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Alberta Government Lays Out Welcome Mat for Australian Coal Mining Interests – The Energy Mix

The Tyee adds that while ordinary Albertans were not
consulted, the Kenney government did meet with the Coal Association of
Canada’s Robin Campbell, a former Progressive Conservative MLA and
provincial environment minister who “actively lobbied for the Coal
Policy’s demise on behalf of his Australian clients.”

Further sweetening the pot, the province “has sent letters
of support to Australian mining speculators offering them less red tape
and lower corporate taxes,” along with an expedited permitting process.
The latter will be enabled by the fact that it “has staffed the Alberta
Energy Regulator, which will review each coal mining project, with
people whose pasts are aligned with resource extracting corporations.”

One such person is “self-described ‘political activist’
John Weissenberger, who worked on Jason Kenney’s election campaign,”
adds The Tyee.

October 23, 2020

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Saying no to a coal comeback: The Vista coal mine

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Coal mining in an open pit by Mark Agnor via Shutterstock

Coal projects — such as the proposed Vista coal mine expansion – threaten the climate, human health, biodiversity, and the air, land, and water.

Thermal coal is the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel, toxic for human health and disastrous for the climate. In fact, burning coal is responsible for a nearly half of carbon emissions around the world.

That’s why Ecojustice stepped up to represent clients concerned about the Vista coal mine expansion.

If built, the proposed expansion could result in the extraction of up to 15 MT of coal per year. When shipped and consumed abroad, burning this much coal could lead to 33 MT of carbon. By comparison, the largest single source of carbon in Canada is currently another coal plant in Alberta that emits 12.7 MT of carbon dioxide a year – just over one-third of Vista’s total projected emissions.

Source: Saying no to a coal comeback: The Vista coal mine

Then, There Is Solar

China’s President Xi Jinping surprised the global community recently by committing his country to net-zero emissions by 2060. Prior to this announcement, the prospect of becoming “carbon neutral” barely rated a mention in China’s national policies.

These Alberta mines expect to ship the majority of the metallurgical coal and thermal coal to Asian markets including China. Naturally if they are slashing their consumption, it could cause some concern for mining companies in Alberta, including Riversdale Resources. It will be interesting to see what happens.[Read more]

Solar photovoltaics are now cheaper than plants fired by coal and natural gas in most nations, the Paris-based researchers concludes in its annual report on global energy trends. Those cheaper costs along with government efforts to slash climate-damaging emissions will increasingly push coal off the grid and give renewables 80 per cent of the market for new power generation by 2030, the IEA says.[Read more]

This entry was posted in General and tagged alberta, Australia, China, coal, environment on October 22, 2020 by Steve.

Grassy Mountain Coal Project Public Hearings to begin on October 27, 2020

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Public hearings for Benga Mining Ltd.’s proposed Grassy Mountain Coal Project in the Crowsnest Pass will begin on October 27. The hearings, which will be held online and are expected to go until December 2, are the next step in the federal impact assessment. The proposed project includes the construction and operation of an open-pit metallurgical coal mine near Blairmore. Construction is expected to take up to two years, and operation will last up to 25 years.

The list of hearing participants includes AEN member groups, the Alberta Wilderness Association, CPAWS Southern Alberta, and the Alberta Chapter of The WildlifeSociety. The hearings will be recorded and streamed on YouTube.

Click here to see a short video on poisoning the watershed

Grassy Mountain is the first of at least six mountain-top removal coal mines proposed by large Australian mining companies in various stages of regulatory approval in the region. More than 50,000 ha of the Old Man River headwaters are under lease for future mining.

Learn More & Take Action

Albertans for a Coal Free Southwest (CPAWS Southern Alberta & Livingstone Landowners Group)
Coal Mining Threat to the South Eastern Slopes of the Rockies (Livingstone Landowners Group)
Fight for Coal Mine Free Rockies (CPAWS Southern Alberta)

Alberta Environmental Network Society
PO Box 4541
Edmonton AB T6E 5G4
780-757-4872

This entry was posted in General and tagged alberta, coal, environment, global warming on October 10, 2020 by Steve.

The Australian Invasion: Big Coal’s Plans for Alberta

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Photo by Gerold Hinzen on Unsplash

The Australians are proposing multiple open-pit mines stretching from Crowsnest Pass north into the Oldman River watershed and deep into ranching country, where native fescue grasslands drape rolling hills along the Cowboy Trail.

The area to be mined, home to grizzly bears, elk and mountain sheep, would be carved into a landscape much like the Elk Valley on the B.C. side of the Rockies. The five open-pit mines operated there by Vancouver-based Teck Resources have contaminated local and U.S. waterways with toxic selenium. Teck has leases in the region that cover 340 square kilometres.

Now the Australians propose to double that mining footprint on the Alberta side of the mountains.

Rinehart, in her book titled From Red Tape to Red Carpet and Then Some, argues that governments need to dump regulations, lower taxes and roll out the red carpet for miners in order to “create, innovate, prosper and have an exciting future.”

Grassy Mountain, owned by Riversdale Resources, was bought by Gina Rinehart for $740 million as part of her vast mining and ranching empire: Hancock Prospecting in 2019.

Source: The Australian Invasion: Big Coal’s Plans for Alberta | The Tyee

This may be looking riskier for Australian coal mines in Alberta. China is stepping up their game on climate change.

It is critically important for Australian industries and policymakers to assess the seriousness of China’s pledge and the likelihood it will be delivered. Investment plans for large mining projects should then be reconsidered accordingly. [Read more]

This entry was posted in General and tagged alberta, Australia, coal, environment on October 9, 2020 by Steve.

‘You can’t rebuild a mountain’: fallout of open-pit mining discussed

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Photo by David Hoffman (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

Katie Morrison, director with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society Southern Alberta (CPAWS) was recently interviewed about the Grassy Mountain Coal Mine. Other than a few jobs, it will help make an Austrailian coal mining company richer, by having access to coal that gets sold to Asian countries. Alberta will be left from with the damage.

Morrison, who used to work in oilsands reclamation in the north before moving to the southern Alberta region to take up her current position with CPAWS, explained the process of how open-pit mining works.

“Explosives and machinery are used to access the coal deposit,” she said. “There are various coal seams throughout the mountain, and they take off the overburden, the soil and rock, to get to those coal seams. That creates a lot of waste rock which essentially piled in adjacent valleys. Water is used to wash the rock and process the coal through, and then that water is put in sediment containment ponds. So essentially the mountain comes down, the valley comes up, and you are left with a sediment pond often filled with contaminated water.”

Morrison said those were the immediate visible impacts of this type of mining, but there were also longer-term health consequences for those working in or living near these mines.

Citing a health study from the Appalachian region of the United States where this type of coal mining is more common, Morrison outlined some of those health risks, which include higher rates of cancer, higher heart and lung disease rates, higher kidney disease rates, higher rates of birth defects, and higher levels of impaired functioning due to chronic health problems.

Source: ‘You can’t rebuild a mountain’: fallout of open-pit mining discussed

Does Alberta Need More Coal Mines?

The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada has a report, ‘Environmental hazard assessment of Benga Mining’s proposed Grassy Mountain Coal Project’ written by A. Dennis Lemly. He states, “A scientific analysis of environmental hazards of the project reveals numerous flaws in both the projected environmental performance of the mine and its regulatory control. From both environmental and economic perspectives, the proposed mine will do far more damage than can be reasonably justified on any level.

Is it worth sacrificing people’s health and contributing to global warming for the sake of a job? [Read more]

This entry was posted in General and tagged alberta, coal, environment, healthcare, mining on October 4, 2020 by Steve.

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Steve MacLellan

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Tag Archives: coal

Saying no to a coal comeback: The Vista coal mine

Grassy Mountain Coal Project Public Hearings to begin on October 27, 2020

The Australian Invasion: Big Coal’s Plans for Alberta

‘You can’t rebuild a mountain’: fallout of open-pit mining discussed