With relatively little news published Sunday on the wildfires raging in northern Alberta, many Canadians will awake Monday morning to learn with surprise and shock the town of Slave Lake is literally burning to the ground. The entire town of approximately seven thousand persons has been evacuated by mandatory order of council; those refusing to leave for their own safety will be arrested.

Slave Lake is located 250km north west of Edmonton

Overnight the RCMP are reporting some 30% of the town has been destroyed; unconfirmed overnight reports state emergency personnel have also been evacuated.

For the duration of the nuclear crisis in Japan I'm producing a XML (Atom) feed of the status reports published by the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum Inc. (JAIF) The JAIF site is checked every 10 minutes for updates; they seem to be updating a couple times per day.

News readers can subscribe to the feed at: http://mikewatkins.ca/japan_status.xml

Now included in the same feed are any post-earthquake updates from Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). In addition the feed includes earthquake reports from the U.S. Geological Survey, limited to earthquakes near Japan, Hawaii, Canada and the U.S. west coast - with a magnitude of 5.4 or greater.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is maintaining a daily update log.

Another compiled source of information on the disaster is available from http://nirs.org/ - organized chronologically, this PDF may be of interest.

From the irony of the day department:

The masthead motto of the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum Inc. is:

Nuclear Power, with No Emission of Carbon Dioxide, Contributes to the Prevention of Global Warming!

A new masthead reportedly will read:

Nuclear Power, Our Emissions Are Radioactive!

Or:

Nuclear Power, With No Emissions of Carbon Dioxide, But Plenty of Caesium or Iodine and Maybe A Little Plutonium Oxide Too, Contributes to the Prevention of the Global Population!

Or:

Nuclear Power, We Might Be Even Worse Than Global Warming

The events unfolding in Japan should remind us that the Harper Government had tried to put a limit on the potential liability nuclear industry operators in this country would face.

On the surface Bill C20 (lapsed due to one of Harper's many prorogations) sounds like a good thing - raising the liability cap from $75 million to $650 million, but these amounts are a pittance. To put the amount in perspective, the cap in the U.S. is in the tens of billions, and chances are their courts would extract oh so much more. A nuclear incident in Canada could easily affect as big a population centre with similar economic impacts as would occur in the U.S., so why the low limit?

Money isn't the most troubling aspect of the Conservative sponsored bill. The far more sinister by-product of the bill is a move to sideline Canada's courts by the appointment of an administrative tribunal, at the discretion of the government. At the best of times leaving the politicians in charge doesn't leave me with a sense of comfort but when it comes to nuclear safety in Canada we've seen the Harper government demonstrate it shouldn't be in charge.

The City of Vancouver Neighbourhood Emergency Preparedness Program (NEPP) has posted on it's page (http://vancouver.ca/emerg/NEPP/) a number of videos. Watch volunteer-produced 10 Steps to Home Preparedness - it's excellent!

I'm very involved in emergency preparedness and response as a volunteer with the city's Disaster Assistance Team and the video even reminded me of something I have neglected to prepare for!

Should the U.S. government seize assets of British Petroleum (Seize BP petition) to block a potential corporate move to strategic bankruptcy? That's a debate which is happening right now, amid growing public pressure on the Obama government to do something, anything.

Experts Double Estimated Rate of Spill in Gulf - NYTimes.com

Could the "cure" be worse than the disease? Maybe. Seizing assets can lead to a falling domino chain reaction; the risk of bankruptcy is probably quite low at the moment however nothing prevents government from making matters worse.

If there were to be a time when risk of bankruptcy goes markedly higher it is likely years into the future when criminal and civil negligence and liability claims are making their way through the courts. Such proceedings took decades in the case of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and that company remains the largest and most profitable petro company on the planet.

Even though BP's market capitalization has fallen markedly, that in and of itself is not a portent of bankruptcy. If it were, thousands of public corporations would be dead in the wake of the 2008-09 meltdown.

A bigger issue for BP than the value of their issued public stock is their debt load, now and into the intermediate future. At present their debt load is an entirely reasonable $25 billion, supporting operations on assets worth more than $130 billion USD. The company has the potential to generate cash flow of about $40 billion annually, a key measure of solvency in the oil business. That cash flow doesn't stop from other operations while the disaster in the Gulf continues.

The credit markets are pricing in an uncertain future, with credit default swap spreads having risen very markedly - probably unsustainably so, given that due to its still very strong financial situation BP continues to hold a double A credit rating which is better than many sovereign governments around the world can claim. Credit ratings drive borrowing costs. Due to the uncertainty surrounding liability claims, that credit rating might well be reviewed downward, driving their cost of borrowing up, but at this point my expectation is that such changes would be incremental over time, not sudden and paralysing.

Even if borrowing costs did become a potentially fatal weakness for the company, the U.K. (and U.S.) government could risk the inevitable public opinion backlash and extend loan guarantees to allow the company time to get through the disaster they own, and make everyone as whole as is possible given the circumstances. No amount of money will make things fully right.

Could the company try a strategic bankruptcy despite its financial strength? Maybe, but political pressure from both the U.S. and U.K. ought to prevent that, because at that point seizure becomes the threatened weapon of choice. The company or whatever form it might take in the future simply cannot operate around the globe without the express blessing of these and other major governments. Canada can play a role here, too.

Changes to Oil and Gas Regulations Required, Internationally

Don't get me wrong, public pressure is important right now. I'm all for extracting a huge punitive toll on BP and all those found to be responsible.

But even more important than getting even with those responsible for this latest assault on the planet is using the moment to achieve lasting change to industry regulation, not just in the U.S. but in Canada and hopefully in other major off-shore oil producing countries as well, including the UK (North Sea). Use the public's sudden awakening to the very real risks to drive important policy change that will help protect our land and oceans now and into the future.

Oil covered Brown (before oil) Pelican along Louisiana coast, 2010-06-03

There is clearly a need to revisit existing U.S. EPA legislation which provides for a ridiculously low cap on the liability of oil and gas companies. BP has already blown through all these caps in its spending. Affected states may have other legislation which supersedes the federal law in this case, and may have unlimited liability provisions. Canada similarly must have another look at corporate liability legislation, not just for the oil and gas industry but also for the nuclear industry which is subject to a cap on liability that amounts to pennies relative to the potential scope for nuclear disasters.

In the here and now we need to make the playing field level around the world to counter arguments such as those being pushed by Danny Williams (Deepsea relief well not feasible, Williams says - Nova Scotia News - TheChronicleHerald.ca) that costs would be disproportionate and lead to investment dollars going elsewhere.

Williams is parochial and wrong. Oil gushing into our oceans and their currents at the rate of one Exxon Valdez every eight days knows no borders. It doesn't matter if the problem originates in the Gulf of Mexico or in Nigeria or off-shore Canada's Atlantic coast.

If the billion dollar boondoggle that is the G20 were to accomplish anything of substance, it could work to achieve agreement on offshore exploration and production safety measures including mandating the provision of emergency relief wells. Sure, these are expensive, but not unreasonably so if all producers are subject to the same regulation. Come on G20, how about doing something that matters for a change?

Off-shore oil and gas producers are not the only component of the energy industry that need a renewed regulatory focus aimed at them. BP has unwillingly opened the door wide to a much higher degree of scrutiny and regulators around the world should be running through that opening before it closes. Regulators in Canada and the U.S. often act more as industry facilitators than as guardians of the environment, a global, public, asset. That has to change.

Make BP pay, yes. But make the entire industry subject to better regulation. That would be the best legacy this disaster could leave in its wake.

PS: Let's see a permanent ban on offshore drilling off Canada's west coast, and on export tanker traffic in our inland waters. Any parent knows there's a difference between need and want. Canadian's don't need it, and most of us here in B.C. don't want it. Read and take action:

• Ottawa Citizen: Federal ban on offshore drilling, oil tankers not legally binding says Harper government
• CBC News - British Columbia - Gulf oil spill fuels West Coast tanker fears
• Dogwood Initiative Responds to Enbridge Regulatory Application - Dogwood Initiative
• Send a letter to Michael Ignatieff and MPs - Dogwood Initiative

PBS Newshour Life Feed

The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is now almost 8 weeks on-going. Depending on whose numbers one uses, the underwater gusher may be allowing the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez sized spill every 8 days. That's about 7 Exxon Valdez spills at this point.

BP Provided Feed

Other Remote Operated Vehicle Feeds

At http://www.gulfcleanupfund.org/ROVLiveVideo.aspx you'll find pages hosting currently 12 different ROV feeds including this page which displays all 12 at once.

Federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice wants to turn our beautiful, abundantly productive, west coast from this:

... into this:

... or this:

Globe and Mail, Friday May 6 2010 -- Environment Minister Jim Prentice says there is no need for a moratorium on future offshore drilling in Canadian waters while the world tries to figure out what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico.

The spill of thousands of barrels of crude a day into the Gulf, and the environmental devastation that now threatens the Louisiana shore, have prompted other governments to put future drilling on hold, even if it could mean higher energy prices.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued a moratorium on future oil drilling permits off the state's coast until it can be determined that a disaster similar to the one in the Gulf of Mexico can be avoided. [And U.S. President Barak Obama has put new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico on hold as well.]

But Mr. Prentice sees no need to follow the example set south of the border.

"I don't think the answer is a moratorium,"the minister told reporters on Thursday. "We are all appalled by what we are seeing in the Gulf of Mexico. Everyone is worried about that. Here in Canada, we've not had those kinds of incidents and that's because of the strong regulatory environment that we have had with the National Energy Board (NEB)."

Canada hasn't had the sorts of incidents the U.S. and other nations has had only because our offshore oil industry is tiny by comparison. When you increase the rig count and number of areas being exploited, and increase the outbound tanker traffic, the probability of a serious accident increases as well.

The U.S. takes its coastal environment very seriously. If they can't get it right, 100% of the time, then how are we - relatively green to offshore oil and gas production - to be expected to get it right, 100% of the time?

Minister Prentice ought to know that Canada has quite enough environmental disasters on land, and our track record of managing our oceans is far from laudable. We should not sell out our coast for a fistful of dollars.