How quickly Premier MacDonald has forgotten his own party's work from the Spring Session. Our government was one of the first in North America to pass legislation focusing on Sustainability, yet our Premier has put his faith in the oil and gas industry to lead this province into the future. MacDonald wrote a column in todays Chronicle Herald (link) proclaiming that our "future looks bright" because Deep Panuke might happen. If Encana decides to proceed with this large offshore project, (which I imagine they will), they will spend 3 years building the facilities, and 13 years pumping Natural Gas from the ocean floor. This may seem like a long time, but every turbine that is installed in the next two years in response to NS Power's RFP will last longer than this offshore project.
The PC Government seems hell bent in pushing the oil and gas industry for more exploration off our coasts, going as far as traveling to Houston and Dallas (home of such sustainability experts as Exxon and Halliburton) to beg them to come to Nova Scotia. Do we want a Premier that is in Texas promoting Oil and Gas, or perhaps one that goes to Denmark and Germany to see how they became world leaders in renewable energy. The Sustainable Prosperity Act pledges that Nova Scotia will become a "world leader in environmentally sustainable technologies" (Bill 146 3b). Did Premier MacDonald think the Texas Oil Patch was the place to start looking for these technologies?
Our government's bias towards Natural Gas has been clear for a while. Earlier in the summer, Premier MacDonald and Energy Minister Dooks pledged $3Million to help Heritage Gas pay for infrastructure costs. Heritage Gas is now giving the KeyNote address at the Green Energy 2007 conference sponsored by the Department of Energy. Natural Gas isn't green, and it isn't sustainable.
Both the Natural Gas industry and the Renewable Energy industry are starting to blossom in Nova Scotia. If a government wanted to be environmentally friendly, and sustainable as well, which industry should it support? Our government has put it's money on the table: 3Million for basic Natural Gas infrastructure, $75 thousand for the NS Wind Atlas.
Minister Dooks recently added in the Chronicle Herald (link) that the Department of Energy has to "protect electricity consumers". Natural Gas is well known to be more expensive than wind energy for electricity production. All year, NSPower has been burning $80/barrel oil at Tuffs Cove because it's still cheaper than Natural Gas. (CORRECTION: since earlier in 2007, Natural Gas has been used instead of Oil, which had been used for the past few years). The argument that renewables must be contained to protect consumers is completely false... it's only the existing fossil fuel interests that it protects.
Despite all this, the funny thing is that the renewable energy industry doesn't need all the handouts and bait money the oil and gas industry gets. All that the renewable energy industry needs is access to customers, something our PC government promised it would do in 2002. My recommendation is to let our poorly funded and under-performing schools have the money, and let renewable energies lead this province into the future.
Showing posts with label Bill Dooks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bill Dooks. Show all posts
Monday, October 8, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Natural Gas in Halifax
The Provincial Government has played a pivotal role in bringing Natural Gas to the Halifax peninsula, and helped the supplier, Heritage Gas secure an "anchor" client in Capital Health. This change will bring a reduction in GHG emissions, since natural gas does burn cleaner than the source it is replacing, heating oil, however, I would hardly agree with the statement from Heritage Gas that it is "environmentally friendly" nor do I think it is a wise investment for the future of Halifax.
Natural Gas gets off easy when it comes to fossil fuel's affect on the environment, even though it is a highly exhaustible source (just like oil) that still emits lots of GHG emissions. The Government press release noted that this conversion will reduce GHG Emissions by 20,000 tonnes, which is a good thing, but installing 4 utility scale wind turbines would have the same effect with much less cost.
The people of Halifax and Nova Scotia must also stop to think if this is a wise investment economically. The price of natural gas is still highly volatile, and most of the worlds reserves have been found and are being extracted. Even our own offshore reserves are in decline. NS has done well exporting natural gas to New England, and why have we mostly exported it?? because it is more expensive than our current sources. Rather than exclusively being a seller of a limited resource with large price fluctuations, our provincial government and Heritage Gas are spending millions of dollars making the people of Nova Scotia buyers of it has well. The price of natural gas has come down over the past two years, but it only takes a basic understanding of supply and demand to realize that when supply is limited, price will go up. Where does Premier MacDonald and Minister Dooks think the price of natural gas will be in 10 years? or 25 years? It is increasingly expensive to run our health care system due to shifting demographics, and yet our government is investing millions to guarantee that the costs of operating our health care facilities will continue to increase. Not only will the price continue to increase, but the price of natural gas is actually more volatile than the oil it is replacing. All it would take is one big storm or one terrorist attack, and it could mean drastic increases in the cost to Nova Scotians to run our hospitals overnight.
In order to be truly environmentally friendly, and economically wise, the government needs to support using renewable energy sources to power our businesses, institutions and residences. Energy Minister Bill Dooks said in the government's press release "Nova Scotia has tremendous natural-gas potential -- we've got it, let's use it". Why doesn't "we've got it, let's use it" apply to renewable sources?? Not only do we have a far greater resource potential than natural gas in both wind and tidal , it doesn't require millions of millions of dollars of government infrastructure subsidization to succeed. All it needs is the opportunity to compete.
Natural Gas gets off easy when it comes to fossil fuel's affect on the environment, even though it is a highly exhaustible source (just like oil) that still emits lots of GHG emissions. The Government press release noted that this conversion will reduce GHG Emissions by 20,000 tonnes, which is a good thing, but installing 4 utility scale wind turbines would have the same effect with much less cost.
The people of Halifax and Nova Scotia must also stop to think if this is a wise investment economically. The price of natural gas is still highly volatile, and most of the worlds reserves have been found and are being extracted. Even our own offshore reserves are in decline. NS has done well exporting natural gas to New England, and why have we mostly exported it?? because it is more expensive than our current sources. Rather than exclusively being a seller of a limited resource with large price fluctuations, our provincial government and Heritage Gas are spending millions of dollars making the people of Nova Scotia buyers of it has well. The price of natural gas has come down over the past two years, but it only takes a basic understanding of supply and demand to realize that when supply is limited, price will go up. Where does Premier MacDonald and Minister Dooks think the price of natural gas will be in 10 years? or 25 years? It is increasingly expensive to run our health care system due to shifting demographics, and yet our government is investing millions to guarantee that the costs of operating our health care facilities will continue to increase. Not only will the price continue to increase, but the price of natural gas is actually more volatile than the oil it is replacing. All it would take is one big storm or one terrorist attack, and it could mean drastic increases in the cost to Nova Scotians to run our hospitals overnight.
In order to be truly environmentally friendly, and economically wise, the government needs to support using renewable energy sources to power our businesses, institutions and residences. Energy Minister Bill Dooks said in the government's press release "Nova Scotia has tremendous natural-gas potential -- we've got it, let's use it". Why doesn't "we've got it, let's use it" apply to renewable sources?? Not only do we have a far greater resource potential than natural gas in both wind and tidal , it doesn't require millions of millions of dollars of government infrastructure subsidization to succeed. All it needs is the opportunity to compete.
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