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146 comments on Will Canada Fuel Fortress America?

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Dave Cohen on March 11, 2006 - 3:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Re: "Many policy documents that come out of policy shops are often very one-sided, so I want to present it to you as exactly that: one side of the argument. The question then becomes, how do the counterarguments stand up?"

After I read the whole post, looked at some links and knowing what I do, my reaction was What other side? From Turning tar sands into oil.

Tar sands production is now 1 million barrels a day and is projected to increase fivefold by 2030, still about half of Saudi Arabia's current output and less than 5 percent of world production in 2030.
Other more optimistic projections I've seen show 3 to 4/mbpd in the time period 2015 to 2020. OK, if we consider world usage at 84/mbpd (all liquids using the 4/mbpd by 2020 and supply stays flat all that time), that's 4.8% of world daily consumption in 2020. Those are the benefits. Since we are at or near peak, the percentage would go up as world daily production goes down. That's the "other" side of the argument.

Now, the side you present.

  • the CO2 emissions (very large per barrel produced)
  • the direct damage to the environment in Alberta
  • the enormous cost of each barrel
  • the huge requirements for water for production and the even bigger water disposal problem
  • the huge requirements for natural gas for production - I repeat from my post here
    In Canada, which currently supplies most U.S. gas imports, gas production reached 16.71 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) in 2004. However, these figures are expected to level off, or even shrink. Conventional production at current levels will not be able to supply increasing demand in North America...
    Canadian demand (7.7 bcf/d in 2004) is expected to increase substantially, with the oil sands industry alone consuming 1 bcf/d by year-end....
    That's over 0.365 Tcf each and every year at current production levels.
Now, some say that the tar sands can be a win-win situation because you can capture the CO2, re-inject it for EOR to produce natural gas which you can use to mine the sands, capture the CO2... and round and round. Unless you do something like this (and recycle all the water), the whole process is completely unsustainable. If you actually do all this, the process may be sustainable but the costs will go so sky high that the EROEI may be effectively zero. So, either way, this process can not go on in my view. I'm sure Suncor has a different view. I know they are trying to reduce their CO2 emissions from the production process, but they are years away from successful implementation of carbon capture, storage and injection. But I'm sure of one thing--Suncor thinks the price of oil is going to go up and up and up...

And all this is going on for what is currently 1.2% of global liquids production per day. And under NAFTA, of course the Canadians outside the boomtown in Fort McMurray feel screwed. They are getting screwed.

So, I say again, What other side?

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Prof. Goose on March 11, 2006 - 4:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
oh Dave, just call me an academic and be done with it!  :)  Perhaps I over-caveated, but that's what we do, usually in the spirit of being as objective as possible...
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Dave Cohen on March 11, 2006 - 4:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I try to be objective in my posts but feel no such constraint in my comments....

You know, I used to be an academic... and now I'm a poor starving writer at some obscure website which is a community discussion about peak oil...

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writerman on March 11, 2006 - 4:43pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
In the spirit of being as objective as possible let me just say that this whole tar sands idea - sucks big time! The Canadians must be nuts! This is a nightmare scenario!

On the other hand, we need the oil big time and they've got it, so why waste time talkin' when we should be diggin'.

But seriously, the Canadians cannot say no to us, not in the real world. Canadians have a attitude to the US similar to most small countries situated next to big ones. They resent the big brother little brother relationship, but can't do much about it, and anyway we might as well make some money out of it.

This kind of relationship has existed for a long time. It's almost a classic case of "colonialism". When we talk about "Canadians" it's important to realise there are lots of different types of Canadians with different interests. In classic Marx, just to illustrate the point, we're dealing with the narrow interests of the ruling-class, that is to make millions, as opposed to the objective interests of the working-class to use their natural resources for their own development. The situation the Canadians are in, isn't, in principle, all that different from that of the inhabitants of the Niger delta we've all read about recently on TOD. They are going to get screwed!  

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back40 on March 11, 2006 - 5:01pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
There is a diversity among Canadians, especially by province. Those in the central regions such as Alberta sometimes have views more distant from the coastal provinces than from the US. In an odd sort of way it is the populous coastal provinces of Canada that are the remote, imperial ruling class that oppresses them. We are sometimes blinded by nationalism to the reality on the ground that nations are not the basic, salient entities of economic or socio-ecological life.
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BOP on March 11, 2006 - 5:34pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
One has to remember that there exist "screwers" and "screwees" and the relative merits of each position can change over time.

It is true that a small economy operating adjacent to a large economy will benefit; Canada has benefited economically from its position relative to our neighbor to the south.

Canada presently has a long standing softwood lumber trade dispute with the US. Canada's position is that the US is in violation of NAFTA and acting preferentially to support US softwood producers and inhibit Canadian access to the US market. One can think of this as a variation on the recent rejection of Dubai Ports World. The US is all for free trade as long as the benefits of that trade favours the US. Of course if someone else stands to benefit the US never heard of trade agreements, international law, or the accepted conventions of OECD nations. The US simply takes the position of "screw you."

Long term one has to consider the fact that when the US wishes to purchase Canadian resources, it may not be able to afford them. If it is accepted that you cannot continue exponential growth based on the availability of a finite resource, then it is also likely to be true that one cannot continue with the  exponential export of debt on an indefinite basis. The US is going to have to learn to be very, very nice to its creditors.

I expect a typical uninformed response along the lines of "we will just march north and take what we need."

My response is march north with what? You have elected a president who has destroyed America's credibility abroad, who has insulted many of your former allies and friends (freedom fries, anyone?), that has bogged America in Iraq such that you can neither leave nor stay, and who has rundown the American military in the process. On top of this he unilaterally abrogates the constitution on a legal whim of his own conception and no American citizen gives a god-damn. I suspect you are all too busy hot-tubbing it and discussing how to enforce the christian lifestyle on others and what caliber rifle will be required.

I think you may wish to reflect a little more cogently on exactly who has been screwed, how, and by whom.

As for the environmental destruction, health impacts, and EROEI, none of those concerns has yet had significant inhibitory impact on the course of western capitalism. Don't understand why they should start to matter now.

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writerman on March 11, 2006 - 6:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
With a military machine more powerful than the rest of the world's leading nations put together, I don't believe the United States has to worry about securing it's access to the raw materials it requires. We will just make those nations we do business with an offer they can't refuse. Like Dead-eye Dick Cheney said, the American way of life is non-negotiable and he means it, and he and his class have absolutely no intention of giving it up without a fight. As soon as the rest of the world realise this the better.

In the short to medium term debt isn't a problem for the world's greatest military power. It would be imprudent in the extreme to refuse to grant the United States the credit it desires, in much the same way as it would be unwise not to grant the United States access to raw materials and markets. We are, after all, global Capitalism's army. So, be afraid, be very afraid.

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Dave Cohen on March 11, 2006 - 8:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes, as I've said before, the Alberta Province becomes the 51st State after Canada backs out of NAFTA to try to take care of their own oil & gas problems.

Push will come to shove. Something's gotta give here as PG's cited report inevitably concludes.

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wkwillis on March 12, 2006 - 6:12am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Nukes are fast, cheap, and out of control. Get used to it.
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Essex Land Rover Man on March 12, 2006 - 3:28pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"With a military machine more powerful than the rest of the world's leading nations put together, I don't believe the United States has to worry about securing it's access to the raw materials it requires."

Can't help thinking of Japan and the late 1930s, early 1940's.....

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writerman on March 12, 2006 - 3:46pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Dear Essex,

How right you are. God save us from people who don't understand irony.

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beggar on March 12, 2006 - 9:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
How ancient an irony this is.  Bloated Empire believes that no one can oppose it, that no one will dare to stand up to it.  Pride not only going before a fall, but pride loudly proclaims that this Very Special Empire cannot fall.

Then maybe some scraggly prophet comes in from the wilderness of God-Knows-Where and says something to some assemblage of Imperial Big Shots, and the empire crumbles.

What did the scraggly little prophet say?  Well, in this case it might be "Peak Oil says you are so very over," or "Peak Water..." or "Peak Everything...."

And so it goes.

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146 comments on Will Canada Fuel Fortress America?

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