ENERGY CORRIDOR, FORT MCMURRAY TO PRINCE RUPERT
ALBERTANS BACKED INTO A CORNER
Mike Priaro
First uploaded November 25, 2018
Albertans have been backed into a corner by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, by Quebec, by British Columbia, and by the U.S, with no options remaining to access new markets with new pipeline capacity but ONLY to fight back with every means available for this province’s economic future.
We may be approaching the point where Albertans may have no option but to get out the bulldozers and clear a 757-mile Great Circle, shortest-distance swath from Fort McMurray to Prince Rupert.
EVRAZ (Regina, Calgary, ...) and others could supply 42-inch pipe for a two-million bbl/d oil pipeline to the west coast. It could be followed with two natural gas pipelines, an NGL pipeline, perhaps a refined products pipeline, a low-carbon, high-voltage, direct-current (HVDC) hydropower transmission line to power everything, including the oil sands, and fibre-optic cable to create an energy corridor.
LAYING 42-INCH PIPE, SUMMER 2019, FORT MCMURRAY TO PRINCE RUPERT
All First Nations along the route would be generously compensated for land rentals, provided with training and jobs in construction, operations, and land/environmental management, and granted loans for a minority equity interest in the pipeline(s). First Nations and all communities along the route would benefit from infrastructure associated with the pipeline corridor and all of them (see Eagle Spirit) have expressed support for just such an energy corridor.
There may be an option to take the pipeline endpoint to Stewart BC or Hyder AK, both at the head of Portland Canal with its U.S./Canada international waters leading to Dixon Entrance between Alaska and Canada, or load tankers from a mooring buoy in the disputed waters of Dixon Entrance or international waters—if need be.
Any legal battles would be fought after the pipeline is full of oil moving to west coast tide-water.
Section X of the U.N.’s Law of the Sea Treaty, which gives full rights to every nation to access the sea without hindrance or taxes, and which was ratified by 167 nations including Canada, would form part of Alberta’s legal justification.
Mike Priaro
Calgary
403-281-2156
