Alberta may cut off oil to BC

[Queenmandy85]

14 hours ago, Thinkinoutsidethebox said:

Also, is water vapor considered a greenhouse gas? There is allot of evaporation from these plants. 

I regret I am not an engineer, but would it be possible to sell the residual heat / hot water to the local municipality? Run steam lines through homes and under streets and return the cooler water to recycle through the plant. Just asking?

 

[Argus]

On 4/20/2018 at 11:46 AM, Queenmandy85 said:

Worse violence will come if we don't try to mitigate the degree of change. China already sees the danger, as does most of the rest of the developed world. The US is currently slow to react but they will soon. 

China is building a lot of coal fired power plants. It is also funding them through loans to a dozen other countries in the third world. So if it has seen a danger it doesn't seem to think it's any big deal.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Argus

[Argus]

On 4/20/2018 at 5:16 PM, Queenmandy85 said:

The Europeans didn't have cars, running water or electricity either. First Nations  also didn't have smallpox, influenza, the common cold, or alcoholism. They could drink straight from the river. You couldn't do that in London or Paris. They had a stable population and enough to eat most years. Life wasn't perfect, but it was a darn sight better than now. 

The natives had their own diseases and plagues before the Europeans arrived. And their lifespan was around 30. I would suggest that saying this is a 'damn sight better than now' is nonsensical. 

[Argus]

On 4/21/2018 at 11:45 AM, Queenmandy85 said:

Just for the sake of argument, what have we got to lose by reducing carbon emissions? 

The only way to reduce carbon emissions, barring technological innovation (which is happening) involves increasing the cost of energy. More costly energy damages the economy and leads to more unemployment, crime, poverty and death.

More importantly, few countries in the world have made any solid commitments to reducing their carbon emissions. Basically it's just the West, minus the US. The rest of the world is continuing to increase their CO2 emissions, and will do so for decades. So taxing ourselves into the poorhouse to try to reduce ours seems pointless.

[Argus]

On 4/21/2018 at 1:41 PM, Queenmandy85 said:

The mass production of small nuclear reactors, the mining and refining of fuel and the global sales will be an enduring boost to the economy.

That will never happen. The environmental movement hates and fears nuclear power and it takes at least a decade of hearings and a decade of building for a single plant.

[Accountability Now]

On 4/21/2018 at 5:14 PM, eyeball said:

I didn't lie at all, what I said is true, China is clearly amongst the biggest investors in fossil fuels in Alberta,

Actually what you said was "In fact China's oily-garchs are amongst the biggest foreign investors in the oil sands."  You stated oil sands which is one part of the fossil fuels market in Alberta. As I stated, 80% of the oil sand company and oil sands activity are actually Canadian companies (http://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2017/3/charts-canadian-companies-about-own-80-percent-oilsands-production/) The bulk of the investors in these companies are US and Canadian funds. 

Keeping with your revised statement about it being the "fossil fuels", you still have only provided a paywall link and two small text excerpts from that link which provide zero numerical justification that the Chinese are one of the biggest investors. When you make a claim that something is the biggest, then you have to quantify it and compare it to the others to show its the biggest. 

Quote

 

May 19, 2017 - It shows that, far from disappearing, Chinese investment in Canada's oil patch has shifted from high-cost oil sands projects, which had been the target of blockbuster deals by the state-owned giants, to smaller acquisitions that garner few headlines.

Five years after Ottawa put the brakes on a surge of foreign investment, China is back. A new wave of Chinese investors is quietly snapping up a host of energy companies in the wake of the industry slump. Jeff Lewis, Jeffrey Jones and Nathan VanderKlippe report on a stealthy takeover binge in the oil patch

 

All that you have provided are quotes saying that Chinese companies have shifted to smaller acquisitions. Nothing in here says anything about them being one of the largest investors at all.  

The latest oil bust has scared most foreign investors away. That is the reason the Liberals are now trying to swoon the Chinese investors back. As such your claim may one day be true but at this point its just not. 

 

On 4/21/2018 at 5:14 PM, eyeball said:

Why do you call yourself Accountability Now anyway?  Is it to demand accountability from the governed to their government?

No. I chose this name because I was annoyed with people spewing misinformation to suit their personal agenda. I see both sides doing it but I guess I speak up more on the issues that matter to me. I don't share the same resentment for all government as you do. Government is a revolving door of politically driven people that have agendas however they are only put there by informed (or misinformed voters). So when I see people who are purposely misquoting things or create false statements especially on objective/numerical figures, that is when I speak up. 

[Thinkinoutsidethebox]

2 hours ago, Queenmandy85 said:

I regret I am not an engineer, but would it be possible to sell the residual heat / hot water to the local municipality? Run steam lines through homes and under streets and return the cooler water to recycle through the plant. Just asking?

 

The huge evaporative losses would be from turning steam back to water and yes your ideas are possible.

One of the problems include location of plant to potential consumers, locating the plant in the center of an urbanized area would be by far the most economical and efficient but how would you feel about having a nuclear power station in your back yard? We could easily cut energy consumption in half using ideas like yours as well as many others but human attitudes forbid it, we are not built to operate efficiently.

 Here's some interesting information on various plant efficiencies https://www.brighthubengineering.com/power-plants/72369-compare-the-efficiency-of-different-power-plants/  . This is the amount of heat that's converted to electricity compared to what's lost to the environment (waste). So a plant that's 30% efficient means 30% of heat energy is actually converted to electricity and 70% is lost as waste, this does not include conversion and transmission losses. This is heat we are just pumping into the atmosphere...

Here's another interesting link to efficiency of a typical gasoline powered car https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml  just think if we could get that up to ninety percent plus! Petroleum is a very high density and reasonably safe source of fuel, this is why it's so hard to replace. A typical battery pack for an electric car adds 1200lbs to the weight of an equivalent gas powered car full of fuel and has less than half the range.   

 

[Queenmandy85]

Yes, I would live next to a Candu reactor. One of the key investments we need to make is in education. Resistance to nuclear power is based on a lot of mis-information. The Fukushima malfunction did not kill anyone. Three Mile Island did not kill anyone. The only nuclear accident to cause deaths was Chernobyl with 45 fatalities. More people die in car accidents in Saskatchewan in one year than in all the nuclear power plant accidents.

[cannuck]

4 hours ago, Queenmandy85 said:

Yes, I would live next to a Candu reactor. One of the key investments we need to make is in education. Resistance to nuclear power is based on a lot of mis-information. The Fukushima malfunction did not kill anyone. Three Mile Island did not kill anyone. The only nuclear accident to cause deaths was Chernobyl with 45 fatalities. More people die in car accidents in Saskatchewan in one year than in all the nuclear power plant accidents.

I am not a Candu fan, as they are ancient technology.   However, in Canada, we have done a lot of work with thorium fuels, but sadly, the whole business of reactors is now in the hands of an engineering company that I simply do not respect or trust (SNC Lavalin - got to where they are mostly by patronage and bribery).

Give me a subcritical mass reactor, and I will glandly live next door.   Do you know what the most likely highest source of exposure to radiation a typical Canadian nuclear worker has?   Sleeping with spouse.  I think dairy products run a close second.  I get to work in nuclear facilities once in a while, and the last thing I worry about is radiation exposure.

[cannuck]

8 hours ago, Argus said:

China is building a lot of coal fired power plants. It is also funding them through loans to a dozen other countries in the third world. So if it has seen a danger it doesn't seem to think it's any big deal.

No, that time is past.  I thought they would go out and convert the existing (thousands) coal fired plants to gas fired, but they will simply build new gas fired thermal plants to replace coal plants (as I understand it: more distributed generation).  China bought leading edge sub-critical mass technology from its South African developers years ago (surprised they didn't just steal it!!!) and the intent for that, as with gas/thermal now is for distributed generation, so we are talking very small nukes that will tuck into neighbourhoods (sub gigawatt?).  You have to be there a very long time to understand China: once they make their (central planning) mind up, they will then go full speed ahead into implementation at a rate no other country could imagine.   That is how you take your economy from stone age to #2 in the world in a couple of decades.   AND, environmental protection is now squarely in their sights.   ALL developing economies got there by exploiting their resources and environment, China no different from US, Canada, Yurp, etc.

[Thinkinoutsidethebox]

20 hours ago, Argus said:

More importantly, few countries in the world have made any solid commitments to reducing their carbon emissions. Basically it's just the West, minus the US. 

And Canada, doubling oilsands output is not reducing CO2 emissions...

[cannuck]

2 hours ago, Thinkinoutsidethebox said:

And Canada, doubling oilsands output is not reducing CO2 emissions...

That is not quite so simple.   World oil demand is world oil demand, and it will be met one way or another.  The idea that we can simply produce less oil from the sands and be somehow improving global emissions is naive at best.  Yes, the methods of producing ANY heavy or extra-heavy crude emit more CO2 than does tapping a light oil reservoir (that is, unless the methane is vented causing much worse greenhouse contribution or if the methane is flared resulting in CO2 - and yes, these things are still done outside of North America) but since we continue to demand fuel and petrochemicals, these things will be produced, period.  What is important is for Canada to be able to benefit from this resouce while it is marketable - and it will be for quite some time in the future.

Reality is, if you want to do anything about carbon emissions, the answer is to go after the demand, not the supply.  Big Oil is an easy target for the media and special interest groups, but it is our own (and their own) wasteful behaviour that drives demand.  But, just like every other social(ist) concept, it is always the standard to blame those who meet our demands, never to look in the mirror and realize we ARE the demand/problem.

Of course, 7-8 billion people living on a nice 1-2 billion planet is an ever larger part of the problem (and many other problems as well).  Open the subject of reducing population if you REALLY want to see how stupid we can get.

[eyeball]

54 minutes ago, cannuck said:

Open the subject of reducing population if you REALLY want to see how stupid we can get.

I'm pretty sure that was attempted but the usual suspects said that was stupid too so...

Best to just drive off the cliff and really rub our noses in it. Maybe then someone will smarten up.

[Thinkinoutsidethebox]

21 hours ago, cannuck said:

That is not quite so simple.   World oil demand is world oil demand, and it will be met one way or another.  The idea that we can simply produce less oil from the sands and be somehow improving global emissions is naive at best.  Yes, the methods of producing ANY heavy or extra-heavy crude emit more CO2 than does tapping a light oil reservoir (that is, unless the methane is vented causing much worse greenhouse contribution or if the methane is flared resulting in CO2 - and yes, these things are still done outside of North America) but since we continue to demand fuel and petrochemicals, these things will be produced, period.  What is important is for Canada to be able to benefit from this resouce while it is marketable - and it will be for quite some time in the future.

Your explanation reinforces my point, Canada is not making any commitment to reducing global CO2 emissions output, we are no different than the Americans.

21 hours ago, cannuck said:

Reality is, if you want to do anything about carbon emissions, the answer is to go after the demand, not the supply.  Big Oil is an easy target for the media and special interest groups, but it is our own (and their own) wasteful behaviour that drives demand.  But, just like every other social(ist) concept, it is always the standard to blame those who meet our demands, never to look in the mirror and realize we ARE the demand/problem.

Exactly, it's supply and demand, the same as drugs, guns and many problems in society.

21 hours ago, cannuck said:

Of course, 7-8 billion people living on a nice 1-2 billion planet is an ever larger part of the problem (and many other problems as well).  Open the subject of reducing population if you REALLY want to see how stupid we can get.

I think earth could comfortably sustain ten billion people but today's population is consuming at the rate of twenty billion, everybody thinks the planet is an endless source of raw materials. And of course we are doing everything in our power to develop another being (AI) that's going to compete with us for earth's limited resources, this truly is ridiculous.

We are drifting off topic though