Energy

Funding encourages Baker Lake residents to comment on Areva proposal
Last Updated: Monday, February 16, 2009
CBC News

Some last-minute funding helped about 70 people in Baker Lake, Nunavut, give a regulatory board their thoughts on a uranium mine proposal in the area.

The proposal by Areva Resources Canada Inc. is undergoing a screening by the Nunavut Impact Review Board. The board has extended its deadline for accepting public comments to Feb. 18, at the request of the territorial government.

Oilsands producers gird for Obama’s Canada visit
By Ayesha Rascoe, Reuters
February 17, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Canada’s oilsands industry, battered by collapsing oil prices, also faces the prospect of ballooning costs as the United States and Canada prepare to discuss energy security and efforts to fight global warming.

When U.S. President Barack Obama visits Ottawa Thursday, energy will be a key topic in his talks with Canada Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who often touts Canada as an emerging energy superpower due to its massive oilsands resources.

Dirtier oil sands Coming

By SHAWN BELL, SRJ Reporter 17.FEB.09

The Alberta government has tried sneaking through a policy allowing the oilsands to get even dirtier, according to the Pembina Institute, an Alberta environmental think-tank.
The new policy allows in-situ oilsands operations to burn bitumen, petroleum coke or asphaltenes instead of natural gas to produce steam, processes that increase air emissions by 40 to 66 per cent. The policy was posted to the Alberta Environment website on Dec. 23, 2008, with a deadline for public feedback set for Feb. 13, 2009.

MacKenzie Pipeline one step closer

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Backers of a proposed natural gas pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley in the Northwest Territories have received some good news.

Imperial Oil has worked out a tentative deal on land access with the one remaining aboriginal stake holder not yet on board. The deal still has to be ratified by Dehcho First Nation communities, which cover about 40 per cent of the pipeline's route, in the southwest corner of the terriroties.

Dirty Tar Sands in Canada to Test Obama Green Goals
By Jim Efstathiou Jr.

Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleum extracted from tar sands in Canada may provide the first foreign-policy test for President Barack Obama’s environmental agenda.

U.S. and Canadian conservationists have called on Obama to reject any bid to exempt the oil from proposed climate-protection rules when he visits Canada Prime Minister Stephen Harper this week in Ottawa, his first meeting with a head of government.

Work on Keystone pipeline scheduled to begin mid-May
Associated Press • February 16, 2009

YANKTON – Work on the TransCanada Keystone oil pipeline in southeast South Dakota is expected to begin in mid-May with several hundred workers using Yankton as construction headquarters for much of the year.
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Spokesman Jeff Rauh says they’ll start in Hutchinson County and work their way south about 130 miles into Nebraska.

The initial work will be locating and marking buried utilities. Other crews will remove topsoil, bury and weld the pipe, and inspect it.

Prentice 'optimistic' gas project will begin soon

Updated Sun. Feb. 15 2009 1:11 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Environment Minister Jim Prentice says he is "optimistic" that work on the controversial Mackenzie Gas Project, which proposes building a pipeline to deliver northern natural gas to Canadian and U.S. markets, will begin soon after numerous delays for environmental and community assessments.

The project was first proposed in 2001 by a consortium of oil producers that includes Imperial Oil, ExxonMobil Corp., Shell Canada and ConocoPhillips.

Global warming 'underestimated'
Sunday, 15 February 2009
BBC News
Prof Field said the IPCC was running behind forecasts

The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse
than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned.

Professor Chris Field, an author of a 2007 landmark report on climate
change, said future temperatures "will be beyond anything" predicted.

Prof Field said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
report had underestimated the rate of change.

The Role of the Environmentalist
A Bias for Life
Weekend Edition
August 30 / 31, 2008
By JOSH SCHLOSSBERG

After decades of speaking on Nature's behalf, the environmental movement continues to gain power and influence in the U.S. With media, government and even big business preaching the green gospel all of a sudden, modern day enviros might finally have an opportunity to start reversing the course of Earth-death, rather than just "slowing down the rate at which things have been getting worse."

Tanker Threat to B.C. Coast and Waterways
Written by Ingmar Lee
Thursday,
12 February 2009

A letter from Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline (Feb. 7) suggests that supertankers carrying crude oil through the Douglas Channel would be business as usual.

To the editor of the Victoria Times-Colonist
Re: "Tankers won't be travelling Inside Passage route," letter,
Feb. 7.