If the oil industry isn’t going to operate on a zero spill mandate, when there are issues at sites and cleanups are not done quickly enough to satisfy area residents, a companies social license can be in jeopardy. That’s what’s happening in Louisiana. Many landowners in the southern state have been locked in a battle […]
Earthquakes spur more fears about fracking
A jump in the number of earthquakes in Oklahoma, and across the north central U.S. from Colorado to Ohio. Is it just a coincidence the increase in seismic activity if happening along with oil activity? That’s what scientists and regulators are trying to determine. Some seismologists believe waste water injected back into the ground is […]
Comment: Northern Gateway exposes Canada’s fractures
In late June, the federal government announced Enbridge’s $7.9-billion Northern Gateway Pipeline can proceed if it meets the National Energy Board’s 209 conditions. That’s indicative of a multiplicity of concerns around a project that includes a 1,200-kilometre pipeline that would traverse some of the most wild and spectacular terrain in Canada, and the shipping of […]
Northern oil spill exercise drills home the unknown
The first spill response drill conducted by the Alaska government, fuel shippers, and cleanup crews in the Bering Strait has given a measure for how much is still unknown about handling oil spills in the region. Department of Environmental Conservation will sort through the data collected and revise plans that are currently on the books. Colin […]
Comment: Pipeline east little benefit for Ontario
The Northern Gateway Project, promises to keep British Columbia mired in debate for years to come. Despite the National Energy Board’s recent approval, staunch opposition from First Nations groups and environmentalists looks set to suspend the pipeline in a state of legal limbo. Across the border, meanwhile, the high-stakes world of pipeline politics means U.S. […]
Comment: Let’s make use of our natural resources
I am appalled by the many frivolous lawsuits filed against the Northern Gateway pipeline project by various interest groups. If these groups had lived in the 1880s, when the Canadian Pacific Railway tunnels were chiseled through the Rocky Mountains, or in the 1950s and 1960s, when the Trans-Canada Highway, the longest in the world today, […]
Social licence – what does it mean?
One thing about big energy projects is they are bound to attract opposition groups. That is certainly the case for Enbridge’s Northern gateway pipeline. Despite the federal governments approval (pending conditions being met), opposition to the project forges on. In the past investors were able to think of these groups as obstacles that will be […]
Oil industry taking steps towards reducing environmental impact
GE and Suncor Energy have agreed to spend upwards of $18-million on technology to cut greenhouse gas emissions and water use in the oil sands. They are not the only two companies involved. Others are members of Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, an environmental technology sharing initiative. One deal would see a pilot […]
Comment: Climate plans amount to ‘wishful thinking’
Alberta’s strategy to address climate change has proven to be little more than “wishful thinking.” When the Alberta government introduced its Climate Change Strategy in 2008, the document was branded with the words “Responsibility, Leadership and Action” but eight years later – with greenhouse gas emissions nowhere close to meeting the provincial target – there’s […]
Plan to ship from the oil sands to the east coast runs into a snag
Oil-sands opponents rallied in Bretton Woods, N.H., where New England governors held their annual meeting with eastern Canadian premiers. On the table – energy trade and innovation. “We are calling on Northeast leaders to oppose projects that would bring more tar sands oil into the region, and to implement a regional clean fuel standard along […]