The US Congress is apparently renewing its effort to cut tax breaks for the domestic oil & gas industry, while the administration intends to reinstate the offshore drilling moratorium that had been set aside by a federal judge in Louisiana. At the same time, 50 members of Congress have written to Secretary of State Clinton asking her to block a new pipeline to carry crude produced from Canadian oilsands to US refineries. However, even when you factor in the energy contribution of new initiatives such as the $2 billion in loan guarantees for solar power projects announced last week, the net result of all of this would be to undermine two of the central pillars of US energy security for the last several decades: producing more energy here at home and importing energy preferentially from stable and friendly neighbors like Canada and Mexico. For all the lip service about energy independence prompted by the Gulf Coast oil spill, these actions would ultimately make us more reliant on OPEC and unfriendly regimes.Canada will sell its oil to whoever wants to buy it. The eco-nuts in the US are turning their noses up on Canadian oil, so China will buy it. And this morning France's big oil company Total just bought a big share in one of the oil sands projects. It will be hysterically funny in 4 or 5 years when the US gets desperate for oil to see them plead with Canada to "spare some oil" to fill the need. But there won't be any to spare. It will be committed to reliable customers in China and Europe who don't play political games of by passing laws to turn the tap on and off to suit the latest fancy of some eco-nuts.
... And when drilling eventually resumes off the Gulf Coast, it is guaranteed to be much more costly. Adding higher taxes to these higher costs and tighter regulations must inevitably result in fewer wells being drilled and more oil imported--and from where?
Not from Canada, if the signers of the oilsands letter get their way. Oilsands production raises legitimate environmental concerns, both locally and globally. Producing oil from these deposits results in higher greenhouse gas emissions, though environmentalists usually fail to mention that tripling the emissions from production, compared to conventional oil, raises the total lifecycle emissions of the oil by just 17% compared to the average barrel refined in the US, because the vast majority of those emissions occur when the resulting petroleum products are burned, not when the oil is produced or processed. Now, a 17% increase in emissions is not nothing, but it must be weighed against two other factors. First, if oil prices are high enough, this oil will likely be produced anyway, even if we don't take it. Canadian companies have already signed deals to send oilsands crude to China, and they would do more of this if we turned up our noses at the stuff. Secondly, there's no guarantee that the oil we'd import from elsewhere would result in substantially lower emissions. That's particularly true for crude produced from heavy oil deposits in Venezuela and elsewhere, which average 14% higher lifecycle emissions.
Canada has been our largest foreign oil supplier for years, but with oilsands making up a steadily-growing share of Canadian output, restrictions on our oilsands intake would torpedo that relationship. With Mexican production going into steep decline, we would have to import more from Russia and the Middle East to make up the difference. That doesn't sound like a recipe for energy security to me.
The US let billions of Bush's "development dollars" slip into the hands of insurrectionists in Iraq. The US lets bribes be paid to the Taliban to allow US military convoys to drive unhindered to resupply US military in Afghanistan. And now the US is passing laws to turn up demand for OPEC oil where the money is siphoned off to pay for Al Qaeda terrorism. What more can the US do to shoot itself in the foot? Incredible!
2 comments:
RY;
First thought is that the oil sand can hardly be as bad as drilling a mile under the ocean and not having any way to stop the inevitable gush.. I just read that we have abandoned wells and platforms leaking in more than one instance. No matter if Canada can produce oil and at an acceptable cost than who should stand in the way by spreading propaganda?
I recently read that a very expensive and potentially dangerous highway is being built to get equipment to Canada through Idaho (let me see if I can find that). Here is one article
I need to read that one and I don't know where I read the one I am thinking of. And, I am not saying that I agree with the fears or concerns, but I hope those involved will be careful and reasonable.
Thomas: I'm all for safety and a clean environment, but not to the point where nobody leaves their home and everybody starves to death because it is a "scary" world out there. Life is full of risks. Sensible people take sensible risks for reasonable rewards. But there are crazies lying on either extreme of sensible people.
There are those who take risks "for the thrill of it" or simply refuse to consider risks and jump first and want to look later. Fine, let them have their thrill so long as it doesn't cost the rest of us. (Think Abby Sunderland whose "adventure" has costs Australians about $300,000 which, of course, she and her parents aren't going to pay. Oh, and she wants to "try again!" Why not if it doesn't cost you anything.)
The other group at the other extreme are those who are scared of everything. They don't want to build any new building (it will block views or ruin "the feel" of the neighborhood) or new industry (it will spew contaminants or will put excessive demands on infrastructure). These are the ones who wish desperately we still lived the "safe" days of hunter-gatherer societies when your neighborhood lion would lunch on your kiddies and starvation was always staring you in the eyes. But somehow, because this was tens of thousands of years ago, these were the "golden" years that were so much "safer" than today.
The extremes are crazy. Sensible people have to ignore them.
By the way: there are an estimated trillion barrels of recoverable oil in the oil sands. So when "peak oil" people tell you that "the end is nigh" you can safely ignore them. Also, as Geoffrey Styles points out, the green complaint about CO2 emissions is overblown. It is 17% more than conventional oil.
I remember teaching kiddies back in the mid-1970s that "oil will soon run out". That was what the crazies were preaching and I didn't have any better info, so I went along. Since then, my father pointed out that when he was a kid in the early 1930s the crazies were telling him that "oil will soon run out" and we have been through a few phases of that since the 1970s. Sure it will run out. But in hundreds of years and by then we should have some wonderful nuclear technologies that will make an oil-based economy look ridiculously out-dated and inefficient.
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