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

[GDR]

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 .

Im a member of PETA (People for Eating Tasty Animals

[helmsdale]

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.

Unless we are ready to go nukes, there is no way unreliable renewable can be any more than a small percentage of total generation.

Especially up here in cold environs, range of EVs is drastically limited in the cold. 30% at 0°c, approaching 50% reductions below -20°c... electric heaters are pigs! Batteries perform less effectively in the cold and require heaters to keep them warm so that they can be quickly recharged. Look at the L-ion batteries in all your tools, if you are using them on cold days outside you have to let them warm up before they'll take a charge.

EVs are one thing, but can you imagine the electric grid requirements of electric farm equipment, let alone electric home heaters?

Let's take farm equipment... you think your 10hp aeration fan is a pig? Try plugging in your combine or 4wd. What would the service need to be on your farm? Tons of farm services around here are little more than 10-15kva. Replacing one piece of equipment and expecting it to be able to charge up overnight would require upwards of 100kva. That's for one powered piece of equipment. Want to charge 2 combines, 1 4wd, and two trucks? Start multiplying... now multiply that by all the farms in the neighborhood looking to accomplish the same thing overnight... when the sun doesn't shine, and the wind seldom blows. All those single phase lines servicing rural areas would have to be upgraded to high voltage 3 phase. And how about those days/nights when the weather is threatening to turn and you need to run that combine crew 24hrs a day?

Now let's change all the nat gas furnaces out of our shops and houses and go to super clean(provided the source generation is clean) electric heat... a 65,000btu equivalent forced air electric furnace requires a 240v, 80amp main breaker. Dad's house when he bought it in 1990/91 was rigged with electric base board heat. Bill in 89/90 in the winter months to heat? A whopping $1000/month! House has 300amp service. Now multiply that by an entire town let alone city. Gonna need ALOT of new infrastructure.

[grassfarmer]

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.....

Point is they were supposed to be doing that already - getting drilling permission in the first place, and paying low royalties were contingent on them doing the clean ups. Most times they don't bother with the cleanup - just keep paying the farmer his annual lease fee after the well is at the end of it's productive life and forget about doing expensive reclamation. No enforcement by AER as they are just another fake Alberta organisation, funded by the oil industry to act as body guard for that industry. This is a ticking time bomb for the landowner. Hope landowners realise too when they signed up to allow a pipeline to cross their land that they were signing up for the liability associated with it in perpetuity.

[Integrity_Farmer]

We aren't Nigeria.

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.

I agree with your statement
FYI again https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/oct/26/revealed-oil-giants-pay-billions-less-tax-in-canada-than-abroad

We aren't Nigeria. You are correct we are not Nigeria in fact our governments are more incompetent than Nigeria as this article indicated

Companies like Chevron Canada paid almost three times as much to Nigeria and almost seven times as much to Indonesia as it did to Canadian, provincial and municipal governments.

Chevron used to run its Nigeria and Indonesia projects out of the U.S., but after allegations that they evaded billions in taxes, their operations were moved to Canada.

According to data collected by the Guardian, Suncor also paid six times more taxes to the UK, and Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) paid almost four times more to Ivory Coast.

[farming101]

Ever wonder why more ships fly Panama's flag than any other?

[blackpowder]

Just received in mail.
An inch thick file started in 2012. Looks finished now, regarding reclamation certificate application. On a 1100m dry hole. 6 days from spud to 'reclamation'.
In 1970.
Never any evidence of it's existence.
How much did that cost????

[agboy]

happy new -year all you happy readers on agriville
very interesting topics love to read them !!!
good point gdr about cleaning well site after !
be careful sold out farmyards in ab and sask looks terrible and yunk yard of old graneries and
old iron left behand !!!
need a better green law in place .

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I asked relatives in AER about this, it is about the ridiculous notion that we would shut down the entire industry, every gas plant, every pipeline, every wellhead etc. Which about as useful a notion as figuring out what it would cost to return every paved surface back to it's natural state.