I woke an hour earlier than usual this morning to head off to the west-end of Edmonton to locate what now looks to be the last bastion of free parking in the city of Edmonton – Beulah Alliance Church. At eight blocks north of the West Edmonton Mall it was an easy find but a long drive as Edmontonians were caught, not just with their pants down, but with their all-season-radials in all-winter weather. I sought out this particular church amongst the plethora of other Albertan evangelical options not, however, for salvation or bake sales, but for a free bus that would take me to meet none other than Prime Minister Stephen Harper at, what was at the time, an ominous undisclosed location, where he would be speaking about an unnamed topic. Tantalized, I braved almost an hour in slushy gunk to get to the upper-middle class and mostly white riding of Conservative party member Rona Ambrose.
(more…)

The Federal Government is dipping into the Clean Energy Fund (CEF) and assisting the Alberta Government with the funding of two major projects (totalling over $1.6 Billion). Both of the projects make use of carbon-capture technology and stand to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, in a manner which doesn’t simply transfer them to another country, thereby helping to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

Carbon capture essentially results in waste CO¬2 being pumped into the depleted aquifers and stored there, rather than emitting them into the environment. Many of the comments that I have heard are quite negative, and relate to the fact that this is a lot of money going into an unproven technology, making it important to note that carbon capture and storage is used in Egypt by BP.
(more…)