Alberta Carbon Credits?

Carbon Credits – A money maker?

When you get BC and Alberta both looking at a form of carbon credit or carbon exchange you have to know it is a scam.

Under the Kyoto protocol every obvious thing is not a carbon credit. It takes some very serious study to see if you are in or out of favor.

For instance if you cut a stand of trees you loose carbon credit. If you replant a forest in its place you do not get a carbon credit because you lost it by cutting it. It is a loss.

If a company in the US cuts the emissions on a Coal Generation unit or enters into a carbon dioxide sump program they may have an excess of carbon credits that they can sell to a company in Canada.

Money changes hands in this case moving from Canada south. It is one way a company has of moving funds around regulators. A transfer of cash is now an investment, not a transfer of profits.

On the other extreme is China which has one of the most advanced electrical generation and transmission systems in the world. China works under a heavy burden of pollution of the coal generation which it is about the change, going to hydro generation with the biggest hydro dam in the world. This should replace some coal generation.

The result is that China will very shortly have multi billions of dollars of carbon credits for sale. Companies in Alberta who change nothing will be able to produce a good picture on paper by buying credits from China.

Environment is on every ones mind. Some on how to protect it others on how to exploit it. Case in point Alberta’s electrical system.

A group of like minded Conservatives met in Lethbridge and decided the best way to curtail the use of power was to increase the price so people could not afford to use it. No consideration was given to distinguish between needed use and frivalent use.

With climate change pushing up our summer heat extremes, air conditioning I think is a necessity but, under the Alberta scheme you will cook rather than turn it on. On the other hand our mean temperatures in the winter are much lower than our competitors in the south. It costs us much more electricity to heat our homes. Competative or not, suck it up is the view.

You can look forward to both Epcor and Enmax pushing their rates ever higher with a view to curtailing your use while targeting the surplus power saved for export at still higher premiums.

Epcor is owned by the City of Edmonton and Enmax is owned by the City of Calgary. All profits are in effect indirect taxation.

Because they are separate companies the councilors can throw their aprons over their faces and say it is out of their control which is a lie.