Pipelines

[Brad Sallows]

Can anyone take a guess on whether countries like China or Russia want the highlighted above for Canada? Or would they rather see a muted and weakened West?

We now know of significant CCP interference in our elected government... what are the odds our current elected government is doing exactly what it's doing because of CCP influence?

What I have seen so far does not convince me the interference is "significant". Sure, they're playing for influence. That's been going on for decades, by a handful of notorious offenders. Official Canada ought to stand up a lot more firmly and draw lines that it won't cross.

 

[YZT580]

What I have seen so far does not convince me the interference is "significant". Sure, they're playing for influence. That's been going on for decades, by a handful of notorious offenders. Official Canada ought to stand up a lot more firmly and draw lines that it won't cross.

if the interference influenced just a single decision then it is significant.

 

[Kirkhill]

But the EU's actions will complicate the picture and embolden opponents.

Consider me emboldened.

I don't live in a location where I will never be more than 25 miles from a rapid charger point.

Net zero ban on petrol cars in chaos after Brussels climbdown​

Proposals to ditch internal combustion engines face crisis following 'e-fuels' exemption in EU

ByDaniel Martin, DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR ; Howard Mustoe and Oliver Gill, CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT28 March 2023 • 9:46pm

A looming British ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars was thrown into chaos on Tuesday after Brussels watered down its own restrictions amid opposition from the German auto industry.

Experts and politicians warned that British rules due to take effect in 2030 are untenable following the European climbdown, which will allow internal combustion engines as long as they burn carbon-neutral petrol alternatives.

The European Union will now ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2035 but permit these so-called e-fuels following a backroom compromise forced on it by the German authorities and signed off on Tuesday night.

Sources suggested that Whitehall was considering following the Commission's lead by also allowing an e-fuel exemption. British carmakers Aston Martin and McLaren are already understood to be examining e-fuels as an option for powering future models.

Critics of the Government's net zero plans seized on the European Union's decision as evidence that a total policy rethink is needed, while campaigners including Greenpeace have said that it could slow down electric vehicle adoption.


It comes as Grant Shapps, the Energy Secretary, prepares to announce new green measures as part of an “energy security day” on Thursday.
The former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: “The 2030 deadline for the elimination of petrol and diesel engine cars in the UK is simply not achievable.
“Unless we delay, we hand a massive boost to the Chinese car manufacturers. They are already dominant.”

Britain is to ban the sale of new cars that run on petrol and diesel only in seven years' time under plans drawn up by former prime minister Boris Johnson.

New hybrids will still be allowed until 2035, at which point the UK will only permit fully electric cars and other zero-emission vehicles, such as those which burn hydrogen.

The EU's e-fuel exemption will allow a synthetic alternative to petrol which is made by mixing carbon dioxide captured from the air with hydrogen obtained by splitting water molecules using renewable energy.

This is expected to be far more expensive than petrol, meaning it will initially benefit high-end carmakers whose customers will not be put off by the costs involved.

However, Benedetto Vigna, the boss of Ferrari, said this week that he expects the price to fall in coming years and experts believe it could be the thin end of a wedge that would allow carmakers to focus on producing lower-cost e-fuels instead of expensive battery powered cars.
Andrew Graves, a car industry veteran and professor at the University of Bath, said: “I think it's a very exciting technology that we're looking at, so that we can not only use it for things like motorsport, but we can also more importantly use it for keeping existing vehicles on the road.
“I think there's a lot of things that the Government needs to look at before it goes hell bent on just having a blanket ban on diesel or petrol.”
Mr Graves added that there is already a risk that not enough electric car chargers and battery-making plants will have been built when the ban takes effect – a problem that may worsen if carmakers sense it is being watered down.

Brussels' decision is also likely to raise questions about how enforceable a British ban on petrol and diesel would be if similar rules are not followed in the EU – particularly given the open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, which could facilitate easy movement of new European vehicles.

It comes as Mr Shapps prepares to unveil ways to speed up Britain’s move towards nuclear energy, including the confirmation that the Government wants 25pc of UK electricity to be generated from nuclear by 2050.

He will also kick-start the use of small modular reactors in Britain, and improve the country’s capacity for carbon capture storage.
An announcement on the timetable for sales of new petrol and diesel cars is likely to form part of the package.

But the EU's actions will complicate the picture and embolden opponents.


Sir John Redwood, a former Tory cabinet minister, said: “Britain is in a desperate struggle to keep its car industry, and if we insist on phasing petrol and diesel out well before anyone else, we will find it harder to attract investment.


“The Government needs to listen to the Germans and take advice on this. The more permissive an economy is, and the fewer bans there are, the better to promote growth.”

Ben Houchen, the Tees Valley mayor, said: “It comes down to the fact of the importance of a transition. What the Europeans are realising, and what we will realise quite shortly is that a transition is quite important.

“And a transition can't be a cliff-edge in 2025 or 2030. It is going to take longer to transition. Not just the technology, but for businesses and the economy to accommodate the abolition of certain technologies.

“I don't think it compromises the push to net zero. It just helps people realise that the transition has a longer tail than people realise.”
The EU climbdown followed months of lobbying by the German government on behalf of its car manufacturing industry. Porsche has invested $75m (£61m) in a pilot plant to make e-fuels.

The Telegraph understands that the British government is prepared to follow the EU's lead, with the Department for Transport understood to be amenable towards synthetic fuels so long as the industry can prove that they will be carbon neutral.

A government spokesman said: “We remain committed to ensuring all new cars and vans are zero emission at the tailpipe by 2035, and have invested more than £2bn to help people switch.

“Today drivers on England’s motorways and major A roads are never more than 25 miles from a rapid chargepoint, and we expect the charging network to expand tenfold by 2030.”

Greg Smith, a Tory MP who sits on the transport select committee, said: "Groupthink has dictated battery electric to be the way forward for too long when we're already seeing the technology fail and not develop at the pace people need.

"The 2030 ambition isn't realistic in the first place and we need the innovators and the automotive companies to be given the time and space to produce a time and space and not just jump to the betamax that's available now."

Philip Davies, a member of the Tory net zero scrutiny group, said: “It's a devil when you're getting more common sense out of the EU than you are the UK Government. This arbitrary, ridiculous 2030 deadline is idiotic and everybody knows it's idiotic. Nobody seems to be able to say that the emperor's got no clothes on, even though everybody can see it.

"If a rare outbreak of common sense in the EU is what it takes for the Government to change their position, hallelujah to that."
In the UK, Bentley is understood to be pressing ahead with its programme of electrification, shunning the extra expense of developing new combustion cars.

However, sources at Aston Martin and McLaren said the companies are interested in e-fuels.

Greenpeace described the Brussels climbdown as a "rotten compromise".

Net zero ban on petrol cars in chaos after Brussels climbdown

Proposals to ditch internal combustion engines face crisis following 'e-fuels' exemption in EU

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Kirkhill]

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/03/27/the_energy_transition_is_a_delusion_indeed_889761.html

The Energy Transition Is a Delusion Indeed​

By Benjamin Zycher
March 27, 2023


The “energy transition” continues to receive thunderous applause from all the usual Beltway suspects, an exercise in groupthink fantasy amazing to behold. For those with actual lives to live and thus uninterested in silliness: The “energy transition” is a massive shift, wholly artificial and politicized, from conventional energy inexpensive (Table 1b and here), reliable, and very clean given the proper policy environment, toward such unconventional energy technologies as wind and solar power. They are expensive, unreliable, and deeply problematic environmentally in terms of toxic metal pollution, wildlife destruction, land use massive and unsightly, emissions of conventional pollutants, and in a larger context large and inexorable reductions in aggregate wealth and thus the social willingness to invest in environmental protection.
But the Beltway being what it is, the fantasists are impervious to reality, until the massive costs and dislocations and absurdities become impossible to ignore. (Witness, for example, California.) Even as they backtrack on their confident assertions that a modern economy can be powered with the energy equivalent of pixie dust, they argue that the emerging problems are little more than growing pains attendant upon short run rigidities, and all will be well given some more time, more subsidies, and more magical thinking.

Uh, no. The obstacles confronting the “energy transition” are fundamental — they are caused by the very nature of unconventional energy — driven by massive costs, technical and engineering realities, severe constraints in terms of needed physical inputs, and at a political level growing local opposition to the unconventional energy facilities central to the “transition.”
These realities — there’s that word again — are discussed in detail in a major recent paper by Mark P. Mills of the Manhattan Institute. This brief discussion cannot do it justice, but let us first quote Mills directly:
In these circumstances, policymakers are beginning to grasp the enormous difficulty of replacing even a mere 10% share of global hydrocarbons—the share supplied by Russia—never mind the impossibility of trying to replace all of society’s use of hydrocarbons with solar, wind, and battery (SWB) technologies. Two decades of aspirational policies and trillions of dollars in spending, most of it on SWB tech, have not yielded an “energy transition” that eliminates hydrocarbons. Regardless of climate-inspired motivations, it is a dangerous delusion to believe that spending yet more, and more quickly, will do so. The lessons of the recent decade make it clear that SWB technologies cannot be surged in times of need, are neither inherently “clean” nor even independent of hydrocarbons, and are not cheap.
Mills makes a number of hard realities clear, among which are the following:

• The realities of the physics, engineering, and economics of energy systems are independent of any beliefs about climate change.
• Europe, the U.S. and Canada, Australia and the other regions that have pursued power grids with a higher share of wind and solar electricity uniformly have experienced large increases in electricity costs, and even that effect hides the costs of the massive subsidies borne by taxpayers.
• It costs at least $30 to store the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil using lithium batteries, which explains why batteries cannot compensate for the unreliable nature of wind and solar power even for days, let alone weeks. “There is no physics, never mind engineering or economies of scale” that would overcome this cost disadvantage.
• The time cost alone of recharging an electric vehicle makes such vehicles uncompetitive, even apart from the costs of the batteries and other problems.
• The International Energy Agency estimates that only a partial energy transition would require increases in the supplies of lithium, graphite, nickel, and rare earths by 4,200%, 2,500%, 1,900%, and 700%, respectively, by 2040. This staggering problem of materials is “inherent in the nature of SWB technologies,” which means that the cost of unconventional energy will rise even more.

Nonetheless, the delusions continue. Mr. Amos Hochstein, an official at the Department of State, testified before a Senate committee recently that “The imperative [is] to diversify away from Russian energy dependence while accelerating the clean energy transition,” and that “The most effective way to reduce demand for Russian fossil fuels is to reduce dependence on all fossil fuels.”
Got that? Were the Europeans to reduce their dependence upon unreliable deliveries of Russian natural gas, and increase their dependence upon unconventional energy even more unreliable, there will result an increase in European “energy security.” Wow.
This is utter delusion, as Mills demonstrates incontrovertibly. But the Beltway continues in its imitation of George Orwell’s world, in which “War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, and Ignorance Is Strength.” The “energy transition” translation: “Expensive Energy Is Cheap, Environmentally Destructive Energy Is Clean, and Central Planning Will Yield Utopia.” Only fools can believe such things. Much of the Beltway believes them.

 

[Kirkhill]

the car industry can now work developing what could be the ideal compromise: plug-in vehicles which could run 50 miles or so in pure electric mode, but which have a small engine – powered by synthetic fuel – to keep the battery charged on longer trips.

The EU's Net Zero plan is in tatters - and not a moment too soon​

The bloc is backtracking on its plan to ban combustion engines. It's time for Britain to follow suit
ROSS CLARK29 March 2023 • 2:45pm

If anyone had any lingering doubts that the EU is run by German car-makers (in association with French farmers), they will surely have been dispelled by the news that the bloc is to backtrack on its plan to ban combustion engines from new vehicles by 2035. While petrol and diesel cars will still be banned, carbon neutral synthetic "e-fuels" will be permitted. While bringing the EU's green juggernaut to a skidding halt may have required some very powerful lobbying, it is also the right decision.
Proposed bans on petrol and diesel cars in the EU and in Britain were put in place without any proper consideration as to whether electric cars were capable of replacing them. It was simply assumed that improvements in technology would solve the issues of range, ease of recharging, the cost of buying electric cars and their over-reliance on rare metals such as cobalt – which are extracted in troubled parts of the world. Yet prices of electric cars – not to mention the electricity to run them – have remained stubbornly high. Moreover, their manufacture can involve rather more emissions than a petrol or diesel equivalent.
Some are already trying to play down the significance of the EU’s decision, arguing that "e-fuels" will be so expensive that internal combustion engines will become a high-end, niche product. Yet two decades ago, long before we had a net zero target, drivers in Wales found to their pleasure (and to the annoyance of the then HM Customs and Excise) that an ordinary diesel engine could run quite happily on waste oil from chip shops. Since then, the government has made petrol with a 10 per cent renewable ethanol component the British standard, so most of us are already running our cars partly on non-fossil fuels.


As for synthetic fuels made from carbon dioxide and hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water, the German Aerospace Centre estimates such fuels could be made for aviation purposes using existing technology for around 2.26 Euros (£2 per litre). That is expensive – it currently costs around 50 pence to produce a litre of unleaded, the rest being tax and distribution costs – but it is not much higher than recent at-pump prices. The EU’s change of heart means that the car industry can now work developing what could be the ideal compromise: plug-in vehicles which could run 50 miles or so in pure electric mode, but which have a small engine – powered by synthetic fuel – to keep the battery charged on longer trips.

But what will Britain do? The government is showing no signs that its own ban on petrol and diesel cars will not go ahead as planned – which would mean no new pure petrol and diesels sold after 2030, and no hybrids from 2035. This is foolish, and the government will be forced to reconsider. No manufacturer is going to make cars exclusively with the UK market in mind, so if the internal combustion engine does remain a standard product in Europe and elsewhere in the world, UK motorists are going to find themselves restricted to a handful of pure – and expensive – electric models. What remains of our car industry will be put under even greater pressure.
If the electric car makers do improve and bring down the cost of their product, then that's great – most of us will want to drive them. But in keeping options open for internal combustion engines the EU, for once, has done something sensible that Britain should emulate.

---

Not Zero: How an Irrational Target Will Impoverish You, Help China (and Won’t Even Save the Planet) by Ross Clark is published by Forum Press

 

[Kirkhill]

Meanwhile - in Canada

The plan is to use Quebec and BC Hydro to create Hydrogen and turn the Maritimes into client states of Quebec Inc in the process.

Stop drilling holes in the ground for oil and gas and start digging bigger holes in the ground for lithium, cadmium, cobalt and similar stuff.

Dig more holes in the ground for uranium and thorium for nuclear reactors we have spent two generations saying can't work for Canadians.

Build more incinerators to burn waste in cities and wood chips in the boonies after spending two generations saying they can't work for Canadians.

Convert productive fields from growing cheap food to growing expensive fuel.

Install ridiculously long powerlines to get BC and Quebec electricity to market but deny pipelines which can be discretely tucked underground so as not to disturb the wildlife.

Build windmills - useful for tilting at if nothing else - they can join the powerlines as eyesores in the landscape.


The one bit of good news is that Carbon Capture technology has the possibility of keeping gas, oil, bitumen and coals in play as primary fuels.


If Biomass incinerators for cities and villages are being considered because their efficiencies are increased when considering the ability to distribute "waste" heat locally then riddle me this

Which is more energy efficient - converting every house in Canada to electricity

Or

Using the existing gas network to convert the existing furnaces into Combined Heat and Power plants, or even just to be the solution of choice for new builds.

Micro combined heat and power

Micro combined heat and power systems generate heat and electricity for your home at the same time, from the same energy source.

energysavingtrust.org.uk

 

[Kirkhill]

This is a Greenhouse

This is a Greenhouse Gas Generator

Some people know the GHG as a propane gas furnace.
It generates heat and CO2 which grow food.

This is a Greenhouse Gas Generator

It can produce Greenhouse Gas (CO2) and heat from natural gas and coal.
It has coal on site.
It produces electricity as a byproduct

With a Greenhouse

Canola can be grown year round ( 3 to 4 crops per year )
An onsite biorefinery can convert the canola into Biofuel to burn in tractors for the fields and aircraft to attend the necessary bio-summits.
The waste stubble can also be recycled back into the Greenhouse Gas Generator.


Coal to biofuels with electricity as a byproduct. That can be used for light to boost the growing season along with the waste heat and CO2.

 

[Kirkhill]

Don't they know we need to destroy their villages to save them?

We have a planet to save, dammit.

More holes. Bigger. Faster.

First Nations to protest Ontario’s accelerated mining development plans

The group says Ontario has granted thousands of mining claims without First Nations consent and is now trying to fast track approvals

www.theglobeandmail.com

 

[Fishbone Jones]

If humanity is still around in 1000 years, they will be looking back and laughing. Laughing at a civilization that has harnessed nuclear fusion but insisted on wasting time with windmills, solar panels and batteries.

 

[daftandbarmy]

If humanity is still around in 1000 years, they will be looking back and laughing. Laughing at a civilization that has harnessed nuclear fusion but insisted on wasting time with windmills, solar panels and batteries.

Why wait? Start laughing now...

There is no way that carbon based energy will be replaced by other energy sources in the foreseeable future. Neither will it be surpassed in its ability to generate revenue for all the bat shit crazy virtue signalling any government wants to throw out there...

Canada's natural resource wealth, 2021 (preliminary data)​

Higher crude oil and mineral prices combined to drive up the value of Canada's natural resource assets in 2021. Overall, the dollar value of selected natural resource reserves totalled $1,444 billion in 2021, a 149% increase from 2020. This increase came following a 30% decline the previous year during the COVID-19 pandemic. The value increased by 75% from 2019 to 2021.

Top natural wealth contributor in 2021: Energy resources​

In 2021 (preliminary data), energy resources made up over half (53%) of Canada's natural resource wealth, followed by mineral resources (28%) and timber (19%). This was a shift from 2020, when energy resources represented 21% of natural resource wealth, compared with 41% for mineral resources and 39% for timber.

Crude bitumen accounts for 63% of the energy resource value​

Preliminary estimates for 2021 show the value of energy resources, which consisted of coal, crude bitumen, crude oil, and natural gas, increased to $765 billion, compared with $120 billion the previous year. In 2021, the value of energy resources rebounded (+67%) compared with the pre-pandemic value in 2019 ($459 billion). Crude bitumen ($479 billion) was Canada's top natural wealth contributor in 2021, making up 33% of the total resource value.

Mineral resources recorded an increase in value of 73% for the year, up to $408 billion. In general, the rise was the result of stronger commodity prices compared with the previous year. The largest contributors to the increase were potash and iron values.

The value of timber assets was $270 billion in 2021 compared with $224 billion in 2020, representing a 21% increase.

The Daily — Canada's natural resource wealth, 2021 (preliminary data)

Higher crude oil and mineral prices combined to drive up the value of Canada's natural resource assets in 2021. Overall, the dollar value of selected natural resource reserves totalled $1,444 billion in 2021, a 149% increase from 2020. This increase came following a 30% decline the previous year...

www150.statcan.gc.ca

 

[Brad Sallows]

I see our federal government has a cunning plan to follow the US lead in providing funding to make unprofitable ventures temporarily profitable, which will spark a number of entrepreneurs to create temporarily profitable ventures, during which the subsidies will serve as profits (the much-lauded privatization of profits that Team Red and Team Orange favour) and following which - when the gravy taps are closed - the ventures will be wound up at the cost of whoever is stupid enough to be still holding the assets.

 

[Kirkhill]

Co-Dominium or Shared Sovereignty. Somebody figures out how to make money - regardless of what government says.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2401863855

Haida Gwai

Haisla Nation

As for "Willing Buyers"?

Do you reckon these cobalt miners would be bothered if they could afford to buy a tractor and the tractor was powered by West African diesel?

 

[daftandbarmy]

 

[KJK]

This is a Greenhouse

This is a Greenhouse Gas Generator

Some people know the GHG as a propane gas furnace.
It generates heat and CO2 which grow food.

This is a Greenhouse Gas Generator

It can produce Greenhouse Gas (CO2) and heat from natural gas and coal.
It has coal on site.
It produces electricity as a byproduct

With a Greenhouse

Canola can be grown year round ( 3 to 4 crops per year )
An onsite biorefinery can convert the canola into Biofuel to burn in tractors for the fields and aircraft to attend the necessary bio-summits.
The waste stubble can also be recycled back into the Greenhouse Gas Generator.


Coal to biofuels with electricity as a byproduct. That can be used for light to boost the growing season along with the waste heat and CO2.

I just want to point out that canola and rapeseed cannot be grown continuously on the same soil. By the 3rd or 4th consecutive crop 'blackleg' will destroy your entire crop. Their are blackleg resistant types of canola but none that I am aware of that will allow continuous cropping. This is the reason farmers practice crop rotation.

 

[Kirkhill]

I just want to point out that canola and rapeseed cannot be grown continuously on the same soil. By the 3rd or 4th consecutive crop 'blackleg' will destroy your entire crop. Their are blackleg resistant types of canola but none that I am aware of that will allow continuous cropping. This is the reason farmers practice crop rotation.

Fair comment.

Might have to move the biopolymer from one field to the next. And pump the fields full of ammonia and potash.

If we intend to control our environment let's go all in.

Or we could allow a little bit of natural buffering to occur and accept that we don't have to control everything.

 

[Kat Stevens]

I have had great fun traipsing around the old Blair Rifle Range on Mt Seymore with a detector and a shovel. The odd dog walker/granola smoker/bong water guzzler that stops and demands what I'm doin in "their" (it's not, they're trespassers) forest, I tell them we're doing a survey for either a cobalt or lithium mine. Only fair that they should pitch in for all those green energy vehicles, right? Some get pretty uncomfortable and squirrely until I let them off the hook.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I have had great fun traipsing around the old Blair Rifle Range on Mt Seymore with a detector and a shovel. The odd dog walker/granola smoker/bong water guzzler that stops and demands what I'm doin in "their" (it's not, they're trespassers) forest, I tell them we're doing a survey for either a cobalt or lithium mine. Only fair that they should pitch in for all those green energy vehicles, right? Some get pretty uncomfortable and squirrely until I let them off the hook.

My old stomping grounds!

It must be horribly overgrown these days.

Back in the 70s you could still walk along the firing points and mess around in the bunkers at each end (where we tested various IEDs, of course ).

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Co-Dominium or Shared Sovereignty. Somebody figures out how to make money - regardless of what government says.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2401863855

Haida Gwai

The Haida are pissed because all their former enemies are signing resource sharing deals and all the Haida get is a nice park. They killed logging on the Islands and tourism is a fickle mistress. There was a windfarm planned just off the east side of Graham Island, but that dies as well.

Meanwhile the Haisla and I can't repeat what they said to me about the pipeline protesters......

Haisla Nation taking delivery of new tugboats as B.C. LNG project approved to proceed - Canadian Energy Centre

The fleet includes three fully electric harbour tugs and two LNG-powered escort tugs

www.canadianenergycentre.ca

 

[daftandbarmy]

The Haida are pissed because all their former enemies are signing resource sharing deals and all the Haida get is a nice park. They killed logging on the Islands and tourism is a fickle mistress. There was a windfarm planned just off the east side of Graham Island, but that dies as well.

Meanwhile the Haisla and I can't repeat what they said to me about the pipeline protesters......

Haisla Nation taking delivery of new tugboats as B.C. LNG project approved to proceed - Canadian Energy Centre

The fleet includes three fully electric harbour tugs and two LNG-powered escort tugs

www.canadianenergycentre.ca

It will be interesting to watch the First Nations get into the competitive spirit, in ways apart from their traditional practises of taking slaves etc.

We could be seeing the dawn of a new age of thriving coastal capitalism!

 

[Colin Parkinson]

As I said before, much of the current leadership grew up listening to their elders about the Rights and Title fight, for all intents and purposes, they won that fight. Now the people on the Reserves want jobs and services and many of the leadership struggle with that as they don't have the skillsets. Most of the big companies will bend over backwards to help a band grow their capabilities and skills instead of just straight out money gifts.