Coal-fired power has a bright future despite “doom and gloom” stories, but the industry must change public perceptions of coal and find environmental solutions, says the head of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE).

           There is a “serious opportunity for (coal-generated) thermal power to be a leader” in world energy production, Robert Page, chair of the NRTEE, told the Coal Association of Canada’s 47^th Canadian Conference on Coal, held in Calgary. The industry must also refocus negative public perceptions of coal as a ‘dirty’ fuel and focus instead “on managing emissions,” said Page, who’s also the…

           An Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) decision to reject three proposed new natural gas wells in central Alberta has permanently closed the door to exploration in the area, says the head of the Calgary firm that applied to drill the wells.

           The ERCB’s decision against drilling the ‘sweet’ gas wells has “sterilized” the area near Innisfail, and is an example of burdensome regulation that is hurting the conventional oil and gas industry, said Doug Kay, president of Intrepid Energy Corp. and a board member of the Small Explorers and Producers Association of Canada (SEPAC).

           “We’re having regulation heaped on the industry.…

VANCOUVER – The world is moving away from a hydrocarbons-based economy toward a cleaner “bioeconomy” fuelled by biomass, experts told a GLOBE 2008 session.

            But North America is lagging behind European and South American countries, especially Brazil, in advancing the bioeconomy because of misdirected incentives and a lack of political will, some of the panelists said at “The Business of Biomass” session.

            “Gasoline is on its way in Brazil to becoming an alternative fuel,” said Joel Velasco, chief representative in North America for UNICA – Sugar Cane Industry Union in Sao Paulo, Brazil. UNICA represents more than 100 sugar…

VANCOUVER – Emerging technologies for producing biofuels will shift the demand from corn-based ethanol – blamed for rising food costs – to more sustainable products, experts told a GLOBE 2008 session.

            Federal Environment Minister John Baird announced at GLOBE that Ottawa-based Iogen Corporation’s application for federal funding for Canada’s first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant has progressed to the due  diligence stage. This brings “Canada one step closer to making our country’s first full-scale cellulosic ethanol fuel facility a reality,” Baird said.

            Iogen and its partners Shell and Goldman Sachs plan to use specialized enzymes to convert wheat straw and other plant fibre into sugars…

By Elona Malterre

VANCOUVER – Renewable energy businesses in North America are growing rapidly but they still need government financial incentives and policy changes to compete with conventional energy industries, GLOBE 2008 delegates heard.

            The global power industry as a whole has grown by about two per cent per year, while growth in renewable energy sources have soared by about 25 per cent annually – including 50 per cent per year for solar energy alone, Angiolo Laviziano, CEO of REC Solar California, told a session on “Clean Energy: Growing Renewable Energy.” REC Solar builds solar power plants for large corporations as…

VANCOUVER – Fossil fuels will continue to dominate the global demand for energy for at least the next 20 years, with higher energy prices for consumers and renewables playing only a minor role.

            That was the ‘consensus’ prediction by energy experts at a GLOBE 2008 session entitled “The Future of Energy Dialogue.”

            Greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise in the atmosphere to well above ‘safe’ levels – in terms of precipitating climate change – of more than 500 parts per million, predicted Bob Elton, president and CEO of BC Hydro. “I don’t believe from what I’ve seen that we’re…

              A Seattle-based firm says its new “Clean Smokestack Solution” promises to revolutionize control of industrial greenhouse gases and other smokestack emissions – providing the technology is economic at a commercial scale.

              WI Environmental says independent, bench-scale engineering evaluation tests show its new technology can eliminate the release of carbon dioxide emissions – in addition to heavy metals, fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide – from coal-fired electrical, cement and wood pulp plants.

              “Before applying the Clean Smokestack Solution to existing and new coal-fired power plants, feasibility, economic and preliminary engineering design analyses will need to be performed to…

              A “report card” by two environmental groups on Alberta’s existing and planned oilsands mining operations is either confusing or misleading, some industry and government representatives say.

              But the Pembina Institute and World Wildlife Fund-Canada, defend the results in the jointly produced the report card, Under-Mining the Environment: The Oil Sands Report Card, (available at www.wwf.ca/oilsandsreport). The environmental groups evaluated the environmental performance of 10 of Alberta’s operating, approved or applied-for oilsands mines. The average score among all oilsands projects surveyed was 33 per cent.

              Given plans to exploit the oilsands on some 140,000 square kilometres, “There is growing concern in Alberta, in…

              Developers of “clean coal” technologies will soon start providing performance guarantees to spur the building of commercial-scale, clean coal-fired power plants, says an industry expert on gasification.

              But when it comes to predicting how soon clean coal would be a reality, the answer is: “How long is a piece of string?” Paul Clark, an engineer and president of Ripley Canyon Resources Ltd., told the Canadian Energy Research Institute’s 2007 Electricity Conference. Clark founded his company, which is focused on coal/carbon gasification technology, after retiring as director of fuel supply for TransAlta Utilities Corp.

              There are about 10 companies providing…

              Former premiers Brian Tobin and Ralph Klein have teamed up to write a discussion paper detailing the “cornerstones” of a continental energy strategy.

              “(We) hope to encourage all bold policy makers and the Canadian public to think carefully about the opportunities presented by the energy sector, and how we can best use these resources to build a long-term, more sustainable, prosperous nation,” Tobin told a Fraser Institute dinner in Calgary. The former premier of Newfoundland is now a business advisor with the conservative think tank.

              Tobin said his and Klein’s “non-partisan” paper will focus on seven cornerstones of a continental energy strategy:…

              The oil and gas industry’s greenhouse gas emissions rose by 4.5 million tonnes last year, while emissions from gas flaring also increased after years of significant reductions, says the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP).

              On the positive side, the industry has made “vast improvements” in sulphur recovery and in emissions of sulphur dioxide and benzene, CAPP said in its 2007 Stewardship Report (http://stewardship.capp.ca). The number of injuries for industry workers is also at the lowest level since Stewardship reporting began in 1999.

              CAPP also announced the recipients of the 2007 Stewards of Excellence awards. They are:

.   ConocoPhillips Canada for Environmental Performance. ConocoPhillips’s…

           The $16.2-billion Mackenzie Valley natural gas project could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make Northern communities economically viable, proponents told the regulatory panel reviewing the project.

           The project “provides a clean source of energy,” Dave Collyer of Shell Canada told the Joint Review Panel as it wrapped up hearings on the proposed 1,200-km Arctic gas pipeline. Randy Ottenbriet, of Imperial Oil Limited, reminded the panel that many local communities also are looking to the project and the additional development it will bring to boost the economy in local communities.

           Nellie Cournoyea of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation – long one of the pipeline’s strongest…

           The Alberta government is making amendments to Bill 46 in the face of mounting opposition to its proposed legislation to create a new utilities regulator, but critics say the changes don’t go far enough.

           As EnviroLine went to press, the government was planning to use closure in the legislature to limit debate on the legislation, which will split the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) into two regulatory bodies. A new Alberta Utilities Commission will be responsible for regulating natural gas rates and electricity transmission, while a reconstituted Energy and Resources Conservation Board will be in charge of regulating oil and gas facilities.

          …

           AltaLink Management Ltd. is putting what it sees as a new energy- and land-efficient proposal for a new high-voltage transmission line from Edmonton to Calgary before the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB).

           AltaLink’s original proposal called for a 500-kilovolt transmission line to be constructed alongside two existing 240-kV lines. The new option is to add a new row of transmission towers on the 330-km right-of-way that would carry both the new 500-kV line and one of the existing 240-kV lines, alongside the other existing 240-kV line. The company then would remove the centre row of 240-kV transmission towers – leaving…

           Canada needs to be a global leader in responding to climate change and protecting its environment and sovereignty if the country wants to be a true energy superpower, says a senior official with the World Energy Council (WEC).

           Very few countries have Canada’s rich diversity of energy supplies and electricity-generation base, Gerald Doucet, WEC’s secretary general, said in an interview. “But on the other side – in terms of water management . . . protecting Canada’s sovereignty in the North, our role in the debate on climate change, for example – Canada hasn’t been in the vanguard. And my argument…

           Wayne Henuset, co-founder of nuclear energy proponent Energy Alberta, has sold all major concessions of a project to bring nuclear power to Alberta to Ontario-based Bruce Power.

           Those concessions include the rights of the land, the site application and the exclusive agreement with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Henuset told the Calgary Herald at the end of November. Energy Alberta will now be dissolved, and a new special purpose vehicle will likely be set up by Bruce Power to move the project forward, he said.

           Privately held Bruce Power operates six nuclear units and is in the process of…

           Emerging “pebble bed” nuclear reactor technology would be a much better fit for supplying energy to Alberta’s expanding in situ oilsands development than Canadian-made CANDU reactors, two international experts say.

           Pebble bed reactors are not only safer and easier to build, they are “right-sized for the Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) operation in terms of temperatures and pressures that are needed for the steam injection in the ground,” Andrew Kadak, nuclear engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said in an interview with EnviroLine.

           For supplying high-pressure steam to a 40,000 to 60,000 barrels-per-day…