Neolithic Transit Revolution
The Globe and Mail
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Comments by "Neolithic Transit Revolution" (@neolithictransitrevolution427) on "Alberta vs Texas: how two oil giants are taking on clean energy" video.
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The issue isn't failing to see weaning off oil, imo, it's failing to see declining prices. I know that sounds similar, but I'd compare it to the rust belt. The world still needs iron, but you can't run an economy around it.
Imo, Alberta needs to push investment into
Carbon Fiber produced from Bitumen to create an alternative demand
Geothermal, to make use of Drilling and Geological fluid transportation expertise, and to leverage existing equipment.
Carbon Capture, which I think is a very limited applicability, but I think Canada is the best in the world at it and nursing the technology now if properly leveraged could put us in a Global position.
A new way to move oil. I'd settle for a Keystone XL to the US Gulf, which is probably going to happen now, but what I would really like is an Eagle Spirit type pipeline connecting to North BC with a connected series of refineries to diversify our product and market, or else something like bitumen pucks that can easily be shipped by rail and treated like coal.
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My biggest fear is that the combination of Trumps Tariffs, lower global demand from Chinas EV push+ economic slow, a return of Russian oil, and a Saudi price war will will plument prices.
Alberta will be exporting Bitumen for decades. The Midwest US is built around it. But if the price we're getting is only $30 a barrel, you get no investment, no tax revenue, no good employment.
The bigger problem is Fort Mac. Refineries in Alberta can't use Bitumen. So, we upgrade bitumen into lighter SynCrude. Almost all the oil converted to Syncrude comes froma strip mining operation around Fort Mac. And between the mining operations and the upgraders, this is some of the most expensive oil in the world, maybe the most expensive barrel being produced.
And unfortunately this is where all the high paying blue collar jobs are. I'm deeply worried about cheap light oil replacing syncrude. A lot of syncrude goes to Ontario and Quebec via US pipelines. But beyond that, oil could move North from Dakota, and my worst fear is a reversal of Transmountain to bring cheap over see light crude to Alberta.
If the mining operations shut down, we'll have 10s of thousands of high paying blue collar jobs disappear in Alberta, all centered on Fort McMurray. All going on EI, at the same time as Provincial revenues are being slashed and collapsing Exports are making the CAD plumet.
And that will be a national issue. Port cities will struggle with falling imports. Our stock market will collapse if SynCrude (the company) and Suncor write of reserves. CN rail has almost a third of its cargo related to O&G.
We desperately and urgently need to diversify our economy. Im worried next year is the point of collapse and Mining will come on line at reduced capacities after defered spring maintenance. We have a regional economy that nearly disappeared during Covid, thats going to drive a provincial depression and national recession if we aren't very skillful with our trade policy over the next few months.
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Honestly, nothing that large scale is needed. We just need to Connect
Edmonton to Site C and Calgary to Revelstoke, and both cities to each other, so that Alberta can access cheap hydro when the wind doesn't blow and BC can buy cheap renewables when it does.
Same with the East coast, we just need to match wind with Quebec and Newfoundland hydro. Honestly the biggest thing is somehow getting Quebec to give a fair deal to Newfoundland. (We should also be pushing investment for data processing centers into Labrador like nobodies business).
That mostly just leaves Toronto, where I think the answer is Nuclear, but a Bipole line from Northern Manitoba and/or a connection to Quebec could work, it's an extreme distance either way.
The last thing is Saskatchewan, who really love their coal power plant, and honestly I'm okay with letting them keep it for a bit it's such a tiny blip in the picture. I'd say ideally they get connected to Manitoba eventually to do the same wind for Hydro Trade as Albert/BC, but it's much greater distances for much smaller markets. But, it would allow them, potentially, to sell solar power to Ontario through Manitobas hydro lines, particularly solar in the evening while Saskatchewan still has sun for an hour or two.
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I think this is really a non issue with battery storage becoming commercialized. The 2h units we see being built now deal with the frequency control, which allows them to buy and sell power regularly through the day and provide return on capital. Which also lets you turn off NG plants, and since a 2h reserve into the evening is available, let's you uprate NG plants to Cogeneration. Of course, Storage like this works best with Solar. I think as we see Solar with short batteries grow in capacity we'll see existing NG plants uprated in this way to grow NG capacity for the night periods, while burning less gas overall by not operating inefficiently in the day to load follow and not operating overcapacity in the evening.
In terms of wind in Alberta though, the simple solution is connections between Edmonton-Site C and Calgary-revelstoke. Allows you to sell power to BC and California when it's windy (less over supply on the local grid let's NG operate at raised levels constantly), while importing cheap Hydro when it's not to avoid NG plants monopolizing prices. We already have the Calgary - Edmonton connections.
On the coal point, particularly in Texas where fracking to produce all the NG has such significant leakage, a critical Coal plant might actually be lower emissions - likewise in Alberta where NG is coming from fracking in the North West. It's what China has been doing since they don't have gas, you hear all about China building coal capacity but it's much more efficient than people realize. The much higher capital cost is the killer, imo, since expectations are storage will drop enough to outcompete, whereas NG has less risk of stranded assets. But I do have to point out most coal stations are not bituminous, and that is more expensive than more common Lignite.
I'd also like to see large oil Sands SAGD operations move to Nuclear steam production, and through Cogeneration provide a relatively stable baseload to industry around Edmonton.
And I'm very hopeful for the investment that's gone into Hydrogen in Alberta. Hydrogen might be an excellent way to adsorb solar and particularly wind surpluses. If cheap hydrogen can be produced, then you can upgrade any carbon feedstock into synthetic NG. It won't matter if it's from coal, or ideally, bitumen, adding Hydrogen can get you all the petrochemicals and light fuel you need without methane emissions from Fracking.
I think the best possible outcome would be an upgrader in BC at the end of Transmountain able to produce oil to order specifications to sell to a premium to refineries who need it to balance other blends bought on the market.
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We have a lot of very negative head winds. A blanket Tariff of 10% on oil exports is bad on its own. Trump bringing Russia back into the global market will flood Europe and cut Brent prices (also fertilizer, minerals, lumber, gold, diamonds, nuclear power projects, really everything we do but make car parts, which the tariffs are going to kill anyway), the Saudis appear to be maneuvering toward low prices, and with China about to enter a depression oil demand will collapses.
My biggest fear, not just for Alberta but Canada, is Fort McMurray shutting down and Transmountain being reversed to import light oil for Alberta's refineries.
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Alberta has several relatively easy steps to move toward a cheaper lower carbon grid.
Most importantly, Calgary and Edmonton, in particular, need to be connected to BC, particularly to Revelstoke (Calgary) and Site C (Edmonton). This allows access to not only BCs hydro surplus in the winter, but to Californias Solar surplus through BC, and allows Alberta to sell excess renewable capacity west and south.
Secondly, we need to invest in solar with 2-4h storage. Overnight storage is a pipedream, but if storage can provide for the few hours into the evening, existing NG plants built around peaking can be uprated into co-generation facilities with slower load following that can support seasonally low renewables and overnight periods. Wind works with transmission, solar works with storage. And people don't realize how great the solar Resources in Alberta are. The sun still shines in the winter (you may have to clear some snow, but efficiency actually goes up with low temp and you actually get stronger sunlight in the winter, although hours go down), and the biggest thing with solar is cloud cover, where Alberta has clear prairie skys.
Lastly, we need money going to Geothermal. We need to find a new market for all the drilling equipment and skilled labour. Geothermal takes care of the winter and lets you peak in in the evening.
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