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Revenge of the fossil fuels: Setbacks mount for renewable energy sector – by Yadullah Hussain (National Post – October 5, 2012)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

After a fantastic run spanning a few years, the renewable energy sector has taken a number of hits recently, which suggests its inevitable march as the energy source of the future is far from certain.

“It’s pretty bleak — there is no way to sugar coat it. But I wouldn’t call it a lost cause,” says Matt Horne, director of climate change at the Pembina Institute.

While all sectors have ups and downs, there is a fear that renewables’ weaknesses could lead to structural changes, as policymakers no longer have the luxury of supporting and extending subsidies at a time of fiscal austerity.

And much to the dismay of environmentalists, fossil fuels are clawing their way back into the public’s good books. Or at least they are offering a compelling economic case that few can resist at a time of slow economic growth.

A number of factors have turned the tide. Plentiful oil and abundance of cheap natural gas, especially in the United States and Canada, with its promise of high-paying jobs has been an irresistible lure for governments desperate to create employment.

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Ottawa unveils new coal-fired plant emission rules – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – September 6, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

OTTAWA – The federal government has released final regulations for coal-fired power plants that eases the expected burden on utilities by allowing them to run their plants longer before having to replace them with lower-emission alternatives, and to average emission reductions among their plants.

The new regulations may force the closing of at least two coal-fired plants in Alberta by 2020 and prevent construction of one planned by Maxim Power Corp., unless the provincial government can reach an agreement with Ottawa to impose its own regulations while meeting overall federal targets.

Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia are both working with Ottawa to reach such a deal. In Saskatoon Thursday, Environment Minister Peter Kent unveiled the long-anticipated regulations which the government describes as being among the most stringent in the world, but are significantly weakened from what was first proposed two years ago.

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Australia’s ambitious new coal frontier blown off track – Rebekah Kebede (Globe and Mail – September 4,2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

PERTH – Reuters – Tumbling coal prices and tough financing threaten to derail tens of billions of dollars of planned investment in Australia’s Galilee Basin, a so-far untapped reserve with the potential to make the country the world’s top thermal coal exporter.

Emboldened by record coal prices in recent years, Australian mining magnates have teamed up with Chinese and Indian groups such as GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd. and Adani Enterprises to develop huge mines in Galilee, a remote outback area in Queensland state.

They had big plans: five developments to ramp up production to more than 180 million tonnes by the end of the decade, double Australia’s current annual thermal coal exports. In addition, rail lines and ports to ship the coal, mostly to Asia.

But efforts to open up Galilee have been shaken by a 20-per-cent slide in Australian benchmark coal prices since the start of 2012 to just over $90 per tonne, as China’s demand has cooled.

Delays will mean Australia will miss out on overtaking Indonesia as the world’s No.1 thermal coal exporter and wipe out a big chunk of future coal supply.

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Media ignore German coal plants, tout propaganda film ‘Fuel’ – by Dr. Kelvin Kemm (Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow – August 28, 2012)

The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) is a conservative Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization whose stated mission is to promote free market solutions to environmental problems.(Wiki) http://www.cfact.org/
 
Dr. Kelvin Kemm is a CFACT scientific advisor. He holds a PhD in nuclear physics, is currently CEO of Stratek and lives in Pretoria, South Africa.

While Germany builds 23 new coal plants, the media gush over “Fuel,” in which super rich celebrities tell the rest of us to turn the lights off and do without!

It is amazing how biased the international media is when it comes to reporting on energy generation, specifically electricity.
 
In mid-August, Germany opened a new 2200MW coal-fired power station near Cologne, and virtually not a word has been said about it. This dearth of reporting is even more surprising when one considers that Germany has said building new coal plants is necessary because electricity produced by wind and solar has turned out to be unaffordably expensive and unreliable.
 
In a deteriorating economic situation, Germany’s new environment minister, Peter Altmaier, who is as politically close to Chancellor Angela Merkel as it gets, has underlined time and again the importance of not further harming Europe’s – and Germany’s – economy by increasing the cost of electricity.

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Indian village fears being swallowed by underground coal fires – by Mark Magnier (Los Angeles Times/Toronto Star – August 18, 2012)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

JHARIA, India — For nearly a century now, fires have burned beneath the ground where Mohammad Riyaz Ansari stands. At night, ghostly blue flares shoot from glowing rocks, like a terrible hell on Earth.

The 55-year-old mechanic and his neighbours here, deep in eastern India’s coal country, live above underground coal fires that are eating away at their land, India’s precious natural resources and, say some, government credibility.

As the ground subsides, thousands of houses, including Ansari’s, have sagged, collapsed or fallen into chasms over the years, including 250 destroyed over two hours in 1995.

In this eerie landscape — the plumes of flame igniting periodically as combustible gas escapes from the subterranean fires — locals speak of neighbours swallowed in their sleep. In 2006, for instance, 14-year-old Mira Kumari vanished while cooking when her house fell 15 metres underground. Her body was never recovered.

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Renewed interest in High Arctic coal mining unearths angry opposition – by Randy Boswell (National Post/Postmedia News – July 9, 2012)

 http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html

A proposed Arctic coal-mining project that was rejected by a Nunavut development regulator in 2010 but has been revived by another Canadian company has triggered renewed concern about the potential impact on wildlife, Inuit hunting grounds and world-renowned fossil sites on Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg islands.
 
Linking the rebirth of the planned coal dig on Canada’s northernmost landmasses with recent federal cuts to Arctic environmental monitoring, Green Party leader Elizabeth May said: “Is it a coincidence that one of the most polluting resource-extraction industries is now ready to exploit the area?”
 
The Arctic-coal controversy has re-emerged at a time when scientists across Canada are sounding alarms about the potential impact of budget cuts to Canadian environmental research and ecosystem monitoring capacity. On Tuesday, hundreds of scientists attending a conference in Ottawa, along with allied environmental advocates, are scheduled to take part in a mock funeral march to Parliament Hill — a so-called “Death of Evidence” protest.

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In Mongolia, a New, Penned-In [Mineral] Wealth – by Dan Levin (New York Times – June 27, 2012)

http://www.nytimes.com/

TAVAN TOLGOI, Mongolia — “All you need to mine here is a shovel,” said an awe-struck Indian investment manager as he stood behind a barrier, along with dozens of international mining industry executives and other eager investors, gazing at the immense coal pit gouged out of the rust-colored earth below.

Coal may have lured the foreigners to this stretch of the Gobi, but that is just part of the buried treasure to be found now that this nation of livestock herders has started digging in earnest. Mongolia has not only enough coal to fuel China’s huge demand for the next 50 years, but also vast troves of copper, gold, uranium and other minerals the world covets.

While Mongolia may be blessed by geology, it is cursed by geography. Landlocked between China and Russia, its three million people face a geopolitical quandary: Every path to prosperity leads through their mighty neighbors’ territory. And Moscow and Beijing intend to make Mongolia pay dearly for the privilege.

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Coal: The rising star of global energy production – by Neil Reynolds (Globe and Mail – June 20, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Coal has had a good run in the past five years – sweeping up the energy equivalent of the Academy Awards for best foreign film in four of them. (Though shot principally in China, these epic productions mostly starred American or Australian actors.) Notwithstanding its bad-boy reputation as a despoiler of the heavens and the Earth, coal has emerged as the fastest growing of all fossil fuel. It works hard (especially when pulverized into powder and burned super-hot). It’s relatively cheap.

And it has substantially cleaned up its environmental act. Honest. Energy expert Robert Bryce says, for example, that the cleanest U.S. coal-fired electricity plants now exceed all traditional Environmental Protection Agency pollution standards. Combine these advantages and you have blockbuster box office.

BP’s annual statistical review reports that global coal production increased 6 per cent last year, twice the celebrated rate of increase in global natural gas production. This most notorious of fuels now accounts for 30 per cent of global energy consumption – the highest percentage since 1969. It will almost certainly account for more in the years ahead. It is, after all, one of the cheapest primary sources of energy in the world. And its reserves are, for all practical purposes, inexhaustible.

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Coal is big business in B.C. – (Canadian Mining Journal – May 2012)

The Canadian Mining Journal is Canada’s first mining publication providing information on Canadian mining and exploration trends, technologies, operations, and industry events.

Coal is the second most important resource exported from British Columbia next to wood products. But ask someone in the province how well the forestry industry is doing and you’re likely to be faced with an icy stare. Coal is big business as the world­wide demand for coal grows and shows no sign of slowing, particularly in rapidly industrializing and developing economies. Asia in particular is hungry for B.C.’s hard coking coal, used in steelmaking, and almost four years of a soft economy have not slowed the demand.
 
This demand has led to greater interest in British Columbia’s resources from inter­national corporations, including the diver­sified mining giant, Xstrata Coal, which is located in Switzerland, and JX Nippon Oil & Gas (JX), based in Japan. Xstrata and JX recently announced a joint venture to acquire metallurgical coal properties in the Peace River region of northern Alberta. Xstrata Coal British Columbia will retain the significant share of the venture at 75% with JX purchasing a 25% for $435 million.
 
Xstrata and JX will be focusing their exploration and development efforts on three main deposits in the Peace River coal­fields. The 3,800-ha Lossan coal deposit has an estimated resource of 240 million tonnes that was acquired from Cline Mining in 2011. The Sukunka coal deposit, acquired from Calgary-based Talisman Energy in March 2012, is contiguous with the Lossan prop­erty, and has an estimated resource of 236 million tonnes. Finally, Xstrata also acquired First Coal Corporation’s assets, which rep­resented over 100,000 ha of contiguous coal licenses and applications.

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Sombre ceremony marks 20th anniversary of Westray mine explosion – by Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press (Canada.com – May 9, 2012)

http://www.canada.com/index.html

NEW GLASGOW, N.S. — High school students placed white roses on the Westray mine disaster memorial Wednesday during a ceremony that urged future generations to never forget the importance of worker safety.

Twenty-six flowers were laid on the dark granite stone, one for each of the miners whose names are etched into the memorial of the May 9, 1992 disaster.

Under leaden skies that delivered a steady downpour, Rev. Glen Matheson gave an account of the history of mining disasters, saying the explosion in Plymouth, N.S., at the Westray mine had been among the worst in Canadian history.

He read from the public inquiry into the disaster, which found that it was the result of “incompetence, mismanagement, bureaucratic bungling, deceit, ruthlessness, coverups, apathy, expediency and cynical indifference.”

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The economics of energy conservation [The Danish Paradox] – Jeff Rubin (Globe and Mail – May 5, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Three years ago, Jeff Rubin left Bay Street to publish a book that warned that the world was on the brink of a period of deglobalization because of the rising cost of energy. Now, as he argues in his forthcoming book, The End of Growth, sustained high oil prices mean that advanced economies are gearing down into a new era of slow – or no – economic growth.
 
While most economists believe that zero growth means big trouble, Mr. Rubin says it does not have to be a disaster – because consumers in the developed world can learn to live with less, even in energy-hungry Canada. The former CIBC World Markets chief economist cites research to show that some of the happiest people on Earth live in slow-growth economies. Lofty oil prices will do more than any regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions and slow urban sprawl. The transition to slower growth spells tough, near-term changes in the economy – but in the long run, the environment and its citizens might be better for it.

Just what does this new world look like, and what will it take to adjust? Some surprising answers lie an ocean away, in Denmark.
 
The first thing I noticed on a flight into Copenhagen a few summers ago was a ring of wind turbines surrounding the city. Not far from the city’s harbor, the sweeping arc of offshore windmills is a hard sight to miss.

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India Struggles to Deliver Enough Power [coal shortages]- by Vikas Bajaj (New York Times – April 19, 2012)

http://www.nytimes.com/

NELLORE, India — India has long struggled to provide enough electricity to light its homes and power its industry around the clock. In recent years, the government and private sector sought to change that by building scores of new power plants.

But that campaign is now running into difficulties because the country cannot get enough fuel — principally coal — to run the plants. Clumsy policies, poor management and environmental concerns have hampered the country’s efforts to dig up fuel fast enough to keep up with its growing need for power.

A complex system of subsidies and price controls has limited investment, particularly in resources like coal and natural gas. It has also created anomalies, like retail electricity prices that are lower than the cost of producing power, which lead to big losses at state-owned utilities. An unsettled debate about how much of its forests India should turn over to mining has also limited coal production.

The power sector’s problems have substantially contributed to a second year of slowing economic growth in India, to an estimated 7 percent this year, from nearly 10 percent in 2010. Businesses report that more frequent blackouts have forced them to lower production and spend significantly more on diesel fuel to run backup generators.

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Not Evil Just Wrong (Mining Documenatry – 2009)

This information is from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Not Evil Just Wrong (2009) is a documentary film by Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer that challenges Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth by suggesting that the evidence of global warming is inconclusive and that the impact global-warming legislation will have on industry is much more harmful to humans than beneficial.[1] The movie was filmed in 2008 and was screened at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam[2] and at the Right Online conference in 2009.[3]

Despite earlier screenings at conservative political conferences, filmmakers promoted a “premiere” on October 18, 2009.[4] The film attempted to break a World Record for largest simultaneous premiere, which is currently held by the documentary The Age of Stupid, another global warming documentary.[5] The film’s website claims that there were 6,500 U.S. screenings and 1,500 foreign screenings and reached 400,000 people.[6]

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How Green Was My Valley (Mining Movie – 1941)

This information is from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

How Green Was My Valley is a 1941 drama film directed by John Ford. The film, based on the 1939 Richard Llewellyn novel, was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck and written by Philip Dunne. The film stars Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O’Hara, Anna Lee, Donald Crisp, and Roddy McDowall. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards,[1] winning five and beating out for Best Picture such classics as Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon, Suspicion and Sergeant York.

The film tells the story of the Morgans, a close, hard-working Welsh family at the turn of the twentieth century in the South Wales coalfield at the heart of the South Wales Valleys. It chronicles a socio-economic way of life passing and the family unit disintegrating.

In 1990, How Green Was My Valley was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

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Matewan (Mining Movie – 1987)

This information is from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Matewan (1987) is an American drama film written and directed by John Sayles, illustrating the events of a coal mine-workers’ strike and attempt to unionize in 1920 in Matewan, a small town in the hills of West Virginia.[1]

Based on the Battle of Matewan, the film features Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell, David Strathairn, Kevin Tighe and Will Oldham.

Plot

It was 1920 in the southwest West Virginia coal fields, and, as the narrator recalls, “things were tough.” In response to efforts by miners to organize into a labor union, the Stone Mountain Coal Company announces it will cut the pay miners receive, and will be importing replacement workers into town to replace those who join the union. The new workers are African Americans from Alabama and are coming in on the train, but the train is stopped outside town and the black men are told to get off. Derided as “scabs”, they are then attacked by the local miners, but manage to get back on the train and continue their journey.

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