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Oil and Gas Sector-Politics and Image

OPINION: There is no quick fix for Europe’s self-manufactured energy crisis – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – October 9, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Suppose you were told 10 years ago that you had 10 years to replace your soot-spewing diesel car. You did not. Now, you’ve missed the deadline and have no right to be surprised by your sudden lack of four-wheeled transportation – you had ample time to buy a hybrid or electric car.

So it is with Europe. A bit more than a decade ago, a concerted effort was launched within the European Union countries and a few others on the continent to phase out their coal-fired generating plants to clean the skies and slow the pace of global warming.

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If oil and gas are dead, why are exports booming? – by Philip Cross (Financial Post – October 12, 2021)

https://financialpost.com/

Statistics Canada this week reported that energy exports reached $12.0 billion in August, more than recouping all their losses during the pandemic. Exports topped their March 2019 high of $11.4 billion and are closing in fast on their all-time peak of $12.8 billion set in 2014.

The increase was driven by sharply higher exports of both crude oil and natural gas. Despite all the hype surrounding electricity exports, they earn less in a month than oil and gas generate every day.

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Risk of blackouts, higher bills if Ontario sets 2030 target to phase out natural gas, report says – by Matthew McClearn (Globe and Mail – October 8, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Phasing out Ontario’s natural gas power plants by the end of this decade is not feasible and would lead to rolling blackouts and soaring electricity bills, the body in charge of planning and operating the province’s power system said Thursday in a report that gas opponents have criticized as too pessimistic.

In the report, which responds to demands from municipalities to phase out natural gas by 2030, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) estimates it would cost $27-billion to build alternative generating facilities and transmission lines, plus additional operating costs of $5.7-billion a year, causing a typical homeowner’s monthly bill to skyrocket by an average of $100, or 60 per cent.

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Europe’s Current Energy Crisis Was Predictable — And Was Predicted – by Michael Barnard (Clean Technica – October 7, 2021)

https://cleantechnica.com/

Headlines are highlighting Europe’s energy challenges at present, with extremely high natural gas prices shocking consumers and corporations. But this was entirely predictable, and in fact was predicted. The real problem was the pivot to natural gas as a bridge fuel, and too much focus on building efficiency instead of fuel switching.

This US data shows a clear picture that has implications globally. The fracking and shale oil boom of the 1990s to 2010s led to a period of unnatural stability in natural gas prices, and at a historically low level.

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Four signals from soaring fossil fuels – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – September 30, 2021)

https://financialpost.com/

Find your favourite indicator of fossil fuel prices. Let’s begin with the price of coal in China, where futures have surged to US$212 a metric tonne, up 20 per cent through September and 300 per cent over the past year.

Natural gas futures approached US$6 per British thermal unit. A litre of gasoline at some Toronto stations hit $1.40, a new high in nominal dollars as the price of crude oil hit US$80 a barrel. So what’s going on and what does it mean?

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Sensible greens would back natural gas – by Gwyn Morgan (Financial Post – September 21, 2021)

https://financialpost.com/

In a previous column (July 22) I pointed out that, since switching coal-fuelled power plants to natural gas cuts CO2 emissions in half, exporting liquified natural gas (LNG) to displace coal both benefits our economy and reduces global emissions.

Also: that since converting gasoline and diesel-fuelled vehicles and ships to natural gas cuts emissions by 25 per cent, providing incentives to achieve that could substantially decrease domestic emissions, as well.

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OPINION: Europe’s power crisis is an expensive reminder that renewable energy has its limits – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – September 18, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Europe’s power crisis was just a matter of time – and that time has come. Natural gas and electricity prices are setting record highs virtually every day, and businesses and households have gone from getting annoyed to being terrified as the bills land like hand grenades.

The continent’s power system was an accident waiting to happen, in good part because its purported virtues – vast amounts of climate-friendly renewable energy and waning numbers of climate-unfriendly coal-fired plants – were less robust than advertised.

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Europe’s gas crisis is also a renewables crisis, but there are ready solutions – by Angela Dewan (CNN.com – September 22, 2021)

https://www.cnn.com/

London (CNN Business)European natural gas prices have soared so high that hundreds of millions of people could be facing cold homes or inflated energy bills over winter. There’s also fears of a knock-on impact as carbon dioxide used in food production — a byproduct of fertilizer made with natural gas — also gets more expensive.

Politicians are blaming the surge in prices on an increase in natural gas demand as the world wakes up from the pandemic, supply disruption caused by maintenance, and a less-windy-than-usual summer that saw a drop in wind-generated power.

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Trudeau pledges to cut Canada’s oil emissions even as country keeps pumping more – by Rod Nickel (Yahoo News/Reuters – September 13, 2021)

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promise to reduce Canada’s oil sector emissions starting in 2025 looks unlikely to slow the growth of crude production, environmental activists and oil companies say, raising questions about how effectively the pledge will help meet the country’s goals to slow climate change.

Trudeau is in a close race with the Conservatives, and some voters are demanding decisive climate action https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/canadas-infernal-summer-puts-climate-change-forefront-election-2021-09-01.

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OPINION: Our phony election debate over the oil sands won’t stop their expansion – by Konrad Yakabuski (Globe and Mail – September 11, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Last month, U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, issued a bizarro statement calling on OPEC and Russia to increase oil production amid worries about the impact of climbing gasoline prices on Democratic political fortunes in next year’s midterm elections.

“President Biden has made clear that he wants Americans to have access to affordable and reliable energy, including at the pump,” Mr. Sullivan said, as U.S. gasoline prices reached a seven-year high of more than US$3 a gallon. “Competitive energy markets will ensure reliable and stable energy supplies, and OPEC+ must do more to support the recovery.”

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OPINION: Why is Joe Biden, who hung up on Keystone XL, desperately calling OPEC’s oil hotline? – by Editorial Board (Globe and Mail – August 18, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Which of these things is not like the others? U.S. President Joe Biden wants half of all new vehicles sold in the United States by 2030 to be zero emission. He wants a US$7.5-billion network of charging stations across the country. And he wants OPEC to pump more oil, ASAP, to lower the price of gasoline for American drivers.

The first is a plan to transform the U.S. auto market within a decade, set out in an executive order earlier this month. The second is one of many clean-energy initiatives in Mr. Biden’s infrastructure bill, which won Senate approval last week.

And the third? Gasoline prices have been rising as the global economy recovers, so last week the White House called on the OPEC+ group of countries, whose most important members are Saudi Arabia and Russia, to open the taps, to ensure that Americans “have access to affordable and reliable energy, including at the pump.”

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‘Smacks of hypocrisy’: Alberta slams White House for demanding more OPEC oil after cancelling Keystone XL – by Colin McClelland (Sudbury Star/Fiancial Post – August 13, 2021)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Wounded after U.S. President Joe Biden cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline that would have shipped Alberta crude to the United States, the province snapped at the White House’s call on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Wednesday to raise production faster than planned.

“The Biden administration pleading with OPEC to increase oil production to rescue the United States from high fuel prices months after cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline smacks of hypocrisy,” Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage said in a statement Wednesday.

“Keystone XL would have provided Americans with a stable source of energy from a trusted ally and friend.” Alberta Premier Jason Kenney was also critical of the Biden Administration.

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OIL BOOM AND BUST, [POLISH]GALICIAN STYLE – by Norman Ravvin (Canadian Jewish News – October 1, 2015)

https://www.cjnews.com/

Peak Oil. Neil Young’s condemnation of the environmental damage caused by the Alberta “Tar Sands.” The Leap Manifesto on climate and energy policy. All this seems notably of our moment. But the challenges raised – the impact of petroleum discoveries on the economy, daily life and the environment – have an important mid-19th century Polish precedent.

It was in south-eastern Poland, not far from the Hungarian and Russian borders, that important discoveries associated with wax, petroleum, and distillation methods turned a semi-feudal, mostly rural landscape into one of the first oil economies of the modern era. By their great numbers and their peculiar status in 19th-century Polish society, Jews played a substantial role at all levels of this economic transformation.

The Jewish Oil Magnates of Galicia – a hybrid volume that includes a historical study by Valerie Schatzker and a translation of the 1954 Yiddish novel The Jewish Oil Magnates by Julien Hirszhaut – tells this story with verve and impressive detail.

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Abandoning oil and gas a utopian impossibility, Alberta’s premier says – by Janet French (CBC News Edmonton – August 9, 2021)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/

Alberta’s premier says it’s impossible for people living in a cold, northern climate like Canada to abandon fossil fuels, despite the dire conclusions of an international climate change report.

While the United Nations’ Secretary General said the report should sound a “death knell” for coal and fossil fuels, Premier Jason Kenney said demand for the subterranean fruits of this oil-rich province isn’t going anywhere.

“The notion that we can shut off a major, industrialized economy with the flick of a switch is patently unrealistic,” Kenney told reporters at a news conference at an Edmonton brewery on Monday.

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Line 5 pipeline between U.S. and Canada could cause ‘devastating damage’ to Great Lakes, say environmentalists – by Samantha Beattie (CBC News Canada – August 3, 2021)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/

An aging pipeline that carries oil along the bottom of the ecologically sensitive and turbulent Straits of Mackinac, where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet, is in such a state of disrepair it could burst at any moment and cause catastrophic damage to the Great Lakes, environmentalists warn.

Line 5, a 1,000-kilometre-long pipeline owned by Calgary-based Enbridge, carries up to 540,000 barrels of oil and natural gas liquids a day from Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ont., where it is shipped to other refineries in Ontario and Quebec.

It’s at the centre of a politically charged dispute between Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who’s ordered what she calls the “ticking time bomb” to be shut down, and Canadian officials, including Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who’ve sided with Enbridge in insisting it’s safe to keep running.

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