Friday, January 29, 2016
Is Trudeau Being Fed a Load of Pipeline Bunk? Petro-Wolves in Sheep's Clothing.
Canada's new prime minister may be swallowing a diet carefully laced with nonsense about our nation's controversial pipelines. Economist and former CEO of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, Robyn Allan, says Trudeau is being misled by the Harper-groomed National Energy Board.
“The Board has resorted to platitudes, false arguments, obfuscated claims and exaggerated statements and I think Mr. Carr should be very careful about the NEB,” Allan said in an interview.
Six pages of the NEB briefing material were dedicated to a four and a half page letter that Allan wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau following last fall’s federal election. In her letter, dated October 24, 2015, she warned Trudeau that the regulator was allegedly violating basic principles of natural justice and procedural fairness in its ongoing review of Kinder Morgan’s proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.
She also wrote in that letter that the regulator decided to prevent Canadian participants who would be affected by the project from conducting oral cross-examination of testimony from the multinational Texas-based energy company.
Although the NEB still required Kinder Morgan to answer written questions from participants, Allan and other critics had previously noted that the regulator had never previously banned cross examination in other similar pipeline project reviews. She explained that this opened the door for companies to avoid direct answers to inconvenient questions.
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11 comments:
Of course Harper's NEB is feeding Trudeau a load of bull. The issue is whether or not Trudeau will swallow the Koolaid.
.. and lo, just like the miracle of loaves and fishies, a burning bush, immaculate conception and water into wine, the NEB believes 'discounted' Alberta dilbit can go into a heated pipelne and come out the arse end as Brent Benchmark or West Texas Intermediate sweet light crude.. ! No wonder evangel suckers like Harper, Joe Oliver, Rona Ambrose, Kevin O'Leary et al are screetching from their pulpits for pipelines
It will be impossible for us to commit to any carbon reduction requirements from the Paris Accord or other international environmental agreements if we do ANYTHING related to pipelines and shoveling and distributing bitumen junk across the country.
Please for the love of god, let's stop talking about pipelines and figure out ways to get us off the junk that's destroying our economy.
IS there a study available to show the economics of building an Alberta upgrader to refine on site (amortised over fifty years) and then shipping the resultant fuel through a pipe to the rest of the Country as opposed to buying fuel from the US (that now costs a 40% premium of actual costs due to currency fluctuations)?
I am against new pipelines, bitumen use and for the shift to green energy.
On the pipeline file, most folks do not realize that oil-by-rail is growing all the time. Gates and Buffett bought up most of N. America' railways a few years back and are quietly (Lac Megantic was an loud exception from a small rogue rail operator) building the rail infrastructure to move oil.
We will using oil-by-rail to ship 300,000 barrels per day to China by 2019.
The good side of that is there will be less economic momentum to keep moving oil when/if green energy becomes cheaper than ff. A pipeline is single purpose whereas the rail system is multi-purpose. The bad side is .....
While we oppose new pipelines we should also push back hard on oil by rail - as the stealth option to keep using ff.
Now on to the Libs. Lots of good stuff from the new gov't. Lots to complain about too.
Stealth. Harper pioneered this approach. Do stuff as quietly and as "administratively" as possible. Incremental (but relentless) change. Hide the changes or distance the actual doers from the public knowledge of the deed.
The ugly, unpopular Harper stuff (scientist muzzling for ex.) has been quickly and loudly reversed. I think the Libs may be using Harper's change mechanism on the testier files: The Libs have banned tankers on the North BC coast... a subtle way to kill Gateway and perhaps hold LNG to account?
They added another layer to the KM/EE approval process. To ultimately strangle it?
Harper showed how to make controversial changes while spending a minimum of his own political capital. Let's hope the Libs are planning to kill this stuff over time with 'red tape'. It kinda looks that way to me.
This is the second briefing book that shows how much koolaid the advisory class has been drinking. They need to be dunged out and will be but will it be too late. To our sorrow too many decisions need to be made before the neocons can be disposed of. Dion made a mistake with the Saudi Arabia as a vital ally bumf and Carr is dangerously close to turning Canada into oil spill heaven. Will poor advice saddle us with the TPP as well?
I'm dismayed at how the eastern pipeline debate has been transformed into a supposed "shakedown" by ungrateful Quebec mayors. Even Rick Mercer has bought into that.
We seem to have reverted to petro-statehood, ignoring the entire Paris climate summit promises. Bitumen is what we have and, hence, bitumen is what we'll sell just as soon as we can open up new routes to pump dilbit to "tidewater." I can't describe how I cringe at the mention of that word. Our drylanders are so fond of it.
Harper, Ambrose, Trudeau, Mulcair - makes no difference. Not one of them, not the energy producers, not the pipeline giants, not the National Energy Board - none of them can present technology that could handle a major tanker spill of diluted bitumen. The properties of dilbit leaked into marine environments is well known. It sinks. To the bottom which, on my coast, can be many hundreds of feet down where no known technology can remove it. It just stays there relatively intact for decades, generations (perhaps many) leeching out its heavy metals, acids and carcinogens into the marine ecosystem.
That's why, to some, bitumen tankers are an assault with a deadly weapon. It's not a matter of it there's a spill but when and how often. It only takes one.
I wish our federal government and the provincial governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan were not so hell bent on imperilling our coast, in the process contributing powerfully to the global greenhouse gas emissions crisis.
Rick Mercer can say what he wants but he obviously doesn't have a fucking clue. I would have expected better from a Newfie.
When they talk about a pipeline they say oil. What is intended to go through the pipe is bitumen but they don't say that.
.. had to laugh at some TV personality named O'Leary bleating how he'd have a 'referendum' to decide if pipelines would go ahead.. like immediately.. uh.. no Consultation, no Environmental Review, no due diligence.. or intelligence... just plunge ahead y'know .. cause its the economy.. and there's already been lots of reviewing... mebbe he was channelling Christy Clark.. or Joe Oliver.. and maybe spending the last 20 years living in Boston gave him a teaparty state of mindlessness..
Don't worry about Rick Mercer.. he'll get it right.. especially when some smart Grade 5 student asks where all the diluted bitumen from a western pipeline called Energy East.. if it delivers 1.1 million barrels of dilbit past a Quebec refinery and two New Brunswick refineries that are already receiving oversupply of approx 500,000 barrels/day from Newfoundland oil (not dilbit) Maritime oil (not dilbit) USA shale oil imports (not dilbit) and Saudi supertankers (not dilbit) ... and the punchline .. that the energy needs of the Maritimes are approx 250,000 barrels/day... and the US of A does not want imported bitumen.. its a net exporter of far more valuable real crude oil
Its to laugh how Stephen Harper proclaimed Energy East would secure 'energy independence' for Canadians.. and that his primitive math skills or inability to actually read the Energy East application led him to such a stupid conclusion... or was it 'just political speech' and that's not to be mistaken for a promise or any sort of reality based fact
hey surprise ... good news on oil by rail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/alberta/plan-to-expand-hardisty-oil-by-rail-terminal-overhauled/article28469873/
@ Sal - thanks for the info on the eastern Canadian energy/refinery markets. It's amazing what a bit of context can do.
NPov - yeah, oil by rail. Imagine how many trains wouldn't be required if only Alberta refined bitumen on site and transported only market-ready synthetic crude.
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