Clean Power
This Industrialized Offshore Floating Wind Turbine Foundation Demonstration Project Is A World’s First

ByJesper Berggreen

Published 1 day ago ‌

The TetraSpar full-scale demonstration project is the world’s first industrialized offshore foundation manufacturing and deployment system for wind turbines. I saw it up close but didn’t have a clue of its significance at the time.

TetraSpar Demonstrator Project as I entered the Maersk Interceptor drilling rig

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece on my visit to a drilling rig that was being serviced at Grenaa port, Denmark. I noted a floating wind turbine next to the rig, and I was curious about where it was headed, and when. A couple of days ago I learned that it had headed out to sea with its course set to Stavanger, Norway.

A story in local news media and information on the website of the company behind the project, Stiesdal Offshore Technologies A/S, made its mission clear.

When I was standing on the helipad of the Maersk Interceptor drilling rig some 100+ meters (330 feet) above sea level looking straight over at the nacelle of the turbine, it was hard to make out its actual size. With one blade pointing straight up it was competing with the 200 meter (656 feet) high legs of the rig to be the tallest construction in the vicinity. Come to think of it, the highest point of land in Denmark is 173 meters (568 feet) above sea level!

Photos from the Tiesdal’s website brings things into perspective. This thing is huge! It will rise 166 meters (545 feet) above sea level when deployed with most of its foundation being submerged.

Photo credit: The TetraSpar Demonstrator Project ApS.

As you can see in the photos above, the foundation is fully modular, and can be assembled relatively easily at the port grounds. The mobile cranes give a good sense of the size. The keel is the triangle not painted yellow. And the wind turbine? From the website (with many more photos):


“a 3.6 MW wind turbine from Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy will be mounted on the foundation at the quayside using a land-based crane. From there, the combined structure will be towed to the test site, moored to the seabed with three anchor lines and connected to the electrical grid.”

It can operate at sea depths from 100 to 1000+ meters (3,280+ feet), and the company is already working on foundations that will carry new generation wind turbines with a nameplate capacity of up to 15 MW. As for the location, this particular turbine will travel on its foundation some 360 nautical miles, 1 week of towing from where it was assembled:

“The combined structure will be towed to the test site in the northern part of the North Sea, moored to the seabed with three anchor lines and connected to the electrical grid. It will be located at the Marine Energy Test Centre (Metcentre) near Stavanger in Norway, approximately 10 km from shore at a water depth of 200 meters.”

There are other floating wind concepts being tested around the world, but the Danish model is designed to be cheap — and thus more competitive. To the local news TV2 Østjylland CEO of Stiesdal Offshore Technologies A/S, Peder Nickelsen states: “This is why we have created a concept where we manufacture all the parts at a factory, and assemble them at the port — without welding and making too complicated assemblies at the port.”



Photo credit: The TetraSpar Demonstrator Project ApS.


Photo credit: The TetraSpar Demonstrator Project ApS.



Jesper had his perspective on the world expanded vastly after having attended primary school in rural Africa in the early 1980s. And while educated a computer programmer and laboratory technician, working with computers and lab-robots at the institute of forensic medicine in Aarhus, Denmark, he never forgets what life is like having nothing. Thus it became obvious for him that technological advancement is necessary for the prosperity of all humankind, sharing this one vessel we call planet earth. However, technology has to be smart, clean, sustainable, widely accessible, and democratic in order to change the world for the better. Writing about clean energy, electric transportation, energy poverty, and related issues, he gets the message through to anyone who wants to know better. Jesper is founder of Lifelike.dk and a long-term investor in Tesla, Ørsted, and Vestas.

Copyright © 2021 CleanTechnica. The content produced by this site is for entertainment purposes only. Opinions and comments published on this site may not be sanctioned by and do not necessarily represent the views of CleanTechnica, its owners, sponsors, affiliates, or subsidiaries.

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Cleanup crews tackle gargantuan task of cleaning B.C. beaches inundated with plastic

B.C. government hoping to clear plastic waste from 1,200 km of coastline

Greg Rasmussen · CBC News · Posted: Jul 17, 2021 

From left to right, cleanup workers Craig Gentry, Emelie Stenberg, Owen Gardiner and Ben Boulton stand in front of giant pieces of styrofoam on a beach near Tofino, B.C. (Greg Rasmussen/CBC)

Up the beach, near the treeline, is where the world's unending love affair with plastics revealed itself in all its ugliness.

In what was once a stretch of pristine Vancouver Island sand, a large piece of styrofoam had been pummeled into pieces by West Coast storms.

Ben Boulton reached down and picked up a chunk of the foam, which is technically known as polystyrene plastic, widely used for insulation and packaging and apparently employed in this case for buoyancy beneath a large wooden dock.

Part of a crew hired to clean up the beach, Boulton demonstrated how easily the fluffy plastic degrades by crumbling it with his fingers.

"This stuff gets smashed apart by logs. All the winter storm action will just grind this down into small pieces," he said, holding a nodule the size of a piece of corn between thumb and finger.

"Then we're left with one little piece like that. It can appear like food to some creatures. It ends up in a lot of birds," he said, explaining how dead seabirds are often found with plastic inside their guts.

Boulton is part of a project funded under a $7 million B.C. government coastal cleanup program. It's the most ambitious attempt yet to tackle the problem — the goal is to collect debris along 1,200 kilometres of coastline.

Ben Boulton brandishes a handful of crumbly styrofoam. (Greg Rasmussen/CBC)

The money came from a special B.C. COVID-19 relief fund that aimed to help those in the hard-hit tourism sector by employing workers as well as vessels. (Other money was set aside to remove derelict boats, which also pose an environmental hazard.)

No matter how remote the beach, the crews found a mix of large blue barrels, fishing floats, plastic buckets, water bottles and other household and industrial goods — from the edge of the water right up into the trees lining the shore.
'Big chunks of foam'

One of the cleanup project's managers, Peter Clarkson, said this year's effort is tackling some very remote locations, where "getting the garbage off is really a challenge."

That's because there is usually no road access, so crews have to be dropped in by helicopter. Even getting in by boat can be difficult, amid rocks and large West Coast ocean swells. As a result, the workers spend up to 13 days at a time at remote sites, from the Estevan Point lighthouse north of Tofino to the North Coast near Prince Rupert.

WHAT ON EARTH? Canada's Constitution should include right to healthy environment, argues new book

Often they have to rough it, cooking their own meals and camping out by night and then hunting for plastic by day. Other crews get the luxury of eating and sleeping offshore, on boats normally used by guests paying thousands of dollars to tour the B.C. coast but now employed in removing junk.

The chunks of foam Boulton pointed out — which he judged to be "fairly fresh," according to his seasoned eye — had likely been on the beach for only a matter of months. But already some of it had crumbled and mixed in with the topsoil.

WATCH | B.C. beach cleanup uncovers every imaginable kind of plastic:

Crews have been encountering every type of plastic as they embark on a massive effort to clean up 1,200 km of B.C. coastline. 0:40

"You can see already with this degradation, it's become part of the ground," Boulton said, digging into the earth and revealing a mix of green shore grass, dark soil and white bits of plastic foam.

"On the first appearance, you look into this pristine habitat and don't see anything, and then you come and step back here and see big chunks of foam that are just going to devastate the environment."
Millions of tonnes of plastic entering oceans

An astonishing seven million tonnes of plastic enter the world's oceans each and every year, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Chesterman Beach, south of Tofino, at dusk. (Greg Rasmussen/CBC)

Once plastics begin to break down, cleanup becomes more difficult. That's why the people doing the hard work on the coast target the largest pieces. Plastic never entirely disappears, but it does break down into progressively smaller pieces. Eventually, it becomes what's known as microplastic, too small for the human eye to see.

A recent study in the Pacific Ocean found microscopic bits of plastic in every one of hundreds of water samples collected over thousands of square kilometres. All of the fish, squid and shrimp collected in the same study were also found to have microplastics inside them. In B.C., oysters destined for the dinner plate have been found with microplastics in their flesh.

Most of those microplastics come from larger pieces breaking down, but they also are flushed into waterways from washing machines, which can release hundreds of thousands of particles every time a load of synthetic clothing is laundered, according to the journal Nature.

Many of the people working on the B.C. cleanup, including Boulton, are usually employed in the marine tourism industry, so they know first-hand the draw of the coastline and have long been troubled by the ever-growing mounds of waste visitors see on wilderness trips.

But getting the plastic off the coast means overcoming a series of daunting problems.

On a beach about 100 kilometres north of that Vancouver Island tourist favourite, Tofino, Jeff Ignace grunted as he struggled with a tangled mass of plastic netting, rope and other debris partially buried under logs washed up high on the beach.

Rope and other plastic debris regularly becomes tangled up in logs on many of B.C.'s beaches. (Greg Rasmussen/CBC)

"That right there probably weighs 200 pounds," he said. Digging in with his hands, he revealed a spent plastic shotgun shell, plastic bags, styrofoam and various bits of hard plastic, which he referred to as "shrapnel."

But most is netting and rope from the fishing industry.

"It would take a month just to clear this section alone, to clear out all of the little stuff that's in here," he said, gesturing to the pile.

A member of the Hesquiaht First Nation, Ignace grew up on these beaches and has seen the plastic pile up over his lifetime. And it's deadly, he said, having seen whales, birds and fish on the beach tangled in plastic.

"They can't fly, they can't swim, they can't eat," he said. "They starve and they die."

A member of the Hesquiaht First Nation, Jeff Ignace grew up on these beaches and has seen the plastic pile up over his lifetime. (Greg Rasmussen/CBC)

Unexpected sources

Evidence of plastic's longevity can come in surprising forms — such as washed-up hockey gear.

When he spotted something white in one of the piles collected by the crew, project manager Peter Clarkson exclaimed, "Oh, this is good!" It was a plastic hockey shin pad, which he believed was part of a load that fell off an ocean-going freighter a few decades ago.

"This is from a container spill — that's from 1994, off Cape Beale," he said, confident in the plastic's provenance.

Clarkson, who retired after a long career with Parks Canada, is helping manage the cleanup. He's spent many years as a beachcomber, troubled by the plastic onslaught, but finding some relief by turning bits of debris into sculptural art to send home a message about pollution.

Clarkson, who retired after a long career with Parks Canada, is helping manage the cleanup. He's spent many years as a beachcomber, troubled by the plastic onslaught. (Greg Rasmussen/CBC)

All the debris collected on the beach had to be sorted, cleaned and then bagged. Boulton, Ignace and the rest of the crew worked long hours, struggling over slippery logs and sharp rocks to pile the debris in bags called "supersacks."

Next, helicopters swooped in, lifting the bags and taking them to a barge. From there, it was a trip to port, where trucks are used to bring the bags to a recycling centre on the mainland, where it's further sorted and processed.

On a recent visit, the new recycling centre in Richmond, B.C., was bustling with activity. Trailer trucks pulled in and crews dragged the large bags into piles. Forklifts whirred, moving nets, ropes and barrels by the tonne.

"A lot of these materials are contaminated ... so we set this centre up to manage these materials specifically so we can create products out of ocean plastic," said Chloe Dubois, co-founder of the Ocean Legacy Foundation, a non-profit working on various aspects of ocean plastic pollution.

The entire process is very labour-intensive, made more difficult because much of the material is degraded by its time in the ocean. Some of it is being processed at the recycling centre and turned into pellets that can then be used to make new plastic products.

WHAT ON EARTH?Swimsuit designers embrace fabrics made from recycled fishing gear, plastic bottles

Lego eyes making bricks out of recycled plastic bottles

"It's important that we start to really stimulate the recycling industry and the use of recycled content so there's a market for these materials."
The scale 'is massive'

Dubois hopes a growing public outcry over the widespread contamination problem helps pressure industries into doing more to prevent it — and to clean up the existing mess.

"The effects of plastic pollution are really being felt on a global scale, so it's putting pressure on companies to do something about the plastics they're using and selling for their products," she said.

B.C.'s cleanup program is expected to remove about 400 tonnes of plastic from beaches. It sounds impressive, but it's just 0.00005 per cent of the 7.2 million tonnes entering the world's oceans each year.

WATCH | Cleaning up the plastic debris that is choking B.C. coastline:

Cleaning up the plastic choking B.C.’s coastline3 days ago

8:34 Plastic and other waste is choking parts of British Columbia’s 1,200-kilometre coastline, but there’s a crew of people determined to clean up the tonnes of debris. 

Despite the ongoing stream of plastic washing up onshore, it's unclear if British Columbia's multi-million-dollar cleanup will carry on after this year.

"The scale of the problem is massive," said George Heyman, B.C.'s minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy. "We need to do much more to address ocean debris and its devastating impacts on marine life and food sources."

But Heyman wouldn't comment on possible future funding.

Back on the beach, Jeff Ignace was clearly frustrated by the Sisyphean task he and others face.

"Garbage cans are made for a reason." He gestured to the ocean. "That is not supposed to be a garbage can."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Greg Rasmussen
National Reporter
Greg Rasmussen is a National Reporter for CBC news based in Vancouver. He's covered news stories across Canada and around the world for more than two decades. Follow him @CBCGreg on twitter.

GE to expand wind turbine blade factory in Canada

The facility in Gaspé has manufactured more than 10,000 blades, equivalent to around 6,000MW of capacity



The Big Zero report
Priyanka Shrestha
Friday 16 July 2021

Image: LM Wind Power


GE Renewable Energy has announced plans to expand its wind turbine blade facility in Gaspé, Canada.

It is partnering with the Governments of Canada and Québec to jointly invest in the expansion of the facility owned by LM Wind Power, a GE Renewable Energy business, to meet the growing demand for renewable energy across North America.

The expansion of the plant, which started operations in 2005 and was previously expanded in 2017, is expected to help create around 200 skilled jobs.

The facility has manufactured more than 10,000 blades, equivalent to around 6,000MW of capacity.

Heather Chalmers, President & CEO, GE Canada said: “GE believes climate change is an urgent global priority. We are pleased to be working with committed partners, like Canada, to provide the myriad technology solutions that will be required for the world to meet its net zero commitments.

“The plant expansion aligns perfectly with Canadian and Québec government policy and economic ambitions and we are pleased to partner with them on an initiative that underscores the ability to work together to address the urgent global crisis of climate change.”

THE RULING IDEAS, ARE THE IDEAS OF THE RULING CLASS

Varcoe: Renewable energy gains traction in Alberta, amid strong backing for oil and gas

Author of the article:Chris Varcoe • Calgary Herald

Publishing date:Jul 14, 2021 • 

An oil drilling platform is seen next to wind turbines at Vamcruz Windfarm in Serra do Mel, Rio Grande do Norte State, Brazil. PHOTO BY YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP VIA GETTY 

The energy transition is gaining traction and changing attitudes across the country — including in Alberta.

A new national poll shows support for oil and gas remains solid in the province, while a majority of Albertans also back wind and solar developments.

The survey by the Angus Reid Institute indicates 54 per cent of Canadians believe investing in alternative energy sources such as hydrogen, solar and wind should be a priority for addressing Canada’s energy supply.

In Alberta, that figure sits at one-third.

Investing instead in oil, natural gas and coal production is the priority for 21 per cent of Albertans, compared with 12 per cent nationally.

However, nearly half of Albertans — 46 per cent — believe both areas should be given equal priority, compared with 34 per cent nationally.

“This data shows us there is a mindset that is tilting, maybe not to the same degree or quite as far as the rest of the country, toward green, but it is happening in Alberta as well,” said institute president Shachi Kurl.

“You will see the highest support for oil and gas operations in Alberta than you will in any other part of the country — with the exceptions of Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador — but at the same time, you see high levels of support for renewables in Alberta . . . To an outsider, that might seem surprising. But I think Albertans have been beyond the all-or-nothing aspect of this for a while.”

Indeed, when asked if they support the expansion of different forms of energy, three-quarters of Alberta respondents backed the oil and gas sector, compared with almost half of Canadians, while support was lowest in Quebec at only one-third.

Support in Alberta was also high for solar (69 per cent in favour) and wind farms (60 per cent), although below national levels. 

And nuclear power garnered the support of 62 per cent of people in the province.

“Even in Alberta, the numbers moving toward renewable energy are climbing and climbing rapidly,” said political scientist Duane Bratt of Mount Royal University.

“There is a growing climate realization. To me, that’s the story 

— not that there are big (differences) between Quebec and Alberta.”

The online poll of 4,948 Canadians, conducted in the first week of June, comes as another federal election is looming. Energy and climate policies were major battling points during the 2019 campaign and the survey highlights the shifting terrain in the debate.

The Trudeau government has established the national goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 and set aggressive new targets to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

The oil and gas industry is changing, too.

Oilsands producers including Suncor Energy, Canadian Natural Resources, Cenovus Energy, Imperial Oil and MEG Energy recently formed an alliance to work together to reach net-zero emissions from their operations within three decades.

A number of companies are actively examining hydrogen projects or carbon capture, utilization and storage initiatives.

For example, Shell Canada announced Tuesday a proposal to construct a large-scale carbon capture and storage project at its Scotford refinery complex near Edmonton.

“The oil and gas sector is hearing this message and they are making movements,” said Bratt.

“If you can increase the amount you are selling at the same time you are reducing the overall carbon footprint, what’s wrong with that?”

A photovoltaic power plant in Piolenc, southern France, on July 30, 2019. PHOTO BY GERARD JULIEN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

At the same time, more new renewable energy developments are popping up across the province, such as the country’s largest solar photovoltaic project being built in Vulcan County.

A series of deals have been announced this year, with high-profile companies such as Amazon and Labatt Breweries of Canada inking partnership agreements to acquire wind and solar power from renewable power generators.

In the past two years, more than $2 billion of renewable power projects have been announced in the province.

“There is absolutely no doubt today that Alberta is the prime market for new renewable investment in the country,” said Robert Hornung, president of the Canadian Renewable Energy Association.

Hornung pointed out costs for wind and solar technology have dropped by between 70 to 90 per cent over the past decade, the province has strong resources to harness the energy and Alberta’s deregulated market structure is able to attract interest from corporations seeking to acquire renewable power.

The poll did find notable provincial splits over energy views.

When asked about energy policy in Canada, 31 per cent of respondents selected energy independence as their priority among five options — including 44 per cent in Alberta — while 27 per cent chose environmental protection.

However, in British Columbia and Quebec, protecting the environment was the top issue.

Of the different policy options, 11 per cent said economic growth should be the top choice, led by 22 per cent in Newfoundland and Labrador, and 17 per cent in Alberta.

“It reflects what people see as their bread and butter,” said Keith Stewart, Greenpeace Canada’s senior energy strategist.

“We really need the federal government to step up with a just transition program that acknowledges actually some parts of the country — Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland — are going to face challenges in a world that is moving away from fossil fuels.”

We’ll soon see if those issues are discussed on the campaign trail.

“In terms of the mindset, we are in a transition place,” added Kurl.

“The conversation has been mired so long in green or not green . . . Now, I think the next steps will really be around, ‘OK how do we get there and what does it look like.’ ”

Chris Varcoe is a Calgary Herald columnist.

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh makes campaign-style stop in Calgary

Author of the article: Dylan Short
Publishing date: Jul 17, 2021 

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh speaks to reporters at the East Village Beer Garden before meeting with the Calgary and District Labour Council. Saturday, July 17, 2021. PHOTO BY BRENDAN MILLER /Postmedia

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh made a brief stop in Calgary Saturday as talk of a fall election continues to heat up.

Singh, in the midst of a three-day tour of Alberta, visited a pancake breakfast and beer garden in the East Village to meet, take selfies and talk with people in attendance.


Speaking to media at the event, he said he has heard from Albertans who are worried about getting good jobs. He also said he has heard from people concerned about health care cuts currently proposed by the provincial United Conservative Party, who are currently negotiating for nurses to take a three per cent wage rollback.

“I know another big concern here in Alberta is the cuts to health care people are really worried about that. Already, just on my way in, people talking about how afraid they are that in a pandemic, there are cuts to nurses,” said Singh.

Singh said his party would invest in health care, noting he has pushed for a national pharmacare plan. He also said he wants dental care to be included in services that are paid for publicly.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh visits the East Village Beer Garden before meeting with the Calgary and District Labour Council. Saturday, July 17, 2021. PHOTO BY BRENDAN MILLER /Postmedia

“We don’t want to see our health care system cut, we want to see investments, we want to expand it,” said Singh. “We’re fighting to improve health care, with federal transfers, to give people that support.”

Singh is the third federal party leader to visit Alberta’s largest city in the past month. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a stop to announce his government was green lighting the latest expansion to the Green Line LRT project during a trip through western Canada.

Trudeau’s stops in Alberta and British Columbia fuelled speculation he is eyeing an election in the near future, however the prime minister has denied such a move.

The following week, Conservative party leader Erin O’Toole stopped in at a pancake breakfast in northeast Calgary to promote a message that he would be an ally to western Canadians, saying Trudeau’s time in power has led to a fracturing of unity in Canada

.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh visits the East Village Beer Garden before meeting with the Calgary and District Labour Council. Saturday, July 17, 2021. PHOTO BY BRENDAN MILLER /Postmedia

During his stop Saturday, Singh said he would prefer federal politicians get back to work to help people rather than hit the campaign trail. However, he said his party will be ready if the writ is dropped and he believes the NDP is in a good position to gain more seats in the House of Commons.

The NDP currently holds one seat in Alberta, Edmonton-Strathcona. He said he believes the province is ready for a shift and believes he can gain support in the province.

Singh also said Saturday he is focused on diversifying the economy. He said workers in Alberta’s energy sector need good jobs now and mentioned there will be infrastructure investments that will help get them to work.

“We can always listen to workers and listen to what their worries are and think of a plan to create jobs, not in the distant future, but right now,” said Singh. “There’s gonna be a lot of money spent on infrastructure, those infrastructure jobs are jobs that a lot of the resource sector workers have skills (for) and we’ll talk about retrofitting buildings, remediating oil wells, converting oil wells into geothermal energy.”

dshort@postmedia.com

'Devastated with the drought': feds, province working on recovery support for farmers

Author of the article: Lisa Johnson

Publishing date: Jul 16, 2021 

A farmer brings in his crop of peas in a field south of Wetaskiwin, Alberta on Monday, August 29, 2016. PHOTO BY IAN KUCERAK /Postmedia file

Article content

Weeks of scorching temperatures and little rain are wreaking havoc on crops in Alberta as the provincial and federal governments say aid for farmers is on the way.

As much of the province saw heat warnings and daytime temperatures nearing 40 C in some regions, the latest crop report from late June rates 68 per cent of crops like wheat, barley, oats, canola and lentils in “good to excellent” condition, compared to the five-year average of 76 per cent.

Jason Hale, rancher and Alberta Beef Producers vice-chairman, said the extreme weather has created a “provincewide disaster” for farmers and cattle producers.

“They’re just devastated with the drought — there’s nothing to cut,” he said of hard-hit crops. Hale said he’s heard from some ranchers they are facing the prospect of selling cattle they can’t feed because there’s no grass and feed is too expensive.

“As a producer, it’s very worrisome. How do we make a living?” he said.

As farmers and ranchers face the fallout, provincial Agriculture Minister Devin Dreeshen said he has asked crop adjusters to do early assessments of affected crop and hay land, which could include offering alternative use of crops to address forecasted livestock feed shortages.

“I want to assure producers across Alberta that we understand the severity of this prolonged period of extreme dry weather and we are doing everything we can to ensure you receive the support you need,” said Dreeshen in a release.


Dreeshen also said he pressed for AgriRecovery initiative funding at a virtual Federal-Provincial-Territorial meeting, and got a verbal commitment from Ottawa that the joint program will be initiated prior to a federal election. Dreeshen said details are still being worked out for the emergency support program, the cost of which will be split, with the federal government paying 60 per cent.

Even with AgriRecovery funding, however, NDP Opposition agriculture critic Heather Sweet said Friday the province needs to rehire laid-off staff to get support out the door faster.

There are 69 fewer full-time equivalents at Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (AFSC) than there were in 2019, according to budget documents, and five one-person rural offices were closed in March.

Sweet said that means some farmers are stuck waiting for nearly a year for staff to assess crop damage for insurance claims and offer compensation.

“Farmers and ranchers have told me this all week: they’re worried they are not going to be able to get people into the field to be able to make those assessments,” said Sweet, who added while they’re praying for rain, the damage to many crops has already been done.

Sweet also called on the province to create an emergency crop assessment task force to ensure that every claim for this year’s drought is settled and paid out by the end of the year.

Hale said he’s confident the government is doing everything it can to address insurance claims.

“I’m sure (AFSC) could recruit other individuals to get this looked after … I’m sure they’ll do what they have to do,” he said, adding insurance assessments need to be done quickly because the value of the crops decreases as they dry out.

“If you wait until the fall, there’s going to be nothing left of them,” he said.

‘The plants looked as if someone took a blowtorch to them’: Relentless heat is scorching crops across Western Canada

KATHRYN BLAZE BAUM

ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
PUBLISHED 2 DAYS AGO

Gobind Farms owner Satnam Deenshaw looks over his blackberry crops that were recently damaged by the heat wave that Vancouver Island and other parts of British Columbia experienced. CHAD HIPOLITO/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Extreme heat and dry conditions have devastated crops across Canada, scorching and stunting key agricultural products as farmers brace for the potential of more unfavourable weather and try to minimize their losses.

With large swaths of the country under heat warnings over the past month, crops that prefer moderate temperatures and moisture levels are producing abysmal yields or are threatening to do so. Plants are wilting and, in some cases, dying. Irrigation reservoirs are getting low and farmers are rationing water. In the northwest United States, workers harvested blueberries in the middle of the night to beat the daytime heat; one farmworker died in an area where temperatures rose above 40 C.

On British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, family-farm owner Satnam Dheenshaw said the recent record-setting heat burned his entire early crop of raspberries and about half of his blackberry crop, amounting to at least $30,000 in losses. “The plants looked as if someone took a blowtorch to them,” said Mr. Dheenshaw, of Gobind Farms in the village of Saanichton. “All the leaves were crisp, like in the fall.” He has never seen anything like it in his more than four decades on the farm.

Though it’s too early to gauge the impact on this season’s yields for some commodity crops, the hot, dry conditions forecast in certain production areas is causing volatility in financial markets. Spring wheat futures are trading at a historically high premium, and the canola market is “just going bananas,” as one analyst put it.

More warm weather and more frequent extreme weather events, including heat waves, are among the most consistently predicted outcomes of climate change. This certainly applies to Canada, which is projected to warm about twice as much as the global average for a range of climate scenarios, according to a comprehensive federal report published in 2019. So, while weather is naturally variable, the kind of heat wave that scorched Mr. Dheenshaw’s berries will occur with increasing frequency and intensity in the future.


“This is something that all of us should be concerned about,” said Steve Miller, an environmental economist at the University of Colorado Boulder and co-author of a recent study on the connection between heat waves, climate change and economic output. “These big, punctuated events can tip the crops over the edge.” The study, published in the Journal of the European Economic Association, predicts damages in agriculture due to prolonged high temperatures may be upward of 10 times greater than previously thought.

The recent heat wave that moved eastward across Canada was compounded by an unseasonably dry spring and periods of drought in some growing regions. In Alberta, the most recent provincial crop condition rating – which includes crops such as spring wheat, canola, chickpeas and barley – declined 13 percentage points from the previous report, with 68 per cent of crops rated in “good to excellent” condition compared with the five-year average of 76 per cent.

The Saskatchewan crop report for July 6 to July 12, the newest one available, said the majority of crops were deemed to be in poor to good condition. “The prolonged period of heat, coupled with the extremely dry conditions of the topsoil, has caused crops to be short, thin and impulsively advancing in many regions of the province due to the stress,” the report said. “Without a significant rainfall, many crops throughout the province will have their yields and quality severely impacted.”

The most recent Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada report on weather-related risks to Canadian agricultural production warned the most significant threat to crops last month was the “intensifying and expanding drought across Western Canada and extreme heat across British Columbia and Alberta.” The report noted that drought in Ontario and Quebec continued to be a concern, and Manitoba experienced the largest moisture deficits so far this year.

Open this photo in gallery
Young red potato plants from the Peak of the Market research site have set tubers, showing potential for growth. Cooler temperatures and much needed rain will help these tubers bulk into marketable size. DR. TRACY SHINNERS-CARNELLEY /HANDOUT

Tracy Shinners-Carnelley, vice-president of research and quality with Peak of the Market, a not-for-profit grower co-op and the sole distributor of fresh-market potatoes grown in Manitoba, said conditions are so dire in some parts of the province that irrigation reservoirs are drying up. By early July, she said, potato farmers like to see what’s known as rows clothes – when a canopy of ground cover emerges to obscure the individual rows of potato plants. The lush, green leaves shade the soil, moderating temperatures and reducing evaporation to allow the underground tubers to thrive.

“We haven’t seen the rows clothes,” Dr. Shinners-Carnelley said. “Farmers realize this is a serious situation, but we’re still being optimistic at this point.” The yield and quality of this year’s potato season depends heavily on the weather over the next couple of weeks; farmers are hoping for lower temperatures and some rainfall.

Curtis Rempel, vice-president of crop production and innovation with the Canola Council of Canada, said it’s too soon to tell how the heat and dry conditions will affect this season’s crop of the oilseed. Grown primarily in northeastern B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, canola is considered a resilient plant with multiple built-in defence mechanisms; it can, for example, release water from its leaves to cool itself down.

But like any other crop, canola has its limits. Once temperatures get about 30 C, the viability of the pollen starts dropping, causing yields to decline. Another factor is nighttime temperatures; if the plant is given even a brief reprieve from hot weather, it can recalibrate and produce pollen more reliably.

Mr. Rempel said volatility in the canola market is in large part due to concerns about the potential for continued high temperatures and low rainfall in key growing regions. “People are saying, ‘Okay, there’s more hot, dry weather in the forecast and we’re in the last phase of flowering, so without rain in the forecast, what does that do?” he said. “It looks like more stress for the crop.”

Chuck Penner, owner of LeftField Commodity Research in Winnipeg, said what’s going on in the wheat market is “really a story about what’s happening in the Canadian Prairies and the northern U.S., where they grow red spring wheat, which is the hard, high-protein wheat that’s used to make your bread nice and fluffy and rise well.” Prices are continuing to move higher, especially for spring wheat futures on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, which is the principal market for hard red spring wheat.

Put simply, the spring wheat crop is in bad shape, he said. In general, the crops are shorter than usual – two-thirds their normal size, reaching about knee-height instead of hip-height. They also have fewer heads, and the heads have fewer seeds and more of reduced quality. “We’re still trying to figure out the implications for yield,” Mr. Penner said. “With no rain to speak of in the forecast, its just going to keep getting worse and worse.”

In Mr. Dheenshaw’s Saanichton, B.C., the 14-day forecast shows temperatures mostly within the historical range, but he’s hoping for cool weather. He said about 80 per cent of his blueberries look fine at the moment, but blueberries show signs of heat stress a little later than some other berries. He doesn’t know how much of his blueberry crop will shrivel up.

Mr. Dheenshaw said he’s also struggling to find workers. He and other farmers are rushing to get new berries off their plants to fulfill orders, and to get burned berries off them to reduce contamination and prevent moulding. “What can you do?” he said, pausing to gather himself. “You have to pay your bills. You have to pay your employees. … Your input costs are out there. Everything … got turned upside down because of the weather.”

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

French Anti-Graft Judges Probe Lebanon's Riad Salameh

by Naharnet Newsdesk 23 hours ago

French anti-corruption judges have taken over the probe into the personal wealth of Lebanon's central bank chief, prosecutors said, raising the likelihood he may face money-laundering charges.

France opened the probe into Riad Salameh, a former Merrill Lynch banker, in May following a similar move by Switzerland, where he has been under investigation for months.

On July 2, France's Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) handed over its findings for judicial inquiry into allegations of aggravated money laundering, the office said on Friday.

Salameh, who owns several properties in France, is accused by critics at home of transferring money abroad during a 2019 uprising against the government, when ordinary people were prevented from doing so.

The 71-year-old has also been accused of being responsible for the collapse of the Lebanese pound, which has sent the economy into a tailspin and prompted shortages of basic items such as medicine and fuel.

The French judges can summon Salameh for questioning and collaborate with investigators in other countries, and also confiscate assets.

The inquiry was prompted by complaints filed by Swiss foundation Accountability Now, France's Sherpa anti-corruption NGO, and the Collective Association of Victims of Fraudulent and Criminal Practices in Lebanon, set up by savers devastated by the post-2019 crisis.

A lawyer for Salameh, Pierre-Olivier Sur, said his client "denies these acts in their entirety," and called for access to the investigators' findings.

In media appearances, Salameh has said he legally invested the roughly $23 million (19 million euros) he had when named central bank governor in 1993, obtained from inheritances and his work at Merrill Lynch in Beirut and Paris.

SourceAgence France Presse

‘God help this country:’ Lebanon’s political stalemate speeds financial collapse

MARK MACKINNON

SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT
BEIRUT

Former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri delivers a statement after the president named him to form a new cabinet, at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of the capital Beirut on Oct. 22, 2020.

ANWAR AMRO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

When former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri announced Thursday that he had again failed to form a new government, he sounded like he was giving up on something much bigger than a return to his old job. “God help this country,” he said on television, hours after resigning as prime minister-designate.

The significance of the moment was quickly reflected in the money markets, where the Lebanese pound took another steep dive against the U.S. dollar, and on the streets, where angry protesters blocked roads and clashed with soldiers. The scenes of people sealing off their neighbourhoods with burning barricades were worryingly reminiscent of the country’s 1975-1990 civil war.

The clashes continued Friday. Thirty protesters were injured in the northern city of Tripoli after the army used tear gas and fired live ammunition into the air to open a road that had been blocked by stone-throwing demonstrators. Mr. Hariri’s supporters also blocked roads in parts of Beirut.

The inability of Mr. Hariri, the country’s top Sunni Muslim politician, to agree on the shape of a cabinet with President Michel Aoun, a Christian who is backed by Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim militia backed by Iran, portends more instability in a country already in the throes of multiple crises.

Lebanon has been without a fully empowered government since last year, when Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned in the wake of a massive explosion in the port of Beirut that killed more than 200 people. Mr. Diab, who also has the support of Hezbollah, remains in the post in a caretaker role, and attempts to investigate the blast have been obstructed by his cabinet. (The source of the explosion was a warehouse full of ammonium nitrate – a chemical compound that has both agricultural and military uses – left unattended in the port for seven years.)

Open this photo in gallery
Lebanese army take cover behind shields as they deploy during a protest after Hariri abandoned his effort to form a new government.
MOHAMED AZAKIR/REUTERS

In the meantime, the country has slipped into a deep financial crisis, one that has seen its currency lose more than 90 per cent of its value against the U.S. dollar, creating shortages of fuel, medicines and other essential goods in the import-reliant country. The International Monetary Fund has called for the formation of a government of technocrats – mandated to undertake deep reforms – as a precondition to any bailout.

Mr. Hariri said he arrived at Mr. Aoun’s official residence Thursday with a 24-member cabinet roster that he believed would garner the support of the international community. When Mr. Aoun demanded changes to the list, Mr. Hariri resigned, calling it “a moment of truth for Lebanon.”

The Lebanese pound, which was trading near 19,500 to the U.S. dollar before the meeting, quickly plunged and by Friday was trading at 24,000 to the U.S. dollar on the black market. Two years ago, it cost just 1,500 Lebanese pounds to buy one dollar, an exchange rate that had held steady for more than two decades.

“The ripple effects are direct. Any change in the exchange rate affects the pricing of raw materials right away … and the purchasing power of people is decreasing day by day,” said Abdul-Rahman Zahzah, the owner of T Marbouta, a popular restaurant in the Hamra neighbourhood of Beirut.

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Supporters of Hariri clash with Lebanese soldiers in Beirut.
HUSSEIN MALLA/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Lebanon’s political stalemate is snarled in regional politics that see the United States, France and Saudi Arabia unwilling to support a government affiliated with Hezbollah, while Iran is unwilling to give up the clout it has gained in a country that shares borders with both Israel and Syria. France, the former colonial power in Lebanon, announced Friday that it would host an aid conference on the first anniversary of the Aug. 4 port explosion.

Kim Ghattas, the Beirut-based author of Black Wave, a book about the Saudi-Iran rivalry across the Middle East, said Lebanon’s fate may be tied to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which saw Western countries lift sanctions in exchange for Tehran agreeing to curb its nuclear program.

U.S President Joe Biden has committed to rejoining the pact, from which Donald Trump withdrew in 2018, but negotiations have thus far gone slowly. New questions about the deal’s fate have also emerged after Iran’s election of a hardline president-elect, Ebrahim Raisi, who takes power in August.

“No nuclear talks until August means probably no new cabinet in Lebanon,” Ms. Ghattas told The Globe and Mail. “No cabinet until then. No compromise.”

Meanwhile, Lebanon’s professional middle class is continuing to leave the country. “It’s a total collapse. It’s something we’ve never witnessed before. We will never be able to rehabilitate ourselves after this crisis – it’s huge what’s coming,” said John Achkar, a comedian and social activist who formed a non-governmental organization called Rise Up Lebanon to help small businesses affected by last year’s port explosion.

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John Achkar at a comedy show in Beirut, Lebanon.
RAFAEL YAGHOBZADEH/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

A year ago, the 30-year-old Mr. Achkar told The Globe that he was committed to staying in Lebanon to fight for change. These days, he spends most of his time in Dubai. He said he realized the fight was lost in February when Lokman Slim, a prominent activist and critic of Hezbollah, was shot dead in his car.

“I think I’m friendless now. Everyone I know has left,” said Daniella Khalil, Mr. Achkar’s 26-year-old colleague at Rise Up Lebanon. Ms. Khalil has remained in the country but said she too is making plans to go abroad. “Before, [leaving Lebanon] was an achievement. Now, it’s a matter of survival.”

OUCH!

OPINION FROM THE RIGHT
More than leadership or policy, it’s the Conservative temperament that’s putting off voters

ANDREW COYNE
PUBLISHED JULY 14, 2021

Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole attends a Stampede pancake breakfast in Calgary on July 10, 2021.

JEFF MCINTOSH/THE CANADIAN PRESS

The official line in Conservative circles is: Don’t panic. Campaigns matter, a week is a long time in politics, remember what happened to David Peterson, etc.

The unofficial line is: Panic. It isn’t just that the Liberals hold a substantial lead in public opinion (six recent polls put them between eight and 14 points ahead). It’s that the Tories have very little room to grow.

A new Abacus Data poll finds just 41 per cent of voters would even consider voting Conservative. That’s well behind the Liberals (56 per cent) of course, but it’s also behind the NDP (48 per cent). It’s barely ahead of the Greens (33 per cent).

How did it come to this, that the party of Confederation could have fallen into such odium that six in ten voters will not even consider voting for it?

Erin O’Toole needs to show he is a leader who can lead

The tendency will be to blame the leader, and certainly Erin O’Toole’s approval numbers must be dismaying to Conservative supporters. Just 14 per cent of respondents in the latest Nanos poll picked him as their preferred prime minister, versus 37 per cent for Justin Trudeau – and 18 per cent for Jagmeet Singh.


But the Conservatives’ woes did not begin with Mr. O’Toole’s leadership, and they will not end there. In six elections under the unified Conservative banner, the party has averaged just short of 35 per cent of the vote – four percentage points less, on average, than the old Progressive Conservative and Reform/Canadian Alliance parties used to get, between them, in the years when the movement was divided.

Of course, the Grits have fared even worse over the same period, averaging just 31 per cent of the vote since 2004. But Liberal weakness masks a more enduring strength: while the party has lost some support to the NDP, the Greens and the Bloc, it has a much bigger pool of progressive voters to fish from. With the right leader, it can still aspire to power. Whereas it’s not clear even a strong leader could save the Tories.

Some of that is explicable in terms of policy. On many of the most important issues of the day, Conservatives have either had nothing to say (hello, climate change) or have actively antagonized voters they might otherwise have reached (race, immigration, marriage equality).

More broadly, the party seems to have lost its nerve, unable even to advance traditional conservative policies – free markets, lower taxes, balanced budgets – with any vigour. The left has been right about more things than the right in recent years, but right or wrong it has been demonstrably more confident.

More confident and … more cheerful. Beyond leadership or policy, the Conservative malaise seems even more to do with what I might call the party’s temperament: not just its image but its persona, the deeper qualities of disposition that are revealing of character. Something in the Conservative temperament has simply become repellent to a great many people.

If the besetting sin of Liberals is smarmy sanctimoniousness, the Conservative equivalent is a chippy defensiveness, an adolescent petulance, a conviction that the cards are perpetually stacked against them. Fair enough, up to a point: decades of what the late Richard Gwyn called “one-and-a-half party rule” have left their inevitable residue – a bureaucracy, a judiciary and a press gallery that are inclined to see the world, if not through Liberal glasses, then certainly through liberal ones.

Far worse, however, has been its toll on the Conservative psyche. The same fundamental insecurity that, in a Joe Clark or a Bob Stanfield, emerged as a kind of apologetic cough of deference to liberal elites, is also at work in today’s smirking Conservative populist. Though Canadian Conservatives have not gone so far down that road as their counterparts elsewhere – there is nothing to compare to the Republicans’ current mix of white nationalism, LOL-nothing-matters nihilism, and lunatic, QAnon-inspired conspiracy theories – they are too willing to nod in that direction.

Moreover, while the Liberals, as the party of power and therefore of cabinet posts, have always been able to recruit individuals with a record of accomplishment in other fields, the Conservatives tend to get stuck with the lifers, people who have never done anything but partisan politics and are motivated by nothing so much as hatred of the Grits. Which may explain why the party’s leading lights so often look and sound like campus Conservatives.

In sports it is often observed that a team might have the best players or the best strategy, but if it does not have a winning culture, that elusive gel of belief in itself, it is still doomed to defeat. Until the Conservatives develop that culture – until they acquire some self-respect, put a smile on their face, and act like grown-ups – they will be condemned to the same.