Opposition to pipeline projects slowing shipment

By Yadullah Hussain
Postmedia News May 10, 2012

Rail could emerge as a long-term transportation alternative for Canadian oil companies ham-strung by the slow pace of pipe-line projects.

The continent’s largest pipeline companies, Enbridge Inc., TransCanada Corp. and Kinder Morgan Inc., have proposed numerous expansion plans, but all face opposition from environmental and indigenous groups.

Their inability to keep up with rising oilsands production is forcing companies to seek new modes of transport to get their produce to market.

“To temper the effects of a possible near-term transportation shortfall into U.S. markets, Canadian producers have begun adding rail, trucking and barge trans-port to their delivery options,” S&P analyst Michelle Dathorne said.

A barrel of diluted bitumen is transported at a cost of $7 via pipeline, compared with $6 to $8 via rail, a new S&P report says. Read the complete Post.

By Michael Jessen.

Michael Jessen is a Nelson, BC eco-writer, the owner of the consultancy Zero Waste Solutions, and the energy critic for the Green Party of BC. He can be reached by email at zerowaste@shaw.ca

One way of looking at the energy industry today is to liken it to a horse race; coming out of the backstretch, oil is leading natural gas by a nose and coal is half a length back.

If you had placed your bets before the race began, you would feel pretty comfortable as oil, natural gas, and coal head for the wire – a trifecta win already warming your wallet.

But wait, what’s this? Here comes energy efficiency making a late charge as the horses enter the home turn. The jockey on energy efficiency uses his riding crop to encourage his horse and it responds as it thunders toward the finish line.

In the winner’s circle, energy efficiency is crowned the champion. Oil came up empty, natural gas showed brief foot and tired, while coal broke down and had to be destroyed. Solar, wind, geothermal and tidal were all making up ground at the three-quarter pole despite being ridden by apprentice jockeys.

Nuclear wasn’t entered in this race as it hasn’t raced for more than 45 days and is currently laid off. (Horses that are significantly laid off tend to not perform to their normal standards because they need at least one race to get back on track, pun intended.)

Racing analysts had tipped fossil fuels to win, place and show. How could the daily racing form have handicapped the race so badly? Read the complete Post.

April 13, 2012
With the most recent release of international oil production data, EIA Washington has revised figures back to 1985. This is one of the most comprehensive revisions I have seen in several years. Generally, the totals were revised slightly lower, and this was especially true for the past decade. Data for the full year of 2011 has now completed. | see: Global Average Annual Crude Oil Production mbpd 2001 – 2011.

Since 2005, despite a phase transition in prices, global oil production has been trapped below a ceiling of 74 mbpd (million barrels per day). New production from new fields and new discoveries comes on line, but, it has not been at a rate fast enough to overcome declines from existing fields. Overall, global decline has been estimated at a minimum of 4% per year and as high as 6+% a year. Given that new oil resources are developed and flow at much slower rates, the existing declines present a formidable challenge to the task of increasing supply. I see no set of factors, in combination, that would take global production of crude oil higher in 2012, or next year, or thereafter.

–Gregor

Apr 21st 2012 | from the print edition

AS THE developed-world economy tries to gain momentum, it faces a persistent headwind. The oil price remains stubbornly over $100 a barrel, acting like a tax on Western consumers. Some blame the high price on evil speculators—Barack Obama unveiled plans to increase penalties for market manipulation on April 17th. But there is a simpler explanation: that supply is inadequate to keep up with rising demand.

The concept of peak oil—the idea that global crude production may be at, or close to, its limit—is far from universally accepted. One leading asset manager talked recently of the world being “awash with energy” because of the exploitation of American shale gas. Nevertheless, oil is still the main fuel for cars and trucks. And crude output (as opposed to alternatives such as biofuels and liquids made from gas) has been flat since 2005. Read the complete Post.

Posted By DavidJones On March 18, 2012 @ 9:59 pm In Economic Growth,Environment,Steady State Economy,Sustainability | Comments Disabled
by David A. Jones

There’s an old question in theology: “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” The supposed answer is “as many as you like.” A pin is a physical object, whereas angels are non-corporeal beings.

I consider mainstream (neoclassical) economics a kind of modern day theology, and the question about angels is akin to the question, “How much economic growth (GDP growth) can our ecosystems cope with?” For the economic “theologians” the answer is once again “as much as you like,” because economic growth can supposedly be decoupled from physical impacts.

First a reminder about what GDP is. GDP stands for gross domestic product. It’s a measure of the total market value of the goods and services produced within a nation’s borders during a year. The basic formula for calculating GDP is:

GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports)

One way to calculate GDP in practice is to track the monetary exchanges that occur when final goods and services are purchased. GDP, therefore, measures how frantically money is flowing among people, companies, banks, and other players in the economy. And so the dancing angels become monetary exchanges, the pin becomes the Earth, and the “theological question” becomes, “How many monetary exchanges can fit on the Earth?” Read the complete Post.

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 15, 2012
The New York Times

To be a modern Republican in good standing, you have to believe — or pretend to believe — in two miracle cures for whatever ails the economy: more tax cuts for the rich and more drilling for oil. And with prices at the pump on the rise, so is the chant of “Drill, baby, drill.” More and more, Republicans are telling us that gasoline would be cheap and jobs plentiful if only we would stop protecting the environment and let energy companies do whatever they want.

Thus Mitt Romney claims that gasoline prices are high not because of saber-rattling over Iran, but because President Obama won’t allow unrestricted drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Meanwhile, Stephen Moore of The Wall Street Journal tells readers that America as a whole could have a jobs boom, just like North Dakota, if only the environmentalists would get out of the way.

The irony here is that these claims come just as events are confirming what everyone who did the math already knew, namely, that U.S. energy policy has very little effect either on oil prices or on overall U.S. employment. For the truth is that we’re already having a hydrocarbon boom, with U.S. oil and gas production rising and U.S. fuel imports dropping. If there were any truth to drill-here-drill-now, this boom should have yielded substantially lower gasoline prices and lots of new jobs. Predictably, however, it has done neither. Read the complete Post.

March 16, 2012
By Rex Weyler

This article is a must read. Great summary of our current dilemma.
Vandy

Oil company cheerleaders proclaiming huge supplies of oil are dead wrong. Peak oil is as real as rain, and it is here now. Not 2050. Not 2020. Now.

Oil production has been flat since 2005. This is not by choice. The producers cannot increase production because new fields cannot keep pace with declining production from old fields. The plateau is the top of the global depletion curve.

(The oil plateau: The calm before the decline. Reference: The Oil Drum.)

Furthermore, this end of energy growth only accounts for volume. Energy quality and net-energy are falling like stones as environmental devastation increases.

Every producing oil field on Earth is in decline (unless it is brand new), and peak discoveries are well behind us. Read the complete Post.

ENERGY & EQUITY: Nikiforuk on how oil lubricates bellicose statecraft.
By Andrew Nikiforuk, March 5, 2012, TheTyee.ca

Excellent article. Worth the read. Vandy

Whenever North Americans fill up their vehicles with gasoline these days they should reflect on their ongoing contribution to the dysfunctional status of petro states and the Islamic Republic of Iran in particular.

Iran’s civilian nuclear power ambitions, of course, have set off a grand political tiff with the United States and Israel. Both suspect the nation wants to make atomic weapons too. Read the complete Post.

by Jon Cooksey
Jan. 21012

READ THIS – Concise explanation of oil pipelines and oil tankers and why we must oppose them.
Vandy

Media around the world have been paying a lot of attention to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would run from the Alberta tar sands down to multiple destinations in the United States, and the proposed Enbridge pipeline to Kitimat, BC, which has hit an “unbroken wall of opposition” from more than 130 First Nations bands that have signed the Save the Fraser Declaration. Both of these pipelines are officially stalled until at least 2013, and we believe that enough opposition is in place on the ground that neither of those pipelines will ever be built.

But there is a third existing pipeline that currently runs from the tar sands to the Burrard Inlet, otherwise known as the Port of Vancouver: the TransMountain pipeline, owned and operated by a company called Kinder Morgan Canada, and so little known that (as you can see from the link) it doesn’t yet have a Wikipedia entry. The pipeline has been in existence for decades, but – up until 2005 – moved a minimal amount of oil, which for the most part was refined locally and used for local needs. Read the complete Post.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Charles Hugh Smith

It’s not just gasoline consumption that’s declining–petroleum and electricity consumption are also dropping. Is that indicative of economic growth?

A number of readers kindly forwarded additional data sources to me as followup on last week’s entry describing sharply lower deliveries of gasoline. (Why Is Gasoline Consumption Tanking? February 10, 2012)

The basic thesis here is that petroleum consumption is a key proxy of economic activity. In periods of economic expansion, energy consumption rises. In periods of contraction, consumption levels off or declines.

This common sense correlation calls into question the Status Quo’s insistence that the U.S. economy has decoupled from the global ecoomy and is still growing. This growth will create more jobs, the story goes, and expand corporate profits which will power the stock market ever higher. Read the complete Post.