Fracking and Economics

Don’t backslide on fossil fuel projects

Date: February 20, 2025
Author: NBASGA
Categories: Clean Energy, climate change, Fracking and Economics

By Jim Emberger – Special to Brunswick News – Published February 20, 2025

Threatening times, with rapidly changing events, inevitably produce two things. Public and media attention becomes focused on the turmoil and pace of immediate concerns, and longstanding issues, regardless of importance, are set aside.

Secondly, some corporate or financial interests will attempt to use the distraction to push profiteering schemes, especially unpopular ones.  This is sometimes known as “disaster capitalism.”

We see this today as Canada’s fossil fuel producers, and their political and media allies, respond to Donald Trump’s tariff threats by re-introducing the ideas of the Energy East bitumen pipeline and various shale gas/LNG projects.

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Science does not support lifting fracking moratorium

Date: October 6, 2024
Author: NBASGA
Categories: Fracking & Health, Fracking and Economics, LNG, Moratoria, NBASGA

Protections put in place should be relaxed only if further findings emerge providing evidence no harm will result

By Jim Emberger – Special to Brunswick News – Published Oct 5, 2024

A recent Narrative Research poll, commissioned by Brunswick News, on lifting the fracking moratorium noted that the second largest group of poll respondents (19 per cent) replied “I don’t know” to the questions.

That likely illustrates that the success of the moratorium. For ten years it has, ironically, removed the shale gas issue from civic and media discussion.

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It’s time: make the fracking moratorium permanent

Date: September 30, 2024
Author: NBASGA
Categories: climate change, Fracking & Health, Fracking and Economics, LNG, Moratoria, Research & Scientific Studies

Commentary by Jim Emberger
Originally published on NB Media Co-op
September 30, 2024

This election marks the tenth anniversary of the 2014 election, when voters turfed the Progressive Conservative government of the day, primarily over the issue of fracking for shale gas. This followed years of New Brunswick’s largest protests, petitions with tens of thousands of signatures, province-wide educational tours, expert witness testimony, peaceful blockades, a citizen lawsuit, and, unfortunately, a violent police raid on peaceful Indigenous protesters.

The new government assembled a non-partisan citizen commission, which took public testimony, and reached conclusions leading the government to declare an indefinite moratorium on fracking.

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New Brunswick does not need shale gas

Date: March 11, 2024
Author: NBASGA
Categories: climate change, Fracking and Economics

Commentary by Jim Emberger; Telegraph Journal, Daily Gleaner, Times Transcript | March 11, 202

In a recent com­ment­ary in the Telegraph Journal, the Fraser Insti­tute’s Alex Whalen sug­ges­ted that the recent mer­ger of gas com­pany Ches­apeake Energy and SWN could be a sign that New Brun­swick should recon­sider its morator­ium on shale gas. He touted its eco­nomic poten­tial.

That same day Reu­ters’ news repor­ted: “Ches­apeake Energy announced plans to cut pro­duc­tion by 30 per cent in 2024 in response to a mar­ket that is “clearly over­sup­plied”. Ches­apeake, which will become the coun­try’s largest gas sup­plier after its mer­ger with South­west­ern Energy, is fol­low­ing oth­ers, includ­ing Com­stock, Antero and EQT, announ­cing cuts to drilling or pro­duc­tion plans.”

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Premier’s pursuit of shale gas is perverse

Date: February 2, 2024
Author: NBASGA
Categories: Clean Energy, climate change, Fracking & Health, Fracking and Economics, LNG

[February 2, 2024, NB Media Co-op Commentary by Jim Emberger]

Premier Blaine Higgs’ continuing desire to exploit shale gas and LNG can only be described as “perverse,” which the dictionary defines as “showing a deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unreasonable or unacceptable, often in spite of the consequences.” Higgs referenced LNG development during his State of the Province address on Jan. 25.

“We have so many advantages with our direct access to the U.S. and international markets along with our rich natural resources including wind, minerals, water, forestry, and natural gas,” he said. “That’s where I believe we have a tremendous opportunity to punch above our weight and really impact global emissions.”

His obstinate, decade-long pursuit of shale gas, can reasonably be called obsessive. It begins with his continuing promotion of gas even after citizens voted out the Alward government, which ran on the issue.

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No deal is a good deal to start shale gas

Date: April 23, 2023
Author: NBASGA
Categories: climate change, Fracking & Health, Fracking and Economics

Jim Emberger | Commentary | TJ.news | 24 April 2023
(Short form ‘Letter to the Editor’ follows)

Premier Higgs likes to project the image of an experienced business leader, but his current effort to resurrect shale gas reveals that he more closely embodies his other reputation as a, “Data, my ass,” decision maker.

There is unequivocal data in the latest report from the International Panel on Climate Change, which shows that we cannot develop any new fossil fuel source if we hope to escape the dire consequences of a warming climate. This data was researched by virtually the entire global community of climate scientists and institutions.

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Market Forces, Not Regulatory Uncertainty, Plague Shale Investment

Date: September 13, 2019
Author: NBASGA
Categories: climate change, Fracking and Economics, Fracking News

by Jim Emberger, Telegraph Journal (edited version), 13 Sept 2019

Corridor Resources claims that provincial ‘regulatory uncertainty’ prevents it from finding shale gas investors.  Brunswick News‘ editors endorsed this argument, dismissing the idea that simple market forces could explain the lack of investors.

Yet, the Higgs government, and its supporters, have now promoted multiple shale gas and bitumen projects, all of which have failed because they misread market forces. This isn’t an enviable record for those who portray themselves as business-savvy. Perhaps, they are blinded to actual market signals by ideology, or absolute faith in an old maxim that fossil fuels are always a good investment.

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Don’t play games with equalization

Date: March 27, 2019
Author: NBASGA
Categories: climate change, Fracking and Economics

written by Rod Hill, Telegraph-Journal Wed Mar 27 2019

Premier Blaine Higgs’s government is four months old and already there is, in my opinion, good news: the idea of an Energy East pipeline is surely dead. Yet since plans for the pipeline were abandoned by TransCanada in 2017, Energy East has lived a zombie-like existence, failing to die in the minds of many people.

They refuse to recognize the reality that, given long-term projections of oil sands production, such a pipeline was redundant after the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline by President Trump and other pipeline expansions. Yet despite this, Premier Higgs remained steadfast, demanding that Quebec accept Energy East if it wanted to use New Brunswick as a corridor for its hydroelectricity exports to New England.

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Fracking In 2018: Another Year Of Pretending To Make Money

Date: January 28, 2019
Author: NBASGA
Categories: climate change, Fracking and Economics

by Jim Emberger (from Huddle Today)

January is a popular time for reviewing the previous year to see where we are now. Since I write about the shale gas industry and global warming, let me share some annual reports from both, along with some commentary.

Fracking in 2018: Another Year of Pretending to Make Money: This has my vote for best title. The author notes that the 60 largest U.S. fracking companies have been accumulating losses at about $80 million per year for a decade. Investors and lenders lost $70 billion in loans due to 330 North American bankruptcies following the price crash of 2014, and last year The Wall Street Journal calculated industry debt around $180 billion.

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Realism should guide energy development

Date: September 18, 2018
Author: NBASGA
Categories: Fracking and Economics, Fracking News

ROD HILL COMMENTARY, Telegraph Journal, 18 September 2018

According to a story, still popular in some quarters, exploiting shale gas reserves in New Brunswick will provide jobs and lots of money for the public purse. The popularity of a story with such a seemingly happy ending is easy to understand. But is the story true, or is it wishful thinking?

In a recent article,“It’s time to make NB a ‘have’ province” (Sept. 14), Colleen Mitchell of the Atlantica Centre for Energy claims it’s true. She writes that while Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia have received billions in royalty revenues from offshore oil and gas, this “is critical revenue that New Brunswick has been shut out of,”  apparently preferring “handouts” to exploiting our mining, oil and gas resources.

The recently released Progressive Conservative party platform seems to agree with this view, stating: “Subject to rigorous safety and environmental protections, and with local support, we will allow for regional resource development, including natural gas development.”

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