Rejecting dogmas about petroleum and climate change
By Peter Ewart
The petroleum industry is not a dying industry. Unfortunately, this dogma is often repeated these days, and it is not much different from the dogma that “there is no such thing as human-caused climate change”.
Rather it is an industry that is undergoing fundamental change on the world scale. And what is that change? It is in the early stages of shifting from an industry that is largely reliant on producing combustible fuels (gasoline, diesel, etc.) to an industry that focuses on producing a blizzard of other petroleum-based non-fuel products.
As it stands, we are already surrounded in our homes, workplaces and communities by a huge amount of non-fuel products that are derived from petroleum, including, as other commentators have noted, many of the components of the computer I am currently using to write this article.
Here is just a very small sampling of non-fuel petroleum-derived products around an average house: ink, upholstery, cassettes, CDs, vitamin capsules, dentures and denture adhesives, clothes, combs, toothbrushes, dishwasher parts, floor wax, toilet seats, antihistamines, cortisone, food preservatives, ballpoint pens, nail polish, Vaseline, antiseptics, deodorants, rugs, fertilizers, fishing rods, trash bags, golf bags, candles, faucet washers, water pipes, aspirin, dishes, insecticides, perfumes, soaps, shoes, hair coloring, lipstick, house paint, shower curtains, eyeglasses, detergents, telephones, cameras, bandages, hair curlers, and so on and so forth.
This not to mention that our streets are paved with asphalt and our vehicles (including, as another commentator has noted, electrical vehicles) crammed with petroleum-based products from paints to plastics to lubricants to windshield washer fluid.
Our diverse industries and workplaces are absolutely dependent on a huge variety of petroleum-based products without which they would come to a grinding halt. Indeed, it would take many pages of a book (which also uses petroleum-based products in the printing) to list them all.
It is estimated that there are around 6,000 petroleum-based products being produced in the world today, many of which are essential to our daily lives, our communities and our economy. Even these 6,000 products can be further sub-divided into thousands more products. Now, it is true that some of these products also pose serious problems in themselves such as non-degradable plastics, and so on. But, using technology and science, many of these problems can also be overcome. Other products that remain problems can be discontinued along with combustion fuels.
The point is that, in Canada and on a world scale, we are wasting a large amount of this precious petroleum resource for fuels of various kinds that are destabilizing our planetary climate through carbon emissions. Furthermore, we are missing the opportunity to develop industrial strategies that focus on developing the value-added infrastructure to process and manufacture at least some of these 6,000+ non-fuel products, thus creating jobs and advancing the breadth and depth of our economy.
Should we simply go on “ripping and shipping” the petroleum resource and sending it off to other countries for manufacturing – the agenda of Big Oil?
Should we simply give up and let the resource stay in the ground?
Or should we seize the opportunity to develop the processing and manufacturing of at least some of the 6000+ non-fuel petroleum products and thus strengthen our economy and build our nation, as we go into a future in which fuel combustion will decline dramatically in the context of national and international action on climate change?
Peter Ewart is a columnist and writer based in Prince George, British Columbia. He can be reached at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca
Comments
Everyone is allowed to voice their opinion…. even if it is wrong.
I can change my life style for a less petroleum based products. I am OK if we have glass ketchup bottles, and mayo jars…. but our local pick up recyclers don’t pick it up.
How about we stop buying over packaged children toys. We could live with a lot less packaging. I gift wrapped all my Christmas gift in tea towels, so that it can be reused.
I am no means a greenie, infact, I drive a big diesel truck. why, because in my business I log 45-60k a year. Diesel trucks last longer and it is cheaper on fuel. A diesel truck should last 500,000k. A gas pot is questionable at 320,000 km. $125 of diesel will get me 1000km, A 125 in gas with similar size truck will be about 750km. Mind you, you pay more initially for equipment, but if you maintain it well, your final cost per km is less than a gas pot. If you are recreational user of a truck, under 20k a year, gas is the way to go.
Never it is mentioned just who we are going to SELL all these ‘value-added’ products to and how are they going to pay us for it. Never is it ever considered whether a week’s wages, of everyone employed in this country added together, would BUY everything made in that same week at the total costs of all its making.
You must not forget that there are 36 million Canadians who would be customers (buyers) to which Canadian companies could sell their petroleum based products to, replacing all those which are currently made in China and dozens of other countries.
So, first of all we are going to SELL these products to ourselves. Problem solved.
Then we can decide to look for other customers.
You seem to think that the total of all wages and salaries paid out in any given period is equal to the total of all costs generated in that SAME period. The costs that end up as PRICES. Even if we had 100% full employment, we couldn’t equate the two under the current conventions of finance. Total prices in any capital intensive economy will always increase faster than total wages, and this would be so even if everything could be priced at cost.
The point is this: Once a petroleum product (gasoline, diesel) has gone through the process of combustion it can no longer be recycled unlike petroleum based products.
I agree with the author: It is a bit discouraging when it says Made In China on the bottom of a plastic cup supplied in a Canadian hotel!
It can no longer fill the ocean or landfill with plastic either
We are not “wasting” petroleum by using it as a fuel, that’s an incredibly good use for it. You think there’s a shortage of oil? You think that it comes down to a choice between fuel or other products? Better question, do you think?? Transportation by land, sea and air depend on petroleum. Tell me, just how would you get those 6000+ petroleum products to markets without burning petroleum? Mule train? Horse and wagon? Clipper ship? Wow, your idea is totally divorced from reality!
Next I’m compelled to mention that we are most certainly NOT destabilizing our planetary climate through carbon emissions. Get off that bandwagon and bone up on the facts.
How does burning fossil fuels result in our “missing the opportunity to develop industrial strategies that focus on developing the value-added infrastructure to process and manufacture at least some of these 6,000+ non-fuel products”? You think parking our trains, planes and automobiles will spur such innovation???
Should we simply go on “ripping and shipping” the petroleum resource and sending it off to other countries for manufacturing? As a matter of fact, yes, we most certainly should. I guess you haven’t noticed, but the reason we ship to other countries for manufacturing is because they can do it so much cheaper than we can. We can’t compete. If you want a viable petro-chemical and manufacturing industry (or any other industry, for that matter) we have to be able to sell at world prices and make a profit. By “ripping and shipping” we have a lucrative share in that part of the world economy.
Even if we were stupid enough to implement that ridiculous “leap manifesto” and stop burning fossil fuels, the rest of the world certainly isn’t that dumb.
One reason why products are made in China for example is their low energy costs. Every area that has jumped on the renewable scam are seeing fast rising energy costs and industry is bailing out to cheaper countries.
This is one glaring example
ht tp://www.thestar.com/business/2014/02/26/ontarios_big_industries_plead_for_lower_hydro_rates.html
Alberta is another example. A few more are California, Germany, England, Australia.
I wonder what the phobia is called that identifies the fear of innovation and the changes which come with it?
To paraphrase the novel by Erica Jong,
I think it’s called “fear of trying” PrinceGeorge.
metalman.
It is not the fear of innovation but innovation for the wrong reason.
The fear of change, or something that changes, is called Metathesiophobia… or in other words “Conservatism” ;-)
Poor Peter you have shown the ability to do research but heavily biased research to suit your dogma as in this statement
“Unfortunately, this dogma is often repeated these days, and it is not much different from the dogma that “there is no such thing as human-caused climate change”.
You will be hard pressed to find any scientist not saying man may have affects on climate, the debate is about how much or how little of an effect.
Real world data actually shows very little effect despite the warmer zealots yelling catastrophe for the last 30 years.
That statement of yours just proves your absolute ignorance of the climate subject so I want to help you out. Study these sites.
ht tps://wattsupwiththat.com/
ht tps://nofrakkingconsensus.com/
ht tps://judithcurry.com/
ht tps://climateaudit.org/
ht tp://joannenova.com.au/
ht tp://www.thegwpf.org/patrick-moore-should-we-celebrate-carbon-dioxide/
Hope those help you out,more informative than the CBC which seems to be your primary source.
Oh Peter those sites are still waiting for their big oil checks.
I don’t fault Peter for trying to find a way forward on the subject of fossil fuels and more specifically our oilsands future. I understand the points he is trying to make and accept some of them based on the following FACTS.
Fact: There is tremendous resistance to piping dilnit oil, in its raw form, from the Oilsands to any tide water on the west coast and even the east coast of Canada.
Peter proposes oil stay in Alberta and be refined into secondary products such as petroleum based plastics for water bottles, computers etc. Good idea environmentally, as a shipment spill of any of these petroleum based products would result on near ZERO environmental damage. Think about a semi-truck overturning and spilling empty plastic bottles, or a tanker going down in rough seas off the coast of BC spill all its petroleum based plastics which would float, cause very little damage to sea life and would be relatively easy to clean up completely. All First Nations and environmental groups could get behind that.
The problem is the cost of refining the oil (of which the simple extraction of it from oilsands is the most expensive process in the world) and production of these petroleum based materials would pice us out of the markets. Just my thoughs on this matter.
The “tremendous resistance” is based on delusional environmentalist activity and not any practical concern.
Actually oil sands extraction has come down quite a bit and once oil prices increase again the profits will be there. The oil sands development and investment are long term. Some costs are below $40 a barrel.
As for secondary manufacturing with the NDP increasing energy costs will not happen.
The clean disruption will be about abundant , cheap , and participatory energy . The existing energy business model is based on scarcity , depletion and command-and-control monopolies . The clean disruption is similar to the information technology revolution that overturned the old publishing and information model and made information abundant , participatory , and essentially free .
The clean disruption will be about abundant , cheap , and participatory energy.
Right.
Like unicorn farts and pixie dust.
Dream on.
I don’t have to dream about it . It’s already happening .why do you think Germany is so rich ? It’s because they are spending fewer euros every day on the fossils . And keeping more cash in their country .
Germany is spending fewer Euros on fossils but spending more on “renewables”. Lots more. So much more that it’s driving up the cost of energy to the point that they’re losing their competitive edge. And that’s after all the government subsidies for renewables. Subsidies that the German government has deemed too expensive to continue – they’re being phased out by 2018.
You are dreaming!
@peter Ewart . This paragraph and the other are from Tony Seba’s latest book clean disruption . He is one of the highest paid speakers in the world . His book is not to be missed . You can also hear and see him on YouTube or on his website .
The clean distribution of energy and transportation is inevitable when you consider the exponential cost improvement of disrupting technologies ;the creation of new business models; the democratization of generation ;and the exponential market growth . It will be over by 2030 , maybe before .
That’s a bit confusing. Are you suggesting that the global warming scam will have run its course by 2030?
Not at all . It’s not happening because of global warming , the damage is already done . It’s about the money . It’s about getting more money into more people’s pockets as opposed to putting money into the uber rich . Why rattle up and down the hyway burning up your money when you can do the same thing practically free . And you can make your own energy at home or use BChydro to power yourself at pennies per mile .
Hmmmm….so you’re suggesting that I can make energy at home that will power a car up and down the road for pennies per mile, rather than in my gas guzzler. I have no objection to that, as long as it has the same range as my gas guzzler. But since my gas guzzler already gets me up and down the road for pennies per mile, I fail to see the advantage.
So what is this magical fuel?
So I went to YouTube and looked for the guy, found a video titled, “Clean Disruption: Why Conventional Energy and Transportation will be Obsolete by 2030”
ht tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xy1EDY7Ruw
Fascinating, I highly recommend it. He may be right.
He definitely is right about how fast things change but I’m not sure that he’s right about everything. It doesn’t seem likely that solar can do what he’s saying. Consider that a single coal mine produces about 50 percent more energy on an average day than all the country’s solar panels and wind turbines combined, that the mine covers just 80 square miles, while domestic wind projects now cover about 9,400 square miles.
He also talks about how cheap solar is, yet in Nevada, where there is a lot of sunlight and a lot of solar panels, solar panels generate electricity at a cost of 25 – 30c per kWhr. With subsidies and tax benefits, the cost “falls” to 15c. (In this context, the word “falls” means “is dropped on other people”.) But the retail rate for electricity is 12.5c. I gotta wonder if his cost numbers are actual costs or after-subsidy costs.
So the next question is, since this “Clean Disruption” is inevitable, why waste hundreds of $billions on the global warming scam?
And the next question is, what is the global warming industry going to come up with to blame climate change on?
And finally what will the next phoney environmental scare be based on?
One more point – how will it work for a cold climate like PG? Not so well, I would suggest.
Free hey Ataloss, well you never describe your imaginary solar setup? What is your roi? Hey you lined up for a Tesla? You never seem to back up any of your misinformation.
power at pennies a mile well wait until the government dump their subsidies and start charging the true cost.
March 10, 2016 – Driving a Tesla in Singapore incurs $11,000.00 Carbon Tax
“When Elon Musk setup to develop Tesla electric vehicles he was hoping to reduce the carbon footprint of the cars we all drive. A side effect of that being we should face less tax because electric vehicles produce no emissions, at least directly. However, in Singapore driving a Tesla is very expensive, not only because you have to import the car, but because there’s a huge emissions tax associated with each vehicle”
ht tp://www.geek.com/news/driving-a-tesla-in-singapore-incurs-11000-carbon-tax-1649469/
Actually Musk saw the C02 BS as a way to make money. His fortune is based on harvesting taxpayer paid subsidies and he is very good at it. Just like Gore preaches the world is ending while saving the world for a fee and making good coin with his carbon trading interests.
Peter there is a hint, look into gore and his lifestyle and money making practices. He is one of many. Oh by the way not one of Gores predictions has come true.
Hmmmm, this looks interesting…..
Why it looks like ‘game over’ for global warming
Lawrence Soloman, April 15, 2016, Financial Post
“The next ice age may have already begun, its beginnings temporarily masked by El Niño”
“Earth’s 2015 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern record keeping began in 1880,” according to an analysis released by NASA earlier this year. “Globally-averaged temperatures in 2015 shattered the previous mark set in 2014 by 0.23 degrees Fahrenheit (0.13 Celsius). Only once before, in 1998, has the new record been greater than the old record by this much.”
“Other agencies, ones that measure temperatures in the atmosphere rather than on Earth’s surface, also found 2015 to be a warm year, although not a record-breaker. Either way, 2015 could have historical significance, according to findings by many scientists. It could mark the year that global temperatures started hurtling downward, setting Earth on a prolonged period of global cooling.”
“Since the 1970s, scientists have been telling us that, based on Earth’s natural glacial cycles, we’ve been due — even overdue — for another prolonged period of global cooling. Visible evidence from the sun provides a more immediate warning: Sunspots have all but disappeared. This last happened during the centuries-long Little Ice Age that began in the 15th century, when astronomers using the recently invented telescope saw only about 50 sunspots over a 30-year period, rather than the thousands that would normally have been expected. This period — which saw the Thames River in London freeze over and widespread starvation due to crop failures — is known as the Maunder Minimum, named after the English astronomer Edward Maunder. In recent years there has been a growing drumbeat from solar scientists who think we could be entering a new Maunder Minimum.”
ht tp://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/lawrence-solomon-why-it-looks-like-game-over-for-global-warming
Ice ages are driven by the oscillation of the earths angle to the sun . The next one is due in about 18k years . This is kindergarten stuff . Geez.
Ice ages are driven by the oscillation of the earth’s angel to the sun? Says you!
However, from my earlier post, “in recent years there has been a growing drumbeat from solar scientists who think we could be entering a new Maunder Minimum.”
So Ataloss, are we to ignore all scientists, or just the ones that offer an opinion that differs from yours?
Dirtman:”So what is this magical fuel? ”
In Germany (people are always pointing at Germany on this thread) a company is making millions selling ready to assemble car port building kits! The kit includes all the parts to erect it, solar panels for the roof and the electrical components to store solar energy collected during daylight hours. The owners car (pure EV or Hybrid car) is parked and plugged in. Even during cloudy days enough solar energy is available. Typically the daily commute (within mileage limits) will be for free! The investment will be recouped over a reasonable length of time! Magical, isn’t it?
As I mentioned above, in Nevada, where there is a lot of sunlight, solar panels generate electricity at a cost of 25 – 30c per kWhr but the retail rate for electricity is 12.5c. Magical indeed if the investment will be recouped ever!
Electric cars, even with the government subsidies still cost 10-20,000 more to purchase than a gas pot of the same size. Say 10,000.00 more – how much gas can you buy for 10,000? Say your new buggy gets 30 mpg or 12.75 kilometers per litre. Even at 1.50 per litre that is 6,667 litres of gasoline x 12.75 kpl = 85,000 km. So at 1.50 per litre your new buggy can drive 85,000km before the electric vehicle can even break even. Not to mention the range – and you don’t have to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat wondering if you remembered to plug it in
And not to mention you can run the heater and headlights in the winter too
Imperial gallons = 10.63 kpl = 70,870 in the above example, internet always uses US gallons.
But here is a simple PG example:
A new Corolla gets you 33 mpg (city) or 11.6 kpl for 15,995.00 Canadian $. A Leaf starts at 32,698 if you want 133km range or 37,398 for 172km range. A whopping 16,703 difference for a low range battery set or 11,135 litres at a buck fifty per litre.
If you buy a brand spanking new lower range (base) Leaf I can drive the new (base) Corolla strictly in city stop and go traffic for 129,169 kilometers at 1.50 per litre before we are both at the same cash outlay. And I can do this in a warm car in the winter and an air conditioned one in the summer playing the radio whistling Sweet Home Alabama as we pass each other on the bypass. Never mind my range per fillup in the city is 580 km (in my 50 litre tank) and I can park it anywhere I chose, I don’t have to be nosed up to the charging stall which you will have to pay a few grand for… how many extra kilometers can I drive for not having to buy one? Where is that calc…
The city brainiacs who renewed the lease on the leaf that no one drives could always add a trailer full of batteries or a generator.
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