Energy
Hydrogen is the most recent impractical green energy blind alley
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
By Ian Madsen
Climate Crisis alarmists tout yet another avenue by which renewable energy could replace reliable fossil fuel-sourced energy: hydrogen, ‘H2’. However, typical with alternative energy proposals, there are numerous problems with the widespread integration of this option in future energy production, distribution and consumption.
The first problem is producing H2. The current, and most cost-effective way, is from natural gas’s main component, methane. Natural gas, while not demonized like oil or coal, is still reviled by Climate activists, since the common byproduct is carbon dioxide, thus requiring expensive sequestration. An experimental carbon-removal process – pyrolysis, produces carbon nanotubes.
With methane out, the next hydrogen source is via electrolyzing water; using electricity to separate H2O into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen would either be recovered for commercial use or released into the atmosphere. However, hydrolysis is costly.
The equipment is expensive, and the energy required to produce the electricity is not cheap either – even if renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and hydro, are used. There are predictions that H2 produced this way could become cost-competitive with methane-derived H2 by 2030, but using methane is not costless.
Indeed, advocates argue that intermittent wind and solar output would become reliable – ‘smoothed’ – by using hydrogen, as a storage and supply-levelling medium. The stored H2 would then generate electricity during dark or non-windy conditions. H2 has other uses, in smelting, or aluminum, steel, cement, glass and other high temperature industries.
Hydrogen seems feasible: it burns cleanly at a high temperature. However, that brings more issues.
The first problem is handling and transporting hydrogen. H2 dangerously weakens most standard high strength steel alloys in existing natural gas gathering and distribution systems, pipelines, storage and tank farms, in a process called hydrogen embrittlement. Hence, special alloys are needed. These cannot cost-effectively be retroactively deployed in existing natural gas distribution systems and pipelines. They would have to be entirely replaced, although these alloys are cheaper than legacy ones.
H2 has another problem. To be stored, must either be expensively cooled and pressurized to liquify it; or, if still gaseous, use expensive high pressure vessels. If H2 is not highly pressurized, then the vessels could be much larger, but that would increase materials costs and require more costly land area.
A reminder: natural gas goes from wellhead to customers with minimal storage. The goal of using renewables is to produce H2 for storage – and use during dark or calm periods – which could last days, as Texas and Germany discovered, disastrously.
Using H2 in transportation is impractical. H2 has low energy density, requiring, as noted, either highly-pressurized storage or expensive cooling, liquefaction and storage: unfeasible for motor vehicles. There is presently no H2 fuel distribution system. This would also have to be built, along with the aforesaid new pipelines.
Hundreds of billions of dollars are now invested in legacy natural gas pipelines, gathering and distribution systems. Replacing them, or building a parallel system, would be profoundly expensive, for no real gain.
Hydrogen makes no sense now; it may never do so, as it is an expensive redundancy. There are more details in a new Frontier Centre backgrounder “Why We Should be Skeptical of the Hydrogen Economy”.
Ian Madsen is the Senior Policy Analyst at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
Business
Premiers fight to lower gas taxes as Trudeau hikes pump costs
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
By Jay Goldberg
Thirty-nine hundred dollars – that’s how much the typical two-car Ontario family is spending on gas taxes at the pump this year.
You read that right. That’s not the overall fuel bill. That’s just taxes.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau keeps increasing your gas bill, while Premier Doug Ford is lowering it.
Ford’s latest gas tax cut extension is music to taxpayers’ ears. Ford’s 6.4 cent per litre gas tax cut, temporarily introduced in July 2022, is here to stay until at least next June.
Because of the cut, a two-car family has saved more than $1,000 so far. And that’s welcome news for Ontario taxpayers, because Trudeau is planning yet another carbon tax hike next April.
Trudeau has raised the overall tax burden at the pumps every April for the past five years. Next spring, he plans to raise gas taxes by another three cents per litre, bringing the overall gas tax burden for Ontarians to almost 60 cents per litre.
While Trudeau keeps hiking costs for taxpayers at the pumps, premiers of all stripes have been stepping up to the plate to blunt the impact of his punitive carbon tax.
Obviously, Ford has stepped up to the plate and has lowered gas taxes. But he’s not alone.
In Manitoba, NDP Premier Wab Kinew fully suspended the province’s 14 cent per litre gas tax for a year. And in Newfoundland, Liberal Premier Andrew Furey cut the gas tax by 8.05 cents per litre for nearly two-and-a-half years.
It’s a tale of two approaches: the Trudeau government keeps making life more expensive at the pumps, while premiers of all stripes are fighting to get costs down.
Families still have to get to work, get the kids to school and make it to hockey practice. And they can’t afford increasingly high gas taxes. Common sense premiers seem to get it, while Ottawa has its head in the clouds.
When Ford announced his gas tax cut extension, he took aim at the Liberal carbon tax mandated by the Trudeau government in Ottawa.
Ford noted the carbon tax is set to rise to 20.9 cents per litre next April, “bumping up the cost of everything once again and it’s absolutely ridiculous.”
“Our government will always fight against it,” Ford said.
But there’s some good news for taxpayers: reprieve may be on the horizon.
Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s promises to axe the carbon tax as soon as he takes office.
With a federal election scheduled for next fall, the federal carbon tax’s days may very well be numbered.
Scrapping the carbon tax would make a huge difference in the lives of everyday Canadians.
Right now, the carbon tax costs 17.6 cents per litre. For a family filling up two cars once a week, that’s nearly $24 a week in carbon taxes at the pump.
Scrapping the carbon tax could save families more than $1,200 a year at the pumps. Plus, there would be savings on the cost of home heating, food, and virtually everything else.
While the Trudeau government likes to argue that the carbon tax rebates make up for all these additional costs, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says it’s not so.
The PBO has shown that the typical Ontario family will lose nearly $400 this year due to the carbon tax, even after the rebates.
That’s why premiers like Ford, Kinew and Furey have stepped up to the plate.
Canadians pay far too much at the pumps in taxes. While Trudeau hikes the carbon tax year after year, provincial leaders like Ford are keeping costs down and delivering meaningful relief for struggling families.
Economy
Gas prices plummet in BC thanks to TMX pipeline expansion
From Resource Works
By more than doubling capacity and cutting down the costs, the benefits of the TMX expansion are keeping more money in consumer pockets.
Just months after the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) project was completed last year, Canadians, especially British Columbians, are experiencing the benefits promised by this once-maligned but invaluable piece of infrastructure. As prices fall when people gas up their cars, the effects are evident for all to see.
This drop in gasoline prices is a welcome new reality for consumers across B.C. and a long-overdue relief given the painful inflation of the past few years.
TMX has helped broaden Canadian oil’s access to world markets like never before, improve supply chains, and boost regional fuel supplies—all of which are helping keep money in the pockets of the middle class.
When TMX was approaching the finish line after the new year, it was praised for promising to ease long-standing capacity issues and help eliminate less efficient, pricier methods of shipping oil. By mid-May, TMX was completed and in full swing, with early data suggesting that gas prices in Vancouver were slackening compared to other cities in Canada.
Kent Fellows, an assistant professor of Economics and the Director of Graduate Programs for the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, noted that wholesale prices in Vancouver fell by roughly 28 cents per litre compared to the typically lower prices in Edmonton, thanks to the expanded capacity of TMX. Consequently, the actual price at the gas pump in the Lower Mainland fell too, providing relief to a part of Canada that traditionally suffers from high fuel costs.
In large part due to limited pipeline capacity, Vancouver’s gas prices have been higher than the rest of the country. From at least 2008 to this year, TMX’s capacity was unable to accommodate demand, leading to the generational issue of “apportionment,” which meant rationing pipeline space to manage excess demand.
Under the apportionment regime, customers received less fuel than they requested, which increased costs. With the expansion of TMX now complete, the pipeline’s capacity has more than doubled from 350,000 barrels per day to 890,000, effectively neutralizing the apportionment problem for now.
Since May, TMX has operated at 80 percent capacity, with no apportionment affecting customers or consumers.
Before the TMX expansion was completed, a litre of gas in Vancouver cost 45 cents more than a litre in Edmonton. By August, it was just 17 cents—a remarkable drop that underscores why it’s crucial to expand B.C.’s capacity to move energy sources like oil without the need for costly alternatives, allowing consumers to enjoy savings at the pump.
More than doubling TMX’s capacity has rapidly reshaped B.C.’s energy landscape. Despite tensions in the Middle East, per-litre gas prices in Vancouver have fallen from about $2.30 per litre to $1.54 this month. Even when there was a slight disruption in October, the price only rose to about $1.80, far below its earlier peaks.
As Kent Fellows noted, the only real change during this entire timeline has been the completion of the TMX expansion, and the benefits extend far beyond the province’s shores.
With TMX moving over 500,000 barrels more per day than it did previously, Canadian oil is now far more plentiful on the international market. Tankers routinely depart Burrard Inlet loaded with oil bound for destinations in South Korea and Japan.
In this uncertain world, where oil markets remain volatile, TMX serves as a stabilizing force for both Canada and the world. People in B.C. can rest easier with TMX acting as a barrier against sharp shifts in supply and demand.
For critics who argue that the $31 billion invested in the project is short-sighted, the benefits for everyday people are becoming increasingly evident in a province where families have endured high gas prices for years.
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