Canadian government thinktank warns that renewables will gut market for Canada's dirty oil

boing
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Well the two experts are not particularly in the fossil fuel business. One is a public policy guy, the other is a cleantech guy. That’s not to say they’re wrong, just that it would have been good to get someone more into oil dynamics to comment.

Plus they both seem to come out against the idea that more carbon-emitting fuels would command lower prices. So I’m not sure it would “gut” the market.

The Canadian government is not particularly backing KXL, also. Sure, Canada would love to reduce the discount that its oil sands currently sell at, but that doesn’t seem to be what the Americans want.

Moving from oil as a transport fuel to electricity would be big bananas but it’s hard to imagine it happening quickly. How long does it take to change the fleet over? Maybe 20 years? Electric cars are still pretty niche at the moment and nowhere near as practical as gasoline or diesel.

The idea that Africa would leapfrog to a new world of renewable power is a nice one, but not very demonstrated. While the West may not be keen on supporting coal power for Africans (even while using it ourselves quite a lot), Asian and Middle Eastern finance is available for those projects, as can be seen by Kenya. Plus, the problem about coal is not really from Africa, it’s Asia.

Claiming that there is a concept that oil/gas/coal is “globally uniform” demonstrates a startling lack of insight into how these commodities function.

Finally, I would say that, as we’ve seen, oil production does respond to prices, which is the basis for what this report is talking about, but in a lagged way. Once work on a project has started, it is extremely unlikely that it would stop, particularly in the oil sands given the high cost of construction. Running costs have to be taken into account but unless nat gas moves a lot higher, which seems unlikely for now, plant will not stop running. Investments in new oil sands, though, is not happening given the oil price falling off a cliff. This will not cut supply for about five years or so.

TLDR: It’s a thing but it’s going to take years for any impact to have on Canada. I’d be more worried about the impact on Venezuela/Nigeria/Angola/Libya.

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That’s not a number… didn’t I ask for numbers? I seem to remember asking for numbers, and not platitudes. Like I said, I want to see these changes happen, but we need to start putting all of these costs together so we can figure out how to pay for everything that we want to do. Unless we do put numbers to these tasks that absolutely need to happen, it will take much longer for people to take action, because people are more hesitant to act when those actions have uncertainty regarding costs and scope. At least we have a timeline.

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Welp, since I haven’t spent the last decade working on this issue in any serious fashion, as a researcher, I’m afraid you’re going to have to deal with platitudes. Sorry I’m a historian and not a researcher on capital cost for not destroying our world. And I bet if you looked up numbers (which I’m sure you could google) by people who do this research, you wouldn’t find a single number, but huge sets of competing numbers depending on where the researcher falls on the debate.

I would suspect that dealing with the issues up front and trying to prevent them, rather than dealing with the fall out, will be cheaper in the long run, though. Just look at the costs of preventative health care vs. health care based on illness. Even on an individual level, it’s cheaper to keep oneself in working order as opposed to waiting to seek out medical care once your body falls apart. You can apply the same to cars, houses, animals, etc.

But since I don’t have a full set of hard numbers, I suppose I don’t get to have a view point on the world I live in, huh?

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The electrical grid gets upgraded regardless (in most places.) We’re talking about a change that happens over decades, not all at once.

Likewise old homes are getting their breaker panels upgraded regardless for other reasons.

With the hundred year old home I owned a few years back, the knob & tube wiring and fuse panel had long ago been replaced. But the meters being replaced in 2005 by the hydro service meant that the meter box had to be replaced too. (Round box bad! Square box good!) (With good reason, it turned out.) And that in turn - being a major change - triggered rules stating that the 1970s electrical panel and a few other things had to be brought up to modern code (replaced).

Likewise our chimney - now used only by the hot water tank - needed to be replaced or repaired above the roof line. And the liner had broken apart inside, blocking it, which could have caused a carbon monoxide problem. But rather than replace the chimney it was cheaper to switch to an electric tank.

Again, these changes happen over decades, and they’re happening regardless of “green” motivation.

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Or Russia’s neighbors.

Argentina’s ruling junta, seeing that they were going to be kicked out of power, invaded the Falklands to rally the country around them. It’s happened elsewhere. And you get to blame all your administration’s failings - and opposition to it - on The Enemy.

Putin has already invaded and annexed parts of two neighboring countries. It’s said that Russia doesn’t so much have an economy as an oil industry keeping everything else running. When the low oil prices continue for a few more years - and Putin’s popularity inevitably dies regardless, I wouldn’t bet against him copying the Argentine generals.

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Yes, but what are the COSTS, because that’s apparently the ONLY thing that matters here! If you don’t know the exact costs, you don’t get to participate and have an opinion here… /s

But seriously, yes! Older homes need updates and I think the the long run, it will end up cheaper to switch over to renewables if possible. Unfortunately, I think this is generally a privilege. But is the Canadian government (or local governments) underwriting any changes to be compatible with renewables at all?

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Probably. If we get tax credits in the country of Endless War, I’d be more than a little surprised if they don’t have some sort of subsidy available. This commenter is asking in the wrong place. S/he should be bothering his/her MP or some ministry in Ottawa instead of a hodgepodge of Mutants.

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Again, there’s not much change needed to housing and infrastructure to be compatible with renewables, that isn’t happening regardless.

There’s also energy efficiency…

The furnace in my old house had the poor timing to die a few months after the Conservatives came to power. There had been a government program to subsidize installing a high efficiency furnace, but Harper shut it down. And replaced it a few months later with an ALL NEW LOOK AT WHAT WE’RE DOING TO BE GREEN!!! identical subsidy program. A few months after I needed it.

The Liberals do the same thing. I’ll be damned surprised if you don’t see it happen again over the next year.

There are also government subsidies for upgrading your insulation and windows.

The federal government pitches in money for wind farms and hydro dams, but then they also do it for oil projects.

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Well, we should know these things, right, because if we don’t know them, we don’t get to participate in the conversation right? /s

I guess tax subsides are political, right, meant to get people or corporations to do a particular thing. I guess here (in the US, I mean), those are more often than not local. I know the state of GA just ended tax breaks for electric cars this past years (because some dumb reasons). That being said, the city is looking to build out more energy efficient infrastruture.

And @RogerStrong just provided me with evidence that taxes are used in political ways in Canada just as much here… [quote=“RogerStrong, post:28, topic:78853”]
The federal government pitches in money for wind farms and hydro dams, but then they also do it for oil projects.
[/quote]

It sounds like, at least the Canadian government is doing a bit more for energy efficiency than the US, though I’d guess you get tax breaks here if you renovate in a sustainable here too (I don’t know for sure). It’s just too bad it’s a political tool instead of a serious attempt to make environment sustainability a serious goal.

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In the interests of fair disclosure I should probably mention that company I work for is suddenly in the petroleum industry. Importing gasoline from Sweden and selling it to Albertans.

Really.

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Huh… that’s an interesting strategy, I guess…

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Way back in 2002, a new Oregon law made owners of hybrid cars pay $15 more to register them than owners of gas-guzzlers pay to register theirs, in order to replace the gasoline taxes the environment-conscious motorists are saving by driving fuel-efficient cars.

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Ah, that’s an important point to keep in mind, that gas provides an important tax base for most states. I hadn’t considered that aspect of it. I wonder if there were big changes, especially after the 2008 crash, and states had to tighten budgets generally speaking.

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I’d be OK with that in Michigan, but only if they made heavy haulers pay an extra couple thousand a year to reflect the real damage heavy trucks inflict on our roadways.

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I have no doubt that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and I’m not saying that we need definitive numbers before we can do anything, and I have Googled this very subject which has turned up a bunch of hand-waving about how all we need is determination and political will plus increasing/decreasing taxes/fees/royaties/subsidies (which I also support for this cause), and everyone has a right to a viewpoint based on the information that is available at this time.

As person who deals with infrastructure, and owns an older home, in order to effectively manage assets over their service lives it helps a great deal to know who is doing what, who is paying for what, when does it need to be finished by, how much money can we spend, on what’s the order of priority and importance. Whenever you’re missing any of these pieces of information, it makes the work more difficult. I know that the first step is to agree on the broad strokes, such as the manifesto in question, but we really need to push hard towards fleshing out the details. Essentially, my original comment was a lament that we aren’t there yet, because while I can act in the form of signing on to the manifesto, I’m far more interested in getting down to business on the actual design and construction work that will come afterwards. Plus I’m not made of money, and greening my house won’t be free, so there had better be some serious rebates.

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While these changes have happened over decades in the past, my concern is that we’ll have far less time in the near future to make the required changes, and given how long it’ll take to turn this giant boat around and going a decent clip in the opposite direction, we really need to get moving on all of the required changes right now.

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Damn my ignorance!

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they are trying to do that in WA more specifically for the purely electric cars. since road maintenance comes from gas taxes and the electric cars are not paying that obviously and as there are more and more on the road way to pay for roads and their upkeep will need to be figured out.

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I agree with this. It should not just be on the consumer, but it should include not only rebates and tax incentives for home owners, not just mandates that we all have to comply with. Plus, the state needs to invest in serious infrastructure upgrades and outbuilding in the future.

And likely the reason you can’t find hard numbers is because it’s probably a moving target, both for individuals and countries. And the cost of creating green infrastructure or not is also social, not just economic. It won’t matter how much it costs, if more and more of the world is simply uninhabitable for humanity. As much as $$$$ matters, somethings rise above that in importance.

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