Understanding that Canadian oil and gas production is some of the most carbon intensive in the world: to the extent that we continue to need oil and gas, wouldn’t it be best for the world if we let the world’s oil and gas needs be met by a cleaner producer, like the USA?
Wouldn’t Canada be better served by upgrading to more of a service economy and less of an extractive economy?
kludgeocracy on
Much of the progress in reducing electricity emissions was achieved by switching from coal to natural gas. However, it’s [been found](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.4c03651#) in recent years that methane emissions which occur during extraction are much higher than previously reported, a fact which is increasingly reflected in official emissions accounting. Nonetheless, the emissions are shifted from the electricity sector to the oil and gas sector. I’m not sure how much of the changes can be explained this way, but it would be pretty dumb if we spent the last 20 years basically achieving nothing.
gmorrisvan on
The Pathways Alliance is also still himming and hawing about the Carbon Capture and Storage investment. If this wasn’t just an obvious image laundering operation, I might give them the benefit of the doubt, but they can see the writing on the wall that the public has largely stopped caring about this issue and is ready to vote in a government that also doesn’t care. So, why spend any money when you don’t have to?
My guess, they scrap it unless the government pays for basically the whole thing, or if they are given some other quid pro quo.
3 Comments
Understanding that Canadian oil and gas production is some of the most carbon intensive in the world: to the extent that we continue to need oil and gas, wouldn’t it be best for the world if we let the world’s oil and gas needs be met by a cleaner producer, like the USA?
Wouldn’t Canada be better served by upgrading to more of a service economy and less of an extractive economy?
Much of the progress in reducing electricity emissions was achieved by switching from coal to natural gas. However, it’s [been found](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.4c03651#) in recent years that methane emissions which occur during extraction are much higher than previously reported, a fact which is increasingly reflected in official emissions accounting. Nonetheless, the emissions are shifted from the electricity sector to the oil and gas sector. I’m not sure how much of the changes can be explained this way, but it would be pretty dumb if we spent the last 20 years basically achieving nothing.
The Pathways Alliance is also still himming and hawing about the Carbon Capture and Storage investment. If this wasn’t just an obvious image laundering operation, I might give them the benefit of the doubt, but they can see the writing on the wall that the public has largely stopped caring about this issue and is ready to vote in a government that also doesn’t care. So, why spend any money when you don’t have to?
My guess, they scrap it unless the government pays for basically the whole thing, or if they are given some other quid pro quo.