Archive | Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs

B.C.’s 14 operating mines could shrink to just five in 20 years, report warns – by Nelson Bennett (BIV/Alaska Highway News – October 17, 2020)

October 19, 2020 in British Columbia Mining, Canadian Regional Media and Web Publications, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs

https://www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/

B.C. has a serious carbon leakage problem that could see the mining industry here shrink over the next 20 years, and emissions from mining rise in other countries, a new report by the Mining Association of (MABC) warns.

It warns that B.C.’s 14 operating mines could shrink to just five by 2040. When carbon taxes were first introduced in B.C. by the Liberal government, they were generally supported by B.C.’s mining industry.

But the industry expected other competing jurisdictions would likewise implement carbon pricing. Most didn’t. Moreover, the NDP ended carbon tax neutrality, in which increases in carbon taxes are offset with decreases in other taxes. Continue Reading →

Clean Energy Can’t Have Dirty Roots – by Ketan Joshi and Antony Loewenstein (Foriegn Policy – October 15, 2020)

October 16, 2020 in Battery Technology Innovation/Electric Vehicles, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, Cobalt, Critical, Strategic and Rare Earth Minerals and Metals, International Media Resource Articles, Lithium, Nickel

https://foreignpolicy.com/

Securing human rights in the supply chain of critical minerals is vital for a green future.

On the face of it, the recent news that California will ban the sale of petrol cars in 2035 and favor electric vehicles is a positive development toward a greener, safer, and more sustainable world. And yet this announcement brings as many questions as answers, not least whether electric vehicles really are the best and easiest solution to the climate crisis.

The reality is far more complicated. The electrification of transport and the construction of new clean energy like solar are vital components of curing the carbon problem. But they come with their own novel and potentially show-stopping environmental and ethical costs, and these must urgently be grappled with by those of us who call for climate action at a rapid rate.

Everyone who expected climate policy to cool in the year of COVID-19 has been sorely disappointed. A flurry of announcements is increasing as the end of the year approaches, mostly relating to either general climate ambition, the accelerated deployment of mature technologies, or innovation to create new ones. Continue Reading →

Solar ‘new king’ of electricity, but shift to net zero will require ‘unwavering efforts from all’ – by Terence Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – October 13, 2020)

October 14, 2020 in Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, International Media Resource Articles

https://www.miningweekly.com/

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has declared solar the “new king” of electricity, arguing that, while renewables technologies as a whole are poised for rapid growth over the coming several decades, solar will be “at the centre of this new constellation of electricity generation technologies”.

The agency’s ‘World Energy Outlook 2020’ notes that, with sharp cost reductions over the past decade, solar photovoltaic (PV) is now consistently cheaper than new coal- or gas-fired power plants in most countries, while solar PV projects now offer some of the lowest cost electricity ever seen.

The report notes that the lowest price announced for solar PV in a competitive auction so far is $13/MWh, achieved in Portugal in August 2020. Continue Reading →

Opinion: The Liberals are becoming a climate cult – by Dan McTeague (Financial Post – October 7, 2020)

October 13, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs

https://financialpost.com/

Proposed Clean Fuel Standard is a second carbon tax that will lead to as many as 30,000 job losses nationally

The conversation around climate change arguably has been irrational since it began decades ago, but the irrationality has only become more and more deeply imbedded — perhaps nowhere more than here in Canada, with the current Liberal government and its latest initiative, the Clean Fuel Standard.

Full disclosure: for 18 years I was a Liberal member of Parliament, and a very active one. But the Liberal party I knew was a very different party from the one running the country today.

Today’s Liberals are seized with an irrational obsession on the climate file. Climate change trumps any other concern, excluding the pandemic. Continue Reading →

Washington State blows away wind fantasies – by Ronald Stein (Cfact.org – October 12, 2020)

October 13, 2020 in Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, International Media Resource Articles

https://www.cfact.org/

The Northwest has spoken loudly as the Benton Public Utility District (BPUD) has documented their actual battleground experiences with intermittent electricity from wind farms that should be a wake-up call to our policy makers. Their message is “no more wind”.

The Washington state utility 16-page report titled “Wind Power and Clean Energy Policy Perspectives” of July 14, 2020 provides a devastating counter attack to the wind lobbyists that they question the efficacy of wind farms for power generation and resulted in the utility’s commissioners saying they “do not support further wind power development in the Northwest.”

Kudos to this Washington state public utility for speaking up after seeing the costs and dangers of California’s experience with an overreliance on intermittent electricity from wind and solar. Continue Reading →

Anglo, Glencore among firms in study said to be meeting Paris Agreement targets – by David McKay (MiningMx.com – October 7, 2020)

October 8, 2020 in Anglo American, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, Glencore, International Media Resource Articles

Homepage

ANGLO American and Glencore were two of only seven companies that a study said were doing enough to meet Paris Agreement targets on climate control.

Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI) assessed 59 resources and energy companies finding the fossil fuel industry was failing on its environmental scorecard.

The TPI is a global program based at the London School of Economics, which assesses climate risks and companies’ preparedness for a low-carbon economy, said Bloomberg News which reported on the study. Continue Reading →

OPINION: The Green Revolution is coming but is overly hyped – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – October 3, 2020)

October 8, 2020 in Battery Technology Innovation/Electric Vehicles, Canadian Media Resource Articles, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

When Goldman Sachs published a landmark study this summer on clean energy, the greenies cheered. The Wall Street giant didn’t really say anything new, but its conclusions reinforced the notion that the oil era is winding down and that renewable energy would soak up the bulk of the entire energy industry’s investment dollars.

Specifically, the report, “Carbonomics: The green engine of economic recovery,” said that renewable power will emerge as the No. 1 area of energy spending in 2021, usurping oil and gas spending for the first time, and that the green transition will drive US$1-trillion to US$2-trillion per year – per year! – in infrastructure investments, while generating as many as 20 million new jobs worldwide.

All encouraging news, if true, and even better news for the planet. The United Nations has predicted all sorts of life-threatening calamities if carbon emissions push average global temperatures beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Continue Reading →

Poland’s coal-phaseout plans: Fact or fiction? – by Jo Harper (Deutsche Welle – September 30, 2020)

October 1, 2020 in Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, Coal, Europe Mining, International Media Resource Articles

https://www.dw.com/en/

After updating its 2040 energy plan in early September, Warsaw moved last week towards ending its dependence on coal after the Polish government, miners’ unions and the state-owned coal firm, Polish Mining Group (PGG), agreed a plan to phase out mines by 2049.

It was the first time Poland has put a timeline on ending coal and puts the country in line to meet the EU’s climate targets of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, which had previously been rejected by Warsaw as unrealistic. But some industry observers doubt the plan will survive the harsh rigors of hardening EU climate policy, alongside financial constraints.

“There is a general agreement between experts on energy and coal mines that the plan of coal mine phaseout is a fiction,” Ilona Jedrasik, energy team lead at ClientEarth Poland, told DW. Continue Reading →

EDITORIAL: We can’t afford more green energy failures (Toronto Sun – September 17, 2020)

September 18, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs

https://torontosun.com/

We don’t know how much Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is going to earmark for so-called “green” energy when Parliament resumes on Sept. 23.

It’s unlikely the amount will be in the Throne Speech because typically that’s when governments announce their “big ideas” for the coming parliamentary session.

We do know many of the people Trudeau listens to are advocating spending tens of billions of dollars we don’t have to finance a so-called green and resilient economic recovery from the COVID-19 recession. Continue Reading →

The carbon vault: Industrial waste can combat climate change by turning carbon dioxide into stone – by Robert F. Service (Science Magazine – September 4, 2020)

September 4, 2020 in Canada Mining – North of 60, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, International Media Resource Articles

https://science.sciencemag.org/

In July 2019, Gregory Dipple, a geologist at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, hopped on a 119-seat charter flight in Yellowknife, Canada, and flew 280 kilometers northeast to the Gahcho Kué diamond mine, just south of the Arctic Circle.

Gahcho Kué, which means “place of the big rabbits” in the Dënësu̧łinë language of the region’s native Dené or Chipewyan people, is an expansive open pit mine ringed by sky-blue lakes. There, the mining company De Beers unearths some 4 million carats’ worth of diamonds annually.

But Dipple and two students weren’t there for gems. Rather, they were looking to use the mine’s crushed rock waste as a vault to lock up carbon dioxide (CO2) for eternity. Continue Reading →

Conservative government would aim to erase deficit in a decade, Erin O’Toole says – by Bill Curry and Janice Dickson (Globe and Mail – September 4, 2020)

September 4, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

New Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole says the Liberal government’s recovery plan is too narrowly focused on a green economy and will leave out major employers in sectors such as energy, manufacturing and Canada’s small businesses.

In his first interview with a newspaper since winning the party leadership late last month, Mr. O’Toole outlined his economic priorities to The Globe and Mail in his Ottawa office, as he prepares for Parliament’s return and a possible fall election.

He said he wants to erase Canada’s deficit in about a decade if his party forms government, a timeline he said can be accomplished without giving credence to Liberal characterizations of a Conservative “bogeyman” who imposes deep spending cuts. Continue Reading →

Trudeau’s ‘brutal’ attempt to use COVID to push his green agenda – by Rex Murphy (National Post – August 27, 2020)

August 28, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs

https://nationalpost.com/

The only settled and unchanging characteristic of the global warmist brigade is their overt, continuous and super-hyped hostility toward the oil and gas industry. And in no country is that hostility more manifest than in Canada.

Global Warming Inc., and all its fronts and allies, have made protesting against Canadian oil and gas its full-time occupation. They protest, blockade, clog the courts, propagandize and fundraise against Alberta oil and gas, in particular, and have done so now for three decades.

They have effectively choked the industry’s growth and have hindered the export of our great resource by halting the construction of pipelines that are needed to bring the product to markets outside Canada and the United States. Continue Reading →

Blackouts Expose Perils And Costs Of California’s ‘Electrify Everything’ Push – by Robert Bryce (Forbes Magazine – August 18, 2020)

August 24, 2020 in Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, International Media Resource Articles

https://www.forbes.com/

The blackouts that hit California over the past few days exposed the fragility of one of the most-expensive and least-reliable electric grids in North America.

They also show that California’s grid can’t handle the load it has now, much less accommodate the enormous amount of new demand that would have to be met if the state attempts to “electrify everything.”

The push to electrify everything would prohibit the use of natural gas in buildings, electrify transportation, and require the grid to run solely on renewables (and maybe, a dash of nuclear). Continue Reading →

GOLDSTEIN: Freeland touts the myths of green energy – by Lorrie Goldstein (Toronto Sun – August 19, 2020)

August 21, 2020 in Canadian Media Resource Articles, Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs

https://torontosun.com/

Canada’s new finance minister is smart, which means Chrystia Freeland must know the first words out of her mouth about green energy following her appointment by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were nonsense.

Asked about the future of green energy, she said: “To (the) question about decarbonization as part of our economic plan going forward: Of course it has to be part of it.

“I think all Canadians understand that the restart of our economy needs to be green. It also needs to be equitable. It needs to be inclusive. And we need to focus very much on jobs and growth.” Continue Reading →

California Reveals That the Transition to Renewable Energy Isn’t So Simple – by Alex Trembath and Zeke Hausfather (Slate.com – August 19, 2020)

August 20, 2020 in Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs, International Media Resource Articles

https://slate.com/

The recent “heat storm” in California has pushed grid operators to impose rolling blackouts for the first time since 2001.

A combination of heavy air conditioning usage, the unplanned unavailability of some power plants, limited options for importing power from neighboring states, and insufficient solar and wind generation have led to an imbalance of electricity generation and consumption.

As Stephen Berberich, president of the California Independent System Operator, or CAISO, which oversees operation of the state’s electric grid, told Sammy Roth of the Los Angeles Times, “We thought there would be adequate power to supply the demand. … We were wrong.” Continue Reading →