Speed and efficiency are not things that Canada’s lumbering and increasingly dysfunctional regulatory systems are known for
By Jock Finlayson and Denise Mullen Business Council of B.C. Building back ‘clean’ and ‘green’ means trillions of dollars of investment, and the electrification of many machines and activities that presently rely on fossil fuels – from personal vehicles and freight transportation to industrial processes. It’s not hard to understand the growing interest in electricity.…
The world sped ahead getting LNG online but Canada stalled, meaning lost revenue and missed environmental opportunity
By Mark Milke and Ven Venkatachalam Canadian Energy Centre Over the past several years, a plethora of naysayers have reflexively opposed the extraction and export of natural gas from Canada. Some critics have even argued that the prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) shouldn’t warrant investment by Canadian companies. Much of this anti-LNG sentiment has…
The government of Premier Jason Kenney has decided to end a 44-year moratorium on open-pit coal mining in southern Alberta
Desperate times sometimes lead to catastrophic measures. In Alberta, the beleaguered provincial government is in a financial situation that could be characterized as desperate, suffering from the double-whammy of collapsed resource revenues and, of course, the massive spending required to address the social wildfire known as the COVID-19 pandemic. The desperate measure that the United…
Climate warriors spend a great deal of time condemning current practices without offering realistic solutions
In the past several months, we’ve heard dire and angry imprecations and accusations from the new climate crusaders. They demand total obeisance to their escalating demands. Any critics to their approach to catastrophic global warming are denounced as deniers or heretics. A new religious-political-social movement has sprung out of this trend: Extinction Rebellion, with the…
Why should we believe a man who showed disdain for Brexit and who incorporates his wife's political agenda into his work as a leading global economist?
Depending on the part of the world you’re in, the mention of economist Mark Carney can elicit different responses. In Canada, Carney is widely credited with steering the country through the rocky waters of the 2008 financial crisis. But in the United Kingdom, he’s often labelled a political activist disguised as an economist. Carney served…
Partisan environmental reports like the recent one from GEM abound with misinformation regarding natural gas - and the media has failed to fact check
It’s summer in Canada and the last thing on many people’s minds is foreign-funded activist groups working against a Canadian industry. Sadly, this tactic continues to gain traction in the media. For a long time, these special-interest groups have targeted Canada’s natural resources by slapping our oil and natural gas industry with ‘dirty’ labels. They…
Canada has been late to fully capitalize on the potential, based on high export prices and the desperate demand for clean fuel
Canada’s planned liquefied natural gas export project is a huge boost for the economy and the environment. The consortium of large multinational firms (Shell, PetroChina, Petronas of Malaysia, Korea Gas, Mitsubishi) that owns part of the LNG Canada project to be built on the northwest coast of British Columbia recently announced that contracts have been…
B.C. still exports coal because to do otherwise would be to kill jobs in the province. The contrast with its pipeline stance is startling
Many opponents of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion justify their opposition by citing concerns about climate change and carbon emissions, but this raises some important questions. What about coal? Vancouver is North America's largest exporter of coal, one-third of it thermal coal for generating electricity. Vancouver exports U.S. coal because Oregon and Washington have stopped…
Saskatchewan's $1.5-billion CCS demonstration facility at Boundary Dam in the southern part of the province is the first commercial-scale CCS project in the world
If Santa brought you a lump of coal this Christmas, maybe you shouldn’t feel so bad about it. That coal might actually come in handy as an acceptable part of our energy future. Technology exists that can transform coal from environmental villain into a fuel that at least won’t make things worse than they already…
Texas switched from coal to natural gas and dramatically cut carbon emissions. Why doesn't Canada follow its example?
One marvellous aspect of promoting a country or region’s comparative economic advantage – location, natural resources, the education rates of a population – is that if it’s allowed to blossom, that advantage pays dividends in multiple ways. Consider how Hong Kong’s natural geographic advantage was combined with the then-colonial British governing institutions – specifically, a commitment…
By Jock Finlayson and Denise Mullen Business Council of B.C. Building back ‘clean’ and ‘green’ means trillions of dollars of investment, and the electrification of many machines and activities that presently rely on fossil fuels – from personal vehicles and freight transportation to industrial processes. It’s not hard to understand the growing interest in electricity.…
