[Newsbot]

Title: Canada's energy superpower status threatened as world shifts off fossil fuel, federal think-tank warns
Category: Business
Posted By: andyt
Date: 2016-05-30 08:07:49
Canadian

[andyt]

here we have Albertans whinging about the new carbon tax, and whoops, the govt better not count on significant income from carbon taxes in the near future. I guess we're nearing the "hump" where renewables become cheaper and cheaper. No doubt today's dinosaurs will bemoan this for some time. Ironic considering it's their ancestors that they want to keep spewing.

Not good for BC, where we're about dams and nat gas. Wonder what Krispie Clark will promise us for 2017. Certainly not wiping out the debt and having a 100 million prosperity fund like last time.

[peck420]

Alternative energy sources could be 1/10th the price of oil...and oil extraction (globally) isn't going to change a great deal. Same with NG.

We can't extract the byproducts only.

Out of every barrel of oil extracted, about 47% is turned into fuel/energy. The rest is used for manufacturing.

[andyt]

Say a 20% reduction in demand won't have an effect on prices? And hydro, our other big energy source also seems to be going the way of the dodo.

[peck420]

andyt andyt:

Say a 20% reduction in demand won't have an effect on prices? And hydro, our other big energy source also seems to be going the way of the dodo.

It is going to have a significant effect on pricing. Everybody that uses the by products is going to have to pay for the increased waste.

20% less fuel/energy usage, doesn't mean a 20% reduction in oil extraction. It just means that some of the product that is made form that extraction is now waste...unless they can find another use for it.

So extraction stays the same. Amount of viable product to sell from each barrel produced drops (waste increase). Costs rise.

We need to find alternatives for more than just our energy to end our dependency on oil. We have to find alternatives for all of the byproducts as well. Preferably in equal measure, so we can actually reduce the amount of oil extraction required.

[andyt]

You seem to know a lot about the oil industry. Here is what the smarty pants say in the report:

$1:

All of this doesn't add up to the end of fossil fuels, according to the report, but it does suggest Canada should rethink the value and applicability of its natural resources as "demand for oil could peak sooner and decline faster than expected."

One of the more extreme scenarios the report considers is a world in which the supply of fossil fuels exceeds demand for an extended period of time, which the authors say could lead to a loss of "commodity status" for oil, coal and natural gas.

"Rather than being price-takers from suppliers, consumer countries could become price-makers on different sources of oil as suppliers adjust pricing to maintain share of a diminishing and more discriminating marketplace," the report states.

And for the howlers at was it Linda McQuaig?

$1:

It says that "some oil is likely to remain in the ground,"

We've heard this before, that it won't be government regulation that keeps oil in the ground, but the market place. It's actually a component of the peak oil idea too.

[BeaverFever]

Canada's an "energy superpower" the way Bangladesh is a sweatshop superpower. We're price-takers, not price-makers.

[uwish]

the world revolves around oil, not just for 'burning' but for goods manufactured. They can say whatever they want, but as long as you need, plastics, rubber, etc etc you will need oil. So I see very little affect on the price in the long run.

[andyt]

cut out a huge chunk of the use for oil, no effect on price? Strange. Unless the long run refers to centuries.

[BartSimpson]

We're a long way off from 'renewables' dominating the energy market.

Renewables are not going to power trains, ships, airliners, steel mills, or many other aspects of civilization.

And sooner or later people have to come to grips with the fact that windmills as they are currently designed are slaughtering birds in the millions. Eventually the damned things have to be banned or else we'll have huge parts of the world where there won't be very many birds.

[andyt]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Renewables are not going to power trains,

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Renewables are not going to power ships, airliners

$1:

Making waves

Transport: Maritime engineers are already embracing electric propulsion for ships—and electric planes could be next

http://www.economist.com/node/10202790

$1:

U.S. Steel CEO Mario Longhi, who is under the gun after having to announce Monday that his Pittsburgh-based firm lost $2.1 billion in 2013, is starting to make real moves.

On Tuesday — the day before he welcomes President Obama at a plant in Pittsburgh — Mr. Longhi said that the company would apply for permits to replace its blast furnace at a plant in Fairfield, AL with an electric arc furnace. The new furnace will be in operation by 2017.

http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intellig ... teel-mill/

[BartSimpson]

Renewables power the trains in Europe? Since when?

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics ... generation

$1:

More than one quarter of the net electricity generated in the EU-28 in 2013 came from nuclear power plants (26.8 %), while almost double this share (49.8 %) came from power stations using combustible fuels (such as natural gas, coal and oil). Among the renewable energy sources shown in Figure 1, the highest share of net electricity generation in 2013 was from hydropower plants (12.8 %), followed by wind turbines (7.5 %) and solar power (2.7 %).

Carbon and uranium provide over 3/4 of the electricity in Europe and they're not going away. Europe can't and won't build anymore hydro capacity and in fact they're acting to remove much or most of Europe's hydro capacity.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=hy ... val+europe

That amps up dependence on carbon and uranium because solar and wind are not dependable in Europe.

[BartSimpson]

You also don't know much about how to make steel. An arc furnace is still going to require coal.

[peck420]

Andyt,

Sorry for not getting back to this sooner.

The reason we always see reports claiming that if can we reduce the energy portion, it will also reduce the extraction portion, is because analysts use the information they have at the time.

Which usually includes up and coming products, while good on paper, have not yet been real world tested. Take plastics for example. When bioplastics were first released, analysts made a lot of claims about how much it was going to reduce oil extraction/consumption. And, based on the lab and test results...they were right. What they didn't account for was wildlife. When animals started eating bioplastics a lot of bioplastic consumers made a very quick change back to oil based plastics. Consumption increased.

When we start to see more products, using alternatives to oil, surviving the real world, I will adjust my opinion on it.

[BeaverFever]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Renewables power the trains in Europe? Since when?

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics ... generation

$1:

More than one quarter of the net electricity generated in the EU-28 in 2013 came from nuclear power plants (26.8 %), while almost double this share (49.8 %) came from power stations using combustible fuels (such as natural gas, coal and oil). Among the renewable energy sources shown in Figure 1, the highest share of net electricity generation in 2013 was from hydropower plants (12.8 %), followed by wind turbines (7.5 %) and solar power (2.7 %).

Yeah but that varies a lot by country. In Germany, Renewable energy provides almost a third of all power consumed, at times provide up to 90% of the entire grid.