Tag: Energy

Disappointing, not surprising.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

The announcement that Fraser Surrey Docks had been approved to ship crappy thermal coal from the Powder River Basin through the Fraser River was not really a surprise, but it was disappointing. During these long drawn out policy discussions, it became clear then very few people in British Columbia agreed with the plan. Every single Municipality that responded to the project, from the US Border to the Fraser River to Texada Island, was against it. Every First Nation that expressed an opinion was against it. Academics, economists, even our regional health officials; people were lining up to raise concerns about this project. This is one of those rare occasions where James Crosty and I agreed on something*. How did it get approved?

Someone suggested that this project “fell through the cracks” between Federal and Provincial Environmental Assessment legislation and the other checks that might have allowed meaningful public input. That is not true. There was no “falling” involved. It was instead jammed firmly into a huge crack that was ripped into the legislation meant to protect our fisheries, our air quality, and our climate in such a way that no amount of public outcry could close the crack again. This was not a mistake or an oversight on the part of the Federal Government- this was part of the plan.

This is also an example of why the public no longer trusts public consultations. Unlike recent consultations by TransLink over the Pattullo Bridge, the Port’s consultations were not meaningfully reported out. They admitted that had received feedback from thousands of people, but they won’t admit that vast majority of that feedback was in the form of opposition to the project for a variety of reasons. Yet somehow the project was approved after these “consultations”. Why even bother asking?

Coincidentally (except it probably isn’t a coincidence), there was other coal news this week, likely just as important, but with much less fanfare here in BC. Turns out yet another proposal to build a coal terminal in the Pacific Northwest to move Powder River Basin thermal coal to jurisdictions where it is still legal to burn it has been rejected by state legislators, after significant political pressure from local Tribal groups, fishers, environmentalists, and community persons who are starting to feel the ethical debate around Climate Change. This brings to a half dozen the number of terminal proposals rejected or indefinitely delayed in the last few years in the Pacific Coast, none of them in Canada.

This is, of course, putting pressure on American coal producers, and is creating some interesting adaptations. For example, American coal industry giant Cloud Peak Energy just last week signed an agreement with the Canadian coal producer Coal Valley Resources, where Cloud Peak pays their Canadian competitor $37 Million to ship the Canadian product north through Prince Rupert. This would free up space at Westshore terminals at Port Metro Vancouver’s Roberts Bank terminal that was allocated for the Canadian coal, so Cloud Peak’s dirty Powder River Basin coal can be shipped through Canada. No Environmental Assessment needed.

It was only a few days ago that the New Westminster Environmental Partners had Kevin Washbrook from Voters Taking Action on Climate Change give an inspiring talk at the stunning Aboriginal Gathering Place at Douglas College. He spoke eloquently about climate change as a moral imperative. The message was clear: Climate change is happening right now, we are causing it, and the results are unpredictable, but almost certainly dire. The more detailed message was about “now” means we keep blowing past the worst predictions of the rate of change we while governments blithely let pass their own commitments to act; how “we” is the richest nations on earth, with Canada and Australia embarrassingly leading the charge; and how the most dire consequences are already being felt in the poorest nations that cannot afford to adapt, and had virtually nothing to do with creating the problem.

But that wasn’t all that took place, because we had a group of a few dozen people who discussed the problem, and talked about the solutions they can see, some in the far distance, some accessible right now, some we are already well into adopting. There was talk of hope: not the type of hope where you sit and wish something would happen, but the kind of hope that if you and everyone around you gets to work, it is inevitable that it will happen.

At this point, with global CO2 blowing through the 350ppm, then 400ppm barriers, the idea that we can limit climate change to a planet-altering 2 degree Celsius warming has gone away; at this point we need to stop much worse levels of warming. No-one is suggesting we can fix the problem anymore, we are now working on how to limit the problem so the impacts are manageable by the next and not catastrophic.

It is late, but not too late. The challenge is real, but it is doable. And British Columbia is one of the most important fronts in this battle. British Columbia is choosing (and yes, it is a choice among many other possible paths) to become a conduit for the acceleration of carbon into the atmosphere. We are seeing pipelines, coal ports, and massive increases in natural gas extraction: all with the intent of making burning carbon for all of our energy needs more affordable through lax regulation and unaccounted environmental impacts so that the practical and reasonable alternatives that exist will not be exploited. For a shitty few jobs (and yes, the Carbon Economy in British Columbia is less that 3% of our GDP, and accounts for less than 1% of our employment) we are helping a few profiteers rake in cash by making the world a less safe, less stable, less liveable place for the next generation.

We need better leaders. We need more accountable Governments. We need a vision to stop destroying the future and start building it.

*James and I have some fundamental differences about the reasons for opposing this proposal, and I took a bit of a humourous dig at his comments in an earlier version of this footnote. In hindsight, it was an unnecessary and not very nice, so I retract. 

When Pipelines come home

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I apologise once again for not posting as often as I would like here. There are many things afoot, bringing a completely different meaning to what I call “free time”. I am also working on a major project related to my pledge (a little more than a year ago) to take a risk – more details on that will be released really soon.

However, this issue has piqued my interest and I had to stay up late to write about it, because these hydrocarbon pipeline projects people keep talking about in other regions of the Province have come home to New Westminster.

After having attended last week’s NWEP meeting where Mark Allison from the City outlined the City’s approach to the project, and Elmer Rudolph from the Sapperton Fish and Game Club came to talk about the Brunette River, I think it is time we in New West started talking about Kinder Morgan.

You probably have heard that Kinder Morgan, the Houston-based uber-pipeline company that purchased the Trans Mountain Pipeline in 2005, wants to “twin” thee pipeline. To quote directly from the project site:

“Trans Mountain is proposing an expansion of its current 1,150-kilometre pipeline between Strathcona County (near Edmonton), Alberta and Burnaby, BC. The proposed expansion, if approved, would create a twinned pipeline that would increase the nominal capacity of the system from 300,000 barrels per day, to 890,000 barrels per day. At present, the Westridge Marine Terminal handles approximately five tankers per month. Should the proposed expansion be approved, the number of tankers loaded at the Westridge Marine Terminal could increase to approximately 34 per month.”

What we don’t know about this project could fill a blog post, but for a variety of reasons, I don’t want to get into the nitty-gritty of this project here. There has been some excellent analysis of the project opportunities and risks prepared by CRED, which you can read here.

However, few people in New Westminster up to now realized that this project will likely be passing though our own backyard, and may have a significant impact on one of the few remaining local areas of high ecological value: the Brunette River. When first announced, it appeared that the pipeline was to be “expanded”, suggesting that it would follow the existing right-of-way through central Coquitlam and skirting along the south side of Burnaby Mountain. However, the proposal showed a different routing for the new pipe, which passed through south Coquitlam, and essentially paralleled the Lougheed Highway. Now, and “alternative route” has become the favoured one – and this one passes though the green spaces on the New Westminster – Burnaby border, immediately adjacent to the Brunette River.

This is where Elmer Rudolph comes in. For those who may not know him, Elmer is a real local hero and a legend amongst western Canada’s Streamkeeper groups. He and his group from the Sapperton F&G Club have spent 40 years pushing the envelope on salmon habitat restoration in urban streams, improving the world’s knowledge of salmon ecology, habitat recovery, and environmental protection in urban areas. He did this mostly through sheer persistence and elbow grease. When the Brunette was a “dead” river as recently as 1970, a lot of very smart people thought any attempt to bring salmon back to the River and its would be wasted time. It was only 15 years later that the River came alive again, and for 20 years since, Elmer and his volunteers have made slow, steady improvement in habitat and water quality along the river and throughout its massive basin.

The route along the Brunette is also part of the region’s best Greenway route, the Central Valley Greenway. That route is a green oasis paralleled by development, density, and traffic, a heavily-used place for pedestrians, cyclists, dog walkers, and anyone wanting to escape the sun on these hot summer days and cool off along a bubbling salmon-bearing stream, right in the middle of our City. If you travel along the CVG, you see large areas of habitat enhancement – areas that were improved to improve water quality and habitat diversity – for the Port Mann Highway 1 expansion project only a year or two ago.

So I’m glad the City is getting involved in the project, and the idea of a Public Meeting in New Westminster to discuss the project and get the mood of the community about putting this project adjacent to the Brunette River (like the City did last year for the still-up-in-the-air Fraser Surrey Docks coal terminal project) is a good idea.

More on District Energy

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I wasn’t able to attend the City’s open house last month on the potential District Energy Utility (DEU) system, tentatively proposed for the Sapperton area (it was the same night as the Royal City Curling Club AGM, and two or three other events I would have like to have attended. I need a clone). I have read a lot about DEUs, and have toured systems in a few different places. I have previously written at length about the many benefits of DEUs, so I was really interested to see what direction New Westminster was planning to go with the idea.

Based on what I read in the consultation materials, I like what I see.

The basic idea behind a DEU is that thermal energy systems can be more efficient if they are built larger. This is why there is commonly a single boiler in a large commercial or residential building, instead of having little boilers in each apartment or office. If a single energy source could supply heat energy (hot water or steam) to multiple buildings, it can be run as a utility to those buildings: a DEU.

Many large cities have had systems like this for decades. Downtown Vancouver has a gas-fired steam system that ties multiple buildings together. However, the modern resurgence of DEUs is coming out of Europe, and is being driven by low- or zero-carbon energy supplies. In the last decade, DEUs of different size and design have popped up in Victoria, Vancouver, Richmond, and other cities.

Although DEUs can be retro-fitted into existing buildings, the most cost-effective application is one where the buildings are constructed with the DEU in mind, around a development hub. Having an institutional or industrial user in the core to provide cost-buffering “baseline demand” makes the business case even stronger. A well-designed DEU will sell energy to the customers at similar rates as other energy sources (while buffering the customers from the volatility of gas or oil prices), pay for the infrastructure costs, and even turn a small profit for the utility owner. When a low- or zero-carbon energy source is part of the plan, there are spin-off environmental benefits for the entire community.

The New Westminster situation has many of the elements that could make for a very successful DEU. There is an institutional customer interested in reducing its carbon footprint for regulatory reasons, and there is relatively high density development (commercial, industrial, and residential) occurring nearby that will allow gradual scaling up for increased efficiency. There also happens to be a zero-carbon energy source right nearby.

The analysis provided by the City here shows that the sewer heat option is viable, at least in the preliminary analysis. This is really good news, because although the wood waste option would provide GHG and cost benefits over not having a DEU, the math when it comes to emissions related to a sewer heat recovery system are obviously order-of-magnitude better:

Emission estimates of different systems, click to enlarge.

Yes, scrubbers, filters and the such can improve the baseline particulate numbers, but you really can’t argue with the near-zero emissions of the sewer heat system.
 
As I said, I missed my chance to go to the open house, but I can still provide my feedback. So can you!

Read the materials here. And more here.

Then provide some feedback here.You can ask questions, let them know your concerns or ideas. Here is your chance to give them the feedback you want. But you better hurry, you have until this Friday!

On Enbridge, and editorial failures.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

I haven’t said much about the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline semi-announcement. Frankly, there have been too many column inches wasted on this story already, as the project is a non-starter. After all is said and done, the millions of dollars wasted by Enbridge and our Federal Government to promote an ecologically and economically indefensible project will be just one of the sad legacies of the Harper years.

So this post isn’t about Enbridge, it is about another monumental failure: this “Editorial” in one of the local Post Media Serious Newspapers of Note (which itself has become the AM Sport Radio of Print Journalism). There is so much wrong in this very short 250 words that it needs to be addressed line-by-line:

“Setting aside, for the moment, the tremendous economic opportunities and wealth creation that resource extraction has always meant to B.C. and this country…”

Point 1: We cannot simply set aside the economic opportunities of the Northern Gateway, or other resource extraction activities in BC, because that is what this entire issue is about. From the start, the people up and down the coast of BC have been critical of this project specifically because of the risk it poses to their economic reality and the threat it poses to the very resources that their economy relies on, while providing almost no offsetting economic benefits to the communities most at risk.

Point 2: By lumping in an oil pipeline in with “resource extraction” is to be disingenuous to the real concerns here. Yes, BC and Canada were built on resource extraction: furs, mines, forests, fish, and energy. But not all resources are the same, and they do not contribute equally. Some are renewable, some are not. Some we extract high value with value-added industries, some we don’t. Some we balance against significant environmental harm, some we do not. By any measure, an oil pipeline transporting diluted bitumen for immediate export through our parks, watersheds, forests, shorelines and seas provides the least extracted value from a non-renewable resource with virtually no value added, few jobs, and a potentially huge environmental impact. When compared to Canada’s largest-value of exports (automobiles and machinery) Oil and all hydrocarbons pale in comparison, both in the GDP contribution to our economy, to the amount of trade dollars, and in the amount of employment income derived by the industries.

Canada’s exports by sector, a proportion of GDP. Click to enlarge.

“Resource Extraction” built Canada, but manufacturing and services are our future.

“…when it comes to the Northern Gateway pipeline Canadians had better start asking themselves a very fundamental question: Are we going to be a nation of citizens who respect the rule of law, due process and democratic governance or are we going to descend into anarchy and mob rule?”

Wow. I mean f***ing wow (sorry Mom). The false dichotomy and broad-brush idiocy of this statement is one thing, but it’s the inherent hubris that makes me want to swear. To be lectured by cheerleaders of this project about “due process” and the “rule of law” when the proponents had many of the laws that would have provided said due process stripped away, when the persons employed by the Government to provide the scientific basis for that process have been fired or silenced, when the scientific community comes out with a comprehensive list of the ways the process was not based on scientific review of its own criteria, is, I think, a little offensive to those who believe in democratic governance and science-based policy to be accused of being an anarchist mob.

To suggest that people in a democracy, standing up for injustice, speaking their minds, providing opinion, ideas, and (yes) criticism of the government is akin to “mob rule” or “anarchy” sounds like the hyperbole of a totalitarian state – or just the regular missives of a Petro-State, I suppose.

“The decision by the Harper government Tuesday to approve the pipeline — critical to unleashing vast wealth for Canada by allowing Alberta oil to be delivered safely to world markets — has been met by predictable opposition.”

The parts on the outside of the dashes read like a reasonable comment, and are about the only truthful part of this entire editorial. The part in the middle is just more Petro-State approved gibberish. Because it paints over the reasons the opposition exists. Some suggest this pipeline is not “critical” to the ongoing development of the Bitumen Sands, it only serves to accelerate their development and make the entire operation less sustainable. Some further suggest too much of the “vast wealth” is currently going to multi-national corporations and state-owned oil companies from Norway to Malaysia, and not to the people of Canada who own the resource being rapidly depleted and exported. Mostly, people are concerned that this project will not in fact get the product “safely to markets”, but will spread a little too much of it around valuable natural resource territories, and on lands never ceded by the aboriginal inhabitants.

“In a democracy, this is healthy. But the too-common rhetoric from some quarters of taking direct action against the decision of a democratically elected government is appalling, especially after years of public process into the merits of the project and the imposition of 209 conditions to ensure the environment is as protected as is possible.”

Read that again. A major newspaper is suggesting that the Majority of Canadians who didn’t vote for the Conservatives, or even those who are part of the plurality who voted for someone other than them, you should just shut the hell up and take whatever you are given. You may say the process never demonstrated the merits, and are not assured the conditions are sufficient or will be met, but it is “appalling” that you would question a duly elected government.

“Critics talk of the need for “social licence” for projects like the pipeline, a new term created by people who can’t win elections, but think they have some right to run the country. They don’t.”

Since I am one of the majority who did not Vote for Harper’s band of thieves, perhaps I should defer to their greatest shadow-organizers, the Fraser Institute on the topic of “Social License”. You see, according to the oft-quoted free-market “dink-tank”, that term was not a term “created by people who can’t win elections”, it was invented by a successful Canadian Mining Executive, and it is described very well in this Fraser Institute article under their ”MiningFacts.org.” astroturf organization:

Allow me to quote extensively: “[social license to operate (SLO)]…is an essential part of operating within democratic jurisdictions, as without sufficient popular support it is unlikely that agencies from elected governments will willingly grant operational permits or licenses. The SLO can be revoked and it should never be taken for granted. The Social License to Operate refers to the acceptance within local communities of both mining companies and their projects. Social acceptance is granted by all stakeholders that are or can be affected by mining projects (e.g. local communities, indigenous people) and other groups of interests (e.g. local governments, NGOs). The SLO does not refer to a formal agreement or document but to the real or current credibility, reliability, and acceptance of mining companies and projects. The SLO is granted by stakeholders based on the credibility of a mining company and the type of relationship that companies develop with the communities. Stakeholders tend to grant an SLO when they feel that their values and those of the company are aligned.”

Typical Fraser Institute radical lefties. I wonder how Enbridge is doing on that Social Licence thing?

“Opponents will take heart from the demonstration in Vancouver that occurred Tuesday or from petitions with several thousand names criticizing the pipeline’s approval. But they need to remember that most British Columbians who support projects like the pipeline aren’t generally available mid-afternoon to express it. They’re working, but they do vote.”

What a load of bullshit. The Province was there, and should know that protest was held, and reached it peak, on a Friday evening – the largest numbers appeared well after the close of business Friday – and I know several people who went down there AFTER WORK to assure their voices were heard. And these people vote. And the unemployed and underemployed vote.

The best part of about that protest was the numbers that showed up after work on a Friday of a sunny weekend on very short notice – there were more people at that protest than there are jobs promised the people of BC for the entire Northern Gateway Project. To me, that is a sign of a healthy democracy, and the Province’s Editorial board is a demonstration of a failure of journalism in that democracy. Not because I disagree with them, and not just because of the specific problems above, but because of what their approach is to the entire topic, in light of the role of journalism in a functioning democracy.

What does it mean when the “Fourth Estate”- they who are meant to hold Government and Corporate feet to the fire and assure that oversight was provided outside of government in the service of the people – read too much from the government play sheet? Read this opinion piece above, and ask yourself who is being protected, and from whom? Here we have the media telling people who do not agree with the current federal government and the few corporate interests that are proposing this project not that they are wrong; not that they are factually incorrect; not that their concerns are misplaced; but to SHUT UP, YOU LOSERS!

Of course, we can’t be sure it is their editorial position at all. Considering the history of PostMedia newspapers selling advertising space to Enbridge proponents while making them look like editorials.

I used to think the dead-tree large corporate media were no longer relevant to our democracy, now I am starting to suspect they are actively trying to undermine it.

Who pays for roads?

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 5 Comments.

Once again, a casual conversation I had around a transportation issue led me to look for the data to support my long-held belief. I think I already had this data, as I like to convince myself that data is what most of my long-held beliefs are based on, but I’ve been wrong before, so it never hurts to check yourself, in case you are caught in the same conversation again. Run-on sentences are cool.

In this case, it was a version of the old “There is no need for road pricing, because I already pay for roads through gas taxes” or “Cyclists have no right to the road unless they register and pay a tax” narrative that I was arguing against. The central narrative is that gas-burners pay for roads, ostensibly through Gas Taxes or some other tax that non-drivers don’t pay. My long-held belief has been that gas taxes don’t pay for your roads, nor do ICBC rates or drivers licence renewal fees. The average cyclist likely pays just as much tax as the average car driver, they both pay for the roads (or, more likely, the average cyclist and the average driver are exactly the same person, as pretty much everyone I know who rides a bike also drives a car sometimes… but I digress). It did get me thinking – how much of what the average Lower Mainland driver pays for a car actually goes to maintain the road?

The first part of this is to determine just how much the average Lower Mainlander pays per year to drive the average car. Luckily CAA collects this data on an annual basis, so there is a single source for this number.

Click to make Bigger, borrowed from BCAA, probably illegally. 

Let’s start setting assumptions, lots of people drive compact cars ($9,543 per year) and lots drive SUVs ($12,666 per year), most of the other categories are between these, so let’s pick the vehicle that is closest to the mid-point between these, which is a “Crossover” at $10,745 per year to operate. We have to also assume the average person drives an average amount, and their cost breakdowns are about average. You can see where I am going here, so I am going to try to reduce the use of the word “average” from here on in, and you are not going to use anomalous end-member data to criticize the following analysis. Deal?

Click to make Bigger, borrowed from BCAA, probably illegally. 

According to the Car-Knobbling Council BCAA, your Crossover will cost you about $1,831 a year in fuel, $1,760 in insurance and registration, and about $7,198 (!) in depreciation and maintenance. Neither Esso nor Canadian Tire build roads (excepting, of course, in that they pay taxes, and that goes to roads, but that is true no matter where you spend your money- at the Chevy dealership or the bike shop, so that argument goes nowhere), so we can assume that when we talk about paying for roads through our cars, we are talking about the paying tax for through using things that are part and parcel with using the road. The ICBC part is a special case I’ll have to hit on later, as this is already getting long.

Let’s figure out how much tax you pay to run your car.

For that $1,831 you spend in a year for fuel, the calculator assumes your gas costs you $1.25 per litre, which works out to 1,465 Litres of fuel (I know gas is more expensive now, but I’d rather use numbers from an independent source than make shit up). According to the most independent source I can find, struggling gasoline retailers, $704.42 of this (just over 38%) is taxation at the retail level. This includes $146.50 in Federal excise tax, $97.15 in carbon tax, $249.05 in “transit tax”, $124.53 in Provincial gas tax, and $87.19 in GST.

Per-litre cost of fuel, according to Petro-Canada. Click to read.

These are each individual revenue streams, so I apologize in advance for the complicated stuff below.

The Federal excise tax goes into the Consolidated Revenue Fund – it all gets stuck in a big pile and mixed infinitely with all the other money the federal government collects, from the 16% duties on Ecuadorian wool socks to the income tax that came off your last paycheque. However, the Feds do pull $2 Billion a year out of that fund, (misleadingly) call it the “Gas Tax Fund” and transfer that directly to municipalities through a slightly convoluted allocation formula. Considering about 40 billion litres of gasoline are sold in Canada every year (not including diesel – which has an excise tax of $0.04/L on sales of 17 Billion litres annually), somewhat less than half of the Federal excise on gasoline is reinvested into this infrastructure fund (which makes the name misleading). Of that less-than-50% approximately 28% is spent on local roads and bridges.

So crunching the numbers, the $146.50 of federal “gas tax” spent by the average person, about $20 goes towards roads.

The Carbon Tax is much simpler to work out. Exactly 0% of it goes to roads. The Province has been quick to point out and reinforce that the carbon tax is “revenue neutral” – it only goes to offsetting income and corporate taxes, and to providing a $200 cheque to rural British Columbians who own a house. All that just to kill a few jobs.

The “Transit Tax” is the TransLink gas levy, and some portion of that does directly go to maintaining roads and bridges. Looking at the TransLink Base Plan for 2014, we can see that TransLink collects $331 Million per year on its gas tax (on about 2 Billion litres of fuels sold in the TransLink area annually), which is 23% of its total revenue. Of this total revenue, about $119 Million (or about 8%) is spent on Roads, Bridges, and Cycling. So just as the federal money goes in to one big consolidated fund from which road money is drawn, the money TransLink gets is pooled and re-distributed (otherwise, their road spending would be decreasing as the gas tax revenues decrease, and that is not happening).

So of the $249.05 of Transit Tax, about $19.92 goes to the roads your drive that car upon.

The Provincial tax is much harder to estimate, as it all also goes to General Revenue, as does the GST hit, of which even a smaller proportion is transferred to the Province for roads spending. So let’s ignore the usual whinging about deadbeat have-not provinces and assume 100% of the GST comes back to the Province, and is pooled with the PST. How much does the Province spend on Roads? According to their recent financial plan, the annual Ministry of Transportation budget is about $800 Million, and a further $1.3 Billion on Infrastructure investment for transportation, meaning $2.1 Billion is spent on transportation. Of course that includes roads and bridges, along with cycling, transit, rail, Ferries (coastal and interior), gondolas, and the Mountain Pine Beetle Strategy (!?). This sounds like a lot, but it is only 4.7% of BC’s annual revenue. Given these very, very generous estimates, something like $10 of the average PST/GST cost of the annual gasoline bill goes to transportation.

That’s it: $50. That is the “toll” the average British Columbian pays every year for using the roads through gas taxes. Notably, this amounts to a “road tax” equal to one half of 1% of the annual cost of owning and operating a car.

There are, of course, major flaws with the above analysis, but none of them change the underlying premise.

First, most of the roads you use every day are paid for and maintained by your municipality, whose revenue sources do not include gas taxes (excepting the transfers from TransLink for the Major Road Network, and a portion of that Gas Tax Fund infrastructure money).

Thirdly, this analysis assumes that people who don’t buy gas do not pay even more for roads and bridges through their other expenditures. A daily driver gives $249 a year to TransLink in gas tax, but a daily 2-zone Transit Pass user gives $1,488 to TransLink in the same year. A daily SkyTrain user pays 6 times as much towards TransLink’s roads budget than someone who drives their car on a road every day. Of course, they both use the roads, just like pedestrians and cyclists and squirrels (who get off comparatively Scot free), but only the transit riders uses the Skytrain. Except that being on the SkyTrain gets her out of the way, “freeing up traffic”, which benefits the road driver.

The big exception is that people who don’t spend $1,831 a year on gas – or $7,000+ a year on a depreciating piece metal – don’t usually stick that extra money in the mattress. They usually spend it on other things. Like bicycle parts, or shoes, or peanut butter sandwiches (which is pedestrian fuel) or iPhone apps or pez dispensers or lottery tickets, beer and popcorn. Every dollar not spent on gas is likely spent in other ways, and when spending on things (be they car things or non-car things) they provide revenue in the form of sales taxes and in income taxes of the people who are selling stuff. That is the nature of our economy. Through the magic of “General Revenue”, just as much of those taxes go to funding roads and bridges as the sales taxes on gasoline does. In this sense, the more you use the roads, the less you likely pay for your share of their use.

As a bonus, that money is most likely not spent on things that destroy the atmosphere, as few things in our society have the same atmosphere-destroying capability on a dollar-by-dollar basis, than 1,400 Litres of gasoline.

I’m with Neil

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

“Canada is trading integrity for money” – Neil Young.

Let’s start with disclosure: I am a Neil Young fan, to the point where being a Neil Young fan has done much to shape my taste in music. To explain that, I need to go back to the late 80’s when I was sharing an apartment on Royal Ave with my brother.

I was raised in the Kootenays on a healthy diet of classic rock (although at the time we just called it Rock) and “Metal” (in quotes, because at the time that referred to a strange amalgamation of Zeppelin and Glam that went by names like Poison, Ratt, Quiet Riot, et al. my god.) because that was the playlist of the only real FM Rock station we could hear – “ROCK 106! KEZE!” out of Spokane, Washington.

When I moved to New West, CFMI was still Top-40, and one of the AM stations (CHRK 600) decided to go Classic Rock (probably the first time I heard that phrase in the context of 60s and 70s Rock music). Despite the hopeful WKRP-feeling of the whole enterprise, it was risky. AM came with questionable sound quality and more onerous Canadian content rules. This last requirement made for some difficult programming choices. All that BTO and Guess Who was bad enough, but the seemingly hourly appearance of the Whiner in D Minor caused me to turn Classic rock off. So safe to say Neil Young entered my consciousness in a pretty negative way.

A year or two later, I was sitting in the Quad at college and “Rocking in the Free World” came on the TV (tuned to MuchMusic, of course), and my opinion changed.

Looking back, it is a hard to understand how powerful that song was. Perhaps this has something to do with “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” by Milli Vanilli being #1 on the charts the day that Young’s Freedom was released. Here was this old rocker, screaming angry lyrics about the fate of the world as America was plundering the depths of Bush I Conservatism. Between scenes of LA viewed through the eyes of a homeless man, we see Young standing in a dystopian junkyard beating the living shit out of his guitar – a solo so angry and violent that the strings were stripped off the instrument. The feedback and distortion are perfect for the angry chaos of the song. It might have been a Rock anthem, but it was more punk than Punk. The lyrics of the bridge (edited out of the video for MTV) lay the blame for the ills of the world on no-one but us:

“We got a thousand points of light, for the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler machine gun hand.
Got department stores and toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people, says ‘keep hope alive’
Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive.”

A quarter-Century later, in a post-grunge era, the distortion and chaos of the song sound pretty tame. At the time, it was stunning in mainstream rock, and this album was my (admittedly late) gateway drug to Sonic Youth, Dinosaur (Jr.), Fugazi, and the Pixies. But that’s a whole different story.

I bought Freedom on cassette, and became a pretty big Young fan at that point. Such that I can look back at where I was and what I was doing by Neil Young concerts: Solo acoustic at the Spokane Coliseum (I was working at a ski shop in Trail); with Crazy Horse at the Pacific Coliseum (undergrad at SFU); with Booker T and the MGs (around my Brother’s wedding, working in a bike shop, living on Hastings street); etc. His album “Harvest Moon” even played a significant role in my courting (or being courted by) Ms.NWimby.

The question is why am I such a fan? His rock music is pretty straight-forward, even derivative. His ballads are simple – 3 verses and chorus. His vocal style is distinct, but not particularly elegant. He is pretty good at the guitar (if you like extended one-note guitar solos), ok on the piano, and probably should avoid future banjo work. His styles change like the wind, and for every work of genius like “After the Goldrush” there is a “Trans” or an “Everybody’s Rockin”. However, with all the ups and downs of his discography, there is one thread that runs through: integrity.

He has spent a life surrounded with chaos (broken childhood home, 60s folk scene, 70s drug scene, etc.), and, when he occasionally found himself flirting with middle-of-the-road success, he once famously said:

“Traveling there was really boring so I headed for the ditch“.

Every seemingly-strange fork he took in his long career (Trans, Shocking Pinks, Greendale), he did with purpose, and because he felt it served his creative drive. He has never been afraid of being unpopular – he was once sued by David Geffen for making records that didn’t sound enough like Neil Young (Geffen lost). He seems to have limited interest in the machine that feeds him – rock and roll stardom. A lesser-known song on “Freedom” talks about the state of the music business at the time when Milli Vanilli was #1 on the charts:

“The artist looked at the producer, The producer sat back
He said ‘What we have got here, is a perfect track
‘But we don’t have a vocal, so we don’t have a song
‘If we could get these things accomplished,
‘nothing else could go wrong.’
So he balanced the ashtray, as he picked up the phone:
Said ‘Send me a songwriter, who’s drifted far from home
‘Make sure that he’s hungry, make sure he’s alone
‘Send me a cheeseburger, and a new Rolling Stone.'”
                            -Crime in the City (Sixty to zero)

He more famously (clumsily, unkindly) lampooned corporate ownership of music and using music to shill products:

Young’s integrity doesn’t stop at his music, though. He has, for more than 20 years, run an annual benefit for the Bridge School– a school for kids with communications challenges related to various disabilities (his own son is non-verbal with cerebral palsy). He worked with Willie Nelson to develop the Farm Aid movement. Just as he has never shied away from musical experiments, he has never been bashful about his political opinions, from “Ohio” to “Living with War”. I don’t know if he is right in his opinions, I’m sure we can all pick opinions of Young’s that we don’t agree with. However, when he speaks about something politically, we can be sure it is coming from him. You cannot doubt his sincerity, or his integrity.

So why Tar Sands? Why now?

Hearing his interviews since this whole thing started, the answer is easy to find. Young is a tinkerer, and has always expressed ideas around sustainability. Exploring his film-making side, he decided to drive his electric car to Fort McMurray and see what all the fuss was about. I take him completely at face value when he describes getting out of his (electric) car, smelling the air in Fort Mac, and recognizing something was amiss with the boreal forest. Being a life-long advocate for aboriginal rights, he connected with local first nations, and was told of their concerns. Clearly they made an impression, because he made a commitment to help them out if he could. Turns out he could.

Did Young then contact the Canadian Association of Petroleum producers to get the “other side of the story”? Did he surf over to Suncor’s website to see the myriad benefits of oil extraction? Did he read the most recent International Energy Agency forecasts for recoverable reserves and cross reference against human rights abuses in other petroleum producing nations? Possibly. More likely, he looked in the eyes of his Athabasca Chipewyan hosts, smelled the bitumen in the air, and said something along the lines of “this shit ain’t right”. Then he set about doing what he could to help raise the profile of the issue, and maybe raise money to help people he saw as needing some help.

The reaction from the Oil Industry and their shills was predictable, alternating between obscuring the point he was making to ad hominem attack on him as a “Rock Star”, “Aging Rocker” or a “Bad Canadian”. Perhaps the most ham-fisted rebuke of Young’s statements was made by Harper Government spokes-flaks. A response easily and compellingly retorted by Young. Watching that exchange, it is clear which side is speaking with integrity.

To Ezra Levant and his astro-turf shills behind “Ethical Oil”, who have started an anti-Neil Young website, I ask: Where is your integrity? They call Young a “drug lifestyle icon” after the man has been public about his sobriety, and some of his most poignant songs are about the friends he lost to drugs. But if the quality of Young’s “lifestyle” is to be questioned, we should start by looking at his 40-year body of work, his commercial, artistic, and critical success. One might conclude that we all would benefit from a little more of whatever Neil is on.

They further criticize Young for not protesting against OPEC dictatorships, while also suggesting he shouldn’t meddle in Canada’s politics, as he doesn’t live here (try to square that circle). They never address the actual points that Neil Young is making, and the entire issue of the Constitutional rights of First Nations – the centre of all of Young’s arguments – is conveniently ignored by those interested in “Ethical Oil”. Instead, they then call Young a hypocrite for fueling his “rock star lifestyle” with oil, not realizing that they are making his point. They are correct that Neil Young is reliant on fossil fuels; We are all reliant on fossil fuels. That is the fucking problem!

Um… sorry, got a little heated there. I know I should be used to it but now, but I’m still surprised when it is suggested that our society may need to think about reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, and critics react by arguing “but we NEED fossil fuels, we can’t live without them”, as if that is a counter-argument, and not just begging the question. If this isn’t addiction, what is?

I’ve seen Neil Young talk, and I’ve heard his critics. I’ve seen Neil Young walk the walk and put his time and money where his mouth is. I see a person raising a conversation about the largest industrial development in the history of Canada’s hinterland, and I hear critics telling him to shut up. I see a person standing next to First Nations leaders and trying to help a community who feel powerless against global Multinationals and the government that covers for them. I see the Government trying to reassure an increasingly suspicious public that everything is fine: “Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive”, indeed. I see an aging rocker legendary artist, humanitarian, and Officer of the Order of Canada using his name not to fill his crib, but to raise a conversation about an issue that is important to the future of the planet, important to the nation of his birth, and important to a small community in eastern Alberta that touched him. I see one man acting with integrity, and taking the slings and arrows that often follow those that choose that path.

I’m with Neil.

Coaly Green Drinks this Thursday!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

For those not paying attention (and really, why would you?)…

…the proposal to convert part of Fraser Surrey Docks to a coal terminal (the one where they plan to export of low-quality US-sourced thermal coal after employing US-based BNSF Railway to ship it here through the back yards of a bunch of our South-of-the-Fraser neighbours) has entered into the Environmental Impact Assessment phase.

Some have found this assessment to be lacking.

You don’t have to take a medical health officer’s word for it, you can read the entirety of the assessment here, although you better put on some coffee, because the report is technical and I count 900+ pages with appendices.

Yes, that’s it. No, I have not read it. At least not all of it. Yet. 

While you are reading it, you might also want to take notes, as the public comment period is now open, so you, as a member of the public, are free to opine to the Port about the assessment and the project in general. You can send in comments by mail, e-mail, or FAX until 4:00pm on December 17, 2013, to the addresses available here.

Another way you can make your voice heard is to post your comments to a website a group called Voters Taking Action on Climate Change have set up. They call it “Real Port Hearings”, and they will use that site to collect feedback that the Port should be hearing. They plan to forward your feedback to the Port, however, since the Port is not compelled to make any of the feedback they receive public, VTACC will make the feedback public for them; doing the public engagement that the Port should be doing.

Also, if you want to learn more first, you could show up at Green Drinks on Thursday and hear what a couple of well-informed people have to say on the topic of Coal Exports. One of the hosts of the evening is the New Westminster Environmental Partners’ Coal Spokesperson Andrew Murray, and, well, you know who he is! Andrew will be introducing two (2!) special guests who also have a lot to say on the topic of coal and how the Port engages the community:

Laura Benson is Coal Campaigner for the Dogwood Initiative, which has been one of the leading organizations in BC fighting to protect our coasts and our atmosphere from bad decisions and short-term thinking. They are collecting petitions at their Beyond Coal site, trying to get your voice to the elected officials who have the decision making powers on this issue, but are strangely silent on exporting such a dangerous product.

Peter Hall is a Prof at SFU’s famed Urban Studies Program. He is studying the connections between shipping and logistics networks, and how they impact employment and development patterns in port cities. He is also interested in Ports as institutions, and the differing governance models that regulate them. As I’ve said before, so much of the issues that New Westminster cares about (bridges and truck traffic, railways, development of the waterfront, etc.) are Port-related issues, and the research Dr. Hall does is directly applicable to the decisions being made here today, on Coal and on these other topics.

This Thursday, in the “Back Room” of the Heritage Grill, on Columbia Street in Downtown New Westminster. The Heritage is a food-primary establishment, meaning that you do not have to be 19 to enter, and we make it as inclusive as possible. The goal of Green Drinks is to have a comfortable, informal setting where people can mix and mingle, and talk about sustainability and environment. Everyone is welcome, entry is free, and opinions are encouraged! Our speakers might give short talks, but the emphasis is always on two-way and multi-way discussions about topics of common interest – a cocktail party of green ideas, if you will.

See you there!

District Energy – a good news story.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

So much complaining and winging on this blog recently, I’m glad to talk about a good news story for a change!

I’m bully about the future of District Energy Utilities, and so it is good to hear New Westminster is starting to explore the prospect more seriously. The location in lower Sapperton provides an interesting collection of geographic opportunities that might make for a very successful system. But before the details, let’s do a quick primer on District Energy Utilities.

Like any other utility, a DEU is one where a single entity supplies the source and distribution system of a vital commodity, usually as a monopoly, and therefore covered by the BC Utilities Act. That Act assures the public can benefit from the inherent efficiency of a single supplier and integrated supply network, but that the consumer does not get gouged by the lack of competition. When you think of our drinking water supply or electricity grid, it is hard to imagine how else it could be managed. When it comes to “energy”, the concept is a little less clear.

An energy utility produces heat energy (usually through a boiler or heat exchanger), and distributes it (usually in the form of hot water or steam) to a selection of customers. For a variety of reasons, efficiencies can be found in producing the energy in a central site and distributing it widely, instead of having a small boiler in every building. This efficiency can be enhanced by building a larger-scale high efficiency system, and the sustainability of the entire utility improved by choosing a sustainable energy source.

Think about your typical apartment building. New ones generally have electric baseboard heaters around the periphery of glass-walled suites. This relies on the inherent efficiency of the province-wide BC Hydro electrical grid to be affordable, but at the local level, it is not in the least bit efficient. Older buildings are more likely to have boilers in the basement that burn natural gas and heat water which in turn circulates through the building to warm the rooms. The efficiency of this type of system relies on the efficiency of the boiler and the engineering of the distribution network in the building.

A DEU is like the second example. A single water-heating facility, and a system of pipes that moves hot water to the customer buildings. In each of those buildings, a high-efficiency heat pump turns the DEU-heated water into intra-building heated water, and distributes the warmth through the building. In theory, this entire system can also be designed to take heat out of the building in the summer, like any other heat pump.

There are several examples of DEUs operating in the lower mainland, and I have toured two of them. The first, and most famous, is the Southeast False Creek DEU. This is fast becoming the model of a “medium temperature” district energy system whose main energy source is the heat of sewage water.

Diagram from City of Vancouver website. 

There happens to be a big sanitary sewer line than runs by the site, and due to the fact we heat much of the water we use before we dispose of it, and there is so much …uh…organic activity in our sewage, it tends to be warm. There is so much warm sewage in this line that stripping off a few degrees of heat (the temperature exchanger reduces the sewage temperature by less than 5 degrees centigrade) results in a huge amount of energy to run the heat pump. There is enough energy that the system provides the vast majority of the heating and hot water for the buildings being built around the utility. The utility also has an efficient gas-fired boiler to “boost” the energy demand for those few days a year when Vancouver gets really cold and an exceptional amount of energy is needed. At full build-out, the sewage heat will supply about 70% of the total energy needs of the community.

The second example I have toured recently is in the Alexandria neighbourhood of Richmond. This is a very different system, although the fundamental idea is the same. The difference is that this is a “low temperature” system that relies on geothermal energy source. This energy source is a field of 250-foot deep metal loops with a coolant running through them.

Image from City of Richmond website.

As groundwater a couple of hundred feet down is always around 12 degrees centigrade, the temperature between this temperature and heating season ambient temperatures is small (hence “low temperature”) but it still produces a surprising amount of energy. The system is also scaleable, and as the surrounding neighbourhood is built up and more energy is required, the system can be easily scaled up, using pretty much any energy source, from more geothermal to solar water heating to sewer heat (as the local waste water volume ramps up with development).

When I toured the Alexandra energy centre, it still had that New Utility Smell. 

These systems provide significant benefits for users (as energy prices become more stable – not linked to volatile gas or electricity markets), for the environment (replacing fossil fuels and inefficient baseboards with a highly efficient heating system), and for the City that builds them (once the capital costs are paid off- about 10-20 years depending on the system, these utility systems should be a revenue source for the operator).

Back here in New Westminster, it appears from the report to Council, the proposed DEU will be a “medium temperature” variety, not unlike the Southeast False Creek system. This makes sense with the intensity of energy use from a relatively compact footprint. There is also the proposal to use waste heat from a major trunk sanitary sewer that happens to run right by the spot. Clearly, there are details to work out, but we are not inventing a wheel here, we are potentially benefiting from a system that is already successfully operating in hundreds of places, and has already proven itself to be financially sound and energy efficient.

The other option floated is to use a gasification plant to burn waste wood, which is the system that powers Victoria’s groundbreaking Dockside Green development, and also happens to be the system that the Kruger paper plant in New Westminster uses to produce power and steam, significantly reducing their greenhouse gas production by reducing the need to burn gas. I cannot emphasise enough this system is very different that a trash incinerator like the one in Burnaby. First off, the emissions from a gasification plant are remarkably low (and easily cleaned), and secondly, the waste wood represents biospheric carbon, not fossil carbon, so it does not increase the net greenhouse gas budget of the planet.

Actually, since both of these heat sources can be used on the same system, as they both represent “medium temperature” energy sources, and there is not reason (except maybe the economics of scale efficiencies) that the City cannot build both systems, in a staged approach as the Hospital expansion, the final pieces in the Brewery District, and other developments in the area take place.

So this is first steps, but it is good to hear the City is taking this idea seriously.

“Getting to Yes”

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Further to poorly-framed arguments supporting specific hydrocarbon-transportation projects, there was this recent opinion piece written by John Winter, who is the President and CEO of the British Columbia Chamber of Commerce. It was, frankly, disappointing. Not because I disagree with Mr. Winter, but because it was so poorly argued.

The opinion was in response to this previous piece in the same Important CanWest Newspaper of Record. In the first piece, economist Robyn Allen pointed out that the economic arguments being made by Enbridge on the Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal were “just not true”. Ms. Allen, in a tightly-argued 600 words, explained the factual misrepresentations in Enbridge’s claims, from the perspective of an economist, using Enbridge’s own numbers. No-where does she suggest the Northern Gateway, or any other project, should be stopped. Instead, she simply criticizes, point-by-point and from a position of considerable knowledge, the mis-characterization of the economic impact of the project as presented in the proposal. She then suggests:

“In the interests of transparency and accountability, British Columbians deserve better than what Enbridge seems capable of delivering.”

Mr Winter’s response to this argument does not engage in the same detailed analysis of the data presented by Enbridge, nor does he directly address any of Ms. Allen’s actual points. Instead he engages in over-the-top and largely fact-free rhetoric. He further characterizes her argument as an “intellectual exercise” to undermine the project:

“It’s disturbing to see how much British Columbian ingenuity is being channelled into our province’s alarming — and growing — ‘culture of no.’ And for what gain?”

I don’t know where I got this idea, but I suspect the gain Ms. Allen was aiming for is that the conversation be “in the interests of transparency and accountability”.

You see, Ms. Allen is a scientist who studied, spent a career working in, and teaches economics. It is her job to scrutinize economic augments and determine if they are fact-based or not. If Mr. Winters disagreed with her factual information, he might have made a counter-point. Instead he engages in a bunch of irrelevant hyperbole:

“In virtually every corner of the province, we’re seeing the same thing: Smart, highly environmentally responsible projects that can employ our children and keep our towns alive are being battered, paralyzed and stomped out.”

I’m not sure what dusty corners of the Province Mr. Winters is spending his time, but the vast majority of large industrial projects in BC are being stomped upon only by rubber stamps. If one looks at the BC Environmental Assessment Office records, one can look at the history of project proposals in BC since the Act came into force in 1995.

Completed:       128
Refused:           3
Pre-application:  69
Exempt:           22
Terminated:        6
Under Review:     10
Withdrawn:        21
Total:           259

So of 259 projects, exactly 3 have been refused permits. That is just over 1%. In contrast, 150 were either issued certificates or were found to be exempt from the process. That is 58%. If you re-calculate those numbers without including 79 that have not yet reached the decision stage, 83% of projects have achieved approvals. Where is the alleged battery occurring here?

As an aside,the Federal EA process numbers are very similar. Well, they were, until the Federal Government in one stroke of a pen in 2012 changed the Federal EA Act, such that thousands of Federal Environmental Assessments will simply not happen now. Where before there was scrutiny, proponents can now fill their boots.

But back to the Project in question: the Northern Gateway Pipeline. Mr Winters continues:

“So there’s a lot at stake here. And frankly, what’s yet to be decided has nothing to do with project economics (which, Ms. Allan, are frankly settled), but rather how we balance economic value against other B.C. priorities, as the Joint Review Panel is assessing.”

This is actually where Mr. Winters is wrongest. Ms. Allen has aptly demonstrated that the project economics are far from settled, and there still exists debate. At the very least, some clarification is required from the project proponent.

It is interesting that many of the environmental protection measures that come out of this type of Environmental Assessment are codified in the review documents as conditions of approval. For example, if the exclusive use of double-hulled tankers was promised by Enbridge, then using single-hulled tankers would be a breach of the Approval, and the certificate can be removed, shutting down the project. However, none of the “economic” commitments have the same status. Enbridge could promise to employ every adult person north of 50 degrees, then only employ three people once the assessment is done, and there would be no recourse for the Province or communities to whom the promises were made. I’m not saying they would do that, but that makes it important that any assessment of the anticipated economic impacts be as accurate, fact-based and defensible as possible- we only get one crack at that part of the project review.

“And with this project, as with any that proposes such substantial benefits for B.C., we hope that British Columbians will take a close look at what’s to gain here. We certainly don’t ask that environmental or community concerns be sidelined. But we’d ask that jobs and economic value not be sidelined as well.”

Ms. Allen is not sidelining economic values, she is assuring they are properly assessed so that we can, as British Columbians, take the close look at what’s to gain for which Mr. Winters is asking. Surely, the CEO and President of the BC Chamber of Commerce wants the public to be provided with factual information, both when they question the economic gains, and when they question the environmental impacts. That is why we have Environmental Assessments, and that is why responsible businesses engage in them.

Alas.

The entire argument presented by Mr. Winters is framed around “Getting to Yes”, which has become one of those abstract rhetorical phrases that everyone thinks they understand, but in reality it means different things to different people, and is actually completely meaningless. Mr. Winters suggests we need to “Get to Yes” on these projects. But who is it, exactly, that needs to “Get to Yes”?

Does the Provincial Government need to “Get to Yes” by bypassing (or tossing out a la Stephen Harper) their own environmental assessment laws, ignoring the environmental protections afforded by Provincial Law, Federal Law, and our constitutional responsibility to First Nations?

Does the Media need to “Get to Yes” by continuing to publish fact-free editorials that would have us believe that 3 certificate refusals out of 256 applications is some sort of war on resource development?

Does the public need to “Get to Yes” by agreeing to whatever Enbridge says, and refusing to listen to people who point out factual errors in what they promise?

No. It is Enbridge who needs to “Get to Yes”. They will get there by providing realistic data about what they have to offer BC, and what the risks to BC (economic and environmental) are. Then they need to convince us that those risks are managed and mitigated to the point that the economic development they are offering us is sufficient payment.

It is possible that Enbridge will not, with this project, ever “Get to Yes”. But that would not be from a failure of British Columbians to dream, it would be from a failure of Enbridge to convince us they are good for our future.

Getting serious about Coal

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

Hi folks! Great to be back. August was killer, and many stories will be told, I’m sure. Now back to your regular programming.

I wasn’t sure what to write about at first, but look what the good people at one of the local CanWest Serious Newspapers of Record dropped on my lap – like manna dropped on the desert floor of my blog…

I stumbled across a pretty hilarious “op-ed” in the Vancouver Sun yesterday. I thought maybe it was clever satire in the Colbert Report style, but when I saw the byline and noted the affiliation with Patrick Moore and his Greenwashing Cabal, I realized the writer was trying to be serious. This is and example of why I stopped lamenting the demise of dead-tree news, if this is the best they have to offer. At least the Province has a decent Sports Section.

The opinion (if I can paraphrase) is that mining and export of coal is good, right, and ethically the best thing we can do, because without us supplying them coal, the developing world is doomed to eternal poverty and we will be able to get fewer gadgets from China; climate change be damned.

However, there are deeper issues with the opinions stated, which I would like to address individually:

“First, despite the current trend away from coal to cheap gas, China and other developing countries will need coal for the foreseeable future. The morality of denying them access to it is questionable. For hundreds of millions in China and elsewhere, consuming coal for electricity and heat is not a choice.”

This is sort of true, except that it isn’t. Burning coal for electricity and heat is every bit a choice for emerging economies as it is for us in British Columbia. Just like us, it is an economic choice, made for economic reasons by economic satisficers. In British Columbia, we have decided, despite our ample coal resources, to not burn coal to generate electricity or heat, because of the negative consequences to our communities, and instead generate electricity by (in descending importance) through hydroelectricity, by burning oil and gas, wood waste, garbage, and other alternatives. Cost may or may not have been the primary driver for BC making that choice, but it was no doubt a choice we made for economic reasons. Other countries have made different choices, based on their local economic situation, but it is a choice.

“Removing North American coal supplies from the market will not reduce consumption, but will likely increase prices.”

Notice how Patrick Moore’s young apprentice has mastered the self-contradictory argument skills of his master. If we fail to provide a cheap route to get coal to market, or otherwise restrict supply, coals prices will indeed increase, if one believes in supply and demand economics. Of course, the other half of supply and demand is that if the prices go up, demand will drop, as the alternatives to coal become more economically attractive. This will, no doubt result in reduced consumption. You can’t have one without the other, as coal is a commodity with negative elasticity.

“It will also encourage coal mining in less safe jurisdictions. Is it right for us to impose such hardships on our fellow human beings while presenting no current practical alternatives?”

The thinking gets yet sketchier here. If we don’t supply coal, then the increased value of coal may, indeed, increase coal mining in other jurisdictions, some of them being “less safe” than ours. However, compare this discussion of “imposing hardships” on others by encouraging resource extraction with the rest of this op-ed (where resource extraction is seen as the ticket to prosperity by driving economic development and innovation), to find deeper self-contradiction:

“One way some pundits make such imprudence look clever is to style natural resource wealth as a handicap, as if knowledge-based sectors falter when resource extraction thrives. But this is a false argument because the extractive sectors are knowledge-based and already rich with intellectual capital. Just ask any geologist, engineer, or GIS software designer. Resource wealth drives innovation, not the opposite.”

So resource extraction is good for every aspect of our economy- but we would not want to “impose that hardship” on developing nations where it might be “less safe”, would we? Which is it Grasshopper?

“Another inconvenient reality is that poverty in the developing world will worsen if we manipulate energy supplies. Industrialization reduces poverty by releasing agrarian families from mere subsistence. It creates higher paying jobs, enabling increased education for children and autonomy for women. Over the long term, this results in a more affluent, service- and knowledge-based economy. The energy driving this gradual process is coal. Blocking North American coal supplies to Asia risks driving up the cost of living for the world’s poor.”

This is an excellent example of the Bifurcation Fallacy– or more colloquially, a False Dichotomy, very popular with Dr. Moore’s writing. The writer here is suggesting that without coal, the developing world cannot possibly achieve autonomy for women or any of the other benchmarks of development. Clearly this is bullshit. There are many paths to prosperity and higher levels of development, and there are many ways a developing nation can fulfill its energy needs. The corollary argument also does not work, as ample supplies of cheap energy hardly guarantees egalitarian societies. Saudi Arabia anyone?

Also, let’s get over this illusion that the world’s poorest people rely on coal. The world’s 2.5 Billion poorest people have no access to coal at all, but instead burn wood or dung as their one and only fuel source. China (the oft-repeated example here) produces 47% of the world’s coal, but burns 47% of the world’s coal. China is not a net coal importer – any coal it does import or export is for economic trade reasons, not for the benefit of supplying energy to its poorest citizens. If you list the 10 countries that consume the most coal in the world you end up with this:

Country         Tonnes     %     Member  GDP rank
China         3,826,869   47%    G20        2
USA           1,003,066   12%    G8         1
India           721,419    9%    G20        9
Russia          256,691    3%    G8        10
Germany         256,661    3%    G8         4
South Africa    201,403    2%    G20       28
Japan           192,854    2%    G8         3
Poland          152,988    2%              24
Korea, South    139,481    2%    G20       15
Australia       131,174    2%    G20       12

So 85% of the world’s coal is consumed in only 10 countries, 4 of them in the G8 (the 8 largest economies in the world), and all the rest but Poland are in the G20. All of them are in the top 28 largest economies in the world. If you take the coal burned by the 20 member countries in the G20, the other 180+ countries in the world are left with only 11% of the coal. The vast majority of coal is being burned by the relatively well-off in developed economies, not by the poor in the Third World.

Giving the poorest nations a lump of coal is much more Grinch-like than Santa-like.

“Yes, the negative environmental, health and safety impacts of coal mining and use are significant. Poor countries are not oblivious to coal’s negative impact, but they need it at present to better the standard of living for their citizens. Why not provide these countries with North American coal that’s mined according to tough environmental and safety guidelines, creating well-paying jobs and prosperous communities on this side of the Pacific?”

Am I the only one confused by this line of reasoning? It seems to suggest we are actually helping out the poor by facilitating the introduction of negative health, environmental and safety impacts on them, while we get the well-paying jobs and prosperous communities? How does a person in India benefit from Canada’s “tough environmental and safety regulations” when a coal-fired power plant next to his house in Calcutta has no such regulations?

“And why not encourage them to use the latest coal burning and scrubber technologies to reduce air pollutants?”

Ahhh… the simple solution. Of course. Except it is untenable and contradictory to the rest of the argument. How do we “encourage” another country to install expensive scrubbing technologies? I thought this article was arguing that coal was used by poorer countries because it is affordable and they are so teetering on the edge of energy collapse that if we make it any less affordable by lowering the supply, the poor will go without energy and suffer. Now the article suggests if the poor would just get their act together and spend some money scrubbing their dirty coal, it will be just fine. His might be the paragraph that best straddles the line from ignorance to parody.

Note: you really can’t “scrub” the greenhouse gasses out of coal emissions, but I digress.

“The problem with public discourse on coal is that simplistic answers are preferred over holistic, well-reasoned and defensible solutions. Coal adds to global warming and therefore we should ban it, they say. But the truth is we can’t ban coal. Australia will be more than happy to rake in the billions we will be leaving on the table for them.”

Here we have another common Logical Fallacy known as the “Strawman”. Make a hopelessly weak version of the opposing view, then have fun flogging that weak position.

The arguments against the expansion of coal exports through BC ports are not simplistic, but remarkably complex and multi-faceted. Some raise concerns regarding the health impacts of coal dust moving through our communities, some are concerned about the implications of moving bulk coal through our sensitive ecosystems, some argue that it is unethical to mine and export a product that is simply too dirty and unsafe for us to burn domestically – If coal is too dirty for BC to burn for energy (as our Provincial Government has codified in law), why are we OK with profiteering from its use elsewhere? Others argue that the mining and export of coal without accounting for the carbon impacts violates the spirit of, if not the letter of, the Provincial Greenhouse Gas Emission laws.

Holistically speaking, coal is a disaster for the planet. It was a pollution disaster in London in the 19th Century, an acid rain disaster for the Great Lakes in the 20th Century, and is a public health disaster for China in the 21st Century. If we don’t figure out alternatives, or find some magic bullet to sequester the resulting carbon dioxide, it will continue to contribute to a Climate Change disaster in the 22nd Century.

The answer to mitigating this disaster- moving on to a post-coal economy, is not at all simplistic, nor is anyone suggesting it is simplistic It is complex and will create hardship for people in coal towns, and for aspects of the economy that rely on coal extraction and burning. But it must happen, so we need to figure out how to get there with the least possible human impact.

What is simplistic is the argument that coal is great for our economy, and if we don’t sell it, Australia will get all of our money, so Damn the Torpedoes! There are lots of things that are potentially “good for the economy” that we choose not to do – from exporting asbestos to engaging in the trade of slaves to killing sperm whales for ambergris. All were perfectly legal in the past, but the world (with notable exceptions) has moved on, as social and economic pressure was applied to those few countries that still engaged in the activities. Some of that starts with small, symbolic acts, like those taking place up and down the west coast of North America, where communities from California to British Columbia are deciding that the local and international cost of coal extraction and burning is such that they no longer want to draw their income that way.

I am glad the author made a passing reference to greenhouse gases in his Op-Ed, like it is one of those little accessory issues, and not the centre of the entire argument about promoting reliance on coal on other nations. Not mentioned is the (ahem) inconvenient fact that it is the very poor in underdeveloped nations who will suffer the most from the impacts of Climate Change. Suggesting that burning more coal will help the world’s poor is wrong; to suggest we should have some sort of economic battle with Australia to see who can sell the most coal to the world’s poor is unethical in a deep way.

“Coal is not just a much-loathed rock we can toss aside; it’s part of the fabric of our human existence. We have a complex relationship with coal built over millennia.”

Replace the word “coal” with “cancer” in that paragraph: it makes the paragraph no less true, and no less relevant.

“We can’t rashly break it off over night.”

No, but we can begin to transition our economy away from coal, and there is no need to be rash about it. Limiting our exports to current levels as opposed to unlimited expansion, is hardly rash, and what people that the author disparages are currently suggesting. Putting a moratorium on expansion of new coal mining in British Columbia until the science catches up to dealing with the environmental impacts would also be a good step. Alternately, let’s start to include the true carbon footprint of coal in the accounting of how we mine and sell it, and apply the carbon tax to this industry to remove their competitive advantage over other job-creating industries in the Province that currently pay a Carbon Tax.

Perhaps if the true cost of coal is accounted, we will discover its reputation as “cheap energy” will be proven false, and our strange love affair with it will end. Like often happens when a relationship isn’t doing us much good, our friends are often afraid to have a serious talk to us about how we are hurting ourselves and the people around us. It’s time to sit down with coal and have a serious talk.