I bet a toonie that the state department would approve Keystone XL before the end of March. Looks like I was right!
Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category
Greece looks to Canada for energy investment
Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos wants Canada to know his country is open for business — especially in the energy sector.
“Canada has the expertise, the know-how and we count on this co-operation,” Avramopoulos said Wednesday at a joint news conference with Canadian counterpart John Baird while on an official visit.
Greece hopes that by mid-2013 a seismic survey will help determine its offshore natural gas deposits, estimated to be large enough to generate $600 billion in government royalties over 25 years.
Avramopoulos says he sees opportunities in mining and tourism as well.
“We have created a friendly and hospitable investment environment,” he said.
Baird joked that there was only one negative to his meeting with Avramopoulos.
“We had strong disagreements on which is better, the quality of the beaches in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, or in Santorini,” he said. “We both agreed that more research is needed.”
Stop the wind farms, for peat’s sake
It’s not that easy being green, as Kermit the Frog rightly noted. For instance the Telegraph reports a new study, funded by Scotland’s very pro-wind-power SNP government, carried out by researchers trusted by environmentalists and previewed in the journal Nature (link here – but behind a paywall), finding that a typical British wind farm is built on a peat bog. And? And this: peat bogs are hugely important carbon sinks, Europe’s most important and on a par with rain forests. But only if they stay wet. And regrettably, the study says, when you drive roads through them, build large facilities and otherwise create wind farms, it tends to drain them, causing them to belch huge amounts of CO2.
Dang.
Canada should prepare for more worldwide turmoil, report warns
An alarming new report warns the next year “could be even more troublesome” for Canada than 2012 in terms of global trouble spots and economic worries.
“The Middle East is in worse shape than at the beginning of the Arab Spring; Iran looms ever more ominously … North Korea threatens the U.S. with nuclear weapons; the tone between China and Japan and other players of the region over islands dotting the South and East China Seas has become harsher,” said the Conference of Defence Associations Institute (CDAI) in its latest strategic outlook. Read more…
This just in – Britain cold and dark
No, no, not a weather joke. A government joke. Seems Britain is in danger of drastically increased energy prices and widespread shortages, the Telegraph reports, because… get ready for it… the wise and foresighted beings we call politicians shut down too many of the old power plants they feared contributed to global warming while the alternate energy they promised hasn’t delivered enough power soon enough.
Amazing, huh?
