It's Official: Ontario becomes a have-not province, accepts charity payment from West

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Asher
You (as in, the rest of Canada) are doing nothing. Alberta has allocated upwards of six billion dollars in the past year alone to study cleaner energy initiatives, including but not limited to CC&S. They're very aggressively recruiting academics in this field and giving them massive budgets at state of the art facilities in the universities to study it as well.

Not that I am saying that any of this is useless, but if you read the definition I gave of "nothing" earlier, that actually fits right in there. None of this has made any significant impact on emissions yet, which is what I was saying.

Originally posted by Asher
The problem is Alberta is NOT going to artificially limit growth of the energy sector -- that would be artificially limiting the growth of the province. Alberta wants that to grow while also reducing emissions.

These statements are exactly why I find it hard to discuss this with you. If there is a solution that can reduce environmental impact at a zero or positive economic net impact (and I mean this in a strict sense), then of course basically everyone would agree on it. On the other hand, it is likely that any solution WILL have some negative impact on the economy and it becomes a question of efficiency, cost vs benefit.

For example, are you really arguing that, in the absence of any environmental problem, the investments in emission reduction technology you described above would be the best investment possible from an economical perspective? Suppose I magically made the GG problem disappear, would you be telling us that the best thing to do with Alberta's money is to invest it in GG reduction technology research?
I really doubt so. Then, it follows that these investment have a positive economic cost and hence the province is ALREADY limiting its growth.

Sure, everyone wants to grow while reducing emissions, but you are also saying that you do not want to artificially limit the growth of the province, which is the same as saying you are not ready to pay any strictly positive economical cost which, realistically, means you are not ready to do anything. Again, this is consistent with your belief that we can afford to do nothing for a long time, but inconsistent with your praise of many schemes, including the current investments made by the province!

Originally posted by Asher
I don't know why you think my ideal scheme is to do nothing. Ideally, we can reduce emissions while growing the economy. It is possible.

Maybe. But earlier in the same post, you've actually argued that nothing should be done that "artificially limits the growth" which is not the same thing at all!

Originally posted by Asher
I don't know why you can't take that at face value.

See above.


Note that, by now, we have drifted quite far apart from my original question about how your 0.1% figure was relevant to anything, which you carefully avoided with sensible non-answers.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Canada's population is growing. Those growing numbers of people live in climates that are sub zero for lengthy periods of time every year. Growing numbers of them live in sparcely populated areas where long distances need to be travelled to be productive, to bring goods to them and to haul the products they produce away. Simply by population growth and making this land productive we blow Kyoto.

None of, population growth, temperature, distance, really explain a per capita emission growth. Of course, Kyoto isn't about per capita emissions, on the other hand, our emission growth is much larger than our population growth, hence, this particular argument is mostly a red herring. Moreover, you are the first one to bring Kyoto up (and most of your post seems to be about Kyoto), so I'm not sure what\who you are arguing with\about.

Was this simply a post you prepared earlier and were itching to post, or does it answer something someone posted in this thread?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme


Not that I am saying that any of this is useless, but if you read the definition I gave of "nothing" earlier, that actually fits right in there. None of this has made any significant impact on emissions yet, which is what I was saying.

So your point is we cannot snap our fingers and magically and instantly reduce GHG.

I'll just go ahead and record this debate as a win for me...

Maybe. But earlier in the same post, you've actually argued that nothing should be done that "artificially limits the growth" which is not the same thing at all!

I didn't say nothing should be done. I said we should figure out the best way to reduce GHG without limiting growth, and right now CC&S is the leading technique we are researching. This is not doing nothing, this is being responsible and figuring out HOW you are going to do something before you try to do it.

Note that, by now, we have drifted quite far apart from my original question about how your 0.1% figure was relevant to anything, which you carefully avoided with sensible non-answers.

The point was obvious and continues to be obvious. Some people think Alberta should throw itself into a recession, lay people off, and kick out investors to reduce the effects of the energy industry in Alberta, which DO make up less than 0.1% of the worldwide GHG emissions -- a percentage that is actually decreasing over time. Yes, I understand the point that if everyone thought this, nothing would happen. But Alberta is committed to reducing emissions, just not by crippling its economy. It is important to recognize that it is very hard to swallow for many, many people to go out of work just to make a statistically insignificant dent (and this is an understatement) in worldwide GHG emissions.

That is not "doing nothing". Your definition of "doing nothing" constitutes anything which does not instantly and magically reduce GHG to negligible levels. That is not sane.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme

None of, population growth, temperature, distance, really explain a per capita emission growth. Of course, Kyoto isn't about per capita emissions, on the other hand, our emission growth is much larger than our population growth, hence, this particular argument is mostly a red herring. Moreover, you are the first one to bring Kyoto up (and most of your post seems to be about Kyoto), so I'm not sure what\who you are arguing with\about.

Was this simply a post you prepared earlier and were itching to post, or does it answer something someone posted in this thread?

I would have thought that Kyoto would have had something to do with the topic, my bad. However, if it were not for external targets, why would there be expectations that Alberta and Saskatchewan bear a burden that no other jurisdiction on the planet that produces large amounts of petrochemicals does?

Now, can you name a net energy exporter that is reducing GHGs? Would increasing energy production have an impact on per capita emissions?

[Dinner]

If carbon capture can be made to work then that would be a huge technological break through. I've not heard of even any working prototypes though I haven't been avidly keeping up on that field. Last I heard they wanted to pump CO2 into old oil or gas fields but the CO2 is much smaller then most hydrocarbon chains so it ended up leaking out over time. Maybe some fields with a really good seal could hold it in (and there are a lot of those) but I know the test project in Monterrey didn't go well. Another one in Santa Barbara in the early 1990's got screwed up when the oil company tried to pump to much gas to fast down the wells and ended up fracturing the silt stone seal which trapped the gas.

[Asher]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration

Germany

The German industrial area of Schwarze Pumpe, about 4 km south of the city of Spremberg, is home to the world's first CCS coal plant. The mini pilot plant is run by an Alstom-built oxy-fuel boiler and is also equipped with a flue gas cleaning facility to remove fly ash and sulphur dioxide. The Swedish company Vattenfall AB invested some 70 million Euros in the two year project which began operation September 9, 2008. The power plant, which is rated at 30-megawatts, is a pilot project to serve as a prototype for future full-scale power plants.[22][23] 240 tonnes a day of CO2 are being trucked 350 kilometres (210 miles) where it will be injected into an empty gas field. Germany's BUND group called it a "fig leaf". For each tonne of coal burned, 3.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide is produced.[24]

[edit] Australia

Main article: Carbon capture and storage in Australia

The federal Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson has opened the first geosequestration project in the southern hemisphere. The demonstration plant is near Nirranda South in South Western Victoria. ( [show location on an interactive map] 35°19′S 149°08′E / -35.31, 149.14) The plant is owned by the CO2 Cooperative Research Centre. It is funded jointly by government and industry. It aims to store 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide extracted from a gas well. Carbon dioxide-rich gas is extracted from a reservoir via a well, compressed and piped 2.25km to a new well. There the gas is injected into a depleted natural gas reservoir approximately two kilometres below the surface. [25] [26] This project is tiny by world standards as BP's Algerian plant is storing 1,000,000 tonnes each year.[citation needed] .

This plant does not propose to capture CO2 from coal fired power generation. There is no project anywhere in the world storing CO2 stripped from the products of combustion of coal burnt for electricity generation at coal fired power stations.

For Alberta-specific CC&S, check out this: http://www.energy.gov.ab.ca/Initiatives/1438.asp

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme
These statements are exactly why I find it hard to discuss this with you. If there is a solution that can reduce environmental impact at a zero or positive economic net impact (and I mean this in a strict sense), then of course basically everyone would agree on it. On the other hand, it is likely that any solution WILL have some negative impact on the economy and it becomes a question of efficiency, cost vs benefit.

For example, are you really arguing that, in the absence of any environmental problem, the investments in emission reduction technology you described above would be the best investment possible from an economical perspective? Suppose I magically made the GG problem disappear, would you be telling us that the best thing to do with Alberta's money is to invest it in GG reduction technology research?
I really doubt so. Then, it follows that these investment have a positive economic cost and hence the province is ALREADY limiting its growth.

What you say does not follow.

Oil rich principalities have a lot of latitude in what they do with returns from petroleum production. Each will make their own decisions regarding how to use the petro dollars.

You have failed completely to make any sort of argument that has any bearing on reality in Alberta (and Saskatchewan).