Alberta Oilsands named highest cost/risk investment in Oil sector

Cliffy

Standing Member
Nov 19, 2008
44,850
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Nakusp, BC
Industry has done little to eliminate the tailing ponds at the Tar Sands. It is estimated 200 000 birds lind in these ponds yearly.
Not to mention the drastic rise in cancer rates of aboriginals living in the vicinity and downstream. It is always someone else who pays the price for some peoples greed.
 

mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
39,778
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There, there; don't be too hard on yourself here.

Besides, it's not just your one post you've identified, it's fair to say that all your posts are equally as dumb, so at least you can boast that you are consistent!

Statistically speaking you've been proven wrong a million times more than me.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
109,426
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Low Earth Orbit
Not to mention the drastic rise in cancer rates of aboriginals living in the vicinity and downstream. It is always someone else who pays the price for some peoples greed.

Downstream on the west side of the river only. On the east side they are prospering and in great health.

It's time you got a job in resources like a real Indian.
 

Cobalt_Kid

Council Member
Feb 3, 2007
1,760
17
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The 'report' is dead wrong.

Oilsands are the highest capital costs, but have little risk.

That's true if we continue to ignore reality.

The evidence is that the most carbon intense sources of energy are going to become more vulnerable to risk as time goes on and the cost of climate change becomes greater. Right now the fossil fuel sector is only able to maintain it's current model by externalizing much of the cost of emitting so much CO2 and other negative impacts. This will inevitably result in legal actions being taken to redress damage that is caused by using such carbon intense sources of power.

There's also the challenge of getting such a difficult product to market as we've seen with recent and often deadly accidents with trains carrying crude. Moving dilbit to pipeline transportation is going to have it's own challenges as it's far more viscous, acidic and abrasive than light crude.

Instead of investing what will be trillions of dollars over the next several decades on unconventional fossil fuels, we could instead be building a low carbon energy model that relied on nuclear, synthetics, and renewables. The question isn't if the energy is there or can it be developed sustainably, it's how do we get the big players in the energy sector to wake up to reality and move out of areas that are no longer sustainable.
 

Tecumsehsbones

Hall of Fame Member
Mar 18, 2013
55,657
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The question isn't if the energy is there or can it be developed sustainably, it's how do we get the big players in the energy sector to wake up to reality and move out of areas that are no longer sustainable.
And the answer is "money." Such a simple answer, and yet it continues to elude lefties.

Go figure.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
109,426
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Low Earth Orbit
Cool report written by people with a financial stake in the solar industry.

We need more just like it posted as "official truth".

The key elements making up the entity that is the Carbon Tracker Initiative are as follows:

Jeremy Leggett, Chairman
Jeremy Leggett is the founder and chairman of SolarCentury, an international solar solutions company, and Solar Aid, an African solar lighting charity. An Entrepreneur of the Year at the New Energy Awards and a CNN Principal Voice, Jeremy convened the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security and is a founding director of the world’s first private equity fund for renewable energy, Bank Sarasin’s New Energies Invest, where he has been a non-executive board member for twelve years.
 

mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
39,778
454
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Cool report written by people with a financial stake in the solar industry.

We need more just like it posted as "official truth".

The key elements making up the entity that is the Carbon Tracker Initiative are as follows:

Jeremy Leggett, Chairman
Jeremy Leggett is the founder and chairman of SolarCentury, an international solar solutions company, and Solar Aid, an African solar lighting charity. An Entrepreneur of the Year at the New Energy Awards and a CNN Principal Voice, Jeremy convened the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security and is a founding director of the world’s first private equity fund for renewable energy, Bank Sarasin’s New Energies Invest, where he has been a non-executive board member for twelve years.


Apparently people from the solar field actually know more about economics than you do.

Who woulda thunkit.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
109,426
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They do? Like the other dipsh-ts you swore up and down were right in calling tax credits subsidies?

Here is what subsidies do.....

The sorry lessons of green-power subsidies

A recent study, co-authored by Fraser Institute energy economist Gerry Angevine, found that Ontario residents will pay an average of $285-million more for electricity each year for the next 20 years as a result of subsidies to renewable energy companies.

By the end of 2013, Ontario household power rates will be the second-highest in North America (after PEI), and they will continue to accelerate while they level off in most other jurisdictions. Even more alarming for Ontario’s economic competitiveness, businesses and industrial customers will be hit by almost $12-billion in additional costs over the same period

Such is the legacy of the provincial government’s 2009 decision to establish feed-in rates, ranging from 44.5 cents to 80.2 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for solar power, and 13.5 cents/kWh for wind power. These solar feed-in rates average 11 times the 5.6 cents/kWh paid for nuclear-generated power, and 18 times the 3.5 cents/kWh for hydro-generated power. The wind-power rates are more than twice as high as nuclear, and four times those of hydro.

Besides the direct cost of these huge subsidies, there’s also a big hidden cost of fossil-fuelled standby facilities, because the wind doesn’t always blow and the Ontario sun certainly doesn’t always shine.

Faced with rising consumer reaction, the provincial government recently announced modest reductions to the feed-in rates, but they do nothing to change the results of the Fraser study because thousands of contracts have been guaranteed the higher rates for the next 20 years.

Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty has predicted that the subsidies will propel Ontario to a world-leading position in green-power technology, creating thousands of jobs. Sadly, the Fraser study shows quite the opposite as the province’s already beleaguered manufacturing heartland sees its former electricity-cost advantage transformed into a competitive millstone.

Ontario isn’t the only place where grand green-power dreams have turned into a nightmare.

Several European countries began doling out subsidies nearly a decade ago. Germany has given away $130-billion, mostly to solar-power companies. Yet solar power makes up a minuscule 0.3 per cent of German power supply, while doing almost nothing toward the original objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In February, Germany’s Minister of Economics and Technology, Philipp Roesler, announced a pullback from green-power subsidies saying the cost was “a threat to the economy.”

Spain also poured cash into solar- and wind-power subsidies with little to show for it except a $25-billion increase in its national debt. And British consumers have grown increasingly outraged about paying some $700-million a year in wind-farm subsidies that produce less than 0.5 per cent of power demand.

In the United States, green-power companies have received more than $4-billion (U.S.) to build wind farms as part of the Obama administration’s massive job-stimulus program. A recent Wall Street Journal investigation found that those projects created a total of 7,200 temporary construction jobs and only 300 permanent jobs.

Federal grants and loan guarantees were also awarded to companies with rickety business plans. Last September, California-based Solyndra LLC sought bankruptcy protection after receiving $535-million in loan guarantees to build a solar-panel factory. This month, Solar Trust of America filed for bankruptcy after failing to meet the terms a $2.1-billion loan guarantee to build what was to be the world’s largest solar-power generation plant.

It isn’t only energy consumers and taxpayers who have been hit by the green-power mania. The Globe and Mail reported in February that 10 wind- and solar-equipment makers in China, India, Europe and the U.S. have seen their share prices collapse by between price of their shares collapse by between 85 per cent and 98 per cent since 2008. A combination of ineffectual environmental benefit, escalating power costs and debilitating government deficits have driven a precipitous drop in the outlook for green-power subsidies.

The lessons of the green-power debacle are clear. For governments, the message is that forcing consumers and taxpayers to subsidize any business almost always leads to economic damage and political unpopularity. For investors, the lesson is that companies living on government subsidies may die when the handouts stop.
 

Cobalt_Kid

Council Member
Feb 3, 2007
1,760
17
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And the answer is "money." Such a simple answer, and yet it continues to elude lefties.

Go figure.

Shut up troll, you're back on ignore.

btw, being for things like nuclear power, electric highways, high tech in general, true democratic representation, investing in the real future industries like rare earths and the associated high tech industries that use them only makes someone a lefty in the mind of an idiot.
 

mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
39,778
454
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Petros, I know you are still bitter over your inability to read the word subsidy, but you should really keep that salt to one thread.