Category Archives: General

Don’t blame COVID-19 for new Site C dam cost overruns and delays, energy experts say | The Narwhal

Don’t blame COVID-19 for new Site C dam cost overruns and delays, energy experts say | The Narwhal: COVID has become Canada’s national scapegoat…

The Site C dam project is facing unknown cost overruns, schedule delays and such profound geotechnical problems that its overall health has been classified as “red,” meaning the project is in serious trouble, according to two overdue project reports released by BC Hydro on Friday.

BC Hydro and B.C. Energy Minister Bruce Ralston blamed the COVID-19 pandemic for the Site C project’s deepening woes.

Don’t blame COVID-19 for new Site C dam cost overruns and delays, energy experts say | The Narwhal: COVID has become Canada’s national scapegoat…The Site C dam project is facing unknown cost overruns, schedule delays and such profound geotechnical problems that its overall health has been classified as “red,” meaning the project is in serious trouble, according to two overdue project reports released by BC Hydro on Friday. BC Hydro and B.C. Energy Minister Bruce Ralston blamed the COVID-19 pandemic for the Site C project’s deepening woes.Read More

This entry was posted in General, Social on August 15, 2020 by .

Canada’s Trans Mountain Pipeline Inches Forward, But Opposition Intensifies

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Photo by Craig McCaa, BLM Alaska.

Late one night this past April, four people on off-road vehicles drove into a small, Indigenous village near the town of Blue River in British Columbia, Canada. It was dark and the vehicles drove through deep snow, smashing through wooden signs and barriers that guarded the village of tiny houses, erected in the path of a long-distance oil pipeline that runs from Alberta to the Pacific Coast.

The attackers punched and kicked a man, shouting profanity and racial slurs. One of them stole a truck and used it to mow down a display of red dresses, hung as a memorial to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, who are disproportionally affected by violence. The driver then crashed the truck into one of the houses.

The small houses were built by Secwepemc and Ktunaxa people, who built them to assert their rights over unceded Indigenous land, through which an expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline is slated to carry diluted tar sands oil. Members of the village believe the attack was related to their opposition to the pipeline.

Confrontation between the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and a variety of Indigenous and environmental groups is heating up, precisely because the new pipeline is now moving forward with construction after years of legal battles.

Source: Canada’s Trans Mountain Pipeline Inches Forward, But Opposition Intensifies | DeSmog

This entry was posted in General and tagged British Columbia, pipelines, trans mountain on August 15, 2020 by Steve.

Australian billionaire woos Canadians, hoping to build big coal mine in Rocky Mountains

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Gina Rinehart

Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting is hoping a charm offensive, from annual fundraising parties to local refurbishments at a golf course, will help overcome opposition to a massive new coal mine in Canada’s Rocky Mountains.

Hancock unit Riversdale Resources’ Grassy Mountain mine, which is forecast to produce 4.5-million tonnes of steelmaking coal per year, would span 2,800 hectares and could set a precedent for new projects in the region. Opponents say the project would harm wildlife and water in the area.

In June, the province of Alberta, home to most of Canada’s oil reserves, rolled back 1970s-era restrictions on openpit coal mining to jumpstart an economy hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and plunging oil prices.

The proposal for Grassy Mountain predates that change. But Alberta’s move is at odds with Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s effort to wean the country from coal and comes as a growing number of banks, insurers and investors shun the fossil fuel due to climate concerns.

Source: Australian billionaire woos Canadians, hoping to build big coal mine in Rocky Mountains

This entry was posted in General and tagged alberta, coal, environment, federal on August 15, 2020 by Steve.

Use Community Power, Grassroot Investment to Fuel Green Recovery, Energy Co-ops Urge – The Energy Mix

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Use Community Power, Grassroot Investment to Fuel Green Recovery, Energy Co-ops Urge – The Energy Mix:

“This stimulus would unlock untapped community capital for
the fight against climate change, as a means to immediately create
green jobs across the country and, most importantly, build a bipartisan
support base for climate change action,” the co-ops write,
in a June 24 letter to Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna,
Environment and Climate Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, and Canadian
Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault.

Use Community Power, Grassroot Investment to Fuel Green Recovery, Energy Co-ops Urge – The Energy Mix: “This stimulus would unlock untapped community capital for
the fight against climate change, as a means to immediately create
green jobs across the country and, most importantly, build a bipartisan
support base for climate change action,” the co-ops write,
in a June 24 letter to Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna,
Environment and Climate Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, and Canadian
Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault.Read More