THeBlueCashew

Quote from: "Shen Li"

Quote from: "Odinson"Jennifer Nicole Lee is hot.

Jennifer Lopez is sexy as hell. I could be her bodyguard.

and the connection is?

Quote from: "seoulbro"Wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs from an economy is right out of EU's "Guide To Environmental Protection for Retards". :idea:

Quote from: "Odinson"

Quote from: "seoulbro"Wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs from an economy is right out of EU's "Guide To Environmental Protection for Retards". :idea:

These jokes never seem to present equivalent option.



Sure we can shut down all the nuclear-powerplants but then we would have to go back to stone-age.

We can shut down every1 of these nasty polluting mines but then we would have no resources.

Cut down the pipe-line, carry those groceries for miles.



The environmental yahoos are mostly the "wall-socket generates electricity" types.

They have no understanding of what makes everything tick because many take running water, gasoline, electricity etc. for granted.

Quote from: "seoulbro"

Quote from: "Odinson"

Quote from: "seoulbro"Wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs from an economy is right out of EU's "Guide To Environmental Protection for Retards". :idea:

These jokes never seem to present equivalent option.



Sure we can shut down all the nuclear-powerplants but then we would have to go back to stone-age.

We can shut down every1 of these nasty polluting mines but then we would have no resources.

Cut down the pipe-line, carry those groceries for miles.



The environmental yahoos are mostly the "wall-socket generates electricity" types.

They have no understanding of what makes everything tick because many take running water, gasoline, electricity etc. for granted.

You misunderstand me Odinson. I was dumbing it down for EU because he is an idiot.



We need industry, we need jobs and like it or not oilsands development generates both. No point in trying to explain to someone that mentally challenged. We use resources to survive, that is what we do. Using another country's resources instead of our own is good for that country, but not for us. If he thinks our resources are inferior than I agree with Shen Li; go to some shithole without investment and industry and freeze his bag off in the dark.

QuoteI am a capitalist. I know how to count jobs and tax revenues and I understand exactly how good the oil sands have been for my country -- and specifically for me, as a "shareholder" in Canada. This beautiful windfall helped us weather the deepest global recession in our lifetime better than any other rich nation and helped us pay down a very significant chunk of our national debt over the past 15 years while also allowing us to reduce all sorts of taxes from coast to coast.



Canada has been riding this awesome wave for quite some time now -- and we've actually become really good at it: We learned how to make the most of our new-found prosperity; how to spread it and share it almost evenly across the land; how to retool and adjust our entire economy around our much stronger petro-dollar; and how to move our skilled workers to where all the action is, in order to maximize our productivity and our profits. We showed the world that we're a nation of nimble, sharp, hungry capitalists and we got a lot of respect (and envy) for that!



But while we're so good and efficient at squeezing every available drop of profit out of our opportunities, we seem to have missed the most important lesson they teach in the School of Capitalism: strategic planning. We focused all our energy on feeding and protecting and milking our beautiful cow but forgot to plan for the day when her milk might run out or the day when people may not like that kind of milk anymore. When friends and neighbours asked us questions about the future, we got very defensive and we told them we were confident nothing would ever change -- the world will always need and like our milk.



And suddenly, after so many fat cow years, our customers' tastes started to change -- and, in record fast time, we started look and behave like the world's least sophisticated capitalists.



Suddenly it's panic season in Ottawa and in Edmonton: Will Obama approve the pipeline? Will it take us too long to get the stuff to the Chinese? Will the Europeans label our oil "dirty"? Will the world start taxing carbon?



Our Finance Ministers started revising budgets, we started talking about (god forbid!) sales taxes even in our country's petro-province and, of course, the blame game is now in full swing. If those tree-huggers weren't so emboldened and so well-financed by our nation's enemies, we would have plowed our pipelines right through the Rockies by now and we would have started feeding China's endless thirst for oil, instead of praying for a miracle on Pennsylvania Avenue.



We may have been the envy of the world but we were actually amateurs all through the fat cow years and now we're starting to pay for it. We ignored every hint of a warning and became really good at only believing ourselves.



//http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/andreas-souvaliotis/capitalism-canada_b_2711435.html

QuoteOil sands production has risen from 30,000 barrels per day in 1967 to over 1.6 million per day. Yet Alberta crude can now only be sold at discount and the Alberta government is facing a $3 billion deficit! 30,000 to 1.6 million barrels per day = billions of dollars in losses?



Pipeline delays haven't caused this. If Keystone and Northern Gateway were being constructed right now there would still be these billions in losses. Production has already increased immensely over the years, so it's pretty clear that producing more isn't some magic pill.

Quote from: "seoulbro"Lack of pipeline capacity to the right markets is costing the Canadian economy a small fortune.

Quote from: "Romero"

Quote from: "seoulbro"Lack of pipeline capacity to the right markets is costing the Canadian economy a small fortune.

But pipeline capacity and oil exports have already increased dramatically and it's only bringing in less money. Expanding pipeline capacity isn't going to eliminate any discount. Alberta crude is more expensive than world crude because it costs a lot more to produce and ship.

QuoteThe Alberta government's bottom line continues to bleed red ink and the province is planning job cuts and a wage freeze for civil-service managers to try to stem the flow. Alberta is now forecasting a deficit of between $3.5 and $4 billion — at least four times what was originally predicted in the last budget.



//http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/02/19/alberta-budget-deficit-four-billion_n_2719315.html



The BC deficit is on track to be $500 million more than originally planned and may now even reach $1.5 billion.



//http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/charles-lammam/bc-budget-2013-deficit_b_2707638.html

QuoteAlberta's Strange Sinking Sensation



Alison Redford, the premier of Canada's wealthiest province, has encountered a $6 billion "bitumen bubble". To most Canadians this curious disclosure seems confounding if not paradoxical. How can "the economic engine" of Canada run five government deficits in a row yet promise prosperity for the nation? Is no one in charge?



Like any plantation economy, petro states operate pretty much like irrational monocultures: they know how pump oil, sell oil, talk oil and spend oil. But they don't know how to save or diversify its slippery wealth.



Truth in short supply



Alberta's string of deficits have nothing to do with lack of bitumen pipelines but everything to do with the shale gas revolution which has dropped the price of natural gas to record lows.



Prior to the shale gale, natural gas earned more than $5-billion in annual royalties for the government: today the cash cow pours little milk ($1 billion) for Alberta's one party state. Yet Redford never mentioned "the shale bubble."



But there's another important omission. The gap between bitumen pricing and West Texas Intermediate is not new. Bitumen is a junk crude and signature of peak oil that requires costly upgrading and complex refining. The heavy gunk won't even move through a pipeline unless diluted with costly condensate.



As a result a 2007 Bitumen Price Review warned Alberta's government about dramatic price drops in bitumen markets. "Essentially there is a lack of adequate market access due to increasing production levels." By failing to upgrade and refine bitumen into higher value goods such as gasoline the government would absorb "a high share of price risk" that goes with pouring raw bitumen into the marketplace.



But Alberta's petro state and its petro media ignored the report as well as the idea of adding value at home. So the growing price disparity is really a function of dedicated overproduction as well as a lack of smart planning. (Premier Ralph Klein didn't believe in such things and preferred to run government on "auto pilot.")



Between 1998 and 2008 Alberta regulators rubber stamped more than 100 tar sands projects raising bitumen production from 600,000 barrels a day to nearly two million. This policy predictably flooded the U.S. Midwest market with raw bitumen and drove down prices.



Binge spending, then hangovers



Oil also engenders a "spending effect." On this matter Alberta has become something of a petro state poster child. During booms Alberta vomits cash and expands government, and during busts, it hacks off government services like some crazed surgeon jackassed on cocaine.



To facilitate the recent bitumen gold rush it has invested billions in roads, hospitals and water treatment that industry, the boom's chief beneficiary, should have paid for in full.



Spending isn't the only disease. Alberta has a serious revenue collection crisis too. It still gives away its hydrocarbons at bargain basement prices and saves nothing. (In contrast Norway has stored away $600 billion for the day its wells run dry.)



Moreover the government has only collected its minimum target (a 50 per cent share of oil and gas profits) twice in the last decade. (When Fred Dunn, the former auditor general, repeatedly pointed out the scale of this neglect in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011, he was accused of overstepping his mandate.)



But if Big Oil took the same cavalier attitude toward meeting its fiscal targets as the Alberta government, their shareholders would have had their heads in buckets years ago.



Oil between the ears



Petromania makes governments grossly incompetent. Easy wealth seems to discourage hard thinking, the same way scarcity stimulates innovation.



Alberta's idea of governance consists either of throwing money at a problem or making the problem bigger so more petro dollars can drown in ever larger pools of stupidity.



Oil has dumbed Alberta down. The bitumen republic now gives away its resources. It doesn't save any money. It neglects ground water protection. It has no responsible tax regime. And its calcified one party state represents hydrocarbons instead of citizens because that's what petro states do.



//http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2013/02/21/Why-Cant-Alberta-Break-Even/

Quote from: "Shen Li"When you have only one customer they can dictate your pricing.

Quote from: "Shen Li"I would prefer those refineries get their heavy crude from us rather than Venezuela or Nigeria despite what traitors like Mulcair say.

Quote from: "seoulbro"Diane Francis claims that much of the opposition to the oil sands actually comes from foreign countries such as Nigeria and Venezuela. I wonder if Thomas Mulcair wants to run for office in either of those two countries. ;)

Quote from: "Romero"

Quote from: "seoulbro"Diane Francis claims that much of the opposition to the oil sands actually comes from foreign countries such as Nigeria and Venezuela. I wonder if Thomas Mulcair wants to run for office in either of those two countries. ;)

The claims that opposition is coming from Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Venezuela etc. are silly. The opposition has been coming from Canadians and Americans.

Quote from: "seoulbro"

Quote from: "Romero"The claims that opposition is coming from Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Venezuela etc. are silly. The opposition has been coming from Canadians and Americans.

I believe they are involved with the opposition. It makes perfect sense, why would they want to increase supply and lower prices?. Those regimes are involved, but cannot do it openly.

Quote from: "Shen Li"It will provide safe, secure and reliable access to sources of oil that is critical to North American energy security and independence. I would prefer to have some long term contracts in place with Canadian suppliers rather than ones in Nigeria and Venezuela even if that traitor Mulcair doesn't.

QuoteState Dept. Hid Contractor's Ties to Keystone XL Pipeline Company



Late on a Friday afternoon in early March, the State Department released a 2,000-page draft report downplaying the environmental risks of the northern portion of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would ferry oil from Canada's tar sands to refineries in Texas, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. But when it released the report, State hid an important fact from the public: Experts who helped draft the report had previously worked for TransCanada, the company looking to build the Keystone pipeline, and other energy companies poised to benefit from Keystone's construction. State released documents in conjunction with the Keystone report in which these experts' work histories were redacted so that anyone reading the documents wouldn't know who'd previously hired them. Yet unredacted versions of these documents obtained by Mother Jones confirm that three experts working for an outside contractor had done consulting work for TransCanada and other oil companies with a stake in the Keystone's approval.



When the Keystone report—officially known as a "draft supplemental environmental impact statement"—was released, environmental activists ripped it as shoddy and misleading. Russ Girling, TransCanada's CEO, cheered the report as "an important step" toward receiving President Barack Obama's final stamp of approval for the pipeline.



Outside contractors (managed by the State Department) wrote the Keystone report, which neither endorsed nor rejected the Keystone pipeline. The contractor that produced the bulk of the report was Environmental Resources Management (ERM), an international consulting firm. On the day the State Department published the Keystone impact report, the agency also released a cache of documents that ERM submitted in 2012 to win the contract to produce the Keystone environmental report. That cache included a 55-page filing in which ERM stated it had no conflicts of interests writing the Keystone report.



But there was something strange about ERM's conflict-of-interest filing: The bios for the ERM's experts were redacted.



Here's what those redactions kept secret: ERM's second-in-command on the Keystone report, Andrew Bielakowski, had worked on three previous pipeline projects for TransCanada over seven years as an outside consultant. He also consulted on projects for ExxonMobil, BP, and ConocoPhillips, three of the Big Five oil companies that could benefit from the Keystone XL project and increased extraction of heavy crude oil taken from the Canadian tar sands.



Another ERM employee who contributed to State's Keystone report—and whose prior work history was also redacted—previously worked for Shell Oil; a third worked as a consultant for Koch Gateway Pipeline Company, a subsidiary of Koch Industries. Shell and Koch have a significant financial interest in the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. ERM itself has worked for Chevron, which has invested in Canadian tar sands extraction, according to its website.



//http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/keystone-xl-contractor-ties-transcanada-state-department

QuoteA pipeline that ruptured and leaked at least 80,000 gallons of oil into central Arkansas on Friday was transporting a heavy form of crude from the Canadian tar sands region, ExxonMobil told InsideClimate News.



Local police said the line gushed oil for 45 minutes before being stopped, according to media reports.



Crude oil ran through a subdivision of Mayflower, Ark., about 20 miles north of Little Rock. Twenty-two homes were evacuated, but no one was hospitalized, Exxon spokesman Charlie Engelmann said on Saturday.



According to a Saturday afternoon press release from Exxon, 189,000 gallons of oil and water have been recovered from the site so far, and it is prepared to clean up more than twice that amount.



Exxon's release said the company is "staging a response for over 10,000 barrels [420,000 gallons] to be conservative."



//http://www.alternet.org/environment/exxon-confirms-80000-gallon-spill-contains-canadian-tar-sands-oil