Orbiting the truth
People gravitate to the truth, often slowly, as Galileo famously found. It took four years for the best-funded environmental agency in the world, to opine on a sixty-year-old technology. The Environmental Protection Agency recently released a study on fracking. What did it find? Drum roll please! The EPA found that hydraulic fracturing has the […]
Taken leave of our senses
The problem with socialism, said Maggie Thatcher, was that, eventually, you run out of other people’s money. Of course this means it works quite well in the short run as Sweden learned already, for as long as there is oil and gas as Norway is finding, or only so long as there are transfers, as […]
Get off hydrocarbons
For every complicated problem there is a solution that is simple, easy to understand, and… wrong! On April 11th we once again heard that there is a simple and easy to understand solution for our society’s energy needs. Just get off hydrocarbons. These people never learned, as grown ups do, that you can’t have your cake […]
Tall and small
Can you explain in a precise way the difference between conventional and unconventional? A woman having a career was not long ago considered unconventional. Some people might say body art and piercings are unconventional today, but this has always depended on the culture. When we use words like good and bad, tall and small we generally know what we mean. But […]
Efficient policy for efficient energy
Public consultations commenced on a new energy policy for Quebec on February 13th. This is to replace a recent policy devised under Martine Ouellette who infamously protested outside the Quebec Oil and Gas Conference, the year before she lectured inside, as the Minister of Natural Resources. Martine Ouellette is oft repeated, though rarely quoted, by […]
This is open for business?
Media have been reporting that the Government of Quebec has said natural gas development is dead for twenty five years. They were in fact more nuanced than that but we can’t say it was positive. The Government has clarified that if things change on social acceptability and benefits, due to technology for example, perhaps the […]
I agree with Patrick Bonin
I find myself in the unusual position of publically agreeing with Patrick Bonin, head of Greenpeace in Quebec. He supports the seven conditions set by the Government of Quebec together with Ontario to gain their support for Energy East’s application to the National Energy Board (http://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/politique/2014/11/19/004-port-petrolier-cacouna-conditions-heurtel-quebec-transcanada.shtml). I also agree the conditions are based on reasonable […]
Leadership needed on Quebec energy policy
Sophie Brochu of Gaz Metropolitan has been raising the issue of the security of natural gas supply for Quebec. She emphasizes the importance of natural gas for everything from hospitals to industry to the environment. Whether it’s a hospital, a home in Montreal or a large plant they are all customers of Gaz Metro. Madame […]
What a farce in Nova Scotia
As Bugs Bunny might have said ‘what a bunch of ultra maroons’. My main question is: can no one, in this founding province of Canada, read French? Those rarified consumers of my blog, which if you are reading this, means you; will perhaps have noticed I have attempted a transformation to back seat driver in […]
Quebec and Alberta: different pasts, common future
If Quebec had not imposed a moratorium on shale gas fracing in 2011, I never would have learned French. Proving it is almost always possible to find a silver lining in hardship. If I had not learned French, I never would have had deep and emotional discussions with many Quebecers about what their language and […]