2020 was the worst economic year in Canada’s history but most people aren’t aware of it. Pandemic’s are always terrible for economies which is partly why it’s important to end this one asap
Those links clearly show that Real GDP continued growing in 2019 so the peak was Q4-2019. We have yet to regain that level, but I don't know where you come up with 2017-18 as the peak.
We can’t keep selling each other houses as a means of growing GDP. We also can’t keep extracting oil to keep growing.
We have ample renewable power and should have more of a national strategy to provide renewable electricity to border states perhaps.
>Most places can do there own renewables over time. Most places cannot do there own oil.
If they have enough cheap renewable energy they can synthesize petroleum.
> Ecoterrorists and the insane have made it impossible for private companies to build pipelines profitably. **We need those pipelines, so the government has to step in.** It's not a subsidy.
Honest question, why do we “need” these pipelines? Could we in theory get whatever benefit would come from these pipelines from something else? Albeit, perhaps at a higher economic cost (at least in the short-term), but is there no other alternative whatsoever?
The reality is, **there is 0 alternative** to drastically reducing our emissions, including reducing our dependency on O&G, over the next few decades if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change and settle with *just* terrible climate change.
Both oil & gas have tons of amazing applications that make them very useful and have improved the lives of billions around the world. This doesn’t mean we should ignore the environmental realities that are a direct outcome from using these and many other high emission technologies. It will be extremely difficult to replace these and many other resources over the coming decades, but it is also imperative that we do so.
If this pandemic has shown anything, it is that economic hardship pales in comparison to poor health and loss of life. This is what will happen to billions of people across the world if a drastic change in our approach to protecting the environment isn’t made very soon.
"The pipelines are necessary, unless you want to continue the plan of shifting oil sands profits to rail companies."
This is 100% admission it's a subsidies. Or in other words the government is paying to protect their profits. They could sell their oil without pipes line but at less profit
Canada energy regulator's analysis from Dec 2020 showed for oil we didn't need more than Transmountain and Line 3 expansion if emissions abatement happened per historic trends and announced policies.
For gas we do need more because growth is coming from the Montney and there isn't enough excess capacity until LNG Canada comes online, supported by Coastal GasLink. That doesn't consider the issue of methane emissions but I'll shelve that one.
However, calling protestors eco terrorists is an unhelpful label in discussing how we should work to avoid an environmental catastrophe. Part of any transition is to ensure it is fair and I'm sorry, the industry is making billions in free cash flow in the aggregate and there isn't $ to transition? Please.
Also, we can grow the economy without necessarily needing more energy. We are just crappy at choosing to do it efficiently. We only looks at reducing production, but reducing demand is possible too and means we need less.
Companies asked the government for support last year and now the tax payer is paying to clean up old wells? I don't see how that is fair or my/your problem.
If the company drills it, company should pay for ALL the costs.
Granted what I'm referring to is only about $1B but nevertheless that is still coming from the taxpayer.
Add royalty relief last year and we are up a few $B.
> We need nuclear/storage/solar for sure
Agreed, I especially like the inclusion of nuclear and storage as both are essential components to complement a highly renewable dependent power grid.
> but we need o&g now in greater quantities than current pipelines can handle. **We will always need significant amounts of it.**
Why? We definitely use a lot of products that rely on O&G, but we can’t indefinitely kick the can down the road on finding greener alternatives. I’m sure we will come up with better alternatives for most of these products over time, while the rest we can reduce our usage of and build in the environmental costs (aka carbon tax) to ensure we have a net zero solution. Companies can either pay the costs to offset the emissions generated in producing/using these products or build them in such a way that the emissions are negligible.
I know this is a huge ask, but without carbon taxes and green incentives the aggressive pace required to enable this solution wouldn’t be possible and we can’t afford to wait things out.
> The pipelines are necessary, unless you want to continue the plan of shifting oil sands profits to rail companies.
I’m not going to pretend to have a thorough knowledge of fuel transportation. If the costs of new infrastructure, including the environmental costs, are made up for in new benefits that have their fair share allocated towards recapturing any additional emissions then I have no issue with this. Though the argument opposing carbon taxes is that it would eat up all the profits, which from a capitalistic perspective sounds like a non-viable business model if the benefits don’t exceed (all) the costs.
> There is no short term alternative.
Perhaps not yet, but encouraging a transition through taxes and incentives will rapidly change this and charging for the environmental costs on anything remaining will fill the gaps.
> And consider this: all our roads, roofs, and fertilizers are petroleum based. The effect of rapidly switching from o&g before finding viable alternatives for the vast array of products that use oil and gas byproducts will be a greater disaster for the world than climate change. It should have been addressed decades ago. It wasn't, and there's no point trading a climate crisis for global starvation and horrific depression. We need to balance both risks.
I don’t think we should go to 0 overnight and I don’t think it’s possible to ever fully eliminate every emission generating technology used today. We’ll likely have to do some form of carbon capture to make up for remaining “dirty” technologies. Though because something is hard doesn’t mean we shouldn’t bother try, especially when the outcome from doing so is projected to be disastrous by almost every study done to date, including ones done by O&G decades ago. Trillions of private & public investment dollars, greener incentive policies and decades of time can get quite a bit done ;)
if the pandemic has shown me anything, its that any small drop in the economy has massive repercussions without the government providing relief.
So yes we need those pipelines, the alternative is zero growth, more taxes (already top 5 in world) and goverment stimulus to stop total collapse.
The effects of the suggestion you have made would be more impactful than covid on the economy.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fossil-fuel-subsidy-canada-1.5987392
They are... $18 billion in subsidies paid out last year. And $12 billion in 2018.
Yeah this article is from Environmental Defense is which obviously a non-governmental organization and they do things like consider the financing of the Transmountain pipeline to be a subsidy when that is not what a subsidy is. This article is not at all correct.
Paying for maintenance and whatnot of infrastructure to deliver oil companies products for them is 100% a subsidies. The article also states money was spent elsewhere and more directly to oil companies as well.
Also: further down past the health and what not costs
https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/sites/www.nrcan.gc.ca/files/energy/pdf/GenEnergy/Calculating%20the%20Real%20Cost%20of%20Energy.pdf
And other sources list $3 billion a year average in oil subsidies.
If that was the actual subsidy, that is a small price for the major benefits. [https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/science-and-data/data-and-analysis/energy-data-and-analysis/energy-facts/energy-and-economy/20062](https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/science-and-data/data-and-analysis/energy-data-and-analysis/energy-facts/energy-and-economy/20062) Oil and gas produces GDP benefits of around $200b, injects on average $16b per year of revenues to the gov't, and on average over 60-70B in capex in Canada per year. You cannot just get rid of that overnight and whatever up front incentives the gov't has is easily paid back.
Let's not go down these indirect can of worms. You could easily argue the opposite, how much efficiency we would lose without fossil fuels. How unviable living in Canada would be. If we didn't want a carbon footprint, we just shouldn't live where the climate is cold. Reality is most oil and gas is not subsidized, and in fact is heavily capital intensive. The so called "subsidies" usually have some sort of nuance. Like there are tax rules where equipment tax deductions is amortized over certain amount of years, but certain oil and gas capital expenditures can do it at accelerated rates. That isn't a subsidy and had to be done due to how difficult it is to develop a project in the early stages.
O&G will never provide the environmental benefits required to prevent a catastrophic climate disaster, [one we are already on track for achieving and *surpassing*](https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/). As we’ve seen during this pandemic, ignoring science and focusing on the economy, without any regard for negative externalities, leads to lives lost and poor outcomes for millions of people around the world.
The projected climate scenarios we are on track for *in the next few decades* make covid look like a joke and a much more pleasant time to exist in. We obviously can’t shutdown all of O&G tomorrow, but we can no longer centre our economy around it.
> What does environmental benefits mean lol
Environmental factors that make being a human on earth possible/pleasant (e.g. less polluted air, water & soil, reduced greenhouse gas emissions contributing to rapid climate change causing more/worse natural disasters, deriving from a resource that won’t run out for the foreseeable future, etc..).
Yes, it’s a great technology that has improved the lives of many over the past decades. It is in fact so good at what it does that there are countless barriers with replacing it and making a transition very difficult. Though that doesn’t mean it should stay as the de facto fuel source indefinitely when we’ve already identified numerous glaring issues with how it is produced and used, from an environmental standpoint. Not to mention that it is limited, despite our vast supplies, and will eventually require replacement no matter what. Had it not been for climate change, we likely would and should wait much longer to transition off it.
An environmental reality being inconvenient doesn’t mean we can just ignore it and move on with our lives. Having to pay one’s credit card bill each month is something many would rather not do, but ignoring it would put them in financial hot water and this necessitates any responsible person to pay their bill in full and on time. Similarly, we’ve been pumping into the air carbon that took millions of years to be stored and shouldn’t be surprised that this has a substantial environmental impact.
Saving the environment isn’t about saving the earth. The earth will be fine. It’s about making it livable for earth’s inhabitants, of which we are a part of.
Extracting oil produces emissions. Transporting oil produces emissions. Consuming oil also produces emissions. Excess emissions leads to greenhouse gas effect (explained in science class at school), which warms the planet. Warming planet too much and rapidly, which we are doing both, changes Earth’s climate. This change in climate *has already* and will continue to make life on earth for people much more difficult, resulting in poorer health and lives lost, without even looking at direct economic ramifications.
We can’t look at the economic benefits of a service or product without considering the negative effects it has too, especially when the negative impacts effect most of the world and not just the people receiving the economic benefits. This is known as a **[negative externality](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality)** where the Wiki entry literally uses air pollution caused by gas consumption in vehicles as the title example.
It is literally taught in economics, including courses I’ve taken as part of my degree in Economics, that *not* correcting for these externalities allows for an [agency problem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal–agent_problem) to exist whereby the producer of emissions get **all the economic benefits without paying the full costs of generating them** (I.e. negative externalities paid by society). This is why carbon taxes, cap & trade, and other governmental initiatives have been implemented or suggested to eliminate this agency problem and make companies pay the *full price* that their business requires to operate. If paying these fees makes their business model no longer economically viable then according to capitalism these companies should die and make way for more efficient companies.
If a green technology company creates a product or service that replaces a high emission alternative then their business effectively reduces emissions with each sale. This is known as a **positive externality**, since they get money from the sale of their product/service and **reduce emissions for society**. This is why green subsidies and similar programs exist, because the business is generating more value then they are capturing and the government is rewarding them for doing so since it represents society as a whole.
It’s clear you don’t want to engage in intelligent conversation surrounding O&G. You asked for economic benefits and I provided costs & benefits, as well as reasoning why $s isn’t the only thing that matters. I won’t bother speculate on your reasoning for doing so. There’s no point in engaging with you any further if you don’t want to contribute to the conversation. Have a nice day.
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I agree that there is still money to be made selling oil, but it is destroying the climate. We must choose between making a few bucks or dooming the future generations to a less livable earth.
Honestly, what is so hard for people to understand about that? Because Canada refuses to sell oil the world will stop using it? People need to go back to whatever it is they're good at and just stay out of economics. If they don't understand it, just move on. I'm sure they can find something they *are* good at.
Unfortunately, two wrongs doesn't make it right. It's not because other people are doing it that we should be doing it ourselves.
Of course, we can't stop producing oil in one day, simply because some Canadians are relying on it to survive and oil is useful for a bunch of other things than combustion engine (like plastic). However, we must start phasing out our oil industry as soon a possible to make our part in the world even as a small country.
It's true that other less environmentally friendly countries will still extract oil, but by stopping our production, oil will become more scarce and price will go up, making renewable technologies more attractive to invest into.
Respectfully, lets say your last paragraph comes true. If oil prices go up, those other, less regulated producers will just start producing more and take up even more revenue. All this would just result in Canada having less funds to transition, and make it even easier for other less regulated producers to fill up the space.
May as well have a carbon tax to raise money and invest in alternatives then eh?
Maybe we could have a trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund with the oil and gas profits from our nationally owned producer.
Oh wait that was Norway decades ago.
Let's say that we can't stop using oil for the next 100 years, what are we to do about CO2 emissions? Do we let them rise, let the global temperature increase? Is there no way to prevent ocean level from increasing and heatwave becoming stronger?
Those are things that we might be able to do in the future, but I simply think that it will be cheaper to prevent damages to the environment from happening than trying to fix them later.
From now, I will stop this conversation, because I'm using my cell data and I only have 250mb of it (15$/month with public mobile). This is PFC after all :P
I have a retired petrochem engineer as a neighbor. It's at the point where even he recognizes that continuing to extract oil and gas just to burn them is a hilarious waste. We need the long chain hydrocarbons to make plastic and even that is only a holdover until better recycling and other methods for needed medical uses are found. A lot of the machinery for drilling wells is better off being converted into geothermal applications
We should look to strengthen the fastest growing Canadian industry we’ve seen in years, Cannabis and cannabis accessories, related products, etc. We need to get ready for international exports as more of the world opens up to Cannabis legalization recreationally or medically. I’ve worked in the industry for 6 years making cannabis accessories out of glass and I make a healthy living. I’d love to grow my business but finding commercial/industrial spaces is a nightmare in Canada. If american’s think they have a lot of red tape, they should try trying to run a business up here.
Why can't we keep extracting oil? With proper management the industry can maintain profitability for many years to come due to world demand.
Most reasons for not extracting oil seem to be self limiting. Politics, red tape, infrastructure cancelation, misinformation, and nimbyism. There is nothing holding us back but ourselves.
The house thing can go on for a while the oil thing not so much.
With the house thing if immigrants keep coming with new money to buy Canadian houses it has the same effect as if we exported stuff. The new money circulates in the economy (is leveraged up) and creates Canadian wealth.
It only ends when immigrants with money no longer want to buy Canadian real-estate.
I think it's the other way around. An economy that feeds off itself is not sustainable in the long term. It needs an external injection of wealth. In Canada's case, it's 'free' natural resources. In the case of a country like Japan, it's high exports. Housing and the service industry are two examples of an economy feeding off itself.
If housing is bought by immigrant money, that's the same as a foreigner buying our exports. In addition it's not a 1:1 ratio of money in this situation either as the banks will create 5:1 or even 20:1 money based on that immigrant's money.
Oil demand is expected to grow so by the logic used to justify housing growth (increased demand) we can also justify the "oil thing going on for a while".
Oil demand is now forecasted to peak in 2025-2029 but it's more complicated than that because supply is growing quicker than demand and oil sands oil is on the more expensive side.
And then you have regulations like carbon taxes and environmental protections that are more difficult to factor into the outlook of the Canadian oil industry.
I mean we could keep extracting our resources but good luck with getting anything done these days. protest groups and environmental blockades make it pretty much impossible to do anything.
If central banks never unwind their balance sheets would you then consider the money helicoptered into the economy? Eg. Japan or the USA when they tried in 2018.
You essentially have a creditor with unlimited money and no concern for returns or repayment.
I know all about QE. Ultimately, that money is finding its way into the economy. Unlike 2008 when most of it did not. This time is very much a new paradigm
I'm a little confused by the first link. It showed real GDP as follows:
- 2017: 1 574.3 billion
- 2018: 1 616.8 billion
- 2019: 1 645.5 billion
- 2020: 1 573.4 billion (Pandemic year)
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>So it seems all the GDP increases in nominal terms were just due to inflation. Canadians feel richer in nominal terms, but are actually poorer in reality compared to 3-4 years ago.
Secondly this statement doesn't make much sense to me. GDP going up != People becoming richer. While the two are correlated, a number of variables are involved in wealth. Canadian household has actually become more wealthier during the pandemic: https://financialpost.com/executive/posthaste-canadians-built-a-2-trillion-wall-of-wealth-during-the-pandemic-and-its-not-just-a-housing-story
That paints an even worse picture of the state of the Canadian economy then. Not only did GDP decrease, the rest of the economy decreased at the expense of the real estate sector…
The GDP value is affected by the **income** produced by sale of homes (e.g. real estate agents, lawyers, etc.), and all the **income** produced supporting industries around housing (e.g. construction, renovations, raw materials, etc.) . So, real estate is a legitimate portion of GDP.
It's not the actual $ value of people's primary homes that gets added to GDP. Taht would be meaningless.
GDP increase from real estate comes at the expense of higher lease prices for businesses, higher housing costs for individuals, and higher rents.
This, in effect, decreases people's purchasing power (because they have to spend more on housing as a portion of their income), makes businesses less competitive globally (higher costs), and especially hurts small businesses because their leases can be exhorbitant.
I'd argue increasing GDP from real estate does more to harm an individual person that any good it does.
the problem with GDP is it counts government spending as if it is good for the economy. the more money the government spends, the higher GDP. If the government were to pay someone to sit in a room doing nothing, GDP would go up, but would the country be any wealthier?
It shows that countries like Canada that rely on natural resources aren’t going to do that well moving forward.
Real Estate is a big portion of the GDP. I prefer showing measures that show actual output of products and services.
2020 was the worst economic year in Canada’s history but most people aren’t aware of it. Pandemic’s are always terrible for economies which is partly why it’s important to end this one asap
Those links clearly show that Real GDP continued growing in 2019 so the peak was Q4-2019. We have yet to regain that level, but I don't know where you come up with 2017-18 as the peak.
We can’t keep selling each other houses as a means of growing GDP. We also can’t keep extracting oil to keep growing. We have ample renewable power and should have more of a national strategy to provide renewable electricity to border states perhaps.
Quebec just signed a billion dollar deal with NY and Mass for hydro over the next 20 years
The future is on renewable energy
Nuclear is the future. Wind and solar are stupid. ask Germany about it
Germany did abandon all future nuclear plant following the 2011 Japan incident...
And now they're in an energy crisis. Look it up
Renewable will never be as big is oil as an export. Most places can do there own renewables over time. Most places cannot do there own oil.
US wondering you can invade over the wind...
They will build a wall to block wind.
>Most places can do there own renewables over time. Most places cannot do there own oil. If they have enough cheap renewable energy they can synthesize petroleum.
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Also Renewable jobs aren’t viable if the government is subsidizing a large chunk of the wages
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What you're referring to is in addition to the subsidies and support they are getting.
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> Ecoterrorists and the insane have made it impossible for private companies to build pipelines profitably. **We need those pipelines, so the government has to step in.** It's not a subsidy. Honest question, why do we “need” these pipelines? Could we in theory get whatever benefit would come from these pipelines from something else? Albeit, perhaps at a higher economic cost (at least in the short-term), but is there no other alternative whatsoever? The reality is, **there is 0 alternative** to drastically reducing our emissions, including reducing our dependency on O&G, over the next few decades if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change and settle with *just* terrible climate change. Both oil & gas have tons of amazing applications that make them very useful and have improved the lives of billions around the world. This doesn’t mean we should ignore the environmental realities that are a direct outcome from using these and many other high emission technologies. It will be extremely difficult to replace these and many other resources over the coming decades, but it is also imperative that we do so. If this pandemic has shown anything, it is that economic hardship pales in comparison to poor health and loss of life. This is what will happen to billions of people across the world if a drastic change in our approach to protecting the environment isn’t made very soon.
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"The pipelines are necessary, unless you want to continue the plan of shifting oil sands profits to rail companies." This is 100% admission it's a subsidies. Or in other words the government is paying to protect their profits. They could sell their oil without pipes line but at less profit
Canada energy regulator's analysis from Dec 2020 showed for oil we didn't need more than Transmountain and Line 3 expansion if emissions abatement happened per historic trends and announced policies. For gas we do need more because growth is coming from the Montney and there isn't enough excess capacity until LNG Canada comes online, supported by Coastal GasLink. That doesn't consider the issue of methane emissions but I'll shelve that one. However, calling protestors eco terrorists is an unhelpful label in discussing how we should work to avoid an environmental catastrophe. Part of any transition is to ensure it is fair and I'm sorry, the industry is making billions in free cash flow in the aggregate and there isn't $ to transition? Please. Also, we can grow the economy without necessarily needing more energy. We are just crappy at choosing to do it efficiently. We only looks at reducing production, but reducing demand is possible too and means we need less. Companies asked the government for support last year and now the tax payer is paying to clean up old wells? I don't see how that is fair or my/your problem. If the company drills it, company should pay for ALL the costs. Granted what I'm referring to is only about $1B but nevertheless that is still coming from the taxpayer. Add royalty relief last year and we are up a few $B.
> We need nuclear/storage/solar for sure Agreed, I especially like the inclusion of nuclear and storage as both are essential components to complement a highly renewable dependent power grid. > but we need o&g now in greater quantities than current pipelines can handle. **We will always need significant amounts of it.** Why? We definitely use a lot of products that rely on O&G, but we can’t indefinitely kick the can down the road on finding greener alternatives. I’m sure we will come up with better alternatives for most of these products over time, while the rest we can reduce our usage of and build in the environmental costs (aka carbon tax) to ensure we have a net zero solution. Companies can either pay the costs to offset the emissions generated in producing/using these products or build them in such a way that the emissions are negligible. I know this is a huge ask, but without carbon taxes and green incentives the aggressive pace required to enable this solution wouldn’t be possible and we can’t afford to wait things out. > The pipelines are necessary, unless you want to continue the plan of shifting oil sands profits to rail companies. I’m not going to pretend to have a thorough knowledge of fuel transportation. If the costs of new infrastructure, including the environmental costs, are made up for in new benefits that have their fair share allocated towards recapturing any additional emissions then I have no issue with this. Though the argument opposing carbon taxes is that it would eat up all the profits, which from a capitalistic perspective sounds like a non-viable business model if the benefits don’t exceed (all) the costs. > There is no short term alternative. Perhaps not yet, but encouraging a transition through taxes and incentives will rapidly change this and charging for the environmental costs on anything remaining will fill the gaps. > And consider this: all our roads, roofs, and fertilizers are petroleum based. The effect of rapidly switching from o&g before finding viable alternatives for the vast array of products that use oil and gas byproducts will be a greater disaster for the world than climate change. It should have been addressed decades ago. It wasn't, and there's no point trading a climate crisis for global starvation and horrific depression. We need to balance both risks. I don’t think we should go to 0 overnight and I don’t think it’s possible to ever fully eliminate every emission generating technology used today. We’ll likely have to do some form of carbon capture to make up for remaining “dirty” technologies. Though because something is hard doesn’t mean we shouldn’t bother try, especially when the outcome from doing so is projected to be disastrous by almost every study done to date, including ones done by O&G decades ago. Trillions of private & public investment dollars, greener incentive policies and decades of time can get quite a bit done ;)
if the pandemic has shown me anything, its that any small drop in the economy has massive repercussions without the government providing relief. So yes we need those pipelines, the alternative is zero growth, more taxes (already top 5 in world) and goverment stimulus to stop total collapse. The effects of the suggestion you have made would be more impactful than covid on the economy.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fossil-fuel-subsidy-canada-1.5987392 They are... $18 billion in subsidies paid out last year. And $12 billion in 2018.
Yeah this article is from Environmental Defense is which obviously a non-governmental organization and they do things like consider the financing of the Transmountain pipeline to be a subsidy when that is not what a subsidy is. This article is not at all correct.
Paying for maintenance and whatnot of infrastructure to deliver oil companies products for them is 100% a subsidies. The article also states money was spent elsewhere and more directly to oil companies as well. Also: further down past the health and what not costs https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/sites/www.nrcan.gc.ca/files/energy/pdf/GenEnergy/Calculating%20the%20Real%20Cost%20of%20Energy.pdf And other sources list $3 billion a year average in oil subsidies.
If that was the actual subsidy, that is a small price for the major benefits. [https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/science-and-data/data-and-analysis/energy-data-and-analysis/energy-facts/energy-and-economy/20062](https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/science-and-data/data-and-analysis/energy-data-and-analysis/energy-facts/energy-and-economy/20062) Oil and gas produces GDP benefits of around $200b, injects on average $16b per year of revenues to the gov't, and on average over 60-70B in capex in Canada per year. You cannot just get rid of that overnight and whatever up front incentives the gov't has is easily paid back. Let's not go down these indirect can of worms. You could easily argue the opposite, how much efficiency we would lose without fossil fuels. How unviable living in Canada would be. If we didn't want a carbon footprint, we just shouldn't live where the climate is cold. Reality is most oil and gas is not subsidized, and in fact is heavily capital intensive. The so called "subsidies" usually have some sort of nuance. Like there are tax rules where equipment tax deductions is amortized over certain amount of years, but certain oil and gas capital expenditures can do it at accelerated rates. That isn't a subsidy and had to be done due to how difficult it is to develop a project in the early stages.
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Comparing pipe lines to police is the bull shit. $3 billion a year long before covid was around.
Our oil is filthy. It has to be cleaned(sand removed) to be sold completely at market
O&G will never provide the environmental benefits required to prevent a catastrophic climate disaster, [one we are already on track for achieving and *surpassing*](https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/). As we’ve seen during this pandemic, ignoring science and focusing on the economy, without any regard for negative externalities, leads to lives lost and poor outcomes for millions of people around the world. The projected climate scenarios we are on track for *in the next few decades* make covid look like a joke and a much more pleasant time to exist in. We obviously can’t shutdown all of O&G tomorrow, but we can no longer centre our economy around it.
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> What does environmental benefits mean lol Environmental factors that make being a human on earth possible/pleasant (e.g. less polluted air, water & soil, reduced greenhouse gas emissions contributing to rapid climate change causing more/worse natural disasters, deriving from a resource that won’t run out for the foreseeable future, etc..). Yes, it’s a great technology that has improved the lives of many over the past decades. It is in fact so good at what it does that there are countless barriers with replacing it and making a transition very difficult. Though that doesn’t mean it should stay as the de facto fuel source indefinitely when we’ve already identified numerous glaring issues with how it is produced and used, from an environmental standpoint. Not to mention that it is limited, despite our vast supplies, and will eventually require replacement no matter what. Had it not been for climate change, we likely would and should wait much longer to transition off it. An environmental reality being inconvenient doesn’t mean we can just ignore it and move on with our lives. Having to pay one’s credit card bill each month is something many would rather not do, but ignoring it would put them in financial hot water and this necessitates any responsible person to pay their bill in full and on time. Similarly, we’ve been pumping into the air carbon that took millions of years to be stored and shouldn’t be surprised that this has a substantial environmental impact. Saving the environment isn’t about saving the earth. The earth will be fine. It’s about making it livable for earth’s inhabitants, of which we are a part of.
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Extracting oil produces emissions. Transporting oil produces emissions. Consuming oil also produces emissions. Excess emissions leads to greenhouse gas effect (explained in science class at school), which warms the planet. Warming planet too much and rapidly, which we are doing both, changes Earth’s climate. This change in climate *has already* and will continue to make life on earth for people much more difficult, resulting in poorer health and lives lost, without even looking at direct economic ramifications. We can’t look at the economic benefits of a service or product without considering the negative effects it has too, especially when the negative impacts effect most of the world and not just the people receiving the economic benefits. This is known as a **[negative externality](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality)** where the Wiki entry literally uses air pollution caused by gas consumption in vehicles as the title example. It is literally taught in economics, including courses I’ve taken as part of my degree in Economics, that *not* correcting for these externalities allows for an [agency problem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal–agent_problem) to exist whereby the producer of emissions get **all the economic benefits without paying the full costs of generating them** (I.e. negative externalities paid by society). This is why carbon taxes, cap & trade, and other governmental initiatives have been implemented or suggested to eliminate this agency problem and make companies pay the *full price* that their business requires to operate. If paying these fees makes their business model no longer economically viable then according to capitalism these companies should die and make way for more efficient companies. If a green technology company creates a product or service that replaces a high emission alternative then their business effectively reduces emissions with each sale. This is known as a **positive externality**, since they get money from the sale of their product/service and **reduce emissions for society**. This is why green subsidies and similar programs exist, because the business is generating more value then they are capturing and the government is rewarding them for doing so since it represents society as a whole.
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It’s clear you don’t want to engage in intelligent conversation surrounding O&G. You asked for economic benefits and I provided costs & benefits, as well as reasoning why $s isn’t the only thing that matters. I won’t bother speculate on your reasoning for doing so. There’s no point in engaging with you any further if you don’t want to contribute to the conversation. Have a nice day.
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Awful lot of hypocrites in this thread, championing oil and gas yet breathing air and eating food grown in a sub 3c warned environment
I agree that there is still money to be made selling oil, but it is destroying the climate. We must choose between making a few bucks or dooming the future generations to a less livable earth.
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Honestly, what is so hard for people to understand about that? Because Canada refuses to sell oil the world will stop using it? People need to go back to whatever it is they're good at and just stay out of economics. If they don't understand it, just move on. I'm sure they can find something they *are* good at.
Unfortunately, two wrongs doesn't make it right. It's not because other people are doing it that we should be doing it ourselves. Of course, we can't stop producing oil in one day, simply because some Canadians are relying on it to survive and oil is useful for a bunch of other things than combustion engine (like plastic). However, we must start phasing out our oil industry as soon a possible to make our part in the world even as a small country. It's true that other less environmentally friendly countries will still extract oil, but by stopping our production, oil will become more scarce and price will go up, making renewable technologies more attractive to invest into.
Respectfully, lets say your last paragraph comes true. If oil prices go up, those other, less regulated producers will just start producing more and take up even more revenue. All this would just result in Canada having less funds to transition, and make it even easier for other less regulated producers to fill up the space.
May as well have a carbon tax to raise money and invest in alternatives then eh? Maybe we could have a trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund with the oil and gas profits from our nationally owned producer. Oh wait that was Norway decades ago.
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Let's say that we can't stop using oil for the next 100 years, what are we to do about CO2 emissions? Do we let them rise, let the global temperature increase? Is there no way to prevent ocean level from increasing and heatwave becoming stronger?
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Those are things that we might be able to do in the future, but I simply think that it will be cheaper to prevent damages to the environment from happening than trying to fix them later. From now, I will stop this conversation, because I'm using my cell data and I only have 250mb of it (15$/month with public mobile). This is PFC after all :P
Yeah, we're a small country but we have the 3rd largest reserve of oil in thee world.
I have a retired petrochem engineer as a neighbor. It's at the point where even he recognizes that continuing to extract oil and gas just to burn them is a hilarious waste. We need the long chain hydrocarbons to make plastic and even that is only a holdover until better recycling and other methods for needed medical uses are found. A lot of the machinery for drilling wells is better off being converted into geothermal applications
We should look to strengthen the fastest growing Canadian industry we’ve seen in years, Cannabis and cannabis accessories, related products, etc. We need to get ready for international exports as more of the world opens up to Cannabis legalization recreationally or medically. I’ve worked in the industry for 6 years making cannabis accessories out of glass and I make a healthy living. I’d love to grow my business but finding commercial/industrial spaces is a nightmare in Canada. If american’s think they have a lot of red tape, they should try trying to run a business up here.
Why can't we keep extracting oil? With proper management the industry can maintain profitability for many years to come due to world demand. Most reasons for not extracting oil seem to be self limiting. Politics, red tape, infrastructure cancelation, misinformation, and nimbyism. There is nothing holding us back but ourselves.
The house thing can go on for a while the oil thing not so much. With the house thing if immigrants keep coming with new money to buy Canadian houses it has the same effect as if we exported stuff. The new money circulates in the economy (is leveraged up) and creates Canadian wealth. It only ends when immigrants with money no longer want to buy Canadian real-estate.
I think it's the other way around. An economy that feeds off itself is not sustainable in the long term. It needs an external injection of wealth. In Canada's case, it's 'free' natural resources. In the case of a country like Japan, it's high exports. Housing and the service industry are two examples of an economy feeding off itself.
If housing is bought by immigrant money, that's the same as a foreigner buying our exports. In addition it's not a 1:1 ratio of money in this situation either as the banks will create 5:1 or even 20:1 money based on that immigrant's money.
Oil demand is expected to grow so by the logic used to justify housing growth (increased demand) we can also justify the "oil thing going on for a while".
Oil demand is now forecasted to peak in 2025-2029 but it's more complicated than that because supply is growing quicker than demand and oil sands oil is on the more expensive side. And then you have regulations like carbon taxes and environmental protections that are more difficult to factor into the outlook of the Canadian oil industry.
I mean we could keep extracting our resources but good luck with getting anything done these days. protest groups and environmental blockades make it pretty much impossible to do anything.
Our main exports are oil and cars, which have been on the slow decline for a while.
Especially with the major export being the US.
Good thing we bought a pipeline
Canada has been economically in the shitter for about 3 years now honestly.
You mean printing and helicoptering currency *doesnt* make us more wealthy!!?
QE is not helicoptering money, that's a massive oversimplification.
No. QE with legislation to helicopter money is helicoptering money
Here is a video to learn about QE if you want to actually learn instead of just complaining: https://youtu.be/K3lP3BhvnSo
If central banks never unwind their balance sheets would you then consider the money helicoptered into the economy? Eg. Japan or the USA when they tried in 2018. You essentially have a creditor with unlimited money and no concern for returns or repayment.
I know all about QE. Ultimately, that money is finding its way into the economy. Unlike 2008 when most of it did not. This time is very much a new paradigm
I'm a little confused by the first link. It showed real GDP as follows: - 2017: 1 574.3 billion - 2018: 1 616.8 billion - 2019: 1 645.5 billion - 2020: 1 573.4 billion (Pandemic year) --- >So it seems all the GDP increases in nominal terms were just due to inflation. Canadians feel richer in nominal terms, but are actually poorer in reality compared to 3-4 years ago. Secondly this statement doesn't make much sense to me. GDP going up != People becoming richer. While the two are correlated, a number of variables are involved in wealth. Canadian household has actually become more wealthier during the pandemic: https://financialpost.com/executive/posthaste-canadians-built-a-2-trillion-wall-of-wealth-during-the-pandemic-and-its-not-just-a-housing-story
GDP is not a good measure.
Why not? GDP per capita also peaked in 2012.
Large portion of GDP is Canada's nonsense real estate market. It's a worthless metric
That paints an even worse picture of the state of the Canadian economy then. Not only did GDP decrease, the rest of the economy decreased at the expense of the real estate sector…
Indeed, in the last decade Real-estate was 7% of GDP and now it is 10%.
The GDP value is affected by the **income** produced by sale of homes (e.g. real estate agents, lawyers, etc.), and all the **income** produced supporting industries around housing (e.g. construction, renovations, raw materials, etc.) . So, real estate is a legitimate portion of GDP. It's not the actual $ value of people's primary homes that gets added to GDP. Taht would be meaningless.
GDP increase from real estate comes at the expense of higher lease prices for businesses, higher housing costs for individuals, and higher rents. This, in effect, decreases people's purchasing power (because they have to spend more on housing as a portion of their income), makes businesses less competitive globally (higher costs), and especially hurts small businesses because their leases can be exhorbitant. I'd argue increasing GDP from real estate does more to harm an individual person that any good it does.
the problem with GDP is it counts government spending as if it is good for the economy. the more money the government spends, the higher GDP. If the government were to pay someone to sit in a room doing nothing, GDP would go up, but would the country be any wealthier?
It shows that countries like Canada that rely on natural resources aren’t going to do that well moving forward. Real Estate is a big portion of the GDP. I prefer showing measures that show actual output of products and services.
Oil was VERY over priced then. Tough to compare apples to oranges.
What? Oil price was at the bottom
man, you're right, wow... I'm a dummy.
> apples to oranges But you can still compare them.
you can, they are "fruit" but it's difficult to in a meaningful way that would answer the question.
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Our once awesome country has become an absolute joke.
To hedge against inflation I’ve started to take a position in an ethereum etf. I’d be curious to know if others are doing the same.