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Terence Corcoran: Attack of the green carbon counters as business world reduced to tallying emissions

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Terence Corcoran: Attack of the green carbon counters as business world reduced to tallying emissions

Locked down rail transportation is just the latest blow to a Canadian economy that seems to be moving backward.

Canadians who previously marvelled at their ability to work the land, build enterprise, lay rail and produce industrial and commercial wealth are now being told that the only measure that matters is whether their work and enterprise add or subtract from the nation’s carbon count and improve or jeopardize Canada’s ability to meet its international carbon emissions targets.

From pipeline to electricity production to industrial development in Atlantic Canada, the business world has been reduced to counting carbon emissions. Forget revenue estimates, profit projections, innovation, market breakthroughs, lower cost structures, new technologies, better jobs, future economic growth prospects and a richer country.

Put all that corporate rubbish aside because nothing matters in today’s economy except the associated carbon emissions.

Does any project make economic or business sense? Few seem to care. Examples abound, but here are four from across the country: Ontario’s green electricity scheme that cost ratepayers billions; Alberta’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion boondoggle; Alberta’s Teck Frontier oilsands stalemate; and plans for a new industrial iron project in New Brunswick.

Ontario green electricity: The latest Ontario Energy Quarterly report claims the province’s electricity system has experienced a “marked decline in greenhouse gas emissions” — from 20 megatonnes to two megatonnes since 2010 — thanks to the phaseout of coal and the “uptake of renewable generation” such as wind and solar power.

Having counted the carbon, the report fails to tabulate the cost of the green energy extravaganza that accompanied the shut down of Ontario’s coal plants. A new blog post from Parker Gallant, a retired banker who now monitors the tangled intestines of the province’s electricity system, recently tabulated the rough cost of Ontario’s green energy at about $23.7 billion. That money, paid by ratepayers in higher electricity prices to subsidize renewable power to meet artificial carbon targets, works out to about $1,330 per tonne of carbon reduction.

No wonder the gurus of carbon reduction such as Mark Jaccard are backing away from $50 or even $250 carbon taxes as a solution to climate change. An “effective” carbon tax would be an economy killer.

Alberta’s Trans Mountain pipeline and Teck Frontier oilsands: Whether these projects have economic and financial merit is now mostly irrelevant.

The estimated cost of the pipeline — nationalized last year by the federal government — has soared from $7.4 billion to $12.6 billion. Trans Mountain CEO Ian Anderson said, “The cost increase has really come about through two primary drivers, one being the starting and stopping of construction, the cost of delays, the carrying cost, the additional regulatory and legal processes.”

In other words, the major reason for the 70 per cent cost increase has been green opposition to the expansion based on the claim — as per the Council of Canadians — that it would add 13 to 15 megatonnes of carbon emissions to the atmosphere, “which would be like adding almost 3.8 million cars on the road.”

The other Alberta albatross hanging around the neck of the federal government, the $20-billion Teck Frontier oilsands mine, will produce 4.1 million tonnes of carbon per year.

In green economics, dollars and sense are off the table. It’s all about the carbon. At 4.1 million tonnes a year, the output would not prevent Alberta from meeting its self-imposed annual 100-million-tonne carbon emissions target. But the added emissions could prevent Ottawa from meeting its so-called net zero carbon emission targets. To make its case, Teck Frontier has concocted a net-zero-emissions plan. Whether the mine would be profitable or not is rarely part of the discussion.

News reports say the Liberal caucus is divided as activists portray Teck Frontier as a do-or-die decision for the Trudeau Liberals — or, more accurately, a do-and-die decision. If Ottawa were to approve the project, it would be pilloried for green-lighting a non-green climate killer rather than a jobs producer and growth enhancer.

And so it goes, with a different twist, in New Brunswick.

The Maritime Iron project: A Toronto-based private firm, Maritime Iron, has proposed what the company describes as a $1.5-billion “world-class, low-cost merchant pig iron facility” in the New Brunswick port town of Belledune. Whatever pig iron might be does not seem to matter in the new business world driven by carbon counting.

Since the plant would emit about 2.6 million carbon tonnes annually, pushing New Brunswick over its emissions targets, some editorialists wonder whether Ottawa should somehow intervene.

All such projects in Canada will now soon face another risk, which is they might not be able to raise funds in a “green finance” economy controlled by carbon-counting bankers and investors.

Financial Post

• Email: tcorcoran@nationalpost.com | Twitter: terencecorcoran

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