Oilsands optimism on the downslide

canada.com

The oilsands continue to take public relations hits across the globe. Just recently the Keystone pipeline leaked yet again making for the forth pipeline leak in relation to oilsands pipelines in the last 2 months, 2 of which occured in Alberta. In the midst of all of the bad public relations it seems a very important long term trend has been overlooked: Canada has significantly decreased it's expected oilsands output.

In 2005 the alberta government released a video of their current plans for Alberta's oil economy:

The video makes an estimate that Canadian oil output will be 5million barrels per day by 2030, however just recently the Guardian released an article about Canadian oilsands which contains an interesting little blurb:

Output will increase five-fold to 5m barrels of dirty oil a day by 2040.

Now obviously this author is biased against oilsands oil, and in being so could have his facts wrong. He doesn't source where this output estimate comes from. If he is correct however, that means in the last 6 years, Alberta (and Canada) have significantly lowered their output expectations.

Going by Alberta's original video, over a period of 25 years we would see gains of about 140000 barrels per year. But if the 2040 estimation can be believed we will be seeing a yearly increase of only 100000 barrels per year over a period of 29 years. (Calculations based off 1.5m barrels / day in 2005, 2m barrels / day today).

So what could this indicate? Well for one, it indicates that prior to 2008 economic turbulence probably was not considered by the Alberta Government. Indeed their attitude at the time was "We're in a boom, we have money, it'll never end!", well until it did end that is. It tells us that Canada is overly-optimistic of their production capacity during a time when the input costs are an unknown (the gas and water and electricity needed to power the oilsands operations).

With an estimate of 5m barrels by 2040, I am now forced to lower my estimates of a peak of 3.5m barrels in 2020 to 3m barrels in 2015. We'll never reach the 5million mark, as oil price lead depressions will destroy demand as soon as any sort of production ramps up, causing the sorts of shutdowns we saw in 2008/2009.

Alberta, you need a new plan, and Canada: we'll never become an energy super-power if we expect to get our energy from the energy intensive, unstable, and fiscally impossible oilsands industry.

* Update: Changed calculation results from fractions to whole barrels produced.

Earth Hour: An hour long energy waste



Tokyo sits in darkness during a rolling blackout / bionicbong.com



15 minutes until Earth Hour here in Edmonton Alberta and I for one will not be turning out my lights or avoiding the use of electricity. Probably an odd statement coming from me for those who know me or read this blog. But why? You might be asking, isn't the reduction in power usage what you advocate? And indeed it is what I advocate, so please let me explain.

Earth Hour is an interesting phenomenon, according to their website:

Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million individuals and more than 2,000 businesses turned their lights off for one hour to take a stand against climate change. Only a year later and Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries/territories participating. Global landmarks such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, CN Tower in Toronto, Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Colosseum, all stood in darkness, as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour.

Climate change is what they are standing up against, not oil consumption, or the debt based infinite growth economy. Seems like a good cause anyway though right? I mean who doesn't want to help the planet? Who wants more extreme weather? Certainly not me, I can't stand the Canadian cold as it is.

My main question though of course is: how exactly does turning off the lights for an hour stand up to climate change? At the end of this hour we all know you are going to turn the lights back on, unlike the Japanese shown above who have been forced to have rolling "earth hours" for 6-8 hours at a time.

Here's the big fact that opposses the climate change philosophy of earth hour: power plants are still producing the same amount of power. Just because you are not using this energy, does not mean it is not being generated and essentially wasted. Power plants can not simply ramp up or down the amount of generating capacity at a whim. Power production relies heavily on anticipated usage so that they can ensure that the proper amount of power is being generated at any given time to meet demand without too much waste. What do you think an event like earth hour does to the anticipatory abilities of this power production? Well because it is voluntary it is therefore unpredictable. It is not known how many people will or will not be using power, and the hour long duration doesn't offer enough time to bother adjusting power output.

So, because you are not using power, is that power being saved? No, in fact its being wasted. Earth Hour wastes power, and all for some irrelevant symbology to appease our guilty earth destroying consciousness. We will produce excess energy for this hour all so that we can feel as though we are not wasting any.

So I will not be participating, and I hope you don't either. Proudly use the power being generated, because it will be generated regardless of whether you decide to use it or not. Earth Hour is the illusion of change, without having to change anything. Earth Hour should really be called "Us Hour", because truthfully it is all about our feelings about power usage and has little or nothing to do with genuine concern for the Earth or any sort of lasting change.

Update & note: For those who say "Earth Hour" is about raising awareness about climate change or energy consumption; consider that using this sort of logic that "wasting it shows you want to conserve it", it would then make sense to go around burning the money in your wallet. Not spending it, but literally lighting it on fire in waste. Under the logic of earth hour this should help raise awareness that saving money is a good idea.... Yea, it doesn't make sense to me either.