Written by Grant G
Glen Clark in the late 90s told the media that "British Columbia will have three aluminum smelters, count em three" ...Glen Clark`s musings didn`t actually work out too well.....Gordon Campbell sold dozens of BC Rivers to BC Liberal party donors and insiders in the independent power game, Gordon Campbell told our media and the public that British Columbia was going to be an electrical exporting superpower, again, Gordon Campbell`s musings didn`t have the desired effect either, in fact now because of Gordon Campbell`s Liberals BC Hydro is now bankrupt and domestic hydro electric rates are skyrocketing,.....BC hydro has $7 billion dollars of debt stashed in deferral accounts, that is the legacy of Gordon Campbell`s electric superpower dreams, not to mention millions of dead fish..
Timing is everything and for the most part bullshit baffles brains, Christy Cluck Cluck Clark with nothing to lose going into our last provincial election developed a scheming plot based on total fabrication, the $trillion dollar LNG fantasy, Christy claimed BC would pay-off our debt, eliminate tolls, remove our sales tax, create a million jobs, create a $100 billion dollar prosperity fund for future generations, First Nations and northern communities would all reap the rewards, all this largesse coming from LNG, from natural gas exports.....
Pammy Martin tweeted "what would you do with a $trillion dollars" an entire election campaign wrapped around imaginary money generated by an industry that doesn`t even exist in British Columbia, kinda funny when you think about it, our lazy do-nothing media played the game, asked no questions, they pretended Christy Clark`s musings were based in fact...Well, Christy say anything Clark to win really didn`t think her corrupt political party would win, therefore no election promises to worry about...Just blame the NDP for not making it happen....Except something funny happened on route to the polling stations, Adrian Dix stuck his head up his ass and smelled his own celebratory roses before he crossed the finish line.....
What was Christy Clark to do, how can she get out of her grandiose election promises, how long can she run the $trillion dollar wheel of fortune gambit, can she carry the same lie through another election, 2017...Can she actually deliver with...."10 count em, 10 LNG plants, with the first LNG plant up and running by 2015" Christy Clark
We won`t have an LNG plant up and running by 2015...not 2016...not 2017....maybe one plant by 2020, maybe, maybe not..
Timing is everything, resource extraction is fickle and unforgiving, Walter Mines laid off near 800 coal miners yesterday, no notice given, workers donned their hardhats, entered the mine and were told, adios, your laid off.....Such a good corporate citizen Walter mines is, they tossed the workers aside, corporate screws stated that we aren`t making any money, let`s leave the resource in the ground, Walter Mines was not interested in breaking even for the sake of workers and the town of Tumbler Ridge, no profits, no work, no quarter given.....Your fired!
This article isn`t about anything written above, well not really, this posting is about curiosity!
Walter mines stated that coal for export to China had dropped in price from over $200 per tonne to a mere $110 per tonne, curiosity sent me far afield to find out why, why had coal prices declined to such low unprofitable levels and lo n behold the answer hit me in the face like V-8 juice..!
China, Asia, our saviour, energy company`s prey, the elusive, mythical not able to corner Asian buyer of B.C. LNG is entering a recession, China`s GDP has fallen to a 24 year low, China hasn`t seen such anemic growth since 1990, manufacturing for export in freefall, electrical use falling fast, the one truly believable indicator of China`s economy is electrical usage, exports of finished products down down down, imports of raw resources down down down, so worried of civil unrest is the Chinese government domestic interest rates have been cut, stimulus packages rolled out by central Government, railway infrastructure and low-cost housing were targetted, the Chinese Government is in fear of a massive population tearing down their walls, hundreds of millions of Chinese workers surviving pillar to post, no safety-net, nothing, millions of Chinese without jobs makes a beleaguered Chinese government an endangered species....
Wow, curiosity provides an explanation as to why coal prices have crashed, no steel making means no coal imports required, an end to building ghost cities means workers hands go idle, our friend the devil loves idle hands, Australia and Brazil who provide China vast amounts of iron ore are in trouble too, those countries planning on selling high-priced LNG to China are also in trouble, no steel making, manufacturing in decline, imports of raw goodies on the down low means a cascade of economic events and timing is everything considering Japan who for the first time in near decades are now suffering massive trade deficits because of over-priced liquid natural gas are in a big rush to reverse that trend and step one is starting up their shuttered nuclear plants at the same time Australia, USA, East Africa, Papua New Gunea and others have gobs of liquid natural gas export capacity coming online, timing is everything and Christy Clark`s $trillion dollar "10 count en 10 LNG plants with the first one online by 2015", Gordon Campbell`s electrical superpower ambitions along with Glen Clark`s "3 count em, 3 aluminum smelters" are phrases to be enshrined in history like "Dewey Wins the presidency" for scholars, historians and future comedians to feast on...
Indeed....Let energy companies chew up our parks, conservancies, protected areas, spend $12 billion on a Site C dam for gifting and palm greasing, outrageously with an Order -In-Council remove environmental assessments for LNG plants then bring them back when First Nations rightfully cry foul, First Nations now know with that one brutal order in council that BC Liberals are as trustworthy as a Bernie Madoff investment, they won`t let anything overturn their worm-filled apple cart, don`t scare away the mythical always in hiding final investment decisions, the skies the limits and nothing will stop this latest BC Liberal game of propaganda promises except.....oops..
Simple math..
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China's growth slows to 24-year low
Growth in retail sales, factory output and investment also slowed, raising the possibility of politically dangerous job losses.
Chinese leaders have signaled they are willing to tolerate growth below the official target so long as the economy keeps creating enough jobs to avoid potential unrest. In a sign of concern about employment, they launched a mini-stimulus in March of higher spending on construction of railways, low-cost housing and other public works.
In a speech last week, Premier Li Keqiang, the country’s top economic official, said the economy still faced “downward pressure” but ruled out additional stimulus. He said Beijing would focus on “long-term efforts to achieve sustainable and healthy development.”
The latest growth numbers are the weakest since China’s economic growth tumbled to 3.8% in 1990 following the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests that led to Beijing’s international isolation.
Weaker growth could have global repercussions, hurting Asian economies and others such as Australia and Brazil for which China is the leading market for commodities and industrial components.
Chinese imports suffered an unexpectedly sharp contraction of 11.3% in March in a sign of weak raw materials demand from manufacturing and construction.
“A hard landing in China’s economy is one of the biggest risks clouding the outlook for the rest of emerging Asia,” said Capital Economics in a report this week
http://www.japantoday.com/category/business/view/chinas-growth-slows-to-24-year-low-of-7-4
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Timing is everything and unsustainable economic activities will be halted..
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Japan's fuel imports contribute to record trade deficitTOKYO, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Soaring fuel imports in the aftermath of Japan's 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, amid a weaker yen, have contributed to the country's record annual trade deficit, a government official said.
Japan Monday reported a trade deficit of $112.07 billion in 2013, up 65.3 percent from the previous year. "Energy imports have been rising significantly since the nuclear accident," causing per capita costs of around $293 in Japan, Kyodo News quoted Yoshihide Suga, chief Cabinet secretary as telling reporters. "It is important for us to ease such a burden as much as possible." All 50 of Japan's working reactors currently remain offline, pending safety checks.
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2014/01/27/Japans-fuel-imports-contribute-to-record-trade-deficit/UPI-49811390851293/
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Curiosity and asking questions, our domestic media only ask when they can cash their paycheques and as for curiosity, Bill Good won an award for journalism, surely true journalists like Sean Holman and Bob Mackin must be curious as to what kind of hallucinogenic frog the judges were licking...
China`s latest GDP numbers..
http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/business/china/chinas-economy-in-13-graphs-20140327-35kif.html?selectedImage=2
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I did mention how unsustainable economic practices will be halted, either by hook, by crook and even if your nickname is the Snook(presiding over Snooklandia)....
In all seriousness friends, Japan has no choice but to start their nuclear facilities, and or build new thorium reactors, I`m not alone in these thoughts..I recommend every B.C. pretend journalist and even those Shaman now occupying the writing desks read this next article...
Who knows, it might just make our mainstream media curious....Well, maybe not.
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Why Japan Can't Quit Nuclear Power
Perhaps not. The mostly idled nuclear fleet offers a taste of life without the atom: In summer 2012, the country faced electricity shortages, forcing the government to push citizens toward power-saving measures such as restrictions on big users and reduced air-conditioning. Productivity suffered as workers labored through sweltering heat. Just in Tokyo, electricity costs, already among the highest in the world, rose by an average of 8.5 percent. Eight of Japan’s 10 power utilities reported heavy losses—$8.5 billion total over six months—from the cost of buying more oil and gas to replace idled reactors. The two profitable power companies had little or no generation from nuclear. All this from a temporary stoppage.
If Japan goes to zero nuclear power, as the protesters and former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda want, the resulting increase in fossil-fuel imports would cause an outflow of national wealth equivalent to 0.6 percent of Japan’s gross domestic product, according to research completed in January by the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. That would lead to an increase of Japan’s enormous $74 billion trade deficit. “You have to pay a lot, a lot, a lot for LNG imports,” Hirai says. “If something happens in the Strait of Hormuz today, that makes—oh, I don’t want to think about it,” he adds, shaking his head.
A nuclear phaseout would also lead to a rise in electricity prices, increasing the burden on households by $10 billion ($115 per household). Japanese businesses would suffer from hiked electricity costs, with an increased burden of $22 billion. The fallout could cost some 420,000 jobs, according to IEEJ. All of that, in turn, would lead to an approximately $11 billion annual decline in corporate tax revenue and what the institute refers to as a “vicious cycle,” escalating the already massive debt problem faced by the world’s third-largest economy. “We don’t want to pursue such a miserable path,” Hirai says.
GRAVITY’S PULL
Towering along the seashore in Japan’s Shizuoka prefecture is a 60-foot-tall anti-tsunami seawall. The massive structure—one of many countermeasures that Chubu Electric Power has implemented at its Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station since the 2011 temblor—shows just how far, and high, Japan is willing to go to hold on to nuclear energy.http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/why-japan-can-t-quit-nuclear-power-20130214
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Curiosity and timing, that`s what this post is about, that and those governmental statements politicos, historians and comedians find so ......useful..
"10 count em 10 LNG plants with the first one up and running by 2015"
The Straight Goods
Cheers Eyes Wide Open
10 comments:
Absolutely right on all points.
--crispy and coleman have been selling us a gassy pipe dream
--China's credit bubble is about ready to implode
--Japan will fire up the nukes and reduce its' energy imports
--the legacy media is a rotting corpse that wouldn't know a real story if it were brought down from Cypress by Moses himself.
...........witness............
"The Richest Man In Asia, Li Ka-shing, Is Selling Everything In China."
Li, reportedly the richest person in Asia with a net worth well in excess of $30 billion, wants out of China. All of it.
Since August of last year, he’s dumped billions of dollars worth of his Chinese holdings. The latest is the $928 million sale of the Pacific Place shopping center in Beijing– this deal was inked just days ago.
Once the deal concludes, Li will no longer have any major property investments in mainland China.
This isn’t a person who became wealthy by being flippant and scared. So what does he see that nobody else seems to be paying much attention to?
Simple. China’s credit crunch.
After years of unprecedented monetary expansion that has put the economy in a precarious state, the Chinese government has been desperately trying to reign in credit growth.
The shadow banking system alone is now worth 84% of GDP according to an estimate by JP Morgan. The IMF pegs total private credit at 230% of GDP, jumping by 100% in the last few years.
Historically, growth rates of these proportions have nearly always been followed by severe financial crises. And Chinese leaders are doing their best to engineer a ‘soft landing’.
If they’re successful, the world will only see major drops in global growth, stocks, property, and commodity prices.
If they fail, the spillover could become pandemic.
This isn’t important just for Asian property tycoons like Li Ka-Shing. Even if you don’t know Guangzhou from Hangzhou from Quanzhou, there are implications for the entire world.
Chile is a great example.
Chile is among the top copper producers worldwide, China among its top consumers. With a major slowdown in China, however, copper prices have dropped considerably.
Consequently, the Chilean economy has slowed. The peso is down nearly 10% against the US dollar in recent months, and the central bank is slashing rates trying to prop up growth.
There are similar situations playing out across the globe.
Not to mention, China could put the entire global financial system on its back just by dumping a portion of its Treasuries in order to defend the yuan.
Now, you’d think that a major credit crunch with far-reaching consequences in the world’s second largest economy, its largest manufacturer, and its largest holder of US dollar reserves, would be constant front-page news.
But it’s not!
http://www.sovereignman.com/trends/the-richest-man-in-asia-is-selling-everything-in-china-14208/
The whole idea of continuing economic growth is not reasonable, given how energy, which propels growth, is now much more expensive and difficult to extract.
If China's GDP grows at 6%, that means it would double in 12 years, which is ridiculous.
We are at the end of growth. Which is problematic, because we are stupidly hoping that GDP growth will solve our debt problem. Ouch.
Right on Hugh .The merchants would have us believe that they are smarter and better than those of us who actually produce something.
Why is gas getting so expensive. It's $1.41.9 today. This will ensure further economic slowdown right here in Canada.
Anon 5.40 ,not in Alberta. The Stetson hats will be celebrating in Calgary now that sh has sent a good chunk of the cf18's to eastern Europe to keep the prices high.
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/business-news/china-says-one-fifth-of-its-farmland-polluted-mostly-with-toxins-from-industrialization/
Coming to a neighborhood near you. The chemicals used for fracking etc is a death warrant for the next generation and beyond including your own children. Steve, Christy and Co., stop your insanity.
A legal controversy — critics would say scandal — has erupted in Alaska's statehouse over the future of its natural gas bounty.
It's not so much an issue of the gas itself, but who gets to decide how it gets to market and where he or she resides.
The question of who owns Alaska's natural gas and where they're from, at least for now, has been off the table. More on that later.
At its core, the controversy centers around a public-private entity called the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC) created on April 18, 2010 via House Bill 369 for the “purpose of planning, constructing, and financing in-state natural gas pipeline projects.” AGDC has a $400 million budget funded by taxpayers.
AGDC was intially built to facilitate opening up the jointly-owned ExxonMobil-TransCanada Alaska Pipeline Project for business. That project was set to be both a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export pipeline coupled with a pipeline set to bring Alaskan gas to the Lower 48.
Photo Credit: TransCanada
Things have changed drastically since 2010 in the U.S. gas market though, largely due to the hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) boom. And with that, the Lower 48 segment of the Alaska Pipeline Project has become essentially obsolete.
Dreams of exporting massive amounts of Alaskan LNG to Asia, however, still remain. They were made much easier on April 14, when the Kenai LNG export facility received authorization to export gas from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Enter the latest iteration of AGDC. This phase began in January 2014 after Governor Sean Parnell, formerly a lobbyist for ConocoPhillips, signed Senate Bill 138 into law.
The bill served as a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Alaska, the AGDC, ConocoPhillips, BP, ExxonMobil, and TransCanada, with the four companies now serving as co-owners of the South Central LNG Pipeline Project.
Gov. Parnell also announced who would serve on the AGDC Board of Directors in September 2013, which began meeting in October 2013. And that's where the story starts to get more interesting.
MEET RICHARD “DICK” RABINOW
Under Alaska state law, you have to be a state citizen to serve on state commissions like AGDC. But one of the seven Board members, Richard “Dick” Rabinow, is a citizen of a state far from Alaska: Texas.
Richard “Dick” Rabinow; Photo Credit: Alaska Gasline Development Corporation
Rabinow is the former president of ExxonMobil Pipeline Company (where he worked for 34 years) and former Chairman of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) Owners Committee. TAPS is co-owned by ExxonMobil, BP, Unocal and ConocoPhillips. He currently lives in Dallas, Texas and runs his own consultancy called Rabinow Consortium, LLC.
Because Rabinow isn't an Alaskan, major backlash ensued when watchdogs discovered he's from Texas, which nearly caused him to step down from AGDC's Board. Alaska's Senate Democrats wrote a letter on March 21 calling on Rabinow to step down because his appointment flew in the face of state law.
“Mr. Rabinow is a resident of the state of Texas. Mr. Rabinow is not registered to vote in the state of Alaska. Mr. Rabinow is not qualified to serve as a board appointee here,” read the letter. “[O]ut of respect for the law, we demand that you withdraw Mr. Rabinow’s appointment.”
Importantly, only four members of the 20-member Senate are Democrats.
......to be continued........
........continued........
So just three weeks after the Senate Democrats wrote their letter, the Senate passed HB 383 in a 13-7 vote, which also passed in the House in a 27-12 vote.
Immediately signed by Gov. Parnell on April 16, the law now says that AGDC Board members are “not required to be a registered voter or a resident of the state.”
Democratic House Leader Rep. Christ Tuck was none too pleased with the bill's passage.
Rep. Christ Tuck; Photo Credit: The Alaska State Legislature
“Alaskans are tired of multinational corporations coming up here and our government catering to them at the expense of Alaskans,” Tuck told the Alaska Dispatch.
Multinational corporations in general are one thing.
But in the case of Rabinow's former employer ExxonMobil — coined a “private empire” by investigative journalist Steve Coll — it also has ties in Alaska to an out-of-country multinational corporation from Russia: Rosneft.
EXXONMOBIL: “FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE”
In February 2013, ExxonMobil offered Russian state-owned oil and gas company Rosneft a 25-percent stake in its portion of the Point Thomson oil and gas field.
Located on Alaska’s North Slope, which contains both onshore and offshore oil and gas, Point Thomson contains 25 percent of the known North Slope gas reserves.
Point Thomson Oil and Gas Field; Map Credit: Alaska Department of Natural Resources
“The agreements signed today bring the already unprecedented scale of Rosneft and ExxonMobil partnership to a completely new level,” Igor Sechin, President of Rosneft said of the deal in a press release at the time. “Participation in the Point Thomson project will increase Rosneft’s access to the latest gas and condensate field development technologies used in harsh climatic conditions.”
Stephen Greenlee, President of ExxonMobil Exploration Company (L); Russian President Vladimir Putin (C); Igor Sechin, President of Rosneft (R); Photo Credit: Rosneft
Sechin is thought to be high up on the list of potential persons to face sanctions by the U.S. for Russia's ongoing occupation of Crimea in Ukraine. Easier said than done, of course, given the ties that bind U.S. companies to Russia's oil and gas industry.
“[I]f anyone apart from Sechin himself is anxious about the prospect of his arrest if he travels to the West, it could be oil companies like BP and ExxonMobil,” wrote investigative reporter Steve Levine recently. “In other words, the US will be going after Sechin, but also a house that the West itself helped to build.”
Given this wheeling and dealing and geopolitical wrangling between the U.S. and Russia resembles something straight out of a James Bond film, perhaps it's only appropriate that one of the most famous Bond flicks is titled, “From Russia with Love.”
In this ongoing “Great Game,” the controversy that erupted over Rabinow's appointment appears minor by comparison.
http://desmogblog.com/2014/04/18/russia-with-love-alaska-gas-scandal-out-of-country-not-out-of-state
Canada joins NATO build-up against Russia
By Keith Jones 19 April 2014
Canada is deploying six F-16 fighter jets to Eastern Europe in support of the war threats against Russia made by the US, Germany and NATO, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Thursday.
Harper also said that Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) will strengthen their participation in NATO’s command structure by sending a score of additional CAF officers to work at NATO’s European headquarters in Mons, Belgium.
And he suggested that further CAF deployments may be announced in the near future and additional sanctions imposed on Russian businesses and officials in coordination with the US and the European Union.
Harper and his Conservative government, to enthusiastic applause from the opposition parties and Canada’s corporate media, have been making bellicose anti-Russian statements for weeks.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/04/19/cana-a19.html?view=print
the lack of a market for our coal in China may have more to do with the coal fields in Mongolia. Was reading an interesting article in The Guardian yesterday about the new coal mining industry in Mongolia, by Tio Tinto. big buck for the companies and no enviornmental regulations. The Chinese corporations are simply doing what the Japanese corporations were doing in the early 1970-s. Canada would be a lot smarter to keep their resources in the ground until Canada needs them for Canadians/
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