Building a major LNG terminal in Delta would have a major impact on the mouth of the Fraser River. The diaphragm at the top of this page shows how LNG tankers would come into, and leave, the proposed WesPack Tilbury Marine Jetty. Even with the help of tugboats, they need most of the Fraser River’s width to turn around. The National Energy Board has already granted an export license for a facility that could bring up to 120 LNG tankers and 90 LNG barges to this terminal every year. In the US, LNG proponents need to assess potential hazards all along LNG tanker routes, but the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is considering waiving an environmental assessment. The public comment period on this project is almost over, you have two days left to ask for an environmental review.
One can’t help but notice the timing of the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation’s (SPEC) list ranking Canadian Cities on their Solar Energy Policy. Vancouver, which hopes to become the World’s greenest city, is hosting the Renewable Cities Global Learning Forum at the Four Seasons Hotel, May 13-15. Though Vancouver has done well in many areas, SPEC has long maintained that the city’s solar energy policy is not one of them. According to its’ survey of 17 municipalities: Vancouver ranks last for solar policy among Canadian Cities; Edmonton, Toronto & Calgary are policy leaders.
Modern grid operators have a more complex task than their counterparts did a generation ago. There was very little intermittent energy twenty or thirty years ago and little need for sophisticated instrumentation. Now the infrastructure is aging and operators need to deal with intermittent energy sources like solar and wind, energy storage, plug-in electric vehicles, interconnects and increasing demand. They need better information, so they can react to changes fast. National Grid UK selected National Instrument’s CompactRIO platform to increase their capability of seeing harmonic problems on the grid by 400%.
It has been 37 years since Dr Allan Hoffman gave President Jimmy Carter the plan that could have started America’s renewable revolution. The idea was shelved after Reagan was elected. Hoffman waited, as administration after administration ignored the potential, until Barack Obama was elected. The retired senior Department of Energy executive views the growth of US renewables during 2014 as a vindication of what he and his colleagues saw decades ago.More Than Half Of The New Capacity
During the thirty years prior to the lawsuit, Ernst was a consultant working in the oil and gas sector. She performed like environmental impact assessments, environmental protection plans and recommended mitigation. Encana was one of her customers. Jessica Ernst doesn’t get paid work anymore. Seven years ago she sued against Encana, Alberta Environment and the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB). The case has yet to go beyond the question of whether an Albertan citizen can sue government agencies. When Judge Neil Whittmann ruled the case can proceed, last November, he said (paragraph 56) “there is a reasonable prospect Ernst will succeed in establishing that Alberta owed her a primae facie duty of care.” Did Albertan regulators act in bad faith?
