Coal lobbyist’s pants on fireThe new big emitter in Alberta

The coal lobby’s pants are on fire and it can’t seem to help it. The Coal Association of Canada’s president, former PC Finance Minister, Robin Campbell, has kicked off their “outreach” to “ordinary Albertans” (the quotation marks are their own) with a spate of misinformation. He erroneously said that some coal plants don’t pollute. He then asked for another round of hundreds of millions of dollars in government handouts to make “clean coal” work — a second attempt at carbon capture and storage (CCS) which the industry couldn’t make work the first time.

Following up on these initial forays into duplicity and fantasy, Campbell’s most recent whopper “informs” Albertans that their electricity bills will double or triple (he can’t seem to choose his fib magnitude) if coal power is phased out. There is absolutely no support for the coal lobby’s assertion. It is hard to think of a more conniving falsehood to disseminate to the public on an important policy matter. In other words, it is a blatant and destructive lie.

Unfortunately, it’s one that media has been only too content to “report” on. So, with the aid of media’s coverage, the complexities of electricity pricing have been made more obscure by the coal industry’s smoke and mirrors.

Electricity market and pricing issues are very complex matters. As such, there are many angles to the coal lobby’s deceitful propaganda that need to be corrected. We will have to address them piece-by-piece.

Let’s look at the trends on electricity prices. Yes, Albertans need to prepare for electricity prices to rise. Our bills are going to get bigger. However — and this is crucial — it was always thus. The figure below shows what typical residential consumer bills were likely to do from a projection developed back in 2014. That’s before there was a “climate leadership plan” or a coal phase-out. The projection was for consumer costs to rise inexorably due largely to non-energy-related factors. This is now only accentuated when electricity prices have fallen to and held at levels that can’t even sustain existing electricity assets, never mind attract the new generating capacity we will ultimately need.

Of course, this points to the need for provincial support to help Albertans reduce their electricity consumption to avoid these cost impacts. And, indeed, the government plans to introduce an energy efficiency program. No longer will Alberta be the only jurisdiction in North America without one. 

But, back to the coal lobby’s deceptions. If this is what Mr. Campbell is relying on to say electricity bills will triple he is blatantly wrong. There is nothing approaching the realm of tripling. Still, a number of projections will be reported in coming weeks and months that show electricity cost increases and it will only be too easy to blame the Climate Leadership Plan and its coal phase out. But don’t be fooled: coal phase-out or no coal phase-out, these price increases are baked in from well before any such policies were announced — indeed, well before the government that has announced them was even elected.

We hope the coal industry’s lobby group will cease this bogus fear mongering. Call it ignorance or call it deceit, it certainly isn’t helpful. We hope that the coverage of this will take the issue more seriously. I, for one, am happy to chat.