WHAT'S A GOOD INVESTMENT?

Folks are talking about wildfires. They’re just talking about them because they’re visible at this moment. When Ontario or Quebec burn it gets noticed. Our friends to the south are certainly noticing, too.

The outrage at forest fire smoke drifting over the border, and the responses to that outrage, has been quite amusing. Talk of climate change. Talk of climate change denial. Comparison of this year’s burns to other years. All the usual on those fronts.

With that though, people were also claiming Canada lacks the tools or funding or any number of other things. Other people notice that whenever fire breaks out in the US, Canada seems to have enough firefighting resources to send water bombers and firefighting crews, which doesn’t imply an absence of resources. People also assert that, unlike other G7 nations, Canada lacks a national wildfire response team. Others notice that not only is that untrue but that British Columbia alone (population 5 million) has a forested area (~60 million hectares) roughly that of all the forests of the UK, France, Germany, and Japan (population 340 million). Comedy.

Thinking about all this I went looking for details about Canada’s proposed “Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage” strategy. I’d read about how the plan was to construct nearly half a trillion dollar domestic industry to meet our stated climate goals (45% emissions reduction from 2005 levels by 2030 and net-zero carbon emission by 2050.) Naturally, all I really ever heard about was the government focusing on support for high-value jobs and economic growth, directed at Alberta.

Turns out that on this front mitigation is currently said to be around 4 million tons of CO₂ per year, with a 2030 target of 16 million tons and a 2050 annual target of 60 million tons. From what I can tell the program involves a bunch of different phases and projects, largely in the Prairies. And it looks like the cumulative investment would be at least $300 billion, probably more, by 2050, implying an average annual spend of maybe $10 billion. Of course, with any national mega project of this sort the spend could blow out to twice this sum; or, at least, if they didn’t tack on another $150 billion it would be the first time in history.

To my mind this means that if the peak carbon capture is achieved, a hypothetical 60 Mt/year, we would be sequestering something like half the CO₂ released in a typical wildfire season but only 5% of the most extreme years on record. But, if you look, none of that is in the capture picture. Apparently we humans and human activities are no part of nature and nature is irrelevant, or something.

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