Devoting energy to our future

Isn’t the world a funny place?

Our hunter-and-gatherer forefathers stalked woolly mammoths and used branches to cook dinner and heat their caves.  Our agrarian grandparents roped cattle and barbecued their steaks with charcoal, then used the coals to warm their sod shacks. 

Our parents drive to local supermarkets and purchase boneless, free-range chickens to grill in convection ovens. We nuke pork dumplings and install solar panels to generate heat and light.  What will our children and grandchildren do? 

As the world shakes free of the industrial revolution’s constraints of coal and petroleum, it is propelled by bouncing sound waves from Earth-to-satellite in a communication age emerging into an energy renaissance era. Will Alberta be able to participate in this transformation? After all, this province’s economic prosperity is based on drilling or digging into the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin for oil (175 billion barrels), natural gas (167 trillion cubic feet), and coal (34 billion tonnes) — all industrial age sources of energy.  We are leaders in non-renewable energy. Can we catch up to the Europeans and their sophisticated energy sources? They are old hands at using solar, wind and nuclear to power the electricity grid.  Can we adapt to a world demanding green energy and minimal carbon footprint? Perhaps we could surpass them by inventing the second and third generations of renewable energies. The odds are not good.  

In the 1980s, Alberta invested much more into research and development. The government created the Alberta Oil Sands Technology Research Authority and, along with industry, poured $2 billion into it. This was the drive that lowered the costs to produce a barrel of synthetic crude by solving technical challenges. 

Sadly, says Dr. Robert Mansell, of the University of Calgary, R&D investment today is about one-third the amount of 20 years ago. Only a few companies and banks, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs quietly finance some renewable technologies. 

What’s lacking is a pool of research money to invest in high-risk, high-cost energy innovation. The Calgary Chamber of Commerce believes the province should create a new endowment, the Alberta Heritage Energy Research Fund and invest $5 billion immediately. 

Think what such a fund could do:

• Solve environmental challenges inherent in our carbon-based resources. Invent the next wave of energy patents to improve cooking, cooling and heating.

• Fuel planes, trains, and autos with renewables and create technologies to dominate the global economy.

If Premier Ed Stelmach and his cabinet decide to take our advice, we encourage them to hire brilliant entrepreneurial fund managers. They, in turn, would need a rigorous, merit-based selection process to monitor R&D projects. They could call this REFIT: Research in Energy Futures, Innovation and Technology. 

This bold move would stimulate private and public companies to dedicate their best and brightest scientists and engineers to invent, design and commercialize renewable energy technologies. It would attract international talent eager to build relationships with Alberta and Canada’s finest companies, exceptional academic researchers and manufacturers. 

To ensure REFIT remains vital, the government should invest 35% of its annual royalties from non-renewables into it and other endowments. In our generation, we leapt from dial telephones to sending and receiving e-mail and streaming video via satellites. 

Think what REFIT can do for our children. 

Perhaps they will power their high-tech toys or cook their gourmet meals by hydrogen fuel cells, synchrotron light sources, and geothermal. 

The world is indeed a funny place.

A high-speed rail link could weld Alberta

Lord Strathcona had the honour of driving the last spike at Craigellachie, Eagle Pass, B.C. A plaque marks the spot where Canada was connected coast to coast.

Perhaps Premier Ed Stelmach will duplicate that honour. Only this golden spike would be driven to honour the bullet train that links Calgary, Red Deer, and Edmonton with Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat. That plaque could celebrate welding Alberta north to south.

Imagine, for a moment, Albertans boarding a bullet train, settling into comfortable seats and whizzing to their destinations at speeds of close to 300 km/h. They discover what train aficionados have long known; high-speed train travel is superior to auto or air because of its on-time reliability, small environmental footprint, and enormous infrastructure savings. 

By 2028, Alberta will have about five million citizens, enough to support a high-speed rail system. About four million will live in the Edmonton-to-Calgary corridor and the Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo region. They will demand a fast and efficient transportation system that operates safely during the worst blizzards and the finest languid days of summer.

Bullet trains are good for the environment. Biologists say it is easier to protect sensitive wetlands and species at risk as they require much less land. Trains encourage citizens to leave their cars in garages and fewer cars reduce the expensive need to build more highways, interchanges, and bridges. It also means motorists use less gasoline and, with oil at $100 a barrel, they will save more money.

When a high-speed train links with municipal light rail and bus systems, studies show more people ride the rails. Railways also significantly reduce air emissions because bullet trains use one-third the energy that planes need and one-fifth what a car requires.

Municipal planners like trains. Transportation corridors are smaller than highway right-of-ways, cost less to build and can be expanded quickly as demand grows. Experts claim railways help manage population growth because they stimulate in-fill development and curb urban sprawl. High-density areas create community, are more efficient to operate, and save energy costs. Best of all, no one lives on the wrong side of the tracks.

Obviously, the Calgary Chamber of Commerce is a fan of bullet trains, when and where they make economic sense. They bring the allure of no parking hassles, no bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Alberta autobahn, and no landing at an airport north of Red Deer necessitating exorbitant taxi fees. It is an enticing dream, but one generally ignored by politicians and Albertans.

So, why does the province not get this train on track? It is awaiting the results of a feasibility study and a ridership survey. Both are due soon.

Is there sufficient demand for it to operate without generous subsidies from taxpayers? How much will it cost to build? Current estimates put the price tag at more than $3.5 billion. If the project is economically feasible, does it make sense to fast track this infrastructure before building more public transit, hospitals or roads?

As an interim step, the government could designate the necessary transportation utility corridors (TUCs), then purchase the land. It’s been done before. During the 1970s, under former premier Peter Lougheed, the province wisely designated TUCs in key areas that included ring roads around Edmonton and Calgary, storm water management services, major pipelines and electricity transmission lines, and municipal water and sewage services.

The chamber recommends the province secure the land in the next five years to establish the necessary TUCs to build a bullet train network. If it’s feasible, we suggest the first phase should link Calgary, Red Deer and Edmonton as the central spine and subsequent phases should connect Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat.

The chamber believes this offers a prudent long-term solution to some of the land use issues encountered by concentrating a number of large facilities in one area, like Strathcona County is experiencing. The land can be designated now, which allows time for meetings with landowners. This prevents costly and divisive hearings later and ensures economic success at a reasonable price.

To prevent boondoggles, it’s time for provincial and municipal leaders to make a comprehensive, 20-year TUC plan.

Craigellachie, where Lord Strathcona drove Canada’s last spike, is Gaelic for “the rock of alarm.” Instead of alarm, that spike built a nation. Imagine what Alberta’s golden spike could do for its communities, economy and way of life. It would help weld a provincial powerhouse.

City Hall Needs Campaign Finance Reform

 “Finance Ministers are normally the only rational members of any cabinet,” quipped Paul Martin Jr., former finance minister and prime minister, as he addressed the Association of Canadian Investment Dealers in London (11 April 1994).  

Too bad City Hall does not have a sitting Finance Minister.  They typically communicate financial stability and accountability as they steady capital markets and bolster public faith in democracy and fairness.   They  convey that governments serve everyone’s interests.

Calgary badly needs campaign finance reform.  In the past, some corporations and wealthy citizens have used sizable donations to influence political direction.  A few traded on fundraising abilities or morphed into self-interested backroom operatives.  Others merely lobbied for favours.

Unfortunately, despite the multitude of municipal by-laws, no one has seen fit to close the loopholes on donations and election spending.  Yet the door to City Hall should swing on the hinges of openness, transparency, and equal access for all – regardless of wealth, influence, or status.  

Last fall, during the civic election, the Calgary Chamber of Commerce waxed eloquent in its calls for serious campaign finance reform.  Amost 90% of our several thousand members believe that transparency and accountability at City Hall’s is the same or worse than the last civic election in 2004. They are frustrated by large contributions to war chests, candidates’ undeclared land holdings, numbered companies bidding on transportation upgrading projects or other developments, and what happens to the surpluses of uncontested and defeated candidates.

The Chamber likes the federal Accountability Act.  It imposes a complete ban on donations by corporations, unions, and organizations.  It also lowers the contribution levels from $5,000 to $1,000 that an individual can make to any candidate.

In 2002, Toronto established an Election Finance Review Task Force to examine all aspects of its municipal election financing – from contribution limits to reporting practices and filing procedures to ongoing monitoring and enforcement.  

Calgary needs the same sort of multi-disciplinary approach.  Call in accountants, lawyers, academics, concerned taxpayers’ groups, even the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.  Altogether we could produce something brilliant and workable.

Last fall, City Hall did carry a motion to strike an independent committee.  In the meantime, to bring openness, transparency, and equal access to Council, the Chamber recommends:

• Align municipal campaign financing rules with the federal and provincial governments by imposing a ban on contributions by corporations, unions, and all special interest groups.
• Limit contributions to $1,000/donor/candidate.
• Establish an electronic filing system that enables candidates to electroncially track and file campaign donations and thus make it easier for the public to know who has contributed to which campaign and for how much money.
• Establish a candidate conflict of interest registry with published lists of family members’, interests in corporations or organizations, land holdings and contracts.
• Require surplus campaign funds be donated to the city or a registered non-profit charity after each election.
• Make donations from individuals to municipal political campaigns tax deductible.

The Chamber is aware that when City Hall translates these recommendations into by-laws there will be consequenses — candidates will start campaigning much earlier and campaign costs will continue to rise, despite controlling the amount any donor can give.

While we know that life does become “less amusing when one becomes Minister of Finance,” to quote the eloquent John Crosbie (24 Oct. 1979),  the Chamber believes that Calgary needs a Finance Minister.  

Calgarians would be delighted everytime our Minister announces a better financial quarter than Toronto.

The Hottest Places in Hell

(as published in the Calgary Herald, March 7, 2008)

 “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality.” The Inferno, Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321).

With oil hovering at $100 a barrel, various countries have hatched schemes to reduce their dependency on imported oil, natural gas and coal.  Their politicians have resorted to beating their chests, trying to implore their best brains to invent new energy schemes to boost domestic production, or create alternatives.  The results have been interesting.

One whiz kid, peripherally trained in geology, suggested extracting energy from the earth’s core to heat suburban furnaces.  Critics panned the idea claiming the temperature of the inner core was 6 000 degrees Celsius, creating hard-to-manage health and safety issues in high-density neighbourhoods.  Indeed, a hot place in hell.

Another implausibly proposed a mass cutting, mulching, and burying of his regions’ forests, in subterranean lakes, to speed up decomposition into decayed organic matter. “In 10,000 years, future generations could harvest the fossil fuels from these oil farms,” he said proudly. 

Sensible Albertans are taking a different approach. 

Canada has huge reserves – oil sands deposits of 175 billion barrels, conventional and unconventional natural gas reserves of 217 trillion cubic feet and more than eight billion tonnes of coal ore.  That’s enough to supply our domestic needs for a millennium (or two) with lots of unconventional leftover for export to the highest bidder. 

Surely we are the envy of the world.  Or not. 

Energy, the heart of Alberta’s economy, is under threat.  Ignore, for a moment, this industry contributes almost one-tenth of Canada’s GDP (gross domestic product) and over 40% of Alberta’s.  Overlook, for another second, its 500,000 high-paying jobs added to the Canadian economy.  Fail to notice, for a further instant, the oil and gas industry spends $41 billion in capital investments, the highest of any Canadian sector and nearly double manufacturing’s outlay of $21 billion.

What started as scattered whispers against our local energy industry has grown into a global public relations juggernaut, labelling resource development projects as “environmental catastrophes,” to quote Greenpeace or bad-mouthing oil sands development as the “biggest environmental crime in history,” according to The Independent (a British daily).
The eco-extremists are preaching environmental degradation.  Their confessed aim is to shut all or most carbon-based energy projects and they are using cunning means to turn the tide of public opinion:

• Ensure the Rest of Canada (ROC) believes Alberta’s greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants are giving Canada a black reputation in the international community so they pressure the federal government to pass a punitive regulatory regime.
• Create uncertainty in the capital markets by lobbying for a complex set of regulatory requirements, managed by multiple regulators, to create long lead times for new mines or installations so investment goes elsewhere.
• Stir up local sentiment to resist and delay projects and prevent transmission lines and infrastructure from being built.
• Negate the contributions made by professional and trades employees to mining, drilling and oil sands developments until they feel pressured to quit.

These tactics are both unconstructive and unhelpful.  As an alternative, the Calgary Chamber of Commerce offers several recommendations to industry and governments:

• Fund a hard-hitting, fact-based national (if not international) campaign that promotes the economic advantages of our resource-based economy, addresses the public’s environmental and land access concerns, eliminates wide-spread misinformation and builds solid, long-term knowledge and support for energy development and production.  A well-informed public makes wise choices.
• Reform the regulatory processes by eliminating governmental duplication and contradictory legislation and instead use co-jurisdictional panels to make the process efficient and fair to industry and the public.
• Establish practical and transparent principles for industry to follow as they work with local landowners and interest groups to ensure everyone is treated fairly. 

Alberta’s brightest can invest their talents into inventing new technologies to capture and store carbon and produce clean coal.  Industry can partner to benchmark and effectively communicate its environmental impacts, stewardship objectives and issue progress report cards.

Forget extracting energy from the earth’s core or mulching of forests.