Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Premier Rachel Notley has just announced Alberta’s withdrawal from Federal carbon pricing, though she plans to keep the Alberta province carbon tax.
Premier Rachel Notley pulls Alberta out of federal climate plan over Trans Mountain ruling
‘Albertans are angry, I am angry,’ premier says of Thursday’s federal court ruling
CBC News · Posted: Aug 30, 2018 1:34 PM MT | Last Updated: August 31
In a dramatic announcement Thursday evening, Premier Rachel Notley said she is pulling Alberta out of the national climate-change plan to protest a federal court ruling that quashed expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline.
…
“Albertans are angry, I am angry,” Notley said in reaction to the ruling that stalled a project her government has spent major political capital to advance. “Alberta has done everything right, and we’ve been let down.”
…
Notley blamed both the current federal government and the previous one for creating a situation she said has made it “practically impossible” to build a pipeline to tidewater in a country with more coastline than any other on Earth.
“Now, more than ever, we need to come together and prove to ourselves and to the world that our country works,” Notley said. “This ruling is bad for working families. And it is bad for the economic security of our country.”
Canada can’t accept that the only market for its oil and gas resources is in the United States, Notley said.
“No other country on Earth would accept this, and Canada shouldn’t either, especially when we are doing it to ourselves. It is ridiculous.
“Money that should be going to Canadian schools and hospitals is going to American yachts and private jets. We’re exporting jobs, we’re exporting opportunity, and we are letting other countries control our economic destiny. We can’t stand for it.”
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The premier said the decision reached Thursday has no impact on Alberta’s own climate-change plan, or on the carbon tax her government introduced on Jan. 1, 2017, and raised a year later. But her declaration that Alberta plans to pull out of the federal climate change plan leaves proposed future carbon tax increases in doubt.
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While its fun to watch the breakup of Canada’s Federal carbon pricing scheme, its utterly hypocritical that Premier Notley wants to keep her Alberta province carbon tax.
But Premier Notley is not the only Canadian climate hypocrite.
In May this year Prime Minister Trudeau compared climate “deniers” to supporters of female genital mutilation. But Trudeau himself supports fossil fuel exports – as Trudeau said in 2017, No Country Would Find 173 Billion Barrels Of Oil In The Ground And Just Leave Them.
Trudeau’s ridiculous effort to claim the climate moral high ground, to tax carbon while exporting all the fossil fuels they can dig up, is like a drug dealer who defends their sales on the basis that they are personally clean, that it is up to their customers to decide what they do with the drugs they buy.
Even the Alberta Trans Mountain pipeline court ruling does nothing to reduce CO2 emissions – that oil will still be pumped. Premier Notley is not saying she can’t sell her oil, her complaint is that the USA has Alberta over a barrel on oil prices, because Alberta doesn’t have enough pipeline capacity to ship the oil to other markets.
I personally believe anthropogenic CO2 emissions are harmless. Clearly many federal and state politicians in Canada must also believe on some level that CO2 emissions are harmless as well, or they wouldn’t allow up so much fossil fuel to be mined and exported. But those same Canadian politicians continue their ridiculous game of climate hypocrisy, pretending they care about CO2 emissions, imposing carbon taxes on their own people, insulting people who are honest about what they themselves clearly believe, while at the same time they preside over the export of all the fossil fuels they can dig up.
Correction (EW): h/t Alberta – Canada has provinces, not states.
Hmm- I can’t seem to find my yacht. It must be hiding behind my private jet.
Premier Notely will be out as Premier in next year’s provincial elections if the polling holds up. So she may be trying to position herself (and her UDP) away from its losing position on energy.
“Poll shows UCP would handily defeat Alberta NDP if election held today”
https://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/poll-shows-ucp-would-handily-defeat-alberta-ndp-if-election-held-today
Article is a year old, but still pretty clear that Notley’s NDP will lose to the UCP. (conservatives).
She’s a one-termer but would be even more hopeless without doing this.
Have you not received your monthly multi-million dollar payment from the well-endowed oil company payments-to-skeptics conspiracy fund?
I’m still waiting for my dark money cheque…
I get mine paid on the 35th of each mth
Dude I get mine on the 32nd.. your bank is hosing you
Youse guys must be on the wrong schedule. I get mine twice a month on the 7th and 12th Wednesdays each month.
Check in the dry dock behind your submarine!
A large number of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec residents were unavailable for comment on this issue.
Because they were dead from the rail car crude oil explosion.
because environmentalists don’t want to build pipelines for fossil fuels.
Because a billionaire crony and big campaign donor to Democrats owns railroads, not pipelines.
Then, “they” don’t have to. Others will.
And no one in Canada ever makes this argument (except me of course).
Believe it or not the oil on that train wreck in Lac-Megantic came from South Dakota and was heading to the Irving refinery in St.John New Brunswick. If had been oil from the oil sands from Alberta it would not have blown up when the rail cars derailed. The higher volatile content of the light ends that the South Dakota oil contains were the reason for the massive explosion and fire after the oil was released from the tank cars. Think higher white gas or Naptha content
I think not setting the brakes is a bigger issue in cause.
We must remember that 2 years ago, a large number of Quebec mayors ( the mayor of Megantic was probably not included) got together and blocked a proposed pipeline through Quebec that would have have made any future Megantic scenario impossible. That new pipeline also would have allowed Canada to refine much more US oil from the Bakken fields and reduced the tanker traffic (up the St. Lawrence to the Quebec refineries and also reduced the tanker traffic to the Irving refinery) because of reducing the imported oil from Saudi Arabia. But go figure BC and Quebec residents have their heads in the clouds when it comes to nation economy logistics. They forget that pipelines are the most efficient and environmentally friendly way of moving oil. And North america already has 1000 different pipelines.
“heads in the clouds,” That is the first time I have heard that orifice referred to as ‘clouds.’
Methane clouds?
there were a couple of cars of highly flamable gas on another siding that caused the explosion that cause the crude to burn.
South Dakota does not produce oil.
The diluted bitumen from Alberta is not explosively flammable as the Lac-Megantic product was, so your post, while overly dramatic, would carry more weight if it didn’t try so hard.
“its utterly hypocritical that Premier Notley wants to keep her state carbon tax.”
???
Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.
Let us be clear. The purpose of a carbon tax is to tax carbon. That should be enough to justify it.(wink wink)
Let us be clear. The purpose of a carbon tax is to tax.
Yes, the adjective is unimportant, the noun is all.
What a joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Her carbon tax is more; at $30.ton than what the federal one will be starting next January at $20/ton . Only in the last year of the federal increases will it jump to 40$/ton. So the only little thing she is agreeing to is that Alberta will not put up its price in 2022 to match the $40/ton federal price. She will have lost the Alberta election far before that anyway. The only reason the NDP ever got in in Alberta is that 10 years ago the WildRose party started to erode Conservative support and basically the right was split into 2. They are now amalgamated. Even so; if it wasnt for the brainwashing leftest policies that the kids get in grade school , the NDP would have never won in Alberta even with the Conservatives in disarray.
UNFCCC
Search results.
Greenhouse gases a new commodity
Emissions trading set out in Article 17 of the Kyoto Protocol
Also COP4,1998 and emissions trading.
https://unfccc.int/gcse?q=Greenhouse%20gases%20new%20commodity
And.
UNFCCC
Search results.
Re: Alberta carbon taxes article
https://unfccc.int/gcse?q=carbon%20taxes
UNFCCC
‘Chicago Climate Exchange’, 9 pages
CCX Document
http://unfccc.int/files/members/cop_11/climate_talk_series/application/pdf/cop_11_kiosk_clark.pdf
Also online.
And
UNFCCC
Search results: Chicago Climate Exchange articles.
https://unfccc.int/gcse?q=Chicago%20Climate%20Exchange
Wouldn’t the profits be better at an off-track betting (OTB) parlor?
That and all those easterners who moved here for jobs in the 2000s. Vote for repressive governments in your home province, then when all the jobs leave, move to our province and vote for a repressive government.
“The purpose of a carbon tax is to tax carbon”
Oh good! I don’t have to pay it then! Umm, does carbon have a bank account?
Eric: Well said! I doubt anyone is listening who would change their minds but well said!
The message does get through if it is repeated often enough, something I learned when I had a long chat to some Amnesty International people.
About? Sounds interesting.
About whether what they do works – writing letters to try to liberate political prisoners. They said it does, and showed me some examples.
Notley is between a rock and a hard place. The citizens of Alberta are furious. On the other side is the American environmental lobby that paints the oil sands as pure evil. Notley spent a lot of time in Washington and New York trying to convince policy makers that Alberta oil is not pure unbridled evil. I don’t think she can get away with dropping the carbon tax. That will just start the enviro hounds baying. On the other hand, the people of Alberta will not accept if she doesn’t do something drastic. How about secession?
I suspect after secession Alberta might have an even harder time trying to build a pipeline across BC.
Can’t be much harder than it is now. And if there was secession, BC would be cut off from Canada…..and all the natural gas, gas liquids, etc., that are currently moved in pipelines through Alberta to the U.S. would stop.
Maybe it’s time to bring back: “Fifty-four forty or fight!”
No BC would not be cutoff . BC has a common boundary with the Yukon and NWT and they could build a pipeline up through Hay River and then across the NWT until they joined with Northern Saskatchewan. It would be expensive though. Cheaper to have oil tankered in from the Gulf of Mexico or from pipelines through the NW US.
Yes, it would be cut off. And what makes you think that BC would be permitted to build a pipeline through Yukon and NWT? Forgotten about the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, eh? And you seem to forget that the TransCanada highway and rail lines connect BC to the rest of Canada. Although not for long.
If Alberta goes, Saskatchewan won’t be far behind.
“On the other side is the American environmental lobby that paints the oil sands as pure evil.”
… They do more than paint. They (Tides, 350.org, Rockefellers send millions to Canadian enviro non-profits ( Dogwood Initiative, Tides Canada, Leadnow..etc..) to fund and organize protest at the Transmountain site. 350.org boasted that it trained young people in civil disobedience.
This has slowed work on the pipe to the point that Kinder Morgan walked and Trudeau’s government was forced to buy Transmountain pipeline in order to complete the pipe. Before that, Notley, sagging in the polls and in a bid to be seen as anything but what she really is, threatened to shut the Alberta end of the pipeline off and let British Columbians find out what really happens when you don’t transport oil. Oh that she would have done that!!! It wouldn’t be rage in just Alberta, but Lotus Land BC as well. That would have been the best birthday present ever.
It’s worth G**gling ‘Transmountain protest foreign fundiing”.
for a broader picture. After that, look up Vivian Krause who was the first journalist to uncover the extent to which actors in the USA are manipulating Canadian enviros for multiple agendas.
Should, God forbid, Trudeau win the next election, I’d give secession ten years at most. He’s determined to wreck the West, and there’s simply no way the conservative culture here can co-exist with the batsh*t crazy leftists of Ontario and Quebec.
Everybody I meet. I ask them if climate change almost got them yet (drowning heat expiration, wild fire ….etc? when they say no, I say the experts have been saying for 30 years its gonna happen. And then I tell them its all a big lie and hoax. They just shrug.
No politician will ever willing give up a tax that is already in place that provides them a revenue with in their jurisdiction.
Trump got the U.S. Congress to cut taxes considerably. The corporate tax was a consumer tax in disguise, as in who do you you think pays it when the company raises the price on goods and services. Also, middle class Americans got a tax cut, although 46 percent pay no taxes because their wages are too low. It appears that a lot of them are too stupid to know this, even those who saw it added directly to their check or deposit. This shows the worth of the U.S. educational system.
in related news, Canada’s national energy board announced that oil by rail is at an all time high. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/just-as-trans-mountain-is-quashed-neb-confirms-there-are-more-oil-trains-than-ever
Very expensive way to move oil. Damn Quebecers and BC residents are costing us all money.
A majority of British Columbians support the pipeline https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/support-for-kinder-morgan-pipeline-expansion-grows-in-b-c-new-poll
but our premier is frantically virtue signalling to maintain the green support needed to keep his government afloat. Madness ensues.
Two freight rail lines within five miles of my little house/castle have trains running with oil tankers day and night. I’m on a hilltop, unlikely to be affected by a derailment, but I know how far one of those tank cars can go if there is an explosion. One of the freight rail lines also carries Amtrak passenger service.
Alberta is a province; there are no states in Canada. But we are totally pissed that she’s going to keep ripping us off with a carbon tax.
Then vote her butt out next year.
There’s no chance of the NDP being re-elected. They only won last time because the conservatives were dumb enough to split their vote across two parties, which is always fatal in a first-past-the-post electoral system.
In Alberta, the only reason why that was fatal was a combination with some individuals voting NDP as a protest vote.
Thanks, corrected.
state:
a : a politically organized body of people usually occupying a definite territory; especially : one that is sovereign
b : the political organization of such a body of people
c : a government or politically organized society having a particular character a police state the welfare state
province
1 a : a country or region brought under the control of the ancient Roman government
b : an administrative district or division of a country
c provinces plural : all of a country except the metropolises
2 a : a division of a country forming the jurisdiction of an archbishop or metropolitan
b : a territorial unit of a religious order
3 a : a biogeographic division of less rank than a region
b : an area that exhibits essential continuity of geological history; also : one characterized by particular structural or petrological features
4 a : proper or appropriate function or scope : sphere that question is outside my province
b : a department of knowledge or activity
The Province of Alberta is a type of state. (or we need to notify Webster that they need to correct their definition(s), and we need to be less nit-picky).
The State of California is not a province.
California and Alberta both have state bureaucrats.
Is Websters a real dictionary? In Canada we use the Oxford English Dictionary- the dictionary used by English speaking people everywhere except the United Provinces.
“A rose, is a rose, is a rose.”
G. Stein
Yes. And Louisiana doesn’t have “counties” they have “parishes”. Six of one…..
And Alaska has “boroughs”
Personally, I do not consider criticisms of this ilk to advance the cause. Many of the readers of this site would claim that guns do not kill, it is users of guns that kill. If one accepts that argument, then there is nothing wrong with Trudeau’s position; it is not the oil company exploiting the reserve that causes CO2 emissions, it is the consumer of fossil fuels that cause the emissions. A few months ago, I seem to recall that many commentators were suggesting that in the Exon Mobil law suits, that the oil company should not be sued on that very basis.
The article is interesting. Money always rules, and the State of Alberta would be fools to limit their market and not find alternative buyers and markets for their valuable resource. Where the State is wrong, and where Canada is wrong, is in its reasoning that CO2 emissions are dangerous, for Canada any warming would be a godsend, and that even if Canada curbs its emissions this will have any impact at all given that China and India are given a free pass. Canada is merely virtue signalling and over something that is not a serious problem, and this virtue signalling is causing economic harm to its citizens.
Its a little different. Guns have lots of positive uses – self defence, sport and recreation. Trudeau and his friends claim climate change is wrecking the world, while at the same time they help to promote this alleged destruction, this is why I thought the drug dealer analogy was appropriate.
I agree Verney is wrong. Guns do not have to be fired even if bought. However crude oil doesnt just sit around waiting for Godot. It is always burned. So in the alarmist logic any fossil fuel that comes out of the ground is hastening the day of Armageddon. That is why the article is correct. It is extremely hypocritical to allow sale of fossil fuel if you really believe that it will lead to Armageddon.
“Guns do not have to be fired even if bought.”
And guns can be useful even if they are not fired. I ran a house invader off by just letting the criminal hear me cocking the hammer on my 357. Out the door he went just as fast as he could run! I didn’t even have to shoot him. 🙂
You never knew that what happened would happen so in your future was a scenario where you shot him and he was either wounded or died. Guns dont kill people, people kill people ( But we could argue free will versus determinism).
Alberta should consider piping the oil South then West along the southern border of BC to a port facility near Vancouver.
That would be the state of Washington which has already denied permits to US pipelines, coal ports etc. This state gets some of its crude supplied by the existing Kinder Morgan pipeline, the rest by tankers, including Russian. These tankers sail thru the same Juan de Fuca strait that the judge wants “studied”.
The existing Transmountain pipeline should be shut down. Nothing gets through. And that is within Alberta’s authority….it can simply refuse to sign export permits.
RIght you are Joey. As few weeks without gas or gasoline from that pipe would be just what Vancouver needs.
@Crispin
Try booking a round trip flight SFO-YYZ-LGA
Eh, sorry Richard. I can’t really agree with the comparison. The vast majority of gun owners will never kill anybody. Heck, nearly everyone I know owns a gun (or several), but only 2 of them have ever killed with one. And both of them were in combat.
One the other side, most of the oil pumped from the ground is going to be used as fuel, and release CO2.
Add to that, gun owners know that guns CAN kill, that is one of their primary purposes. But killing someone in a crime is an abuse that isn’t approved of by the gun producers. It really is all about what you intend to use them for. But producing CO2 is a side effect of using oil. The Climate Faithful may WISH they could make it illegal, but it has nothing to do with the purpose of using oil, which is to produce energy.
~¿~
Guns don’t kill people. The guns don’t jump up and start firing themselves.
Killers kill, if they didn’t have legal guns, they’d get illegal ones. If they didn’t have illegal guns, they would find something else.
The biggest mass murders in the US have been done with explosives.
Anyone with a little bit of training and a few thousand dollars in machine tools, can make guns. The idea that you would ever get rid of them is nonsense.
Butts got exactly what he wanted, shutting down anything related to Oil/Gas related. Shiny Pony just follows along (hey, look at my nice socks!).
“She said Alberta will not sign on to the national climate-change plan “until the federal government gets its act together.””
So, she has nothing against the plan, she just wants to hold it hostage. Funny how Warmunists are always the first to cry foul, when it’s their bacon getting burned.
They cry foul when they don’t have any bacon either, or when there is too much, or when they’ve eaten theirs and want yours, or when…
hmm… there seems to be a pattern emerging here.
Alberta already has a carbon tax of $30 a ton . Notley does not plan to reduce it. She will lose the next election and a big reason why is that tax.
Once the pain starts the virtue signaling goes out the door.
Not just harmless, CO2 emissions are highly beneficial.
Hippocrit! Bigly!
Hippos everywhere object to that comment.
Joe Wagner:
What Notley should have said is that because there is no pipeline to tidal water, Alberta WCS crude is captive to the US markets.
The result is that WCS trades at US$37/barrel vs. $70 for West Texas. That means there are folks in the US greasing their pockets on the diff.
Until there is a tidal water pipeline, those revenues are lost to Canadian taxpayers.
pockets greased = cost of pipeline to Texas (plus some more for pizza).
if a pipeline to the Pacific is completed, Alberta WCS will not trade for $37/barrel in Burnby (Canada) & $70/barrel in Anacortes (USA). The cost difference will be based on the loading efficiencies at each endpoint and will be negligible.
It will be cheaper in B.C. than in Texas though … not because of anything greasy, but because there will be less of a demand in B.C..
All economists calculate that Canada is losing 15 billion a year over not having enough pipeline capacity.
Correct Alan.
Canadian crude oil typically sells at about a 30-40% discount to world price, when comparing similar crude qualities – for example, Edmonton Light to Brent. This is primarily due to a lack of export pipelines.
A key leftist strategy is to cripple the energy industry – examples are endless regulatory snarls and successful anti-pipeline movements – these have cost Canada $120 billion in lost revenues – a huge amount of money that should have been available for industrial re-investment, job creation, health, education, etc.
And Canada has the third largest oil reserve in the world and has a large trade deficit with Asia who want to buy the oil.
Seems like a win-win situation for any other country.
Indigenous people need to move away from reserves where there are no jobs and no services.
The better pipeline project was the Northern Gateway which would have create jobs in a region which would be perfect for indigenous people. Modern small city in the heart of it.
Sort of a no brainer.
True to some extent.
The reality is that rail transportation is expensive, so the railways make revenue at a reasonable competitive rate on that. Some of that money is spent in the U.S. and some in Canada. The fact that bitumen can’t get to tidewater means there is a surplus of it at Cushing and the Gulf Coast. Supply and demand applies so a surplus means a discounted price. The Lefties misinterpret these facts regularly. Whether because they want to or don’t understand basic economics I’m not sure but I suspect both.
If Canada can get some of its production to the Far East it should fetch closer to world price and also reduce the surplus at Cushing and bring that price up a bit as well.
Then I can feed my children! /sarc
And I thought part of the difference in price between $70 west Texas (light) crude and $37 Alberts tar sands heavy stuff was the fact that tar sands oil is, shall we say, EXTREMELY less commercially desirable regardless of “tidal water” port.
Part but not all, some is due to higher cost of transport via rail and some due to the local supply glut due to constrained pipelines. . The heavy oil discount is due to the lack of lighter fractions so heavier fractions need to be “cracked” into lighter fractions, resulting in elevated refining cost. The discount varies depending on the type of oil which is why there are several benchmark prices. As regards desirability its location and market as California’s tar sands is much the same with no complaints, close to their market and the “La Brea Tar Pit” being promoted as a tourist site, I guess.
much better and more accurate explanation below, see Alan Macrae.
That is not accurate. Refineries like the stuff because they can refine far more products out of it than can be refined out of light sweet and on considerably higher margins.
Its OILSANDS NOT TARSANDS . If you want tosee tarsands go to California and talk to govner moonbeam
It was stated that transporting oil by rail tank car to market costs the Canadian oil producer $10 to $15 dollars a barrel to get it to the market points on the south, west and east coasts. Irving Oil in St. John New Brunswick wanted the Energy East line to go through so he could fill his empty oil tanker fleet with heavy oil and move it to India from St. John terminal. The oil tankers would then fill with light Gulf oil for the return trip to St.John. As it stands this year Irving has moved 4 heavy oil tankers to India from St John using rail tank cars from Alberta. It is a win win for Irving as he was sending his tankers out empty anyway and if he gets enough rail traffic he can at least send out 30% of them with a load each way.
Sources please Boris.
Do you think Irving could refine Alberta synthetic crude oil? Irving is currently supplied with foreign crude, imported by tanker at world oil prices.
The Irving refinery in St John, NB, at ~350,000 bbl/day capacity, is the largest in Canada.
Most Canadian refineries are about half that size, at ~180,000 Bbl/day.
“The chairman of Irving Oil confidently predicted Thursday the proposed Energy East Pipeline still being examined by federal regulators “will happen,” though he thinks the process is taking too long.
Arthur Irving said Thursday that Alberta’s struggling economy urgently needs the pipeline to transport its crude oil, and his firm is eager to partner with TransCanada to build a deepwater terminal in the Bay of Fundy.
“That will happen, but it’s taking a little longer than it should. But it will happen because it’s the right thing to do for Canada. They can’t get along without it. Alberta needs it and the East Coast needs it,” he said during a speech.” – Calgary Herald, Oct 21, 2016.
One can always see the commitment to an idea when it comes to actually paying the price.
Other words – talk is cheap. …when it’s time to pay the piper. Walk the talk.
Amazing the number of cliches that have been developed over the years that explain this behavior.
She wants to demonize the US for buying oil with higher sulfur and wax content that sells for less than sweet crude. The tar sands oil is essentially heated up sludge. This is like bawling how rich Venezuela is with the highest sulfur content oil in the world. This is very expensive to remove in refining. She can cut a deal with Trump for a pipeline immediately. The cost is the transfer cost that includes maintenance. The pipe is longer to Gulf refineries, but does not go over major mountains with serious landslide, erosion, river, and slumping problems to constantly fight. She tossed in a few victim cards to play up Canada being bullied by the US while she is bullied by Ottawa exclusively.
Refineries can produce far more products out of the stuff than can be produced from sweet light. And much better margins. They love the stuff.
This is like griping how greedy foreigners are stealing South Africa platinum. Yeah, spend your own $2 billion to get down 2 miles to the ore body, haul it out, and refine it, and tell me how rich you are. People with low emotional maturity count their riches but never costs.
USA snowflakes certainly qualify on “low emotional maturity”, but in their defense, they can’t count either.
You take West Texas Intermediate sweet crude and dream how you tar sludge is the same thing all day, baby. Oh right, all the desirable volatiles have blown off leaving behind the high sulfur, high wax residue. That residue has long carbon chains that have to be cracked using platinum catalytic conversion. That ain’t cheap. The towers cost millions and are 300 feet tall to distill that mess. Route that to Keystone and shut up. Few refineries in the world can handle Venezuela or tar sands low grade crude. Else, pony up $5 billion and build your own refinery and make gasoline on the spot, if you think you can.
Donald – your comments are not only abrasive, they are misleading.
For the record, I chaired the Syncrude Technical Committee, the Mining Committee and the Synthetic Crude Oil Quality Task Force, which recommended major investments that were implemented to improve synthetic crude oil quality to meet new diesel and jet fuel specs.
Athabasca Bitumen is ~9 degrees API and sour, and some of it is marketed as such, typically diluted with condensate so it can be shipped by pipeline. Bitumen is also shipped by rail.
However, the big Athabasca oil sands projects upgrade bitumen to a ~32 degree API sweet bottomless synthetic crude oil that is shipped by pipeline to refineries, where it is refined into gasoline, diesel, jet, and fuel oils.
[Thank you. .mod]
You aren’t well educated on the matter, are you? In fact, refineries love Alberta heavy because they can produce far more products from it at much higher margins than can be produced from sweet crude. Those with limited intelligence seem to think that gasoline is the only thing that crude is used for.
Donald – Your comments truly display your ignorance of what is really going on in the Alberta Oil Sands Development. First, that so called “sludge” has already been stripped of its Sulfur! Second, Refineries all across the northern tier of States in the US have already installed the conversions to handle heavy crude from North Dakota via the simplest methodology – burning it in oxygen deprived towers (often the stated 300′ “tower”) which not only liberates those “long carbon chains”, but produces high grade coke as a byproduct. They can also handle the Bitumen from Alberta. Third, Platformers and Rheniformers are used to produce gasoline from Naptha, not crack crude oil! Most are HORIZONTAL vessels as well, proving your sources must be Greenie Propaganda, not Industry publications!
No pipeline?
Then use rail.
No trains or insufficient rail?
Then use trucking.
No trucks or roads?
Then build a refinery!
Build chemical plants!
Build resin manufacturing and research facilities!
Ship refined, formed, assembled, and manufactured product instead.
Stuff that has provided local employment, earnings while gaining value.
Alberta would also need to import light varieties of crude to blend with their heavy oil. That’s what’s currently done down near the Gulf.
Sure. Build a refinery in Calgary!
I am an Albertan. I am angry with PM Trudeau, and I am angry with Premier Notley.
“I personally believe anthropogenic CO2 emissions are harmless.”
The fool speaks.
“The fool speaks.”
Yes you did, but you had nothing to say.
Actually, not only are they harmless, but they are beneficial. They are greening the planet, and any warmth they’ve added, however tiny, is also beneficial. Yes, I know, that goes against your Belief System. Tough noogies.
Yes, you did. But why?
When people begin to switch from first person to third person, and they do it in stride, it is generally indicative of a significant step-up in ones pathway towards their break from reality.
Think about getting help, Really.
Try proving they are not harmless numbnutz.
Name one person Anthropogenic CO2 emissions have ever harmed, just one will do.
If it has never been proven to have harmed any person. Then why are taxes needed to cure a none problem.
I agree RS, you definitely are a fool.
There is not the tiniest shred of evidence to support a belief that CO2 emissions are harmful.
All of the science goes that other way, proving that CO2 emissions are highly beneficial.
And RS has a tag which is meant to deceive. He cant even be honest with his moniker. He has to make it look like he is skeptical when in fact he is one of the worst alarmists on this site.
I exhale in your general direction.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-how-much-more-can-canadians-ask-alberta-to-take
Breaking News! Canada Embargoes Itself!
She is still bending Albertans over though with the existing carbon tax. Her election was a fluke and a mistake that Albertans realized the morning they woke up after the election. She is toast.
Regrettably, there was no Plan B to ingest.
This pipeline was actually not killed for CO2 reasons. It was killed because the government did not consult with native groups enough. It’s true the native groups are funded by Tides. The NDP (Notley) and Liberals (Trudeau) also received electoral support funded by Tides through “grassroots environmental groups” Vivian Krause investigated it thoroughly.
I have also traced the funds through publically available records. It’s not even difficult to do. Vivian Krause’s research is correct, even understated. Complaints that the Liberals and NDP benefitted from foreign funding contrary to election finance laws were quietly dismissed by the Minister (a Liberal). The state funded media, which dominates Canadian news, was dutifully silent.
Notley’s tough language does not reflect any change of heart. It is a piece of political theatre used to cover her true loyalties. The mock outrage and Trudeau’s effeminate “tough talk” are meant to provide cover for the inevitable and orchestrated failure to build the pipeline. Which is exactly what the Tides Foundation and others set out to do. Mission accomplished.
I have concluded that the government and the courts in Canada are deeply corrupt, and our journalists are too meek and stupid to say anything. Our citizens are stupid, credulous people who follow the state media like dolts. God help us. I mean it.
The weird thing is that many natives support the pipeline. It may even be a majority of natives that support it. and a majority of BC residents support the pipeline. And 66% of all Canadians support the pipeline. I have read comments that some native leaders want to buy a stake in the pipeline. In any case money always comes down to it. Most native communities always take the money and run. Environmental concerns be damned.
I am sick and tired of native groups always taking the high road on environment. They arent any more environmentally friendly than anyone else. Canadian native groups have a long history of being bought off on resource projects. It all comes down to money. Russian interference in the environmental movement in Canada is probably the biggest problem. If the Canadian people really felt as environmentally friendly as the greenies like to keep telling us; the Green party would have more seats in the legislatures of Canada.
They have one federal MP, 3 BC provincial seats and 1 Ontario provincial seat. They always will be a fringe party but due to Canadian environmental laws being so strict, they will always have a protester voice far above their numbers, whenever resource issues come to the fore. Canada seems to have hamstrung itself when it comes to resources. I am not against environmental laws but the greenies want to prevent any pipeline, any nuclear, any hydro or any new resource mine or any new fossil fuel project coming on stream. They also want the complete abolition of our present day fossil fuel production. They conveniently forget that when it comes to the consumption side, Canadians consume more than 10000 petajoules of fossil fuels each year. That represents 63% of total energy consumption in Canada. The reason that it isn’t near the world average of over 80% is that hydro in Canada is 26% of total consumption. That must be one of the highest rates in the world. Hydro electric projects are one of the largest disturbances of the environment that there is. Canada is almost all tapped out on new hydro. No wonder!! 26% is amazing. How much money had to go to grease all the native chiefs and councils that let those hydro projects go through over the years?
DP wrote:
“This pipeline was actually not killed for CO2 reasons. It was killed because the government did not consult with native groups enough. It’s true the native groups are funded by Tides. The NDP (Notley) and Liberals (Trudeau) also received electoral support funded by Tides through “grassroots environmental groups” Vivian Krause investigated it thoroughly.”
Alan T wrote:
“I am sick and tired of native groups always taking the high road on environment. They aren’t any more environmentally friendly than anyone else.”
Allan MacRae writes:
I have no arguments with the above comments.
The facts will show that the native groups and everyone else received more-than-adequate consultation on this pipeline.
The multi-year pipeline consultation process has become a farce, where every know-nothing gets his day on the stand to drone on and on, where it takes years rather than months for the consultation process. This process has become a mechanism through which the extreme leftist-green “watermelons” get to sabotage the Canadian economy.
Pipelines are simple to analyze – they are far safer, and far more environmentally friendly than the alternative, which is rail, and there are few constraints to rail transport of oil.
That is what the net result of the hearing process should be – about 30 words – all the rest is a huge waste of time and money, and a gross abuse of process – the window–dressings of a phony democracy.
I also suggest that this judge is part of that problem – and probably has an extreme-leftist personal agenda. Whoever got to pick the judge in this case got to pick the outcome of the decision.
Canada has become a pawn of the extreme left, who have managed to do irreparable harm to our economy, costing us hundreds of thousands of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars – enormous costs for a country of only about 35 million people.
These leftist-extremists are a small minority, but they have excessive control of the media, the government and the courts – it is time to publicly identify them and throw them out. Some of them belong in jail.
Regards, Allan
Her response was weaksauce. She said basically she won’t do anything until after the next provincial and federal elections. There is no there there, except for faux outrage.
Beavers…Americans….where does it stop ?
It’s a good thing Alberta is pulling out of the so-called Canadian climate plan because there’s no way the country will reach its Paris commitments unless it increases its carbon pricing by five fold. This would be political suicide because it would wreck the economy to the point that the current government would be bounced out of office in next year’s federal election. The reality is that the carbon tax is nothing more than a revenue generating device that will have zero effect on global temperatures, and Canadians know it.
It is entirely possible that Trudeau & Co have tanked Canadian manufacturing enough that they will be able to meet the Paris Accord goals. Of course they’ll be Venezuela North by that point, but what the hey…..
If cars and trains and planes could run on green sanctimony, in the age of Justin Trudeau, Canada would be Kuwait.
That sounds just like Australia. The Politician s need to export or we as a country would go broke, but we ignore the fact that those countries burn our coal, thus adding to the CO2 emissions which all go into the same world wide atmosphere. .
But of course they are all Politicians , regardless of their idology
MJJE
https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/kevin-libin-the-pessimists-have-it-right-assassins-are-gunning-for-trans-mountain
Activist judges moving the goal posts. Nothing can be done if everyone has a veto.
Keystone XL, Energy East, Enbridge Northern Gateway, Trans Mountain, … lots of pipeline proposals, nothing ever gets approved. It’s also nearly impossible to build new refineries too.
California needs this oil!
https://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/canada-dreams-of-oil-exports-to-asia-but-california-beckons
https://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/amid-trump-trade-war-trans-mountains-asia-appeal-grows-crucial
I posted the following in June and it is still right-on-the-money.
Contrary to speculation, I cannot actually see the future – I just study the past, and extrapolate.
The leftist extremists are in control, and to date nobody has had the courage to fight them.
Unless this changes soon, Canada as we know it is finished.
Regards, Allan
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/27/100-renewables-by-2035-surprise-new-york-primary-winner-takes-on-democrat-climate-moderates/#comment-2391692
[excerpt]
When Marxists want to sabotage a country, they increase energy costs unnecessarily, which cripples the economy. That is the left’s strategy, and it is working, except in the USA, China and a few other countries.
A key leftist strategy is to cripple the energy industry – examples are endless regulatory snarls and successful anti-pipeline movements – these have cost Canada $120 billion in lost revenues – a huge amount of money that should have been available for industrial re-investment, job creation, health, education, etc.
The leftists were the scourge of the 20th Century – Hitler, Stalin and Mao killed a total of about 200 million people. Almost 200 countries that once had viable economies are on a downward spiral – Zimbabwe and Venezuela lead the way, but many others follow. That is the Marxist agenda, and it is working.
Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Blah blah. Please check facts. Its oil sands. Its hydro cracked on site. It is not heavy nor is it bitumen, it is refined
Quote
Suncor’s Upgrading operations process bitumen into higher-value synthetic crude oil and diesel fuel using two upgraders at its oil sands site in Fort McMurray. Suncor also operates upgrading assets at its Edmonton refinery.
http://www.suncor.com/about-us/oil-sands/process
unquote
You see how it gets annoying..
Grey – you are preaching to the choir – and I suggest that I know just a bit more about the oil sands than you. Perhaps your comments were intended for elsewhere on this page.
Suncor use delayed coking for primary upgrading. Not sure if they ever added hydrocracking later on –but not in the early stages of the Suncor plant.
Syncrude use fluid coking (Exxon technology), and also have one hydrocracker, called an LC-Finer (Lummis-Cities technology). I co-wrote the AFE for it in 1984.
Both plants use hydrotreating to remove impurities.
I posted the following prior to your above post:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/08/31/pipeline-fury-alberta-withdraws-from-canadas-national-climate-plan/#comment-2445486
Donald – your comments are not only abrasive, they are misleading.
For the record, I chaired the Syncrude Technical Committee, the Mining Committee and the Synthetic Crude Oil Quality Task Force, which recommended major investments that were implemented to improve synthetic crude oil quality to meet new diesel and jet fuel specs.
Athabasca Bitumen is ~9 degrees API and sour, and some of it is marketed as such, typically diluted with condensate so it can be shipped by pipeline. Bitumen is also shipped by rail.
However, the big Athabasca oil sands projects upgrade bitumen to a ~32 degree API sweet bottomless synthetic crude oil that is shipped by pipeline to refineries, where it is refined into gasoline, diesel, jet, and fuel oils.
Canada? What’s that?
Canada is the fifth-largest oil producer in the world and the largest foreign supplier of oil and other forms of energy (e.g. electricity) to the USA.
And energy is the lifeblood of society – without it, most people in the developed world would simply freeze and starve to death. That means you and your family.
It IS that simple.
____________________
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON GLOBAL ENERGY
For the record, 85% of global primary energy is fossil fuels – oil, coal and natural gas. The rest is almost all hydro and nuclear.
Without massive wasted subsidies, the total amount of green energy generated into the electrical grid would be about ZERO.
The fatal flaw of grid-connected green energy is intermittency, and there is no practical solution for most of the world.
Claims of super-batteries to level-out the grid are green fantasies at this time, except for rare cases where pumped-storage systems can be retrofitted to hydro projects – and you need a huge reservoir at the BOTTOM of the dam, which hardly ever exists.
Years ago in Alberta, wind power generators were paid up to 20 cents/KWh for non-dispatchable intermittent power. That compared to 4-5 cents/KWh for dispatchable power from natural gas or coal generation..
When the wind blew hard and there was surplus wind power, Alberta still paid the full price to the wind power producers, and then gave the power away to British Columbia or the Western States, who had the hydro power to offset the wind power. This is because surplus wind power cannot be stored in the grid.
Sometimes, Alberta even had to pay our neighbors to take our surplus power. Yes, really!
It took a really stupid politician, or a really clever crook, to come up with such a costly and ridiculous scheme, which is common worldwide.
Alberta wind power producers are reportedly paid less today, but the costly scam/scheme remains – and dispatchable power producers also have to cut back generation at their own cost, because wind power gets first-in access into the grid.
If you think this is ridiculous, outrageous, and a total scam, you are starting to see clearly – we have been sold this scam by the wind power industry and its minions, and it is costing us a fortune is rising electricity costs, and reduced grid reliability.
Repeating:
It took a really stupid politician, or a really clever crook, to come up with such a costly and ridiculous scheme.
Allan, as you probably know, we have been living with the same nonsense in Ontario for years now. Buying power from the wind guys at 18¢/kWh and, when it wasn’t needed because you can’t just turn off the nuclear base load, dumping it on New York or Pennsylvania at 3¢. As business models go, it’s pretty feeble.
Our new provincial government is trying to clean up this silliness. It won’t be easy and it won’t be cheap and it won’t be pretty; I hope they stick it out to the end because it’s better to pay now to be rid of this idiocy, rather than keep on paying for decades to come.
“It took a really stupid politician, or a really clever crook, to come up with such a costly and ridiculous scheme”
It took both, acting in concert. In other words, a conspiracy.
My expert advice to Ontario is this:
Dump the wind and solar power contracts – cancel them!
Let the green energy scammers sue you, and counter-sue them and their co-conspirators for the billions they have stolen from power consumers.
Mr . Dress Up will have a Pipeline pipe with the straggler bands , write them all hurt feelings cheques and
then the full scale rip off of tax payers can begin . One must wonder why the shippers are still hanging around given the exploding costs ? Could it be that all the risks of overruns are now on the tax payers tab like they were originally and became the reason Kinder Morgan was looking for a sucker to buy this pig .
Mr . Dress Up was duped .
It’s not a question of whether the diluted bitumen (NOT oil) will be transported or left in place. It’s whether it will be piped more safely or sent by rail car less safely.
But then, logic and green-brainedness seem to be incompatible.
Typical Canadian socialist wing nut. We are withdrawing from the climate plan but we will keep the punitive tax because we can. Canadians are as dumb as a bag of rocks.
The United States elected Trump, and Canada wasn’t to be outdone, so they elected a drama coach with about as much savvy as a drama coach when it comes to politics. The idiocy of the push me- pull you game of being climate alarmist but also an advocate of oil exporting is coming home to roost for the clown prince.
The Canadian constitution gives ownership of resources to the provinces. The feds want the money.
The feds fund eco-kooks and the rent-a-chiefs from the Indian bands to sue to stop development of the provincially owned resources. Federal courts comply.
When the federal government gets its “fair share” (80% – 90%) of the loot, the pipelines will be approved in a New York minute.
p.s. Federal greed only applies to western resources. Ontario and Quebec, which control the federal government, get to keep their own resources.
All Greens Hate All Extractives. * *Rare Earth mining by children is fine.
“I personally believe anthropogenic CO2 emissions are harmless.”
I personally believe anthropogenic CO2 emissions saved us from a cascading extinction event when CO2 levels dipped below ~190, starting with green plants and ending with the last surviving carnivores eating one another.
I’m not so sure Trudeau is all that opposed to female genital mutilation. They took the topic out of the latest edition of the Federal Guide to immigrants.
“Why would our Liberal government take FGM out of the citizens guide? Why would Trudeau not want to educate new comers on this issue? It is quite perplexing and frustrating to say the least…
Perhaps Trudeau is planning on decriminalizing FGM practices here in Canada. Maybe this is just precursor for more to come in the way of allowing this horrendous practice to take place in our beautiful country. It wouldn’t be too far fetched considering our PM’s infatuation with the religion of “peace” and his desire to promote it at great lengths.”
https://ronnycameron.com/2017/11/29/trudeau-government-to-cut-female-genital-mutilation-from-citizenship-guide-video/
Trudeau and his virtue signalers wanted this pipeline expansion shut down . It just took 5 years of foot dragging and over $ 4 billion of additional tax payer debt to do it , only to undone by political necessity .
The vast majority of First nations have been satisfactorily bought off and now the few remaining
hurt feelings whiners and their pale face lawyers can hardly wait for Prime Minister Dress Up to hand them shut up money .
Funny they never have their pictures taken with their ambulance chaser lawyers .
Ever wonder why the shippers haven’t walked from this project that has nearly doubled in cost ?
When they are not at risk why would they .
This boone doggle will cost tax payers at least $10 billion .
” withdrawal from Federal carbon pricing, though she plans to keep the Alberta province carbon tax.”
I see they are keeping the tax. Once enacted, a tax never goes away.
These politicians couldn’t lie straight in bed …
Notley is a socilaist Premier who won the job by accident in a split election. But even she can only tolerate the BS up to a point.
Karma is a biiitch.
I have sympathy for the citizens of AB but non whatsoever for Notley.
I distinctly remember time after time when Notley and her cohorts maligned the resource industry of Alberta. Remember the little rallys with her “No more pipeline” meme prior to the election. Now her former mentor and little friend Butts is in Ottawa pursuing the same agenda on the grander stage by bending the ear of Trudeau.
Canada is finished, as long as the country is now an oligarchy controlled by the courts we will be subject to supercilious judges debating how many carbon credits can balance on the head of a pin instead of competent entrepreneurs with real skin in the game. Notice always how the leftist progressive green global socialists will revert to the courts to circumvent election setbacks.
Perhaps one day the courts will revert to the real laws and actually defend property rights and progress.
Carbon taxes are the new VAT tax and climate is just a convenient boogey man to start one and then keep raising it just like VAT.
I don’t know much about Canadian politics, but if I was an Albertan I would certainly be rather upset. I wonder if it’s feasible for Alberta to become independent from Canada? Ship the oil South through pipelines to the US. And make it more difficult for BC to ship a product to the rest of Canada (unless compromises are made). Probably constitutionally not possible for Alberta? But, that’s what I might think about doing…
Alberta is the economic mainstay of Canada – through tax transfers, the average Alberta family-of-four has supported the rest-of-Canada with a donation of about one million dollars over the past two generations. (Reference: Mansell and Schlenker w/ updates)
In return, the Trudeau’s (père et fils) have savaged Alberta with punitive and extortive government policies that have caused great harm to every family. Trudeau père destroyed our economy with the National Energy Program. Trudeau fils is following suit through “climate change” fantasies and pipeline strangulation.
It is impossible to believe that the Trudeau’s and their odious ilk (Climate Barbie et al) could be this stupid – it has to be deliberate malice – pro-Quebec and anti-the rest-of-Canada, especially against those work hard and create the real wealth of this country.
Canada (MOSTLY ALBERTA – a province of only about 4 million people) is the 5th-largest oil producer in the world and the largest foreign supplier of oil to the USA.
There is no rational reason for Alberta to stay in Canada. Canada is governed by socialist saboteurs, the transfer payments reward regional dysfunction and sloth, and our courts are a charade of extremist bias, corruption and incompetence.
Canada stays together largely because of a proud shared history and the emotional attachment that we have to our past. Our future is bleak, given the current Marxist/Progressive trajectory – we are governed by scoundrels and imbeciles.
It’s long past time to find a leader that will make Canada great again.
You can easily find lots of anti-pipeline “information”. What is much harder to find is intelligent commentary by an unbiased informed scientist. There is one site that I have found:
https://achemistinlangley.net/2018/09/01/on-southern-resident-killer-whales-and-the-trans-mountain-expansion-project/
All good points, thank you Toto, but the greens are NOT really interested in the environment – it is merely a false green front for their Marxist political objectives.
Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, provides a history of the rise of eco-extremism, below. Moore says that the far-left political movement effectively annexed the green movement after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when pro-Soviet groups were discredited and needed to find a new power base for their far-left political agenda.
The extremists have obviously succeeded. Governments, academia, the media and large corporations are all cowed into submission. Leading scientists have been ousted from their universities for speaking and writing the truth. Only a few tenured or retired professors and the occasional renegade dares to speak out, and many use aliases for fear of retaliation.
I suggest it is time for all those who have been cowed into submission by the bullying of global warming alarmists to grow a pair and stand strong for your convictions.
Despite increasing atmospheric CO2, there has been little or no global warming for almost 20 years. Climate is relatively INsensitive to increasing CO2.
Regards, Allan MacRae
The Rise of Eco-Extremism
by Patrick Moore (1994)
http://www.ecosense.me/index.php/key-environmental-issues/10-key-environmental-issues/208-key-environmental-issues-4
Right. Does this sound familiar?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/17/u-s-coal-industry-growth/
its utterly hypocritical that Premier Notley wants to keep her Alberta province carbon tax.
Cut her some slack! She has moved a step in the right direction. To use a WW1 analogy, “grab and hold” which sticks (general Plumer) is better than grandiose offensives which fail (general Haig).
The cup is half full, not half empty.
But but, all the crude oil produced can be transported in semi-truck tanks via the Coquihalla Summit to the haven of Vancouver.