The Dominion - greenwashing

"Green Bitumen?!"

Sandra — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 12:39:24 +0000

Nuclear reactors in the tar sands

SASKATOON—What do you get when you cross a nuclear reactor with a hydraulic shovel-full of tar sands? The answer, according to the Canadian Energy Research Institute, is "Green Bitumen."

The brainchild of the nuclear industry, this novel concept of deploying small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) to replace natural gas is being sold as a solution to the tar sands' reputation for producing the largest carbon footprint on the planet. Nuclear is being touted as an environmentally friendly, "clean" energy source for the extraction process. But in order to make that claim, one must overlook the substantial carbon emissions in the nuclear "fuel cycle," from mining to ultimate disposal; the risks of weapons proliferation; the toxic radioactive footprint; and the legacy of highly radioactive waste left behind for many generations to come.

Several key players have expressed interest in deploying nuclear reactors in the tar sands, including: Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), a federal Crown corporation; SNC Lavalin Nuclear and its subsidiary Candu Energy Inc.; Bruce Power, one of Ontario's largest nuclear power generators and its parent company Cameco, the world's largest supplier of uranium; Toshiba, builder of the Fukushima Daiichi 3 power plant; Westinghouse; Aitel; Gen 4 (formerly Hyperion); and General Atomics. The governments of Canada, Alberta and Saskatchewan have at times all actively promoted this agenda. Also involved is the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), a major US Department of Energy nuclear research facility.

The nuclear industry, government and academia are pitching "Green Bitumen" to the tar sands industry and anyone else who will listen. Dr. Warren Bell, founding president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, sees wide and grave implications for the environment and public health should this message resonate with its target audience.

"The federal and provincial governments are intent on tying the tar sands to nuclear power. Their forlorn hope is that the putative 'greenness' of the latter will counteract the overwhelming 'blackness' of the former," Dr. Bell told The Dominion.

Nuclear reactors have been proposed for three different functions in the tar sands. They could produce high-pressure steam to heat up the underground deposits, inducing bitumen flow from Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) mines. They could supply electricity to the mines. And they could generate electricity to produce hydrogen from water. The hydrogen is used to "upgrade" bitumen into a product similar to conventional crude oil.

But attention is currently focused principally on high pressure steam production. Single-mine electricity requirements are too small to justify reactor purchase, and current hydrogen production methods—from natural gas—are much cheaper. Since the high reactor temperatures required for high pressure steam production exclude conventional designs, the nuclear industry will look to universities for taxpayer-subsidized research and development based on as-yet unproven, "fourth generation" SMR designs.

A reactor would serve one tar sands mining complex, producing at most 30,000 barrels/day; a 375MW-thermal reactor would provide sufficient steam. The same size of reactor would be rated at about 150MW if used to generate electricity, with the other 225MW lost to the atmosphere. For comparison, modern full-size reactors generate 1000 to 1500MW.

The first sign of a concerted effort towards nuclear reactors in the tar sands came in 2006, when the Alberta Energy Research Institute, the energy-technology arm of the provincial government, announced plans to participate in a study with the industry to define nuclear options for the tar sands. This was followed by a private presentation by AECL and Energy Alberta Corporation—a company later linked to Ontario's Bruce Power—to the provincial Conservative caucus in 2007. Two days later, the Alberta Conservative convention passed a resolution to explore using nuclear power plants to assist oil sands development.

In 2008, the provincial government established the Alberta Nuclear Power Expert Panel to study the proposals. Three of its four members were drawn from the oil and nuclear industries. In 2007, with support from their federal counterparts, provincial government officials had already entered into discussions with the Idaho National Laboratory and had reached an agreement to study ways to use nuclear energy in Alberta's oil and gas industry.

The Peace River Environmental Society and other concerned citizens began an intensive public campaign to resist Bruce Power’s application to build a large-scale nuclear reactor in Peace River country, in north-western Alberta. They argued that the application and review process was riddled with a lack of transparency and integrity, undermining its credibility.

"It's a sad commentary on our society when government institutions meant to protect and inform us become puppets of the industries that harm us. Their obstruction of the truth compromised the best interests of Albertans for the benefit of an industry that has created massive debt and contamination for Canadians for the past forty years," Peace River anti-nuclear activist Pat McNamara told The Dominion in an interview.

Faced with effective public opposition, Bruce Power finally withdrew its application in December 2011. But by then the focus had already moved on to Saskatchewan.

Even before the election of his Saskatchewan Party government in 2007, Brad Wall had decided to embrace a nuclear future. "Small reactor technology is coming on fast and may present an opportunity for our province to develop our oil sands in an environmentally responsible way as the new technology produces much-needed steam as well as energy," Wall said in May 2007, six months before his election as Premier, according to a Saskatchewan Party Caucus news release. In 2008, Bruce Power made a pitch to SaskPower, a provincial Crown corporation, extolling the benefits of a large-scale nuclear reactor in Saskatchewan, with the potential to export electricity to the Alberta tar sands and beyond.

The Uranium Development Partnership, a Saskatchewan review panel comprising university and industry representatives, was keen on moving the nuclear agenda forward. Its report with 20 recommendations to "revitalize and capture growth opportunities across the uranium value chain" was released in April 2009 and followed by a public consultation process over the summer months. Just as had happened in Alberta, the Saskatchewan government had already signed an agreement with the Idaho National Laboratory, in March 2009. According to a Saskatchewan government news release, the Memorandum of Understanding would provide "a mechanism for the government and INL to consider research and demonstration projects on a variety of energy sources and resources, including uranium, nuclear energy, heavy oil, oil shale and oil sands."

Public reaction and opposition to the nuclear proposals was swift. The Saskatchewan government ultimately had to retreat from the Bruce Power proposal, but then pursued a different strategy from Alberta. Public funds were made available for nuclear research and development at the University of Saskatchewan. Largely outside public purview, and in close collaboration with the University administration, the Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation (CCNI) was established in 2011 with $30 million of government seed money, as was reported in Briarpatch earlier this year. In the CCNI Business Framework, the government establishes that CCNI must meet expectations for nuclear industry enhancement over the next seven years. In a linked move, the Hitachi business group was also funded to conduct "research into the design and feasibility of small reactor technologies," according to a 2011 Saskatchewan government news release.

In the short-term, nuclear reactors cannot compete with natural gas in the tar sands, but there is much dispute over the extent of gas reserves, adding uncertainty to plans for rapid gas-fuelled tar sands expansion. Industry experts worry that by 2030 there might not be sufficient natural gas to fulfil requirements, according to a 2006 Oil Sands Experts Group Workshop report by Len Flint. Studies continue to explore just when nuclear might become a viable option.

Irrespective of the economics, environmental journalist Andrew Nikiforuk told The Dominion that using nuclear power to produce bitumen is an absurd plan. "It's an insult to basic energetics and thermodynamics," he said.

This is not the nuclear industry's only target. In Saskatchewan, rapid, minimally regulated expansion of the oil, gas and potash industries will massively increase electricity consumption. SaskPower forecasts an 83 per cent increase in heavy industry's consumption by 2019, with 3750MW of new generating capacity required by 2033, citing nuclear as a long-term option, post-2023. SaskPower's grid management methodology would favour smaller (200 to 300MW), modular applications of existing reactor types. Hitachi has proposed to adapt a small conventional reactor design under the Saskatchewan agreement.

It is also important to recognize that the conventional power industry—nuclear, fossil fuels, pipelines and electricity—is becoming increasingly integrated. Along with Cameco and BPC Generation Infrastructure Trust, TransCanada Corporation is a one-third owner of Bruce Power. Its proposed Keystone XL pipeline represents an important synchronicity of investment between oil and nuclear expansion. SNC Lavalin is already active in the tar sands, and dovetailing that business with their Candu nuclear interests could be a next step. SNC Lavalin now also owns AltaLink, the private electrical company operating most of Alberta’s electrical grid. Planned and existing tie lines into Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Montana will enhance that export capacity.

Some argue that the Western Energy Corridor proposal, designed to export electricity across the border into the United States, is an even bigger opportunity for nuclear expansion in Alberta and Saskatchewan. This explains the keen interest of the Idaho National Laboratory in collaborating with government and industry in Canada. INL sees potential for nuclear reactors in western Canada to fulfil future U.S. energy demand. It is not, however, clear how any nuclear reactor could be built without public subsidy.

But the tar sands, perched atop the federal agenda, remain a much-desired prize. SMRs constitute one of very few technologies that tar sands corporations can use to misleadingly promise a smaller future carbon footprint. Even if ultimately non-viable, the argument serves to promote continued rapid expansion of tar sands extraction.

While European countries such as Denmark and Germany are increasingly moving to a renewables-based future, few North American utility and grid management companies are working to overcome the technical challenges involved in making that transition. Unless this changes, many regions are left with a choice between coal, gas and nuclear. The high greenhouse gas emissions of fossil fuels provide the nuclear industry with an opportunity to promote itself and revive its flagging fortunes despite its prohibitively high price tags.

David Geary, an anti-nuclear activist in Saskatchewan, says there can be no "Green Bitumen" in an environmentally sustainable future.

"Nuclear energy is not clean or green – it uses up huge amounts of fresh water, routinely spews out numerous pollutants and carcinogens into the air and water, and leaves behind a legacy of highly toxic, long-lived wastes," he told The Dominion.

Time will tell whether the organized struggles against well-funded vested interests in western Canada will overcome the proposed publicly-subsidized proliferation of small nuclear reactors in the tar sands or anywhere else. The battle between truly sustainable energy options and the "Green Bitumen" of the conventional energy industry continues.

D'Arcy Hande is a retired archivist and historian, living in Saskatoon. Dr Mark Bigland-Pritchard is a Saskatoon-based applied physicist working as a sustainable energy and green building consultant.

Green Bitumen?!

Ethical Oil

Tim McSorley — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 13:30:21 +0000

ethical_oil_web.jpg

When Guns Go Green

hillarybain — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 11:54:21 +0000

Lockheed Martin dives into the "renewable" electricity game

HALIFAX—Tom Rand needs a trillion dollars. With that trillion, Rand, the venture capitalist with an eco-twist, believes he could wean the world off of its fossil fuel addiction, curb greenhouse gas emissions and make renewable energy financially competitive.

Rand sits on the board of several green energy companies and businesses, has designed an award-winning, low-emissions hostel in downtown Toronto and has written “Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit,” a green energy primer. Rand is also an accomplished speaker and headlined April’s “Renewable Energy Conference” in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The problem, although Rand would not call it that, is that he doesn't particularly care where his trillion comes from, so long as it comes. So while some might cringe at seeing the world’s largest weapons manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, as a sponsor of the conference, Rand lets the money talk.

“The only way we're going to be able to solve this problem [climate change],” says Rand, “is to get the people with the capacity to build this stuff at scale at the table. So, people like GE, Lockheed Martin, Siemens, BP, Duke Energy...these are all companies who could either be friend or foe. The most helpful thing for us to do is to say 'How do I make you a friend? How do I bring you on board?'...It's just not pragmatically useful to have those people not on your side. It doesn't make things any easier.”

“Past sins forgiven,” says Rand. “Come on in, help us out...I think is the approach.”

Tamara Lorincz, of the Halifax Peace Coalition, is not so ready to forgive Lockheed's sins, past or present.

“Anything Lockheed Martin might do on a renewable energy front pales in comparison to the plundering of the climate by its weapons systems,” says Lorincz. “If Lockheed Martin truly cared about renewable energy and a sustainable future, it would stop producing the weapons systems that use so much fossil fuel, and pushing for military spending and war spending that degrades the environment and contributes to climate change.”

Lorincz, the self-proclaimed mosquito in Lockheed Martin's ear, recently drew blood when her Access-to-Information request revealed that the many billions—continuously escalating, according to experts—that the Harper Government plans on spending on F-35 stealth fighters would net them 65 engine-less aircraft. The story went global.

“Each stealth fighter holds 10,000 pounds of jet fuel," says Lorincz. "Jet fuel is extremely carbon intensive and will cause climate change, and will use our dwindling fossil fuels. They have no credibility on renewable energy and they are not needed on renewable energy.”

So, while Tom Rand won't ask the question, I will.

Who the hell invited the war pigs to the table?

“I can say that our presence here is based on our interest in renewable energy, and reducing greenhouse gas consumption and environmental damage,” says Steve Marsden, Lockheed Martin’s representative at the conference. “And to the extent that our activities in renewable energy will accomplish that, I think that's a good thing.”

Things were far more black and white, good versus evil, in the days when Lockheed's F-117s were dropping thousands of tons of ordinance on Iraq, or when their Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense program had the world in American cross-hairs. Then, Lockheed Martin was simply the biggest arms manufacturer and exporter the world had ever known, a peddler of products that caused untold suffering and mayhem.

Lockheed Martin is still the world's biggest arms manufacturer and exporter. The Canadian military still consumes thousands of barrels of oil per day. But the Lockheed Martin website, aside from lauding missile defense systems and F-35 fighters, loudly toots on the suddenly-popular green horn. F-22 Raptor diagnostics systems now have a completely paperless approach, in that no paper will be used when diagnosing what ails the F-22 Raptor. Copper-beryllium, the dust of which can cause severe lung damage, has also been eliminated from the F-35 assembly line.

Lockheed Martin has also been awarded a contract by the provincial government of Nova Scotia, in consort with Irving Shipbuilding and Atlantis Resources Corporation, to build an experimental tidal turbine to be tested in the Minas Passage, near Parrsboro, Nova Scotia. The turbine is expected to cost between $10 and $15 million, and is expected to generate 1 megawatt of power. Lockheed Martin is going green, and coming to the Bay of Fundy.

So, who the hell invited the war pigs to the table?

The NDP provincial government of Nova Scotia, that's who.

The invitation comes in the form of the Renewable Electricity Plan (REP), released by the Nova Scotia Department of Energy in 2010. The REP includes a mandate to create 25 per cent renewable electricity by 2015, and 40 per cent renewables by 2020.

Ostensibly, the REP is meant to wean Nova Scotia off its dirty coal habit. Realistically, it opens a veritable Pandora's box of options that, upon closer inspection, do not appear renewable at all. These include large-scale biomass operations that threaten to decimate Nova Scotia's already fragile forests, as well as an increased interest in natural gas exploration, which most likely would involve the environmentally-catastrophic technique known as “fracking.”

Tidal power, to be gathered from the Bay of Fundy, weighs heavily in the dreams of the REP, and this is where Lockheed Martin's so-called expertise comes in.

The Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy (FORCE), a berthing station for turbines in the Minas Passage, can accommodate up to four tidal turbines. FORCE has been built using millions of taxpayer dollars. So far, only one turbine has ever been berthed at FORCE, and the Fundy tides knocked it off-line in only seven days. This is the place where the magic is supposed to happen.

Never mind that the old Annapolis Royal Generating Station has been chugging along in the Annapolis sub-basin, at an output of 20 megawatts, for almost 30 years. The NDP government, and now Lockheed, appear to have their sights set on the Herculean task of harnessing some of the most massive tides in the world. But as they say at FORCE, “One day the world will ask...Is it Fundy-tested?” It remains to be seen whether this line will be spoken as the butt-end of a joke.

The REP doesn't even touch on solar energy, considering it an "emerging" technology. Considering that FORCE has not generated its first kilowatt of energy to the grid, and yet is being offered an extremely favourable rate of return should it ever do so, and considering that the power-generating properties of solar energy have been well-proven around the world, the Department of Energy appears to be flagrantly selective in its use of the word "emerging." REP is also very restrictive on wind projects, another of the areas where smaller players stand to make a go of the energy game.

Neal Livingston, co-founder of Black River Ltd., thirty-year veteran in the solar, wind, and small-hydro installation business, isn't getting swept away by the tidal wave.

“The Premier is 100 per cent in bed with big business and the old boys' network in Nova Scotia in terms of designing this policy,” says Livingston. “And that's why you see tidal being so prominent in their thinking, because they've bought into a whole corporate structure that isn't about you and I having the ability to generate power. It's all restricted.”

According to Livingston, the REP stresses the notion of COMFIT (Community Feed-In Tariff), which essentially ties the hands of renewable energy entrepreneurs, and favors big-time investors. COMFIT has strict rules as to who can sell power back to the grid, and more than likely this isn't you. Communities, co-ops, universities, and Aboriginal groups are fine. But if you can't find 25 of your closest friends to co-sign with you on a small-scale wind farm, forget it.

“It’s going to be a mess in two ways,” says Livingston. “One way is that very, very few people are going to own [renewable energy sources] and thus be able to produce their own electricity. This is much like the current situation, with Nova Scotia Power owning everything,” he says. “And also, if you want to be a smaller player you have to work under a whole set of crazy rules which make it not a very interesting place to do it.”

For Lockheed Martin, however, Nova Scotia is the perfect place to get their feet wet in the renewable energy game.

Miles Howe hails from Ottawa, Ontario, and currently calls Halifax home. He has a Masters degree in Sociology, plays a wicked harmonica, and ferments a mean kimchi.

Green Guns

It's Not Easy Being Green!

Tim McSorley — Mon, 09 May 2011 05:11:58 +0000

Unraveling myths of sustainable power

VANCOUVER & TORONTO—As the climate crisis worsens, the Canadian public is being told that new developments in “green energy” are helping reduce the carbon footprint of our energy needs. The PR push around green energy comes as the fossil fuels sector in Canada is plowing ahead, extracting heavy crude from the tar sands, pulling coal from open pit mines, and opening up remote territories for natural gas extraction.

While the idea of cleaner energy resonates with many, provincial governments have increasingly undermined the concept of “greener” energy production. Today, high-impact hydro-electric and nuclear power projects make up a significant percentage of so-called clean energy targets in Ontario and British Columbia.

“The climate argument is being used as a justification for lots of new dams around the world. It’s being used to greenwash dams,” Patrick McCully, Executive Director of the International Rivers Network (IRN) told The Dominion. He highlighted hydro-kinetic turbines, and wave and tidal energy as potential alternatives in the ongoing redefinition of hydro potential.

“There’s a possibility of getting electricity out of flowing water in an environmentally benign way, but not by building big dams everywhere,” added McCully. “And lots of small dams on lots of small rivers—that could also do a lot of harm.”

As with large-scale hydro-electric dams, the greening of nuclear power is dependent on the omission of economic externalities: costs or benefits that affect a third party and are not accounted for in market transactions. Nuclear power generation offers a clear example of the externalities potentially overshadowing the direct impacts of a nuclear power plant itself.

Along with hydro, wind, and solar, nuclear power is considered by the Canadian government to be “clean energy,” defined as “energy that is produced, transmitted, distributed and used with low or zero greenhouse gas (GHG) and other air emissions.” The government of Canada has indicated that by 2020, 90 per cent of the country’s electricity will come from these “non-emitting sources,” including nuclear power.

PHOTO: SAM BRAD

“The nuclear power industry has latched onto global warming as an argument for its renaissance,” wrote Karl Coplan, a Law Professor, in 2008. “[Put] simply, the nuclear industry, with government complicity, has transferred and deferred the most expensive part of the cost of the nuclear fuel cycle to future generations and civilizations unknown,” he wrote, addressing the contentious externality of nuclear fuel waste over its lifespan of at least hundreds of thousands of years.
Communities across Canada have been negatively impacted all the way along the nuclear fuel cycle.

On the front end is uranium, of which Canada is the world’s number one supplier. According to the Canadian Nuclear Association’s Nuclear Facts, “In 2008, the uranium mines in Saskatchewan accounted for approximately 21 per cent of the world’s total uranium production.”

Canada’s uranium deposits and mines are concentrated in the Athabasca Region in northern Saskatchewan, in First Nations territory. Strong resistance to uranium mining across the country over the last several decades has resulted in uranium mining bans in different provinces and regions.

“Mining companies came and robbed us of our country, where we lived, fished and hunted,” said Annie Benonie. The 88-year-old from Wollaston Lake near the Saskatchewan uranium mines was interviewed by Swedish journalist Fredrik Loberg last year. “The land will never be restored again [for] future generations,” she said.

Canadian uranium powers nuclear plants in a number of provinces, including Ontario. Today, Ontario’s energy grid stands at a crossroads. According to the Ontario Power Authority, by 2025 80 per cent of the province’s aging energy-generating infrastructure, traditionally powered by nuclear, hydro and coal, will need to be replaced to avoid increasing power line loss and allow for broader deployment of renewable energy projects. By 2030, the province plans to spend an additional $87 billion on overhauling the power grid.

“The constraint in increasing the installation of renewables is currently in transmission and distribution,” Adam Scott, Renewable Energy Coordinator at Environmental Defence, told The Dominion. “Ontario needs dramatic upgrades to the transmission and distribution systems.”

Yet, at this critical moment, the province’s recently released Long Term Energy Plan (LTEP) is focused primarily on the rapid elimination of coal-fired generation—using increases in nuclear, hydro and natural gas generation—in order to meet the modest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change targets of 450 parts per million atmospheric CO₂ by 2045.

Of the forecasted $87 billion in capital investment, the LTEP estimates $33 billion will be spent on nuclear power compared with $9 billion on solar, $14 billion on wind, $4.6 billion on hydro and $4 billion on biomass.

Scott, however, is generally pleased with the LTEP, pointing to the fact that it puts a greater emphasis on Ontario’s Feed In Tariff (FIT) program, which compensates wind and solar generators for energy they produce and feed in to the grid. Such programs have been successfully adopted over the past 20 years throughout Europe.

“Ontario added more solar power in its first year than [any FIT program in] Spain, Germany [or] France,” added Scott.

However, not everyone agrees that the LTEP was a step in the right direction. Criticism from environmental organizations has focused on the potential of a nuclear disaster, coupled with the long-term commitment required to re-invest in the technology.

“[Ontario] exempted its nuclear electricity plan from an environmental assessment,” said Shawn Stensil, Nuclear Analyst at Greenpeace Canada, in a news release. Stensil stated that nuclear re-investment “will limit the long-term growth of cleaner, safer and more affordable energy options.” A recent study commissioned by Greenpeace, the Pembina Institute, and the Canadian Environmental Law Association claims that renewable investment with a larger wind portfolio would be cheaper than re-investing in nuclear power.

The enormous cost overruns of nuclear power continue to be a point of contention even among those who are optimistic about the province’s expansion of FIT. “LTEP didn’t move us away from nuclear. We’re actually paying other jurisdictions to use the surplus electricity at night from reactors that can’t be throttled down,” Mike Brigham, Chairperson of the Toronto Renewable Energy Co-op [TREC], told The Dominion.

TREC helps incubate locally owned solar and wind projects such as Windshare, a 100-metre-high turbine located along Toronto’s waterfront that produces enough energy to power at least 100 homes per year. An urban project like Windshare could never be built today, said Brigham, because of recent legislation prohibiting the construction of turbines within 500 metres of residential areas. As a result, groups like TREC have invested a significant amount of resources in solar installations, which can be deployed in both rural and urban areas.

At the other end of the fuel cycle is nuclear waste. In late January, New Brunswickers held a rally outside the NB Power headquarters in Fredericton, protesting the costly and potentially hazardous errors made in the ongoing reconstruction of the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. Located along the northern shore of the Bay of Fundy, only some 20 kilometres west of Saint John, Point Lepreau has a history of controversy, including a 1997 leak in the reactor core that produced a 75-day shutdown.

Atlantic organizations joined forces with the Nuclear Out of Quebec Movement (MSQN) to denounce Hydro-Quebec’s plans to remodel the Gentilly-2 Nuclear Generating Station in Becancour, 100 kilometres northeast of Montreal. They point to the controversial Point Lepreau reconstruction, slated to go back online in 2012, as reason enough for their opposition.

A joint press statement released by the MSQN and Atlantic organization representatives on January 26, 2011, the same day as the NB protest, said Gentilly-2 will be “far more costly than anticipated, and will create entirely new categories of radioactive waste that will have to remain in Quebec for permanent storage because the federal government takes no responsibility for such wastes.” The release also noted that the upgrades would add approximately 100 tonnes of high-level waste to the existing stockpile for every year of continued operation.

In terms of policy at the federal level, the “Creating the Economy of Tomorrow” budget document on Canada’s Economic Action Plan website outlines investments in science and technology, as well as in universities and research. While improving infrastructure at universities and colleges has the highest stimulus value for 2009-10 out of the 13 categories included, “Strengthening Canada’s nuclear advantage” is in second place at $351 million. Right behind it is “Transformation to a Green Energy Economy” at $200 million. The budget allotment for nuclear development is over ten times more than the amount designated for the Canada Graduate Scholarships program.

The development of sustainable technologies is constantly redefining the potential for “green” energy in Canada; however, as of yet, the term has not captured much real meaning.

Justin Saunders is an information technologist and journalist based in Toronto. Sandra Cuffe is a freelance writer, a contributing member of the Vancouver Media Co-op, and a coffee-lover.

This article was published in A People's Forecast: The Climate Justice Issue, our 2011 special issue. To read more articles as they are published, click here.

Good power bad power

Good power bad power II

Leak reveals push to win over First Nations on controversial boreal forest pact

Moira Peters — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:42:54 +0000

Environmental organizations and forestry companies seeking buy-in on CBFA as First Nations opposition grows

MONTREAL—A leaked document and email obtained by the Montreal Media Co-op shows major environmental organizations engaging in damage control while speedily attempting to court First Nations' support for the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement (CBFA). The revelation comes amidst mounting opposition to the agreement from aboriginal organizations, many of which are decrying it as fundamentally flawed. The much-hyped pact between major forestry companies and environmental organizations claimed to suspend logging on 29 million hectares of boreal forest and caribou habitat for three years in exchange for an end to the environmentalists' global boycott campaigns against the industry.

The email—sent at the end of a meeting with some First Nations groups last week in Prince George, British Columbia—was written by Larry Innes, Director of the Canadian Boreal Initiative, and Faisal Moola of the David Suzuki Foundation. It describes a forthcoming First Nations “Declaration on the Boreal” and a letter of understanding (LOU) that lays the groundwork for First Nations cooperation with the CBFA.

In the email, Innes and Moola stress, in bold, that they “strongly urge all ENGO organizations to support [the LOU], as it will provide positive evidence of a positive relationship being established with [First Nations] towards realizing the vision and goals of the CBFA.”

Environmental organizations and forestry companies excluded First Nations during negotiations of the CBFA, despite the fact that most of the lands bargained over were First Nations' traditional territories.

The organizer of the Prince George meeting, the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, revealed in a press release that David Suzuki and Innes had met with them and apologized. Apologies, however, haven't sufficed for a growing number of First Nations, including leadership from Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, who issued a statement last Wednesday saying the agreement was better left behind.

“The CBFA disrespects our rights and was developed without our consent," said Grand Chief Stan Beardy of the Nishnawbi Aski Nation (NAN), which represents 49 First Nations in Northern Ontario. "The meeting this week in Prince George, BC, is a backdoor approach to coming up with a national First Nations strategy regarding the CBFA as there was no consensus that the meeting was a good idea. If we are going to be discussing our role in the management and protection of the Boreal region, it will be outside any agreements such as the CBFA."

Innes and Moola lament in the email that “as a 'national' meeting it failed to materialize” but they indicated that they are targeting those regions where Indigenous criticism of the agreement is mounting.

“We'll be circling back to Assembly of First Nations to try to get the National Chief to take a more active hand going forward, and continuing our outreach work in MB, ON and QC,” they write. They also indicated that “there are good prospects for a similar outcome [to the Prince George meeting] in Alberta.”

NAN called on the Assembly of First Nations to hold "a national meeting on the future of our forests." NAN was joined in their criticisms the CBFA by the Algonquin Nation Secretariat, which represents two bands in Quebec, and the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO), which represents 30 in Manitoba.

In late September, the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL), which represents Quebec First Nations, passed a resolution to boycott any meetings on the CBFA until the organization has conducted a legal and technical review of the agreement.

Rather than address the public criticisms of the regional aboriginal organizations, Innes and Moola pinned blame for mounting First Nations dissent on an independent policy analyst and anonymous individuals.

The AFNQL resolution, and a few withdrawals from the Prince George conference, they write, “created an ideal opportunity for the 'Scrap the CBFA' campaign being undertaken by Russell Diabo and some of our other 'friends' to drive wedges between [First Nations] in the East and West.”

Diabo is a policy consultant who works for the Algonquin Nation Secretariat, but has no affiliation with the Manitoba and Ontario bands that also criticized the agreement.

Avrum Lazar of the Forest Products Association of Canada, the grouping of 21 corporate signatories to the CBFA, also attended the Prince George meetings and told the Globe & Mail that First Nations support for the CBFA is “being courted.”

He also made it clear that industry representatives had deliberately excluded First Nations from the original CBFA negotiations.

“If there was a way to involve all those chiefs and set up some sort of national framework, we would have done it,” he said.

The letter obtained by the Montreal Media Co-op did not include recipient email addresses.

Martin Lukacs is a member of the Dominion editorial collective and the Montreal Media Co-op. This article was originally published by the Montreal Media Co-op.

CBFA leak

Secret Meeting Planned, then Cancelled, between ENGOs and Tar Sands Companies

dru — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:50:54 +0000

Invitees included Tzeporah Berman, World Wildlife Fund, ForestEthics

MONTREAL—A secret meeting between top Canadian Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (ENGOs) and tar sands corporations was cancelled after word of the meeting spread beyond the initial invitees, according to two emails leaked to The Dominion.

Billed as a "fireside chat" and an opportunity for "deeper dialogue" in a room at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the invitation was sent by Marlo Raynolds of the Pembina Institute on behalf of himself and Gord Lambert of Suncor. Suncor is the fifth-largest oil company in North America, and the Pembina institute is a high-profile advocate for sustainable energy in Alberta. The invitation was marked "confidential."

Ten representatives each from tar sands operators and high-profile environmental groups were invited to the "informal, beer in hand" gathering. The David Suzuki Foundation, Environmental Defence Canada, Forest Ethics, Pollution Probe and Tides Canada were among the invited environmental groups. Merran Smith of ForestEthics was listed without affiliation, as was Tzeporah Berman, who worked to privatize BC's rivers as director of PowerUp Canada, and who is slated to start work this month as Greenpeace International's Climate Campaigner. Among invited oil companies were Shell, ConocoPhilips, Total and Statoil. Leading tar sands investor Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) was also on the guestlist.

The event would be, the invitation explained, "an opportunity for a few ENGOs and a few companies to share their thoughts on the current state of relations and explore ideas on how a deeper dialogue might occur."

Three days later, Raynolds sent a second email, cancelling the gathering, owing to "the level of tension" between "a subset of companies and a subset of ENGOs." The followup email specified a legal dispute. Sources in Albertan environmental circles suggested pressure to cancel came from threats to expose the meeting publicly.

"I personally believe we all need to find a way to create the space and conditions necessary for deeper and meaningful conversations to find some solutions," wrote Raynolds, explaining the cancellation. "I do hope that in the coming months, we can work to create those conditions."

The invitation to the secret meeting came as several of the invited groups had signed on to an open letter to Enbridge, asking it to cancel the Northern Gateway Pipeline, which would pipe tar sands crude to BC's central coast, to be put on oil tankers. The letter was published as a full page ad in the Globe and Mail.

In 2008, the Pembina Institute and the Canadian Boreal Initiative (financed by the Pew Charitable Trusts; see "Can Pew's Charity be Trusted?," November 2007) released a report proposing "conservation offsets" as a way to mitigate the destruction of biodiversity by tar sands operations.

According to Pembina, conservation offsets "allow resource companies to compensate for the unavoidable impact to biodiversity from their development projects by conserving lands of equal or greater biological value, with the objective of having no net loss in biodiversity."

Pembina acknowledged a contribution of $44,000 from tar sands operator Nexen for the "costs of the document."

Petr Cizek, a land use planner and long-time critic of ENGOs' campaigns because of their lack of transparency and accountability, said it is to be expected that prominent environmental groups will meet in secret with oil companies.

"Is this surprising? No. Is this blatant? Yes," Cizek said.

"The issue isn't negotiation or compromise. I've done lots of both in my time. The issue is whether the negotiations are transparent and the organizations are democratic. Virtually none of these organizations are democratic," he said.

Environmentalists invited to the secret meeting have come under fire by grassroots environmental activists for their secretive, back-room approach to negotiations with corporations in previous campaigns. Tzeporah Berman and Merran Smith both acted as negotiators when ForestEthics and other BC ENGOs accepted a deal that protected 20 per cent of the Great Bear Rainforest.

Some grassroots organizations and First Nations were furious at the deal, which settled for half the minimum protected area outlined in protocol agreements signed by environmental groups and First Nations prior to the negotiations. (The area protected by the Great Bear deal was later increased to 30 per cent after First Nations' land use plans forced reconsideration of some of the concessions.)

Cizek said he is not bothered by the outcome of negotiations, but by the lack of accountability and public oversight.

"My issue isn't the fact that they protected only 30 per cent, or that they protected the wrong 30 per cent. In some cases, maybe that is all that you can achieve. These negotiations can be really ugly. I've been there," he said.

"My issue is that they lied to and betrayed and broke a deal they had with the smaller organizations."

In a 2009 interview published in the report Offsetting Resistance, Valhalla Wilderness Society (one of the smaller organizations Cizek mentioned) Director Anne Sherrod made the connection between the Great Bear Rainforest agreement and the tar sands.

"These are greenwashing deals. I am speaking out about this because there is evidence that the collaborative agreement industry may be moving to the tar sands," said Sherrod.

"I want everyone to know that issues where people are dying of cancer from serious pollution is no place for this kind of thing. Open public process is your best friend in situations like this. Insist on it."

Dru Oja Jay is a member of the Dominion editorial collective. He is co-author, with Macdonald Stainsby, of the report Offsetting Resistance: The effects of foundation funding from the Great Bear Rainforest to the Athabasca River.

Suncor Toad

Making a Bio-Mess of Nova Scotia's Forests

Moira Peters — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 11:30:48 +0000

Whole-tree clear-cutting not a green energy source, say environmentalists

HALIFAX—“This is slash and burn. This is destroy the province,” says Barbara Markovitz, co-chair of the Eastern Shore Forest Watch.

Markovitz lives in Calm Harbour on the Eastern Shore where Northern Pulp Ltd. is whole-tree clear-cut harvesting for biomass energy. “Residents in the area are very upset, shocked and appalled,” she says.

After whole-tree clear-cut harvesting, the land once covered by forest is barren, with no trees or wildlife. The soil, once protected by trees, can now be damaged by sun and rain.

Jamie Simpson, forester with the Ecology Action Centre (EAC), recently visited a biomass and pulpwood harvest site run by Northern Pulp Ltd. The land near Upper Mosquodoboit is owned by Neenah Paper Ltd.

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen—it’s hard to believe this is happening in Nova Scotia, in the 21st century,” says Simpson. “It’s an embarrassment.”

Biomass is material derived from living or recently living organisms, and whole-tree clear-cut harvesting is “the cheapest way to get biomass material for burning [in order] to produce energy,” explains Simpson.

But the benefits do not outweigh the costs, he says. Most of the nutrients in a tree are in its branches and leaves. “With whole-tree harvesting, you remove the tops and the branches, and you also remove the really, really small trees and the trees that would normally be too poor quality to take for pulp or for lumber, and then you’re also going to take out the dead trees,” says Simpson. “So essentially you’re not really leaving anything to go back into soil.

“It proves that we need a regulation to stop companies from whole-tree clear-cut harvesting,” Simpson says.

That’s why the Ecology Action Centre, nine other Nova Scotia groups, and the Nova Scotia Woodlot Owners and Operators Association (NSWOOA) are trying to stop whole-tree clear-cut harvesting.

Northern Pulp’s operation has been certified as "green" by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI Inc.), a third-party certification program that was set up by the American Forest and Paper Association. “Typically, the SFI has been considered the less stringent certification option for North American companies,” explains Graeme Auld, assistant professor of public policy and administration at Carleton University.

The SFI is greenwashing, says Simpson, explaining that the organization is trying to appear more environmentally friendly than it is.

Simpson says the government’s response to the EAC and other groups’ demand for legally binding restrictions on whole-tree harvesting has been wishy-washy. “The Minister of Natural Resources said that they won’t commit to no whole-tree harvesting in their modeling of available biomass,” says Simpson.

“I think the Department of Natural Resource has to realize that we don’t want to sacrifice our soil productivity and wildlife habitats for a little bit of energy,” Simpson says.

The Department of Natural Resources has recently received many complaints, including a petition from the nine groups working to combat whole-tree clear-cut harvesting.

The whole-tree clear-cut harvest near Caribou Mines, in Upper Musquodoboit, was a pulp harvest, says Dan Davis, spokesperson for Nova Scotia’s Ministry of Natural Resources. “It wasn’t a harvest for biomass,” he says.

But Simpson says whether it was a harvest for pulp or biomass is not the issue. Simpson says while the majority probably went to pulp, “the key issue is around the result after the whole-tree clear-cut harvest was done.” The effect whole-tree clear-cut harvesting has on the land is what concerns Simpson and others the most.

Although Davis said the minister would "prefer" companies didn't use whole-tree clear-cut harvesting, he confirmed there are no regulations against the practice.

Northern Pulp, based in the US, is an affiliate of Atlas Holdings LLC and Blue Wolf Capital Management LLC. John Hamm, former Premier of Nova Scotia, is one of Atlas Holdings’ operating partners.

Northern Pulp has a license to 80,000 hectares of Nova Scotia's Crown land, and has an agreement to manage Neenah Paper's 195,000 hectares of private land. On March 26, 2009, the Nova Scotia government loaned Northern Pulp $15 million to assist its mill in Pictou.

This summer, Northern Pulp whole-tree clear-cut harvested approximately 260 hectares (650 acres). More cutting is planned for this winter.

In order to produce biomass, explains Auld, “there are probably many options, but the less biomass per hectare an operation can extract, the less economically viable it is likely to be.” Since whole-tree removal generates the most biomass per hectare, it is of particular interest to harvesters.

Although financial costs of whole-tree clear-cutting may be relatively low in terms of producing biomass energy, there are many other costs, according to Simpson, including the cost to climate.

“It causes a net loss of carbon from our forests and forest soils,” explains Simpson. “It’s not a carbon-neutral energy source—that’s nothing but a myth.”

With the eight other groups, the Eastern Shore Forest Watch has been notifying the public, writing letters to the government and contacting the media. ESFW's Markovitz is determined to stop companies from whole-tree clear-cutting. “We will continue as long as necessary and as hard as necessary until some sanity returns to forestry in Nova Scotia,” says Markovitz.

Aethne Hinchliffe is studying journalism at King's College and is currently interning with the Halifax Media Co-op.

Biomass Treeless

Biomass 80,000 hectares