(June 18, 2021) The following comments were submitted to the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board on behalf on the New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance, Inc., (NBASGA) a collaboration of Anglophone and francophone civic groups across the province, reference a planned gas pipeline expansion in Havelock, NB.
(Information about the project and the Energy Utility Board process can be found here:
https://nbeub.ca/uploads/2021%2006%2003%20-%20Notice%20-%20Public%20Comment%20Opportunity.pdf)
HALIFAX/ TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF THE MI’KMAQ PEOPLE (13 May 2021) – Eight prominent environmental groups from across the country are urging federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change Jonathan Wilkinson and the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada to ensure that Pieridae Energy’s proposed Goldboro Liquefied Natural Gas export facility project (Goldboro LNG) undergoes a comprehensive, up-to-date federal impact assessment.
Pieridae Energy is currently looking for nearly $1 billion in financial support – taxpayer dollars – from the federal government to move this project forward.
Commentary by Jim Emberger, Telegraph Journal, Dec. 16, 2020
“Distant hypothetical targets are being set, and big speeches are being given. Yet, when it comes to the immediate action we need, we are still in a state of complete denial.”
These are the recent words of young climate activist, Greta Thunberg, concerning progress toward dealing with the climate emergency. Unfortunately, she could be talking about NB Power’s recent release of its 20-year Integrated Resource Plan (IRP). While claiming to pay attention to the climate crisis, the utility’s plans belie those claims.
Commentary by Sam Arnold, Fredericton Gleaner 31 August 2020
Mr. Kevin Vickers has joined Blaine Higgs in singing their praise of unproven small modular nuclear reactors even though they are at least fifteen years away from going into service. More likely, they never will go into service.
For the sake of present and future generations, already proven means to curb the climate crisis must be launched quickly. Fifteen years is much too long to wait for so-called small modular reactors to come online. They will cost untold millions of dollars to produce and will create additional costs from the radioactive waste that future generations will inherit from us.
Commentary by Sam Arnold, Times & Transcript, 14 April 2020
In the April 6th Daily Gleaner (A6) Mr. Srebrnik asked why Alberta seems to stagger from one disaster to another. He included COVID-19 to the list of thieves who are out to destroy the oil and gas industry and the province.
Mr. Srebrnik’s arguments fail to evoke the sympathy he is seeking for Alberta’s current economic plight for a number of reasons. Among them, Canada’s transfer payment system has been very successful in distributing Canada’s wealth to all provinces, as intended. As well, it must be noted, Alberta did not continue to build up its rainy-day fund that former Premier Lougheed started, and that subsequent premiers have dipped into when they shouldn’t have. How was it that Alberta’s Heritage Savings Trust Fund amassed $17-Billion in assets by 2014, but now has replaced it with a $15-Billion deficit? Is not the provincial government responsible for the decisions that it makes?
By Sam Arnold, Telegraph Journal, Monday, November 18, 2019
We recently learned that the $13 million investment by NB Power and the Regional Development Corporation in Joi Scientific for the production of hydrogen from seawater may be a gamble that is unlikely to pay off.
New Brunswick residents should also be aware that the NB government and NB Power have committed to take taxpayers and ratepayers on another multi-million dollar energy gamble attempting to revive nuclear power. This has all the markings of another fiasco. As well, the Government of Canada has designated billions of dollars for a similar attempt to save the nuclear industry. We are wondering – as you may be – why this did not go public prior to, or during, the federal election.
With smart policy, Canada’s clean energy sector is poised for rapid growth as fossil fuels slow down. The new energy era has already begun.
Clean Energy Canada and Navius Research have worked together to model the potential for growth of Canada’s clean energy sector from 2020 to 2030 compared to the fossil fuel energy sector.
By Jim Emberger. Telegraph Journal, Daily Gleaner, Times Transcript – March 11, 2019
The New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance was an intervener in the recent Saskatchewan Court of Appeals reference case on the federal carbon pricing “backstop.” Those opposing carbon pricing portrayed the case as strictly a constitutional matter of jurisdiction, and chose not to discuss the issue of climate change. However, one of the first questions the Chief Justice asked Saskatchewan’s lawyer was: “If (climate change) literally imperils the future of the planet, should it be taken into account?”
The New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance initially gave Premier Blaine Higgs’s throne speech a decent review. We’re now having second thoughts. In the speech, the new government made a strong statement against “inter-generational theft,” which it defined as stealing the future from our children by creating debt today that they would have to pay back.
That being a moral principle, we assumed it would be applied universally. The most poignant example of “inter-generational theft” is the failure to address climate change and environmental degradation by continuing our profligate use of fossil fuels.
By Liane Thibodeau, LTE, Telegraph Journal, 5 December 2018
Speaking as a retired New Brunswick business owner, one of my concerns about our government’s renewed interest in shale gas development is the cost of lost opportunities in the clean energy sector that will result.