Canada’s Climate Plan announcement last month revealed the federal government plans to increase the carbon tax annually up to a new proposed $170 per tonne by 2030 to exceed Canada’s promise to cut emissions by 30 percent below 2005 levels. “There is no vaccine against a polluted planet,” the P.M. said at a press conference. One could make a similar statement about carbon leakage- that there is no vaccine that can effectively combat the negative effects of carbon leakage on the global [Read more]
The US Capitol occupation – A cautionary tale
The biggest lesson of 2021 is now “Before we launch into disruption- We should contemplate how hard it will be to restore order.” History was made yesterday as protestors took control of the U.S. Capitol. It was something that leaders and media thought could never be done, although MSNBC journalist Brian Williams pointed out that there were warnings in plain sight. It was beyond democratic process, beyond what we could even contemplate could happen in North America and there is a deeper [Read more]
Energy in 2021: The challenges of the coming year
Amid the prognostications over what 2021 will bring for the Energy sector, here are some commonalities that we can expect to be watching, reading, and hearing about. As Canada's energy sector-oil, natural gas, electricity, renewables, etc- makes a “Pandemic pivot”, the Canadian Energy Research Institute is preparing their not-to-be-missed research plans. CERI will be exploring some basic sector pivots such as: how low-cost natural gas means that new production needs to be linked to new [Read more]
A Christmas Tax & Our need for cheap, plentiful, reliable energy
Canadians and Americans have been putting up an extra abundance of Christmas lights to create some extra holiday cheer in this pandemic year. News organizations around North America report people homebound by Covid 19 are going all out with lavish outdoor Christmas lighting displays, which bring to mind the increased energy costs contemplated by Green, Clean Energy, and ”Great Reset” plans for next year. Being announced just a week before Christmas, Canadians have barely been allowed time [Read more]
Ottawa’s Hydrogen Strategy has investment and pipeline problems
Last week Ottawa announced the Hydrogen Strategy for Canada, a plan for the development of a domestic hydrogen market potentially worth $50 billion and creating 350,000 jobs by 2050. The good news is the hydrogen strategy proposes to largely rely on hydrogen derived from natural gas reserves. One of the key findings of the strategy is that it could build the Canadian hydrogen sector to supply world markets stating, “With worldwide demand for hydrogen increasing, the global market could [Read more]
Alberta EOR & CCUS- timely energy transition and ESG solutions
With the announcement of the Federal climate plan last week, companies in Canada are intensifying reviews of decarbonization initiatives. While the climate plan focuses on the transition away from hydrocarbons in the next twenty to thirty years, the reality is an energy transition will take more than just two or three decades. In fact, the architects of the Federal climate plan seem to fall into the same trap as the UN Paris accord proponents and other environmental groups. That trap is [Read more]
Ottawa’s New Climate Plan- a mischaracterization of Canada’s energy sector
On Friday, the Canadian government announced their new climate plan using language that many say mischaracterizes Canada’s record for GHG reduction and Canada’s successes in developing technology and initiatives for decarbonization. The plan includes steady increases to the carbon tax by up to $15 a ton in each of the next 10 years to reach $170 a ton and some insiders indicate there may be an assumption in the wording that the tax might continue to go up after 2030. The plan instantly [Read more]
Despite Anti-O&G lobbyists, CDN Natural Gas keeps getting greener
As the decarbonization dialogue develops, new information from the European Union Sustainable Finance taxonomy (a work group supporting the European Green Deal) still marginalizes natural gas. Just last month, natural gas was denied ‘transition’ fuel status in a draft of EU green finance rules with environmentalists praising the draft as a move against hydrocarbons- preventing natural gas investments from being labelled “green”. Here in Canada, natural gas hydrogen project development is [Read more]
CCS- Is it the key to O&G’s transition to carbon neutral?
There is a growing recognition that renewables are not the answer to decarbonization in Europe and the US as well as Canada. Increasingly, there are calls for natural gas to be part of the story with Ottawa insiders saying that even the current government realizes the importance of natural gas in the decarbonization mix, renewing hope for industrial Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS). The central aim of the Paris Accord is to keep global warming this century well below 2 degrees Celsius [Read more]
Economic triage for Canada in the face of green agendas and net-zero
As the Canadian federal government proposed net-zero legislation this week in the House of Commons, issues around net-zero and the green agenda could mean big problems for consumers and significant disconnects for the Canadian economy. This week, in a virtual panel discussion, MP Pierre Poilievre, Jack Mintz, Dan McTeague, and Catherine Swift discussed the UN World Economic Forum's "Great Reset", sustainable development goals, zero-emission goals, the clean fuel standard and attempts to [Read more]