Tag: Alberta

Carney’s Dagger: How Ottawa’s Trade Brinkmanship Threatens US National Security Strategy

The collapse of US-Canada trade talks last week, and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s declaration that “you’re at war when you get attacked,” has turned a tariff dispute into a political toxin that now sits inside the one relationship still holding North American energy security together.

President Donald Trump announced on Friday that the US had secured majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven oil reserves through a partnership with private business.

From Tilak`s Substack

By Tilak Doshi

The collapse of US-Canada trade talks last week, and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s declaration that “you’re at war when you get attacked,” has turned a tariff dispute into a political toxin that now sits inside the one relationship still holding North American energy security together. Fifty-percent US tariffs have taken effect on billions of dollars of Canadian goods; Ottawa has promised dollar-for-dollar retaliation from September 8th. Crude oil, natural gas and potash were, for the moment, carved out of the American levies, but that exemption cannot be thought permanent. The uncertainty, the public flirtation with using oil as a retaliatory instrument and Carney’s larger strategic posture toward Washington already threaten the physical barrels and the political trust on which the 2025 National Security Strategy depends.

The contrast with what seemed possible only a year earlier could not be more dramatic. The August 2025 Anchorage meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, however inconclusive on Ukraine, opened a window onto a potentially different energy order: one in which sanctions-driven distortions might have eased and Russian Arctic and Siberian resources might have again attracted Western capital. Combined with the January 2026 capture of Nicolás Maduro and Washington’s subsequent assertion of control over the rules of Venezuelan oil production, that vision promised hemispheric abundance rather than managed scarcity. Carney’s brinkmanship now risks putting a dagger through it – and doing so at the expense of Alberta first.

The Anchorage window and the promise of abundance

On August 15th 2025, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, the presidents of the world’s largest and third-largest oil producers met for the first time since the outbreak of the Ukraine war. No ceasefire was signed, although the maximalist demand by EU hawks for an immediate ceasefire was dropped as a non-starter. Trump said there was “no deal until there’s a deal”. Putin later conceded that “there were indeed no agreements reached in Anchorage”. Yet the meeting itself, after years of isolation, revived talk of economic cooperation in the Arctic, LNG technology, icebreakers and even possible restarts of ventures such as Sakhalin-1. Russian officials spoke of region-to-region contacts between the Russian Far East and the US West Coast; side conversations touched Novatek technology for Alaskan gas.

That window mattered because the post-2022 sanctions regime boomeranged on its progenitors. Measures intended to turn the Russian rouble into rubble instead accelerated Europe’s de-industrialisation, sent discounted Russian barrels through Indian and Chinese refiners into European markets at a premium and encouraged experiments in non-dollar settlement. A genuine US-Russia thaw would have reversed those distortions, reopened Siberian unconventional plays to American fracking expertise and reduced the incentive for BRICS energy trade to migrate away from the dollar. Developing countries, long subject to decarbonisation demands while the West consumed the fossil fuels that built its wealth, would have gained cheaper energy and a less politicised development path. The ‘spirit of Anchorage’ never became a treaty. By mid-2026 it had largely dissipated. But the mere possibility of ending the sanctions-driven split in global oil trade – and of pairing US technology with Russian Arctic and Siberian geology – was part of a larger architecture of energy abundance. The other half of that architecture was sitting in the Orinoco Belt.

Venezuela’s heavy oil and the Trump Corollary

In the pre-dawn hours of January 3rd 2026, US forces captured Nicolás Maduro and flew him to New York to face narcotics-terrorism charges. The operation was the most muscular application yet of what the administration calls the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. The November 2025 National Security Strategy had pledged that the United States would “reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere” and “deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to… own or control strategically vital assets in our Hemisphere”. Venezuela’s oil was precisely such an asset.

The Energy Institute’s Statistical Review still lists Venezuela as holding the world’s largest proved reserves – on the order of 300 billion barrels, the great majority of them extra-heavy Orinoco crude. At recent prices that stockpile is notionally worth many trillions of dollars. Venezuelan output has risen from well under a million barrels per day toward roughly 1.2 million, with several hundred thousand barrels now moving to US refiners. Supermajors remain cautious; service companies and smaller independents have moved first. Full restoration toward two to three million barrels per day still looks like a multi-year project even under favourable political conditions. That timeline is why Canadian barrels remain indispensable in the near term – and why treating them as a weapon is so reckless.

President Donald Trump announced on Friday that the US had secured majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven oil reserves through a partnership with private business. This unprecedented US agreement to take control of a fifth of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves is a bet that American companies can revive the nation’s battered energy industry.

As important as the headline volume is the molecule. Long-chain, high-sulphur, high-residuum crude is ideally suited to the delayed-coking complexes that dominate the US Gulf Coast. Those refineries convert discounted heavy sour barrels into diesel and jet fuel more efficiently than light-shale slates can be upgraded. Control of Venezuelan heavy oil therefore complements, rather than merely duplicates, the Permian’s light sweet output. It gives the United States a full-spectrum position across the barrel and a second wing for a non-OPEC Americas bloc that already includes US shale, Canadian oil sands, Guyana’s new discoveries and Brazilian pre-salt, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

Four million barrels a day and the Alberta-Ottawa fault line

EIA data show US crude imports from Canada averaged 3.9 million barrels per day in 2025; weekly figures through 2026 still cluster around 3.5–4.2 million. Those volumes have routinely accounted for around 60% or more of US crude imports. The main destination is not only Houston. It is first the US Midwest, then the Gulf Coast: complex refineries configured over decades for Alberta’s heavy sour crude. Bloomberg put 2025 Midwest receipts near 2.7 million barrels per day vs about 416,000 barrels per day to the Gulf. These barrels are not interchangeable with Permian light or with distant Middle Eastern grades that must travel longer, more vulnerable sea lanes. Without them, utilisation rates fall, product yields suffer and pump prices rise. In a tight global distillate market – the spread between crude and diesel, the “crack spread”, has run over $100 a barrel – the substitution problem is acute. As David Blackmon assesses, there is no ready alternative outlet of comparable size and proximity for Canada either. Canada’s only large operating Pacific marine outlet is the Westridge terminal in Burnaby, the end of the Trans Mountain pipeline, rated at 890,000 barrels per day. That line can be optimised toward about 1.19 million barrels per day by 2028. A separate million-barrel West Coast pipeline has been proposed, with construction possibly starting in 2027. Neither is a substitute, this year or next, for the US inland system.

Canada’s own vulnerabilities are equally structural. Eastern provinces, home to most of the population, still depend on US-sourced barrels or on west-to-east pipelines whose routes pass through Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Ottawa’s long refusal to approve adequate all-Canadian eastbound pipelines left Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa exposed. Any serious disruption therefore boomerangs on Canada as surely as it would hit Chicago and Houston.

That is why using oil as a weapon would detonate inside Canada long before it wounds the US – an economy 13 times larger that absorbs just under three-quarters of Canadian exports and some 90% of its oil exports. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has said she “cannot think of a more disastrous policy decision than cutting off or taxing Alberta’s oil to the United States”. Doing so, she warned, would extinguish hundreds of thousands of livelihoods in Alberta, hobble Ontario and Quebec, send the TSX into a dive – and hand US cokers a reason to look to Venezuela instead, perhaps permanently. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe was equally blunt: his province “cannot and will not support any kind of export tariff” on oil or potash. The producing Western regions of Canada have told Ottawa no.

Danielle Smith also points out that an export tax on Alberta crude invites a symmetric American levy on gasoline and diesel heading into Ontario and Quebec “right as we turn into fall and winter”. Carney himself said in July he did not “see the value” in using energy as leverage and that Canada must remain a “reliable supplier”. The ‘war’ language of last week sits uneasily with that earlier caution. If Ottawa now flirts with the oil card, it will reopen the oldest Canadian fracture: Alberta and Saskatchewan sell the oil and potash, and the Carney Government in Ottawa is tempted to treat those exports as leverage. Alberta’s separatist undercurrent does not need a better recruiting poster.

This interdependence is a strength when relations are stable. It becomes a glaring weakness when they are not. Even though energy was excluded from the latest 50% tariff list, the collapse of talks has already injected the uncertainty that markets and capital abhor. Cross-border projects feel it immediately. South Bow’s Prairie Connector – a partial reuse of cancelled Keystone XL pipe, with 20-year commitments for about 465,000 b/d and a mid-2027 investment decision – needs a permit that survives the next election. CEO Bevin Wirzba has said the company will not proceed without a “durable” US authorisation. Twenty-year contracts cannot be financed on a relationship described as war.

Waiting out Trump: Democrats, Davos and a lame-duck bet

Mark Carney is a former Bank of England governor and UN special envoy for climate finance who once argued that central banks should help impose “moral sentiments” on capital allocation in the name of Net Zero. In his January 2026 Davos speech he told middle powers that the old rules-based order was fading and that “when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness” – obviously, if obliquely, referring to Trump’s America. He has signed new “strategic partnerships” with the EU and China, diversified trade talks across four continents and presented Canada as an “energy superpower” whose customers need not be confined to the United States.

Carney elevated Maia Johnson — an American who worked on scheduling and operations for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and later on the Biden and Harris efforts and who was tied to Michael Bloomberg’s political-data firm Hawkfish — into a newly created senior operating role in the Prime Minister’s Office. The hiring choice is a signal about which American political network Ottawa finds congenial. So are Carney’s private meetings this year with leading 2028 Democratic contenders – including Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Pete Buttigieg and Elissa Slotkin – as Democrats begin to audition for the post-Trump era.

The timeline fits a waiting game. People familiar with Ottawa’s deliberations told Bloomberg that Carney’s Government sees little chance of restarting talks before the November 2026 midterms and is designing support “to ride out the balance of Trump’s term if necessary”. Carney himself said Canada would back affected firms “for as long as it takes, in other words, beyond the life of this US administration”. Danielle Smith, from the other side of the same calendar, has urged diplomacy so that Canadian oil can be kept out of the trade war. CityNews put the question directly: is Carney waiting for a lame-duck president?

But a Democratic midterm gain would not automatically unwind executive tariffs; a White House official called that expectation “a desperate pipe dream”. A 2028 Democratic restoration does little to alleviate the trade standoff. It might, however, restore the Net Zero reflex that spent a decade making Canada’s physical ability to get crude out of Alberta and to paying customers harder. Betting the continental oil system on a US partisan cycle is the opposite of energy security.

Trump’s National Security Strategy is an energy-dominance doctrine that treats pipelines, upgraders and heavy-oil reserves as instruments of hemispheric security. The Venezuelan reset was meant to reduce extra-hemispheric influence in the Americas and, over time, to give Washington a substitute source of heavy crude. That substitution is years away. In the meantime any sustained interruption – or even the credible threat of one – raises the odds of tighter product markets, higher prices for American and Canadian consumers alike and the postponement of the very infrastructure that would make the hemisphere more secure.

The Anchorage meeting and the Caracas operation together sketched a world in which the Western Hemisphere could become a low-cost, high-security energy platform spanning Alaska to Tierra del Fuego – light oil from the US Permian and other shale oil basins married to heavy Orinoco and Athabasca crude, insulated from Eurasian pipeline politics and Middle Eastern chokepoints. That architecture still requires Canadian flows in the critical intervening years. Carney’s war language, his Democratic entanglements and the temptation to ‘wait Trump out’ do not create new heavy-oil supplies or new all-Canadian pipelines. Rather, they raise the probability that the existing system fractures worsen – between Ottawa and Alberta, and between Ottawa and Washington – at the precise moment when US strategy is attempting to lock in hemispheric advantage in energy supplies.

The physics, economics and geography of global oil trade flows remain broadly unchanged. What has changed is the political choice to treat an existential energy partnership as another front in a trade war, or as a holding action until the next American election. If cooler heads do not prevail, Carney’s dagger threatens not only the oldest and most intimate trading relationship in North America but also the energy security interests of the entire American hemisphere.

Dr Tilak K. Doshi is the Daily Sceptic‘s Energy Editor. He is an economist, a member of the CO₂ Coalition and a former contributor to Forbes. Follow him on Substack and X.

Blame Canada’s Terrible Regulations For Wildfires Ruining America’s Summer

Americans often picture Canada as a vast northern forest – an endless expanse of pristine wilderness. But the truth is far more complex and increasingly relevant to U.S.–Canada policy debates. Eighty‑nine percent of Canada is Crown land, owned by federal or provincial governments. Yet only about 10–12% of that land receives detailed ecological monitoring.

From CO2 Coalition

By Dr. Joseph Fournier

Americans often picture Canada as a vast northern forest – an endless expanse of pristine wilderness. But the truth is far more complex and increasingly relevant to U.S.–Canada policy debates. Eighty‑nine percent of Canada is Crown land, owned by federal or provincial governments. Yet only about 10–12% of that land receives detailed ecological monitoring.

This matters because U.S. trade policy, Canadian conservation policy, and federal herbicide permitting are now combining to reshape North America’s forests in ways few Americans recognize.

Over the past 20 years, Canada’s sawmill and pulp‑and‑paper sectors have entered a steep decline. Statistics Canada and industry reports show that mill closures have accelerated, especially in western Canada, where over 30% of softwood lumber capacity has disappeared. Employment has dropped sharply. Entire forestry towns have hollowed out.

And while multiple factors contribute – mountain pine beetle damage, wildfire losses, transportation bottlenecks – the most overlooked driver is the federal government’s long‑standing approval of spraying Roundup (glyphosate) herbicide across millions of hectares of Crown forests. For decades, glyphosate has been used to kill broadleaf species – birch, aspen, poplar – so that commercially valuable conifers can dominate.

But this practice has consequences. Roundup creates monoculture conifer stands, which are more resin‑rich and significantly more flammable than mixed‑species forests. Instead of diverse, moisture‑retaining ecosystems, Canada is producing vast tracts of single‑age, single‑species pine and spruce – exactly the kind of forests that burn explosively under extreme fire weather.

The result is a continental paradox: Policies meant to “manage” forests have instead created more combustible landscapes, contributing to the anomalous rise in total annual area burned.

Deterioration of Canada’s forestry is also being accelerated by domestic policy. Rising carbon taxes on diesel and gasoline – critical fuels for logging, hauling, and mill operations – have increased costs across the supply chain. New layers of regulation slow approvals and reduce harvest flexibility. And when pulp mills close, sawmills lose buyers for residual chips and sawdust, undermining their economics even further.

But the most consequential impact of this industrial contraction is ecological. Canada’s parklands – where monitoring exists – show a clear trend of rapidly aging boreal forests, with large stands now reaching 70 to 120 years old.

In Alberta’s eastern foothills, provincial parks contain dense, overmature, fuel‑loaded forests primed for high‑intensity wildfire. Decades of fire suppression, beetle kill, drought, and heavy recreational pressure have created extreme fire risk. As Parks Canada itself warns, “the reduction or exclusion of fire as a natural process … leads to increased risk of wildfires.”

The consequences are here. Alberta’s Jasper National Park recently nearly burned to the ground when extreme fire weather collided with decades of fuel accumulation, beetle‑killed forests, a highly vulnerable townsite, and infrastructure failures.

Nonetheless, long‑term fire data tell a more nuanced story.

According to Canada’s National Burned Area Composite and CIFFC wildfire statistics, forest‑fire frequency has declined since the 1980s. Canada is experiencing fewer fires overall.

What has changed is the total area burned, which had remained relatively moderate for decades but then spiked dramatically in 2023 and again in 2025, producing two of the worst years for fires in modern Canadian history.

These spikes reflect the dangerous combination of aging forests, heavy fuel loads, glyphosate‑driven monoculture, and extreme fire weather – not an increase in ignition frequency.

Meanwhile, federal biodiversity reports show that parks are not experiencing net improvement. Most ecosystems are stable, but among those changing, declines outnumber gains. And crucially, non‑park Crown lands are not monitored at all, meaning there is no empirical basis to claim that conservation designations improve biodiversity.

Yet Ottawa is moving ahead with its flagship 30×30 agenda – a plan to place 30% of Canada’s land and water under conservation status by 2030.

In practice, this means restricting forestry across vast areas when forests are aging, fuel‑loaded, and increasingly prone to extreme fire behavior. By limiting private‑sector utilization, 30×30 will increase fuel loading, exacerbate forest aging, and reduce the thinning and harvesting activities that mitigate catastrophic wildfire.

For Americans concerned about lumber prices or wildfire smoke drifting south, the lesson is simple. Canada’s forests are increasingly unmanaged, aging, and burning, not because Canadians don’t care, but because the economic and policy frameworks governing those forests are pushing the country toward less active management.

North America needs forestry – not just parks – to remain resilient.

Originally published at The DailyWire, July 31, 2026.

Joseph Fournier, Ph.D., has worked in the energy industry and environmental sciences and is a member of the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He writes from his family’s ranch east of Calgary.

Canada Comes to Grips with Financial and Energy Needs

A recent memorandum of understanding between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith represents the inevitable reassertion of economic necessity over the fantasy of “decarbonization” that has gripped Ottawa for the past decade.

Scenic view of a turquoise lake surrounded by evergreen trees and majestic mountains under a clear blue sky.

From The CO2 Coalition

By Vijay Jayaraj

A recent memorandum of understanding between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith represents the inevitable reassertion of economic necessity over the fantasy of “decarbonization” that has gripped Ottawa for the past decade.

Allowing for the construction of a pipeline to transport Albertan oil to a Pacific export terminal, the agreement prompted the resignation of one liberal member of parliament and celebration from the province’s leader. “This is a great day for Alberta,” declared Smith.

Alberta is a major vessel in Canada’s economic bloodstream. The province’s energy sector generates $88 billion in annual gross domestic product (GDP), which is 25% of the Alberta’s total economic output. This revenue flows east to the national capital to fund federal transfers that support public finances of other provinces, some of which oppose the oil production that provides them cash.

Atlantic Canada, parts of Quebec and even Ontario benefit from royalties and tax revenues generated by hydrocarbons extracted thousands of miles away. So-called moral objections to oil sands development are often voiced by inhabitants of Halifax or Montreal, but rarely heard is a willingness to forgo the western revenue that keeps hospitals open and public payrolls funded.

So, it was financial reality that drove Carney to upend expectations established by countless government documents, climate pledges, and regulatory frameworks the previous government put in place to “save the planet” by discouraging the use of fossil fuels.

Canada’s climate industrial complex had predicted that pipelines would become stranded assets and that Alberta would fade into irrelevance as net zero became federal policy. However, the deal signed by Carney moves in the opposite direction, making provisions for new infrastructure and signaling that even Canada’s most climate-obsessed federal leadership cannot govern without fossil fuels.

In technical terms, the federal cap on oil and gas emissions has been suspended. The Clean Electricity Regulation – a proposed constraint on Alberta’s ability to generate affordable power – has been loosened. Timelines for reducing methane emissions have been extended beyond 2030. Yes, there are caveats that appear to impose a soft form of anti-carbon sentiment, but the overall picture has changed.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a publicly funded institution, has consistently parroted environmental advocates who treat fossil fuels as abominations rather than economic necessities. This messaging has convinced many Canadians that their government is committing a terrible sin by producing energy the world demands. Lost on them is the fact that Canadian oil and natural gas are produced under far more stringent standards than exist in the Middle East, Russia or other regions.

Energy abundance underpins prosperity. Nations that constrain their energy supply impoverish themselves. Nations that produce reliable, affordable energy benefit their populations and the broader world. Canada should produce the energy for itself and export the surplus to global markets.

Beyond energy economics, there is another dimension to Canada’s economic future that the legacy climate orthodoxy dismisses: agriculture. Canada’s warming climate has extended growing seasons across the prairies and opened new agricultural possibilities.

According to official data, “total wheat production rose 11.2% year over year to a record 40 million (metric tons) in 2025, surpassing the previous record set in 2013.” Canola production rose 13%, surpassing a record set in 2017. Barley and oat production rose 19% and 17%, respectively.

In all, the output for all principal field crops increased by 4% year-over-year. For the next crop year (2025-2026), total production is projected to reach near record levels, up 3% year-over-year and 8% above the previous five-year average.

Historical analysis demonstrates that climate conditions across Canadian agricultural regions have shifted toward longer growing seasons, with more frost-free days and expanded viable crop zones.

Critics will claim that allowing a new pipeline is a betrayal of future generations. But what truly endangers posterity? A fraction of a degree of warming that extends growing seasons? Or a future of energy scarcity, deindustrialization and economic stagnation?

Fearmongering about a “climate emergency” served only to empower a bureaucratic class intent on controlling consumption and taxing lifestyles. It did nothing to change atmospheric physics or the needs of people who rely on affordable energy to survive.

Originally published in American Thinker on January 16, 2026.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research associate with the Changing Oceans Research Unit at University of British Columbia, Canada.

Carney Directs Canada Pipeline Charade

Had the Great Smith-Carney Pipelines and Climate Pact of 2025 emerged say, five years ago, it would have been considered squarely within the realm of Liberal environmentalism. Instead, because former prime minister Justin Trudeau brought in several anti-business policies, the current prime minister is being feted/scorned as being pro-energy industry by disappointed Liberals and relieved conservatives alike. While Mark Carney deserves credit for negotiating this deal with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, and bringing a rival onside, we’re skeptical at the chances a pipeline ever gets built.

An artistic rendering of a large, rusty pipeline extending through a grassy landscape, with a Canadian flag displayed prominently in the top right corner against a sunset backdrop.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

A cartoon depicting a character resembling a politician in a large bowl, surrounded by smaller bowls labeled 'World Economic Forum,' 'Banking Plutocrats,' 'Net-Zero Activists,' and 'Trudeau Advisor,' with the character exclaiming, 'Me?!... I'm an outsider!'

Q: Do Leopards Change Their Spots? A: No,
because it’s chamouflage concealing their real motives.

This National Post editorial gives the game away: The Carney-Smith pipeline of uncertainty.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

MOU adds as many roadblocks as it clears away

Two individuals standing at a table displaying signed documents, with Canadian and Alberta flags in the background.
Prime Minister Mark Carney, right, signs an MOU with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in Calgary, Alta., Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

Had the Great Smith-Carney Pipelines and Climate Pact of 2025 emerged say, five years ago, it would have been considered squarely within the realm of Liberal environmentalism. Instead, because former prime minister Justin Trudeau brought in several anti-business policies, the current prime minister is being feted/scorned as being pro-energy industry by disappointed Liberals and relieved conservatives alike. While Mark Carney deserves credit for negotiating this deal with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, and bringing a rival onside, we’re skeptical at the chances a pipeline ever gets built.

There are definitely some positives in the deal that Smith can present at the UCP annual general meeting this weekend in an attempt to quell the separatist uprising within her governing party. Ottawa has officially committed to “Increasing production of Alberta oil and gas” and to the approval and construction of “one or more private sector constructed and financed pipelines.” The Liberals promise they “will not implement the Oil and Gas Emissions Cap” and will exempt Alberta from the government’s clean energy regulations. They would also consider a temporary exemption to the west coast tanker ban.

Cartoon depicting four individuals representing different countries: Saudi Arabia, the U.S., Russia, and Canada, each with exaggerated smokestacks on their heads labeled 'Emission Caps.'

All of these regulations have been points of contention for Alberta, so it is to Smith’s credit that she was able to persuade Carney to budge.  But it’s possible this will not accomplish much more than to remove extra layers of regulation, which were unnecessary even by environmental standards. Under the Trudeau Liberals, there was to be a consumer carbon tax, industrial carbon tax, as well as the clean energy regulations and emissions cap. And it did not end there, as the Impact Assessment Act, also brought in under Trudeau, mandates onerous environmental and social review, including the consideration of “Indigenous knowledge” alongside scientific assessment, as well as considering the “intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors.”

If Carney is at all serious about kickstarting investment in Canada,
he should at minimum be willing to clear away some of these extra rules.

A political cartoon depicting industrial smokestacks emitting carbon emissions represented as tangled red lines. Two figures on the right discuss the complexities of regulations labeled 'Carbon Emissions?' and 'Red Tape.' Various acronyms like 'IAAC,' 'GHGPA,' and 'Carbon $' are visible on the smokestacks.

Ultimately, it seems that environmental policies and expectations are merely being shifted around. Because what is being asked of Alberta would appear to provide only the narrowest of paths for the construction of a new pipeline to the West coast. Under the memorandum of understanding between Smith and Carney, the province would have to raise its industrial carbon tax from $95/tonne to a minimum of $130/tonne, and reduce methane emissions, produced by the energy industry and farmers, to 75 per cent below 2014 levels. And in addition to the duty to consult Indigenous communities, any pipeline must have Indigenous co-ownership.

An illustration depicting an industrial scene with a factory, smoking chimneys, and a large yellow vacuum-like device extracting resources from the ground.

Further to that, the construction of a pipeline is entirely contingent on the simultaneous construction of a massive carbon capture project, presumably so Carney can claim the new pipeline is moving only “low emission” barrels of bitumen. Finally, while the MOU does not explicitly give B.C. a veto, that province is to be included “immediately” in a “trilateral discussion” on the project. B.C. Premier David Eby is opposed to a pipeline and was highly critical of the deal, claiming it would take priority away from other projects, specifically B.C. projects Eby supports. [

Aerial view of a large industrial facility with multiple smokestacks, surrounded by green fields and a body of water in the background.
April 30, 2024 (IEEFA) – More than CAD1 billion were spent retrofitting the Boundary Dam 3 (BD3) coal plant in Saskatchewan to add carbon capture technology. After nine years, the project has a consistent history of capturing far less than the 90 per cent promised when the project was built—and all the carbon dioxide (CO2) captured at the plant is used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) that injects captured CO2 into the ground to extract more oil..Carbon capture at Boundary Dam 3 still an underperforming failure

And the roadblocks to a new pipeline don’t end there. While it would be approved through the Major Projects Office, it isn’t at all clear what purpose that will serve. Carney’s Liberals gave themselves the authority to suspend regulatory review to expedite projects in the national interest. However, the office is electing not to use this power so far, stating on its website that “Projects will continue to be subject to all regulatory review processes.”

So being approved through the MPO may give the pipeline certainty that
it will be approved — eventually. That means every investment killing
process under the Impact Assessment Act will have to be passed.

What the Smith-Carney deal does accomplish is to buy both of them time to each satisfy their base. For Smith that is conservatives flirting with separatism, and for Carney, it is environmentalist Liberals, some of whom see this deal as a betrayal, such as former environment minister Steven Guilbeault who quit cabinet in protest. We applaud genuine attempts from Ottawa to work with, as opposed to against, Alberta, but we’re not confident this plan will deliver what is promised.

A sign depicting a circular flow of 'Climate Change' and 'Carbon Tax' arrows with the phrase 'NO EXIT' in bold letters, presented on an orange background.

See Also:

Canada PM Carney Floats Imaginary “Decarbonized Oil” Pipeline
On Energy, Carney the Wrong Man at the Worst Time
A cartoon image of a blue baseball cap with the slogan 'CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE' printed on it, featuring a small Canadian flag logo and labeled 'MADE IN CHINA'. The cap sits on a textured surface, casting a shadow.

Getting to Net-Zero in Canada

The Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, which became law on June 29, 2021, “enshrines in legislation Canada’s commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.”

From Friends of Science Calgary

Contributed by Ian Cameron, Director for Friends of Science Society ©2024

The Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, which became law on June 29, 2021, “enshrines in legislation Canada’s commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.” To date most of the federal government’s focus has been on its 2030 Paris Agreement target of reaching CO2eq emission reductions 40-45% below the 2005 level of 741 Mt (i.e., 2030 net emissions of 445-408 Mt).

The government’s first attempt to determine what it would take to reach net-zero was a report released in December 2021 by the Canadian Energy Regulator (CER) called Canada’s Energy Future 2021: Energy Supply and Demand Projections to 2050 (EF2021). EF2021 did not explicitly model a net-zero future, which drew criticism and resulted in a directive from the Minister of Natural Resources to the CER to “provide even more data in line with Canada achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.”

Thus, Canada’s Energy Future 2023 (EF2023), published in June 2023, became the CER’s “first long-term outlook on modeling net-zero by 2050.” The results of EF2023 are not future predictions or policy recommendations, but rather the product of three scenarios:

  • Global Net-zero – Canada achieves net-zero by 2050, and the rest of the world reduces emissions enough to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
  • Canada Net-zero – Canada achieves net-zero by 2050, and the rest of the world reduces emissions, but not enough to limit global warming to 1.5°C. This affects some of the international factors that are inputs to the CER’s models.
  • Current measures – No net-zero as there is limited action in Canada beyond current measures and also limited future global climate action.

Figure 1 (Fig. A.2 of EF2023) illustrates the iterative approach for the Global Net-zero and Canada Net-zero scenarios, which used the CER’s Energy Futures Modeling System. The main input driver for the modeling is what the CER refers to as the “aggregate cost of carbon,” which represents a hypothetical suite of policies, regulations and programs assumed for the 2030-2050 period. In the Global Net-zero scenario this means an inflation-adjusted (i.e., 2022$) $330/t of CO2eq in 2050, and $380/t for the Canada Net-zero scenario (Table A1.1).

Fig. 1

Figure 2, copied from Fig. ES.2 of EF2023’s Executive Summary, shows one of the modeling results (end-use energy use by fuel type.) As explained in the Energy Demand section total end-use energy demand for the two Net-zero scenarios declines by 22% and 12%, from 2021 to 2050, despite continuing economic and population growth. This decline is largely due to “switching to different technologies and fuels, more efficient use of energy, and lower activity levels in some sectors.” The CER assumed real annual GDP growth of 1.4% for the Global Net-zero scenario and slightly higher in the other two scenarios; see p.112 of the full report.

Fig. 2

Figure 3 (Fig. R.4 of EF2023) depicts the emissions modeled in the Global Net-zero scenario. Offsetting the positive emissions in 2050 requires “negative emissions” from electricity (-37 Mt); hydrogen production (-21 Mt); direct air capture (-46 Mt); and land use, land-use change, and forestry (-50 Mt). Table R.1 of EF2023 provides explanations for each of the nine economic sectors modeled.

Fig. 3

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, “one of Canada’s leading progressive voices in public policy debates,” took note of EF2023 and commissioned David Hughes to use it as the basis for a report, released on February 8, 2024 and called Getting to Net-Zero in Canada – Scale of the problem, government projections and daunting challenges (full 64-page report and 6-page summary). This article in The Tyee quotes Mr. Hughes’ reason for writing Getting to Net-Zero: “My objective is to provide policymakers and the public with an understanding of the scale of the problem so they can appreciate the scale that any solution is going to have to take. Only with understanding and buy-in can the necessary changes be implemented.” Figure 4, taken from Mr. Hughes’ report, illustrates the “scale of the problem.”

Fig. 4

The Discussion and Implications chapter of the full Getting to Net-Zero report (pp.56-61) states that, in the CER’s Net-zero scenarios, per capita end use of energy must be reduced 33-41% and lists a number of unrealistic outcomes (e.g., wind and solar generation must increase 10-12 times and direct air capture 4,600-5,500 times current world capacity), together with optimistic assumptions about future cost reductions in carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS), direct air capture, wind and solar capital costs, hydrogen production, battery storage, and others (see Table A2.1 of EF2023). As The Tyee article puts it, the CER “largely assumes in its successful scenarios that the cost of renewables, hydrogen, batteries, CCS and nuclear power will magically go down,” while in reality inflationary pressure is increasing these costs.

The key conclusions from Getting to Net-Zero (pp.62-63):

  • Canada’s March 2023 policies would see only a 16% reduction in emissions below 2022 levels by 2050 and must be greatly strengthened.
  • To offset the relatively large proportion of fossil fuels in 2050 end-use energy demand, the CER over-relied on CCUS (33 to 38-fold increase), and a thousand-fold increase in direct air capture. This is a high-risk strategy. Instead, Mr. Hughes recommends reducing end-use demand for fossil fuels.
  • The CER’s Canada net-zero scenario assumed maintaining high levels of fossil fuel production for export in 2050, along with carbon capture and direct air capture to offset emissions from producing oil and gas for export.
  • The CER over-optimistically assumed that hydrogen can grow from almost nothing to 11-12% of end-use energy by 2050.
  • Electricity generation will have to increase from the CER’s 39-41% share of end-use energy to a “more realistic” 55%.
  • Tripling the sequestration capacity of Canada’s forests, as assumed in the CER’s two Net-zero scenarios, will require major improvements in forest management practices.

Given his above-mentioned issues with the CER’s modeling, Mr. Hughes concludes that the government’s major priority for net-zero should be reducing energy demand, as he states on page 6 of Getting to Net-Zero:

“Reducing energy consumption is the low-hanging fruit, as it eliminates the cost of new energy production and emissions reduction infrastructure. Prioritizing conservation, efficiency and behavioral change must become a major government policy priority.”

Mr. Hughes’ report doesn’t provide any figures for how much to reduce energy consumption (or what the whole net-zero effort will cost), only that the CER’s per capita energy reduction of 33-41% won’t be enough. As he told The Tyee: “We are going to have to accept contraction, unfortunately. It has been a slice. But the math does not work for continuous growth.” In other words, getting to net-zero means an end to economic growth, let alone the 1.4%/year real GDP increase assumed in EF2023.

The Minister of Natural Resources’ statement acknowledging EF2023 ends with: “I would like to thank the CER for its thoughtful report, and I look forward to continuing my work with partners across the country in growing our economy and reducing emissions.” Among the partners working with the minister is the Pathways Alliance, a group of oilsands producers proposing to build a $16.5 billion CCUS network in northern Alberta. To date, no construction start and the minister is growing weary of waiting. So he recently told the alliance that he wants to see “progress on the ground,” but alliance members are holding back as they await details on a needed federal investment tax credit, which is yet to be passed. As well, the producers are concerned about a proposed federal initiative to impose an emissions cap on the oil and gas sector.

To burnish their climate credentials the minister and his colleagues desperately want to issue press releases and pose for photo-ops showing tangible progress for the commercially useless Pathways Alliance project. What the ministers desperately don’t want is to tell the public that fulfilling their government’s net-zero agenda will entail a quarter century of increasing energy and economic deprivation.

This article will also appear in our March quarterly newsletter.

~~~~

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How did Alberta wind up facing blackouts in the extreme cold?

With the extreme cold, we are seeing very, very high demand. We set an all-time record Thursday night, 12,384 megawatts. The key difference — and there’s never one single factor that puts us into a grid alert — it’s the extreme cold, we’ve had reduced imports and very little wind.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

h/t cedarsand: “… at this time of year, we don’t have any solar power … Over the last couple of days, the wind has dropped off dramatically. …”

How did Alberta wind up facing blackouts in the extreme cold? A Q and A with AESO

…

Author of the article:
Jonny Wakefield
Published Jan 14, 2024 

We hit the demand peak on Thursday and it looked like we were going to be fine, there was no indication that we were going to be in a situation where we might have to shed load like we did last night. Suddenly 48 hours later, there’s warnings of potential brownouts and blackouts. I’m wondering how we got from a fairly stable situation on Thursday to what we experienced last night and might experience again this evening? 

With the extreme cold, we are seeing very, very high demand. We set an all-time record Thursday night, 12,384 megawatts. The key difference — and there’s never one single factor that puts us into a grid alert — it’s the extreme cold, we’ve had reduced imports and very little wind. And of course, when we get into the peak period from 4-7 p.m., at this time of year, we don’t have any solar power. So on Thursday, we were in a bit better situation, because we had strong wind, we had 1,200 megawatts approximately throughout the peak period from four to seven. So that really made a difference. Over the last couple of days, the wind has dropped off dramatically. We’ve also had a couple of natural gas plants, one is offline, and one is operating at reduced capacity.

…Read more: https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/how-did-alberta-wind-up-facing-blackouts-in-the-cold

State politicians were quick to point the main weak link was renewable energy.

Premiers pan green-energy plans as cold weather strains Alberta’s electricity grid

Rob Drinkwater
Published Jan. 15, 2024 3:47 p.m. AEST

EDMONTON –  

…

“Right now, wind is generating almost no power. When renewables are unreliable, as they are now, natural gas plants must increase capacity to keep Albertans safe,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith posted on social media Friday, shortly after the province’s grid operator issued an appeal for consumers to conserve electricity to protect the system.

A day later, following a second grid alert that warned of potential rotating blackouts, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe posted that surplus power it was sending Alberta’s way was coming from natural gas and coal-fired power plants.

“The ones the Trudeau government is telling us to shut down (which we won’t),” Moe said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

…Read more: https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/premiers-pan-green-energy-plans-as-cold-weather-strains-alberta-s-electricity-grid-1.6725876

Wake up Canada. No amount of renewable capacity can save you, when wind and solar both fail at the same time. The only reason the Alberta grid clung to life during the wind fail is coal and gas power, from Alberta and Saskatchewan – power plants which the Federal Government is pressuring Saskatchewan to close.

Those who continue to support Prime Minister Trudeau’s reckless crusade against reliable energy, the blood of your friends and neighbours will be on your hands.

Alberta Grid Under Stress: EV Drivers Under Duress

When magical thinking meets a polar vortex cold, hard reality follows

‘Green energy’ nightmare in Alberta:

When magical thinking meets a polar vortex cold, hard reality follows

https://twitter.com/CanadaRecord/status/1745992825727033655?s=20

The polar vortex moved in and settled over most of the prairies and Northern BC and temperatures dropped like a stone. Maue checked in on “our Canadian friends” in Edmonton, reporting on Jan. 12th at 10:30 reporting: “Bit of a struggle today with the temperature. Currently -48°F (-44 C) with a wind chill of -67°F (-55C).”

Rolling Blackouts Narrowly Avoided In Alberta

A critical emergency alert was issued on Saturday evening urging Albertans to reduce electricity use to minimize potential outages across the province.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

They seem surprised that it gets cold in Canada!

A critical emergency alert was issued on Saturday evening urging Albertans to reduce electricity use to minimize potential outages across the province.

In an alert sent at around 6:36 p.m., the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) said extreme cold is resulting in high power demand across the province, which places the electricity grid at a high risk of rotating power outages.

Albertans are asked to immediately limit their electricity use to essential needs only and to turn off unnecessary lights and electrical appliances. AESO is also asking Albertans to minimize the use of space heaters and to delay the use of major power appliances.

“We are calling on all Albertans to reduce their electric demand immediately to essentials only. Extreme cold resulting in high power demand has put the province’s electricity grid at high risk of rotating outages tonight,” said Nathan Neudorf, Alberta’s minister of affordability and utilities.

All of Alberta is under an extreme cold warning, with temperatures below -30 C and wind chill of -40 C due to a polar vortex.

On Thursday at around 6 p.m., the new hourly peak demand record was set at 12,384 megawatts (MW), beating a previous record of 12,193 MW set in December 2022.

AESO said that new record was based on energy requirements from industrial, commercial, agricultural and residential users.

Critical emergency alert issued as Alberta’s power grid put under strain

In a statement, Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf called on Albertans to reduce their electric demand to essentials only. Th e Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) said the alert was declared as a result of the ongoing extreme cold temperatures across Western Canada, in addition to restricted imports and “very high demand.”

“On top of high demand of our own energy generation, Alberta’s grid receives electricity from neighbouring provinces,” said Neudorf. “Extreme weather in Saskatchewan and British Columbia is impacting electricity sharing, which is also a contributing factor to tonight’s grid alert. The Alberta Electric System Operator has activated its emergency grid management plan to work with local distribution utilities to avoid potential rolling brownouts.”

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/extreme-cold-alberta-system-operator-warns-of-possible-rolling-blackouts-saturday/ar-AA1mVWUU

Did they really think they could carry on importing power from neighbouring states, when the weather was just as bad there?

Fortunately during that peak demand, coal and gas were running close to full capacity, whilst wind and solar contributed just 2.6%.

Trudeau Climate Crusade Hits Alberta Wall

From Science Matters

 By Ron Clutz

Tyler Durden has the story at zerohedge Alberta Premier Defies Trudeau Carbon Agenda – Invokes Sovereignty Act.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

It is an action which multiple red states in the US undertaken: Blocking carbon controls ingrained in “green power” initiatives conjured by the federal government.

Now it appears the momentum has spread to Canada through Alberta’s conservative leadership as Premier Danielle Smith defies the Trudeau regime by invoking the province’s recently drafted Sovereignty Act.

The Sovereignty Act is designed to give Alberta’s legislative assembly the power to identify any federal programs or actions that violate Alberta’s constitution, the government would then refuse to implement those programs.  The implementation of the act means that finally, an open dialogue on the existential threat of the UN’s “sustainable development goals” and Agenda 2030 has begun in Canada.  

The reasons for opposition to “Net Zero” objectives have been repeated over and over again by political critics, economic critics and scientific critics alike. 

1.  Net zero as the UN defines it is impossible using existing green technologies with inefficient and costly power generation.

2.  Net zero proponents refuse in most cases to acknowledge the usefulness of nuclear power as a means to reduce reliance on oil and gas.

3.  Net zero would require perpetual authoritarian oversight of individual carbon emissions and probably population reduction in the near term.

4.  None of the above even matters because there’s no concrete evidence whatsoever man-made carbon causes global warming.

In other words, the supposed crisis is a fraud and there’s no reason
for any nation, province or state to sacrifice their power grids.

Beyond the big con, stagflation has made carbon controls economically impossible. Aggressive price spikes since 2020 make gas, oil and coal more important than ever in maintaining basic services for the populace along with the needs of industry. Reducing available supply in the face of desperate demand would only fuel the fires of inflation further. Even Europe has been reverting back to “villainous” energy sources like coal to keep things running.

When people face the possibility of freezing or starving there is little chance they are going to listen to unfounded claims of climate doomsday from a bunch of ultra-rich yacht sailing private jet-setting carbon-spewing hypocrite elites.

Canadian Green Electricity Push Blocked by Alberta

Watts Up With That?

Alberta has invoked the Sovereignty Act to set limits on the exercise of federal power. But the federal government claims there is no legal basis for their actions.

Alberta invokes Sovereignty Act over federal clean electricity regulations

Premier Danielle Smith believes net-zero electricity grid by 2035 is risky and costly

Michelle Bellefontaine · CBC News · Posted: Nov 27, 2023 5:22 PM EST 

Alberta’s United Conservative government has invoked its controversial Sovereignty Act for the first time by introducing a resolution to push back against the federal government’s proposed Clean Electricity Regulations. 

The resolution, tabled in the Alberta legislature Monday, instructs governments and provincial entities such as the Alberta Electric System Operator and the Alberta Utilities Commission to ignore the regulations when they come into force “to the extent legally permissable.”

The resolution also raises the possibility of Alberta setting up a Crown corporation to protect the private sector companies that provide electricity in the province. If passed, the resolution would direct AESO, AUC and the Market Surveillance Administrator to consult with stakeholders on the feasibility of such a corporation. 

…

Steven Guilbeault, the federal minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada, said the potential use of the Sovereignty Act never came up in months of meetings between federal and provincial officials as part of a working group on the CER and the oil and gas emissions cap.

…

“There is no legal basis for what Alberta is doing ,” Guilbeault told reporters on Parliament Hill.

…Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/sovereingty-act-clean-electricity-regulations-1.7041533

A video of the Premier announcing the invocation of the Sovereignty Act, and her reasons for doing so. Well worth watching – Alberta is lucky to have a straight speaking premier like Danielle Smith.

Even if the Alberta Sovereignty Act is defeated in the end, just delaying the green menace with a tangle of lawsuits is a win, a chance for more people to wake up and start pushing back.

It is especially delicious that Premier Smith timed this act of defiance against green insanity almost on the eve of the international COP28 climate conference.