What "Sustainable Prosperity Act"?

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.

"Canada's New Government" fails again

Once again, Steven Harper's Conservative government has acted against the wishes of the vast majority of Canadians by failing to issue a credible plan to meet Canada's international obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. In response to a Liberal private member's Bill calling for the government of Canada to table a credible plan to meet the Kyoto guidelines, the Conservatives issued a 37 page "excuse of why government is not willing to take appropriate action to help protect the future of Canadians and the planet", said the Climate Action Network. The Climate Action Network is a joint effort by major environmental and sustainability groups formed to provide a unified voice regarding climate change issues in Canada. The governments plan is still based on "intensity" targets (see GWB's Grand Plan - June 7th) rather than hard caps on emissions, and will leave Canada more than 30% above its Kyoto Targets. All three federal opposition parties voted in favour of this private members bill, (which represents more than 60% of the voting public), so Harper can hardly say that he is acting in the interests of the majority of Canadians. Harper claims to be protecting Canadians from economic collapse, however, he is really only protecting the unbridled pillaging of our natural resources by foreign companies (Alberta), and our burning of dirty fossil fuels from other countries (Nova Scotia).
See the press release from the Climate Action Network - here

In other news:

• Arctic Sea Ice Shrinks to lowest area ever - article
  
• Making Global Warming Profitable - stories of substantial economic success in countries that are aggressively reducing their GHG Emissions - article
  
• Glace Bay Wind Farm Commissioned - Province's second larges wind farm is now online. Note comments from the Premier saying "The future of power is renewable energy", and that the Province has the policies in place for to create "green economy". How ensuring the profitability, monopoly status and marketshare of the Canada's 5th largest emitter creates a "green economy", I'm not quite sure. -article
  

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.

Rodney's Resources, Ontario Solar and Trading Carbon

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the long wait between emails, but I've been attending to some other work in my spare time. I've been collecting lots of stories from the news lately, and I have a few for you today. But first, I want to comment on our fearless leader here in NS, Rodney MacDonald, and his recent fight with the Federal Conservatives about the Atlantic Accord.

The Atlantic Accord concerns the revenue from our offshore oil/natural gas reserves and how they are accounted for in the Equalization program. Rodney's argument is that NS will continue to be disadvantaged until we can use these non-renewable energy sources as a leg up. Although he has a point that Harper is going back on his word, Rodney is also not acting on formal promises he made to his own people, but this time, about renewable energy sources. Not once, but twice the PC Government of Nova Scotia has promised to open up the electricity market to allow more renewable energy, but has yet to act. The reason? The spin doctors of NS Power are doing their best to look after their assets and profitability. And you can hardly blame them. However, you can blame the conservative government for not acting, since it is through renewable sustainability that NS will truly find its leg up. As more and more renewable companies head west looking for work, the PC's may find they were focusing on the wrong types of resources as they head to the polls looking for their fourth mandate in a row.

From a province that is doing the bare minimum to encourage renewables to province that is getting it right, Ontario. Much has been said about the booming wind energy industry in Ontario because of their Standard Offer Program, but it is now coming to light that Ontario is a hot bed of Solar activity as well. Standard Offers guarantee a price for renewable energy, which makes it very simple for even the smallest producers to implement renewable projects. This is the exact opposite of the lowest-price-wins tendering system still used in NS, which only favours the biggest and most well financed companies. You can see the economic benefits from Ontario's plan from the long list of companies in the following article that are doing great business in Ontario, providing employment, and certainly paying taxes too. These benefits stretch from the smallest co-ops to the biggest solar companies in the world. From the Toronto Star: http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/228987.

Finally, an article about Carbon Trading from Silver Donald Cameron. I met Silver Donald at this Carbon Credit conference and was very impressed. During a Q&A session he made a well received comment about how difficult the complex issues regarding carbon credit markets were to understand for someone with a background in English literature. The positive news from the conference was that despite our non-involvement with Kyoto, and a Federal Government only interested in making Oil Sands developers and and impeachable tyrants from the South happy, there is still a demand for carbon credits from companies that can see the benefits. These benefits include increased efficiency, profitability and publicity. Soon, such progress will be in the hands of consumers, when they can choose from companies that are doing their part versus those that don't. Read the article here http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotian/843364.html. and for more information about a company who is leading the way, Interface Carpets, see this: http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1333.

Thats all for now.. If you have any other topics you'd like to hear about, please let me know. I'm already working on something about NS's Sustainable Prosperity Act, as well as a more in-depth look at Carbon Credit Trading at Silver Donald's request: Carbon Trading 101.

Take care,

Dan