Joan Baxter reports on EverWind Fuels plans to build Canada's biggest wind farm in eastern Nova Scotia—404 turbines covering more than 64,000 hectares of Nova Scotia’s Crown land— with plans for a hydrogen and ammonia plant in Cape Breton. EverWind's proposed Guysborough wind project and Bear Head Energy's next door wind project have raised local concerns about their environmental impacts and loopholes and weaknesses in Nova Scotia's environmental assessment process.

Click on the image or title to read the full article.

Steve Hart of Green Nova Scotia First voices concerns about EverWind’s wind farm for hydrogen production plans. Read more in the Daily Guardian's republishing of Heidi Petracek's Global News report.

Click on the image or title to read the full article.

Nova Scotia plans to build Canada's largest wind farm to power North America's first green hydrogen facility, not to power the province. Compared to fossil fuels, green hydrogen is seen as an environmentally friendly fuel. Experts, however, say there are cheaper and greener alternatives, as Global's Heidi Petracek reports.

Click on the image or title to read the full article.

Two organizations, Protect Wentworth Valley and Green Nova Scotia First, respond to the Provincial government regarding the Windy Ridge Wind Power Project Environmental Assessment.

John Woodside for the National Observer reports that the Canadian Gas Association, a fossil fuel lobby group, is under investigation for alleged greenwashing. The fossil fuel industry has secured favourable tax credits and a role for natural gas-derived hydrogen in Canada's energy transition. The federal government has introduced several initiatives to grow the hydrogen sector. These initiatives include an investment tax credit for "clean" hydrogen, a carbon capture and storage tax credit, and a Clean Fuels Fund. Supporters argue that hydrogen can be used in various industries to reduce emissions. Critics believe it is a delay tactic used by the fossil fuel industry. Environmentalists argue that the federal hydrogen strategy undermines Canada’s hydrogen ambitions by not addressing its dependence on fossil fuels.

The Canadian and Nova Scotia governments are actively engaging in establishing and promoting a green hydrogen economy. Our government offers startup companies large amounts of financing and substantial tax incentives for green hydrogen development. The large-scale wind turbine farms and offshore wind required to sustain this questionable answer to climate change (green hydrogen production) can’t help but have long-lasting detrimental effects on the environment, biodiversity, and marine life. Here are some facts you should know.

As an alternative to fossil fuels in the fight against climate change, hydrogen is a promising clean fuel source: it is carbon neutral, and its combustion produces only water vapour. However, this is an energy-intensive and expensive process. Though hyped as the solution to climate change, hydrogen can negatively impact the environment.

Little is known about hydrogen as a green energy carrier and the environmental and climate impacts of hydrogen emissions. The project HYDROGEN is led by CICERO Center for International Climate Research and financed by the Research Council of Norway. Learn more about the project's goals and its aim to look at both the advantages and the disadvantages of transitioning to a hydrogen economy.

Click on the image or title to read about the study.

Freelance writer Allison Lawlor interviewed CEO Erika Shea for Canada's National Observer. Erika Shea backed a solar project at a former military radar base. The project powers a community of 28 homes, a curling club, an office and a 30-bed residential facility for adults with physical and intellectual disabilities. “Through the solar and the building retrofits, we’ve been able to remove all fossil fuels from the property,” says Shea, president and CEO of New Dawn Enterprises, which owns and operates Pine Tree Park. New Dawn Enterprises reduces energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions with solar and energy efficiency upgrades, as well as e-bikes for food delivery.

Green Nova Scotia First's Gregor Wilson speaks on behalf of their campaign to encourage the Federal and Provincial governments to carefully reconsider initiatives promoting the Province as a 'global leader' in hydrogen and ammonia production, highlighting concerns about the true environmental impacts and unrealistic economics of these initiatives.

More than 200 people attended a Pictou County town hall to ask Premier Tim Houston about the 100-turbine Websters Corner wind project Bear Head Energy is proposing for the Blue Mountain area of Pictou County. The Halifax Examiner’s Joan Baxter summarizes the event, the community's concerns, and Premier Houston’s response.

Click on the image or title to read the full article.

Wind Concerns Ontario, a province-wide advocacy organization, examines and challenges the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) paper on wind turbines and property value loss.

Click the image or title to read the full article.

Award-winning journalist Karin Finkenzeller writes regularly about the green hydrogen projects proposed in Canada and for the German markets; the article appears in Germany's weekly business magazine WirtschaftsWoche and the Halifax Examiner. In this article, Finkenzeller investigates the Germany-Canada energy and hydrogen partnership, which concluded in 2022, and questions the viability of the green-hydrogen economy without government subsidies.

Click on the image or title to read the full article.

The Halifax Examiner criticized Tim Houston's Progressive Conservative government's plans for a new "hydrogen innovation program" as “greenwashing” when the government's Law Amendments Committee passed Bill 207, the Electricity Act amendments. The Examiner’s Joan Baxter speaks with experts, including energy coordinator Brenna Walsh at the Ecology Action Centre, who explains, “Though it is encouraging to see the intentions of this government to consider green hydrogen production, we are concerned that this amendment, as written, would open a pathway for other “flavours” [colours] of hydrogen production.”

Click on the image or title to read the full article.

The Halifax Examiner—as have others—investigates the origins of all the hydrogen hype. The Examiner reports that much of the rhetoric in the European Union goes back to “Dutch hydrogen professor” Ad van Wijk, a “failed businessman and part-time professor who made it his mission to promote the use of hydrogen.” 

Click the image or title to read the full article.

The Halifax Examiner’s Joan Baxter reviews The Ecology Action Centre’s statement on “wind energy, land use and green hydrogen production in Nova Scotia,” and their serious concerns about the use of energy from land-based wind facilities to produce that “green hydrogen.”

Click the image or title to read the full article.

The Ecology Action Centre supports a shift to clean energy sources such as land-based wind projects but asserts that these projects must be used to create clean, affordable electricity for Nova Scotians. The EAC is critical of current plans prioritizing export-based hydrogen and ammonia industries over local needs and urges decision-makers and the Nova Scotia government to prioritize projects that reduce dependence on fossil fuels, green our electricity grid, and ensure that projects are built in areas that minimize negative effects on the environment and our communities.

Click on the image or title to read the full article.

On November 29, 2023, Global Affairs Canada's press release about a $125 million loan to EverWind Fuels in Nova Scotia did not mention that it was in US dollars, resulting in $41 million more public dollars than initially believed. Joan Baxter and the Halifax Examiner uncovered the misleading statement about Export Development Canada’s loans to Nova Scotia-registered EverWind Fuels, a private company founded by a New York-based Australian private equity company.

Click on the image or title to read the full article.

Everwind Fuels plans to build 70 wind turbines north of Debert. Sustainable Northern Nova Scotia is one of the groups opposing the project. Margaretta Sander provides an overview of their concerns.

Click the image or title to read the full article.

The Halifax Examiner’s Joan Baxter closely examines and questions Premier Tim Houston's 44-page Green Hydrogen Action Plan to position Nova Scotia “as a world leader in clean economic growth and environmental stewardship” and how the government plans to facilitate green energy production to assist in hydrogen/ammonia production and export. But at what cost?

Click on the image or title to read the full article.