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Canadian Natural posts $405-million net loss on higher tax rate, lower revenue

August 10, 2015 By Admin

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By The Canadian Press on August 6, 2015.

CALGARY – Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (TSX:CNQ) had a $405-million net loss in the second quarter but the company says it would have been profitable without a 20 per cent increase in Alberta’s corporate tax rate.

The Calgary-based oil and gas producer says the higher tax rate – which rose to 12 per cent as of July 1 – increased Canadian Natural’s deferred income tax liability by $579 million.

Excluding that item, Canadian Natural says it had $178 million of adjusted earnings from operations.

The results were weak compared with the same period last year, when Canadian Natural had $1.07 billion of net earnings and $1.15 billion of adjusted net earnings.

Canadian Natural’s revenue fell 36 per cent or nearly $2 billion compared with the second quarter of 2014, when global oil and gas prices were much higher.

It says total revenue the second quarter was $3.42 billion, down from $5.37 billion a year earlier.

Filed Under: News

Canadian Natural blames Alta. tax rate for loss

August 10, 2015 By Admin

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By Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press on August 6, 2015.

CALGARY – Canadian Natural Resources is warning that Alberta’s corporate tax hike will hit employment, though both company executives and Premier Rachel Notley agree the steep drop in crude prices is a much bigger challenge.

The Calgary-based oil and gas giant posted a net loss of $405 million during the second quarter, mostly because of a $579-million charge related to the higher tax rate.

All things being equal, the higher tax tab means $579 million less will be invested over the lifespan of Canadian Natural’s assets, chief financial officer Corey Bieber said in an interview.

That figure translates into 4,100 fewer “position years” of direct, indirect and induced employment in that time span, he said, citing a study by a third-party consultant.

The study wasn’t undertaken specifically to look into the impact of the tax changes, but is part of work the company routinely does as part of the regulatory process for its projects, said president Steve Laut.

Unlike many of its peers, Canadian Natural has not announced staff layoffs since crude prices began their sharp decline from above US$100 a barrel a year ago to around US$44 on Thursday. Rather, top brass are taking a pay cut and company-wide pay increases have been scrubbed.

Notley, speaking to reporters in Edmonton, said Albertans accept that higher corporate taxes are going to hit the bottom lines of companies.

“Albertans clearly considered that issue very thoroughly in the last election,” she said. Given the province’s fiscal challenges, Albertans realize it’s necessary to “pull up our socks and tighten our belts” and “everybody needs to chip in.”

She said the tumbling price of crude is having a much bigger impact on employment than the tax increase to 12 per cent from 10 per cent, which came into effect on July 1.

Bieber agrees with that assessment.

Between the first six months of 2014 and the first six months of 2015, Bieber figures the price drop had around a $2.3-billion impact on cash flow.

“The bottom line is, reduced cash flow leads to less ability to reinvest in the business and ultimately that’s what drives growth of the economy,” he said.

Canadian Natural is one of a number of major Calgary oil company to take a tax charge against its second-quarter results.

Last week Canadian Oil Sands (TSX:COS) said its deferred tax expense was $120 million during the quarter, while Imperial Oil (TSX:IMO) took a $320-million charge. A $315-million tax expense at Cenovus Energy (TSX:CVE) was mainly due to the Alberta tax hike, as well.

Without the tax expense and other items in the mix, Canadian Natural said its adjusted earnings from operations were $178 million, compared to $1.15 billion a year earlier.

The Alberta government is setting up expert panels to look into the province’s royalty rates and climate change policy. Notley said more details will be coming out next week.

Laut said until there’s clarity on what kind of additional costs may arise from both reviews, it can’t pin down 2016 spending plans.

He sees work on the Horizon oilsands expansion continuing and more drilling off the shores of Cote d’Ivoire in West Africa.

“But other than that we have to wait and see how the world shakes out.”

Follow @LaurenKrugel on Twitter.

Filed Under: News

Abandoned wells remain Alta. concern

August 5, 2015 By Admin

4 Aug 2015
Lethbridge Herald
Ian Bickis
THE CANADIAN PRESS — CALGARY

ALBERTA NEEDS TO STRENGTHEN PROGRAM TO DEAL WITH DORMANT OIL WELLS: CRITICS

A program in Alberta to deal with thousands of dormant oil and gas wells that don’t meet safety and monitoring standards needs to be strengthened, critics say as falling crude prices could see their numbers swell.

Energy operators have brought about 3,600 wells in line with regulations as part of a compliance program the province launched in April. The Alberta Energy Regulator’s goal for the 2015-16 fiscal year is just under 5,500 wells.

While that shows that the organization is two-thirds of its way to meeting its goal, that still leaves more than 22,100 wells that aren’t complying with rules that govern fencing, and testing for leaks, among other measures, said Carrie Rose, a spokeswoman for the regulator.

Rose said the program is meant to bring them into compliance over the next five years.

But Barry Robinson, the national program director for regions at Ecojustice, said in the meantime those wells could still contaminate the environment.

“In the worst-case scenario you can have a well that is venting something or leaking something and not being aware of it because you’ve never done the pressure testing that was required,” said Robinson.

Jason Unger, staff counsel at the Environmental Law Centre, said the regulator should explain why operators were allowed to have so many wells not complying with regulations in the first place.

A bigger problem is that the program doesn’t set deadlines for well closures, Unger added.

He said unreclaimed wells continue to impact the land and could affect property values, while an increase in the number of inactive wells means an overhang of liabilities for companies that may not be able to pay reclamation costs.

“It’s reliant on the operator to determine when to abandon them,” said Unger.

Concerns over inactive wells comes as the number of orphaned wells has swelled from 162 in March to more than 700.

Wells are orphaned when the company that owns them goes bankrupt or can’t be found. The wells then become the responsibility of the Orphaned Well Association, an industry-funded group that was set up to deal with them.

Brad Herald, a director of the association, says low oil prices have contributed to an increase in orphaned wells.

“We know that given the economic times, there’s probably more coming,” said Herald.

Despite an increase in the number of orphaned wells, Herald doesn’t think Alberta needs to set timelines for reclaiming old wells.

He said wells can be inactive for a variety of reasons, from waiting for the construction of a pipeline to holding on until prices recover.

But Robinson says the province should consider firm timelines for well reclamation like many U.S. states have, because many wells in Alberta have been sitting idle for years.

According to the Alberta Energy Regulator, of the roughly 77,000 inactive wells in the province, 18,000 haven’t been active for more than a decade.

“If there’s some good reason why the well’s been inactive for five years and needs to be inactive longer, well then the company should have to justify that,” said Robinson.

Last year, the Progressive Conservative government committed to reviewing well closure timelines.

A spokeswoman for Environment Minister and Lethbridge West MLA Shannon Phillips said in an email that the current NDP government will look at strengthening existing programs to address inactive and orphaned wells.

Filed Under: News

Watchdog welcomes findings against TransAlta

August 5, 2015 By Admin

29 Jul 2015
Lethbridge Herald
Ian Bickis
THE CANADIAN PRESS — CALGARY

HEAD OF UTILITY WATCHDOG PLEASED WITH ALBERTA COMMISSION DECISION

The Alberta Utility Commission’s conclusion that TransAlta triggered outages at power plants to raise electricity rates is a welcome step towards fair markets, the head of the province’s utility watchdog said Tuesday.

“It’s a huge win for Albertans, who deserve to benefit from a fair, efficient, openly competitive market,” said Harry Chandler, administrator of the Market Surveillance Administrator. Chandler accused TransAlta of deliberately timing outages at coalfired power plants in Alberta at peak times in late 2010 and early 2011 in order to drive up electricity prices.

In a report released Monday, Alberta’s Utility Commission agreed.

During hearings held by the commission, TransAlta argued that it believed it was allowed to do that based in part on discussions with the Market Surveillance Administrator. But the commission found that TransAlta should have made further consultations before going ahead with its plan.

TransAlta has said it is reviewing the ruling, and a further response could include the possibility of an appeal to the province’s highest court.

Chandler said the decision provides more clarity for Alberta’s utility market going forward.

“This is a watershed decision that all market participants, and even outside of Alberta, are going to pay a great deal of attention to because it gives very clear guidance on appropriate behaviour in the electricity market.”

The commission said it will resume proceedings later to determine how much TransAlta benefited from the closures and what penalties to impose against the company.

Filed Under: News

Not-so-smart meters in Lethbridge

August 5, 2015 By Admin

4 Aug 2015
Lethbridge Herald
Anthony James Hall UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE

In 2011 the Union of B.C. Municipalities voted in its annual convention to ask the B.C. provincial government to put a “moratorium” on its plan to revamp the province’s power grid. The core of this plan involved the installation of smart meters.

In B.C. and many other jurisdictions in the world there is growing resistance to installing smart meters. Smart meters are a high-tech wireless device designed for two-way broadcasting through the medium of high-frequency microwave radiation.

At the B.C. municipal union “some of the concerns brought up by the delegates included health impacts, privacy issues, and potential rate hikes.” Sharon Noble, spokesperson for the Coalition to Stop Smart Meters, warned that if the B.C. Energy Ministry “chose to ignore what people have said through their councillors, through their mayors, then I think the government is making a big mistake.” She anticipated “plans to take the government to court over human rights complaints.”

In Lethbridge, our city government is not in a position to respond like municipal governments did in B.C. to growing public concerns. Because of the differences in our provincial histories, our city government is the primary custodian and renovator of our local power grid and metering system.

Unbeknownst to most Lethbridge residents, the city is rapidly pushing ahead with the installation of wifi communication devices that it refuses to identify as smart meters. At a recent community meeting at the University of Lethbridge, Mayor Chris Spearman commented that 19,000 meters have been installed with 26,000 yet to go.

At this gathering organized by the U of L’s New Media instructor, Lance Chong, there was a specific focus on a City of Lethbridge web page entitled “Electric Meter Replacement — Frequently Asked Questions.” One of the statements was that “the meters being installed in the city are not smart meters.” It also stated “the meters are safe.”

At this public meeting, our mayor repeatedly emphasized the safety of the electric meters. As on his own Facebook page, Mayor Spearman justified his claim by directing people to Health Canada’s Smart Meters information packages. He specifically pointed out that “Health Canada has issued limits of human exposure to RF (radio frequency) radiation in Safety Code 6.”

While city officials insist that the installed devices are not smart meters, they concurrently direct citizens’ public safety concerns to Health Canada’s assessment of “smart meters.”

The deceptiveness of this communications strategy raises important issues about consent. Indeed, the only document announcing the changeover in technologies calls into question the city government’s understanding of our collective and individual right to give informed consent to this controversial technology.

An official letter from the City of Lethbridge placed into the mailbox of every “resident/homeowner” states that “Electric Operations is replacing residential electric meters in the city, and your meter will be replaced within the next four-week period.”

The recipients are told they can call a city line during business hours if they have any questions. The letter also indicates, “As the meters are on the exterior of most homes, we will complete the work if no one is at home… The replacement process will take approximately five minutes.” The experience of litigation in other jurisdictions suggests that the City of Lethbridge is acting as if the failure to phone the assigned number for whatever reason constitutes “implied consent.”

The debate in B.C. demonstrates the breadth of concerns about the changeover to smart meters, or “Smart Grids” as an Alberta government report referred to the new technology in 2011. Done at the behest of the Alberta government, the publication is entitled Alberta Smart Grid Inquiry: Final Report.

The authors of the “final report” explain that “Smart Grid” is a “broad concept that describes the integration of hardware, software, computer monitoring, control technologies and modern communications strategies in the electricity grid.” The report underlines that smart meters are a part of Alberta’s Smart Grid plan. It refers to the City of Lethbridge’s relationship to the project along with that of Atco, Enmax, Epcor, Direct Energy and Fortis.

A special section is devoted to privacy issues. This topic is clearly connected to warnings that smart meters provide public utilities along with their attending corporations and governments with vast new surveillance capabilities and potentials. The Smart Grid Report notes that the then-privacy commissioner of Alberta, Frank Work, QC, cautioned that many privacy issues remain unaddressed.

Specifically, Work pointed out that the engineering of the Smart Grid could not advance until Alberta’s privacy laws were taken into account. These statutes include the Alberta’s Personal Information Act, the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act, and the Health Information Act.

These observations indicate that the City of Lethbridge is withholding important information from its constituents that we need to make informed, democratically-based decisions about our new Smart Meter and Smart Grid technology. The city’s haste of installation together with its eclipsing of the true nature of smart meters indicates that serious investigation is required. Could this haste have anything to do with the recent change in the provincial government from PC to NDP control?

The smart meter project is more consequential than a simple “replacement” of electric meters. It’s part of a far-reaching international reengineering of our power infrastructure. Smart meters, smart grids, and ubiquitous two-way microwave communications are impacting our lives in many ways.

Mayor Spearman owes his constituents open-minded consideration of our concerns as well as full disclosure about the true nature of the project. It would be a conflict of interest for him to act exclusively as a proponent of smart meters. An immediate halt to the project would enable the community and individuals to become collectively informed about our options. We do have a choice.

Anthony Hall is a professor of Globalization Studies in the Liberal Education Program at the University of Lethbridge.

Filed Under: News

Tilting the wind in Southern Alberta

July 30, 2015 By Admin

Pincher Creek Voice

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Survey trespass
Livingstone Landowners prod council for support
Oh those blinking lights
Intangibles
Anyway, the wind blows
TransAlta price rigging
Markets coalescing

Christian Davis

Survey trespass

The Livingstone Landowners Group (LLG) last week issued a press release titled “After denying access, landowners catch subcontractor hired by AltaLink trespassing on their property.” In that release LLG stated that AltaLink subcontractor Stantec trespassed on the land of Dan and Rose Skierka while conducting a field study for the proposed Castle Rock Ridge to Chapel Rock transmission line. The Skierkas have been participants in numerous public landowner issue discussions in the Pincher Creek area.” According to the press release, “Despite the Skierkas behaving with admirable respect and patience (spending two hours with senior AltaLink representatives), AltaLink still ordered the subcontractor to go on their land.”

In a letter to AltaLink President Scott Thon the Skierkas said the trespass occurred on June 29, 2015 when Stantec was conducting a a breeding bird survey for the transmission project. According to that letter, Dan Skierka and another landowner met with AltaLink representatives at the local Tim Horton’s and at that meeting denied AltaLink access. “We denied the request for very legitimate reasons and subsequently filled out the six page ‘AltaLink Land Form’ to that effect,” continues the letter. “We were assured that our position would be respected. The discussion and completing the forms took over two hours to complete.”

On July 13 Thon wrote back, saying “I want to apologize on behalf of AltaLink for the recent trespass on your land. It was an incident for which we apologize and accept responsibility for our contractor.”

“Our understanding is that you did not grant Stantec access to your land for any environmental survey and therefore it should not have taken place. We pride ourselves on creating positive relationships with landowners and regret that this incident has tarnished your view of Alta link. We understand how important your land is to you and appreciate that trespassing will not be tolerated.”

Thon said AltaLink is “using this situation to identify gaps within our processes with contractors regarding land access. We absolutely do not want this situation to be repeated. Improvements to our process will be made moving forward to close any gaps.”

“The individual who trespassed on your land has been removed from working on the Castle Rock Ridge to Chapel Rock Transmission Project.”

“As you requested, no information gleaned from the unauthorized environmental survey will be entered into our database. We will also provide you with any data that was collected during the survey.”

Thon also attached a letter of apology from Stantec’s Ted Zuurbier. In it Zuurbier said Stantec “would like to apologize for this incident. We understand the frustration and anger that these incidents ause landowners and truly regret any adverse effects that this particular incident has caused Mr. and Mrs. Skierka”.

“Going forward Stantec is imposing stricter protocols for our crews to follow when conducting surveys on the Castle Rock Ridge to Chapel Rock Project in the future. Crews have been advised to be very diligent when accessing any property to ensure that the proper permissions are in place prior to access.”

“All information that was gathered during the Breeding Bird survey on the Skierka’s land in question will be removed from the record and will not be included in the Environmental Evaluation.”

Livingstone Landowners get letter of support from MD

In February of this year LLG issued a press release which stated as its four key points:

The Livingstone Landowners Group (LLG) does not endorse any AltaLink route proposals, as we are not proponents of a new power line in the area.
Given the values at stake and recent changes in the electric energy sector, LLG has requested the Premier of Alberta to re-evaluate the need for this proposed line and consider whether it should be deferred or cancelled.
The LLG has advised AltaLink that, should a line be built, it should avoid native fescue grasslands, environmentally sensitive areas and scenic areas that give the Livingstone area and Cowboy Trail (Highway 22) their iconic beauty.
The South Saskatchewan Regional Plan (SSRP) sets clear direction that new development should minimize landscape fragmentation and be concentrated in existing developed areas. The LLG supports this policy direction.

LLG’s core purpose puts them in regular opposition with forestry, wind energy, transmission line, and oil and gas interests. They’re on Facebook. They have a website. They hang out in Cowley and Lundbreck. They have support in spirit from landowner rights groups, including the Chinook Area Land Users Association (CALUA). CALUA members have been breathing hesitant sighs of relief as there is no current threat of transmission lines in their area.

In July they sent a delegation to speak to a receptive Municipal District of Pincher Creek No. 9 council.

“It’s not that we’re against development, we just want to see it in a balanced way that protects the environment, and is sustainable,” representative Norma Dougall told council.

“In September 2014, Altalink announced plans to build a transmission line from Castle Rock Ridge to Chapel Rock to connect a 1201 line, which is the big line that runs up to Calgary and down to the Crowsnest and over into BC.””All three routes went into the environmentally sensitive eastern slopes of Livingstone.”

Council was told route options and the project itself should be reassessed.

LLG avers that due to changes in the economy and other factors the planned wind turbines may not be erected even if the transmission line is built.

“This project is based on a need that was identified eight years ago in the Southern Alberta Transmission Reinforcement (SATR) Plan by the AUC, and it was then approved by Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC). Only AESO (Alberta Electric System Operator) and AUC have the power to review or cancel a project, once it’s been approved.”

Wind farm developments were waiting to be approved “but they needed the infrastructure to be able to send their energy on to market”.

Changes in wind technology allowing for more local use are pointed at as a change in the way energy may be transported in the future – as little as possible. Unsteady wind energy in turn creates an unsteady flow, resulting in the “sporadic spikes that we create down here”. It is LLG’s contention that our unreliable winds create sudden gluts on the system, which in turn creates a drop in prices, a big supply that has to be bought and used immediately. It’s called the Pincher Creek discount, with producers earning “about 20% less for their energy than elsewhere.”

“LLG favours wind, and green energy, we just feel for economic, environmental, and aesthetic reasons there’s enough here and this line in particular is not needed.”

“This line has actually more to do with a behind-closed-door deal that was made years ago to provide or sell cheap Canadian electricity to the States, who were trying to get off of their coal burning plants but were happy to buy ours.”

“The problem there is… their transmission lines run on a different frequency than ours do,” thus requiring more infrastructure to work.

“Once again, the ratepayers for the electricity will get the honour of paying for the infrastructure being made, then the electrical companies will make the money off the power being sold.”

LLG has decided to be proactive in their approach to the new Alberta government. “We will be following up with them sooner, rather than later.”In a February 2015 press release LLG said “Ongoing changes in the energy sector have resulted in re-evaluation and subsequent cancellation of other portions of the Southwest Alberta Transmission Reinforcement (SATR) that were previously considered necessary. In light of this, and given the significant environmental risks, the LLG has asked (then) Premier Prentice to order a re-assessment of the SATR including the need for new transmission capacity in our area. The risk of lasting harm warrants careful consideration of whether a costly new line is even needed.”

LLG continues to bond with similar organizations, and asked MD of Pincher Creek No. 9 council to support LLG’s request for a needs review of the transmission project. After some discussion on July 14 council passed a resolution supporting that request. An email dated July 20, 2015 was addressed to the President of AESO, with Reeve Brian Hammond as signatory. It reads in part “As the proposed project has received several negative comments from our taxpayers, and information received would appear to indicate that the transmission line may no longer be needed, council requests a favorable response to the question of re-examining the need for the proposed line”.

Blinking lights

Oh, those blinking lights! Landowners in the MD of Pincher Creek have long been lamenting the loss of their night sky to the synchronized warning lights atop many of the windmills out there. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Citizen delegations have appeared before MD of Pincher Creek councils past and present to ask that something to be done about it. Former Reeve and Division 4 councilor Bjorn Berg was vocal in his concerns about the issue. Present Reeve and Division 4 councillor Brian Hammond has been vocal in his concerns about the issue. These days, Division 4 is a candle you can see for miles around. However, the issue is bigger than any one council, any one landowner group, and the power is in the hands of the regulatory bodies.

Landowners have asked for the lights to be less synchronised if they are to continue blinking.

Blink. Blink.

Intangibles

The biggest issues for the landowners are intangibles. Most are generational ranchers and farmers. The lifestyle comes at a price, and the view ranks way up there in terms of payoff.

Southern Alberta landowner groups have in general adopted a very calculated process of using the system against itself by seizing on every manner of delay possible. It’s worked to some degree for some time. Some projects that seemed like a given green light not so long ago seem to have fallen off the radar.

Numerous open houses have been held over the years in Pincher Creek area community halls and conference rooms. AltaLink open houses to show maps of proposed transmission routes. Q&A opportunities with AESO representatives. Grassroots meetings at which the above mentioned landowner organizations formally formed and developed their strategies. Like the entities they oppose, they wield press releases, not protest signs. They’ve united in a cause, they’ve shown up early for meeting after meeting, they’ve asked the probing questions. Many of them grew up in 4-H, and 4-H teaches debate.

Landowner groups may have slowed the system, but there are still a lot of new windmills out there.

Blink. Blink.

TransAlta price rigging

The AUC decided against TransAlta in a price rigging/market manipulation case. They timed power outages to drive up market prices. The AUC decision states in part TransAlta “intentionally took certain coal-fired generating units that it owned, that were subject to power purchase arrangements (PPAs), offline for repairs during periods of high demand when it was open to TransAlta to delay those repairs to a period of lower demand. The MSA submitted that TransAlta engaged in this conduct to drive up electricity prices to benefit TransAlta’s portfolio. The MSA asserted that this conduct restricted or prevented competition and restricted or prevented a competitive response and manipulated market prices away from a competitive market outcome.”

That’s given the Wildrose Party a bone to chew on. It’s more than a little early-game to blame the majority NDP government, so rarely accused of being friendly with Big Power.

Anyway, the wind blowsHere’s a simple fact about southern Alberta. Windmills have been good for business. As the area combustible market winds down, renewables are one of the viable replacement enterprises. Like the switch to canola, some landowners are cashing in, leasing windmill locations in hay fields, each with an annual income. Farming the wind.

You can’t beat the views from the top of those towers. They’re sleek, artistic, hyper-modern and retro at the same time. LLG believes there’s a point at which there’s just too many of them and the infrastructure they require.

Related, the Southern Foothills Study, Phase 3 Report was recently released and got a thumbs up from the LLG.Markets coalescing

According to Grid Integration in the West, a report prepared for the Hewlett Foundation and the Energy Foundation, “On September 8, 2011 the loss of a single transmission line in Arizona initiated a cascading electricity outage that affected parts of Arizona, Southern California, and Baja Mexico. The outage left approximately 5 million people without power for up to 12 hours. A joint analysis performed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) determined that inadequate planning and deficiencies in real-time situational awareness were primary contributors to the outage.”

The report posits the renewable industry’s need to work co-operatively to create\interconnections to disperse power around the western United States on an as needed basis, creating the ability to better utilise the more quickly dissipating renewable energies.

The report also mentions similarities between the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO), saying they “and a majority of the entities in the Eastern Interconnection have centralized markets and operations that are co- optimized to transact, schedule and dispatch energy, capacity, and a host of ancillary services that support the efficient and reliable operation of the grid. These regions transitioned to centralized sub-hourly operations and markets years ago to protect system reliability and optimize efficiency.”
According to The Western Gri d (headline: The Western US Needs Better Regional Planning to Modernize the Grid), “Holistically addressing Western electricity system challenges will require electricity providers, regulators, and a myriad of stakeholders to collaborate across the Interconnection. Sub-regions of the West are highly likely to eventually transition to variants of consolidated system operations and markets for both reliability and economic reasons.”

Landowners have longed voiced the opinion that the southern Alberta wind power generation is destined for the U.S. market. Given the increasing interconnectivity of the continental marketplace, the need to use power before it dissipates, and given the huge U.S. hunger for power, that seems almost an inevitability.

Filed Under: News

What a shock!

July 28, 2015 By Admin

TRANSALTA TIMED POWER OUTAGES TO DRIVE UP PRICES: ALBERTA UTILITIES COMMISSION

28 Jul 2015
Lethbridge Herald
Ian Bickis THE CANADIAN PRESS — CALGARY

TransAlta Corp. deliberately timed outages at power plants in Alberta at peak times in order to drive up electricity prices, the province’s utilities commission said in a ruling Monday.

The Alberta Utilities Commission conducted hearings after the province’s market surveillance administrator alleged that the Calgary-based company manipulated the electricity market by shutting down coal-fired power plants in late 2010 and early 2011 to drive up power costs during periods when demand was high.

“The commission concludes, based upon clear, cogent and convincing evidence that TransAlta could have deferred each of the above described outages to off peak hours but chose instead to take them during peak or super-peak hours so as to maximize the benefit to its own portfolio,” the commission said in its decision.

“In other words, the timing of the outage was determined by market conditions rather than by the need to safeguard life, property or the environment.”

The commission also found that TransAlta breached a regulation by allowing its energy trader Nathan Kaiser to use privileged information related to plant shutdowns so that the company could benefit in the market.

“TransAlta knew, or should have reasonably known that Kaiser had information regarding the capability of Sundance 1 and 2 to produce electricity that could reasonably be expected to have a material impact on market prices and would give him an advantage over market participants who did not have that information,” the commission found.

But the commission said Kaiser established a defence of due diligence based on repeated assurances from senior TransAlta management that he could direct trades despite possessing information that wasn’t public.

The commission also found that the market surveillance administrator did not prove allegations that TransAlta’s compliance policies, practices and oversight were inadequate and deficient.

Filed Under: News

Wind power not an effective alternative

July 17, 2015 By Admin

Lethbridge Herald

By Letter to the Editor on July 16, 2015.

Re: All-time summer peak record set for electricity in Alberta during heat wave July 9.

The record demand for electricity last week is a stark reminder of the hopeless inadequacy of wind power. For several hours that day, Alberta’s $5-billion wind infrastructure produced zero electricity.

Thus far in 2015, wind’s average output has been 33 per cent of nameplate capacity and for the past few weeks, wind’s dismal output ranged from 13 to 20 per cent of capacity. In that period, production from Alberta’s wind turbines has been less than five per cent of capacity, or effectively zero, several times each week.

Last week across Alberta, air conditioners were running apace keeping people comfortable at their places of work and at home. But peak power demands are even higher in winter when people and industry must be kept from freezing. Major outages in winter, because of wind’s failures, have the potential to be dangerous. Yet the government wants more ineffective wind power.

The current government’s election platform stated, “We will phase out coal-fired electricity generation … and expand … windÉ” Before taking such action, Premier Notley and the Hon. Shannon Phillips must present a plan to replace coal power in a way that will prevent permanent harm to our modern society when we run short of wind electricity because of its unreliability.

Recently in The Herald online, this illogical statement was posted, “…wind is always blowing somewhereÉ” It is like saying the sun is always shining somewhere. It is misleading because it implies wind electricity will be available from elsewhere, when it will not. In addition to the unthinkable monetary and resource costs of an extensive transmission grid dedicated to wind, this illogical thinking has a fatal flaw. If the wind is not blowing in Alberta or elsewhere over vast tracts of North America, but is blowing in (say) Iowa, there will be many times when none of that wind power will be available for Alberta because the limited supply will have been consumed elsewhere.

Consider the absurdity of replacing Alberta’s 6.3 GW of coal power with wind. The initial cost for new turbines and transmission will be over $20 billion (billion)! And since this must be 100 per cent backed up with (what?) natural gas, add another $6 billion or so. So much for the Green mantra of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. More like Duplicate, Mothball and Abandon.

If you don’t like your high electricity bills now, just wait a few years.

Clive Schaupmeyer

Coaldale

Filed Under: News

Davis “Bullying” Story not an Isolated Case

July 16, 2015 By Admin

Written by CAEPLA

I have talked with TransCanada and the man in charge of lands on the company’s Eastern Mainline pipeline project (applied for at the same time as the Energy East Project) concerning the complaint about land agent bullying. This gentleman stated that he believes his land agents would never bully a landowner and his proof is that he has seen the land agent’s reports and his report does not “refer to any bullying.” He said he would fire any agent that bullied and that there were no implications of that in the Davis case!!!!

I was assured that the company was not threatening landowners that TransCanada would apply to the NEB for Right of Entry on landowner’s property to do the archeological survey.

CAEPLA sent this message to some of our members along the project.

As a result, CAEPLA has been contacted by another landowner confirming that the bullying was not an isolated case, confirming the Davis family interpretation of what the land agent “inferred.”

Dan Walker, a landowner near Grafton, Ontario, sent me an email last week to report his neighbor also refused to work his land for TCPL’s archeological survey, the same as the Davis family. Dan’s neighbor grows his crop using a no-till cropping to protect his soils so working the soil would compromise his crops and therefore refused to work his land. The TransCanada land agent told this gentlemen that if he did not work the proposed easement, TransCanada would get Right of Entry from the NEB and have someone else do it. The same threat as posed to the Davis family.

The same agent visited Dan’s property. In his email Dan says, “The same agent also came here (TCPL’s Enforcer) to get me to sign for survey, but when I refused, because they only wanted to pay for one property not the two, as he was leaving my kitchen he turned and looked at me and said they will be getting a ROE from the NEB and that this was my last chance to get a thousand dollars for free.”

Dan concluded his email with, “TCPL knows what is going on; you know it and I know it.”

Filed Under: News

Privacy Rights Are Property Rights

July 16, 2015 By Admin

Written by CAEPLA

Privacy Rights Are Property Rights

Everybody has the right to privacy – even pipeline companies

Our recent post critiquing the reliance of some landowners on freedom of information (FOI) laws to help level the playing field when dealing with pipeline companies struck a chord with many landowners and seems to have touched a raw nerve for one irate industry critic.

Indeed the gentleman who types the “Line 6B Citizens’ Blog” in Michigan waxed a wee bit hyperbolic in response to our pro property rights post. We will try to remain calm as we reiterate our respect for property rights fundamentals and disdain for regulatory schemes and pipe dreams.

We proceed from the premise that property rights are like the right to free speech: It is often said that we must defend the unpopular speech of our enemies if we want that freedom for ourselves.

So too must we defend the privacy and property rights of others – even if they are pipeline companies, the corporate pariahs of our era – if we wish to protect our own.

It was from this standpoint that we addressed HB 4540 — a proposed exemption for pipeline companies in Michigan’s FOI legislation, the stated purpose of which is to reduce the amount of information that might be accessible to those plotting terror attacks against the industry.

Our thesis was basically that so-called transparency laws are useless at best and a threat to property rights at worst. Not to mention generally bad for business — especially since, as we pointed out, FOI laws were conceived to keep government accountable, not there to provide a backdoor through which to monitor private companies.

We also suggested limiting the amount of information pipeline companies are forced to make public was hardly putting said public “at risk,” as opponents of the bill claim.

What seems to have set our erstwhile “friend” at the Line 6B Citizens’ Blog off was our saying that FOI laws are a threat to privacy and as such are a threat to property rights because privacy is part and parcel of private property.

The blogger let loose with a nearly 2000 word screed mischaracterizing CAEPLA’s case for privacy and property rights and casting aspersions on our integrity, cognitive capacity, and tone.

What really seems to have irked him most is our objection to the use of the word “secret” instead of “private,” when describing efforts to deny businesses – whether big bad corporate ones, or yours — the right to keep private what ought to be kept private. Corporate secrecy sounds so much more ominous than, say, ‘private business documents.’

Bizarrely, the “Citizens'” blogger then went so far as to attempt to deny what every English dictionary we are familiar with agrees on: that secret is synonymous with private. Seriously. The closest he came to any genuine attempt to address our argument was to desperately claim we were misusing language:

“The word secret is not another way of saying private; it’s a way of saying undisclosed. We have no idea why CAEPLA would try to smuggle the word “private” into this discussion. Presumably, it’s meant to push all sorts of buttons, since we all know that privacy is sacrosanct. You don’t want your privacy invaded, do you? That’s actually the line that CAEPLA takes. We’re not kidding. They say so very explicitly.”

We do say that.

Meanwhile, unsurprisingly, every dictionary we know of includes “private” on the list of synonyms for secret.

And an additional quick stroll through Wiktionary or any other reputable dictionary would reveal to our Line 6B “Citizens'” Blogger that privacy means “the state of being private,” and further defines private as all of the following:

“Belonging to, concerning, or accessible only to an individual person or a specific group.”

“Not publicly known; not open; secret;”

“Protected from view or disturbance by others;”

“Intended only for the use of an individual, group, or organization;”

“private papers;”

“Not accessible by the public;”

“private property;”

“Not traded by the public;”

“private corporation;”

Etymological debates aside, CAEPLA believes too many landowners fail to challenge the essentially Big Government, anti-capitalist bias most pipeline opponents espouse.

We prefer the ideas embodied in the Magna Carta, and the Fourth Amendment, specifically that old-fashioned notion most Americans cling to, about “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects.”

CAEPLA believes that property rights provide the best framework for landowners to do business with the energy transport or any other industry. It is the absence of property rights — in the form of Eminent Domain and other expropriations — that creates the moral hazard and tragedy of the commons that too often encourages bad behaviour by pipeline companies.

Filed Under: News