Message From the Editor
Technical difficulties prevented us from sending this newsletter at the end of last week as usual. Despite that, we had so much we wanted to share that we decided to get in touch today.
Last week, we published a series from our colleagues in Canada exploring the hype — and fossil fuel ties — behind the country’s push for hydrogen energy. We went inside the inaugural Canadian Hydrogen Convention, held earlier this year in Alberta, the heart of Canada’s oil and gas industry.
There, our reporter Danielle Paradis found clashing narratives: Provincial and local politicians, along with industry execs, were painting a hopeful vision of Alberta’s future as a mass-scale producer of hydrogen energy. But a government report released during the convention blasted the government’s hydrogen strategy, calling it “overly optimistic” and based on “unfounded assumptions.”
In a separate piece, Danielle took a deeper dive into the oil and gas interests behind Canada’s push for so-called blue hydrogen. This form of the fuel is touted as clean — despite the fact that it is made from natural gas and relies on carbon capture and storage, a still largely unreliable technology, to counteract the emissions from its production.
A new interactive map we created ties together
both pieces and sheds light on the web of people, government bodies, and corporations behind the blue hydrogen hype in Canada. Check it out and let us know what you think!
Have a story tip or feedback? Get in touch: [email protected]. Curious to know what our UK team is up to? Sign up for our UK newsletter!
Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director
P.S. Want more powerful public interest journalism like this? Our work is funded by generous donors. If you’d like to help, can you chip in $10 or $20 right now?
Map credit: Michaela Herrmann, Gaia Lamperti, Danielle Paradis
Fossil Fuel Interests Are Behind Canada’s Blue Hydrogen Push
— By Danielle Paradis (5 min. read) —
Talk to fossil fuel execs, government ministers, and industry reps these days and they’ll all tell a similar story: Blue hydrogen is the clean fuel of the future that will help Canada and the world get to net-zero emissions. It’ll power everything from airplanes to long-haul trucks and will even heat our homes.
Canadian media has called blue hydrogen, which is produced from natural gas and has its emissions captured, “a key part” of the nation’s emissions-reduction strategy and “fairly clean” — a claim that echoes an infographic from ATCO, a major Canadian energy company, that said blue hydrogen produces “nearly zero emissions.”
Hype, Hope, and Hot Air: Inside Canada’s Hydrogen Strategy
— By Danielle Paradis (4 min. read)—
Hydrogen is the future of net-zero — at least that is what the governments of Australia, the Netherlands, Canada, and the European Union believe.
Mining billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, however, has slammed key elements of these governments’ plans at a recent hydrogen summit in London, calling the movement towards blue hydrogen, a process that turns natural gas into hydrogen and carbon monoxide and dioxide and then sequesters the CO2 emissions using carbon capture and storage, an ineffective greenwash.
This ‘Gas Wizard’ Forecaster Peddles More Than Price Advice
— By Taylor Noakes (4 min. read)—
As gas prices continue to soar, Dan McTeague makes the rounds of Canadian media sharing tips and tricks to help buyers save a few bucks at the pump.
The former Liberal MP is known as ‘Gas Buddy Dan’ or the ‘Gas Wizard,’ a level-headed media persona who offers gas price forecasts and expert commentary on price changes in gasoline and the impacts they’ll have on consumers.
Vast Majority of Financial Institutions Have No Policies Restricting Oil and Gas Expansion
— By Stella Levantesi (3 min. read)—
Just 13 financial players out of hundreds assessed from around the world have restrictions in place against funding oil and gas industry expansion, according to the Oil and Gas Policy Tracker.
This means that more than 96% of the 369 financial institutions tracked have no such restrictions at all.
UK’s New Finance Minister Has Oil Industry Ties That Span the Globe
— By Rich Collett-White and Phoebe Cooke (3 min. read) —
Nadhim Zahawi, the UK’s new chancellor of the exchequer, earned £1.3 million from a Kurdish oil company while serving as an MP, has advised fossil fuel companies operating in Nigeria and Canada, and recently defended “struggling” producers in the North Sea.
As chancellor, Zahawi will play a key role in spending decisions that will determine whether Britain can meet its net-zero targets – but his extensive ties to the oil and gas industry have dismayed advocates of faster climate action.
From the Climate Disinformation Database: Dan McTeague
Dan McTeague is the president of Canadians for Affordable Energy (CAE). He describes himself as a “Senior Petroleum Analyst” on LinkedIn and runs the website GasWizard.ca, which tracks and predicts gas prices. Canadians for Affordable Energy promotes “the benefits
of affordable energy by informing Canadians about it, advance policies that encourage it, and we are building a national constituency to support it,” according to its website.
Read his full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database and Koch Network Database.
