Alternatives to the $10 billion Site C dam would produce significantly more jobs than construction of the controversial hydroelectric dam, according to a new study led by the University of British Columbia.

The analysis by researchers from UBC’s Program on Water Governance found that if Site C is scrapped, there would be modest job losses in the short-term — 18 to 30 per cent until 2024 — but job gains of between 22 and 50 per cent through 2030.*

A recent three-month investigation conducted by the B.C. Utilities Commission found alternatives to Site C, including wind energy and conservation measures to reduce provincial electricity demand, could replace the dam at an equal or lower unit energy cost.

“By 2054, the B.C. Utilities Commission alternative portfolio will have created three times as many jobs as Site C,” Karen Bakker, one of the authors of the report and co-director of the Program on Water Governance, told DeSmog Canada.

“Site remediation, geothermal construction and energy conservation will create thousands of jobs each year,” she said.

Alternative energy, such as wind power, creates many more jobs for every dollar spent, Bakker told DeSmog Canada.

ICYMI: Geothermal Would Create 15 Times More Permanent Jobs Than Site C, Panel Told

Using BC Hydro and BCUC figures, the researchers concluded that between now and 2024 continuing Site C would create 35,398 cumulative person-years of employment compared to up to 24,612 for alternative portfolios.

However by 2054, the alternative portfolio will have completely eclipsed Site C, with 37,618 job-years in the Site C scenario and 105,618 for alternatives.

Wind power and conservation efforts would create three times as many jobs as #SiteC https://t.co/FcRG4wzKKV #bcpoli #alternatives #cleanenergy #energyconservation

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 28, 2017

Pressure to Go Ahead

As government mulls over Site C options, with a decision on whether to continue or scrap the project expected by the end of the year, the spectre of more than 2,000 construction workers losing their jobs shortly before Christmas has weighed heavily. The government is also facing pressure from union groups, such as the Allied Hydro Council of B.C. and Christian Labour Association of Canada, who say the project is too far along to quit.

But, if the project is terminated, remediation of the site will require many workers and provide a transition period for the workforce and the local economy, Bakker said.

“It is a big project. It would absorb most of the workers on site… and there will be similar pay scales and skill levels to construction jobs,” she said.

“Two years of remediation and 10 years of monitoring will create about 10,000 jobs at similar pay levels — that’s the transition term for workers — and then, looking at the long term, you can generate more jobs for the dollars spent and generate jobs across the province and especially in the Peace region because it has the best wind resources in the province,” she said.

The analysis found that every direct job at Site C costs over $1 million and, if all jobs are taken into consideration, the cost per job is about $225,000.

BC Hydro figures put current Site C employment at 2,375, but, once construction is complete in 2024, Site C would employ only 74 people each year.

Job Losses Overstated

Even current employment numbers are being questioned by some groups, such as the Peace Valley Landowner Association, which claims the job numbers have been inflated.

“We are concerned that public confusion on this point may make things more complicated for decision-makers in an already complex situation,” says an Association statement.

West coast energy consultant Robert McCullough, who has acted on behalf of the Peace Valley Landowner Association and Peace Valley Environment Association, agrees that there is a common misconception that cancelling Site C will mean the loss of construction jobs.

“The reality is that, while some of the construction jobs will end at Site C, more than twice the person-years of employment will be created with investment into alternative energy projects across the province,” he said in a report.

A bonus is that the jobs will have a wider range of specialization than simply energy and resource development, he said.

More than $2 billion has already been spent on Site C and remediation would cost another $1.8 billion, but, costs of continuing construction are likely to skyrocket from the current $8.9 billion budget.

Site C was not sent to BCUC for recommendations and scrutiny before the previous BC Liberal government pushed the project ahead, but a BCUC report requested by the NDP government, concluded it is already behind time and over budget and is likely to cost at least $10 billion to complete.

*Update Wednesday Nov. 29, 2017 10:15am pst. This article previously stated the UBC analysis was independently reviewed. It did not receive an independent review.

Image: Wind turbines in B.C. Photo: Garth Lenz | DeSmog Canada

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As many countries move away from big hydro projects, B.C.’s government must decide whether to continue work on the Site C dam. The controversial megaproject would flood a 100-kilometre stretch of the Peace River Valley and provide enough power for the equivalent of about 500,000 homes.

The B.C. Utilities Commission, an independent body responsible for ensuring British Columbians pay fair energy rates, found the dam is likely behind schedule and over budget, with completion costs estimated at more than $10 billion. In a “high impact” scenario, it may go over budget by as much as 50 per cent.

ICYMI: Site C Dam $600 Million Over Budget, Will Miss River Diversion Timeline, Says BC Hydro CEO

The dam has faced court challenges and political actions by Treaty 8 First Nations and farmers whose land would be flooded. Treaty 8 First Nations stand to lose hunting and fishing grounds, burial sites and other areas vital to their culture and sustenance. West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations demonstrated the devastating environmental impacts Site C will have.

The Peace Valley’s land and waters are an integral part of First Nations’ identity, stories, songs and language. An open letter opposing the project, signed by 27 people and groups, including Amnesty International, says the project betrays Canada’s commitment under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Consent from affected Indigenous Peoples is required for developments such as megadams, yet the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations did not give consent.

BC Hydro’s economic analysis also ignored ecosystems and the benefits they provide. The David Suzuki Foundation estimates ecosystem services from farmland, wetland and other natural capital in the Peace watershed are conservatively worth $7.9 billion to $8.6 billion a year. Services that sustain the health and well-being of local communities include air and water filtration, erosion control, recreational services and wildlife habitat.

The replacement value of what will be lost by flooding far exceeds the dam’s economic returns. Failure to account for the loss of ecosystem services puts us on a destructive course and undervalues natural capital in regulatory decisions.

Alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal, leveraging existing projects and prioritizing localized generation could be as good — or better — for B.C. ratepayers as the megadam. Alternative energy has the advantage of being able to be timed for when it’s needed.

ICYMI: Geothermal Would Create 15 Times More Permanent Jobs Than Site C, Panel Told As BCUC Hearings Draw to Close

Additional generation capacity may not even be necessary because BC Hydro currently exports or sells a significant amount of power, often at a loss, outside the province.

Serious concerns are also being raised about production and release of methylmercury from soil. When land is flooded, naturally occurring soil bacteria can convert mercury to methylmercury, a toxic compound that can move up the food chain and potentially harm human health. Modelling projections for Muskrat Falls dam on the lower Churchill River indicate flooding likely will increase methylmercury 10-fold in the dammed river and 2.6-fold in surface waters downstream. Methylmercury concerns loom at 22 major dams now proposed or under construction close to Indigenous communities in Canada, including Site C.

The area to be flooded is some of the North’s most arable farmland. Agrologist Wendy Holm estimates this breadbasket can feed a million people in the region, an important feature as climate change alters growing seasons and demands more local food systems.

ICYMI: B.C. Taxpayers Paid Millions for the Prime Farmland BC Hydro Will Flood with Site C Dam

Dams now supply about three-fifths of Canada’s electricity. A long-held belief that big hydro projects are the most economically sustainable energy options is fast losing support as renewable energy costs plummet and projects multiply worldwide. The Peace Valley has an incredible ability to generate natural wealth if protected from development. The alternative is ecological fragmentation.

Economic scrutiny of Site C was long overdue but only answers some questions about hydro megaprojects. We can’t elevate the economy above what we need to survive. Humans are now the primary factor altering the physical, chemical and biological properties of the planet on a geological scale. Building more megadams epitomizes the folly of our ways.

The Site C dam should never have been approved. Continuing construction is bad public policy, and it’s not too late to halt it. Canada must join other nations and stop the destructive, unnecessary practice of damming major rivers and running roughshod over Indigenous rights and title. Lower impact renewable energy, like wind, solar and geothermal, look better every day.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Communications Specialist Theresa Beer.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

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Opportunities provided by 21st century renewables, such as geothermal, wind and solar, have either been ignored or the costs over-inflated in BC Hydro documents justifying construction of the Site C dam, the B.C. Utilities Commission Site C Panel was told by presenters during two days of technical briefings.

Speaker after speaker pinpointed holes and inaccuracies in BC Hydro’s math, claiming the bottom line was skewed in favour of building the $8.8-billion dollar dam on the Peace River.

Geothermal power projects are thriving in Oregon and Idaho and the geology does not instantly change at the B.C. border, said Alison Thompson, chair of the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CanGEA), pointing to the number of hot springs and drilled natural gas wells in the province, which indicate the presence of geothermal resources.

“So, how much has BC Hydro spent in the last 15 years in exploratory drilling for geothermal resources?” she asked.

“We believe this number to be zero.”

BC Hydro has said none of the calls for independent power projects produced viable geothermal proposals.

ICYMI: Canada Has Enormous Geothermal Potential. Why Aren’t We Using it?

“This perplexes us when we hear in a submission that the exploration to date has not identified any viable geothermal resources. We refute that and think that there is, in fact, remarkable potential for geothermal development in our province.”

CanGEA mapping indicates there are about 5,000 megawatts of geothermal in B.C., and, if time and money was put into exploration, there could be more, Thompson said. The Site C dam is projected to have about a fifth of that capacity, at 1,100 megawatts.

Thompson questioned Geoscience B.C. figures that formed the basis of BC Hydro’s cost estimates, and said she “absolutely refutes the numbers that they were coming up with for exploration.”

Geoscience B.C. used out-dated technology, looking at large diameter wells, instead of more cost effective slim wells used in modern exploration. Doing so bumps up the estimated cost of a 2.5 kilometre well to $12-million, when the cost of a slim well would be $2-million to $4-million, according to Thompson, who also predicted that, based on U.S. figures, 660 megawatts of geothermal would result in 1,122 permanent jobs ­— about 15 times more than Site C would provide.

#Geothermal Would Create 15 Times More Permanent Jobs Than Site #C, Panel Told As BCUC Hearings Complete https://t.co/EOve99S3jC #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) October 17, 2017

BC Hydro ‘Biased The Analysis’ With Skewed Assumptions: Energy Expert

The story was similar when John Dalton, president of the energy management consulting firm Power Advisory LLC, spoke on behalf of the Canadian Wind Energy Association and Clean Energy Association of B.C., and pointed to BC Hydro’s habit of over-estimating demand for electricity — against a backdrop of a decline in energy consumption across North America — while simultaneously over-estimating the cost of alternative power.

“BC Hydro has employed a series of assumptions which have biased the analysis results against alternatives to Site C,” Dalton told the panel. “Collectively the effect of these biases is to ensure that alternative portfolios offer a cost that is significantly higher than Site C.”

BC Hydro considered only wind and pumped storage as possible alternative power sources and failed to consider geothermal, solar, biomass and battery storage, Dalton said.

ICYMI: Falling Costs of Renewable Power Make Site C Dam Obsolete, Says Energy Economist

And the estimated cost of integrating wind power was wrong, Dalton told the panel, adding that BC Hydro does not appear to have done any analysis of integration possibilities.

“BC Hydro adds a $5-megawatt hour wind integration cost, while also including $48-megawatt hour for pumped storage, which can assist with integration. Considering both costs is double counting,” he said.

BC Hydro’s accounting came under further scrutiny from energy consultant Robert McCullough, speaking for the Peace Valley Landowner Association and Peace Valley Environment Association.

ICYMI: Terminating Site C Dam, Building Alternatives Could Save B.C. Over $1B: Economist

“If we believe that British Columbia cannot build a wind farm for the same price that Governor Inslee in Washington can, there’s something wrong — with the same culture, the same level of expertise, the same workers, the same terrain,” he said.

Marc Eliesen, former CEO of BC Hydro, focused on BC Hydro’s mismanagement of the project, with cost overruns already on the horizon.

In August, BC Hydro president Chris O’Riley told the commission that Site C was on time and on budget, but, earlier this month, the story changed. Geotechnical and construction problems and a year’s delay in the river diversion, will mean an additional $610 million on the bill, he said.

“BC Hydro’s current and continued project mismanagement can only lead to a conclusion that the project will reach $12 billion before it is complete,” Eliesen said.

“BC Hydro’s efforts to reach a point of no return for this project have added costs to the project which have not yet been properly identified or calculated and would not have been incurred if BC Hydro had been working toward the publicly announced plan.”

However, O’Riley, one of a team of BC Hydro spokesmen at the technical briefings, said Site C offers the best deal for British Columbians and, if the project is terminated, ratepayers will pay $3.2 billion, with nothing to show for it.

The BCUC panel will make a recommendation to government on the future of Site C on Nov. 1 and it will then be up to cabinet to make a decision.

Image: geothermal. Photo: National Renewable Energy Lab via Flickr

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A popular feed-in tariff program in Nova Scotia is being cancelled by the provincial government, according to a recent announcement stating the program “had achieved its objectives.”

The program, the Nova Scotia community feed-in tariff (COMFIT), was the world’s first feed-in tariff system for local energy producers plugging into the grid.

COMFIT was designed to provide an incentive for independent, community-based energy production and guaranteed a stable kilowatt-hour rate for energy fed back into the provincial grid from local renewable energy projects.

As the province describes it, through COMFIT “smaller producers are able to supply renewable energy to their specific community.” But now “no new COMFIT applications will be considered.”

The Climate News Network argues the decision will negatively impact both Nova Scotians and the climate.

“The decision, which will initially mean lower prices for energy users, is at odds with widespread warnings that renewable energy must rapidly replace fossil fuels.”

Last week Nova Scotia’s Liberal government announced it was cancelling the program, initially launched in 2011 by the former New Democrat government.

“This is the right time to bring Comfit to a close; it has achieved its objectives,” the Liberals stated in a press release. “We are now at a point where the programme could begin to have a negative impact on power rates. Nova Scotians have told us they want stability and affordability when it comes to power rates, and industry wants clarity on the future of the Comfit programme.”

“No new generation is needed to meet electricity demand, and adding capacity would negatively impact rates as Nova Scotians pay more for energy with small-scale, community-based projects than from other sources.”

The program was initially designed to bring 100-megawatts of independently produced power online. There are currently 80 megawatts of power feeding the province’s energy grid with a capacity of 125 megawatts projected to come online by the end of 2015.

Energy Minister Michel Samson told reporters at the time of the announcement the program would likely “have a negative impact on rates” if it continued. 

Catherine Abreu, energy coordinator with the Ecology Action Centre, worries ending the program signals to Nova Scotians the province is “backing away from support for community-owned renewable power.”

“As pointed out by the Department, the COMFIT program has exceeded expectations both in clean energy output and in contributing to the economic development of Nova Scotian communities. This should be cause for celebration, not cancellation.”

Abreu adds that it might make sense to “[press] pause on any new applications” to make sure any increased capacity remains affordable, “ending the program outright is an unnecessary step backwards.”

Abreu said Nova Scotia has made significant steps to reduce its climate pollution but that “this move signals a retreat from success.”

Nova Scotia needs to continue building on the leadership it has shown in cleaning up its dirty energy system and giving Nova Scotians more control over power generation.”

The government promised to introduce new legislation including an electricity plan in the fall and said it will release  “more details on renewable energy and its role in the province's energy future” at that time.

Local energy developers say they’ve been consulted by the province on the possibility of a new replacement program, the Chronicle Herald reports.

According to Dan Roscoe, chief operating officer of Scotian WindFields, wind projects have been so successful in Nova Scotia, he isn’t surprised the program is ending for large wind turbines.

Wind power generates about 10 per cent of Nova Scotia’s electricity needs and the province has a goal of achieving a goal of 25 per cent renewables in their overall energy mix by 2015. That number must increase to 40 per cent by 2020.

“We knew the program was oversubscribed” for wind energy, Roscoe said. But he added he was surprised the program was being cancelled for other alternatives like solar energy.

Shaw Boudreau of Endurance Wind Power told the Chronicle Herald the province has consulted industry about an electricity plan to be released this fall, but said he wasn’t apprised of the details.

“We’ve been working with them on the smaller-scale portion,” Boudreau said. “We’re expecting to see a…different program with similar characteristics.” 

Image Credit: Wind turbines on Dalhouse Mountain. Photo: Nova Scotia government

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The agriculture sector will rise in importance in coming decades as the world warms and moves away from fossil fuels.

That’s the most recent prediction from Jeff Rubin, former chief economist for CIBC World Markets, whose latest book, The Carbon Bubble, forecasts a not-so-distant future in which climate change will open up the possibility for cultivating crops, historically grown in places like Kansas and Iowa, much further north. At the same time, Rubin argues, global dependence on fossil fuels will drop, freeing up capital to migrate to crops like corn and soy.

“There could be some tremendous opportunity for Western Canada, in the same provinces that are likely to be victims of the carbon bubble,” Rubin told DeSmog Canada. “Food is the only real sector in the commodity field that has been resilient, that’s kept its pricing power. You could argue that just that alone is sufficient.”

Agriculture has always played a major role in Canada’s economy. Rod MacRae, associate professor of environmental studies at York University and national food policy expert, notes the food sector trails directly behind energy and automobile manufacturing, employing one in every eight Canadians.

Last year, farm cash receipts (the income from selling commodities combined with direct subsidies) totalled $57.4 billion. To put that in perspective, the auto industry sold $82.6 billion worth of products in 2012, with oil and gas contributing $133 billion to the country’s GDP in 2013.

But the energy industry is currently in trouble: projects in the Alberta’s oilsands are stalled out, with low prices and market access woes resulting in shoddy returns.

Rubin calculates that over the last seven years, the oilsands have lost 70 per cent of share value. Yet land in the prairies has seen double digit annual increases in the same window, he says, pointing to the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board’s 2013 acquisition of 115,000 acres of Saskatchewan farmland as an example of the changing economic terrain.

Droughts in California and British Columbia may further incentivize purchases of prairie lands.

“The strength of food prices themselves are going to make that land valuable,” Rubin says. “But once you start taking into effect the corn belt and a lot of food belts may be migrating to higher latitude regions, which is certainly what all the climate change models are suggesting, then that’s an even more compelling reason.”

Farming in a Hotter World

However, diseases, pests and weeds will also benefit from increased temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide, says York University’s MacRae.

Add in the inevitable rise in extreme weather events (like microburst rainfalls that drop several inches of precipitation in a very localized area) and climate change may have some seriously detrimental side effects on Canadian agriculture.

While MacRae likes Rubin’s argument that the food system should be a greater priority, he questions if current agricultural practices will survive such rapid and significant changes.

If Canada promotes local and organic farms, it might be a different story, he says.

“If we dramatically change the food system, we can create resilience and also mitigate emissions,” MacRae said. “Then, we’re in a much better place to deal with climate change. If we manage that properly, we can create a very viable food system economy.”

That requires government intervention — specifically, a national food strategy, he says.

Without one, MacRae says, “We can’t design anything around big pictures challenges and solutions, because it’s so fragmented and nobody wants to take the lead on it so there’s no way to marshal and coordinate resources.”

Rubin said the transition from an energy-centric to a food-centric economy is already being guided by market forces.

But for MacRae the right type of agricultural industry will require a heavy interventionist approach. He added there hasn’t been an adequate level of government participation in the food system since the Second World War.

A future of carbon taxes, biofuels and local power

But a shift to an agriculture-oriented economy may not just revolve around food, according to John Parkins, professor of rural and environmental sociology at the University of Alberta.

In coming years, oilsands majors like Suncor, Syncrude and Shell may be keenly looking for new opportunities to reinvent themselves, especially if a significant economy-wide carbon tax or another type of polluter-pay system is implemented, he said.

Parkins suggests such transformation may take the form of biofuels, which can range in origin from corn to potatoes to vegetable oils to wood chips. Oilsands companies, he says, are ultimately in the business of transportation: as alternative fuels become more viable, they could significantly reduce the need for fossil fuel-generated energy.

“In a big way, [agriculture] is related to questions about how we electrify the grid and how we put fuel in our vehicles,” he said. “If the solutions become more located within agriculture, then I could see a massive transition. That takes the question around agriculture beyond just the food question to a whole bunch of other sectors.”

Yet that shift will also require some power moves from various levels of government.

While a carbon tax may serve as a stick, capital (which Parkins describes as “agnostic about what sector it’s in”) may need more incentive to invest in socially beneficial areas.

Unfortunately, MacRae reiterates that food or agriculture is rarely a priority for the federal government, making such options significantly less probable. Based on the vague planks in the platform of the three major federal parties, he’s not optimistic that will change soon.

Image Credit: Israel Photo Gallery via Flickr

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This is a guest post by Tzeporah Berman, Adjunct Professor York University Faculty of Environmental Studies and longtime environmental advocate. A shorter version of this piece originally appeared on the Toronto Star.

The debate over energy, oilsands and pipelines in Canada is at best dysfunctional and at worst a twisted game that is making public relations professionals and consultants on all sides enormous amounts of money.

Documents obtained through Freedom of Information routinely show our own government hiding scientific reports or meeting secretly to craft PR strategies with the companies they are supposed to regulate, while millions of dollars are spent on ads trying to convince Canadians that the oilsands are like peanut butter and that without them our hospitals will close. *(See change notice at end of article.)

On the other side we march, we rally and we point fingers creating a narrative of exclusion and moral high-ground while acting as though a low carbon transition is going to be a walk in the park.

Enough.

Recently the people of Alberta voted for a change and got a progressive majority government that is not only acknowledging the urgent need to address our climate challenge but is also committing to a new partnership with First Nations, many of whom are in court over the impacts of oilsands expansion to the their Treaty rights — to wildlife, air, water and a safe climate.  And then this month our Prime Minister Harper was forced to acknowledge the critical need for the decarbonisation of our economy.  

It’s time for a new, honest conversation in Canada.

It’s time to recognize that the oilsands are, in fact, a technological marvel that took great Canadian ingenuity and acumen. It’s also time to acknowledge that when we began the exploration of the oilsands we did not know what we know today.

We didn’t understand the cumulative impacts on our disappearing caribou populations, the toxic impact on our lakes and fish, the human health impacts of air and water pollution. We didn’t know that carbon trapped in our atmosphere would create climate impacts as severe as we currently face — the droughts, the floods, the wildfires, the rising intensity and frequency of violent storms. Now we do.

Keeping Canada’s total emissions within a carbon budget that is consistent with our climate commitments while allowing oilsands production to grow as projected would require extraordinary disruption and hardship in the rest of the country.

In order for all of us to see this challenge as a collective challenge, to truly work together and not just move around the deck chairs on the Titanic, we need to face some simple but hard truths:

Basic math shows us that it would mean that every single vehicle in the country has to be electric and run on renewable energy. Or that British Columbia, all the Atlantic provinces and the territories have zero emissions. Honest math shows us that since 1990, Alberta has contributed 73 per cent of Canada’s GHG emission growth, and Saskatchewan 29 per cent, while both Ontario and Quebec have reduced emissions.

I can already hear the arguments for inaction “But Canada’s emissions are only a small part of global emissions."  

Yet Canada is one of the worlds top 10 polluters and, when taking into account emissions from land use and forestry, the World Resources Institute ranks Canada as the highest per capita polluter in the world. 

The hard truth is the oilsands are the fastest growing source of emissions in Canada and Environment Canada projects with current technology and development plans oilsands emissions will more than double over the next decade.

The path to decarbonisation does not come from expanding the fossil fuel industry. I have met many in industry who argue that if Canada doesn’t expand the oilsands, the oil will just come from somewhere else. Not only does that argument deny the impact of disruptive technologies (electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries, etc.) will have on demand for oil, it is also an incredibly low bar for moral leadership.

Might as well mine and drill more even though we now know the majority of the world’s scientists and the World Bank have warned we need to stop expanding fossil fuel production because if we don’t someone else will. Is this the best we can do in a time of global crisis?

Isn’t that kind of like trying to justify selling arms to corrupt governments? “Look if we don’t sell it to them someone else will.”

The more pipelines we build, the more projects we bring online the greater the challenge we are creating for ourselves. We need to do everything we can to avoid new infrastructure that locks us in longer to a fossil fuel economy. Our leadership will inspire others and contribute to greater market certainty for renewable energy, electric cars and other innovative technologies.

Yes many of us still use gasoline to fill our cars, we fly in planes and we will continue to for many years. We need to recognize that that will not change overnight and the oilsands will not shut down tomorrow.

There is a long and difficult road in front of us of retraining, of building new clean energy infrastructure, reducing oil demand through efficiency, scaling up public transportation and electrifying transport.

That will take time and we need to ensure that people are not thrown out of work and we do not destabilize capital markets. That requires serious transition planning and it’s not going to be easy or comfortable. It is in fact going to be messy and complicated. We are going to all have to let go of our black and white ‘truths’ and be willing to muck about in ‘grey’ together.

I believe Canadians are up for the challenge. That we have the ingenuity, the knowledge and the creativity to lead a new path forward.

In fact, I suspect that for the majority of Canadians, debating solutions, timelines, the pace and scale of the transition out of the oilsands over time, having the real, hard honest conversations, will be a relief.

* This article originally included a reference to ads trying to convince Canadians that the oilsands are as toxic as peanut butter. Those ads actually compared the consistency, not the toxicity, of oilsands to peanut butter.

Image Credit: Pembina Institute

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What would you do with an extra $30 million dollars? That's the question currently facing the Government of Nunavut.

The recent drop in oil price means that the Arctic territory is set to save up to $32 million in fuel costs. This offers a unique chance to invest in green energy argues George Hickes, Iqaluit-Tasiluk representative in Nunavut's Legislative Assembly.

"Very few people have actually brought up the topic of renewable energy, so I want to highlight the fact we have an opportunity now, with some of the potential savings and fuel resupply, to invest in alternative energy pilot programmes," Hickes explains.

"It gives us an opportunity to show ourselves, and the federal government, and the rest of the world, that we're serious about alternative energy solutions as well."

And so should they be. The territory is 100 percent reliant on diesel fuel for all of its electricity, importing roughly 45 million litres each year. With no grid infrastructure, each community is served by its own diesel-fired power plant, the majority of which are at, or near, the end of their lifecycle.

This is compared to the other northern territories, which are almost entirely powered by renewables. The Northwest Territories (NWT) produces about 80 percent of its electricity from hydroelectric dams, while Yukon sources 99.5 percent of its electricity from hydro and wind power.

"It's a challenge," says Hickes of greening Nunavut's energy supply. With 25 communities totalling almost 32,000 people spread out over an area the size of Western Europe, Nunavut is a "big landmass with a small population." It is Canada's largest, northernmost, and newest territory.

Understanding this context helps explain, in part, its lack of renewable energy infrastructure. On April 1, 1995 Nunavut was officially separated from NWT. Prior to that, when money was spent investing in renewables for the territory, it was directed towards the biggest populations—western parts of NWT such as Yellowknife, not the sparsely-populated eastern portion that is now Nunavut.

But 16 years later, not much has changed. Poor infrastructure and a low level of financing are the main challenges says Hickes, not to mention pretty serious competing interests such as food security, health centres, waste treatment and management, and a severe lack of housing.

"We have communities in Nunavut that are unable to meet the demands of growth, such as housing, due to being at maximum power capacity for the generation infrastructure available. Until such a time as Nunavut expands or replaces those power plants, no growth to meet demand is available," Hickes explains.

"What I'm thinking is if we invest in things that are going to save us money in the long-run, or offset some of our fuel expenditures and greenhouse impact, it's a win-win."

Read more on VICE Canada.

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Last Wednesday, business people from all sectors came together at the Creekside Community Center for the CREDible Conversation: Will new oil pipelines benefit BC businesses?

Conversations for Responsible Economic Development (CRED), “is a collaboration of business owners, academics, landowners and everyday residents… created by a team of advisors from a diverse range of sectors.” The topic on the table was: What really drives BC’s economy?

Liz McDowell, CRED spokesperson and organizational development consultant, started off the event with a focused presentation on the Kinder Morgan Pipeline proposal. The presentation aimed to identify how beneficial the expansion project would actually be to BC businesses. The goal of the presentation was to answer some big questions like what does the project offer? What are the risks? And what are the alternatives?

What exactly does the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion project offer in terms of economics?

While the BC government has officially refused the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline based on the company’s inability to provide adequate environmental confidence, The Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline is a bit of a different story.

For one thing, the Trans Mountain Pipeline has existed since 1952. Now Kinder Morgan is proposing to build a new pipeline alongside the existing system. According to the CRED’s extensive report, Assessing the risks of Kinder Morgan’s proposed new Trans Mountain Pipeline, “The $5.4 billion project would increase the capacity of the system to at least 800,000 barrels per day.” The product would be primarily for foreign market.

The Kinder Morgan “expansion project will create 50 permanent jobs.” There will also be a contribution of about 4,000 temporary construction jobs “created during the construction phase, which is estimated to last for less than two years,” according to CRED’s report.

Their website boasts that “the project would create $355 million in increased provincial tax revenues and about $600 million in municipal tax revenues.” Though that sounds like a lot, the numbers are projected over the six years of construction and thirty years of operations—which breaks down to $26.5 million a year—about 0.007% of corporate revenue taxes.

However, the potential of the green energy sector puts these projections into perspective. “In 2011, clean energy supply and storage, clean transportation, clean building, and energy efficiency together was responsible for 123,000 jobs and $15B GDP in 2011,” according to McDowell’s presentation.

Currently, mining, oil and gas jobs make up one percent of the overall industry profile of BC. Most people are employed in other services like Hospitality, Tourism and Technology. “The tech sector employs 80,000+ people—more than forestry, mining, oil and gas combined.”

Environmental concerns aside, the risk of a spill of this magnitude puts existing jobs investments at risk. It’s called Beautiful British Columbia for a reason and that beauty is a large part of what drives the economy. Real Estate is a booming industry in the lower mainland, as is tourism, film, farming and agriculture. These sectors stand to suffer greatly in the event of an oil spill.

In order to understand the long-term effects of an oil spill on economy, the CRED report takes the events in the Gulf of Mexico as an example. “The Deepwater Horizon spill could have an $8.7 billion impact on the Gulf of Mexico economy, including 22,000 job losses.” These are the numbers they’ve come up with so far. The financial and environmental scope of the damage won’t be fully realized for years.   

The Trans Mountain Pipeline has seen its share of leaks and spills. Since 1952 there have been 78 spills. Four spills have taken place since Kinder Morgan purchased the project in 2005. Three of those spills, happened in heavily-populated residential areas. The proposal is not set to be filed until early 2014 because they have not been able to assure confidence in their ability to prevent an environmental disaster.

"If we don't want to accept the risks what are the ecological alternatives?"

Sundance Chief Reuben George from the Tsleil-Watuth Nation presented just one example of an economical alternative. Chief Reuben George is part of the TWN Wind Power Company. The Tsleil-Watuth Nation company “offers Aboriginal communities throughout North America an opportunity to generate clean energy through wind power.” TWN offers small and community sized wind turbine products that can meet a variety of energy needs.

But, as McDowell points out in her presentation: “The sector is still new and vulnerable to risk – barriers include trouble finding skilled workers and investment capital.”

The Chief points out that the amount of money the government uses to finance and subsidize unconventional oil and gas would do a lot of good for emerging green energy companies like this. Investment in this industry could go towards training and furthering scientific research.

After lunch, Michael Tippett, a media professional, entrepreneur and now Director of New Products at Hootsuite, gave the keynote speech. His message was clear. Gone are the days where we build our national identity on the export of natural resources, the time has come to reassert ourselves and our Canadian image.

He used the well-known Canadian icon, the beaver, as an example of how Canada is characterized. The beaver didn’t become our national animal because of its hard-working humble nature, which is how we have come to view ourselves as Canadians. The beaver was the product Canada known for—beaver pelts. They were in high demand and thusly, the Hudson Bay Company was born.

Tippett suggests that a change in branding is called for. In order to change people's perceptions of Canada, we need to move beyond the idea that we are known for our natural resources. "We need to move beyond the Beaver,” Tippett said.

images and infographics used with permission from TWN and CRED. 

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This is a guest post by David Suzuki with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Communications Manager Ian Hanington. It was originally published on the Science Matters blog.

Some people think a widespread shift from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources is not practical or even possible.

You've probably heard the arguments: wind doesn't always blow, sun doesn't always shine, the technology's not advanced enough, installations take up too much space, we need sources of baseload power that can only come from fossil fuels or nuclear power.

And so we carry on, rushing to squeeze every last drop of oil and gas from the ground using increasingly difficult and destructive methods like fracking, deep-sea drilling and oil sands extraction, with seemingly little concern for what we'll do after we've burned it all.

A lot of research is challenging those skeptical assumptions, including some by the David Suzuki Foundation, working with the Trottier Energy Futures Project.

"Canada has vast renewable energy resources in the form of hydropower, solar, wind energy, and biomass, as well as geothermal, wave, and tidal resources that are many times larger than current or projected levels of total fuel and electricity consumption," the recent Trottier report, 'An Inventory of Low-Carbon Energy for Canada', concludes.

Those findings are confirmed by research and experience elsewhere in the world. A study by engineers at Stanford University reports, "it is technically and economically feasible to convert New York's all-purpose energy infrastructure to one powered by wind, water and sunlight," and doing so "shows the way to a sustainable, inexpensive and reliable energy supply that creates local jobs and saves the state billions of dollars in pollution-related costs."

An article in the New York Times; points to research by the Paris-based International Energy Agency, showing, "Thirteen countries got more than 30 percent of their electricity from renewable energy in 2011."

The Stanford study's lead author, engineering professor Mark Z. Jacobson, told the New York Times, "You could power America with renewables from a technical and economic standpoint. The biggest obstacles are social and political — what you need is the will to do it."

It would be even less of a challenge in Canada. Thanks in part to our abundant hydro resources, we produced more than 63 per cent of our electricity with renewable sources in 2011. The U.S. produced 12.3 per cent.

The biggest obstacles in shifting to clean energy may be social and political, but one of the greatest challenges is creating a "smart" electricity grid. As Trottier Project managing director Ralph Torrie says, we'll have to replace our antiquated grid with one that "will use information technologies to balance a wider range of supply sources, energy storage, interprovincial transfers of electricity and a wide variety of energy management and efficiency tools." Because the current system is due for an overhaul, now is an ideal time to invest in reconfiguring it.

Other challenges include the costs and the impacts of renewable energy installations on ecosystems and wildlife. And with biofuels, the sustainability of source materials and effects on land and food supplies must also be considered. But these are far from insurmountable. Fossil fuel and nuclear power sources are also extremely costly and have far greater environmental impacts. And many studies show that moving to renewables creates jobs and contributes to economic health.

The recent Trottier study looked at Canada's potential in the context of reducing energy-related greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 — a necessary target if we are to do our part to combat climate change. Reaching that target will also require becoming more efficient in the ways we produce and consume fuels and electricity. This means looking at our individual behaviours as well as considering our habits and practices for everything from public transportation to building design to manufacturing.

Sure, it will be a challenge. But the alternative — to carry on polluting air, water and soil and putting our future at risk with global warming — isn't pretty. We've faced and overcome many challenges before. When people have mobilized resources in the past, we've been able to accomplish a lot in relatively little time — from defeating the fascist threat in the Second World War to putting people on the moon.

Finding smarter ways to power our societies is something we can and must do.

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