Even though the Canadian economy is no less dependent on hydrocarbon energy than ours, Canada has been drilling as many wells as necessary to keep the high-maintenance American economy humming. If this pedal-to-the-metal production policy were applied to a non-strategic product like, say, maple syrup, few people would care about the consequences. But there is nothing on the horizon to replace the nonrenewable high-density energy sources that Canada so generously sends our way.
This begs the question: how long can Canada go on behaving like America’s most compliant energy colony?
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Energy Bull.
The thing is, by playing according to America's rules, we don't get labeled a rogue state. We let American's buy our resource companies, develop our oil and gas reserves and we charge them only a modest royalty. That way there's no need for regime change in Canada or a color revolution, courtesy the CIA. And, if the truth be told, we do quite well out of it in the way of jobs.
Sure our conventional oil and gas reserves will soon be exhausted, but there are alternatives. If necessary we'll just burn wood. You'd never run out of trees here, except maybe in Saskatchewan, but they can burn straw. In the winter, that's what the pioneers did, apparently. Stuff a can full of straw, set light to it and watch it glow red hot. Then, twenty minutes later, repeat the process.
Course, they couldn't do that all night long and in the winter they'd sometimes wake to find their hair frozen to the pillow. At least, that's what my great, great aunt said when she wrote to home in England. Maybe she said that just to impress folks as to how aweful life in Canada was. But if so, she probably wasn't exaggerating much.
But besides wood and straw, we've got more energy in the tar sands than there is conventional oil in the whole of Saudi Arabia. True, tar sands oil is expensive to extract and the process generates megatons of atmospheric carbon dioxide and disturbs huge tracts of land.
But if necessary, we can pump the carbon dioxide into the ground, and we have plenty of room for spoil heaps. So if we still need oil twenty years from now we won't freeze in the dark.
And besides conventional oil and gas, we have a near limitless supply of energy in the form of methane hydrates. We've yet to figure out how to extract it, but we're working on it.
So as long as Americans want our oil and gas and will pay decent wages to Canadians employed in the oil and gas industry, we would do well to treat them as welcome customers. Not only do we need the money now, but before the first half of this century is out we may find little demand for oil and gas at any price.
How come? Because we are about to see both tremendous improvements in energy-use efficiency and the emergence of many new energy sources. The net result will likely be a sharp drop in the demand for, and price of, oil and gas.
Consider, why is it that a man on a 25-pound bicycle, exerting no more than half a horse power, can travel 20 miles in an hour fueled only by a slice of toast, whereas a woman in a two-and-a-half-ton SUV needs 250 horse power and a gallon of gas to travel the same distance? Answer, dirt cheap oil, zero charge for the external costs of automobile use, and bad automobile engineering. That's going to change.
As for new energy sources, 70%-efficient solar cells could make every household energy self-sufficient. Other options include flying windmills, wave-power systems, and wholesale conversion of organic waste to liquid fuel.
We should sell our oil and gas while we can get a good price for it, which may not be for long.
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