Imagine a document entitled Canadian Energy Strategy in which the world "bitumen" does not appear. Or the phrase "oil sands." To be fair, the strategy produced by a committee of provincial premiers does acknowledge Canada's prominent place in global oil supply. But the emphasis is skewed.
"Canada has an abundance of diverse energy sources, including: hydro, biomass, coal, conventional and unconventional oil and natural gas, wind, solar, uranium, and the oceans (i.e., tidal and wave energy)," the document boasts. Yes, Canada's treasure of bitumen and heavy oil hides behind that phrase "conventional and unconventional oil and natural gas." But it hides like a moose behind a maple leaf.
'International leader'
The strategy document goes on: "These resources have contributed to our country becoming an international leader in energy production." Examples? On a nine-item list entitled "Energy Powers Canada," the country's third-place ranking in global crude oil reserves is number eight, and its fifth-place ranking in oil production merits no mention at all. More prominence goes to hydroelectric and wind energy, even ethanol.
High-cost, low-contribution energy sources receive top billing because, with the exception of ethanol, they contain no hydrocarbons. This steers the strategy in the direction many premiers prefer. Action point: "Call on the federal government to be an active partner in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in order to make Canada a world leader."
US President Barack Obama, too, wants his country to be the leader in this area. Before him, European governments sought the honor. Throughout the industrialized world, political elites feel compelled to risk their countries' economic futures on leadership in the improbable conquest of climate change. Europe holds first position in this competition for bragging rights and has the crushing energy costs and restive populations to show for it.
Where Canada truly leads is with its oil sands business. Around an immense resource in Alberta and Saskatchewan has developed a technically sophisticated industry steadily and impressively lowering the costs and environmental imprint of its work. But it's an industry relentlessly disparaged for producing what detractors call "dirty oil.
The detractors don't acknowledge how operators have slashed the energy and water requirements of thermal projects, shrunk space needed for mine tailing ponds, and improved water management. They ignore development occurring in carbon capture and sequestration alongside bitumen upgraders. They overlook unprecedented collaboration-among companies and between industry and governments-expediting the progress. Propaganda targeting oil sands loses punch when word spreads that the object of scorn breeds environmental technologies applicable everywhere. The Canadian oil sands industry is, in fact, a world leader in environmental innovation.
The provincial premiers' energy strategy has no room for any of that. It instead dedicate itself to environmentalist pieties such as facilitating "the development of renewable, green, and/or cleaner energy sources" and promoting-which means mandating-"energy efficiency and conservation."
Development of the strategy began in 2012 as an effort by former Alberta Premier Alison Redford to streamline permitting of interprovincial pipelines. At the time, she was at loggerheads with British Columbia Premier Christy Clark over a proposed pipeline connecting Albertan oil sands with Atlantic sea trade. Much has changed since then. Redford left office amid scandal in March 2014 and recently quit her party, the Progressive Conservatives, which lost an election to the more-liberal New Democratic Party in May. And an eastbound alternative has emerged as a route to tidewater for increasingly bottlenecked Albertan oil. Liberal governments of Quebec and Ontario therefore have joined the energy fray.
Now conversations about Canadian energy are contests of high-mindedness over climate change and "clean energy" and subordination of "dirty" you-know-what. The resulting strategy is a standard catalog of lofty hope, vague in prescription, forgotten on delivery, but important for what it forebodes about official decision-making.
The pattern is familiar-and tiresome. A country blessed with a strong head start should be able to define a more-creative and constructive route to energy leadership.
More Oil & Gas Journal Current Issue Articles
More Oil & Gas Journal Archives Issue Articles
View Oil and Gas Articles on PennEnergy.com
