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Power

Canada's Energy Superpower Status Threatened As World Shifts Off Fossil Fuel (www.cbc.ca) 327

Robson Fletcher, reporting for CBC News: Canada's status as an "energy superpower" is under threat because the global dominance of fossil fuels could wane faster than previously believed, according to a draft report from a federal government think-tank obtained by CBC News. "It is increasingly plausible to foresee a future in which cheap renewable electricity becomes the world's primary power source and fossil fuels are relegated to a minority status," reads the conclusion of the 32-page document, produced by Policy Horizons Canada. "It's absolutely not pie in the sky," said Michal Moore from the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy. "These folks are being realistic -- they may not be popular, but they're being realistic." Marty Reed, CEO of Evok Innovations -- a Vancouver-based cleantech fund created through a $100-million partnership with Cenovus and Suncor -- had a similar take after reading the draft report.
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Canada's Energy Superpower Status Threatened As World Shifts Off Fossil Fuel

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30, 2016 @01:25PM (#52211761)

    I predict these views will be censored and modded to -1. For a community that supposedly favors the free and open exchange of ideas, Slashdot isn't very tolerant of opposing views. Voicing my opinion that AGW is a scam will result in my post being censored to -1. If AGW were real, there would be no need to censor dissenting views; the facts would prove the point far better than any moderation. The censorship is necessary because the facts aren't on the side of the AGW evangelists.

    • by SirSlud ( 67381 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @01:27PM (#52211775) Homepage

      You need to know the definitions of censorship before you cry about it.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by davester666 ( 731373 )

        This is a suspect phrase: "cheap renewable electricity".

        It will only be "cheaper" by boosting the prices for all other types of electricity.

        • by bravecanadian ( 638315 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @02:34PM (#52212251)

          This is a suspect phrase: "cheap renewable electricity".

          It will only be "cheaper" by boosting the prices for all other types of electricity.

          Boosting by attempting to properly price the complete costs of existing sources of energy to include all their current externalities?

          • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

            by sycodon ( 149926 )

            Fossil fuels have enabled civilization to progress more in the last 150 years or so they've been in use, than in all of man's history.

            Any "externalities" you might imagine have long since been paid for through the scientific and manufacturing technology that fossil fuels have enabled.

            • by BlackSabbath ( 118110 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @08:49PM (#52214273)

              "...Fossil fuels have enabled civilization to progress more in the last 150 years or so they've been in use, than in all of man's history..."

              A similar assertion could have been made for slavery. However that's not a valid reason alone to keep it.

            • > Any "externalities" you might imagine have long since been paid for through the scientific and manufacturing technology that fossil fuels have enabled.

              So, you're saying that (for example) the tens of thousands of people that die each year, in say, the UK alone, from largely invisible air pollution, much of which is due to burning fossil fuels, has been 'paid for'???

              Sorry, no, you just pegged my bullshit meter.

      • by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @02:47PM (#52212343)

        ^

        Even though I staunchly support freedom of speech, part of the first amendment in the US also means you have freedom of association. That means that a private organization can squelch whatever speech they want so long as it's within their own domain. Censorship is only when somebody who is within a public domain or are outside of a domain that you control is curtailing your speech while you are in said domain.

        Because slashdot is neither a public domain, nor a domain that you control, then nothing anybody can do to you can be considered censorship.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You will probably be modded to -1, not because of censorship, but because your whiny post contains nothing but a self-fulfilling prophecy that nobody will care what you have to say.

      Not that anyone will read this post either. We'll circle the drain together.

    • by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @01:41PM (#52211863)

      We're going to wean ourselves off fossil fuels faster than anyone thinks? I'm not sure how that's going to happen.

      It's clearly going to take a generation or two to transition to electric vehicles, and even then, anyone who needs a long-hauler or high-endurance vehicle isn't going to switch to EVs, as they're not very practical for that. How about air travel? No good alternatives there for liquid hydrocarbon fuels - at least not that I can think of. Ships and ocean-going vessels? I don't think there are any realistic alternatives there. Manufacturing? Nope, lots of oil-based products still needed. And while bio-fuels or alternatives can take up some of this, we're a long, long way from having a realistic capacity to make up the difference. What am I missing here?

      It's obvious that fossil fuel use certainly will wane, and electricity will take up the slack where possible, because that makes sense, but in reading the paper, they seem to skip over a number of thorny issues where there simply weren't yet practical alternatives to fossil fuels.

      "At a minimum, this plausible future would suggest that governments ensure that the risks of further investments in oil and gas infrastructure be borne by private interests rather than taxpayers," the report reads.

      Ah... okay, I get it.

      • by Layzej ( 1976930 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @02:01PM (#52212005)

        We're going to wean ourselves off fossil fuels faster than anyone thinks? I'm not sure how that's going to happen.

        According to Bloomberg Business, "Electric Cars Could Wreak Havoc on Oil Markets Within a Decade" [youtube.com]

        Conventional energy will be obsolete by 2030 according to Swedbank: there are four key categories of technologies all of which are improving by double and triple digit basis every year. Each one of them is disruptive in it's own way. [youtube.com]

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Hylandr ( 813770 )

          a Vancouver-based cleantech fund

          Another 'company' with everything to benefit from x going away by declaring 'X is dead' 'fossil fuels are on the way out' Sick of this "x is dead' shit.

          PC's are dead, Facebook is dead, or PC's will destroy your children, Facebook is bad for you, smart phones are destroying our youth.

          At least before the WWW became popular you could identify these whack-jobs because they wore the 'End is now' signs.

          • by Layzej ( 1976930 )
            The group that developed this study was created and mandated by Canada's privy council. Canada does not exactly benefit from the findings of this study. And what about Bloomberg Business and Swedbank? Are they also "Whack-Jobs"?
          • by merky1 ( 83978 )

            I think that the difference here is that given the current trends, it is foreseeable that mining,transporting,burning,disposing of fossil fuels will out cost renewable sources. If you think back to the 70's, nobody was doing wind efficiently. Now, there are wind farms all over the place. If energy storage / refill becomes easier in cars, you better believe that in 10 years gas stations will be uncommon, if not rare. Sort of like the transition from leaded to unleaded. It may take a decade or two, but I

          • Nice editing (Score:5, Informative)

            by Comboman ( 895500 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @03:27PM (#52212599)

            a Vancouver-based cleantech fund

            Another 'company' with everything to benefit from x going away by declaring 'X is dead' 'fossil fuels are on the way out' Sick of this "x is dead' shit.

            Nice bit of editing there. The full quote is:

            a Vancouver-based cleantech fund created through a $100-million partnership with Cenovus and Suncor

            In case you don't know, Cenovus [wikipedia.org] and Suncor [wikipedia.org] are major producers of dirty Canadian tar-sand oil. So a more accurate assessment would be:

            Another company with everything to lose by declaring fossil fuels are on the way out is hedging its bets.

        • by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @02:41PM (#52212291)

          Like I said, it's inevitable that the oil market shrinks, but that video didn't address the areas where electricity isn't practical. Neither did the paper. The speaker asserts that "all new vehicles will be electric by 2025. What about vehicles that regularly need to travel more than 300 miles? There are still a lot of those, and he never addresses those points. I agree with a lot of his analyses, but not his conclusions, and I think his timelines are a bit optimistic as well. The notion of your house and car being able to transfer energy on demand (both ways) was sort of an interesting idea, though, and one I hadn't heard before. But again, I think his timeline of 2030 is a decade too early at a minimum. Infrastructure changes *very* slowly, so I think you'll see a slow transition over decades rather than a quick switch, as he seems to be promising.

          About three-quarters of what gets refined from every barrel goes to transportation needs. Some of that is cars, but planes, trains, and trucks fall into those categories, and electricity won't work for all of those. Gasoline apparently accounts for 43% of the market, so let's assume those can ALL be replaced by EVs (which I think is optimistic as well) for argument's sake.

          That's a good start, but what replaces the other half of the current oil market? We're still going to need some sort of hydrocarbon-based fuel to fuel planes, power ships, and drive long haul vehicles until some miracle energy source replaces it, or until we're generating so much excess electricity that we can afford to use that excess to create synthetic or alternative fuels with it. And that doesn't even address the other uses for oil which are non-transportation. In the near future, it seems more likely that we're going to struggle building capacity for the massively increased demand for electricity as we transition from gas-powered cars to EVs.

          At the moment, I think it's wildly optimistic for anyone to assume the oil industry isn't going to still have a very long lifespan ahead of it, even if in a reduced capacity.

          • by Layzej ( 1976930 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @02:53PM (#52212393)

            Like I said, it's inevitable that the oil market shrinks, but that video didn't address the areas where electricity isn't practical.

            That doesn't matter much to Canada. Canadian oil is expensive to extract. It is not economical even at the current price. Canada needs demand to grow substantially in order for its oil to become economical once again. If demand drops at all then it is game over for oil extraction in Canada. Analysts are expecting demand to drop substantially and in relatively short order.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @03:00PM (#52212441) Homepage Journal

        If it takes a generation or two to transition to electric vehicles, we are screwed. I think it will probably take one generation. By about 2025 they will be as cheap to buy as petrol cars and much, much cheaper to run. The second hand market will also have taken off.

        The real tipping point is closer than you think. It's not when 90% of vehicles are not using fossil fuels, it's when demand starts to fall significantly enough that it has a major financial impact on Canada and other countries currently doing quite well out of them.

        • I think it will probably take one generation.

          The true believers keep saying this. What the hell - are you all poor at math?

          The average age of cars on the road right now is around 11 years. If every single new car buyer, starting right now, bought an electric car over an ICE car, you have a minimum of 11 years before a mere half the cars on the road are electrics.

          Over a decade - that's your best case scenario, where everybody stops buying ICE immediately and buys electric. But that is not what is happening, is it? So that's your lower bound - 11 years

      • by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh.gmail@com> on Monday May 30, 2016 @03:18PM (#52212547) Journal

        It's clearly going to take a generation or two to transition to electric vehicles, and even then, anyone who needs a long-hauler or high-endurance vehicle isn't going to switch to EVs, as they're not very practical for that.

        LOLWUT? EVs are already very nearly as practical as gasoline vehicles, even for long travel distances unless you'd rather set some cross-continental speed record than take a short break from driving, and faster-charging, longer-lasting, more energy-dense batteries are being developed all the time. ICEs in new cars will be a rarity within 20 years.

        How about air travel? No good alternatives there for liquid hydrocarbon fuels - at least not that I can think of.

        You're right on this one, at least for large aircraft. Without some unforeseen radical breakthrough in battery technology, large aircraft will be running on liquid hydrocarbon fuels for the foreseeable future - but that could mean biofuels.

        Ships and ocean-going vessels? I don't think there are any realistic alternatives there.

        Batteries and wind for small craft, nuclear and wind for large ones. "Wind" here may mean exotic new forms of sails.

        Manufacturing? Nope, lots of oil-based products still needed.

        Enough to sustain the giant gaping hole in demand from most of the world's land vehicles running on whatever powers the local grid?

        • "Sustain the giant gaping hole in demand from" could be read as "fill the giant gaping hole in demand from" or "sustain the demand after"...this is what happens when ideas in your brain fight over the output of your fingers.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Nemyst ( 1383049 )
        We don't have to wean ourselves off fossil fuels for Canada to lose their "energy superpower" status. Canada's oil comes from Alberta and Saskatchewan for the most part (there's some in Newfoundland too but that's a different matter), and more specifically from tar sands. Tar sands, beyond being the dirtiest source of oil you can find, are also quite hard to extract oil from, requiring the oil prices to stay above a fairly high value. The recent oil price crash has had a serious impact on our oil production
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I predict these views will be censored and modded to -1. For a community that supposedly favors the free and open exchange of ideas, Slashdot isn't very tolerant of opposing views. Voicing my opinion that AGW is a scam will result in my post being censored to -1. If AGW were real, there would be no need to censor dissenting views; the facts would prove the point far better than any moderation. The censorship is necessary because the facts aren't on the side of the AGW evangelists.

      Modding you down not because of the opposing view - but rather because your post contains NO USEFUL INFORMATION.
      - What is AGW?
      - How is it a scam?
      - Why do you hold the opposing view its a scam vs. the remainder of the public?
      - etc.

      AC posting isn't a bad thing. AC posting without value add gets downvotted like everybody else.

    • I'm not sure this has to do with AGW in the first place. The cost of renewables like solar have dropped an incredible amount in recent years. There is no conspiracy or "screwing over" of fossil fuel producers. Look at the historic price of solar panels. We're way under the "magical" $1 per watt price now, which people had been predicting for years. It was well known that low of a price of solar panels would cause significant adoption of solar power generation.

      My other point is fossil fuels are finite. Was

    • by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @01:54PM (#52211959) Homepage Journal

      Voicing my opinion that AGW is a scam will result in my post being censored to -1. If AGW were real, there would be no need to censor dissenting views; the facts would prove the point far better than any moderation.

      Around here, we tend to be okay with dissenting views, as long as you provide evidence or interesting reasoning that poses new questions. When your post gets modded down, it will be because we're still waiting for you to provide either of those things....

    • by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @01:59PM (#52211997) Homepage
      Your comment has zero evidence or claims to back it up simply a statement of what you believed and a claim that you'd be downvoted which you equated to censorship. In fact, the only moderation to your comment so far has been +3 interesting. It sounds like you have a bit of a persecution complex.
    • by mark-t ( 151149 )

      the facts would prove the point far better than any moderation.

      They would.... if you provided some. Indeed, that your post has been modded up from the default level suggests that facts would *HAVE* to say far more than moderation... since the only factual thing I could find in your post is what I've quoted, above.

    • It just means that Canada will become a plastics super power. Energy is only one of the uses for oil.
  • by johnnys ( 592333 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @01:27PM (#52211779)
    In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter. The world will always need hydrocarbons, so they will always be valuable. They are needed for plastics, chemicals and all kinds of useful things besides fuel.
    • and Lumber...it's one of our biggies...that and being (mostly) friendly with everyone..
    • by felrom ( 2923513 )

      Additionally, hydrocarbons wont be replaced for use in more than a small minority of air travel, ocean travel or rail travel in my lifetime. Cars, yeah, you probably wont be able to buy a new ICE car 40 years from now. The rest of our modes of transport will still be hydrocarbon then.

      Also, we've seen how well utility scale solar is working out at Ivanpah. Utility scale solar is a dead-end. Utility scale wind power is limited in deployable area. The environmentalists wont allow tidal or nuclear. So, we're le

    • by rhazz ( 2853871 )
      Sure they'll always be valuable, but if fossil-fuels aren't being used heavily for energy then the demand will drop significantly from what it is today. Multi-billion dollar investments in oil pipelines (with long ROI) today will be a waste of resources if demand drops heavily in 10 years.
    • Why will the world always need hydrocarbons? Plastics will likely be grown by bacteria. Lubricants can be manufactured in other ways. I doubt hydrocarbons will be a significant part of any industrial or manufacturing chain in a century or two.

      I'm sorry your stock portfolio is heavily leveraged towards fossil fuels, but making believe that they'll always be pumping long-chain hydrocarbons out of the ground, or even simpler hydrocarbons like methane, is little more than wishful thinking. I give your portfolio

      • You've clearly never seen Beyond Thunderdome. People need hydrocarbons whether we pull them out of the ground, produce them in wetware chemical factories, harvest them from Jupiter's moons, or produce them from processed pig shit. Ask some of your mates from high school who managed to go to college and get an industrial engineering degree.

        Unless, of course, you want to kill off most of the human population, get most of the rest to live subsistence lifestyles like we did 2000 years ago (except for a few eli

  • When everyone who is threatening to move to Canada actually moves there.
  • Hydroelectric? (Score:5, Informative)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @01:34PM (#52211821)
    We have more hydroelectricty than we can use... Does this not qualify as renewable energy?
    • Yup, in QC electricity is super cheap, bring electric cars as many as you want!
    • by dskoll ( 99328 )

      Most of the relatively-easily accessible sources of hydroelectricity in Canada have already been developed. And hydro is really inconvenient because the good sources of energy tend to be far away from population centres that want to consume the energy.

      And while Quebec has plenty of hydroelectric resources, that's not true in other provinces. In Ontario, nuclear energy accounts for more than 46% of our electricity, and hydro about 28.4%.

      I do agree that in the medium- to long-term, we have to get oursel

      • The thing is, there are a lot of people in need around where the dams are. So if run properly, labor supply shouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to have been done yet. Also, necessity yields invention.
    • Problem is transmitting the surplus power far enough distances without losing too much. I imaging the range for power transmissions isn't great. And of course, the rest of Canada would probably want first dibs, unless the US was willing to make electricity that much more expensive for the benefit of a country most people citizens/residents in the USA barely knew until Rob Ford was our mayor. that is.. ;-)
      • Sure, but that's a problem that needs a solution quick as EVs become more popular.
      • by dskoll ( 99328 )

        Well, no, it's certainly possible to transmit electricity very long distance without unacceptable losses. But it's not cheap. The state-of-the-art for long-distance transmission is high-voltage DC (HVDC) [wikipedia.org] transmission that can transmit GW of power at hundreds of kV.

        • *not cheap*... Sounds like a roadblock for main stream EV use. How long before transmitting the power for them gets too expensive? Right now people are setting them up at their shops because it is fashionable and gets media attention; but how long before supply becomes a problem.
      • by PPH ( 736903 )

        Stop thinking in terms of raw materials. Crude oil is both an energy source and feedstock for a lot of finished products. There are a lot of other raw materials that can be mined or grown. Canada has a lot of energy (hydroelectric, uranium) and can use that at home for manufacturing. The USA would like to tell every other nation to shut up and ship the raw resources. Canada needs to think about some vertically integrated, value added manufacturing.

        An anecdote: When the USA (and Boeing) pulled the rug out f

    • Re:Hydroelectric? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by c ( 8461 ) <beauregardcp@gmail.com> on Monday May 30, 2016 @02:01PM (#52212013)

      We also have massive amounts of uranium, just in case the whole renewable energy thing doesn't work out so well.

  • by Fragnet ( 4224287 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @01:52PM (#52211955)
    I hear global consumption of fossil fuel continues to increase [institutef...search.org]. Can you stop reporting wishful thinking as actual reality. It's incredibly tiresome.
    • +1
      As usual with energy, it's very informative to look at orders of magnitude.
      Facts just don't fit very well with the statement from TFS.
      http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-... [europa.eu]
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      I reckon it would be nice to give less power and petrodollars to Russia, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, though.

    • by DogDude ( 805747 )
      That's a right wing organization funded by the energy companies. Check your sources.
      • Oh no! A "right wing organization"! That means it's probably supporting genocide! It wouldn't surprise me if its employees keep Human body parts in their freezers! Fascists!!!

        Or perhaps it's just reporting the BP Statistical Review of World Energy Use.
        • by DogDude ( 805747 )
          It's about the money. Exxon does more than a quarter of a TRILLION dollars a year in sales. You think that maybe there'd be a reason they'd fund an organization that published "studies" about how great fossil fuel is? Are you really that thick?
          • The study isn't about "how great" fossil fuels are, it's about consumption. There are rules about use of statistics and reporting for publicly listed companies. I suppose you think some Marxist environmentalist group is going to produce a completely unbiased report, do you? Calling me thick. What a cheek.
  • Canada's status as an "energy superpower"

    is just wishful thinking from a few years back when Harper was PM. What kind of "energy superpower" can't even export our "energy" resources to global markets? Something that doesn't exist can not possibly be threatened.

    • by mark-t ( 151149 )
      Canada has been no less than in the top ten, worldwide, for oil exports for quite some time. Yes, it is not an exaggeration to say that Canada has been an energy superpower... but as the demand for oil drops, that status will invariably change.
  • I have to say. We've never been called a Superpower before... of anything.
  • by Event Horizon ( 85658 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @02:10PM (#52212059) Homepage

    For Canada, there's a simple solution: Hockey-based renewable energy. It's simple.

    1) Embed neodymium magnets in hockey pucks.
    2) Run coils through hockey ice.
    3) Play hockey as usual.
    4) Profit.

    Moving puck induces current in coils, sufficient to cover Canada's energy needs and allow Canada to continue as a new energy exporter until, and maybe after, cold fusion.

    • by mark-t ( 151149 )

      Two problems with that:

      One, it would also require that all hockey players get different skates, since the blades are usually made of steel, and are ferromagnetic.

      Two, the induced current in coils in the ice would also create heat, and would be liable to melt the ice, preventing them from playing on that surface.

  • by dstyle5 ( 702493 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @02:12PM (#52212069)
    I've lived in Alberta for close to 20 years now and the PC government's failure to attempt (to my knowledge) to diversify the economy has reared its head again in the latest bust cycle in the oil and gas industry. Perhaps something like this report, coupled with the low commodity prices will finally wake up the provincial government that its time to actively support other industries here. BC gives tax credits to TV and film production companies and they had a banner year in 2015. I believe Quebec gives tax breaks to game companies and Ubisoft, for example, has a huge number of employees in Montreal.

    I work at a software dev company who has no oil and gas ties or customers, and surprise surprise, we are doing well during the downturn here. There is no guarantee of course but if the governments had spent some time, effort and petro dollars into trying to build and attract new industries here it probably wouldn't be quite as bad now as it is.
    • by Nemyst ( 1383049 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @04:22PM (#52212937) Homepage

      BC gives tax credits to TV and film production companies and they had a banner year in 2015. I believe Quebec gives tax breaks to game companies and Ubisoft, for example, has a huge number of employees in Montreal.

      I've been repeating this ad nauseam: this is where we should be going. It's less expensive in infrastructure (tar sands require roads, electricity, entire towns to be built in far off regions) and it's much more forward-looking. We have excellent universities throughout the country, cheap (cheaper in some places, but still cheap compared to the US) tuition and a solid foundation for an innovation/research-focused economy.

      The tax breaks to Ubisoft were a brilliant shot, since they've not only built up a studio of 2700 well-paid employees, they've also attracted/fostered dozens of other studios. Ubisoft branched out in Quebec City, Toronto and Halifax. Other companies like EA, Square Enix, Warner Brothers and more have opened their own studios to take advantage of the tax breaks and the skilled local workforce. At this point, the games industry in Montreal is growing on its own due to a feedback loop of opportunities attracting talent attracting more studios and creating more opportunities.

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      The Alberta government has used oil revenue to fund diversification, mostly into high tech, for at least fifty years. An Alberta informatics research scholarship funded part of my PhD (in medical imaging). The tories made a hash of that over the last five years or so, but it was a fairly strong program before that.

      Alberta probably should give more PR to industries other than oil. They do exist.

  • I'm looking forward to the day we can tell the Middle East suppliers to shove it.

  • When the price of oil dipped down in the last year, that dropped the Canadian dollar, all of which had two effects: it hit the Alberta economy really hard (because of oil companies cutting production) and it was a boon to the Ontario economy (where manufacturing is strong). Suddenly buying manufactured goods from Canada was a lot less expensive, and everyone was hiring in Ontario. In a future where fossil fuels are in less demand, you'll just see exactly the same trend - a lower Canadian dollar meaning mor
    • Canadian manufacturing is barely a blip on the radar compared to the natural resource extraction. That ship has sailed, manufacturing is never going to seriously help the Canadian economy.

    • Alberta has known for decades that its economy needs to diversify. This is hardly the first time oil prices have dropped, though this one will likely have much longer-last effects, and if there is a recovery to the highs of a few years ago, it's likely to be oil's last great rally. Albertans are completely resistant to change, refusing even to contemplate bringing in a sales tax so the government can at least find alternative revenue streams to oil and gas royalties. Until Alberta, and several other petro-j

  • The only way the demand for fossil fuels will disappear: is if a great segment of the world's population would die or disappear from a nuclear war.
    Of course, Trump's foreign policy, xenophobia, and thoughtless words would make that inevitable.

  • See the real time data [www.ieso.ca] for how Ontario achieves this. In 2015, they produced 90% of their energy from non-fossil sources. (60% nuclear + 24% hydro)

    "It is increasingly plausible to foresee a future in which cheap renewable electricity becomes the world's primary power source and fossil fuels are relegated to a minority status," reads the conclusion of the 32-page document, produced by Policy Horizons Canada.

    This is total BS; even with immense investment the world over, wind and solar haven't even made a dent in fossil fuel consumption. If anything, they cement the position of fossil fuels required for backing up their intermittent and unreliable power. See a short video about the reality of Germany's wind and solar [youtube.com], or one of the many articles about Germany's ret [bloomberg.com]

  • It is increasingly plausible to foresee a future in which cheap renewable electricity becomes the world's primary power source and fossil fuels are relegated to a minority status.

    Hmm...This article just begs the question: Does the US have a power grid that can provide enough sustainable power to meet that demand? Doing some Googling & some math gets us...

    A) 2.5 trillion miles driven annually in the US [lovetoknow.com]

    B) "Electricity becomes the world's primary power source", so we'll call that a majority of miles dr

  • by RubberDogBone ( 851604 ) on Monday May 30, 2016 @04:29PM (#52212965)

    The future is and has always been a goddamn threat. People hate change. Which is ironic because change is one thing people cannot control.

    Here's the real deal about the future of fossil fuels, and cars in particular. It's sobering. Sit down.

    Electric cars make sense for a lot of people, and as a second car for a lot of other people. So they -and hybrids like the Bolt and Prius- will continue to spread. As we transition to electric cars, we are also transitioning to automated driving. This is going to be the huge hit, the asteroid that kills dinosaurs.

    Automated cars will be more fuel (battery or fossil fuels, it won't matter) efficient by taking the most direct route from place to place and coordinating with other cars to avoid the need for sitting at traffic lights. This means they will bypass all those places people used to stop on the way. Food outlets, gas stations stores, all sorts of impulse stores are screwed. People won't bother to direct the automated driver to stop. Hell they might even drive by asleep! A LOT of roadside businesses will whither and die.

    At the same time automated driving spreads, a lot of fast food places will be installing robotic workers. Between restaurants going out of business and robots replacing people, there is going to be MASSIVE unemployment at the bottom of the workforce.

    Automated cars won't crash nearly as much, so body shops and towing services will go out of business too. Electric cars also break down a lot less and when they do, they'll need specialized support, so independant mechanics will also go out of business, or at least have a lot less work.

    With accidents down, the auto insurance business will take a huge hit as people no longer have accidents and consequently need less insurance and pay less premiums. A lot of insurance agents will go unemployed.

    With fewer crashes, highway deaths and injuries will have a huge decline, putting hospitals at risk if they rely upon auto trauma to fund their operations.

    Cities and towns accustomed to writing a lot of traffic tickets will find automated cars won't break nearly as many traffic laws, so revenue will plummet. Many of these places count on speeding ticket revenue and DUI fine revenue to fund the town operations. They're facing a calamity as the money dries up. Tax increases are inevitable.

    So the decline of oil is just one change coming. The changes to society from automated driving and the coming ridiculous unemployment will make the decline of oil look like nothing.

  • by Plus1Entropy ( 4481723 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @10:33AM (#52217379)

    Canada is a third world country that doesn't know it.

    What I mean by that is, the economy is very fragile; it relies incredibly heavily on primary resources. There is pathetically little quaternary industry. Honestly, it is difficult to think of many Canadian R&D companies that are world players, in spite of it being the 10th largest economy in the world: RIM (now Blackberry, we all know how that's been going), Bombardier, Ubisoft Montreal (seriously that's the 3rd one I could come up with).

    Here in Calgary (where all the big O&G companies are based) we used to have a decent tech sector, but that died 10-15 years ago. Everybody just kinda shrugged and said "Meh, we got oil.". We're a one trick pony, and everyone's bored of our act.

    Not only that, but even within the oil-sands, there was such a pig-headed attitude towards innovation. They would rather do things the old and expensive way because they trusted it more. The number one priority was keeping the rig running: barrels per minute * price per barrel, that's all that mattered. So if you came to them with a new product that was 10x faster, 10x cheaper, 10x smaller, etc., they just look at you and say "It looks different from the one I'm using." I wish I was kidding.

    If the oil-sands had spent some of the time innovating and reducing the cost of production, while they had the money to do so, they may not be in such a terrible situation as they are now. "Oil will never drop below $100." Now they're scrambling to cut costs just to stay alive. Well guess what, you can't improve production costs overnight, but you can layoff thousands of people.

    Imagine how great it would be if we (Western nations) could tell the Saudis what they could do with their oil surplus? Nope, instead we've got to pander to one of the most brutal dictatorships in existence. All of our leaders (Obama, Harper, Hollande, Cameron, and more) go to "pay their respects" at the funeral of a man whose government routinely punishes rape victims worse than the rapists themselves; a government that is one of the (if not THE) major instigator of Islamic terrorism worldwide, both directly and indirectly through the spread of Wahhabism.

    This entire problem has been generated by the Saudis, to crush any competition from producers who can't compete at lower oil prices. They don't even have us by the balls. We're squeezing our own balls, and thanking them for the privilege.

If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research. -- Wilson Mizner

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