Let's Not Get Too Gushy About Rob Ford

I get it, he's got cancer.  With the sludge that guy has pushed down his gullet and snorted up his nose, quelle surprise!

As our friend, The Salamander, pointed out, where's our concern for other cancer victims like the natives in the cancer villages near Fort Mac on the Athabasca river?  Those are people who have contracted terrible cancers and deformities that others, mainly very well to do just like Rob Ford, could get ever richer.

Unlike Rob Ford, those cancer victims of Athabasca are blameless for their plight.  The shit that got into their bodies wasn't of their doing.  Yet we write them off as collateral damage to what Ignatieff called "the beating heart of the Canadian economy."

As a society we are desperately in need of a recalibration of our moral compass.

If This is Fact, We Need to Rethink Our Bitumen Policy, Pipelines Included.

Word is coming out of the discovery of a truly massive, shale oil field in Australia that's expected to produce from 233 upwards to 400-billion barrels of crude oil.   That's crude oil, not bitumen.

Even at the lowest range, 233-billion barrels considerably exceeds Canada's 175-billion barrel petro-reserves, most of which are high-cost, high-carbon bitumen.

As Richard over at Canadian Trends points out, the recent accord with Iran is compounding the recent slump in WTI crude, magnifying Alberta's "carbon bubble" problems. 

What impact will the Coober Pedy bonanza have on Canada's high risk energy resources?   You may think back to when Athabasca, on the verge of imminent development, was abandoned cold when conventional oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.

Australia has grown enormously wealthy peddling its vast coal reserves to China and it's inconceivable that climate-change denier and newly-minted prime minister Tony Abbott will hesitate to get his country's shale oil sailing off to China also.

It's time for this country to take a sober look at our exposure - economically and environmentally - from our tenuous bitumen bounty.  Coober Pedy could easily cause Athabasca to blow up in our face.

Geriatric Pipelines?

An analysis of the pipeline failure that spilled 200,000 gallons of Athabasca dilbit in Mayflower, Arkansas concluded there was a manufacturing fault in the pipe.

Here's the thing.  The pipe that failed was 70-years old.  Who knows, maybe your great-grandfather had a hand in its construction?  But this geriatric pipeline was just a fluke, right?  No, not at all.

Citing an ongoing investigation, both Exxon and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) waited nearly a month after receiving the report before releasing the details to Arkansas newspaper Log Cabin Democrat Thursday.
Implications of the report are significant as it shows that pipelines "similarly manufactured, and in the same era as the ruptured line in Mayflower, are inferior and susceptible to failure," the Democrat reports.
A pipeline industry insider who declined to be named told Common Dreams that there are "tens of thousands of miles of pipeline in the ground and operating from the approximate vintage" as the Pegasus pipeline.
"The fact of the matter is, any pre-1970s pipeline was manufactured with old technologies,"  John Tynan, Watershed Protection Manager with Central Arkansas Water, told Common Dreams.
"The only way to eliminate their risk is to completely remove the pipelines and shut down the operation," he added.

What is a product as corrosive and toxic as Athabasca dilbit, that requires such high pressure to pump, doing in antiquated, "old technology" pipelines?

Is there a lesson in this for eastern Canada.  The Energy East pipeline deal to carry Athabasca bitumen to New Brunswick for refining and export won't involve much new pipe.

"70 per cent of the pipeline is already in the ground in the form of TransCanada’s existing Alberta-to-Ontario natural gas pipeline that will be converted to accept oil."

So, let's get this straight.   That million barrels a day flow of bitumen will cross Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario, in an old, natural gas pipeline.  Hmm, what could go wrong?  

Then again, if Enbridge is promising the Americans that Keystone XL will be a brand new, high-technology, state of the art pipeline constructed from scratch, why are Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario being stuck with a recycled, natural gas line of undetermined vintage?   Could it be they're being put at risk to save a few bucks?

Could "America's Quiet Environmental Revolution" Sound Last Call for Athabasca Bitumen?

A PostMedia article discusses what it calls America's "quiet environmental revolution," a nationwide, broadbased movement away from fossil fuels toward non-carbon alternatives.

Even the most unlikely Americans are taking up the carbon-free challenge, often viewing it as a path to energy independence. Kentucky Republican congressman Thomas Massie, for instance, built himself a solar home and lives off the grid. He also drives an electric car. Yet at the same time he opposes government attempts to impose environmental regulations.

In the greater scope of America’s gluttonous fossil fuel appetite, these clean energy initiatives could be mistaken as insignificant. Yet they carry all the signs of a quiet revolution gradually emerging in cities and states across the nation. They are slowly reshaping the energy landscape in spite of a federal government that remains gridlocked over climate change legislation.

“What we have seen regarding energy policy is that almost all Americans regardless of their political orientation are decidedly for clean energy future for America,” said Edward Maibach, a professor at George Mason University who tracks public opinion on climate change.

“It’s a transition that they would like to see happening now,” he said.

Being PostMedia, the article frames the discussion in the context of a threat to Canada.

In light of Maibach’s research, Obama’s recent attack on Keystone does not appear so puzzling and off-the-cuff as it did at first blush. Rather, it appears part of a grand strategy — supported by the majority of Americans — to wean the nation off fossil fuels.

So far, slightly more than 25 states have set energy efficiency targets and 35 have renewable energy targets. The U.S. energy picture is changing faster than predicted and posing new economic and political challenges for Canada that go well beyond Keystone.

Canadian energy companies might have to seek new and more distant markets. And Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has tied his energy and climate change policies to those of the U.S., might have to think up new ones.

What the article avoids mentioning is the Sword of Damocles hanging over Athabasca's head - the Carbon Bubble. (more here, here, and here.)  Of all the unconventional fossil fuels, Athabasca bitumen is perhaps the most exposed to the Carbon Bubble.  Leaving aside the environmental problems associated with its production, bitumen is expensive to extract, expensive to transport and expensive to refine.  It may be the ultimate high-cost/high-carbon fossil fuel.

It's not going to take much to burst that Carbon Bubble.  That will come when institutional investors finally flee the high-carbon fossil fuels and America's quiet environmental revolution could be just the thing to trigger the stampede.

It's a safe bet, judging from Harper's unseemly haste to get bitumen "to tidewater" that he's only too aware that the clock is ticking, time is running out.