The event

One more in the series Canada in Conversation with Minister Catherine McKenna, in charge of Environment and Climate Change.
Chargé d’Affaires Cindy Termorshuizen was the host on 6 December in the Canadian Embassy in Beijing and introduced the importance of investing in clean technologies to tackle climate change and to meet their Paris Summit commitments.
A number of Canadian companies active in clean technologies were present.
Another highlight: Canadians are gearing up for the 150th anniversary of Confederation and are invited to take part in the year-long celebration, as shown in the video that also featured Canada’s national parks.

The program

After the introduction by the Chargé d’Affaires, Ms. Catherine McKenna delivered a keynote address and then participated in a conversation with Mr. Chai Fahe. The talk was moderated by Ms. Wu Changhua.
A networking reception followed the panel discussion at the Official Residence.

Canada’s clean technology industry is one of the country’s most promising of the 21st Century. It operates across 10 sectors, and the “clean tech” term encompasses companies finding green solutions to everything from energy efficiency to renewable energy, from waste management to green transportation, and from biofuels to greener solutions for the oil and gas industry. Canada’s clean tech sector is highly competitive and an innovation-led industry, committed to investing heavily in research and development and serving international markets. Indeed, Canadian clean tech has a key role to play in the global race to address climate change and helping Canada and other countries to meet their Paris Summit commitments.
Canada’s clean tech capabilities is said to present terrific potential for Canada-China cooperation in a range of areas, including using energy more efficiently, renewable power generation, smart grid distribution, nuclear energy, hydrogen fuel cell technology, and carbon capture and storage.

The speakers

Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, practiced competition and international trade law in Canada and Indonesia and was senior negotiator with the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in East Timor. She also served as senior advisor on the former Chief Justice Antonio Lamer’s review of Canada’s military justice system. Ms. McKenna co-founded Canadian Lawyers Abroad, a charitable organization that works in developing countries and with Indigenous communities in Canada. She served as Executive Director of the Banff Forum, a public policy organization for young leaders. Ms. McKenna taught at the Munk School of Global Affairs. Ms. McKenna was elected in October 2015 and appointed Minister of Environment and Climate Change in November 2015.

Mr. Chai Fahe is Vice President of Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences.

Ms. Wu Changhua chairs the China Redesign Hub and acts as the China/Asia Region Liaison for Jeremy Rifkin Office. She is a leading Chinese policy expert in sustainable development, climate change, environmental protection, green financing, and technology innovation. She worked with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair on Breaking the Climate Deadlock project for the Copenhagen process, chaired the Global Agenda Council on Climate Change at the World Economic Forum, and served on the UNFCCC Clean Development Mechanism Committee and the Carbon Market Leadership Policy Dialogue. She has chaired two boards of The Climate Group in Greater China and acted as the Group’s Director to advance China’s low carbon economy. She holds a Master in Law from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ School of Journalism and an MA in environmental policy and management from the University Maryland.

Highlights of the discussion

Canada will invest a large sum for further innovation and action in clean energy in the next four years.
Technologies highlighted by the Canadian side are geothermal energy, hydrogen fuel cells and more.
Mr. Chai very well described the challenges China faces in this respect, such as the need for a more stable and balanced electric network with smart grid and energy storage, to eliminate the conflict between the irregular power supply from renewables such as wind and solar and the demand from consumers.
He also agreed that lithium cell technology was not sufficient to deal with it.
I raised two questions: what technologies China looks at for energy storage and how to deal with the waste of heating in Chinese building due to a lack of proper monitoring and regulation of the supply.
Next year China is to start the national carbon trade market.

Possible link between fracking and earthquakes

In my book Toxic Capitalism I made a lot of reservations about fracking, causing side-effects such as earthquakes and contamination of water wells. I was wondering how this further evolved, in view of the massive increase in fracking, especially in the USA.
In Alberta, Canada, a direct link between fracking and earthquakes came up. It was researched as explained in detail in the New York Times article dated 17 November by Henry Fountain:
See the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/science/fracking-earthquakes-alberta-canada.html

Some excerpts on fracking and earthquakes

In the debate over fracking of oil and gas wells, opponents often cite the risk that the process can set off nearby earthquakes. But scientists say that in the United States, fracking-induced earthquakes are not common.
In Canada, however, a spate of earthquakes in Alberta within the last five years has been attributed to fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, in which water, chemicals and sand are injected at high pressure into a well drilled in a shale formation to break up the rock and release oil and gas.
Now, scientists at the University of Calgary who studied those earthquakes, near Fox Creek in the central part of the province, say the quakes were induced in two ways: by increases in pressure as the fracking occurred, and, for a time after the process was completed, by pressure changes brought on by the lingering presence of fracking fluid.
“The key message is that the primary cause of injection-induced seismicity in Western Canada is different from the central United States,” said David W. Eaton, a professor of geophysics at the University of Calgary and co-author of a paper in the journal Science describing the research. The findings could help regulators take steps to avoid such induced earthquakes, he said.
Scientists say most of the recent earthquakes in Oklahoma and other parts of the United States have been caused by the burial of wastewater from all kinds of oil and gas wells rather than by the fracking process itself. Wastewater is injected under pressure into disposal wells drilled into a sandstone or other permeable formation, and flows into the rock. That can cause pressure changes in the formation that can upset the equilibrium around a fault zone, causing an earthquake as the fault slips.
In the Fox Creek area in Alberta, where oil and gas companies have been drilling in recent years into a formation called the Duvernay shale, earlier research had seen links between the earthquakes — all of which were minor and caused little damage — and fracking, rather than wastewater injection.
They found two patterns to the seismicity. To the east in the fault zone, most of the earthquakes occurred during the fracking process itself, which lasted up to a month. To the west, there were few immediate quakes; they occurred intermittently over several months after the fracking ended.
Dr. Eaton said he and others were conducting more research to understand why Alberta responds differently to fracking than Oklahoma and other parts of the United States. “It’s a different situation,” he said, “and understanding the origin of the differences is important.”

Conclusion

In my book I agreed one cannot stop technology, but that extreme care was needed to avoid the undesired side-effects.
With the deep economic impact of fracturing in the USA the world economics on oil have changed and it has brought sizeable benefits to the U.S.
On the other hand as the article explains, more careful studies are needed to lower the risks. Yes, that might make it more expensive but it is no excuse for damaging the environment.