PM to boost funding for tidal power
COMMENT: The environmentalist flame that burns in Stephen Harper's Conservative government is fueled with coal and oil sands bitumen and nuclear energy.
The Conservatives, and the BC Liberals, confuse high tech fizz with green, but they are not the same thing. Where are the hard-nosed emission reduction targets? Where are the on-the-ground, in-your-town efficiency and conservation programs?
On Thursday Harper committed $2 million to rebuilding Stanley Park. Great, that'll fix the problem of climate change. Get those trees back to work sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere, I suppose.
On Friday he'll be announcing more money for alternative technologies.
But something is missing. Oh, yes, the sincerity. Like watching a vegetarian chew meat. No, maybe it's more like watching a steak guy eat tofu.
And you know that when your back is turned, he's going to spit it all out.
Trip to Metchosin will highlight new Tory support for alternative energy
Peter O'Neil and Richard Watts
Times Colonist; CanWest News Service
Friday, January 19, 2007
Prime Minister Stephen Harper will visit Race Rocks off Metchosin today to announce a major federal investment into alternative energy technology.
His visit to Victoria is seen as part of a new strategy to convince Canadians he's serious about environmental issues, and his stop at Race Rocks Ecological Reserve will highlight Tory support for a tidal-powered project there.
Yesterday, the Conservatives promised $2 million to help restore Vancouver's windstorm-ravaged Stanley Park.
Earlier this week, Harper's ministers announced a $238-million green science fund for fuel-cell, clean-coal and nuclear-energy research.
Harper has also agreed with the NDP to establish a special parliamentary committee to look at ways to beef up the Clean Air Act, ridiculed when it was announced in October.
Harper will be joined today by newly minted Environment Minister John Baird (who replaced Rona Ambrose), local MP and Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn, and Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice.
They are expected to focus on a project by a small North Vancouver company, Clean Current Power Systems Inc., at Race Rocks, which is billed as "Canada's first free-stream tidal power project." While there, the ministers will encounter something lighthouse keepers and wildlife have only recently rediscovered -- silence.
Since late last year, power for the Race Rocks lighthouse, research station and eight-person dormitory -- all operated by Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific -- has been supplied by tidal power.
The switch has allowed for the removal of decades-old diesel generators, along with their exhaust fumes, fuel consumption and noise.
"It's suddenly very quiet out there," said Pearson college director David Hawley in an interview yesterday.
Clean Current and Pearson College are partners in the project, which has received funding from Calgary energy giant EnCana Corp., and won a grant of just under $1 million in 2005 from Sustainable Development Technology Canada.
Today's announcement is expected to revive the 2005 Liberal budget's commitment of $920 million over 15 years for wind power. But the Tory government is saying its initiative is different because it puts more emphasis on other forms of energy generation, like solar and tidal power technology.
Harper, who didn't mention climate change last year in his election platform and has questioned climate-change science, is now trying to stress his government's commitment to the environment.
The policy switch came after the federal Liberals made the environment one of their top priorities, and a series of polls found global warming is a top public concern. This week, an Innovative Research poll obtained by the Vancouver Sun indicated that six out of 10 Canadians aren't convinced the Harper government cares about the environment.
But a clear majority also said they don't agree with Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's assertion that Canada must adhere to the 1997 Kyoto accord that calls on Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by six per cent below 1990 levels.
Currently, annual environmentally harmful emissions in Canada from cars, factories and other sources are 28 per cent above 1990 levels.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007
Posted by Arthur Caldicott on 19 Jan 2007