While the anti-oil sands lobby promises that the zero-carbon economy is just around the corner, the people who the government actually employs as educated, realistic experts in matters of energy aren't so sure.
The National Energy Board, the government's watchdog agency, issued a report this week projecting the state of energy consumption in Canada in 20 years. And guess what? Oil isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
"Canada is expected to produce six million barrels of oil per day in 2035, double last year's rates. Of that, 85 per cent will be from the northern Alberta oilsands, compared to 54 per cent in 2010," reports the Winnipeg Free Press. "Oilsands bitumen production is set to reach 5.1 million barrels per day 24 years from now, triple last year's levels."
Why? Because despite all the good intentions, guilt, government regulations, funding and pressure to bring more alternative fuels online, they will, in two decades, have taken up an only slightly larger share of the energy mix. The Winnipeg Free Press reports:
• "The share of biofuels used by the transportation sector is expected to triple to 3.3 per cent because of government policies to promote the use of cleaner-burning fuels."
• "The share of electrical generation with renewable power sources is set to rise from 62 per cent in 2010 to 68 per cent."
• "The share of wind in the energy mix is set to grow from one per cent to six per cent between 2010 and 2035, while geothermal, biomass and solar are predicted to grow from two per cent to six per cent over that period."
This is the point the anti-oil sands lobby misses -- or conveniently ignores -- when they indulge in fantasies about ending our reliance on fossil fuels. Expanding wind power by 600 per cent over the next 20 years is an absolutely immense achievement. And still, we'll see it comprise only a paltry six per cent of electricity generation.
Biofuels like ethanol -- which are arguably just as carbon-intensive as fossil fuels, and force us into the ethical quandary of burning food grains for fuel while millions of people go hungry worldwide -- are the only real alternative for vehicles. They are expected to triple in size. That, too, is substantial. Still, that's barely three per cent of the fuel necessary to power North America's cars, jets, trains and ships.
The move towards a carbon-free future is something we all want. The reason it hasn't arrived yet isn't because of a lack of good intentions or of trying. Never before in history have so much interest, effort and resources been poured into achieving conservation and finding alternatives to fossil fuels. And, as the NEB figures show, we are making significant progress. But it's not going to happen today, it's not going to happen tomorrow, and it's not going to happen in the next 20, 30 or 40 years. And until it does happen, we'll need fossil fuels to keep us going. Heck, we'll even need fossil fuels to actually make it happen: the metals, manufacturing and shipping required to produce wind turbines and solar panels are made possible by fossil fuels, too.
Those fossil fuels have got to come from somewhere. By blocking the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would have delivered roughly a million barrels of Canadian oil to Americans every day, the Obama administration has guaranteed that, for the time being, Americans will have to keep relying on oil from unethical regimes that abuse the rights of women, workers and minorities, while using their oil revenues to fund terrorism and war. In Canada, we can do better than that. We can promote oil production here at home -- where the proceeds are used to fund social programs, a foreign policy advancing peace and where our environmental and human rights standards are second to none -- instead of continuing to import oil from Saudi Arabia or other hostile governments. We can continue to work on improving our conservation efforts while ensuring the oil we'll need to keep using in the meantime is as ethical as possible. That's what it means to be responsible. That's what it means to be realistic. That's what it means to be ethical.
Follow Kathryn Marshall on Twitter: www.twitter.com/KVMarshall
Europe denies fuel-quality rules aimed at oilsands
Alberta documentary portrays oilsands production as act of desperation
Shale gas, tight oil, oil sands – welcome to the new game
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/republicans_to_obama_the_whole_country_can_be_rich.html
Then the oped begins with of the best intellectual dishonesty I've seen in the last few years.
The premise that oils consumption will continue (and even increase) because production is expected to increase is laughably disingenuous. By the same logic, nuclear war is inevitable because warheads were built.
But try looking at the obverse argument for a moment, and a much better future is apparent.
If the tarsands were slowly regulated out of production, necessity and the market would create the need, demand and capacity to live in a carbon-lite Canada.
The ultimate goal of the ethical oil movement is for a few billionaires to become even wealthier by convincing people to pollute more. But if the tarsands are eased out of existence, millions of investors will benefit from opportunities in truly ethical energy solutions, And the environment will be cleaner for all.
Which really seems a better option?
What consortium is that?
The Consortium Of People With Brains?
The US could be completely energy independent, without the green jobs BS, and the whole country would be richer.
Oil field jobs pay very well:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/republicans_to_obama_the_whole_country_can_be_rich.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/republicans_to_obama_the_whole_country_can_be_rich.html
There is nothing, I repeat nothing, ethical about ANYTHING that increases the levels of carbon in the global atmosphere. What country another country does business with makes no difference to the environmental consequences; increasing global carbon happens whoever the economic partners are. Period.
Leading climate change scientist James Hansen has said that Keystone XL is "the game changer" that would make keeping the planet functional impossible. Supporting it means that you are consigning your children and grandchildren to a living hell of drought, food scarcity, pandemics, extreme weather that wipes out homes, crops, kills people and whose annual costs are now at $200 billion.
There is nothing ethical about causing mass human suffering.
Conflict free diamonds?
Look it up, if you are interested in the truth...if not, just ignore it and keep swallowing his lies.
Provide a link or retract.
The US is supposedly one of the most ethical societies by the standards set out in this article yet they have caused as much, or more, death and destruction as any other government on the planet in the last 60 years. That is the cause of selecting your own ethics to promote your own interests as is being done here by the ethical oil lobby.
People need to do what is right for everyone's benefit not just be a little better than the other guy as is the case being made in this article.
That, however, would mean less money for the oil millionaires. That's why they bought all of the patents and buried the inventions. When we finally get down to the point where there is nearly no fossil fuel left and there are absolutely no alternatives remaining, guess who are going to come out of the woodwork and 'save' us? Yep. The oil industry, by magically 'inventing' immensely energy-efficient technology right in the nick of time, which of course they will profit handsomely from because everybody will desperately need it.
I know, you'll say there are no such inventions, that this is all some weird conspiracy theory, yadda yadda. It's OK - I'm not asking anybody to believe me. It won't be long now. Give it another ten years or so, and you'll see for yourselves. When you're asking yourself why your new car that somehow manages to get 400 miles per gallon wasn't invented 50 years ago, remember this: It was. There just wasn't any money in such an invention when gas was 5 cents a gallon.
The most efficeint marine piston engines are about 50% thermally efficient.
It's called physics and chemistry.....
You have no clue how the patent system works. Patents are public. That's how they work. The government agrees to protect people from copying your invention, but you have to make the invention public, and after 20 years, anyone is free to build it. If you think there are patents for efficient engines from 50 years ago, go find them and build them.
And yet the best book on the oil sand was written by Levant.
If they are any errors in it, please point them out here.....
How clean and ethical is that oil?
If there isn't blood in my oil, it's not as exciting to drive to the grocery store!
Is this sustainable?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html
http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2011/05/oil-scarcity-and-its-impact-on-global.html
The misery is only going to get worse for countries that once relied on cheap sources of energy to drive their economic growth.
I think the author should take this argument a step further. I think we should not only look at ethical oil, but we should apply the same logic to oil companies. That would mean that companies that do business with countries that are unethical, are themselves unethical. I don’t see how an inanimate substance like oil can be ethical or not, but I can understand how ethics could be applied to oil companies based on the countries where they operate.
So Ms Marshall should put some effort in exposing the hundreds of Canadian companies working in unethical countries exploring for, and producing and refining unethical oil. Suncor, as an example, is a major player in the bitumen trade and stands to benefit greatly if Keystone is built. They are also a major player in, of all unethical places, Syria. In her next article I think Ms Marshall should point out the activities of Canadian companies in unethical countries that stand to benefit from the Keystone Pipeline.
They flare huge amounts of natural gas every year.
Go look it up, if you actually care about the environment....
If you want oil from ethical companies, buy it from companies doing business in Canada.