Ditching the Energy Superpower Illusion

Mankind is coming to a decision point.  We can either walk away from high-carbon fossil fuels, leave the stuff in the ground, and keep our fingers crossed that somehow we'll stay within the 2-degree Celsius target cap for global warming this century or we can stay the current course and usher in a catastrophic 5C of warming.

There is an range of fossil fuels with significant differences in their individual carbon footprint.  Natural gas, if you can ignore the disastrous leakage loss problem, is cleanest.  Sweet, light crude oil of the sort that's pumped out of wells in the Middle East is the runner up.  Then you get into unconventional (seabed) and heavy tar/oil (Athabasca) that require a lot of carbon-intensive energy to extract and process.  Coal comes in last.  It's bloody awful.

We know that if we're to have any chance of making the 2C target, somewhere between two-thirds and four-fifths of known fossil fuel reserves will have to be left underground.  Even the Globe & Mail finally gets that.

A new analysis of world-wide fossil fuel resources concludes that, as far as the contentious Keystone XL pipeline is concerned, most of the bitumen that pipeline is meant to carry needs to be left underground in Athabasca.

Advocates of Keystone XL point out that the oil sands are not as large a contributor to climate change as other fuel reserves elsewhere in the world, particularly coal. The study does not disagree with this assessment, but makes clear that a concerted global effort will be needed to maintain at least a 50-per-cent chance of staying under the two-degree limit – a goal agreed to by the majority of nations, including Canada, under the 2009 Copenhagen accord.

As previous studies have already shown, roughly two-thirds of fossil fuels that can already be extracted at a competitive price will need to remain unburned before 2050 to achieve this goal. The new analysis shows that in order to optimize costs and benefits, that two-thirds cannot be evenly distributed around the world, but must be skewed toward more carbon-intense fuels situated far from potential markets. The computer model suggests that it will be next to impossible to meet climate targets if those fuels are tapped to a significant degree, even as producers continue to develop these reserves.

“I think the most sobering thing from this study is the gulf that it reveals between the declared intention of the politicians and the policy-makers to stick to two degrees, and their willingness to actually contemplate what needs to be done if that is to be even remotely achieved,” said Paul Ekins, a co-author of the study.

In broad terms, the analysis reveals that meeting the two-degree limit will require the curtailing of coal burning to the extent that 82 per cent of global reserves, primarily in the United States and the former Soviet Union, should stay in the ground. Natural gas, which is less carbon-intense, is the most favourable fuel in the analysis. The authors stress that gas will be essential in the transition to a low-carbon future.

Oil occupies a middle ground in the study, but as the optimized model shakes down, Alberta’s oil sands end up largely unused.

The analysis is a big step in compelling two-faced politicians to declare whether they want to preserve the world for future generations or continue to exploit high-carbon fossil fuels.  They've got to choose - profits for the oil giants today or a livable future for your grandkids.  They'll duck and weave and lie through their teeth but it's enough to know that, if they don't acknowledge that the tar sands have to be left in the ground, they're voting against your grandchildren.  It's really that simple, that cut and dried.  And that doesn't just go for Harper but equally for Trudeau and Mulcair.

So it comes down to you.  It's the Ralph Nader Conundrum.  Do you support a pair of closet fossil fuelers to get rid of Harper and support people who don't have the courage to stop the ruin of your grandkids' future or do you finally say "no, not until you change?"