I’m playing something of a devil’s advocate here, but I think there’s a case to be made that the three new pipelines announced recently could end up being a good thing–for the environment!
No, this is an economic and political argument not an environmental one.
The less oil removed from the ground the better.
We’re talking about carbon capture and storage technologies while we could just NOT PUMP THE OIL and have the same effect with 0 effort.
“Someone else will do it” Sure, but also, they will run out faster and then… Less total carbon will have been released.
I don’t see how we can remove economics and politics from environmental policy. We’re not talking about climate science, we’re talking about what human beings are doing to the environment. And everything we do isn’t a question of doing the best thing possible—it’s about doing the best thing that the citizens and the ‘players’ will let you do.
I’ve argued for ‘leave it in the ground’ most of my life. I was pretty successful in that I got people elected and build a large body of people working together. But the fact was both inside that organization and among the general public the vast majority weren’t going to buy a simple ‘leave it in the ground’ strategy.
the vast majority weren’t going to buy a simple ‘leave it in the ground’
Well then, the vast majority are in the wrong. It happens sometimes. This is one of those times. It does not mean you should join them.
From the posting comment:
but I think there’s a case to be made that the three new pipelines announced recently could end up being a good thing–for the environment!
There ARE economic and political reasons why they could be good, but building more pipelines will NOT be good for the environment.
The facts don’t care about the feelings of the electorate, let alone that of shareholders.
- Carbon capture does not work. There’s no practical case for it, even if you throw the economics out.
- Increasing renewable energy is not enough if we continue to increase our fossil burning.
- Any economic or political case for fossils is necessarily short-term, because points 1 and 2 ensure that the long-term always ends in catastrophe and catastrophe is bad for the economy.
This is really well written but I’m not entirely sure folks will actually read it.
Especially in a very progressive echo chamber like the Fediverse, the notion that the Conservatives may win power, hold it and do some pretty fantastically devastating things doesn’t seem to register. Similarly, the very real environmental costs of being tied to the United States don’t seem to factor.
the notion that the Conservatives may win power, hold it and do some pretty fantastically devastating things doesn’t seem to register
isn’t this literally the top worry on everyone’s mind in here?
For the amount of “Carney is just Poilievre 2.0” and other nonsense I see, it doesn’t seem so in a meaningful sense.
Good on you for making the supportive case, though it’s apparent many Lemmings aren’t happy with it and I also respectfully disagree. Conceptually, there is a case for building any of the 3 projects as you’ve laid out. However:
- The absolute cost and the opportunity cost of building those piplines are massive, in increasing order from the Transmountain Expansion Expansion, Churchill and Alberta-Ontario Piplines.
- If I had to choose, the Churchill pipeline seems to be the better way to get to Europe for the capital construction costs based on timelines of the passage being able to open. Building through the Canadian shield requires extraordinary amounts of blasting.
- The demand outlooks are much bleaker than what oil industry affiliated reports would like to represent. The Hormuz shock has sent the message that oil & gas dependence is the problem, not who the supplier is, which might have been the takeaway from 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- Prices of oil would be expected to come down when supply recovers along with this demand dropping, and suddenly pumping out more oil in Canada becomes unprofitable for oil companies.
- That lack of profitability will empty out any pipelines we would build and put Alberta into massive deficits. This situation is entirely predictable, but of course the UCP will do nothing to prepare.
- At that point, useless infrastructure to us won’t matter whether it routes through USA or Canada or whether it is redundant.
- Securing long term price/supply contracts, like the German LNG one, may help with the profitability side but consigns the world to decades of pollution from the forced demand, slowed transition away from dependence on gas.
- The main benefits are political, yet the federal Liberals literally buying a pipeline project to see it to completion has seemingly not moved Albertans’ view of the federal government. The UCP relies on a continued stream of grievance to be able to lay blame or distract from their own scandals and failures. Even now federal co-operation towards Premier Smith’s wishes and demands have not stopped her from playing silly and dangerous political games with the UCP separatist supporters.
- So, money would be much better spent for initiatives that would be less damaging to the environment, politically more popular across Canada including Alberta, and actually be more useful. HVDC Power interconnects, a national intercity bus, telecom, solar, wind and battery industry manufacturing hubs, etc…
Heck, as a BC taxpayer I’d be fine if part of my federal tax bill helped fund and quickly build the high speed rail project that starts and ends in Alberta. Premier Smith seemed to like trains, and it would be a real sign that the federation can all help each other get things done sometimes, more than just rhetorically, and not just for Ontario and Quebec.
Neoliberalism died awhile ago and has been replaced by Leveragism.
Your argument is simply we should get ours while we can. This will be at the cost of the environment and give money to people who will likely embezzle it through corruption.
Do you have any source other than a random Substack?
The Lemmy user posting this is supposedly the author of this Substack article.
Does anyone else see irony in this pipeline east proposal having an Albertan Premier smiling about it?
It’s the thing Trudeau Sr tried to build that Alberta threw it’s NEP hissy fit over. Then was used to villify Ottawa for decades.
Like Alberta would already have this pipeline if they hadn’t jammed a stick in their own spokes 🙄
Thanks for pointing this out. I didn’t realize that a pipeline was part of the NEP—although it’s obvious once you think about it.
Pardon my ignorance but don’t we already have a pipeline that covers the benefits alleged for the second pipeline?
The creation of a second pipeline to British Columbia would allow sales to diversify and let Alberta’s oil to chase the world price instead of selling at a permanent discount because it’s ‘locked into’ a relationship with American refineries. That’s more money for Canada plus less leverage by the US over our future.
Maybe my memory fails me but doesn’t the existing trans mountain pipeline already connects to the Burnaby port where it can be shipped overseas? Is the point that the current pipeline flow to Asia is at capacity and is limiting our capacity to shift away from US exports?
That’s my understanding. Although if you read you hear lots of conflicting things. I try to restrict myself to good news sources like the CBC, government websites, peer-reviewed articles, etc.
I see. I don’t have a good source to tell me at a glance if the existing pipeline really is the bottleneck for market diversification at this point. It’s plausible. If that’s the case, then I agree it’s a positive; though I can’t also comfortably say it’s net positive yet
Since something like 96% of Canadian oil was sold to the USA in 2024 (I posted a chart that says this in the article), I’d be really surprised that there was enough bandwidth in the pipeline to really pull a lot of oil out of the American market and switch it to China and Europe. And don’t forget I was saying that these pipelines probably won’t make strict market sense. They aren’t meant to be about making money for shareholders so much as to build resilience and independence for both ourselves and our allies in other countries. That’s part of what I meant when I talked about the end of the neo-liberal consensus.
