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Huge Fort Nelson Gas Plant Would Spike BC's Carbon Emissions
As planned for 2011, EnCana project is 'irresponsible': Pembina.
Plant would separate, vent CO2 from natural gas.
In an election fought to a large degree on climate change strategies, Gordon Campbell has argued that natural gas expansion in B.C.'s northeast will help meet carbon targets mandated by provincial law.
A massive energy proposal put forward by EnCana may test his claim. If current plans for the Cabin Gas Plant receive government approval, the project could pump up to 2 million tonnes of CO2 a year into the atmosphere, according to preliminary Pembina Institute estimates.
It's a prospect the environmental group called "irresponsible" -- and contrary to B.C.'s carbon goals.
Most analysts have pointed to natural gas expansion as the one bright spot in a provincial economy reeling from recession. Right now, B.C. produces one trillion cubic feet of natural gas each year.
But energy giants such as EnCana say untapped gas reserves in the Horn River and Montney basins could double or triple production over coming decades. That would transform B.C. into one of the biggest gas producers in the country -- or the continent. In March, the government boasted of pouring $187 million into Horn River region roads and infrastructure to service the boom.
During the last eight years, oil and gas revenue in B.C. has jumped 60 per cent, according to the BC Liberals platform. Last year, land rights sales for the industry hit a record $2.66 billion.
If all of B.C.'s estimated gas reserves were recoverable, "that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from coal and other forms of power by hundreds of millions of tonnes," the platform reads.
But it would also require the building of plants which could release large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere as a byproduct of processing and transporting natural gas. Operations like Cabin Gas Plant.
EnCana a big donor to Liberals
Last November, EnCana submitted a project description for a new processing plant to B.C.'s Environmental Assessment Office. The energy heavyweight is a major giver to the BC Liberals. It donated $255,470 between 2005 and 2008.
The proposed Cabin Gas Plant is located about 60 kilometres northeast of Fort Nelson and could process up to 800 million cubic feet of natural gas each day from the Horn River Basin.
EnCana estimates CO2 levels found in the gas could range between 12 to 14 per cent. The November proposal said the company intended to pursue carbon capture and sequestration -- a relatively new strategy where emitters inject greenhouse gases underground. But an updated project description is less committal.
And a recent public document appears to reject the carbon capture approach.
"In the absence of technical and commercial viability for carbon capture and storage (CCS) options at this time... the plant will be designed to vent CO2," reads a list of frequently asked questions given out at an April 8 public consultation.
Venting refers to the process of depressurizing pipes by releasing emissions into the air. Some environmental groups think it should be eliminated because of its contribution to global warming.
Plant could up BC carbon emissions by three per cent
It would be careless for the government to approve a gas plant that relies on venting, Pembina's Matt Horne told The Tyee. According to preliminary calculations, he estimated EnCana's current proposal could create one to two million tonnes of carbon emissions a year.
That's a significant number, he said, considering the province released 62.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2006.
"Any increases in the oil and gas sector without a plan to mitigate those greenhouse gas emissions is irresponsible," Horne said.
By law, the province has to reduce carbon emissions to 33 per cent below 2007 levels by 2020. Horne estimated the oil and gas sector would have to cut greenhouse gases by a third to reach its proportional share of the target.
"[The Cabin Gas] project is going in the opposite direction if it doesn't have a solution to those venting emissions," he said.
Calls to Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Blair Lekstrom were not returned by press time.
Venting 'a very common practice': EnCana
EnCana spokesperson Carol Howes said the scale of natural gas expansion in the Horn River Basin will depend on a variety of factors such as commodity prices. The company is looking at several strategies for dealing with CO2, she added.
"Other options have not been eliminated," Howes said. "There's a number of technical and commercial issues that have to be reviewed and addressed."
The Tyee asked Howes to respond to charges from Pembina that venting at the Cabin plant would be "irresponsible," given B.C.'s carbon targets.
"Venting is a very common practice on most plants," she replied. "It's not something new -- it's a process that's been used for a very long time."
The project is still in the public consultation stage. When that wraps up, EnCana will file an application with the provincial government. If the project receives government approval, EnCana expects the Cabin plant to begin operations by late 2011.
The New Democratic Party proposed a $412 million levy on oil and gas sector flaring in its platform. The party recently clarified its position to include all fugitive emissions.
Related Tyee stories:
- BC boosts natural gas industry as prices drop
- The Health Hazard Report the Premier Never Read
Oil and gas study urged safety actions 16 months ago--a surprise to campaigning Campbell. - NDP backpedals on 'flaring royalty,' would charge for all 'fugitive' gas
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- Bill C-38: the Environmental Destruction Act
- Alberta Fills Pipes with Corrosive Denial
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- How Our Immune Systems Exaggerate Fear
- BC biotech company seeks approval for GM apple
- What's Behind BC's Doors?
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29
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Dermot
3 years ago
Carbon sequestration
Gas companies have been capturing carbon dioxide from gas processing plants in BC for almost 20 years. The CO2 along with sulphur and other impurities in the gas stream are pumped back into the reservoir from which the gas came in the first place. CO2 capture in these situations should be a regulatory requirement. Similarly if the carbon tax is high enough the company will be forced to do it to save money.
mopled
3 years ago
CO2 is our friend
The Liberals aren't though. The trouble is the NDP also supports the climate scam.
I'd like to see what the real issues might be about this project, not the phony CO2 idiocy. The climate is cooling and we need the energy, so what are the real drawbacks to this project
"I would like to see some fundamental questions answered by the climate catastrophists. If CO2 drives temperature, why were there past ice ages when the atmospheric CO2 content was many times greater than at present? Why has the role of clouds been ignored, especially as a 1per cent change in the amount of cloudiness could account for all the changes measured in the past 150 years? If natural forces drove warmings in Roman and medieval times, how do we know that the same natural forces did not drive the late 20th-century warming? Why didn’t Earth have acid oceans and a runaway greenhouse when the atmospheric CO2 was hundreds of times higher than now? Is the present increase in atmospheric CO2 due to the medieval warming?
It is human arrogance to think that we can control climate, a process that transfers huge amounts of energy. Once we control the smaller amount of energy transferred by volcanoes and earthquakes, then we can try to control climate. Until then, climate politics is just a load of ideological hot air.
To argue that human additions to atmospheric CO2, a trace gas in the atmosphere, changes climate requires an abandonment of all we know about history, archaeology, geology, solar physics, chemistry and astronomy. We ignore history at our peril. I await the establishment of a Stalinist-type Truth and Retribution Commission to try me for my crimes against the established order and politicised science."
Ian Plimer, a professor at the University of Adelaide, is author of Heaven and Earth - Global Warming: The Missing Science (Connor Court)
gamedev
3 years ago
Where are Suzuki & Berman?
I ask again, where the hell are Suzuki and Berman now? Another huge source of CO2 emissions and another day of silence from the BC Liberal backers who profess to be "environmentalists". What an absolute crock. If the BC Liberals are re-elected, as the so-called environmentalists wish, our province will continue to be degraded until we can't breath or grow food for our families. I might add that the worn out mantra that it isn't really happening, or that CO2 is 'natural' and good for the earth is just propagating the lies from the right-wing. Money was offered to anyone that would write that global warming is a hoax. Bush did it and we'll eventually find where Campbell did it.
The Pembina Institute was one of the groups that came out against the NDP and for the BC Liberals a couple of weeks ago, but, I guess they will continue supporting the BC Liberals because then they can be on a "panel" and go to conferences and be served coffee and cake. Its nice to know that their "price" was high....not!
politico
3 years ago
Clear as Carbon
Even with the unrelenting evidence of exactly who this government serves popping up everywhere during this campaign and the resulting impoverishment of the commons and average British Coluimbians, the enviro crowd still does not repeal its thinly veiled boosterism as the Libs ad insult to injury by destroying, not only our economy, but our environment as well.
It is to weep.
Krispy
3 years ago
Oil and Gas Expansion: courtesy of BC Liberals
Interesting that Horne and Pembina would be coming out against this project at this point - considering their whole-hearted endorsement of the BC Liberals and their carbon-tax boondoggle.
Make no mistake, the Campbell Liberals are busy promoting large scale oil and gas exploration and processing in BC, which will make the province's GHG emissions skyrocket.
The Libs are busy promoting a crude oil pipeline from Alberta to Prince Rupert -- a project that will see large scale oil tankers plying BC's coastline, if not processing the oil here and massively increasing GHG emissions.
The Libs are also promoting lifting the moratorium on offshore oil drilling, and are actively supporting coal-bed methane exploration and drilling in the Flathead Valley and other areas.
For Horne and Pembina to blast the NDP and heap praise on the BC Liberals for their carbon tax at the start of the campaign, and then come out weakly at the end of the campaign to whisper their opposition to BC Liberal-led project like this, is disingenuous at best, and deeply hypocritical at worst.
Illahie
3 years ago
As usual, mopled is spot on
The problem with atmospheric C02 levels is that they are too low. Higher C02 levels would make the planet a more productive place.
The global warming fanatics out there have clearly never looked into C02. If they ever have, or if they ever do, they will be shocked by their lack of knowledge, and by how far their perception varies from reality.
With the world is now clearly in a cooling trend, perhaps some of the global warming scientists could spend a couple of hours looking into the issue.
mopled
3 years ago
Obviously, there is no real problem
since the CO2 produced is pumped back in to maintain pressure. It seems to be just a question of whether the royalties paid are adequate. Has anybody bothered to ask that question, or are you all too busily counting your carbon credits?
'Non-solution to a non-problem'
Other scienitsts from around the around the world are openly mocking man-made climate fears and efforts to control emissions. Paleoclimate scientist Dr. Bob Carter of Australia's James Cook University and former chairman of the earth science panel of the Australian Research Council told Climate Depot:
"Attempts to mitigate theoretical human-caused global warming through restricting carbon dioxide emissions have no merit. By their very nature, emissions trading schemes are extremely expensive, socially disruptive and represent a high opportunity-cost non-solution to a non-problem," Carter wrote on May 4, 2009. Dr. Carter also testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works on December 6, 2006.
"Cutting CO2 emissions, be it in New Zealand or worldwide, will likely result in no measurable change in future climate, because extra increments of atmospheric CO2 cause diminishing warming for each unit of increase; at most, a few tenths of a degree of extra warming would result from a completion of doubling of CO2 since pre-industrial time," Carter explained. "Humans have an effect on local climate, but, despite the expenditure of over US$50 billion looking for it since 1990, no globally summed human effect has ever been measured; therefore, it must lie buried in the variability of the natural climate system," he added.
'Global warming is sub-prime science'
UK Professor Emeritus of Biogeography Philip Stott of the University of London, also ridiculed global warming fears and efforts to limit emissions.
"With a world likely to cool during the next decade, with a world economy set in austere mode, and with the new politics of China, India, Brazil, and the rest, Big Global Warming's boom days are surely coming to an end,” Stott wrote on September 21, 2008.
“'Global warming' is sub-prime science, sub-prime economics, and sub-prime politics, and it could well go down with the sub-prime mortgage,” Stott explained.
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/604/NASA-Warming-Scientist-James-Hansen-Hopes-Congressional-Climate-Bill-Fails
freebear
3 years ago
Emissions should be vented in Encana's headquarters in Calgary!
Would they have to pay for emitting (re: venting) CO2 from the gas plant?
How can you say you want to fight Climate Change while at the same time you want to expand oil and gas activity (become an energy superpower as Harper envisions!)?
Oh wait, that's why Chreatien talked out of the side of his face!
60 km North of Ft. Nelson which already has a natural gas electrical generating plant!
NO worries though, the SYMBOLIC Carbon Tax will solve everything right David?
David?
David, where are you?
Are you there David?
(Dave's not here man!)
gamedev
3 years ago
Non-scientific bunk
All this talk about global warming being a myth has been propogated by corporate interests and has no credibility at all. In the post above mopled says
"UK Professor Emeritus of Biogeography Philip Stott of the University of London, also ridiculed global warming fears and efforts to limit emissions."
It didn't take much research to find that Philip Stott is a member of many groups, including extremist groups that don't believe in the need for forests. Another group he is affiliated to is the Institute of Economic Affairs which is described by Lobbywatch.org thusly..
"the Institute of Economic Affairs, exists to propagate the ideas of free markets and privatisation. It has been going for nearly 50 years, and advises governments all over the world on ways to denationalise and bring in market systems"
"Given a founding father who was both a pioneer of factory farming and an extreme free marketeer, it is hardly surprising that the IEA has consistently promoted the view that deregulated intensive farming and unfettered 'free trade' are of great benefit to the environment. But it wasn't until the 1990s that the IEA started seriously to focus on environmental issues.
In 1990 the IEA* warned that 'green' policies would lead to an 'ecological hell' and a plummeting standard of living."
By the way, how do you explain the global temperatures rising and the great ice shelves cracking and melting in the artic? Actually, nevermind, I have no desire to debate something that is not debatable...
Quoting paid off corporate hacks to try to convince people that there is no such thing as global warming is just silly.
It sure sounds like Philip Stott would be a shoe-in, if he wanted to run for the BC Liberals though...
ME2
3 years ago
campbell's forked tongue.
Unless sequestering takes place, Campbell's greenwashing gets washed out.
ME2
3 years ago
Complaint
Goddamit Beers, when are you going to fix this Comments / Best Comments pain-in-the-ass?
mopled
3 years ago
gamedev
The problem with warmists is not only do they know nothing, they ignore any new info. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/04/29/nasa-pdo-flip-to-cool-phase-confirmed-cooler-times-ahead/
The warming is OVER. Nobody ever said it wasn't warming...just that it has happened before, actually within living memory!
From 1918 -1943 it warmed, cooled from 1943-1977 then it warmed again. Now it is cooling again. I lived through part of it. The Dirty Thirties were hot and dry...remember? It's a cycle.
The climate scam is Globalist and the oil and coal companies will play the carbon commodities market and make money. The list of the multi-nationals supporting CO2 commodification is still growing. http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_carbon_trading.html
By the way, the Pew Center for Climate Change is funded by money from the Alberta Tar Sands.
Al Gore's Generation Investment plans to clean up,( but only if cap and trade is passed in the US.) Generation owns much of the Chicago Climate Exchange which is connected to Maurice Strong. Chicago Ex. will be handling the carbon trades for the Montreal Climate Exchange.....and all of it will be traded through....ta dah.... Goldman Sachs.....
the very same firm which has supplied so many of the architects of the latest financial meltdown.
Of course the coincidences that Gore's daughter is married to a scion of the family that owns controlling interest of Goldman Sachs and that Gore should have been involved in a very odd company called Molten Metals with Maurice Strong is just that. http://warofillusions.wordpress.com/2009/03/30/obama-maurice-strong-al-gore-key-players-cashing-in-on-chicago-climate-exchange/
It would help if Warmists would get their heads out and read something beside the controlled MSM and the propaganda machine that the environmentalist movement has become.
Vote NDP to get rid of the carbon tax and then join the campaign to liberate the politicians from their ignorance. Climate changes and humans have nothing to do with it.
gamedev
3 years ago
mopled
I read the article you posted and followed back to read the original article on the NASA website. The article included the following statement
“The comings and goings of El Niño, La Niña and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation are part of a longer, ongoing change in global climate,” said Josh Willis, a JPL oceanographer and climate scientist. Sea level rise and global warming due to increases in greenhouse gases can be strongly affected by large natural climate phenomenon such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. “In fact,” said Willis, “these natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it.”
The entire article was also NOT about global warming existing or not, it was about Pacific water conditions and how they can hide or exacerbate the condition of global warming...
Rod Smelser
3 years ago
On the Liberal Bus!
gamedev
I ask again, where the hell are Suzuki and Berman now? Another huge source of CO2 emissions and another day of silence from the BC Liberal backers who profess to be "environmentalists". What an absolute crock.
They're on the Liberal Bus, gamedev. They read the polls, figured the Liberals were shoo-ins regardless, consulted with their donors, and decided it was best to be in the winner's circle on election night and over the next four years. They'll say it's about access, the same thing big business says when they donate to governing party campaign funds.
mopled
3 years ago
You prove my point gamedev
You don't know much, si as I advised earlier, start reading something beside the propaganda...it puts blinkers on.
It's a climate SYTEM...and we don't know how it workstogether yet. The PDO is only part of it. The role of the Sun is yet to be fully understood. We do know that CO2 can't do anything worth mentioning...let alone something on which to base a reason for a total switching of energy sources.
Temperatures are down in spite of CO2 staying up there....that is supposed to be impossible.
It’s the Sun, Stupid!
http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/pdf/Willie_Soon-Its_the_Sun_Stupid.pdf
New direct evidence demonstrate that changes in solar activity influence climate
gamedev
3 years ago
haha
I maintain my point that the anti-global warming groups are corporate hacks trying make people believe **** doesn't stink, and it just doesn't wash with me.
Your latest link to "authority" is Willie Soon, former "scientific adviser" to the Greening Earth Society a group funded and controlled by Western Fuels Association, an association of coal-burning utility companies. What the heck is that all about? I'm sure the coal companies are totally lacking in self interest.
Stump
3 years ago
there's no point debating mopled
been there, done that.
You can heat a room with a single candle, but adding 6 billion fossil-fuel burining people to the plant doesn't have an effect on climate. Yeah, right.
Dr Alexander
3 years ago
Well, it's about time..
That Northern BC gets more opportunities for economic advancement and job creation. My concern is that if it has Gordo's fingerprints on it, then there is probably something crooked going on.
With regards to CO2? I see that global temperatures are going down. According to Al Gore's graph, the CO2 levels should be dropping after some lag period. That does not bode well for the Enron-based Carbon Credit trading scheme.
DPL
3 years ago
Are somefolks doubting
Are somefolks doubting Gordos plans for more natural gas sales as he tells us what a great environmentalist he is. any words from his environmentalist friends on the subject? Awful quiet this week folks
Janie Jones
3 years ago
All in the Family
The crooked thing is that BC & the NWT are the only two places in the world where natural gas reserves are increasing so all those Albertans need to move on in order to keep their $1500/day jobs and that is what TILMA is all about. Couple that with priority hiring for natives and that's it for BCers most of whom are ex-forestry and don't like the gas patch anyway. But most of them also have families to support.
But nice job mopled. Lets not forget that the Gore family fortune is based on the old man's shares in Armand Hammer's Occidental Petroleum, the rights to Russian oilfields he acquired through his commie Dad, head of the American Communist Party at the time of the Bolshevik takeover, Julius Hammer's connections with the new terror regime.
Then there's that zinc mine on the old baccy farm down in Tennessee.
The same names, intergenerationally, keep popping up. Didn't Grandad Schiff-in-law brag openly about how much money he spent bringing down Caesar so that Hammer could get his hands on those oil concessions and other filthy lucre in the first place?
Janie Jones
3 years ago
WTF??
From mopled's link:
" . . . the Canadian born Strong is little known in the United States. That’s because he spends most of his time in China where he has been working to make the communist country the world’s next superpower."
For all you wacked out conspiracy theorists out there: the NWO plan is to use China to take over North America, financially yes, but also militarily.
Remember that Native American prophecy about how the dragon will come over the north pole and try to take over their lands? But after a long and very bloody fight, the dragon will lose and be forced back to its lair.
morechatter
3 years ago
Up In Smoke
Or carbon for that matter as after careful consideration and much deliberation I concluded the carbon tax is being used to produce more carbon? As each dollar spent and each dollar made has carbon waste associated with it. You can't escape it but you can escape the Liberal Tyrant. And thanks to British Colombians Mr. Campbell has a billion and a half to pollute up the place giving BC the double carbon whammy.
morechatter
3 years ago
The Gravy Train
Thats more like it Rob Smelser but I don't know about that. As some take offense to those who support child starvation, in humanitarian conditions, animal cruelty, along with leaving children in need of glasses in the dark. As Liberals turn down the disabled and small children as medical refuses to pay for their prescriptions and their examinations as costs escalate along with their transportation.
Rumors of boycotts are a hot topic and if the Liberals get in they will be a reality as business will know what it feels to go with out along with the organizations that back them.
Illahie
3 years ago
Quote from mopled
“The problem with warmists is not only do they know nothing, they ignore any new info.”
I think that mopled makes a good point here. It is almost like the warmists are followers of a religious cult, who only take guidance from their leader.
It would only take a few minutes of work to look up historical C02 levels, say for the last 600 million years or so, but the warmists are not likely to do it. Perhaps they are afraid of what they might find. Perhaps the warmists have a different agenda. Are they anti-globalists wearing warmists clothing?
Whatever they are, I do not think that they are environmentalists, because an environmentalist would not be afraid to look into C02.
freebear
3 years ago
David, Tsemporah ; where are you?
Where are our environmental gurus now?
Dave's not here man!
cfvua
3 years ago
Subsidies to producers
And just think folks we subsidized this gas play to the point where no royalties will be paid until profits are made. I wonder who gets to decide when that is. BC residents and businesses got almost no work there and we are spending $187 MIllion to improve the road there. We are paying a bunch of other incentive subsidies for anything from deep well drilling to who knows what and no jobs are coming from it. The producers are bringing in Albertans to screw in light bulbs. Campbell probably feels more secure now than most residents in the NOrhteast who would normally be doing this work. If this is liberal style economic development we really don't need it.
Janie Jones
3 years ago
Do they think we are stupid?
It is the same thing on the IPPs. The only priority BC hiring is for the natives who are also going to get royalties ahead of any court-ordered treaty settlement while the majority of the construction jobs are going out of province. Meanwhile, we the people of BC pick up the support costs and are even going to pay for the costs associated with hooking these projects up to the Hydro grid. In the case of the IPPs at the top end of Harrison Lake this is being disguised as "bringing power to the St'at'imc lower communities."
Dr Alexander
3 years ago
Suzuki's and Berman's silence is..
deafening.
Put me on a nicely-compensated panel and I would be tempted to shut my mouth too.
freebear
3 years ago
Whare are you eco guru?
Dave's still not here man!