators that power from this province is subject to a thorough environmental review.

“The only reason we’re buying it [in B.C.] is that we are being forced to buy it. I think the only one who sees it as green power is our own government,” Foy said.

In an interview, Penner said he wrote the letter to counter allegations raised by environmental groups which are urging California legislators to hold firm to their existing standards.

Penner said California’s decision to increase its use of renewable energy was “laudable.”

He said he wrote the letter to detail, in four single-spaced pages, the extent of environmental scrutiny to which run-of-river projects are subject in B.C.

“There was what I believed to be a misinformation campaign, spilling over from the ideological debate here in B.C. about having the private sector involved in renewable energy,” Penner said.

“I wanted to set the record straight. I had seen some e-mails about what people were saying about British Columbia and it was not true. I felt we needed to stand up for British Columbia.”

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

Blog: www.vancouversun.com/energy

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Barry Penner's letter to the California State Assembly Committee, March 24, 2009

U.S. plan to flood Similkameen Valley draws B.C.'s attention

By Scott Simpson,
Vancouver Sun,
March 31, 2009

A Washington state utility wants to flood 3,650 hectares of the Similkameen Valley for a hydro dam. Photograph by: Cathy Lukovich, Vancouver Sun files

B.C. Environment Minister Barry Penner asked U.S. regulators Tuesday for intervenor status on a proposal by a Washington state utility to flood 3,650 hectares of B.C.’s Similkameen Valley for a hydro dam.

The threatened land includes two aboriginal reserves, two provincial protected areas, a potential national park, and “high quality agricultural land,” according to a six-page letter from Penner to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (or FERC).

At least 20 blue- and red-listed animal and plant species would be impacted, Penner said in the letter, noting that Canada’s Species at Risk Act “prohibits any action which threatens, damages or destroys a threatened or endangered species or its habitat.”

The Okanogan County Public Utilities District has applied to U.S. regulators to build a dam either 27 or 80 metres high at Shanker’s Bend on the U.S. portion of the Similkameen River.

The high dam alternative would create a 7,300-hectare reservoir — half of which would be on the Canadian side of the valley in southeast B.C., along one of the most bucolic tourist routes on the continent.

The dam’s operating capacity would be 43 megawatts — a nominal amount given the scale of its impact. But it would also serve as a reservoir to provide water for agriculture in eastern Washington.

“While British Columbia certainly supports the responsible use and development of hydropower, we do believe such projects need to be appropriately sited and designed to avoid unacceptable environmental impacts,” Penner stated in the letter.

He said the province opposes the proposed 80-metre high dam “because of the anticipated environmental and community impacts in British Columbia.”

Penner said the 27-metre low-dam proposal also raises concerns because of “how the dam could impact British Columbia in years of high water.”

The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society is already actively opposing the proposal and had been pressing the province to get involved.

“I’ve intended to seek intervenor status for some time, but I also wanted to make sure that our T’s were crossed and our I’s were dotted,” Penner said in an interview. “We’ve retained legal counsel in the United States to help us prepare for our intervention request.”

Penner said the legal firm the government retained previously represented the province’s interests in the successful battle to block development of the Sumas Two gas-fired generating station in Washington, just across the Canada-U.S. border from Abbotsford.

Chloe O’Loughlin, executive director of the B.C. chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, lauded Penner’s involvement.

“The dam is entirely unacceptable from an ecosystem perspective and from a cultural perspective,” O’Loughlin said.

ssimpson@vancouversun.com
Blog: www.vancouversun.com/energy
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun