Canada: $Billions for CCS, nothing for renewable energy
Canada is offering $Billions of taxpayer dollars to oil companies to do "Carbon Capture and Storage" - a.k.a. "CCS".
Meanwhile, Obama's government is offering $Billions for renewable [clean] energy research and actual projects, saying: "The nation that leads the world in 21st-century clean energy will be the nation that leads in the 21st-century global economy,"
And then we hear that the Tar Sands oil companies are not even interested in using the taxpayer's money to do CCS research. They don't want to do anything to reduce CO2 emissions.
Canada's emissions are up 4% over last year, now a full 26% above the 1990 levels;
Most of the "green energy" research money just goes to trying to make the Tar Sands viable and less ugly; there is NO movement towards developing renewable energy in Canada.
-----------Basic Renewable Energy Economics Preaching:
Only the oilmen [who are Harper's friends, but not Obama's friends] want us to keep using the more expensive energy derived from fossil fuels;
Renewable energy would be an economic advantage for average people - 5 to 10 years after putting up wind or solar systems we would see our electricity costs go DOWN as the renewable energy systems are paid off and then there is FREE CLEAN electricity forever after [well, another 20 years or so at least]. Coal-fired power plants have an economic disadvantage because they need a continuous feeding of coal to operate, but wind and sun are free.
Plus, of course, renewable energy is good for more than just for the economics - GLOBAL WARMING will not be nearly as bad if we reduce emissions ASAP.
-----------link:
This article is where I first heard of the $1B fund:
"Canada to the Rescue of the Coal Industry"http://www.desmogblog.com/canada-rescue-coal-industry
Hot air fuels carbon-capture pact
Politicians may use Thursday's announcement as a conference prop
Look no further than Thursday's announcement of $865 million in taxpayers' money for Alberta's first major pilot project for carbon capture and storage (CCS).
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After a year of backroom talks and negotiations between government and private companies, we are now looking at another "few years" of backroom talks and negotiations. Shell and its partners will not move ahead on the pilot project until they have government funding, regulatory approval and a properly engineered plan. "Construction will only begin after all of these aspects have been addressed successfully, with the aim to start operations in 2015," according to a Quest news release.
So, why did they hold a news conference now?
Well, because Thursday was the last day Knight and Raitt would be in Canada before jetting off to England for the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum, a meeting of government ministers from around the world promoting co-operation on CCS. Thursday's signing ceremony gives the ministers political cover. They can show up in London waving the letter of intent in front of anyone who's been reading headlines about Alberta's "dirty oil" and Greenpeace protesters chaining themselves to oilsands equipment.
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Shell and its project partners reserve the right to use the captured carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery. That means injecting the liquid gas into old oilfields to force out more oil that is then refined and burned-- producing more emissions of carbon dioxide. Using CCS to recover more oil might make sense economically but calling enhanced oil recovery "carbon sequestration" in the context of reducing global emissions is, environmentally speaking, a fib.
This is why industry favours carbon sequestration over other forms of greenhouse gas reduction. They can suck up huge pools of tax dollars to fund thier own operations while carrying on business as usual for years to come.
What a waste of time and money. Our stooges have no new thoughts beyond propping up old world economy for the sake of our largest trade benefactors who want us to clean up their fossil fuel before we pay them to take it off our hands. These idiots in Ottawa should be tossed on the capitalist scrapheap of time along with the rest of the useless widgets.