Posts by J David Hughes

About J David Hughes

J David Hughes has studied the energy resources of Canada and the US for four decades, including 32 years with the Geological Survey of Canada as a scientist and research manager, where he headed unconventional gas and coal research. His research focus is on unconventional fuels, primarily shale gas and tight oil, but also coalbed methane and other unconventional sources, including oil sands, coal gasification and gas hydrates. Hughes is currently President of Global Sustainability Research Inc, a consultancy dedicated to research on energy and sustainability issues. Clients include a range of energy companies, investment firms and non-profits. David has researched and lectured widely on global energy and sustainability issues in North America and internationally.

Getting to Net-Zero in Canada: Summary

Feb 8, 2024

By J David Hughes

Scale of the problem, government projections and daunting challenges The urgency of mitigating climate change through significant emission reductions is globally recognized—most recently with the call to transition away from fossil fuels at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28). Canada has long accepted this challenge: its latest pledge… View Article

Raising emissions while pledging to lower them — British Columbia’s Orwellian LNG gambit

Mar 23, 2023

By J David Hughes

In 2007, then-BC premier Gordon Campbell passed the “Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act” committing BC to a 33 per cent reduction in emissions from 2007 levels by 2020. Despite premier Campbell’s good intentions, emissions in 2020 were down just 1.6 per cent. In 2016, in lieu of increasing the carbon tax implemented in Campbell’s greenhouse… View Article

LNG exports will doom BC’s emissions reduction goals

Nov 26, 2021

By J David Hughes

When the provincial government announced its CleanBC Roadmap to 2030 on Oct. 25, conspicuously absent was any mention of BC’s LNG export aspirations, which will increase emissions from the oil and gas sector and likely doom any chance of meeting BC’s emissions reduction targets. The LNG Canada project under construction in Kitimat includes a gas-fired… View Article

Albertans have a right to be outraged…about the $3.5 million Allan Inquiry

Nov 1, 2021

By J David Hughes

Last week Albertans received the fruits of the Kenney Government’s inquiry into foreign-funded “anti-Alberta” activities targeting the oil and gas industry. The $3.5 million report, a year late and a million dollars over budget, found no evidence of illegal activities or wrongdoing on the part of any individual or organization targeted by the Inquiry. When… View Article

Canada’s Carbon Conundrum and the Difficult Path Forward

Jun 7, 2021

By J David Hughes

Since the first oil well was drilled in 1859 humans have been on a roll. Global population has increased more than six-fold and energy use per capita has grown more than nine-fold. Accompanying this explosive growth in energy use was unprecedented economic expansion—since 1965 global GDP has grown 6.8-fold and per capita GDP has increased… View Article

Production forecasts, pipelines and net-zero promises: Canada’s recipe for climate failure

Dec 16, 2020

By J David Hughes

Canada launched Bill C-12 last month, a transparency and accountability act designed to achieve “net-zero” emissions by 2050. The government has also pledged to increase the planned 30 per cent emissions reductions by 2030 it committed to under the 2015 Paris Agreement even though as of 2018, the latest year for which data are available,… View Article

Alberta’s energy war room reveals its true colours as a propaganda mill

Nov 6, 2020

By J David Hughes

Last week my report “Reassessment of Need for the Trans Mountain Expansion Project” was published by the Parkland Institute and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). The Canadian Energy Centre (aka Premier Jason Kenney’s “War Room”) took exception to my report and wrote a hit piece designed to discredit it,“A Matter of Fact: CCPA report… View Article

BC LNG: Economic bonanza or environmental and economic nightmare?

Aug 17, 2020

By J David Hughes

Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) has been embraced by British Columbia’s government as a budding engine of growth for the provincial economy. Claims by industry lobby groups of tens of thousands of jobs and billions in government revenue make headlines. Is it true there really is a free lunch? As a scientist who spent a career… View Article

Trans Mountain expansion project: Partisan pipeline politics versus Canadians’ best interests

Jun 26, 2019

By J David Hughes

The federal government’s latest approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project (TMX) produced a frenzy of rhetoric from politicians and industry vested interests. Unfortunately for Canadians, partisan and vested interests have overruled their best interests. Although Canada does have a pipeline bottleneck due to the 376 per cent growth in oil sands production since… View Article

Reality check: High BC gas prices and pipeline rhetoric from Alberta’s new premier

May 7, 2019

By J David Hughes

Alberta’s new premier, Jason Kenney, has wasted no time engaging in belligerent actions to “get Alberta’s resources to market.” Right off the bat he passed the “turn off the taps” bill to cut off BC’s supply of oil if the Province doesn’t reverse its stance opposing the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX). He also claimed… View Article