archbishop desmond tutu’s harsh words regarding the oilsands during his trip to northern Alberta have once again brought international focus to Fort McMurray and its environs.
There are few people on the planet who deserve more credit for championing matters of justice than Tutu, and I agree with his description of climate change as the moral challenge of this century. But once again we see the oilsands being treated as society’s scapegoat.
The development of the oilsands is not simply greed and it is not done by evil people. Oilsands development is primarily a pragmatic matter of supply and demand. As the global demand for oil continues to rise, it’s going to come from somewhere. The oilsands is one of the better possible sources. It’s the burning of fossil fuels that produces most of the CO2, and that happens primarily in the world’s automobiles.
To paraphrase a great comic-strip character, Pogo: “I have met the enemy, and he is us.” The use of scapegoats simply blinds us to the true issues.
The only way we will slow the development of the oilsands – and of oil and gas resources around the world – is to change our relationship with energy, and that means reducing our consumption and turning to alternative sources. The real challenge for the oilsands, and the thing that will slow oil production from northern Alberta, is its relatively high cost. We’ve just seen France-based Total SA shelve the Joslyn North mine for that reason.
Competing sources of energy will come from many other sources. In some hot regions, solar energy is matching fossil fuels on a cost per joule basis. There are environmentalists arguing for nuclear power in light of climate change, seeing it as the lesser of two evils. There is hydro and wind and tidal and geothermal, many of which are making great strides in their efficiency and which, as the ravages of climate change continue to emerge, will be developed with increasing urgency. Then there are the more experimental energy-generation processes, such as nuclear fission and thorium-based reactors.
That is not to say that we won’t be pulling oil from the ground in northern Alberta for decades to come. We will be doing so, but just how much will depend on a number of factors, including the price of oil – something that I am completely unwilling to speculate on because we have seen how wildly off predictions can be. Anyone remember economist Jeff Rubin’s prediction of oil at $225 a barrel by 2012? I don’t think we should be too hard on the man, as absolutely nobody saw the revolution brought by fracking and horizontal drilling.
The amount of oil produced in northern Alberta also will depend on the oil companies’ continuing ability to secure the social licence to operate, which is something they frequently struggle with. It will depend on access to markets and cost of production, and it will depend on the pace of innovation. The only way the oilsands will remain competitive with other energy sources is if the companies operating in the region are truly innovative. That is the only thing that can: keep the cost of producing that oil down; reduce the amount of energy and water required to produce a barrel; and adequately protect the environment.
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