Guest post David Middleton
Multiple Choice Quiz
“No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.”
- a. Chairman of BP Capital Management, T. Boone Pickens
- b. U.S. President Donald Trump
- c. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
- d. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
- e. Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources, Khalid A. Al-Falih
The answer is “d”…
..
“No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.”
Perhaps that’s true, but it certainly still is a betrayal of the image that he crafted for himself in recent years as someone “who cares” about the climate. Unsurprisingly (since the crowd was full of oil and gas execs), Trudeau received “an unusually warm reception” for the speech, as reported by Business Insider.
Trudeau continued: “The resource will be developed. Our job is to ensure that this is done responsibly, safely, and sustainably. Nothing is more essential to the US economy than access to a secure, reliable source of energy. Canada is that source.”
Hmm, that’s not very climate friendly, even if packaged in a pretty box.
[…]
So, what’s going on here exactly? Is Trudeau serious about a real (not simply market-driven) phaseout of the tar sands? Is he just telling any particular audience what he thinks it wants to hear? Or is he as supportive of tar sands oil development as predecessors? Here’s more for additional context:
“Trudeau’s speech also touted his support for the Keystone XL pipeline, one of the few areas where he and US President Donald Trump share common ground. He further discussed juggling the priorities of combatting climate change and bolstering Canada’s oil and gas industry.
“Under Trudeau, Canada’s Liberal government has approved new pipelines while working with provinces to implement a carbon-pricing scheme. The prime minister has long maintained that developing fossil-fuel resources can go ‘hand in hand’ with fighting climate change.”
That’s precisely what Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources, Khalid A. Al-Falih, who is also chairman of Saudi Aramco, said recently in a video interview published by CleanTechnica, even though it is obviously false…
[…]
“You cannot make a choice anymore on what’s good for the environment and what’s good for the economy,” Trudeau stated in that interview.
So, what do you think? Is he the Canadian version of former US President Barack Obama, as some people say, or even more fossil-friendly than that?
Firstly, the prime minister is exactly correct: “No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.” Particularly if those 173 billion barrels were proved reserves. At $50/bbl, 173 billion barrels is worth a lot of dollars… both US and Canadian.
Secondly, the prime minister is exactly correct here too: “The prime minister has long maintained that developing fossil-fuel resources can go ‘hand in hand’ with fighting climate change.” Since fighting climate change is about as possible as fighting plate tectonics or entropy, it absolutely “can go ‘hand in hand’ with” developing fossil fuel resources.
Thirdly, the prime minister is exactly correct here too: “You cannot make a choice anymore on what’s good for the environment and what’s good for the economy.” IF you make bad choices for the economy, you won’t have enough money to make good choices for the environment.
Fourthly, the writers for Clean Technica are a hoot!!! US President Barack Obama… fossil fuel-friendly???
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“The prime minister has long maintained that developing fossil-fuel resources can go ‘hand in hand’ with fighting climate change.” Since fighting climate change is about as possible as fighting plate tectonics…
http://cdn77.sadanduseless.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/seal2.jpg
LOL
He still does not understand the futility in your statement, hence the “laughter”. He really believes we can *fight* “climate change”!
It still made me laugh…
http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/92/9253c5b2e9520394d06ef32b9764c42b71939dc83beca8333814a4bbed6265ab.jpg
Seal of Approval….
Unfortunately, “fossil-fuel-friendly” Barak Obama, via executive order in his last few days in office, made it illegal to produce oil from most of the Green River Formation.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil with only half of it being recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions. 1.5 trillion barrels of recoverable oil is roughly equivalent to all the proven reserves in the world.
I do not think any President can prevent the next President from reversing any policy enacted by the first President.
Obama threw a lot of monkey wrenches on his way out the door, but he will not have the last word.
Trudeau is wrong. Bipartisan support in Australia has stopped drilling for oil and gas. We now have a major gas shortage. Now the fight is on to stop new coal mines. So Australia no longer has enough energy.
Very quickly our Australian economy is dying. Our Conservative and Left politicians can’t see it.
And voters keep voting for more of the same. But one day the voters will wake up, and the politicians will follow. That’s the way it goes.
It’s inefficient, but it’s democracy. Ultimately it’s more efficient than other political systems.
The voters vote for the politician that promises them the most free stuff.
The rest of it is just window dressing.
Canada and their media (as well as others) have been intentionally silent about forest fires caused by windmills…
Here is an 80,000 hectare fire in Australia caused by a wind turbine. Had to dig deep to find this one.
http://www.iafss.org/publications/fss/11/983/view/fss_11-983.pdf
Here is a true story I will let out of the bag. Justin’s father, the former PM of Canada was flying from the Maritimes region of Canada back to the capital. He decided to land at Loring Air Force Base (SAC) in Maine to take on fuel. SAC bases are not FBO’s and there were other very nearby facilities that could accommodate them as this was clearly not an emergency. Pierre Trudeau ordered the pilot to land there anyway. He landed and was gosh darn Lucky that he wasn’t shot down.
The base commander ordered him and the crew held at their “facilities” until they were cleared by Border Patrol located about 8 miles away in Fort Fairfield, Maine. The PM and crew were held (intentionally) for several hours until the the Border Patrol crew arrived. After some time they were given fuel and departed never to make that mistake again.
The moral of this story is: Never let power go to your head based on your position in someone else house. Now some advice to Mr. Trudeau (may I remind him of the 3 amigo’s summit last year), that you are more than welcome to take all the illegal immigrants you want as long as you keep them there.
Oh, and that 3 amigo’s thingy…
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/29/three-amigos-trump-trade-immigration-north-american-summit/86525134/
Uadiale, Urbán, Carvel, Lange, Rein. Overview of Problems and Solutions in Fire Protection Engineering of Wind Turbines, Fire Safety Science-Proceedings Of The Eleventh International Symposium, International Association For Fire Safety Science, 2014, 986-7. http://www.iafss.org/publications/fss/11/983/view/fss_11-983.pdf
Lake Bonney, Tantanoola, Australia, 2006
The Lake Bonney Wind Farm (also known as Canunda Wind Farm) developed by Infigen Energy is one of Southern Australia’s largest wind energy project in terms of generating capacity. The project was developed in three stages and has a total of 112 turbines giving a combined capacity of 278.5 MW. On January 22nd, 2006 one of the turbines caught fire during a heat wave. The incident led to the shutdown of the farm, leaving some 63,000 homes without electricity. The Border Watch newspaper reported that some 80,000 ha of national park were destroyed by a wildfire ignited by the turbine debris. Dozens of fire fighters rushed to the scene to contain the fire, backed by the efforts of two water bomber aircrafts.
Investigation into the cause of the fire found that the cause was an electrical failure within the turbine nacelle. Additionally, the accident resulted in a downtime with dozens of turbines on the farm shut down. The Vestas turbine which cost about €2.2 million was completely destroyed, but the total loss incurred by this accident far exceeds the cost of the turbine.
See article for further case studies.
Didn’t you hear? By forcing the provinces to implement a carbon tax, he has bought a moral license to sell our oil.
About Canadian Liberals: Campaign from the left — but govern from the right
https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/09/15/Liberals-Broken-Promises/
What I find interesting is that even when there is big War on, somehow the oil keeps flowing and the pumps keep working and the pipelines keep working and the oil tankers still show up to move that oil. ISIS made millions shipping oil out of their territories.
There is too much money to be made to stop it.
Saddam blowing up the wells in Kuwait is another issue but the effort given into putting out those well fires demonstrates the same point clearly enough. The oil must flow because it is black gold.
The only thing that stops the oil flowing is socialist economies.
Because the ordinary workers don’t make any money. Somebody gets to make the money while it is still flowing but it ain’t the pump workers, the tanker drivers, the pipeline workers or the people holding a gun to their head telling them to keep working. None of them are getting paid enough. So everyone stops working, even the guys with the guns. Which is why socialism does not work in a microcosm. .
Witness Venezuela.
If Scotland should gain independence, then you’d have another example, ie the Venezuela of the north.
Norway has avoided becoming a Venezuela because it has had such a long history of making money the old fashioned way, by working hard in a harsh environment, and the wisdom to understand that its North Sea windfall won’t last forever.
Social cohesion also helps, in that it motivates individuals to get off the dole as quickly as they can, so that they aren’t a burden to their fellow citizens.
Once that breaks down, so does socialism.
Socialism contains within it, the seeds of it’s own destruction.
Folks, Trudeau has no intention of following through with any pipeline of oil and gas project. His game is death by delay. It matters not what comes out of his mouth. These projects will not happen while he is PM.
You don’t appear to be misreading some fundamental dynamics of Canadian Federal/Provincial politics.
If the Trudeau Libs try to throttle Western Canada’s oil and gas wealth by dragging the greenie feet, not only will the national economy suffer across the board [ Western oil and gas puts a awful lot of $$ into the economy], but he might well succeed in earnest where Trudeau Sr only nearly succeeded 35 years ago – which is breaking up the country. Already Premier Wall in Saskatchewan has told Junior to stuff his national carbon tax, Notley’s NDP socialists are toast in the next election and even in goody-goody gumdrops British Columbia the NDP wants/needs the pipelines to happen [union jobs, you know].
As I pointed out above, populism is part and parcel of Western Canadian politics at all levels and Western alienation is alive and well right under the surface: with Ontario now a “have not” the only “have” provinces left in the Federal equilization scheme are the Western ones, and westerners are well aware that while they foot the bills they are grossly underrepresented politically [ the Maritimes with 1.8MM people have more seats in Ottawa than the 8 MM in BC plus AB.
Hardnosed, Western Canada would survive losing the rest. The rest would not survive losing SK, AB and BC. Even muddle-minded Junior knows that.
SO I could have just scrolled down rather than watch the whole hour of Jeopardy video?
“No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.”
I would nominate Australian politicians and greens for that particular “leaving the oil in the ground” Oscar.
We mightn’t have 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground although considering the size of a couple of our almost completely unexplored shale deposits it is possible that we might have such resources of shale oil.
However due to our propensity to elect fully unqualified technologically and socially elitist imbeciles to run our nation and going by their outright stupidity in paying enormous sums of the tax payer’s and energy consumers OPM to a whole raft of renewable energy scammers to put up useless turbines and solar cells whilst we keep in the ground some of the world’s largest deposits of high grade coal or sell it overseas but refuse to use it ourselves due to the politicians truly crazy ideological based stupidity.
And then cry tears of blood when we get massive state wide power failures as we run short of energy due to the base load coal fired generators no longer being able to compete against the grossly protected and subsidised turbine and solar scammers.
We Australians are probably amongst the most naive and stupid voters on the planet to continue electing such abjectly imbecilic politicians who have clearly demonstrated through their rejection of our immense resources of coal as a major factor in our own energy supply system, they would quite happily leave a couple hundreds of billions of barrels of oil in the ground if it “fought climate change” [ sarc/ ]
You left out solar CSP, the certifiably wrong tech if competitively bid against most any other energy source including low bidder utility solar pv.
Please don’t drill or frac the Green River Formation. Where would college geology students find fish fossils? [sarc]
The fish fossils are in Wyoming. The oil shale is in Colorado and Utah. The Green River shale/marl formation covers a lot of area.
I didn’t know that they were looking for fossils 5000 to 10000 feet down.
In the Gulf of Mexico, we depend on fossils 5,000′ to 30,000′ down to tell us where (or when) we are…
?w=680
http://www.paleodata.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/PDI_Biochart_Neogene_1205.pdf
Granted, those kinds fossils aren’t nearly as impressive as these kinds of fossils…
https://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm?id=F17B1C64-155D-451F-6765341D9B8E553F
A serious problem here in Canada is that Trudeau is evidently dedicated to wickedly high carbon taxes, so while he is dedicated to mining the tar sands he’s also going to carbon tax so high that he’ll destroy the opportunity and the Canadian economy at the same time. Already a major oil company is pulling out as a result… doh. You really can’t have it both ways Trudeau as economics is a harsh mistress indeed.
Oh, actually it seems that seven companies are pulling out… due to a number of factors that includes the “stronger policies to fight climate change”.
“Last week brought big news that Royal Dutch Shell, one of the world’s largest multinational oil companies, would sell off its Canadian tar sands assets. .. Shell’s withdrawal from the tar sands is the latest move in a growing trend in Canada’s oil industry: the world’s largest oil companies are retreating from the tar sands, as low oil prices, stronger policies to fight climate change, and the accelerating global shift to renewable energy make the tar sands uneconomical.”
http://environmentaldefence.ca/2017/03/14/seven-oil-multinationals-pulling-canadas-tar-sands/
There’s always lots of “bottom feeders” ready and waiting to go after the majors’ leftovers.
The buyers of those Tar Sands interests will make billions.
Think of Soros depressing the price of coal and then buying up coal assets.
http://departed.co/wow-obama-drives-coal-company-stocks-soros-buys-cheap/
pwl,
Don’t believe any article that calls the oil sands tar sands. Use of the word tar indicates an ignorance of what Tar actually is or an intentional effort to characterize the oil deposits as something “bad”.
Check out my posting above to realize that lots of oil production will continue from the Alberta oil sands, new investments will be limited until the price of oil rises which it inevitably will.
Companies are required by law to consider proven reserves based on the economics to recover. Anyone who has been in the oil business realizes that some day the price will go up and the calculation will increase the proven reserves because it is based on current price not technical recovery of oil.
THe calculation has meaning as to the current value of the company, not the potential assets as the price of crude rises as more oil is classified as recoverable at higher prices. I told my broker several months ago that the price of ExxoMobil will fall as production increases (and it has) which I expect under Trump. Oil companies make more money when oil is scarce than when it is plentiful, simple economics. Exxon made the highest profits when there was fear of running out of oil.
There are too many jobs and too much tax revenue associated with Canada’s oil sands for any Canadian administration to pass up, and no one in that country would disagree that if careful environmental standards are applied to fossil fuel extraction, everyone would benefit. Remember that Canada is the second largest nation in area in the world which means long travel distances combined with a cold climate, so few citizens are going to make major lifestyle sacrifices by reducing travelling in summer or depending on alternate energies in winter to combat climate change.
Paleo records show that CO2 does NOT cause GW. We can filter out the bad stuff — with a large scale fossil fuel burner— so there is no problem!!!!
Dr. Pielke’s Iron Law in action: “The “iron law” simply states that while people are often willing to pay some price for achieving environmental objectives, that willingness has its limits. Such limits may fall at different thresholds for different places at at different times.”
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-on-iron-law-of-climate-policy.html
Leaving enough reserves in the ground to fuel a huge part of Canada’s economic future is a price no sane person would pay. Trudeau is many things, but apparently he is not a climate fool.
Has this become a fossil fuel promotion site? Old junk. Time to move on to nuclear. It looks like all the fossil fuel boys are the real reason we don’t have nuclear. Love to talk about energy density of renewables but never want to talk about energy density of nuclear.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/17/fake-news-fukushima-edition/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/20/risk-and-nuclear-power-plants/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/22/senator-sheldon-whitehouse-we-need-nuclear-power/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=nuclear+power
Feel free to write up an article and submit it to our host for publication.
See the think about coal is , I can give it to the kids to play with , I can line my driveway with it , I can compress it and make a floor or even a building with it , if it gets all over my hands just a simple wash with water and it’s gone .
You can run a car on it as well , they did back in the 40’s .
If the container carrying the coal splits open you can just shovel it into another container and all this without the need for lead underwear .
Did I tell you that most coal is radioactive?
and most slag heaps too
Every teaspoon of earth is radioactive.
The teaspoon is probably radioactive too.
The purpose of the global warming scare is to reduce the value of fossil fuels.
The hidden agenda being to reduce any political leverage of the Arab oil states, thus reducing the likelihood of a recurrence of the bargaining power the Arabs had several decades ago with regards the disputed territories in the Middle East. The same can apply to Russia’s commercial ascendancy.
And to control any possible upswing of demand due to falling prices…impose a carbon tax.
The joke up here is that “We all hoped he would get his dad’s brains and his mom’s looks but he got everything from mommy. We are so screwed.”
That said he either had a moment of sanity (think blind squirrel finding a nut) or he realized the amount of tax dollars he would have to do without.
Alberta oilsands production outlook bright despite gloomy headlines
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-oilsands-production-bright-outlook-1.4031788
“In its budget announced Thursday, the Alberta government forecasts oilsands output will rise from 2.5 million bpd in the 2016-17 fiscal year to 3.3 million bpd in 2019-20.
Dunn says oilsands companies have dramatically cut operating costs per barrel over the last two years while oil prices have been low, and although it seems counterintuitive, one of the best ways to do that is by producing more barrels.
That’s why Canadian Natural Resources is buying most of Royal Dutch Shell’s oilsands assets while continuing to grow production at its Horizon oilsands mining project, Dunn said.”
At $50/bbl, 173 billion barrels is worth a lot of dollars… both US and Canadian.
At $50/bbl new development of oil sands cannot make money as an investment. It’s only “profitable” if you ignore all the capital sunk in the past.
Proved reserves aren’t new developments and sunk costs are always ignored for existing production.
http://blog.ihs.com/production-cost-and-the-canadian-oil-sands-in-a-lower-price-environment
$50/bbl keeps the dilbit flowing.