I don’t relish the thought of shoveling horse manure all the same. (-:

I think the appropriateness of using the word “tar” isn’t in its chemical description, but in the value of keeping in mind the context of refining bitumen. It needs a lot of energy to process. “Oil,” in that respect, is misleading, because it implies that the resource is available with minimal fuss.

At any rate, what I’m trying to get across is sort of reframing the question. We can’t sustain our use of oil even if there was an unlimited supply. It’s going to peak, but not solely because of the status of reserves left in the ground.

I’d like to see the Pembina ‘Institute’ and the Fraser ‘Institute’ go at it in the ring. I wonder who would win…

Refining the toxic gunk in Northern Alberta – bitumen, aka “tar” – causes 3-4 times the greenhouse gases of getting oil from traditional wells. The sands contribute the largest single addition to Canada’s increase in those emissions. According to The Pembina Institute, the main environmental organization studying the environmental effects of the sands, forests “an area as large as the State of Florida” are at risk. Not to mention local rivers. “Tar” is the accurate term, if not the official one.

Sands oil costs a lot to refine, but it works if the price of oil is higher – like it is now. Although we’ve become the largest supplier of oil to the US and good ol’ NAFTA prevents us from cutting off oil to them, thus making the supply very secure indeed, and multinationals are about to sign a sweetheart deal in Iraq which will free up a lot of oil and profits – the Iraq National Oil Company is supposedly in control, yet foreign companies will keep 75 percent of the contracts’ value (so much for the influence of Nationals: we’ll just take what we want, thanks) – yet despite all that, oil prices have kept going up. So I think that there will be cycles, but the trend will be upward, regardless how many new sources of oil are discovered.

The very existence of the tar sands bonanza, and other “initiatives,” such as the lobbying to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, seems to moderate the one-to-one cause/effect notion that high oil prices will spawn free-market innovation in alternative energy. It’s clear from these examples that the market, if let alone, will keep on seeking oil from wherever, no matter the environmental cost, for as long as possible. If prices keep going up, so much the better, not only for profits, but for public relations: that condition makes it easier to convince the public to allow environmental destruction in the name of access to a vital resource – against the otherwise overwhelming tide of opinion that values protecting the environment above the maintenance of an unsustainable way of living.

I think the most effective way to spawn innovation is to empower the entrepreneurial spirit through progressive legislation and incentives. The people’s will, through government, should be a major player in the marketplace. That’s the combination that really works, not just one or the other polarity. At this stage of the environmental crisis, it’s madness to abandon our direct will to an abstraction like the free market. The free market without the people’s influence means lobbyists in the back rooms of Ottawa and Washington pushing the “official” agenda. Which is the old agenda, the one that got us here in the first place.

There are so many amazing people and projects around the world devoted to improving energy efficiency/effectiveness and finding sustainable alternatives, creating workable strategies to radically reduce oil consumption in various industries (especially important is construction), increasing cradle-to-cradle manufacturing, developing and marketing biodegradable substitutes for traditional plastics that aren’t made of petroleum, etc., etc. Although they’re not hard to find, they don’t have the clout that the “official” industry does, so they can really benefit from government help in the form of increased tax benefits to support R&D and so on. The “official” industry line is only going to get in the way.

When we hear about massive quarterly profits, these are from public companies. I would bet that each one of us, somewhere in our investments, owns a little bit of each one of these companies. They don’t spend a whole lot on exploration anymore because they can’t. The areas were there are large new finds are in areas controlled by countries nationalized oil companies. The large integrateds need a certain size of find for it to be worthwhile and they’re not going to find too many of them anymore. Where does the money go that the large multinationals are hoarding? A lot of it’s got to go to research and innovation to try and improve production methods on what they already have. Some might go to buy out smaller companies in order to gain reserves. Some might be used to buy back shares. Hoarding the cash for themselves doesn’t sound right since they are public companies.

As a complete aside, oil companies (sorry, now branded energy companies) are making billions quarterly, spend very little on new exploration relative to their profits and pay a very modest dividend. In other words, they are hoarding their money and enriching themselves. Why isn’t there a greater outcry over this?

There are fewer and fewer big finds these days, so increased production will have to come in the form of new technologies or improved artificial lift methods.

The official name is ‘oil sands’. Tar sands was created by environmentalists to give it an even dirtier image. Obama can try and ban oilsands oil from the states, but a lot of the refineries are designed specifically to handle it. I don’t know where they’re going to get the oil from instead. It’s tough to find a safer and better business partner than Canada when it comes to buying oil.