Jobless oilsand workers look to alternative energy

[jacee]

AWESOME!!!

jobless-oilsands-workers-look-to-alternative-energy

A group of former oilsands workers is developing a plan to help laid-off colleagues get retraining in alternate energy sources.

Support Iron and Earth workers

Edited March 26, 2016 by jacee

[TimG]

Its a scam designed to funnel government money to anti-oil activists:

http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2016/03/iron-and-trough.html

Hint: there is no work worth doing in alternative energy because alternative energy can't make a profit.

[jacee]

Its a scam designed to funnel government money to anti-oil activists:

http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2016/03/iron-and-trough.html

Hint: there is no work worth doing in alternative energy because alternative energy can't make a profit.

No it isn't a "scam" TimG.

It's a legitimate effort to make jobs in the renewable energy sector for workers losing jobs as the fossil fuel energy sector scales down.

'Small dead animals' blog isn't a reliable source of anything but small minded vitriol.

I'm very impressed that these former oil sands workers are taking the initiative to address their situation in a positive way.

[TimG]

It's a legitimate effort to make jobs in the renewable energy sector

Except the renewable energy sector does not create real jobs since it is completely dependent on government handouts. I also don't believe there is any need for special training specific to the field. Given the background of the person pushing this project the only reasonable assumption is that it is a scam designed to line the pockets of the people providing the training.

[rotary]

Except the renewable energy sector does not create real jobs since it is completely dependent on government handouts. I also don't believe there is any need for special training specific to the field. Given the background of the person pushing this project the only reasonable assumption is that it is a scam designed to line the pockets of the people providing the training.

As was/is the fossil fuel biz., to a very hefty price tag. Sooner or later we have to wean ourselves off oil. Maybe sooner is better than later.

[ReeferMadness]

This is a great idea but it isn't going to fly. Not now, anyway. There are still too many fossil fuel addicts who aren't ready to come to terms with the new realities. They are stuck in the past and can't let go of the gold rush mentality that has gripped this country over the past 20 years.

This is the new denialism. The very same people who denied climate change, denied the damage that fossil fuels wreak on the planet and will continue to deny the feasibility of cleaner power. You can't penetrate a closed mind.

[TimG]

This is the new denialism.

Sorry. The only denialism I see comes from clueless people who don't understand the energy system and think that there are practical alternatives to using fossil fuels at this time. Of course that reality is impossible to communicate to close minded ideologues who think the world could run on windmills and unicorn farts if only more people would join their cult. Edited March 27, 2016 by TimG

[Moonlight Graham]

Except the renewable energy sector does not create real jobs since it is completely dependent on government handouts.

The United States' costs alone for military projection in the Persian Gulf from 1976-2007 has been estimated at 6.8 trillion (and counting...and seemingly increasing in need). That doesn't include other western countries' budgets, and that doesn't include the costs of fighting Islamic terrorism (a direct result of western military intervention in the ME based on the need to control global oil resources) in other parts of the middle east/world (including domestic security costs). Not sure if it includes military "foreign aid" to countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia. Costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone is pegged around 6 trillion.

Also doesn't include costs for domestic oil subsidies, or subsidies to the arms industry, or the costs of dead people.

Stick all of that onto the price of a barrel of oil or a litre of gas at the pumps and it would be interesting.

Edited March 27, 2016 by Moonlight Graham

[TimG]

Also doesn't include costs for domestic oil subsidies, or subsidies to the arms industry, or the costs of dead people.

You make up whatever fantasy numbers you want to rationalize your position but that does not mean it makes sense. Fossil fuels add economic value after taking into account any harmful side effects because if they did not the economy would have collapsed long ago. Renewables subtract from the economy because they cannot deliver the kind of power we need and efforts to force people to use them impose costs. Edited March 27, 2016 by TimG

[Moonlight Graham]

You make up whatever fantasy numbers you want to rationalize your position but that does not mean it makes sense.

What's fantasy about the numbers? They're calculated in numerous academic studies by people with PhD's?

Fossil fuels add economic value after taking into account any harmful side effects because if they did not the economy would have collapsed long ago. Renewables subtract from the economy because they cannot deliver the kind of power we need and efforts to force people to use them impose costs.

I'm not talking about fossil fuels, I'm talking about oil specifically. My point is that oil is massively, massively subsidized beyond anything even remotely approaching subsidies for renewables. Renewables can't power our societies yet, I'm not arguing they can. In a few decades maybe. Personally I think oil is a disgusting product based on the violence needed to maintain it politically, and the economic and security costs of maintaining that violence are staggering and not reflected whatsoever in the cost of a barrel. I really don't know the true dollar cost of a barrel of oil, I wish I did, would be interesting to compare to renewables and coal, hydro etc

Speaking to collapsing economies, they haven't been doing too well lately. Much of that in the last year has to do with the politics (not economics) of oil. We sell arms to and support a Saudi regime that has committed economic warfare against Canada etc. by flooding the market with oil in hopes they can destroy the oil sands and fracking industries etc. We've also been loading up on debt to fund our oil-based military adventures. Hopefully we'll have electric cars soon that can carry a good battery charge and replace combustion engines at a competitive cost, I'd much rather they be powered by plugging in to coal plants than by oil.

[TimG]

What's fantasy about the numbers? They're calculated in numerous academic studies by people with PhD's?

Academic studies are only as good as their assumptions. Many studies are based on invalid assumptions and therefore not relevant. Adding wars to the cost of oil simply a ridiculous thing to do since there is no rational connection between securing oil supplies and the wars that have been started (i.e. in cases where the dictators in question has oil they were more than happy to sell the oil as fast as they could; in other cases such as Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan there was no oil).

My point is that oil is massively, massively subsidized beyond anything even remotely approaching subsidies for renewables.

Except that is categorically not true (especially if you single out oil from coal or natural gas).

Renewable subsidies per barrel of oil equivalent are massive.

And the small number of tax preferences that oil extraction companies get are far outweighed by the taxes collected on gasoline.

Oil is a net revenue generator for governments.

Hopefully we'll have electric cars soon that can carry a good battery charge and replace combustion engines at a competitive cost, I'd much rather they be powered by plugging in to coal plants than by oil.

Except batteries use all kinds of rare metals that are produced in unstable/unreliable countries. For example, China has 90% control over the rare earth market. At this point in time we would be much better off relying on North American oil and natural gas supplies than depending on imports of rare materials. Edited March 27, 2016 by TimG

[Moonlight Graham]

Academic studies are only as good as their assumptions. Many studies are based on invalid assumptions and therefore not relevant.

Then refute the assumptions you see as invalid.

Adding wars to the cost of oil simply a ridiculous thing to do since there is no rational connection between securing oil supplies and the wars that have been started (i.e. in cases where the dictators in question has oil they were more than happy to sell the oil as fast as they could; in other cases such as Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan there was no oil).

You need to bone up on your history of middle east and West-ME relations. Dictators "more than happy to sell us their oil as fast as they could"? Please see the 1973 oil crisis. Here's another academic article, peer-reviewed, fully sourced, written by a PhD in Middle-East History from Stanford. Any invalid assumptions? Here's a snippet, answers our discussion both here and about military intervention (Libya etc):

The late 1960s and early 1970s marked the transformative period in the United States’ approach to security and militarism in the Persian Gulf. In January 1968 the British government announced that it would end its longtime imperial presence in the region and withdraw its political and military resources. The move unsettled American policy makers anxious about a potential power vacuum. Other pressures also began to mount. In the decade leading up to the British announcement, governments of oil-producing countries had already begun to bristle against the dominating and unfair practices of the major oil companies, which had exercised monopolistic control over the means of production and pricing for much of the twentieth century. In 1960 several major oil producers established the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in a gambit to drive prices higher. OPEC achieved little in its early years. The assertiveness of the oil producers would grow by the 1970s, however, as major producers began to nationalize the operations of the oil companies.

More importantly, contradictions in America’s Middle East security strategy would challenge the nation’s efforts to maintain friendly relations with the region’s oil producers. Historically, the United States struggled to balance its support for Israel with its support for the region’s oil producers, who had long considered the Israel-friendly foreign policy of the United States as an irritant. In 1973 this irritation transformed into outrage during the October War, when Egypt launched a surprise attack on Israeli forces to recapture territory in the Sinai Peninsula. Gulf oil producers were infuriated when the United States helped re-equip the beleaguered Israeli military in the course of battle. Led by Saudi Arabia, Arab oil producers and oil companies orchestrated an embargo of the United States, thereby drying up supply and driving up prices. As a result of the 1973 crisis, the oil-producing countries finally seized direct control over production and pricing mechanisms from the giant Western oil conglomerates, leading to a massive increase in oil revenues for those nations.

[TimG]

You need to bone up on your history of middle east and West-ME relations. Dictators "more than happy to sell us their oil as fast as they could"? Please see the 1973 oil crisis.

Ancient history. The Saudis found out the hard way that squeezing their customers comes back to bite them which is why there has not been a repeat in 40 years. You made the assertion that the cost of wars (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq 1&2 and Afghanistan) should be added to the cost of oil and your quotes do not provide any support for that claim (it points out that the need to secure trade routes created a need for a military with global reach). The reasons for these wars were complex and oil was one factor among many in *some* of them. More importantly, the subset of conflicts that had a peripheral connection to oil could not be justified if the only concern was access to oil since what I said is true: dictators need to sell their oil and there is no need to get rid of them to ensure supply (the fact that you had to go back 40 years to find one and only one short lived example proves my point).

Aside: the bigger risk to our society today comes from China who holds a near monopoly on the rare earths needed to build much of the fancy new tech that battery powered cars need to run. So if you want to argue that maintaining a military to protect trade routes is a cost that should be added to oil it needs to be added to battery powered cars too because the risk does not go away just because the energy source changes.

Edited March 27, 2016 by TimG

[jacee]

The fact remains that while TimG rails hopelessly at the fates and the inevitable reduction in fossil fuel use, these Alberta oil workers are currently feeling the pinch and doing something constructive about it.

Good on them, I say.

[Topaz]

I can't see going away from oil when most of our household goods are made from oil and there some of that that can't be made from anything else like glass, although some beverages are going to glass bottles or water in cartons. So will manufacturing go back to the future?

[msj]

We do not need to go to 0% oil use.

We just need to shift away from coal and towards natural gas and wind and solar (hydro and nuclear are fine too ).

Which the rest of the world is doing to a large degree:

Scotland just shutdown their last coal fired plant.

Texas added 3.4 MW of capacity in 2015 compared to 1.6 MW of additional natural gas capacity ( and zilch for coal and very little for oil).

Yes, that seems small.

But understand the power of compounding: take a small number and increase it year over year at rates that are very high (42% one year then, say, 20% the next year etc...) and you quickly find that coal can be replaced and even oil can be threatened.

Yes it isn't happening fast enough, but it will.

[bush_cheney2004]

Yes it isn't happening fast enough, but it will.

It's happening just as fast as markets want them too. Nothing special about energy diversification...it's not a "religion".

[rotary]

It's happening just as fast as markets want them too. Nothing special about energy diversification...it's not a "religion".

Thank god it's not a religion, at least to those who understand it. Thus we can approach it sensibly as opposed to those who seem to think we must burn the last barrel of crude before moving on.

[Guest]

I think the leave it in the ground movement is more of a religion. It seems to be faith based, anyway.

[ReeferMadness]

I can't see going away from oil when most of our household goods are made from oil and there some of that that can't be made from anything else like glass, although some beverages are going to glass bottles or water in cartons. So will manufacturing go back to the future?

Only a small percentage of the oil produced goes into making plastics. And, by definition, oil used to make plastic is not fuel. So, you shouldn't assume that the end of fossil fuels necessarily means the end of plastics.

Having said that, everything that is manufactured should be reflective of cradle-grave pricing; including the environmental damage to create the oil, the cost to recycle the waste and the environmental cost to dispose of what cannot be recycled. If costs were adequately reflected in the price of goods, you might find that fewer plastics or more recyclable plastics used.

[Moonlight Graham]

You made the assertion that the cost of wars (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq 1&2 and Afghanistan) should be added to the cost of oil and your quotes do not provide any support for that claim. The reasons for these wars were complex and oil was one factor among many in *some* of them.

Korea and Vietnam were Cold War conflicts, nothing to do with oil, and I never mentioned either of them once, don't know why you've referred twice about them in this thread

Removing Mossedegh, backing the Shah, the 1979 Iranian Revolution, backing Saddam in the 80's, fighting Saddam, removing Saddam, putting planes and military bases in Saudi Arabia in 1991, Bin Laden getting PO'd at that, OBL waging war vs US from Afghanistan, invasion of Afghanistan, airstrikes and special forces helping remove Gaddafi etc. etc.. There are some some "peripheral" factors that come in to play yes, but the root of all of these conflicts is the want of the US/West to control ME oil resources. Another big factor is also protecting Israel, but one of the major reasons we protect Israel is that they're a friendly state in a strategically important region. By far the biggest reason it's strategically important is oil. Otherwise it would be just a giant desert of poverty we wouldn't really care about.

More importantly, the subset of conflicts that had a peripheral connection to oil could not be justified if the only concern was access to oil since what I said is true: dictators need to sell their oil and there is no need to get rid of them to ensure supply (the fact that you had to go back 40 years to find one and only one short lived example proves my point).

You need another example that controlling middle eastern oil production is important? Try in the last year where the Saudis have been overproducing oil in large part to cripple US and Canadian oil industries. Anyways, you obviously didn't read the Oxford Journal article, the answers are all in there. I'm not arguing anything every foreign policy expert in the world doesn't already know.

Aside: the bigger risk to our society today comes from China who holds a near monopoly on the rare earths needed to build much of the fancy new tech that battery powered cars need to run. So if you want to argue that maintaining a military to protect trade routes is a cost that should be added to oil it needs to be added to battery powered cars too because the risk does not go away just because the energy source changes.

That's certainly a risk, I totally agree. But as of now, it's only a hypothetical risk. We're not spending trillions fighting military wars against China, and they're not blowing themselves up in our countries. War in ME isn't a risk, it's actually occurring.

[TimG]

Korea and Vietnam were Cold War conflicts, nothing to do with oil, and I never mentioned either of them once, don't know why you've referred twice about them in this thread

Because all of the conflicts have the same underlying reason: a desire to spread the US vision of how countries should be run and to protect the US and its allies against potential military threats. Access to oil was a secondary concern even in Iraq because the oil would flow from Iraq even if the US did nothing.

the root of all of these conflicts is the want of the US/West to control ME oil resources. Another big factor is also protecting Israel, but one of the major reasons we protect Israel is that they're a friendly state in a strategically important region. By far the biggest reason it's strategically important is oil.

Otherwise it would be just a giant desert of poverty we wouldn't really care about.

The trouble with constructed narratives is they fall apart when the omitted information is brought to light. In what way was the US intervention in Iraq or Iran different from the intervention in Korea, Vietnam or Chili, Nicaragua or Panama? How can claim it is "primarily oil" when they are so many other conflicts that have nothing to do with oil. A more plausible narrative is it was about spreading the US vision of how countries should be run.

We're not spending trillions fighting military wars against China, and they're not blowing themselves up in our countries. War in ME isn't a risk, it's actually occurring.

So now you want to argue that terrorism is a "cost" of oil? This is getting ridiculous. The "cost" of oil is measured in the cost to extract and transport + some impact of the local environment at the extraction sites and cities. The latter can be mitigated with pollution controls. However, all other sources of energy have environmental impacts which would be just as large and as potentially harmful if they we scaled up to produce the same amount of energy that oil does today. Edited March 28, 2016 by TimG

[Guest]

AWESOME!!!

jobless-oilsands-workers-look-to-alternative-energy

A group of former oilsands workers is developing a plan to help laid-off colleagues get retraining in alternate energy sources.

Workers from a sector in decline being retrained to work in an industry on the rise, that's great. Hard to believe some find fault in this practice.

[jacee]

Workers from a sector in decline being retrained to work in an industry on the rise, that's great. Hard to believe some find fault in this practice.

Some people just like to hear themselves complain perhaps? Lol

Yes ... And the workers themselves taking the initiative ... instead of just complaining.

.

[jacee]

We do not need to go to 0% oil use.

We just need to shift away from coal and towards natural gas and wind and solar (hydro and nuclear are fine too ).

...

Yes it isn't happening fast enough, but it will.

I agree with most of what you said ... But nuclear is NOT fine. Like oil, if you consider the environmental damage and cleanup from extraction, and accidents, it is very damaging and not cheap.

Hydro ... dams are also damaging.

We can cut down on gasoline cars by outlawing them in cities, make transit or electric mandatory. :-)

Edited March 29, 2016 by jacee