"In its desperate search for oil and gas riches, Alberta is destroying itself. As the world teeters on the edge of catastrophic climate change, Alberta plunges ahead with uncontrolled development of its fossil fuels, levelling its northern Boreal forest to get at the oil sands, and carpet-bombing its southern half with tens of thousands of gas wells. In so doing, it is running out of water, destroying its range land, wiping out its forests and wildlife and spewing huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, adding to global warming at a rate that is unrivalled in Canada or almost anywhere else in the world. It’s digging, drilling and blasting its way to oblivion, becoming the ultimate symbol of Canada’s – and the world’s – pathological will to self-destruct.

Nowhere has the world seen such colossal environmental destruction as is being wreaked on Alberta. At one point the province even went so far as to consider a scientist’s idea of nuking its underbelly to get at the tar sands. Stupid to the Last Drop looks at the increasingly violent geopolitical forces that are gathering as the world’s gas and oil dwindle and the Age of Oil begins its inevitable slide towards oblivion. As Canadians deplete their energy reserves, selling them off to Americans at bargain-basement prices, no thought is given to conservation or the long-term needs of the nation."

William Marsden.

Discuss.

Why dont you go first for once?

Why change protocol?

The quote is a tad sensationalist and dramatic, it probably overstates a few examples, but in general I couldn't argue with it.

My point of view, though, is that Alberta (well, the oil companies) are not doing this for the hell of it. The oil sands projects are a symptom or a result of the insanity of our Western lifestyles.

It's all very well bemoaning the environmental destruction, but we're still building 3,000-4,000 ft2 houses with triple garages, centrally heated and air conditioned. We're still building F-350s and Yukons and Suburbans which are used for commuting.

We're still filling our houses with ever more electronic gadgets which are never turned off.

The real question isn't the why-oh-why's of the oil sands, it's the why-oh-why do we need to produce this oil.

I was discussing this last night with a couple of friends - one who had just come back from a stint in Fort Mac.

He says the technology up there is just phenominal - the money being spent etc - they have just had 30 trucks delivered to their site alone at a cost of 4 million each and another plant is being built to increase the current production and it will go from 225k barrels a day to 550k by 2012.

We got on to discussing the ethanol alternative, and I may be wrong just relaying info - but if they took all of the barley, wheat etc currently in the states to produce ethanol, it would only cover 5% of what is currently being produced oilwise for automobile usage.

Where there's brass there's muck as the old saying goes and with guys being paid upwards of $2000 to work Canada day alone (in a normal mechanics job), and the revenue that the companies get, its not going to go away anytime soon.

Many think it is, though.

I agree with jings that the rhetoric is a bit over the top, but would add that in terms of the very useful metric Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI), the oils sands are a ridiculous waste of resources.

Link added: www.EROIE.com

Interesting to see what the head of OPEC said on French TV today (I read about it in the Torygraph). I take one of his comments to be an instruction to the USA to put pressure on Israel not to attack Iran.

link please?

www.telegraph.co.uk

Lazy git.

Ah. Merci.

Edit. I see what you mean.

In what respect though? Because the companies aren't going to stop until they have exhausted the supply, which is currently good for about 50 years with todays technology.

My point was that just because its environmentally unfriendly will not stop the excavation - the whole lot running out is a different matter.

So if the many think soon is because of pressure due to the production ethics, I would suggest that the many might be wrong

Yes, you are a lazy git.

How much would energy costs have to go up before your consumption patterns and your lifestyle were seriously altered? What if gasoline prices here in Canada were the same as the UK at $2.60 per litre, or if domestic gas and electricity prices doubled?

What would it take to make you...

Move to a smaller house.
Get rid of a vehicle(s).
Only take local holidays.

etc. etc.

Wasnt he also saying that OPEC output was meeting current demand, and that increasing output was pointless lipservice.

Seems to me the current "high" cost of oil is due to speculation thats based on political instability in the oil producing regions, rather than true supply and demand market forces. Could be that bubble will burst and prices will come down again, or it could be that demand from China and other developing nations will keep the price high regardless.

I read somewhere that saudi oil costs less than $10 a barrel to get out of the ground and to the end user, but oil sand oil only starts to break even with the extraction cost at $70....and I dont know if they figured in the cost to return the landscape to the way they found it in that figure, which the oil companies are legally commited too. Given the way that they dragged their heels in cases like the Exxon Valdes cleanup, you have to wonder if they are really going to do that anyway.

I wouldnt say selling oil to the US at $136 a barrel is "bargain basement", and as oil prices increase north america WILL have to make changes in its energy use profile, as has happened in Europe as a result of higher taxation levels focusing minds on economy. Will that happen soon enough? Probably not Im afraid. If $136 is an inflated price, then better to sell to the US now at $66 a barrel profit, than to hold on to this resource and sell after the bubble burst for only $30 profit?

Never mind the economics of the situation, the global environmental effect is the real issue, and with china racing to catch up with a US style consumer society, Im afraid the outlook is very bleak for my childrens children. I first became aware of global warming in 1989, reading Ben Eltons book Stark, and frankly, what has changed in 20 years that will make enough difference to prevent us passing a tipping point at which point it will be too late?

Oil supply is not a concern in the short term, there is more extractable oil reserves known about now than there was 30 or 40 years ago when people first started to say it was running out. As the price increases, so does the level of technology available to to extract it where it was previously impractical or to make it from other sources, but thats a dangerous game, and even at $5000 a barrel, eventually you cant extract what is no longer there. However, it doesnt matter if oil runs out in 50 or 100 or 1000 years time. If we dont wean ourselves off carbon fuels in the much shorter term, it wont matter anyway.

It seems to me the North American majority seems to be pinning all its hopes on some sort of "Star Trek" solution..by which I mean they expect the engineers to pull some fantastic (unnamed) solution to the problem out of there arse at the last minute, to narrowly avert disaster. Unfortunately things on this planet seldom work out quite like that.

Fair enough mandy, what I meant is that the oil based economy is considered by many to be in its death throes.

And from souv's telegraph link...

"A litre of unleaded petrol currently costs an average of £1.18. Every dollar increase in the price of oil adds about 0.42p to a litre of petrol."

Eh? How does that work? If crude is now $130 US/barrel doing the conversions says that at 1.18 pounds a litre that cost of the crude is about 40% of the UK pump price. An increase of 0.42 p / litre corresponds to an increase of ~$US 6 per barrel. Somebody's telling porkies.