Fossil Fuels

Anatomy of a Tank Car

Anatomy of a Tank Car

February 22, 2023 at 11:51 am

Editor’s Note: I have discovered a Spotify playlist called “Songs About Trains” which I recommend you listen to while reading this article. Also, Part I of this series is here.   In the second part of this brief series on rail safety, we’re going to talk about rail tank cars,Read More

Train Safety, Then and Now

Train Safety, Then and Now

February 15, 2023 at 2:35 pm

The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio had me pulling on so many different threads this week, there’s no way I can weave them all back into a coherent whole, so I’m going to divide the resulting article into two parts to give me more time to track down someRead More

Geoff MacLellan’s New Job and Donkin’s Ugly Sibling

Geoff MacLellan’s New Job and Donkin’s Ugly Sibling

December 7, 2022 at 1:53 pm

Really, we should have seen it coming. Former Glace Bay MLA Geoff MacLellan has never disguised his feelings for the Donkin Mine. When the Cline Group, which had bought a 75% stake in the mine from Glencore Xstrata the previous December, announced in 2015 that it had begun hiring, then-MinisterRead More

North End Residents Get Some Answers

North End Residents Get Some Answers

November 30, 2022 at 11:50 am

On Monday night, I attended the information session for residents of Sydney’s North End still waiting for answers about the leak at the Imperial Oil tank farm at 1 George Street on July 8. The leak occurred when a front-end loader rolled down a containment wall and punctured a largeRead More

Victor Dubreuil, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Poor Imperial?

November 30, 2022 at 11:48 am

In the wake of an accident that saw 600,000 liters of gasoline leak from a storage tank in Imperial Oil’s North End Sydney tank farm, the oil giant has been rather stingy with its compensation to residents, tossing nickels around like the proverbial manhole covers. It doesn’t require a veryRead More

Darryl McDonald, Paqtnkek director of administration; Membertou First Nation Chief Terry Paul; EverWind CEO Trent Vichie; CEO of Bayside Development Rose Paul and Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston.

Big Wind

September 21, 2022 at 12:26 pm

If you haven’t read Joan Baxter’s two-parter (Part II is here) on EverWind, the US-based company planning to turn Nova Scotia into a regional green hydrogen hub, you really must. Brief commercial break: the Halifax Examiner, like the Cape Breton Spectator, is reader supported and you can purchase a jointRead...

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

September 16, 2022 at 10:20 am

Coal Face “There’s no stone left unturned when it comes to safety with this company”—CBRM District 8 Councilor James Edwards on Kameron Collieries’ decision to reopen the Donkin Mine, CTV Atlantic News, 14 September 2022 The unfortunate reference to stones—the man is, after all, talking about a coal mine proneRead More

Green Hydrogen Revisited

Green Hydrogen Revisited

August 24, 2022 at 12:14 pm

There have been big developments on the green hydrogen file since last we spoke—and by big developments, I don’t mean actual, physical, developments.  I mean big plans (and incentives) announced by big, important people. I’ve dealt with the Nova Scotian aspect of these developments in a separate article, but IRead More

Surprise! Everwind Wants Public Money

Surprise! Everwind Wants Public Money

July 27, 2022 at 11:53 am

Green hydrogen first appeared on my radar in May of this year when I heard about Everwind Fuels, a newly formed company with the modest aim of turning Nova Scotia into a regional green hydrogen hub. US-based Everwind, headed by Australian private equity guy Trent Vichie, announced its intentions byRead More

CBRM Council Report

CBRM Council Report

July 13, 2022 at 11:36 am

On the same day last week—July 8—600,000 liters of gasoline spilled out of a storage tank in Sydney’s North End and Rogers Communications showed us why Canada needs not more “competition” in the telecoms sector but a publicly owned internet provider (yes, I went there). I say this off theRead More