Dispatches from the sunburned wastelands

I attended an amazing lecture yesterday, at a conference on renewable energy that was held in the town of Miramichi, New Brunswick. The speaker, David Hughes, is a renowned geologist working for Natural Resources Canada. He talked about the precarious state of world fossil fuel reserves, and how people both here and in the Unites States are ignoring the facts.

It basically boils down to this: the US Government is of the opinion that there are oodles and oodles of oil left, and even if there isn't, they're thinking that more might be discovered soon. Except, that there isn't, and there won't be any new discoveries soon - most geologists agree on that. Oil sands of Alberta won't help us, because it takes massive amounts of energy to extract usable stuff - something like one barrel of oil to get two barrels...End of story, right? There's not much oil left, let's look at alternatives, start saving energy, drive smaller cars etc.,...right? One would think so, but, instead of doing something positive about the impending oil crunch, the US (and recently the Canadian Government, too) is turning a blind eye...

It was a really scary presentation - he figures the world has only got some 30-odd years left, pushing the remaining wells for higher and higher output, before sudden and a rapid decrease in fossil fuel reserves will impact our daily lives. This is especially true in Canada, who currently holds the dubious distinction of having the highest per capita consumers of fossil fuel on earth...(and you thought Canada was a friendly, green, giant, didn't you...). The scariest thought he left me with was this: His statistics did not really include the exponential growth in Chinese automobiles and electricity consumption....We're in for a rough ride.

Oh, and by the way, it was also announced during the conference that the new Harper government slashed another green energy program, in their zeal to get rid of everything good the Liberals did. This time it was the a green housing initiative, leaving many people without a job, and no incentive for homeowners to convert their current energy inefficient homes into lower cost, energy efficient houses...

Posted by HannesB at 5:26 AM Comments