Who cleans up the 260 billion dollar environmental disaster unfolding in Alberta?

[burnt]

Depends what you mean by clean them up. Cities don't generally get abandoned so they adopt a "clean up as they go" model. Sewers, water pipes, electricity lines are kept functional because they are still needed. When you abandon oil facilities the pipes and well bores will corrode and leak onto the land and into the aquifers unless they are properly decommissioned. Increasingly they are abandoned regardless with no enforcement of regulations to ensure they are cleaned up - that's the ticking time bomb I-F is talking about.

A fine example of "clean up as you go", right grassfarmer -

And the list of dumpers grows longer on both ends of the country...

[sk_wheatking]

Boy I'll tell you it's getting harder and harder to take the bullshit on here. The world is not even close to oil free living. The Canadian economy runs off of oil money, WAKE UP! You can dig around and find negative on it to make yourself feel better all you want but you better do it using whale blubber in your lantern.

[GDR]

Not sure what the point of the article or this thread is. Only sense i can make is it shows if the green leftist movement gets there way of shutting the oil tap off then the 260 billion gets paid by people (the same people with no heat, fuel shelter etc) If sanity persists its not an issue. Another example of foolish exageration to try and make news.

The orphan well situation is an issue but is funded by industry not government as we are lead to believe and is making progress. I have a lease being reclaimed right now by the oil company. It was never even drilled, just the pad built. They have been working on it for 3 yrs jumping through hoops from the AER and was never drilled. Anyone who thinks there are no watchdogs and the companies are leaving a mess is just flat out wrong. If you ask for more regs and deposits be careful what you wish for, same could apply to farms building corrals, building pads, sc****r work etc.

[bucket]

Boy I'll tell you it's getting harder and harder to take the bullshit on here. The world is not even close to oil free living. The Canadian economy runs off of oil money, WAKE UP! You can dig around and find negative on it to make yourself feel better all you want but you better do it using whale blubber in your lantern.

The other day I heard the term.."peak demand" for oil as opposed to peak oil in the 70s, 80s, 90s, etc...

Its pretty obvious peak oil was a scam....And when you look at the logistics its not hard to understand....

1. Most people recycle oil....if you put 5 litres of oil in your car and 5000kms later drop 4.8liters into the recycle bin....

2. Mileage has gone up.....but the problems we threw out the most efficient rail system in the world...

etc...If you think about it,,,, all the peak oil crap was to look for more expensive alternatives and make people like Al Gore wealthy....

the dumb****led farmer / #1climate change denier....tm

[agstar77]

The oil industry in Alberta will die a slow and painful death starting with the oil sands then shale. Replaced by solar. Demand destruction. Decimation of oil demand by electric vehicles and storage batteries. No need for a carbon tax. Government is behind the curve . Transmountain will be a white elephant.

[furrowtickler]

The oil industry in Alberta will die a slow and painful death starting with the oil sands then shale. Replaced by solar. Demand destruction. Decimation of oil demand by electric vehicles and storage batteries. No need for a carbon tax. Government is behind the curve . Transmountain will be a white elephant.

Yup and 90% of Ag would be toast .
No one will go back to horse and plow .
In fact yet another special interest group will shut that down ... peta .

[bucket]

How does agriculture go on without fuel?


Running extension cords in the field? A plug-in at every quarter?

The ****ing government won't give us cell service ....and some of you think we are going to farm without fuel.....

[jazz]

Solar and wind will never be more than a small fraction if our energy needs. A sideshow. It all needs to be backed up by fossil fuels anyway, hence the higher cost when properly costed out.

If you are concerned about environmental cleanup in Ab, that could have been negotiated in the pipeline regulations. Instead of worrying about some event that is unlikely to happen, you could have incentivized oil companies to get more serious about their current problems. Hey we will give you 2 or 3 tidewater access points but you commit dedicated $10B a year to cleanup now. We would have created hundreds of thousands of jobs. I am sure the patch would have jumped all over that and the envirowhackos would have loved it as well and wow would that have been an announcement for the govt.

[jazz]

I would have made a couple other deals to address all these issues. I would have first gave anyone that pits panels up on their home a tax credit. That's the only place solar will have a use - on concerned citizens homes who don't mind a 20 yr payback.

I would have gone to the patch and said hey, we will solve your tidewater problem but you have to move away from the oilsands. Start chasing light sweet again, build some refining, etc.

Secondly, I would go look to the one group that could cut our emissions in half and that's farmers. Created a 25% biodiesel and ethanol standard to all fuels produced or exported. Pay farmers to start reforesting land, shelter belts, treed grasslands etc.

And I would be honest with the people and tell them the truth that we don't know if we can meet any artificial targets but we are going to try to be efficient while at the same time leveraging our vast resources to help the cause but no industry will suffer more than any other.

[helmsdale]

Albertan's need to face reality that any oil production or expansion will result in more environmental destruction

Nigeria has been highly exploited by the oil industry (many Canadian companies) and yet they receive 3 times as much in royalties as Alberta https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/oct/26/revealed-oil-giants-pay-billions-less-tax-in-canada-than-abroad

Canadian oil companies are highly profitable as this article indicates https://globalnews.ca/news/4643295/canada-big-oil-company-profits-report/ from this article The five companies paid $31.76 billion in dividends to shareholders over the period, including $12.56 billion since the oil price crash in 2014

In 2017, the Big Five transferred a total of $6.2 billion to shareholders ($4.16 billion in dividends and $2.04 billion in share buybacks) and had residual savings of $7.3 billion, while paying out $4.72 billion in taxes and royalties to all levels of government

The aggregate gross profit of the companies in 2017 was $46.6 billion, which was close to the Alberta government’s revenue of $47.3 billion

Your economic theory of making them profitable as somehow the answer was once explained by economist John Kenneth Galbraith who explained the trickle down theory 'If you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows (referring to trickle down economics).'

Nice try bud. We aren't Nigeria.

Perhaps you should have been an advisor on the latest royalty review. There were alot of people in that working group who went in with the preconception tha we weren't getting, "our fair share." Seems their preconceptions were wrong as they advised we leave the royalty rates the same.

Everyone seems to forget the benefits from O&G dont just accrue out of the share of profits that are captured by government. There are wages paid out directly to those in their employ on the operations side which supports personal consumption, and personal income taxation. There are capital expenditures year over year that are for new development which allow a massive service sector to exist, which again has employees, and operational as well as capital expenses which flow through to government coffers in personal and corporate income tax. All of these companies hire accountants, and lawyers which remit taxes. They purchase trucks, pipe, drilling rigs, etc etc.

But sure, let's say they dont contribute their "fair share", and that they're just a bunch of robber barons that are little more than leaches on the public purse.