At the Caribou Crossing Place: Part 1 by Quentin Brown, National Film Board of Canada
At the Caribou Crossing Place: Part 2 by Quentin Brown, National Film Board of Canada
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Nicaragua Canal ~ Really? (Yale Environment 360)
I am not very familiar with this proposal, and must read more details before more fully understanding the decisions made and the background materials available to make that decision. However, on the surface, I am pressed to find good reasons why this is a good idea.
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e360 digest
14 JUN 2013
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e360 digest
14 JUN 2013
NICARAGUA APPROVES NEW CANAL LINKING ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC OCEANS
Nicaragua has approved plans to build a $40 billion cross-country canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a project that would rival the Panama Canal but is raising major concerns about impacts on
regional water supplies and the environment. Lawmakers yesterday granted Hong-Kong-based HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co. a 50-year concession to study, and possibly construct, a 180-mile canal that advocates say would better accommodate the massive cargo ships and supertankers needed to handle the increased trade between Asia and the Americas. Major questions remain, however, about whether the canal will ever be built. Environmental advocates warn that water needed to operate the massive infrastructure project would deplete the region’s freshwater supplies. According to Public Radio International, five of the six canal routes identified in a feasibility study would cut across Lake Nicaragua, also known as Cocibolca, the country’s largest source of freshwater. “We’re at a crossroads because either you use Lake Cocibolca for floating boats or you use it for drinking water,” Victor Campos, of the Humboldt Center, an environmental group, told the Associated Press. “But you can’t use it for both things at once.”
Nicaragua has approved plans to build a $40 billion cross-country canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a project that would rival the Panama Canal but is raising major concerns about impacts on
regional water supplies and the environment. Lawmakers yesterday granted Hong-Kong-based HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co. a 50-year concession to study, and possibly construct, a 180-mile canal that advocates say would better accommodate the massive cargo ships and supertankers needed to handle the increased trade between Asia and the Americas. Major questions remain, however, about whether the canal will ever be built. Environmental advocates warn that water needed to operate the massive infrastructure project would deplete the region’s freshwater supplies. According to Public Radio International, five of the six canal routes identified in a feasibility study would cut across Lake Nicaragua, also known as Cocibolca, the country’s largest source of freshwater. “We’re at a crossroads because either you use Lake Cocibolca for floating boats or you use it for drinking water,” Victor Campos, of the Humboldt Center, an environmental group, told the Associated Press. “But you can’t use it for both things at once.”
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Zama Lakes Produced Water Spill
The Apache spill has attracted a lot of attention. This is another pipeline spill that further erodes confidence. Also, there appears to be some confusion over the type and nature of the spill. The ERCB Press Release references produced water. The ERCB will complete an Incident Report and additional details will be available.
In the meantime, there are some aspects that warrant further reference. First, pipeline spills in the province of Alberta have been improving dramatically over the past 10+ yrs. Average spill rate has decreased from 2.5/1000km (2000) to 2.1/1000km (2008) to 1.5/1000km (2011). Continuous improvement is a mantra in the energy business period. This improvement will continue. Will they get to zero? No. Will they continue to improve? Yes.
Second, there have been a couple of references that cite the spill must have been going for a long time to cover 42 sq. km and thus likely originated sometime under the cover of winter. With the pictures below reposted by Twitter feeds from @JacobBarkerCBC and @HillaryBirdCBC, there is new spring growth evident which would suggest that the growth occurred when conditions were favorable - i.e., after the retreat of snow, and the onset of spring. With the apparent toxicity of the spilled contents, I would not have expected that to occur.
Third, and finally, the appearance in these photos does not look very much like a 'produced water' spill. "Produced water" is a mixture of dispersed oil, dissolved or soluble organics, treatment chemicals, produced solids, scales, bacteria, metals, sulfates, and naturally occuring radioactive material. The target formations, the drilling technology, and the selected treatment options all affect what a 'produced water' pipeline might be transporting. The produced water in these pictures appears to have a high dispersed oil component.
While it will still take some time for an ERCB Incident Report, I am eager to learn more about what, how, and why this pipeline leak occurred. Whether it is an ExxonMobil, or Plains Midstream, or Enbridge, or anyone with the responsibility of transporting product by pipeline, whatever the product is, the public safety of the line and the potentially affected parties/environs is paramount. The energy business is a critical element of a strong foundation to economic development and quality of life ~ in Canada and around the globe.
In the meantime, there are some aspects that warrant further reference. First, pipeline spills in the province of Alberta have been improving dramatically over the past 10+ yrs. Average spill rate has decreased from 2.5/1000km (2000) to 2.1/1000km (2008) to 1.5/1000km (2011). Continuous improvement is a mantra in the energy business period. This improvement will continue. Will they get to zero? No. Will they continue to improve? Yes.
Second, there have been a couple of references that cite the spill must have been going for a long time to cover 42 sq. km and thus likely originated sometime under the cover of winter. With the pictures below reposted by Twitter feeds from @JacobBarkerCBC and @HillaryBirdCBC, there is new spring growth evident which would suggest that the growth occurred when conditions were favorable - i.e., after the retreat of snow, and the onset of spring. With the apparent toxicity of the spilled contents, I would not have expected that to occur.
Third, and finally, the appearance in these photos does not look very much like a 'produced water' spill. "Produced water" is a mixture of dispersed oil, dissolved or soluble organics, treatment chemicals, produced solids, scales, bacteria, metals, sulfates, and naturally occuring radioactive material. The target formations, the drilling technology, and the selected treatment options all affect what a 'produced water' pipeline might be transporting. The produced water in these pictures appears to have a high dispersed oil component.
While it will still take some time for an ERCB Incident Report, I am eager to learn more about what, how, and why this pipeline leak occurred. Whether it is an ExxonMobil, or Plains Midstream, or Enbridge, or anyone with the responsibility of transporting product by pipeline, whatever the product is, the public safety of the line and the potentially affected parties/environs is paramount. The energy business is a critical element of a strong foundation to economic development and quality of life ~ in Canada and around the globe.
STOP WORRYING!! ECB Bond Buying and the Monetary-Fiscal Policy Connection (Naked Capitalism)
SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 2013
Why You Should Stop Worrying About Central Bank Losses
Yves here. I guarantee this post will make some readers’ heads explode. It also explains why Germany would benefit from OMT.
By Paul De Grauwe, Professor of international economics, London School of Economics, and former member of the Belgian parliament, and Yuemei Ji, Economist, LICOS, University of Leuven. Cross posted from VoxEU
The monetary-fiscal policy connection is under scrutiny by the German Constitutional Court in the context of the ECB’s OMT bond-buying programme. This column argues that most analyses are deeply flawed by the misapplication of private-company default principles to the central bank. ECB bond-buying transforms public bonds into monetary base, and sovereign-default risk into inflation risk. The real question is: What is the non-inflationary limit to money-base expansion? This depends upon the economic situation and is much higher in the current liquidity-trap setting.
There is a lot of confusion about the fiscal implications of the government bond-buying programme – the OMT, or Outright Monetary Transactions – that the ECB announced last year.
This confusion arises mainly because the principles that guide the solvency of private companies (including banks) are applied to central banks.
• The level of confusion is so high that the president of the Bundesbank turned to the German Constitutional Court arguing that the OMT programme of the ECB would make German citizens liable for paying taxes to cover potential losses made by the ECB.
• In this column we argue that the fears that German taxpayers may have to cover losses made by the ECB are misplaced. They are based on a misunderstanding of solvency issues that central banks face.
Indeed, German taxpayers are the main beneficiaries of such a bond-buying programme.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Yale Environment 360 ~ True Nature
True Nature: Revising Ideas On What is Pristine and Wild
New research shows that humans have been transforming the earth and its ecosystems for millenniums — far longer than previously believed. These findings call into question our notions about what is unspoiled nature and what should be preserved.
Are there any pristine ecosystems out there? The evidence is growing that our ideas about virgin nature are often faulty. In fact, the lush rainforest or wind-blown moorland we think is natural may be a human creation, with alien creatures from distant lands living beside native species. Realizing this will change our ideas about how ecosystems work and how we should do conservation.
We like to think that most nature was pristine and largely untouched until recent times. But two major studies in recent weeks say we are deluded. In one, Erle Ellis, a geographer at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and colleagues have calculated that at least a fifth of the land across most of the world had been transformed by humans as early as 5,000 years ago — a proportion that past studies of historical land use had assumed was only reached in the past 100 years or so.
The human footprint was huge from the day, perhaps 60,000 years ago, when we began burning grasslands and forests for hunting, according to the Ellis study. It extended further with swidden “slash-and-burn” agriculture, and became more intense when farmers began to domesticate animals and plow the land.
READ FULL POST AND MORE HERE
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