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Independent Assessment: Kinder Morgan Inflated Pipeline's Job Numbers by Factor of 3 while Dramatically Underestimating SpillCosts
November 10, 2014 The Centre for Public Policy Research at Simon Fraser University released the report Economic Costs and Benefits of the TransMountain Expansion Project for BC and Metro Vancouver. View full report and news release
Simon Fraser University's Centre for
Public Policy Research has
released a report produced in collaboration with The Goodman Group, Ltd. that refutes
Kinder Morgan's claims regarding the positive economic benefits of its
controversial pipeline project. The report, entitled Economic Costs and
Benefits of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMX) for BC and Metro
Vancouver, demonstrates that the benefits of the pipeline are very small and
have been significantly overstated by Kinder Morgan, whereas the worst-case
costs of a catastrophic spill are very large and have been vastly understated.
"We
correctly anticipated that the benefits from the pipeline would be small in the
context of the overall BC economy and mostly short-term," said Ian
Goodman, President of the Goodman Group, Ltd. and co-author of the report.
"But we were very surprised that the Company has exaggerated the short-term
jobs associated with building the pipeline by a factor of three."….
The Money Behind Northwest Coal Exports
Ambre Energy's financial backer makes money by finding a bigger sucker
If you’ve been following the Northwest coal export debate, you’ve probably heard of Ambre Energy—the struggling Australian firm that’s behind two of the three remaining coal terminal proposals in Washington and Oregon. Ambre made headlines back in August, when the state of Oregon denied a key permit for the company’s proposed Morrow Pacific coal terminal project on the Columbia River.
But even if you’ve heard of Ambre, you may not have heard of the company’s main financial backer: a tight-lipped private equity firm called Resource Capital Funds (RCF). Focused on minerals investments, RCF has a truly global reach: it’s registered in the Cayman Islands; maintains offices in Denver, New York, Toronto, and Perth, Australia; and invests in mining and minerals projects all over the world. With more than $100 million at stake with its investment in Ambre, RCF has become the chief financial backer of Northwest coal exports.
And while you might think that having the backing of a global investment firm like RCF would be a sign that Ambre is a solid company with strong financial prospects, you’d actually be mistaken. A review of the firm’s past investments shows that RCF actively seeks out risky projects with a high potential for failure.... read more here
Indiana Jones and the Clean Power Rule
Getting creative with carbon limits (Part 2).
...Oregon and Washington could try to meet their own state climate targets and the federal requirements and lead the region into a low-cost clean energy future all at once. It would be quite a jump, but here are three ways they could do it:
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