Canada is united in the quest to build the Keystone XL pipeline. Alberta is also united. All of us wish the best of luck and success to Premier Redford in getting KXL approved. I'd like to see all parties and all levels of government doing their utmost to get it done.
Now is not the time to be Liberal or Conservative, Wild Rose or Progressive. We are all Canadians and we all have a stake in getting this pipeline built. Billions are lost annually in government revenue alone and that is just a percentage of the actual output of the economic engine of the country.
The Avro Arrow debacle coloured the perception of Canadians toward Americans for a generation. The KXL question makes the whole Avro Arrow legend look like an overblown pipsqueak of a dirty trick in comparison.
Back then we understood American motivations. Now? You can deal with a stable adversary but an unstable ally is dangerous even to himself. The KXL is so obviously in America's own interest that their hesitation boggles the mind. If national borders were continental plates then a third rejection of KXL will be a tectonic shift in our relationship.
Each and every objection from the eco-nut movement is groundless. Each objection is based on ignorant pejorative exaggerations towards a purely symbolic and ineffective end. They shall not contain The Oilsands nor does our Ethical Oilsands need to be contained at all.
Even now the Obama administration struggles not with their dismal economy or international relations, but with which set of client special-interests, the unions or the eco-nuts, will have to take the medicine. It's appalling and pitiful.
Luckily I'm not on CAPP's diplomatic mission.
Allison Redford went to Washington Sunday with CAPP to try help and get KXL approved. She also wrote an op-ed in USA Today. I applaud her efforts.
During the Alberta election debate there was an infamous moment where a question about climate change was asked. Danielle Smith fell into the trap saying "the science isn't settled." Oops. Dog whistle. While the science is far from settled, politicians need to realize that this is a religious question and should be treated as one. You don't go and say there is no Santa just because there isn't one. You say: "Climate Change is absolutely real and we should do everything we can to deal with it" or something like that. Not a single lie in that statement but most leftards won't catch on and the ones who do will only sound silly trying to warn the others. Baby steps my friends.
Getting back to the point: as a result of the question Redford implied that a Progressive is best suited to talk to the leftish people blocking the KXL pipeline. I was hoping KXL would be approved on day one of a Romney presidency and enjoy a glorious return to prosperity for the world.
That however was not in the cards and so here we are with plan B. Its showtime Redford. Lay that progressive newspeak on thick. Peter Kent is doing an excellent job as well and so is John Baird. All of you keep the pressure on, opposition politicians included. Everybody heave together. We'll remember who doesn't. There is going to be hell to pay if this deal fails.
Showing posts with label Oil Sands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oil Sands. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Of Pipelines and Trains
One of the most glaring examples of environmental foolishness comes from the Keystone XL question. Because the pipeline is stalled for political reasons, oil from the Oil Sands has had to be shipped by train.
I do not consider myself a genius yet people who don't intuitively understand that pipelines are more reliable than cars on a rail make me feel like one. I say 'intuitive' because many people just take one look at a pipeline and know that its better than a train without any need to comment on it or explain it. Too often the mistake of reasonably intelligent people is to assume that other people are also reasonably intelligent.
It should be obvious to any but the severely miseducated among the left that pipelines are:
The simplest way to put it is that there are fewer moving parts and therefore fewer things that can go wrong. The pipe is installed, tested, inspected on a regular basis and thats it you've got a pipeline. Anything that can go wrong with a pipeline can also go wrong with a rail line. Mud slides, Earthquakes, sabotage, the risks are all the same.
Tanker cars add another level of complexity to the system. Now you have to worry about mechanical failure of the car at a number of points. The wheels, the axles, brakes, taps, hatches, battens, the scheduling that keeps rails cars from colliding, all of that adds to the risk of potential failure of the system as a whole.
Plenty of people ride trains every single day. Its hard to drive this message home since people have complete trust in trains just as they should. People spills are much worse than oil spills yet they do happen. Since people are discreet units they simply can't be transported by pipe. (duh -but if you could move people by pipe you know it would be superior to rail)
Forgive me if this is a "no brainer" to you but some people really need it spelled out for them. People who can understand the world at a glance just don't become eco-nuts. Let me try to put it differently for their sake.
Most people live in a house with plumbing. You are probably surrounded by pipelines right now. You have pipes for hot water, cold water, rain water, gas, sewage, central air, central vac, even the cables for your electricity are bundled into conduit pipes. Now try to imagine that instead of hot water running through pipes to your shower head in the morning you have a model train in your walls bringing you hot water by the tank.
How well do you suppose that would work? Think it can be done cheaper and as hassle free as your existing network of plumbing? How about your little poop train running under the floors? Are you going to clean it and inspect it constantly, because one mishap means you've got a load of poop where you don't want it.
Pipelines don't require high maintenance for the cars and the tracks and the locomotives. Not to mention the people needed to drive the locomotives, run the rail system and load and unload the liquid cargo. They all need large paychecks and benefits or they will shut the system down on us. Tank cars also crowd the rail system adding even more to the cost of all goods moved by rail.
Don't kid yourself. They will charge what they have to charge and you are the one who ends up paying.
Fuel costs money and locomotives burn much more fuel than a pump houses. Pump houses are static structures so they can be connected right into the grid.
Along with the cost of fuel mentioned above come the "environmental costs." Its all bullcrap of course. Carbon is not pollution. There is much more rock solid evidence that CO2 is plant food than there is this about this cult of carbon doom that consistently misses its own doomsday predictions. I include this only to show that eco-nuts are internally inconsistent in their eco-nuttery.
The opposition to Keystone is supposed to be about the evil carbon intensity of the Oil Sands. Why would eco-nuts force the necessary transport of oil through a mode of transportation that is more carbon intensive? I haven't even spoken about the increased risk of a spill from all those extra points of contact. It makes no sense.
These people don't know anything about anything. They are easily duped walking talking bags of pure emotion. Reason is a dirty word to these people. They dimly understand that Reason leads to losing the argument so they instinctively will shout, scream, wave silly signs and do anything to avoid discussion.
The other day Obama gave his SOTU speech. He spoke about attracting investments in infrastructure, in a so-called "Partnership to Rebuild America." (so what happened to the last push for infrastructure? Didn't get it done?) The Keystone XL pipeline defiantly falls into the infrastructure category. He also claimed to support "modern pipelines to withstand a storm." One hopes this includes storms of eco-bullcrap that have twice wrecked the KXL pipeline already.
Even today Eco-nuts are holding a Blackout Rally in Washington. 5,000 mindless blades of astro-turf were bused in completely unaware of the miracle of affordable internal combustion that made it possible.
Encouragingly media coverage of the event seems sparse. We've seen this movie already. The "legitimate" media as Biden calls it, is firmly in the tank for Obama. The President who can do no wrong shall not be criticized from the right or the left or anywhere. It sets the stage for an approval of KXL because the leftist media complex excels at nothing more than political theater. Even they sorely need the economic good news that approving KXL will bring for the news itself rather than the economic good for its own sake.
UPDATE: Reliable sources on the ground dispute the size of the astro-turf. Huffpo pegged it at 40,000 but the actuall number is 5,000 shivering morons. Post has been updated to reflect reality.
I do not consider myself a genius yet people who don't intuitively understand that pipelines are more reliable than cars on a rail make me feel like one. I say 'intuitive' because many people just take one look at a pipeline and know that its better than a train without any need to comment on it or explain it. Too often the mistake of reasonably intelligent people is to assume that other people are also reasonably intelligent.
It should be obvious to any but the severely miseducated among the left that pipelines are:
- safer
- cheaper
- cleaner
Pipelines are Safer
The simplest way to put it is that there are fewer moving parts and therefore fewer things that can go wrong. The pipe is installed, tested, inspected on a regular basis and thats it you've got a pipeline. Anything that can go wrong with a pipeline can also go wrong with a rail line. Mud slides, Earthquakes, sabotage, the risks are all the same.
Tanker cars add another level of complexity to the system. Now you have to worry about mechanical failure of the car at a number of points. The wheels, the axles, brakes, taps, hatches, battens, the scheduling that keeps rails cars from colliding, all of that adds to the risk of potential failure of the system as a whole.
Plenty of people ride trains every single day. Its hard to drive this message home since people have complete trust in trains just as they should. People spills are much worse than oil spills yet they do happen. Since people are discreet units they simply can't be transported by pipe. (duh -but if you could move people by pipe you know it would be superior to rail)
Forgive me if this is a "no brainer" to you but some people really need it spelled out for them. People who can understand the world at a glance just don't become eco-nuts. Let me try to put it differently for their sake.
Most people live in a house with plumbing. You are probably surrounded by pipelines right now. You have pipes for hot water, cold water, rain water, gas, sewage, central air, central vac, even the cables for your electricity are bundled into conduit pipes. Now try to imagine that instead of hot water running through pipes to your shower head in the morning you have a model train in your walls bringing you hot water by the tank.
How well do you suppose that would work? Think it can be done cheaper and as hassle free as your existing network of plumbing? How about your little poop train running under the floors? Are you going to clean it and inspect it constantly, because one mishap means you've got a load of poop where you don't want it.
 |
| The Model Railroad Toilet |
Pipelines are Cheaper
Pipelines don't require high maintenance for the cars and the tracks and the locomotives. Not to mention the people needed to drive the locomotives, run the rail system and load and unload the liquid cargo. They all need large paychecks and benefits or they will shut the system down on us. Tank cars also crowd the rail system adding even more to the cost of all goods moved by rail.
Don't kid yourself. They will charge what they have to charge and you are the one who ends up paying.
Fuel costs money and locomotives burn much more fuel than a pump houses. Pump houses are static structures so they can be connected right into the grid.
Pipelines are Cleaner
Along with the cost of fuel mentioned above come the "environmental costs." Its all bullcrap of course. Carbon is not pollution. There is much more rock solid evidence that CO2 is plant food than there is this about this cult of carbon doom that consistently misses its own doomsday predictions. I include this only to show that eco-nuts are internally inconsistent in their eco-nuttery.
The opposition to Keystone is supposed to be about the evil carbon intensity of the Oil Sands. Why would eco-nuts force the necessary transport of oil through a mode of transportation that is more carbon intensive? I haven't even spoken about the increased risk of a spill from all those extra points of contact. It makes no sense.
These people don't know anything about anything. They are easily duped walking talking bags of pure emotion. Reason is a dirty word to these people. They dimly understand that Reason leads to losing the argument so they instinctively will shout, scream, wave silly signs and do anything to avoid discussion.
Approving Keystone
The other day Obama gave his SOTU speech. He spoke about attracting investments in infrastructure, in a so-called "Partnership to Rebuild America." (so what happened to the last push for infrastructure? Didn't get it done?) The Keystone XL pipeline defiantly falls into the infrastructure category. He also claimed to support "modern pipelines to withstand a storm." One hopes this includes storms of eco-bullcrap that have twice wrecked the KXL pipeline already.
Even today Eco-nuts are holding a Blackout Rally in Washington. 5,000 mindless blades of astro-turf were bused in completely unaware of the miracle of affordable internal combustion that made it possible.
Encouragingly media coverage of the event seems sparse. We've seen this movie already. The "legitimate" media as Biden calls it, is firmly in the tank for Obama. The President who can do no wrong shall not be criticized from the right or the left or anywhere. It sets the stage for an approval of KXL because the leftist media complex excels at nothing more than political theater. Even they sorely need the economic good news that approving KXL will bring for the news itself rather than the economic good for its own sake.
UPDATE: Reliable sources on the ground dispute the size of the astro-turf. Huffpo pegged it at 40,000 but the actuall number is 5,000 shivering morons. Post has been updated to reflect reality.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Don't count your wells before they are fracked
Isreal's new found shale oil reserves rival those of Saudi Arabia. Its Great news. The world needs shale oil. Wars have been fought over smaller oilfields in the area recently. Recovering these reserves would be an economic boost to Carbon poor Europe as well as a major geopolitical shift for the region.
Well not so fast. Reserves are not the same recoverable reserves and shale oil is not yet recoverable. Wikipoedia gives an authoritative account of how shale oil is produced but its misleading. There are also huge unrecoverable shale oil reserves in Montana and elswhere. These reserves are not new. Legend holds that Natives could actually light some these oil bearing rocks on fire.
Shale oil has become a hot topic lately because of the breakthroughs in shale gas recovery. There is an expectation that the fracturing or "fracking" technology that created the natural gas abundance will evolve to produce oil from shale.
I'm not so sure. Expectations of technological progress rarely pan out as predicted or hoped. The technological leap required to liberate oil from solid rock at depth is at least as large as the leap realized by shale gas fracking. Its not a safe bet, however anything can happen.
If the worlds markets were suddenly floating in a sea of shale oil, what would change?
A collapse in oil prices would be excellent for the greater world economy. Alison Redford's Vegas style spendthrift Alberta budget would implode like a collapsing star. The Oil Sands would take a temporary hit as well. A lot of capital projects may become obsolete.
I say temporary because while Oil Sands crude is more expensive to produce, its still going to be easier to get bitumen from sand, than to somehow sqeeze oil from tight shale. Technology to extract oil from shale is just going to make it that much easier to produce from the oil sands. Say goodbye to SAGD. Say hello to more competative drilling with a smaller footprint.
Imagine that. More wealth across the board and less intensive, less intrusive production all thanks to Capitalism. David Suzuki would cry in his organic latte.
This is why fracking has become the new eco-bogey man.
Global Warming hasn't panned out for the eco nuts. All the predictions over 30 years have been wrong. The current science has been watered down to the extent that it has proved the skeptics to be right all along. Just don't look for the career alarmists to say so.
Energy from shale gas is actually 50% cleaner than oil (if you fear the eco-bogey CO2). It is particulate free. Its cheap. Abundant. Widely distributed. You cook your dinner and heat your house with natural gas. You can even run a car on it. What is not to love?
Uh-oh fracking. Every single well drilled today is fracked. Fracking is the process of fracturing oil or gas bearing rock so it can flow into a cased well bore. Its done at depths typically 1000 - 2000 meters deep. That's 4 times as deep as the CN tower. Its not even in the biosphere. The zone itself is completely inhospitable to life. It can be 200 degrees celsius while its -40 at the surface. It is deadly poisonous and toxic already. The fossil fuels may have been trapped in crushing darkness for eons. There is no way to pollute that environment. Furthermore the zone is literally burried under a mountain of overburden. Only a meteor could unearth the fracked zone. If that happens a little patch of fracking will not be the biggest problem on your mind.
Anyone you meet who opposes fracking is ignorant of the process. There is a good chance they have been scooped up into the eco-nut indoctrination machine and are quickly losing anything they may have once known.
There has been 40 years of regular fracking all over the world but now its the latest threat mother earth. Directional drilling is what made horizontal wells possible. Along with those advances new fracking techniques had to be developed to fracture the length of the horizontal section. These cumulative advances finally gave rise to shale gas fracking and will probably continue into other applications like shale oil.
Fracking isn't at all new. It isn't free of risks of course. Drilling a well is essentially a construction job. It is subject to all applicable regulations and some industry specific ones too. Fracking is as risky as building a bridge or a school. Anyone up for banning those? Right now there are hundreds of wells being completed by fracking. There are tens of thousands of fracked wells producing some part of your energy as you read this.
If oil shale fracking technology panned out it could transform mining in general. Uranium wells can already be mined through a type of fracking called in-situ recovery. What other minerals could be extracted from a horizontal wellbore?
There is more shale oil in the US than all the conventional oil in all of the world. Its not yet recoverable but you can expect that it will be at some point. Fracking will be an integral part of liberating that resource an goodness knows what other minerals. When you talk about oil shale you are talking about fracking techniques yet to be discovered.
So don't count your barrels before the wells are fracked.
Well not so fast. Reserves are not the same recoverable reserves and shale oil is not yet recoverable. Wikipoedia gives an authoritative account of how shale oil is produced but its misleading. There are also huge unrecoverable shale oil reserves in Montana and elswhere. These reserves are not new. Legend holds that Natives could actually light some these oil bearing rocks on fire.
Shale oil has become a hot topic lately because of the breakthroughs in shale gas recovery. There is an expectation that the fracturing or "fracking" technology that created the natural gas abundance will evolve to produce oil from shale.
I'm not so sure. Expectations of technological progress rarely pan out as predicted or hoped. The technological leap required to liberate oil from solid rock at depth is at least as large as the leap realized by shale gas fracking. Its not a safe bet, however anything can happen.
If the worlds markets were suddenly floating in a sea of shale oil, what would change?
A collapse in oil prices would be excellent for the greater world economy. Alison Redford's Vegas style spendthrift Alberta budget would implode like a collapsing star. The Oil Sands would take a temporary hit as well. A lot of capital projects may become obsolete.
I say temporary because while Oil Sands crude is more expensive to produce, its still going to be easier to get bitumen from sand, than to somehow sqeeze oil from tight shale. Technology to extract oil from shale is just going to make it that much easier to produce from the oil sands. Say goodbye to SAGD. Say hello to more competative drilling with a smaller footprint.
Imagine that. More wealth across the board and less intensive, less intrusive production all thanks to Capitalism. David Suzuki would cry in his organic latte.
This is why fracking has become the new eco-bogey man.
Global Warming hasn't panned out for the eco nuts. All the predictions over 30 years have been wrong. The current science has been watered down to the extent that it has proved the skeptics to be right all along. Just don't look for the career alarmists to say so.
Energy from shale gas is actually 50% cleaner than oil (if you fear the eco-bogey CO2). It is particulate free. Its cheap. Abundant. Widely distributed. You cook your dinner and heat your house with natural gas. You can even run a car on it. What is not to love?
Uh-oh fracking. Every single well drilled today is fracked. Fracking is the process of fracturing oil or gas bearing rock so it can flow into a cased well bore. Its done at depths typically 1000 - 2000 meters deep. That's 4 times as deep as the CN tower. Its not even in the biosphere. The zone itself is completely inhospitable to life. It can be 200 degrees celsius while its -40 at the surface. It is deadly poisonous and toxic already. The fossil fuels may have been trapped in crushing darkness for eons. There is no way to pollute that environment. Furthermore the zone is literally burried under a mountain of overburden. Only a meteor could unearth the fracked zone. If that happens a little patch of fracking will not be the biggest problem on your mind.
Anyone you meet who opposes fracking is ignorant of the process. There is a good chance they have been scooped up into the eco-nut indoctrination machine and are quickly losing anything they may have once known.
There has been 40 years of regular fracking all over the world but now its the latest threat mother earth. Directional drilling is what made horizontal wells possible. Along with those advances new fracking techniques had to be developed to fracture the length of the horizontal section. These cumulative advances finally gave rise to shale gas fracking and will probably continue into other applications like shale oil.
Fracking isn't at all new. It isn't free of risks of course. Drilling a well is essentially a construction job. It is subject to all applicable regulations and some industry specific ones too. Fracking is as risky as building a bridge or a school. Anyone up for banning those? Right now there are hundreds of wells being completed by fracking. There are tens of thousands of fracked wells producing some part of your energy as you read this.
If oil shale fracking technology panned out it could transform mining in general. Uranium wells can already be mined through a type of fracking called in-situ recovery. What other minerals could be extracted from a horizontal wellbore?
There is more shale oil in the US than all the conventional oil in all of the world. Its not yet recoverable but you can expect that it will be at some point. Fracking will be an integral part of liberating that resource an goodness knows what other minerals. When you talk about oil shale you are talking about fracking techniques yet to be discovered.
So don't count your barrels before the wells are fracked.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
"I'm from Ottawa and I'm here to help"
This was on Sun News the other day. Ezra Levant hosts Daniel Smith, Wild Rose Alliance Leader, on The Source. They talk about Oil Sands regulations and who is best suited to make those regulations.
Both the PC's and the Federal Conservatives have gone warmist. I'd rather not see regulations based on a progressive superstition come at the expense of real concerns like air and water quality. That is the real tragedy of the Global Warming myth. It not only hurts the economy, but liberty and the environment as well.
Both the PC's and the Federal Conservatives have gone warmist. I'd rather not see regulations based on a progressive superstition come at the expense of real concerns like air and water quality. That is the real tragedy of the Global Warming myth. It not only hurts the economy, but liberty and the environment as well.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Safe Nuclear Power
Let me first just say that I support Nuclear Power and I have always supported Nuclear Power. I also want to express my sincere condolences to the Japanese. The earth itself attacked them, leaving devastation that few military powers could match.
The calamity is ongoing as we know. Containment buildings seem to explode daily and we are constantly soothed that this is not a big deal. At least Its not as bad as Chernobyl so far.
"What the hell do you know about Nuclear Power?" That's a question you might be asking me and its a fair one. Well I grew up in a nuclear town. I spent most of my formative years living in Pickering Ontario. Kids in Calgary grow up with the Rocky Mountains on the horizon. My Rocky Mountains were the containment buildings and vacuum building of the Pickering Nuclear Power Plant. We all called it the Pickering Nuke, The Nuke or just The Nuke Plant. I use the term affectionately, but I know others use it the same way some use the term "Tar Sands."
The Nuke's main power-lines ran right past my subdivision. A little park at the end of the street led to an old apple orchard where the towering pylons hummed with power. If you stood directly beneath a set of two power lines you could sometimes feel the power in the air. If the barometer and humidity were just right you could touch another person and feel an odd buzzing vibrating sensation. It was like magic, but the rows of pylons gave us a clear line of sight all the way to the source. (I never found out exactly what that effect was but I'm sure it had to do with the magnetic field generated by flowing electricity over my head)
It was awesome to me. I would ask my dad to take me there on weekends when there was nothing else to do. Behind gates and barbed wire they had an Educational Center that was like a free local Science Center. It had full size mock-ups of the CANDU core and of fuel rods. It also had games and Geiger counters and miniature models. Needless to say I became an early supporter of Nuclear Power.
That of course put me at odds with the mindless do-gooders like Greenpeace. I was already familiar with that crowd from the save-the-whales craze. I argued for Nuclear power in the face of ignorance time and again. When Greenpeace tried to ban Chlorine, an abundant element necessary for life, I argued against that too. When they started arguing against Coal and Oil to stop Global Warming, I was right there with harsh dose of reality and perspective for them.
Then a strange thing happened. Eco-nuts started declaring that nuclear was safe. 'Well yeah' I thought. I've only been telling them for so many years. Let's not get carried away here. They are safe if and only if they are well designed, well operated and well maintained. To make nuclear safe, a great deal of care must be taken that is frankly not required when operating a Coal power plant.
When eco-nuts began touting nuclear power as the safe alternative to coal power or even natural gas it gave me a huge sense of foreboding. It was divide and conquer and some good people took the bait. I supported nuclear power, but the last thing I wanted was a nuke plant on every corner.
These facilities will be dangerously radioactive for 10,000 years. To give you some perspective the pyramids at Giza are 8,000 years old. That's the age of pyramids plus the time since Christ walked the earth. Nothing lasts that long. No one can make predictions that far into the future, especially at the accelerated rate that history seems to move in these times. I'm not saying we can't handle it. I'm saying, lets just keep in mind the scores or generations that we volunteer as eternal custodians to our energy needs. I'm sure that good engineering could extend the life of a nuclear plant for 60 or even 80 years at most. How does that compare with the 10,000 year tomb that must remain un-violated? I'm in favor of larger nuclear plants, not more of them (though we could probably do with a few more big ones). Look at the 10,000 year tombs we have already. I hope somebody has etched this map into stainless steel and plans to defend them from all the nasties who haven't even been born yet. We can neither forget or ignore these sites now that they exist.
Nuclear is also non-renewable. Sure there is plenty of it, but it can only ever be a part of the energy mix. Nuclear cannot replace fossil fuels or we'll just run out of fissile material quicker. Nuclear should be used to conserve fossil fuels and reduce the overall cost of energy.
At the peak of the ridiculous Global Warming Hysteria people were actually talking about nuclear drilling rigs (nuclear-electric rather than diesel-electric). That's right, some bright lights wanted to circumvent a carbon tax by deploying portable miniature nukes to roam the countryside. Can you see a little problem with that idea? Can you see the problem in the green ideology that leads to these ideas?
This is why it distresses me when some proponents of nuclear power use green ideology to push nuclear safety. Surely you must realize that the eco-nuts will turn on you eventually. How sad that some in the nuclear industry would temporarily befriend their old enemies to get an edge on their energy competitors. Shame.
Drilling and nuclear power intersect again in yet another hysterical example eco-mania in the faux controversy over fracing. It's too large a subject to discuss fully here, but one method of mining for Uranium involves In-Situ Recovery (ISR) in a process very similar to fracing in hydrocarbon wells. Some American company botched their well and it led to the fear mongering we see today in Quebec. It's the same old pattern from environmentalists over and over again.
Drilling rigs are safe, but with their wide use a BP disaster was statistically bound to happen. Nuclear Power plants are safe and so scaling up their use and playing down their risks will probably lead meltdowns given enough time. The triple partial meltdown and explosions in Fukushima was the result of extremely bad luck. Suddenly everyone remembers the risks in nuclear power.
Does this mean we should abandon nuclear power? Does the BP spill mean we should not drill for oil? Does the botched well in Pennsylvania mean we should stop fracing? No, absolutely not. We should proceed with caution in all of these endeavors including the high degree of caution required for safe nuclear power. Some times bridges fail and planes crash. Does it make sense to ban bridges or airplanes? Does it even make sense to ban bridges vs airplanes in lieu of one over the other depending on some nonsensical safety comparison? No, but this is exactly the argument of green nukes vs gas or coal power plants. It's nonsense and nobody should tolerate it, not even for short term tactical advantage. When you play with green ideology just remember that you yourself might be the next target of self-righteous green de-marketing.
The calamity is ongoing as we know. Containment buildings seem to explode daily and we are constantly soothed that this is not a big deal. At least Its not as bad as Chernobyl so far.
"What the hell do you know about Nuclear Power?" That's a question you might be asking me and its a fair one. Well I grew up in a nuclear town. I spent most of my formative years living in Pickering Ontario. Kids in Calgary grow up with the Rocky Mountains on the horizon. My Rocky Mountains were the containment buildings and vacuum building of the Pickering Nuclear Power Plant. We all called it the Pickering Nuke, The Nuke or just The Nuke Plant. I use the term affectionately, but I know others use it the same way some use the term "Tar Sands."
The Nuke's main power-lines ran right past my subdivision. A little park at the end of the street led to an old apple orchard where the towering pylons hummed with power. If you stood directly beneath a set of two power lines you could sometimes feel the power in the air. If the barometer and humidity were just right you could touch another person and feel an odd buzzing vibrating sensation. It was like magic, but the rows of pylons gave us a clear line of sight all the way to the source. (I never found out exactly what that effect was but I'm sure it had to do with the magnetic field generated by flowing electricity over my head)
It was awesome to me. I would ask my dad to take me there on weekends when there was nothing else to do. Behind gates and barbed wire they had an Educational Center that was like a free local Science Center. It had full size mock-ups of the CANDU core and of fuel rods. It also had games and Geiger counters and miniature models. Needless to say I became an early supporter of Nuclear Power.
That of course put me at odds with the mindless do-gooders like Greenpeace. I was already familiar with that crowd from the save-the-whales craze. I argued for Nuclear power in the face of ignorance time and again. When Greenpeace tried to ban Chlorine, an abundant element necessary for life, I argued against that too. When they started arguing against Coal and Oil to stop Global Warming, I was right there with harsh dose of reality and perspective for them.
Then a strange thing happened. Eco-nuts started declaring that nuclear was safe. 'Well yeah' I thought. I've only been telling them for so many years. Let's not get carried away here. They are safe if and only if they are well designed, well operated and well maintained. To make nuclear safe, a great deal of care must be taken that is frankly not required when operating a Coal power plant.
When eco-nuts began touting nuclear power as the safe alternative to coal power or even natural gas it gave me a huge sense of foreboding. It was divide and conquer and some good people took the bait. I supported nuclear power, but the last thing I wanted was a nuke plant on every corner.
These facilities will be dangerously radioactive for 10,000 years. To give you some perspective the pyramids at Giza are 8,000 years old. That's the age of pyramids plus the time since Christ walked the earth. Nothing lasts that long. No one can make predictions that far into the future, especially at the accelerated rate that history seems to move in these times. I'm not saying we can't handle it. I'm saying, lets just keep in mind the scores or generations that we volunteer as eternal custodians to our energy needs. I'm sure that good engineering could extend the life of a nuclear plant for 60 or even 80 years at most. How does that compare with the 10,000 year tomb that must remain un-violated? I'm in favor of larger nuclear plants, not more of them (though we could probably do with a few more big ones). Look at the 10,000 year tombs we have already. I hope somebody has etched this map into stainless steel and plans to defend them from all the nasties who haven't even been born yet. We can neither forget or ignore these sites now that they exist.
Nuclear is also non-renewable. Sure there is plenty of it, but it can only ever be a part of the energy mix. Nuclear cannot replace fossil fuels or we'll just run out of fissile material quicker. Nuclear should be used to conserve fossil fuels and reduce the overall cost of energy.
At the peak of the ridiculous Global Warming Hysteria people were actually talking about nuclear drilling rigs (nuclear-electric rather than diesel-electric). That's right, some bright lights wanted to circumvent a carbon tax by deploying portable miniature nukes to roam the countryside. Can you see a little problem with that idea? Can you see the problem in the green ideology that leads to these ideas?
This is why it distresses me when some proponents of nuclear power use green ideology to push nuclear safety. Surely you must realize that the eco-nuts will turn on you eventually. How sad that some in the nuclear industry would temporarily befriend their old enemies to get an edge on their energy competitors. Shame.
Drilling and nuclear power intersect again in yet another hysterical example eco-mania in the faux controversy over fracing. It's too large a subject to discuss fully here, but one method of mining for Uranium involves In-Situ Recovery (ISR) in a process very similar to fracing in hydrocarbon wells. Some American company botched their well and it led to the fear mongering we see today in Quebec. It's the same old pattern from environmentalists over and over again.
Drilling rigs are safe, but with their wide use a BP disaster was statistically bound to happen. Nuclear Power plants are safe and so scaling up their use and playing down their risks will probably lead meltdowns given enough time. The triple partial meltdown and explosions in Fukushima was the result of extremely bad luck. Suddenly everyone remembers the risks in nuclear power.
Does this mean we should abandon nuclear power? Does the BP spill mean we should not drill for oil? Does the botched well in Pennsylvania mean we should stop fracing? No, absolutely not. We should proceed with caution in all of these endeavors including the high degree of caution required for safe nuclear power. Some times bridges fail and planes crash. Does it make sense to ban bridges or airplanes? Does it even make sense to ban bridges vs airplanes in lieu of one over the other depending on some nonsensical safety comparison? No, but this is exactly the argument of green nukes vs gas or coal power plants. It's nonsense and nobody should tolerate it, not even for short term tactical advantage. When you play with green ideology just remember that you yourself might be the next target of self-righteous green de-marketing.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
The eco-nuts have lost the debate on the Oil Sands
I watched a couple of excellent debates with Ezra Levant and various green stooges yesterday. I must conclude that we have won the debate. The various boycotts and public defamation campaigns (PD rather than PR) have utterly lost the argument.
The debate between Andrew Nikiforuk and Ezra Levant in Calgary was fantastic. This is the sort of debate that I've come to enjoy. I prefer a hostile audience and a hysterical opponent. I like the deeply polarized back and forth between very different ideologies that almost reminds me of a sport. Nikiforuk lays on the thick and pointless rhetoric and Ezra Levant handily upends the entire righteous onslaught. By the end of the debate Nikiforuk is sounding shaky and shrill and indirectly concedes the point that Oil Sands oil is more efficient and more ethical than any other major source of oil on earth.
Ezra Levant and Andrew Nikiforuk debate ethics of Alberta's oilsands from Trevor Howell on Vimeo.
These are the sorts of debates you'll have in your own life. Skeptics must be prepared to fight from a corner without a friend in the room. Have the courage to stand up to the liberal nonsense and you'll find their arguments combusted like a greenpeace pamphlet in the fireplace.
You can see that Ezra won the debate by the end of the video. More proof that this is a winning argument comes from the next debate in Ottawa. This time its Ezra and Elizabeth May the leader of the Green Party. I found this debate slightly less entertaining and edifying than the first one.
Ezra Levant was awesome of course. Elizabeth May on the other hand treated the debate like a Green Party press conference. She immediately falls back on the "we still need to do more" argument. Gone is the old "Stop the Tar Sands" shrieking.
This is a victory. The leader of the Green Party supports the Oil Sands. Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Suzuki Foundation, and the rest are that far removed from the wishes of the people today. We are winning and its thanks to Ezra Levant and all the skeptics out there turning one person at a time. Keep it up, and enjoy part one.
Ezra Levant - Elisabeth May debate Pt. 1 from Vlad Tepes on Vimeo.
(h/t GayandRight I appreciate all your good work and that of the Free Thinking Film Society.)
The debate between Andrew Nikiforuk and Ezra Levant in Calgary was fantastic. This is the sort of debate that I've come to enjoy. I prefer a hostile audience and a hysterical opponent. I like the deeply polarized back and forth between very different ideologies that almost reminds me of a sport. Nikiforuk lays on the thick and pointless rhetoric and Ezra Levant handily upends the entire righteous onslaught. By the end of the debate Nikiforuk is sounding shaky and shrill and indirectly concedes the point that Oil Sands oil is more efficient and more ethical than any other major source of oil on earth.
Ezra Levant and Andrew Nikiforuk debate ethics of Alberta's oilsands from Trevor Howell on Vimeo.
These are the sorts of debates you'll have in your own life. Skeptics must be prepared to fight from a corner without a friend in the room. Have the courage to stand up to the liberal nonsense and you'll find their arguments combusted like a greenpeace pamphlet in the fireplace.
You can see that Ezra won the debate by the end of the video. More proof that this is a winning argument comes from the next debate in Ottawa. This time its Ezra and Elizabeth May the leader of the Green Party. I found this debate slightly less entertaining and edifying than the first one.
Ezra Levant was awesome of course. Elizabeth May on the other hand treated the debate like a Green Party press conference. She immediately falls back on the "we still need to do more" argument. Gone is the old "Stop the Tar Sands" shrieking.
This is a victory. The leader of the Green Party supports the Oil Sands. Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Suzuki Foundation, and the rest are that far removed from the wishes of the people today. We are winning and its thanks to Ezra Levant and all the skeptics out there turning one person at a time. Keep it up, and enjoy part one.
Ezra Levant - Elisabeth May debate Pt. 1 from Vlad Tepes on Vimeo.
(h/t GayandRight I appreciate all your good work and that of the Free Thinking Film Society.)
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