GHG numbers
Partly in answer to Marcel in the previous post's comment section, here are some hard numbers, illustrating exactly how the provincial government has first, passed a law requiring a ten percent below-1990 taget for greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and second, is adopting a regulatory framework for Nova Scotia Power that will make it impossible to meet that target. Consider:
Now, in coming decades we'll have to reach a target of far more than 39 percent in transportation, home heating and every thing else, but there's simply no way that's going to happen by 2020. It's impossible. The ten-percent-below-1990 target will be difficult enough to meet without taking the source of fully 42 percent of our emissions (Nova Scotia Power) out of the equation*.
So, again, it's more than cynical for the government to pass a law (the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act) requring a specific greenhouse gas emission target and then turning around and adopting a regulatory framework that will make it impossible to meet that target.
On the face of it, this is irresponsible, outrageous government behavior. The opposition party, and everyone else for that matter, should be loudly, publicly condemning the government. But all I hear is a deafening silence.
|*I should be clear that there are some projected GHG emission reductions in the Integrated Resource Plan, but they're so small they're essentially meaningless. See page 19 in the final modeling document.
And it's not clear where even that small reduction is supposed to come from. There's no forecoast reduction in coal use, so presumably much of it will come from the Tuft Coves plant. Tufts Cove can burn either heavy fuel oil or natural gas, but the company has opted to burn mostly fuel oil in recent years, because it can sell its natural gas supplies to New England for high profits. Switching Tufts Cove back to natural gas can reduce GHG emissions considerably, but that doesn't account for all of the modeled reduction.
Regardless, a reduction in GHG emissions from Tufts Cove doesn't affect the calculations above, because the 42 percent figure I used is from only the four coal plants.
