It is a fact that oil provides more than a third of the energy we use on the planet each day, which turns out to be more than any other form of energy. Two-thirds of every barrel of oil produced goes towards transportation. Planes, trains, cars, trucks and ships all run on oil. This doesn’t cover all the products produced by and with oil that we all take for granted. As a start, think about all the life-saving plastic products used in hospitals every day.
Oil can, to its advantage, be stored, as it doesn’t spoil or lose its effectiveness. And it can move by pipelines, on trucks and by train tankers. The same volume of oil compared to natural gas produces more energy and almost twice as much as coal. Regardless of the many efforts to develop alternate energy sources, nothing matches oil, nor is there a real substitute. So why do anti-oil zealots ignore the obvious, and governments and other groups try to stop the ‘flow’? Could it possibly be to the benefit of the benefactors?
And, of course, the price of oil is a key factor when talking about the outlook for global economies. Needless to say, disruption in Iran has greatly affected pricing this year and has been a main driver recently with respect to cost-of-living increases. The fear of shortages over the long term naturally is slowing economic growth, mortgage rate increases and, worse yet, an economic crash. While we can blame the various stumbling blocks on other countries, we need to look at our own country. We have provinces, the federal government, and some private and public organizations opposing us.
So, all of this leads to the big question: Why can we not get a pipeline without a fight with someone’s poor science or funded schemes to declare oil harmful to the world and a dying and depleting product? None of which is true!
Rationalize, if possible, the aim of anti-pipeline demonstrators in our own province. Consider that we ship more than two million barrels of oil a day to the USA at a lower negotiated price than we could charge elsewhere. So, it is not just oil producers who take a hit to their pockets; at the same time, the royalties collected by the Alberta provincial government and corporate taxes to the Canadian government shrink. And, in concert with both of those losses, Canadians themselves face shortages in money available for schools and their treasured universal health care program.
Some will argue that it is the Americans who are benefiting from our lower prices, which, of course, they do. Then I wonder, why are we “cutting off our nose to spite our face” by limiting who we can sell to and creating reasons to install tanker bans in our waters when, oddly, foreign ships are passing through those very waters carrying the same product to the USA?
So we have shaky permission to apply for a long-awaited proposed new pipeline already plagued with direction conditions, tanker bans, needed port changes or updates, a reward fee of some nature to the B.C. government for their permission, and an ‘unknown payment’ to a B.C. aboriginal group.
Oh, Canada! What is your problem? Our oil helps pay your bills!