A day later, Higgs and Smith put forward similar ideas — arguing that if Canada exported more natural gas, it might be used to displace dirtier coal power in other countries.
That word might is doing a whole lot of heavy lifting here.
Do we have any actual evidence that China (or anyone else for that matter) would actually offset any coal plants with Canadian Natural Gas, instead of just burning that natural gas in addition to coal? Retrofitting a power plant for natural gas isn’t free, and China can already get lots of natural gas from Russia if they wanted (the Power of Siberia pipeline can handle 61 billion cubic meters per year, but only delivers about 23 bcm/year). Nothing is stopping China from moving from coal to natural gas — but there appears to be no real will to do so.
This argument from the two Prairie Premiers sounds a whole lot more like wishful thinking than actual policy.
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That word might is doing a whole lot of heavy lifting here.
Do we have any actual evidence that China (or anyone else for that matter) would actually offset any coal plants with Canadian Natural Gas, instead of just burning that natural gas in addition to coal? Retrofitting a power plant for natural gas isn’t free, and China can already get lots of natural gas from Russia if they wanted (the Power of Siberia pipeline can handle 61 billion cubic meters per year, but only delivers about 23 bcm/year). Nothing is stopping China from moving from coal to natural gas — but there appears to be no real will to do so.
This argument from the two Prairie Premiers sounds a whole lot more like wishful thinking than actual policy.
They’ve been smelling the dinosaur farts and think they can sell them.
Higgs is the Premier of New Brunswick, which FYI is not in the Prairies…