Daily Archives: May 7, 2017

Tyler Kosicks family has been in the trucking business up north for decades and its fair to say hes heard some pretty salty language in his day. But theres one word floating around this election campaign that sounds particularly foul to him and a lot of other folks in communities with resource-based economies.

Thats the R word.

R in this case stands for review and when its coupled with oil and gas subsidies in the NDP platform, well its like dropping an F-bomb in front of your grandmother.

And the problem with the New Democrats, far as Kosicks concerned, is theyve embarrassed granny more than once.

The NDP dont understand that if you dont have a strong economy and you dont incentivize people to actually get out there and explore, manufacture, provide services, if theyre not viable, then you dont have the tax revenue, you dont have the jobs and you dont have everything that feeds back into those public coffers and you end up going the other direction and taking on more public debt as a province, says Kosick.

Weve seen that in the past and it doesnt work.

The NDP policy plank that commits the party to a review of oil and gas subsidies should it form government may play well in urban areas, but its like lighting a match to see where the gas leaks coming from in B.C.s energy patch. Locals like Kosick dont like it. Resource industry investors hate it. Theyve invested billions of dollars in long-term investments based on the current set of rules. Reviewing those rules with an eye to what many see as the NDPs ardent wish to kill those subsidy programs will have potentially dire consequences.

Who will bear those dire consequences? Average workers, including unionized employees. Some of the Canada Pension Plans largest investments are with the dividend-churning companies in the national oil and gas sector. The same is true of the BC Investment Management Corporation that manages the futures of countless union resource retirees.

In contrast, the BC Liberal platform promises to continue to provide incentives for producers drilling deep wells for natural gas to ensure our natural gas reserves are developed economically.

Fiddling with subsidies while the oil patch burns would also have a direct impact on Kosicks home town of Fort St. John, especially if the NDP subsidy review puts the brakes on programs like the one supporting shoulder season drilling.

We had a winter rush and the rest of the year was slow, says Kosick. So the government introduced this program to help them keep going year-round, which definitely helped business and more so for labour.

By expanding the drilling season, communities like Fort St. John saw fewer transient workers and more year-round workers who moved into town, keeping their money in their new homes. Mess with that and what will happen?

If theres no incentive for the producers to work year-round, then the communities could suffer as we go back to a transient work force, says Kosick.

Subsidies also encourage companies to find new ways to reduce carbon emissions. The current BC Clean Infrastructure Royalty Credit Program has resulted in 13 methane-reduction programs. Kosick thinks thats a better approach than imposing restrictions on the oil and gas industry like the carbon tax.

Why cant we look at subsidizing energy companies to incentivize them to do that (reduce emissions) as opposed to imposing carbon taxes? he says.

Why not say, Heres some subsidies and by 2025 or 2030, this is the model we want to see in place, you have until then to do it, and were going to help you with these subsidies. But instead, they carbon tax.

Kosick believes that any money saved by scrapping oil and gas subsidies wouldnt end up back in the Northeasts communities.

The NDP always source out ways to keep more money in the government coffers to be able to fund their ideology and fund their social programs, he says.

I think a lot of that (NDP policies) is to appease their southern votes.

Its enough to make a body use the R word.

Follow this link:

The R word sounds sour note in B.C.'s Northeast - BOE Report (press release)

Published on May 7th, 2017 | by The Beam

May 7th, 2017 by The Beam

The Beam interview series, edition 35: Alexandre Lemille

CleanTechnica keeps on publishing some of The Beam interviews and opinion pieces twice a week. The Beam magazine takes a modern perspective on the energy transition, interviewing inspirational people from around the world that shape our sustainable energy future.

This week, Anne-Sophie Garrigou, journalist at The Beam, interviewed Alexandre Lemille, a promoter of the Circular Economy who believes that shifting our economies is not only good for the environment, but equally so for businesses and the people.

Hello Alexandre and thank you for your time! What is your definition of Circular Economy and why are we talking about Circular Economy 2.0?

The Circular Economy is the understanding of the eco-systemic metabolisms leading to the abundance of flows. Put simply, we should be imitating natural cycles as closely as possible. For instance, natural photosynthesis is efficient and available in abundance. Applied to our daily needs in energy, finding a technology that replicates photosynthesis using biological elements could replace all our needs for energy supplies for, for instance, the highly polluting photovoltaic solutions we use today. Circular Economy is about finding new pockets of growth within our environmental boundaries in the constant re-value of the already extracted resources we have today. And we have enough of them! This is mainly a matter of rethinking the way we grant access so that all of us can keep enjoying life for the many generations to come.

The Circular Economy 2.0 builds on the Circular Economy. Yet it considers that poverty is also an externality of our wrongly designed economic system. Like waste, poverty does not exist in nature. Like waste in the Circular Economy, poverty should also be designed out using the same Circular Thinking approach. Circular Economy 2.0 suggests that the social dimension should be a critical part of what is considered our next economic model. We understand the cost of a waste economy. The cost of an unequal economy is also huge. The top three Global Risks 2017 of the World Economic Forum are all about this: inequality, social divides and job losses. Lets not replicate the same mistakes of our linear world!

Why should we consider that shifting to a more Circular Economy is a real modernization of our standard economy?

In recent years we have realized that our world is not only finite, but that we are reaching its limits far quicker than expected. Rethinking and redesigning our economic model based on the constant reuse of our extracted resources is a definite modernization and positive evolution from our standard economy. Endless fossil resources and exponential growth only exist in an industrial world we invented over one hundred years ago. The solution lies in the understanding of the value of our stock of materials, and how one can reuse these materials keeping their value at an all time high. This would lead to less CO2 emitted, less extractive activities, less energy required to transform our products and use them, more value on unused resources we call waste today, more value on forests as our stock of oxygen, more value on the preservation of our soils to feed more people, and so on. This is a definite advancement in the history of human beings.

What are the main benefits of this economical transformation?

The main benefits are first for the businesses themselves. Corporate risks are coming from many angles, but mainly its the access to the raw materials needed to manufacture goods. The challenge that businesses face is that we are either running out of some of the critical underground resources which will lead to a surge in prices for the years to come, or they are available but we should plan to keep them under the ground, unless we face the risk of going beyond the 2 degree threshold by the end of this century. Thus, providing a business strategy to increase business resilience while preserving our environmental services is the biggest benefit of this economy.

A first expectation is to see a constant drop in the CO2 emissions during this century while addressing the economic needs of more people on the planet. A second expectation is to release the pressure on our resource dependencies. The more a market grows, the more resources are needed. With the Circular Economy we will aim at decoupling this economic growth from the constant need for more resources.

Lastly, job creation. A Circular Economy could create many jobs if we design it properly. An economy where most unused resources are incinerated. As is often the case in developed markets, we only create one job for every 10,000 tons of goods produced. In an economy of the reuse of materials, the potential is rather 296 jobs. This is nearly a ratio of 300 times more jobs. In an advanced Circular Economy scenario there is potential for far more jobs. Given in a maintenance economy manpower is preferred over extracting activities which is relying on enormous amount of energies the cost of such economy valuing manpower will be cheaper to the end consumers.

We all know that renewable energy is shaping the clean global economy of the future, but could you explain why and how essential the role of the Circular Economy is in this process?

Developing clean energies is much needed. But if we do not adapt our consumption patterns in parallel to this, we will be constantly running behind with our reliance on renewable energies. Our industries are based on a throughput model where economies of scale need to be reached to reduce costs, and product designs are made on the assumptions that fossil fuels are available endlessly. Using renewable energies in such context will not sustain itself, unless we redesign our products, services and the way they are either used or consumed with these new sources of energies at their core.

Read the entire interview here.

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Tags: Alexandre Lemille, circular economy

The Beam The Beam Magazine is a quarterly print publication that takes a modern perspective on the energy transition. From Berlin we report about the people, companies and organizations that shape our sustainable energy future around the world. The team is headed by journalist Anne-Sophie Garrigou and designer Dimitris Gkikas. The Beam works with a network of experts and contributors to cover topics from technology to art, from policy to sustainability, from VCs to cleantech start ups. Our language is energy transition and that's spoken everywhere. The Beam is already being distributed in most countries in Europe, but also in Niger, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Japan, Chile and the United States. And this is just the beginning. So stay tuned for future development and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Medium.

Original post:

Alexandre Lemille: "Rethinking and redesigning our economic model based on the constant reuse of our extracted ... - CleanTechnica

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (WTAP) - National Business Week celebrates the contributions of small business owners across the country. In Parkersburg, a new business hopes to introduce a different resource to the area's economy.

J. Morgan Leach and his business partner turned their fascination with industrial hemp into a business called "Hemp Picks." They sell hemp-based products such as food, oils, protein, supplements, and even apparel.

The business has been based out of Point Park Marketplace in Parkersburg for its first weeks of operation.

Leach believes industrial hemp could potentially be an asset to the area.

"Our goal is to educate society about all of the history and heritage that we have with industrial hemp," he said.

"This is a time where West Virginia is struggling and so we really need new industry and I think that hemp can really be a big part of that."

The products are sold online at https://www.hemp-picks.com/.

National Small Business Week ran from April 30 to May 6.

See the original post:

Hemp business hopes to boost local economy - The News Center