Thursday 12 July 2007

Opposition Grows to Gros Cacouna and Rabaska LNG Projects

Opposition is mounting to the proposals for liquid national gas ports and processing plants in Quebec. (See blog posted last week.) Several environmental groups are calling for reconsideration, while one activist published an open letter to Al Gore in Le Devoir, asking him to come to Quebec to lead the fight.

As Le Devoir journalist Louis-Gilles Francoeur wrote on Saturday, it’s not clear who would benefit from either one of the plants. The one at Gros Cacouna on the lower St. Lawrence would supposedly serve the New England market, while Rabaska would serve Quebec and Ontario. Natural gas burns cleaner than other sorts of fossil fuels, but it is far from being completely clean, and its processing would actually increase the green house gas emissions in Quebec.

Just as importantly, would there be enough demand for the natural gas processed by two plants? Or would the two plants turn out to be double white elephants underwritten by Quebec and Canadian taxpayers through interest-free loans or other subsidies? Government has a huge role to play in creating a better world, and it should not waste its resources on questionable projects like these.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good to see that opposition is mounting to LNG in Quebec. Time is now for the Quebecois to become environmentally conscious.

Beek

Anonymous said...

Pls. turn off blog owner approval. This is an insult to the reader. If you are worried about spam, then put in one of those script questions.

Beek

Anonymous said...

Good points you raise. It would be much more cost effective if Quebec encouraged windmills and weaned consumers from gas to electricity.

Besides, isn't LNG already processed? Why is Quebec reprocessing it in Canada? I suspect this "processing" step is unnecessary and they are hiding something.

Beek