Oil is Dead.
The oil-sands fundamentals are dire and stark – and Canada shouldn’t spend to revive a dying dream
Peak oil is near – not because of oil scarcity, but because demand is slowing. Electric cars are getting cheaper and better, climate polices are getting stronger, and now COVID-19 has accelerated workplace changes that have and will continue to reduce commuting and business travel.
On the supply side, technological change is also making oil extraction cheaper and more competitive. Fracking of tight oil is a relatively inexpensive option that can be ramped up quickly and inexpensively compared with projects in the oil sands, which require significant capital and time investment.
While the growth of global climate policy is unsteady, humanity can’t dodge climate reality, and policies will have to grow stronger. Youth will win the Greta vs. Trump battle. Perhaps quickly. And while our oil is more ethical than Saudi Arabia’s or Russia’s, global markets have not figured out how to price human rights into the cost of a barrel, and it is hard to imagine they ever will.
Continuing to invest significant funds into maintaining sales in a shrinking market is a bad business proposition and a bad use of public funds. We should let carbon pricing and regulation drive the cost-competitive emission reductions that should be pursued by the companies themselves.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opi...ntals-are-dire-and-stark-and-canada-shouldnt/
I like how you post opinions as fact.
Huh, here's another article (opinion) from the Globe and Mail about Canada's oil sands:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opi...eaEBoOjp-bT2yjMorCxG0rGS-Nka6kL5Z9rYvQ08mmvH4
Back in May, when the federal government published its guidance on which sectors would be deemed “critical infrastructure” during the COVID-19 pandemic, energy and utilities topped its
list of 10 vital functions.
This acknowledgment made perfect sense. Without refineries, pipelines, terminals, road and rail transport, control rooms and centres, drilling, extraction, onshore and offshore production, processing, gas stations, truck stops and chemical manufacturing – to name just some of the activities singled out as essential – life as we live it today would simply not be possible.
It wouldn’t have just been Canadians’ daily lives that would be disrupted; energy and utilities are how Canada makes a living. Oil and natural gas exports make up one-fifth of the value of Canada’s exports, letting us acquire things we prefer not to do without and would have difficulty making ourselves. And since 162 billion of Canada’s 168 billion barrels of oil reserves are in the Alberta oil sands deposits, the federal government might as well have declared the oil sands themselves to be essential.
So it is confusing to hear, from some corners, that the demise of the oil sands is looming. Indeed, politicians such as former Green Party leader Elizabeth May and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet went so far as to declare oil wasn’t just dying, but was already dead.
(What's interesting about Blanchet's stupid opinion is he doesn't think it's dead enough to put an end to Quebec's refining industry)
In truth, the oil sands are into the midpoint of its thriving story, certainly not its end. And in some cases, we’re on the brink of something new: Within 30 months, the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion to the West Coast will be complete, allowing the steady and sizable export by sea of oil sands crude for the first time in Canadian history.
Oil still supplies a significant percentage of the world’s energy needs – 32 per cent, according to
updated International Energy Agency statistics published last month. Global oil demand is projected to rebound in 2021 and Asia will account for 77 per cent of oil demand growth through 2025.