Posts by J David Hughes

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.

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Getting to Net-Zero in Canada: Summary

Feb 8, 2024
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

LNG exports will doom BC’s emissions reduction goals

Nov 26, 2021
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

Canada’s Carbon Conundrum and the Difficult Path Forward

Jun 7, 2021
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

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

Jun 26, 2019
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