On wilful inefficiency

The Harper Cons still look to have an unbeatable one-two punch in the competition to develop the most wasteful environmental programs on the planet. But the province of Alberta looks to have its own entry under development - and there as at the federal level, it's worth pointing out the appalling gap between what's being budgeted as the apparent cost of reducing emissions, and what's being charged to polluters:

The government has made a huge bet on burying carbon emissions through carbon sequestration schemes. It’s put $2-billion into projects that will start in the 2013-2015 range. Spread out over that period, the cost will be $400-million to $700-million a year.

If all goes well, Alberta would eliminate four million to five million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. Great, but the government says it plans to use carbon capture and storage to get rid of 139 million tonnes by 2050. Do the math. If $2-billion spread over three to five years achieves a reduction of four million to five million tonnes, Alberta would need $60-billion to $70-billion between now and 2050 to get 135 million more tonnes out of the atmosphere – or $1.5-billion to $1.75-billion each year (in today’s dollars) instead of $400-million to $700-million. [Ed. note - Which means a cost per tonne reduced which that exceed $500.]

Do Albertans realize how expensive carbon capture and storage will be, considering that schemes such as the ones now being planned also take big dollops of cash from Ottawa and the companies? Chances are they don’t, because politicians don’t like to talk about the long-term financial challenge. It’s good enough for the government in a province with many climate-change deniers to waive the $2-billion fund and say the province leads the world. It’s also easy to say, yes, today’s costs are high, but they’ll come down as carbon sequestration technology improves. Maybe it will is the only plausible response, because there are industry representatives who doubt that all four of the identified projects will actually materialize.

The government also heralds energy intensity reduction targets that allow companies unwilling or unable to reduce emissions to put $15 a tonne into a technology fund. Great again, except that, in the first year, the fund earned $122-million – which, given the immense costs of developing new technologies, would mean a decade or more to scale up to something significant.