Discovery
Petronas drops gas project:
Petronas said Tuesday it was pulling out of its Can$36 billion ($28.8 billion US) liquefied natural gas exporting project on Canada’s west coast long opposed by environmentalists and native rights activists.
The Pacific NorthWest LNG project was greenlighted in September to build a pipeline and two liquefied natural gas terminals on Lelu Island, British Columbia, an area home to a huge nature preserve and wild salmon habitat.
Each of the two plants would liquefy some six million tonnes of natural gas per year, with the possibility of adding a third gas terminal at a later date.
The pipeline built by the operator TransCanada would have had to cross 900 kms (560 miles) of British Columbia between Hudson’s Hope and Lelu Island.
But lagging natural gas prices and other changes in energy markets contributed to the about-face from the Malaysian energy giant and its partners.
The project planned for the district of Port Edward was nixed after “a careful and total review of the project amid changes in market conditions,” a company statement said.
A number of First Nations and environmental groups sued the federal government and Petronas unsuccessfully to try to stop the project.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had justified his decision to okay the project by pointing to the need for economic growth, and stressing that the project would be environmentally sustainable and responsible. (AFP)
Earth’s resource spent by next week:
Humanity will have used up its allowance of planetary resources such as water, soil, and clean air for all of 2017 by next week, said a report Tuesday.
Earth Overshoot Day will arrive on August 2 this year, according to environmental groups WWF and Global Footprint Network. This is a day earlier than in 2016.
It means humanity will be living on “credit” for the rest of the year. “By August 2, 2017, we will have used more from Nature than our planet can renew in the whole year,” the groups said in a statement.
“This means that in seven months, we emitted more carbon than the oceans and forests can absorb in a year, we caught more fish, felled more trees, harvested more, and consumed more water than the Earth was able to produce in the same period.” (AFP)
EPA vows to streamline Superfund:
President Donald Trump’s environmental chief issued a list of directives on Tuesday he says will revitalize the federal program that cleans up hazardous waste sites. Environmental Protection Agency chief
Scott Pruitt unveiled 42 recommendations from a Superfund Task Force he appointed in March. Among the steps Pruitt outlined will be prioritizing sites that can be redeveloped or where nearby residents are still under threat from the spread of harmful chemicals.
Pruitt has pledged to make mitigating decades-old pollution a top priority for the EPA, even as he has moved to block or delay Obama-era regulations aimed at curbing ongoing contamination from coal-fired power plants and fossil-fuel production.
“There is nothing more core to the agency’s mission than revitalizing contaminated land,” Pruitt said, according to a media release. (AP)