There once was a Dutch, Norwegian, and a Canadian...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080130.w-OS-main-31/BNStory/oilsands
This was a pretty good article about the Dutch (and British) disaster, when the "flood of oil money inflated the currency, provoked price increases and destroyed exports, leading to a decade of joblessness and rising inequality."
We've all heard about how the Norwegian fund has successfully managed their oil revenues and how every other exporting nation is trying to emulate that model.
The most shocking (and infuriating) part of this article is the policy of the Alberta Minister of Energy to ignore the lessons of history. In fact, Alberta has already experienced several boom and bust cycles of oil prices. Their neo-conservative ideology is ruining the future of our country.
ugh, don't get me started!
posted by Junk Bonds @ 2/03/2008 10:57:00 AM
1 Comments:
Alberta doesn't think of the tar sands as something that needs to be shared with the rest of Canada. Their provincial imperatives have never been clearer.
Not only are they pissing away their oil wealth, they're leaving a an environmental disaster for future generations (though this is nothing new)
Although you can reverse engineer asphalt by using energy input (you can probably separate some valuable hydrocarbon chains) - this doesn't make net energy sense nor can it be good for the environment. Chemically possible, yet one would never do it!
Now the tar sands. It takes about two tonnes of tar sands to make one barrel of syncrude - and this isn't even counting the need for water and energy. Who says we can't squeeze oil out of sand? As long as the economics are right, damn the air quality, fresh water contamination, and increased cancer rates!
I know someone that visited Ft. McMurray last year and when he got off the jet plane, there was an oily smell in the air that persisted during his visit. The locals called it the smell of money!
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