Steve_

But it is to a large extent, I mean look at who the largest employers are, the largest non-food retailer employer in Calgary is Precision Drilling Co. and the largest employer in the province is AHS, and the money to fund AHS obviously comes in large part from tax revenues on the oil and gas industry.

Essentially the oil and gas industry own Alberta, no-one likes to admit it but in essence they do.

The PCs haven't been in power for 40+ years by accident. Look at the top employers list: http://v250.albertaventure.com/large...rta-employers/

How many of those are taxpayer-funded or in the natural resources industry? I count seven in the top ten.

Steve_

Like I said, check that list, of that 70% what proportion are public services funded by tax revenue from oil and gas?

And who could possibly win an election without the oil and gas industry if they have a lock on 30% of the vote anyway?

Just look at that list of employers and how many times do you see: "resource industries"?

Jingsamichty

How'd you work that one out?

Novocastrian

I find the term "resource industry" a bit amusing givem the above discussion. But more importantly, I'm impressed by the fact that AHS employs 3 times the number of the next highest employer (Safeway) and that the enterprises listed above the first Oil company (Suncor) employ 158,100 Albertans (Suncor = 13,000).

Not a big employer then. Just a money cow.

jimf

That looks like a worldwide numer of employees for Agrium (who use lots of energy to manufaturer fertiliser)? Safeway and CPR values probably include jobs outside of Alberta also - 30,000 Safeway employees in Alberta seems unlikely. I doubt Stantec employees 11 thousand just in Alberta. Once the public sector organisations are taken out Suncor probably is the largest employer.

jimf

Stephan who?

So "advanced" Germany burns more coal than just about anyone and exports more carbon emitting products than just about anyone. It's good to see the greens are influential there.

I suppose if it's ok for green party members to take multiple long haul flights between multiple homes on distant continents each year then anything goes........

Jingsamichty

Oil companies don't employ a lot of people. They contract with an awful lot of people, and put food on an awful lot of tables. On my project alone, there are over 5,000 people earning a good living, probably only 200-300 are actually employed by the oil company.

Novocastrian

Fair enough. I was just reading Steve's link.

Steve_

I've read it several times in the Herald over the years, that list seems to suggest otherwise but that shows where the HQ is, in terms of total employees in Calgary, Safeway comes first followed by Precision Drilling. But yeah it's hard to know because how many of them are listed at that address but actually work outside of Calgary, hard to tell.

Steve_

Anyway, here's another article that illustrates how the oil and gas industry basically run Alberta: http://www.calgaryherald.com/busines...455/story.html

danfolkestone

It's starting to happen, but it's a slow and expensive process. Not many people will buy Compressed Natural Gas cars because there's nowhere to fill them up, but who wants to build a CNG filling station when there's no demand? That said, big gas producers are working on more CNG trucks and buses, with a focus on fleets which return to a home base every day, and can be refueled there. There's also projects under way to develop CNG stations on major trucking routes throughout North America.

Natural Gas is also being used more and more to operate the drilling and fracking equipment that usually runs on diesel.

cheeky_monkey

I thought that liquid hydrogen fueled cars/vehicles was the way to go in the future..as there is an infinite supply..other bonus that emission are zero...but what do i know

Novocastrian

Not a lot. Liquid Hydrogen only exists below 33K (or 20K if you want it at atmospheric pressure).

Moreover, although there is a lot of it around (in water, not as combustable hydrogen) you have to consider the energy inputs required to "extract" it from water.

There's an interesting study published in Israel (I'd have to search to find the reference but it was from the Weizmann Institute) which employs Zn and mirror concentrated sunlight to accomplish the task, with the Zn being simply regenerated later.

As they say in Germany, Zukuenftsmusik.

Pilot scale at the moment though.

GavinR

http://ezralevant.com/2013/07/turbine-stand-still.html

Interesting report showing the problems surrounding wind power in Ontario.

dbd33

I got as far as the caption:

"Lorrie Goldstein and Ezra Levant explore the blackouts in Alberta that are partially the result of unreliable, inefficient wind energy."

I thought "Ah, Lorrie Goldstein, not to be taken seriously then" and was about to close the window when I thought "wait a minute, Alberta's not in Ontario, is it?"