Just When You Thought They Couldn't Sink any Lower

The Trump regime is rebranding American LNG as "Freedom Gas."

Mark W Menezes, the US undersecretary of energy, bestowed a peculiar honorific on our continent’s natural resources, dubbing it “freedom gas” in a release touting the DoE’s approval of increased exports of natural gas produced by a Freeport LNG terminal off the coast of Texas. 

“Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America’s allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy,” he said.

...It’s unclear if members of the Trump administration attempting to assign patriotic intentions to natural gas are aware of the silliness of the concept, but Rick Perry seems to believe in it. 

“Seventy-five years after liberating Europe from Nazi Germany occupation, the United States is again delivering a form of freedom to the European continent,” the energy secretary said earlier this month, according to EURACTV. 

“And rather than in the form of young American soldiers, it’s in the form of liquefied natural gas.”

The Myth of Clean LNG

Liquid natural gas is regularly pitched as a "transition fuel" to help wean us off oil and gas as our economy moves to alternative clean energy.

That's a lie.  Green Party MLA and University of Victoria climate scientist, Andrew Weaver debunks the myth.

This myth has been espoused loudly by proponents of LNG, including corporate directors and the BC NDP. And it is just that – a myth.

...LNG Canada will be the largest single point of greenhouse gas emissions in B.C. It’s also sourced via hydraulic fracturing (fracking). Fracking causes earthquakes, leaks significant amounts of fugitive methane emissions, and contaminates water tables. The government’s own scientists have stated that we do not know the extent of the environmental implications, much less those for human health. 

Fracking is the primary suspect in a spike of extremely rare and lethal cancers in the very communities LNG claims to be benefiting. Doctors are actively advising pregnant women to leave these towns during their pregnancies. 

...Let’s also take a look at the business case of LNG Canada’s “$40 billion dollar” investment: LNG Canada itself estimates $25 billion to $40 billion for a two-phase project (only Phase 1 has been approved). Between $7 billion and $11 billion of this amount will be spent on foreign soil. And, the NDP government has given LNG Canada over $5.35 billion in tax breaks (they’ve also created a system where LNG Canada is able to avoid paying the complete carbon tax). Not to mention that the cost of worsening climate change for B.C. could be dragged into the trillions. 

The 10,000 jobs that LNG Canada purports to be creating? I asked the minister of finance if there is a guarantee that these jobs will be in B.C. Her answer? No. There has also been reporting on leaked internal documents, which estimated that only 35% to 55% of the construction workforce will be British Columbians. 

...Nowhere in this debate are the environmental and health impacts, let alone the true economic costs, being given the emphasis they deserve. Canada is warming at twice the global rate. Over a million species are facing imminent extinction. We are in a planetary crisis that requires immediate action. We don’t have time for a 60-year so-called “transition phase.” 

LNG might represent a path towards profits for a small group of corporations, but for British Columbians, the harm far outweighs the benefits. Millions of youth have been striking around the world this year – and it’s not because they simply fail to grasp something that a few adults “understand.” It’s because we are gambling with their futures. 

What Yesterday Meant to Me

Since that first time I heard Greta Thunberg, I sensed that something wonderful might be about to happen.

Eventually she inspired a resistance. The school children's revolt and then Extinction Rebellion - children and adults saying there no longer could be, nor would be, tolerance of the status quo.

As altruistic Britons were refusing to move, they were arrested, charged and taken into custody - for what is genuinely trying, in a most modest way, to save humanity by changing minds.

And it worked.

With more than two-thirds of the population now realizing that the UK was in a climate change emergency, Jeremy Corbyn took that as his cue to table a motion calling on Parliament to declare a state of national climate emergency that easily passed in the House of Commons bolstering similar declarations from Wales and
Scotland.

As Westminster was declaring a national emergency, across the Atlantic, Canada's finance minister, Morneau, was beating his chest over fracked gas, LNG, as proof of Canada's ability to deliver on big carbon-energy projects. The prime minister, meanwhile, was begging Alberta premier, Jason Kenney, to save emissions caps by promising to just look the other way on bitumen extraction.

Brits take pride in their "stiff upper lip" image, the "Stay Calm and Carry On" national mantra. The people of the UK aren't afraid to look over their shoulder and spot what's coming and, when they did, they demanded action.  Canadians, apparently, aren't made of such stuff. All we have to hear are empty threats such as "this will hurt the economy" and we're in full rout. It seems we don't care if this cherished economy or that small fraction represented by fossil fuels has led us to a cliff edge. We're not stopping.

We don't care. Not enough of us anyway. Sure, we're worried about climate change but not enough to insist that real measures be taken to at least give us a chance at a soft crash landing. Ah, the kids'll figure out something. They'll have to with the future we're bequeathing to them.

Maybe we can still change but the clock is quickly running out and our governments aren't courageous enough to declare climate change a national emergency even though Canada is vulnerable. We have the longest coastline of any nation, from sea to sea to sea. Our vast forests are being ravaged by heat waves, unreliable snowcap and summer precipitation, mass infestation by pine beetles and other pests that are now moving steadily out of the West toward the Atlantic. The Arctic ice and snow that once kept our tundra and permafrost stable is disappearing, giving rise to the release of potentially massive quantities of methane and CO2. To the south, "once a century" floods are now becoming once every few years, our "new normal." Science now shows that the prairie petro-provinces are looking at a future as parched wasteland. Mega drought imperils our domestic food security. Our essential infrastructure is in decay and in no shape to withstand the severe climate that is even now setting in. Even our fisheries are being changed as native species migrate in search of colder waters. Wildfire smoke now perfumes the skies of the West, forcing ordinary Canadians to shelter indoors at what used to be the very best time to be outdoors.

But no, we don't have a climate change national emergency and, if we do, we're too cowardly to deal with it.  We won't change, not in time. When we go to the polls this October look for 70 per cent, perhaps more, of the vote to go for the very worst petro-state parties, the Liberals or the Conservatives.

Yesterday was a bittersweet moment, one eagerly awaited. I'm proud of the British people for forcing their politicians' hands. I wish we were made of that same stuff.

Dirtier Than We Had Ever Imagined.

Oil and gas fracking doesn't draw the same attention in Canada as it has attracted in the United States. It's probably fair to say that most of us hardly think of it at all. That could be about to change.

Two new studies into fracking operations in western Canada show that fracking generally and the LNG industry in particular are far dirtier, leaking massively more methane, than we had been led to believe.

A peer-reviewed study appearing in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions used measurements in the field to estimate that methane emissions from B.C.’s shale gas basins are now at least 2.5 times higher than provincial government estimates.

That makes the oil and gas sector the largest source of climate pollution in B.C., a greater source of pollution than commercial transportation.

Based on measurements from mobile methane detectors driven around in a Dodge truck, the study found that just the drilling part of the industry in the B.C. portion of the Montney Formation, a 29,850 square-kilometre siltstone area in Western Canada, is releasing 111,800 tonnes of methane a year into the atmosphere.

That is equivalent to burning more than 4.5 million tonnes of coal or putting more than two million cars on the road. Half of B.C.’s fracked gas currently comes from the Montney. The study did not look at methane leaks from pipelines or gas processing plants.

...

More than 130 scientists recently criticized the federal government for assessing the climate change impact of a proposed Petronas LNG terminal in B.C. by using unverified and unrealistically small estimates of methane leakage.

All LNG environmental assessments in the province to date have used a questionable methane leakage rate of 0.28 per cent estimated by the B.C. government — one of the lowest rates on the continent.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calculates that most natural gas operations lose about 1.33 per cent of their product, while some sites have recorded leakage rates as high as nine per cent. Leakage rates above three per cent make methane as dirty as coal in terms of direct impact on climate change. 

But Wait, There's More

Meanwhile, another study found that methane leaks pose an even graver problem in Alberta, home to more than 300,000 oil and gas wells. (B.C. currently has 25,000 wells, but LNG developments could add 150,000 wells in the Montney Formation alone.)

To back up its case, the environmental group reviewed the findings of a 2017 study by the Alberta Energy Regulator and GreenPath Energy, which found that “the actual emissions at oil and gas facilities from pneumatic devices are 60 per cent higher than estimates used to compile Canada’s GHG inventory.”

Pneumatic devices, mostly powered by methane, help to pump and control the flow of gas from well sites and other facilities. Most vent methane directly to the atmosphere too.

The GreenPath Energy study measured leaks from pneumatic devices at 395 sites and almost 700 wells at six locations in Alberta and identified 77 major leaks via infrared cameras and direct methane vents from 236 pieces of equipment. GreenPath Energy is a Calgary-based company that specializes in managing greenhouse gas emissions.

The researchers found that 95 per cent of the pneumatic devices at conventional oil and gas facilities vented methane and other gases such as benzene. Oil well sites leaked the most methane.

If you're not conversant with the fracking process and perils, this video may help.

Dear Crusty. LNG is Volatile. It Could Even Blow Up in Your Face.

BC premier Christy Clark is in love - with British Columbia's natural gas reserves.  She sees it as a magical solution to pay off all of the province's debts and fund wonderful new projects and services.  She even imagines herself riding across northern BC on a unicorn sprinkling fairy dust wherever natural gas is to be found.

Uhh-uhh.  Crash. Thud.  Sorry, madam premier, to be the carrier of more bad LNG news (there's been a lot lately) but a new report says our own natural gas reserves may be a stranded asset if international action reaches an accord to limit global warming to 2C.

LNG projects allow gas to be compressed into tankers and sold around the world, making it key to hopes in the US, Canada and Australia of fully exploiting their gas reserves.

But the new analysis shows that if emissions are cut to keep global temperature rise below the internationally agreed target many LNG projects being considered will not be needed.

The report concludes that over the next 10 years $82bn of LNG plants in Canada would be surplus to requirements, $71bn in the US and $68bn in Australia, with the rest of the world, led by Russia and Indonesia, accounting for the remaining $59bn.

...The report is the latest to raise concerns that increasing action to cut carbon emissions, combined with falling renewable energy prices, will put some fossil fuel investments at risk. Carbon Tracker has pioneered this analysis, which has been backed by the Bank of England and the World Bank.

Will Christie Clark Infect British Columbia with the Alberta Disease?

When a government mired in debt and deficits allows itself to become dependent on royalties from a non-renewable resource to make up 30% of its general revenues it might just as well go for the meth pipe.  It's an addiction that cannot end well.

There are unsettling indications that Christy Clark may be looking to hit that pipe herself only with British Columbia's fracked natural gas filling in for Alberta's bitumen.  While Clark's government claims to have a balanced budget, that's propped up on a lot of tinkering and wishful thinking. 

Clark has said the provincial government's windfall royalties from the LNG business would be used to retire British Columbia's debt.  That's expected to hit about $70-billion, almost half of which has been built up during Clark's premiership. 

Finance minister, Mike de Jong, let slip that the LNG royalties, if and when they appear, may be headed into the government's books as general revenue.

“This is a revenue stream that begins once the facility has been constructed and once the product begins to flow,” he said. “We don’t see that happening within the life span of this three-year fiscal plan.”

We need to face reality.  Governments that use conjuring tricks to create the appearance of balanced budgets can't be trusted not to use non-renewable resource freebies to pad their current budgets in the future.  That's low-hanging fruit to a government like Clark's and it's irresistible.  It would be great to believe that B.C. could not follow Alberta and not get hooked on this to our long-term detriment but that's wishful thinking.

Of Gas and Quakes

It's often interesting when two inter-related news stories come out on the same day.

There were two such reports today.   One conveyed a warning from Canada's insurance sector that a 9.0 magnitude quake on the west coast could result in losses upwards of $75-billion, a hit that could take down Canadian insurers.

The second story dealt with Port Alberni, a mill town situated at the seismic business end of the roughly 80-mile long Alberni Inlet.   British Columbia premier, Christy Clark, has proclaimed Port Alberni to be a perfect site for a major liquid natural gas (LNG) port.

Premier Christy Clark said she’s excited about a proposal to modernize and expand port facilities in Port Alberni, which could include a new deep sea shipping terminal and a liquefied natural gas facility.

..Port Alberni is “geographically just perfectly located” for export, with access to the west coast, the Pacific ocean and on to Asian markets, she said.

Now the Insurance Bureau warning came with the assurance that a major west coast earthquake is a 1-in-500 risk.  And that's probably true in a way.  Seismologists now know that the Cascadia subduction fault lets her rip about once every three to five hundred years. What the insurance story leaves out is that we're already three hundred years into the count and that this isn't a risk but an eventual certainty.  My house is always at risk of a fire but it may never burn down.  It may eventually just be torn down to make way for something else, who knows?  The Big One isn't a possibility.  It's a certainty.

So what does this have to do with Port Alberni?  As I said, the port town is right at the business end of the Alberni Inlet.   In 1964 there was a massive, megathrust earthquake in Alaska that devastated Juneau and Anchorage and coastal towns in that state.   The resulting tsunami swept out across the Pacific and down the west coast.   This tsunami entered the Alberni Inlet and swept down the lengthy inlet, gathering force as the waterway narrowed and shallowed.    There was enough warning to avoid deaths or injury but the wave that hit Port Alberni tossed fishing boats into the town streets, left 375 homes damaged and washed away another 55.   And that was from an earthquake in Alaska.

If or when the Big One hits, some experts warn it could hit right out from the entrance to the Alberni Inlet.  It would be tough getting out of town on short notice and it's almost painful to imagine what a major tsunami would do to an LNG plant at water's edge or the people in the vicinity.

I think this is a situation that cries out for the application of the Precautionary Principle. Too bad nobody remembers what that is any more.