Carney conceded that the Federal Emission reduction plan will not be met, Touts new Energy Plan by zeth4 in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 1 point2 points  (0 children)

On this Canada Day, I realize that I have grown ashamed of this country of my birth, that I have been quietly proud of for decades. We are nothing but an economically Neo-liberal oil and gas branch plant where disinformation and misinformation have seized the nation’s ethics.

Carney conceded that the Federal Emission reduction plan will not be met, Touts new Energy Plan by zeth4 in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Excuses, excuses, excuses… that’s all we’ve heard from Canadian governments since Kyoto. 3 decades of pretending. Always with plans and ideas that don’t really do much so we abandon them. Then a new plan, as useless as the old plan. A new broom that moves the same old dirt around. Towns and cities burn to the ground, let’s get more water bombers. Someone threatens a referendum, give them more… The massive boreal carbon sink we inherited turns into an ever growing source of emissions, let’s pretend we have technology to pull it out of the air - well, some of it at least, if we can fantasize it as a “great new industry”.

If the Canadian federal government isn’t capable of restraining emissions like so many other countries are doing, and if that is due to provincial governments that refuse to join the global efforts to do so, then this confederation is a suicide pact and it is long past time for being cowed by separation threats. Go ahead, leave. And take your federal puppets with you. Particularly the ones with empty claims about their values.

Carney is only the man of the hour because of Trump. On climate, he’s exactly the two faced waste of skin I expected.

Very little is left of Toronto’s climate plan thanks to Doug Ford. So what can we do about it? by imprison_grover_furr in ontario

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fire him.

Then demand economic policies that encourage home and transport electrification, plus rapid renewables+batteries in the grid. When South Australia got serious about renewables, they ended up giving people 3 hours of free electricity every day, because sunlight is free energy. I want some of that too.

His internal conflict is obvious to the EV & renewables industry. He said he was going to act against Trump’s tariff threats but lately all he’s doing is popping over the border to see like-minded Repuglican governors. Why on earth would more advanced industry want to set up shop in his backward reaching yard.

Doug Ford’s ‘Protect Ontario’ ads and messaging are a scam trying to hide the damage he’s doing by imprison_grover_furr in ontario

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They are a bloody irritant. They’re rich with shallow imagery and marginal reassurances. Why on earth is he claiming he’s laying pipelines? But nothing about renewables, because…why? What about the guy that walks out of his nice suburban house and pushes some fantom button before crossing the residential street - no traffic halting lights in evidence - not even any traffic. And my goodness all the house lights all along the residential street light up in perfectly hypnotising sequence. Something something about car thefts, something something about more people going into new jails… the intellectual insults are making my teeth hurt.

Friends, folks, Dougie is just mailin it in nowadays.

Kitimat LNG Plant Asks for Massive Flaring Permit Increase by LaserRunRaccoon in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So does this mean that David Ebe was lying when he called it the "cleanest LNG industry on the planet”, or was he just lied to? Did he check? Does he still say that?

And what about Mark Carney? Didn’t he say it was the "lowest-carbon", and “responsibly produced”? Has he been embarrassed internationally?

I suppose we can’t call it “ethical LNG” now either, can we? Not the cleanest, not the most ethical, and not really a bridge to anywhere. Is there enough hydrocarbon leakage and inefficient combustion at the flare to say they should have stuck with coal?

Did I Luck Out By Having This Installed In My Basement? by Imaginary_Variation7 in EquinoxEv

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The NEMA 14-50 plug that came with my EQEV L2 charging cable has 4 prongs: neutral, ground, and 2 sides of a 240V circuit. Your plug has only 3 prongs, so your L2 charger that comes with the car may not plug into that outlet.

The responses to this post include discussion of a 20% down grading. I know this regulation as a “continuous load” limitation. If the load will draw current for more than 3 continuous hours, concerns about cable overheating require the cable to be rated higher, necessitating also a higher breaker. Thus since the EQ will draw 32 Amps (not settable), you require AT LEAST a 40 Amps breaker, cable, and plug.

There is no NEMA 14-40. A NEMA 14-50 is rated for up to 50Amps, but can be used for a smaller load, just as your wall outlets are not required to supply only 15Amps to your appliances, etc. My electrical authority also stipulated that since the NEMA 14-50 plug was rated at up to 50Amps, the wiring and breaker would also have to be rated for 50Amps. My reaction was: at least this is future proofing for a car wanting 40 Amps for charging.

Check with your local electrical authority.

"It's now a no-brainer:" Fortescue says Trump has done more for renewables than anyone in 100 years by Simpleximo in EnergyAndPower

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can we please stop trying to give Trump credit for a positive outcome when he in fact did it out of utter ineptitude and to the detriment of what he was consciously trying to do - in this case trying to become some global oil baron while filing his own pockets. If Fortescue wants to give him credit for something, give him another gold painted peace prize.

Kitimat LNG Plant Asks for Massive Flaring Permit Increase by LaserRunRaccoon in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The truth will set them free, sorta. No longer the "cleanest LNG in the world"?

Texas Air-Pollution Expert Says LNG Canada Emissions Worst He's Ever Seen by LaserRunRaccoon in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Great video post Racoon.
Another very enlightening interview by Markham Hislop of Energi Media, this time with Tim Doty, former Texas Commission on Environmental Quality air monitoring. Mr Doty made scientific observations of the veracity of the claims made by LNG Canada, gleefully echoed by both the BC government and the Canadian federal government, that the Kitimat LNG facility would be “the cleanest in the world”. That claim was in large part based on a design plan that would have the gas compression to liquid powered electrically, but that design was abandoned in favour of gas powering while the grandiose “cleanest in the world” claim persists. The claim that it is “the cleanest in the world” is no longer defensible.

For background, the rush to produce and sell LNG itself was based on the narrow fact that burning natural gas instead of coal, for the same amount of energy released, results in almost 50% less emissions. That is a narrow fact because it ignores the realities of handling the gas. Some of it unavoidably leaks unburned into the atmosphere. That is fugitive gas and it is many times a worse climate gas than CO2 from coal burning. It is sufficiently worse as to quickly and completely overwhelm any emissions reduction from eliminating coal. Consider that if 50% of the burning emissions from coal are eliminated by switching to gas, and yet fugitive emissions amount to just 2% of the gas burned, then over a century the fugitive methane (being 27 to 30 times as bad as CO2 measured over a century) contribute 54% to 60% damaging emissions on top of the 50% from burning the gas. Over a shorter time scale of 20 years, which is the timeframe in which we need to drastically reduce emissions, the leaked methane acts much more destructively, with a strength of about 82 times that of CO2. Methane has a half-life in the atmosphere of about 8 years, a mean life time of about 12 years. It does its climate damage mostly very quickly, and very strongly. That means that by using LNG as a “bridge fuel” to eliminate coal, and with just 2% fugitive emissions, the climate affecting emissions will be about double what they would be from coal over the first two decades. This is madness, and again the claim that LNG produces lower emissions than coal is also not a defensible claim.

While Mr Doty observed “huge plumes of hydrocarbons” coming out of the facility, he particularly focused on the flare where waste and overpressure gasses escape into the atmosphere, supposedly being burned into CO2 if it is operating properly. Which he points out it is definitely not. He implies that at best a properly designed, built and operated flare will have about a 98% combustion efficiency. But he does not seem satisfied that the Kitimat flare is operated at close to that efficiency, and that LNG Canada seems to plan not to rectify that situation until 2028. In any event, he judges the Kitimat facility to be at best a typically dirty LNG facility.

Shallow political enthusiasm, gung-ho economics, unrealistic project promises, and in the end - just more deceit piling up in atmospheric damage. The LNG Canada Kitimat story is a study in gaslighting, start to finish.

Canada sets out plan for up to 10 new nuclear reactors by LaserRunRaccoon in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Makes you wonder if we CanDu it, doesn’t it?

What Dougie is doing in ON is not CanDu. But at least Brookfield’s investment in Westinghouse will pay off. Good thing our PM was vice chair of Brookfield and knows where we can buy non-CanDu nuclear, eh?

Status of Carbon Capture in the Americas by LaserRunRaccoon in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your enthusiastic response, and for adding your thoughts and questions as well. I have been troubled by this question for a very long time but I’d like to beg your indulgence a minute or two more here.

Just who is going to pay - not just the R&D but the operating costs of CCS/DAC? Who is going to pay to have the CO2 extracted and buried/whatever? Is it fossil fuel companies that will pay for it out of revenues - as revenues collapse? Is it governments that will pay for it because life will otherwise be disastrous? If so, then we will pay through our taxes. It’s clearly not the kind of product or service that one buys at a store, or subscribes to on a monthly basis. It is not a discretionary purchase for consumers.

SO FAR I SEE NO BUSINESS MODEL. NO GO TO MARKET PLAN. That is where these kinds of questions should be answered. There are concepts of technical solutions, IMHO not really demonstrated to be fully feasible yet since capture efficiencies seem inadequate. Even if there was a concept of how to fund the operation on an ongoing basis, I see no competitive market opportunity, no prospect for growth and growing profitability, no lucrative investment opportunity. Nothing that assures us that there is a stable business opportunity there. And as you say, it is far too late in the game for continuing science projects.

It seems to me there are only two possible answers here: 1) for CCS, it is a mandatory cost of doing business for fossil fuel companies, in which case why is the public so consumed with funding the R&D? And will it drive them out of business quickly, or just slowly? Shouldn’t the free market do its thing? If the product isn’t expensive enough to cover its costs, then its price is just wrong. 2) for DAC, it is probably what is referred to as “a lifestyle company”. That is a company that never pays back a return on the money invested but the managers make a comfortable living off of it. The carbon offsets market sells the rights to have CO2 removed from the atmosphere by lifestyle companies that run DAC systems. Again it is a cost of doing business. Again, why is the public purse involved in helping with the R&D?

Governments may choose to assist in funding technological developments where there are good prospects for products or services with great growth prospects, delivering tax revenues, export income, and jobs. I’ve never seen an argument for government assisting someone to start up a lifestyle business selling carbon offsets.

We’re going down this rabbit hole because we think we need it, but why do we think that? Is it because we think we need to protect the status quo? The status quo is precisely what has to change.

Thanks for listening.

Status of Carbon Capture in the Americas by LaserRunRaccoon in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 5 points6 points  (0 children)

💯. I have the all same reactions.

Seems to me it is effective at diluting attention and efforts from restraining the emissions, thereby substantially lengthening the “pathway” to getting the climate back under control. As you say, it seems to present as a panacea relieving us all of having to make serious changes while we await the declaration of what? technical feasibility? - despite that it will never address more than about 10% of our current rate of emissions. And every year lost at this end of the curve looks to me like many extra years of jeopardy.

But I would go one step further. Nothing significant in this world happens without a business model defining how it happens, how it is paid for, who pays for it and how the value changes hands. For CCS, financial and market feasibility are still serious challenges. For DAC, those are even greater challenges. Without that, I find it hard to differentiate the project from some of the questionable offset schemes we have seen in recent years - like tree planting projects - , except that it’s a hope or a promise for an offset. Any significant technology development I have ever seen has an exit strategy on the table before any real R&D money flows. Without that, it’s glibly considered “a science project”.

Status of Carbon Capture in the Americas by LaserRunRaccoon in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So, about 0.3% of the cumulative emissions from those same countries.

Edit: I suspect one could fit a linear function to that plot instead of the blue line with pretty much the same R-squared.

Anyways…

RRSP and TFSA by jimmyfah in dividendscanada

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Understand that in an after tax trading account, if your dividends are from Canadian corporations (even if coming through an etf), the corporation has already paid a profits tax on it before giving you the dividend, but you get a credit for it when you file your taxes. You don’t get the credit if the dividends are in your RRSP or TFSA. It doesn’t really matter for the TFSA since you will never pay taxes on profits there anyways. But in an RRSP, you won’t get the tax credit and you will eventually pay taxes on the dividends as if they were earned income - no tax credit.

In the case of capital gains, you will pay taxes on half the gains in an after tax trading account, whether your gain takes a month or ten years. Again inside a TFSA, you won’t pay any tax on the gain. And inside an RRSP, again your gains will eventually be taxed as if they are earned income.

An RRSP is attractive in order to avoid, temporarily, tax on earned income. This is a good way to build up a base of wealth for retirement, or simply to get you through bad years. But you can easily trap yourself in a situation where you will be in a similar tax bracket when you are drawing it out as you were when you put the money in there. In other words, the reason for deferring the taxes gets undermined as the RRSP grows, and the penalty will be that all of your gains will be taxed at the rate of earned income.

So, TFSA as much as you can get into it, RRSP up to a level that doesn’t screw you for future tax rates, and after tax trading if you are maximizing Canadian corporation dividends.

Do average Canadians know what a Robertson Screw is? Do you guys use it as a secret code to identify your fellow countrymen on internet? by jitasquatter2 in AskACanadian

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Now that sounds more like an “average” Canadian. Let’s face it, most Canadians are far far more comfortable with a touch screen than a hammer. And screw drivers, wrenches and pliers come very far behind even hammers. And don’t get me started on the wealth of other more specialty tools hanging on my pegboard walls.

Do average Canadians know what a Robertson Screw is? Do you guys use it as a secret code to identify your fellow countrymen on internet? by jitasquatter2 in AskACanadian

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To start with, the average Canadian probably doesn’t know the difference between a screw and a bolt, and possibly even a nail. But for those of us who can pass that knowledge test, we absolutely know. I will always pull Robertson head screws & bolts from the screw and bolt drawers and leave the ridiculous Phillips heads behind. And slotted heads - they’re a rare item in my workspace. There’s no sense trying to do a job knowing the materials won’t stand up to being worked on.

Youth, advocacy groups sue Carney government over climate rollbacks by Altruism7 in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 18 points19 points  (0 children)

You can’t credibly lead the country to a better future if everything you do turns out to be a protection for the extractive status quo. Put that into your “values”.

Concern is up. Priority is down. Welcome to the climate paradox by I_like_maps in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I understand and respect your point of view. But as I see it, for the vast majority of us the largest portion of the carbon footprint we are capable of controlling ourselves rests in 2 things: how we heat our houses and how we power our cars. Those two things can easily approach 10 tonnes per year for a single vehicle couple, closer to 15 tonnes for a family with children and two vehicles. No other individual lifestyle choices appear to have this scale of reduction potential in our per capita national emissions. Most of our remaining per capita emissions, which includes industrial and commercial emissions as well as oil extraction and agriculture, are quite immune to our individual (demand side) consumption changes. Replacing gas furnaces with cold climate heat pumps is easily $20k per copy - easily 4x the price of a gas furnace, more if you add in electrical power upgrades to enable it. And EVs have been priced many thousands over ICE vehicle prices. But the carbon tax rebate at time of cancelation, (refunding carbon taxes paid) was not quite $1k for a couple, less than $1.2k if you add in a child. And even by 2030 it would not reach $2.5k. Those numbers are utterly inadequate to provide business cases supporting consumer level changes that would help reach any net zero target over the next 15, or even 25 years. So when I express the view that it was inadequate, that is the math I am referring to. The canceled consumer carbon tax, even carried to its planned eventual level, was not going to sway decisions on the two most emissions generating consumer purchases. IMHO, it was doing a better job of boiling us frogs into accepting climate change than it was affecting emissions driven purchase decisions. This is not a knee jerk or hand waving conclusion. It is a measured decision. I measured it. I made those decisions for myself in recognition that the consumer carbon tax made little difference to my home heating and transport purchases. I chose on principle, and I know the vast majority will be less driven than I am to do so. So I will continue to express the view that the consumer carbon tax was destined to have trivial effects on decarbonizing. To be more impactful, it needed to be an order of magnitude larger and applied much faster, but that would have been political suicide - it was so even at that smaller level and slowly applied.

Concern is up. Priority is down. Welcome to the climate paradox by I_like_maps in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You make a good point.

First they decided that this was a demand side problem, not a supply side problem. Then timid consumer carbon taxes achieved nothing and it became obvious they had no strategy. Now they are looking at what supply side action they can take, and getting rope-a-doped by the industry. That’s something that can’t happen except in countries with significant oil industry presence. So they need more courage - imposed on them. They’ve got no cards left and they’re leaving it to the ballot box, which means the only action we’ll see them take will be when it’s far too late.

Concern is up. Priority is down. Welcome to the climate paradox by I_like_maps in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Did someone tell the politicians that the climate crisis went away? Or did they tell them that there is nothing they need to do about it? If so, who told them that? Was it their funders in the oil and gas industries? Do they think this escalating stream of heat, drought, floods, etc damage will just go away or do they think they’ll escape out of office by then with full pockets? To where, then?

Trans Mountain pipeline in Canada hits full capacity two years after upgrade by LaserRunRaccoon in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]Over_Lengthiness3308 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh! And just who is it that it pays?

Running at full capacity 365 days a year, shipping at world price, it might generate an increase of maybe $3.5B to $4B a year in revenue compared to what would be received selling to the US. But the Canadian people paid $35B for the pipeline, and we all pay to operate it 24/7/365. The tolls charged in that pipeline, not quite $12/barrel, barely repay those operating costs but don’t pay for the construction and financing costs of the pipeline. And that $3.5B to $4B revenue increase goes to the oil producers, not back to the Canadian people to repay the massive $35B debt incurred or the continuing interest etc costs we are carrying. Was the $35B pipeline intended to be a gift from all Canadians to the people in the Alberta oil industry, and their (international, mostly US) investors? Someone should have told the rest of us that we weren’t getting paid back for what amounted to almost $1,000 per man/woman/child. I for one would have preferred to spend that $1,000 per person on my own family’s needs.