Elizabeth May Destroys Pipeline Arguments

[Army Guy]

I smell another increase at the pumps, maybe even another tax break.....

[jacee]

23 examples over a 50 year span, most of which are minor spills. As the discussion went....show me something on the level of the Kalamazoo spill. The statement that was made was in regards to having a clean up take over 5 years. The worst of these examples you've shown had similar volume spilled but it was cleaned up in a month and of course was not dilbit. On a related note, the company that had that spill (Plains Midstream) is now under serious review by the NEB, as they should be.

Again...the Kalamazoo example was unique and should not be seen as the norm, especially considering the number of small spills your source cites versus the billions of gallons that flow annually through these pipelines.

Last year's Alberta spill was as big as Kalamazoo, 5 million litres, over a million US gallons.

Do the math.

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Edited March 2, 2016 by jacee

[jacee]

Dp

Edited March 2, 2016 by jacee

[jacee]

A complete fiction. Partially because the subsidies are largely non-existent in developed countries ...

You really mislead yourself and others when you don't know the facts, Tim.

Harper tried to mislead people too.

But his own 'alma mater' policy colleagues disagreed:

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/09/11/news/did-harper-axe-oil-sands-subsidies-or-not

"A University of Calgary School of Public Policy energy expert says:

To say that the oil and gas industry in Canada is NOT subsidized is simply not true, wrote Professor Michal Moore [emphasis his own] in reaction to CAPP's claim.

Harper lied to you Tim.

Always fact check.

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[jacee]

And yet the fossil fuel industry is almost undoubtedly the most heavily subsidized in history. Everyone - Tim thinks you should dump your oil stocks because they're not worth investing in.

Go figure. :rolleyes:

Sounds like an idea whose time has come!

campaigns-to-divest-from-fossil-fuel-holdings-gain-steam

Welcome aboard Tim!

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[Big Guy]

Dp

An interesting term. In the 1940's and 1950's, a few hundred thousand refugees (or immigrants) came from Europe to Canada as a result of World War II. They were distributed throughout the country and were referred to (and often ridiculed by the locals) as DP's. I assume that was the short form for "Displaced Person".

[eyeball]

It'll probably become shorthand for Deported Person in the near future.

[TimG]

You really mislead yourself and others when you don't know the facts, Tim.

I know the facts. Your problem is you don't understand nuance. Go back at read what I wrote and you will see that I did not say that fossil fuels did not get any subsidies. What I said is the subsidizes they did get were connected to finding new deposits that could be sold at a profit. In the case of the oil sands they got preferential treatment for years as companies tried to figure how to exploit them but once they figured that out the subsidies were reduced and even with the subsidies those resources produce a revenue stream for governments that did not exist before.

Contrast that with renewable which are noncompetitive unless given massive subsidies and there is no scenario where these unreliable sources of power would return revenue to the government. That makes renewables a net drain on the economy. Fossil fuels, the other hand, add to the economy.

The only people misleading the public are those claiming that fossil fuels are 'massively' subsidized.

Edited March 2, 2016 by TimG

[Accountability Now]

Last year's Alberta spill was as big as Kalamazoo, 5 million litres, over a million US gallons.

Do the math.

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Emulsion is not dilbit. It has 1/3 bitumen and the rest is sand and steam. Dilbit is usually 50-70% bitumen and the rest Natural Gas or Synthetic Crude.

You can't compare the two spills as an apple to apple comparison, especially since the claim made and the claim being refuted is 'when these spills don't take more than 5 years to clean, then I'll be ok with them". This spill happened in July 2015 and according to the Nexen site, they are 82% done.

As discussed in other threads....if you are simply against oil then I don't have much to say to you. If you agree that oil is needed and therefore we must move it either by train or pipeline then that is a discussion I'm willing to have.

[On Guard for Thee]

Emulsion is not dilbit. It has 1/3 bitumen and the rest is sand and steam. Dilbit is usually 50-70% bitumen and the rest Natural Gas or Synthetic Crude.

You can't compare the two spills as an apple to apple comparison, especially since the claim made and the claim being refuted is 'when these spills don't take more than 5 years to clean, then I'll be ok with them". This spill happened in July 2015 and according to the Nexen site, they are 82% done.

As discussed in other threads....if you are simply against oil then I don't have much to say to you. If you agree that oil is needed and therefore we must move it either by train or pipeline then that is a discussion I'm willing to have.

At the current rate of expansion, solar could replace oil in ~14 years. So you can keep your head stuck in the tar sands, or get on board with the future. I'm headed where the money is myself.

[Rue]

Small C I don't believe there is such thing as a free market place which is what carbon tax is predicated on existing for it to work. I believe in reality a framework pre-exists particularly in the energy sector that prevents free trade as a result of a complex maze of self-interest groups, oil and gas consortiums, OPEC and government addicted to the tax on energy to allow for a free market.

I also subsrcribe to the theory that consumer demands do not decrease simply because you charge a higher price. When a consumer is addicted to a product like gasoline or cigarettes, they buy it no matter how high the price goes.

As well rampant speculation by brokers on the markets can cause price fluctuations that have nothing to do with supply and demand but have everything to do with people seeking to cash in on buying low, selling high cycles.

I know BC is often used as an example of revenue neutral carbon tax.

I did try find a neutral study on it that looks at its pros and cons equally for discussion on the issue:

its at: www.skepticalscience.com/BCCarbonTax.html

Edited March 3, 2016 by Rue

[Accountability Now]

At the current rate of expansion, solar could replace oil in ~14 years.

Mighty strong words for a statement that includes COULD!!

Have a citation that reflects your 'could' statement? Please ensure its a credible citation too.

[ironstone]

At the current rate of expansion, solar could replace oil in ~14 years. So you can keep your head stuck in the tar sands, or get on board with the future. I'm headed where the money is myself.

Do you think solar will power ships,trucks,planes,trains in 14 years?

[Wilber]

At the current rate of expansion, solar could replace oil in ~14 years. So you can keep your head stuck in the tar sands, or get on board with the future. I'm headed where the money is myself.

Where? There are huge differences in the amount of sunlight different regions get and north of 49 in the winter, forget it.

[ReeferMadness]

Do you think solar will power ships,trucks,planes,trains in 14 years?

Mighty strong words for a statement that includes COULD!!

Have a citation that reflects your 'could' statement? Please ensure its a credible citation too.

The feasibility of using battery power for local trucking has been proven. For longer distances and air travel, algal or seaweed biofuel is an option.

The Port of Los Angeles and South Coast Air Quality Management District have demonstrated a short-range heavy-duty all electric truck capable of hauling a fully loaded 40-foot (12 m) cargo container. The current design is capable of pulling a 60,000 lb (27 t) cargo container at speeds up to 10 mph (16 km/h) and has a range of between 30 and 60 miles (48 and 97 km). It uses 2 kilowatt-hours per mile (1.2 kW·h/km; 4.5 MJ/km), compared to 5 miles per US gallon (47 L/100 km; 6.0 mpg-imp) for the hostler semi tractors it replaces.[5]

In February 2010, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced that the U.S. military was about to begin large-scale oil production from algal ponds into jet fuel. After extraction at a cost of $2 per gallon, the oil will be refined at less than $3 a gallon. A larger-scale refining operation, producing 50 million gallons a year, is expected to go into production in 2013, with the possibility of lower per gallon costs so that algae-based fuel would be competitive with fossil fuels. The projects, run by the companies SAIC and General Atomics, are expected to produce 1,000 gallons of oil per acre per year from algal ponds.

The problem here isn't technological. And if fossil fuels were forced to carry the real cost of production and usage, it wouldn't be economic. The real problem is political. Fossil fuel companies have a lot of clout and and the recent economic disruption shows how perversely dependent the world has become on high oil prices. It's crazy.

I see a lot of people feel threatened by the thought of dirty, toxic, dangerous fossil fuels being replaced by cleaner forms of energy. That's unfortunate but you're going to have to learn to deal with it.

[TimG]

For longer distances and air travel, algal or seaweed biofuel is an option.

algal or seaweed biofuel is not remotely plausible once you calculate how much water/fertilizer/land area required to provide the fuel.

http://www.renewables-info.com/drawbacks_and_benefits/biofuels_from_algae_advantages_and_disadvantages.html

While it is more than obvious that algae have great potential for producing biomass it is still very unlikely that any significant commercial production will occur in the next decade or so. This is mostly because capital and operating costs make algae oil production too expensive to be economically acceptable. A lot more funding and research is needed to turn this great potential into commercially viable production, and it is still too early to say whether the future of biofuels lies in algae.

The problem here isn't technological. And if fossil fuels were forced to carry the real cost of production and usage, it wouldn't be economic.

Translation: renewables would be viable all we need to do is punatively tax fossil fuels and hope the economy does not collapse.

The real problem is political.

The real problem is economic. No alternative can match the technical capabilities of fossil fuels. Until a technical solution is found we will be using fossil fuels no matter what conspiracy theories you want to invent. Edited March 6, 2016 by TimG

[Wilber]

From your link, it looks to me that although electric trucks have some viable applications they have very limited potential.

[TimG]

From your link, it looks to me that although electric trucks have some viable applications they have very limited potential.

As a sanity check: many companies that provide delivery services are local (meaning the don't face foreign competition), electricity is cheaper than gas and could generate good PR by 'going green'. The fact that so few have is pretty strong evidence that these vehicles can't meet the needs of the companies that provide these services. It may be price. It may be reliability. Whatever it is if the market is not choosing them there must be a good reason.

[Accountability Now]

The feasibility of using battery power for local trucking has been proven. For longer distances and air travel, algal or seaweed biofuel is an option.

The claim was made that Solar could replace oil in 14 years. Clearly you didn't provide examples of solar nor did you show any proof that these alternative forms will overtake oil in 14 years.

[ironstone]

Another huge problem with so called green/renewable energy is that it's really expensive and needs big taxpayer subsidies.14 years is too optimistic in my opinion.

[hitops]

You really mislead yourself and others when you don't know the facts, Tim.

Harper tried to mislead people too.

But his own 'alma mater' policy colleagues disagreed:

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/09/11/news/did-harper-axe-oil-sands-subsidies-or-not

Tim is quite right, it is you who don't know the facts jacee.

Your article proves exactly his point, that subsidies on this side of the ocean are almost nothing relative to the size of the industry. The vast majority of the world's dollar amount of oil production subsidies is among developing countries.

The major difference, is that alternative energies effectively don't exist without subsidies, whereas if oil subsidies were gone, you would notice either no change or a few pennies per L higher prices.

If you gave alternative energy the exact same dollars in subsidy per unit of energy produced (or per unit of energy delivered to consumer), alternative energy (other than nuclear and hydro) in it's present state would disappear, because that would be nowhere close to enough to survive on.

Edited March 16, 2016 by hitops

[jacee]

Tim is quite right, it is you who don't know the facts jacee.

Your article proves exactly his point, that subsidies on this side of the ocean are almost nothing relative to the size of the industry.

From that link:

Is an oil company tax break a subsidy?

If you use the World Trade Organization (WTO) definition, which includes tax breaks, he estimates there's likely one billion dollars annually in federal supports that flow to the oil and gas sector in Canada.

There are still substantial [fossil fuel] subsidies remaining," he said.

And more recently this:

Psst, Trudeau: IMF Now Pegs Our Fossil Fuel Subsidies at $46 Billion

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Edited March 17, 2016 by jacee

[ReeferMadness]

From that link:

Is an oil company tax break a subsidy?

If you use the World Trade Organization (WTO) definition, which includes tax breaks, he estimates there's likely one billion dollars annually in federal supports that flow to the oil and gas sector in Canada.

There are still substantial [fossil fuel] subsidies remaining," he said.

And more recently this:

Psst, Trudeau: IMF Now Pegs Our Fossil Fuel Subsidies at $46 Billion

.

It's a good point. Fossil fuel addicts (like other addicts) are in deep denial and don't acknowledge that the environmental and health costs that are not paid for by the cost of fossil fuels are, in fact subsidies. And as the IMF has pointed out, they are huge.

Another subsidy probably won't even be recognized for years, perhaps decades. And that is the huge cleanup costs that will be required once the industry dies away. Suddenly, marginal wells will be completely unprofitable and many of the companies that own them will be bankrupt. Already, with the recent downturn, the industry is asking Ottawa for hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up old wells. And that isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

[TimG]

the environmental and health costs that are not paid for by the cost of fossil fuels are, in fact subsidies. And as the IMF has pointed out, they are huge.

They are also purely subjective whose magnitude depends entirely on the ideology of the people doing the calculation. In the case of the IMF report the political objective was to provide support for "the fossil fuels are subsidized" narrative so the only reasonable conclusion is the alleged health and environmental costs have been grossly exaggerated to support the political objective.

The subjective nature of these kinds of costs also mean they are largely irrelevant when it comes to planning. What really matters are the real subsidies in terms of economic resources that have to be diverted to per kWh of energy. By those measures fossil fuel subsidies are tiny and renewable subsidies are huge.

Second, one cannot add up the 'health costs' of fossil fuels without including the benefits. For example, modern healthcare depends on access to low cost energy and fossil fuel products (e.g. plastics and chemicals). Any calculation is nonsense if it does not include the savings that are only realized because we use fossil fuels.

Of course, the 'fossil fuels are evil' crowd are not interested in a rational discussion of economics of energy production.

Edited March 17, 2016 by TimG

[eyeball]

They are also purely subjective whose magnitude depends entirely on the ideology of the people doing the calculation.

My septic tank is full and will cost about $500 to pump out and haul away. How about if I just run a line out to the creek out back and pump it out there?

Is the $500 I'll save a subsidy or something else?