By Hugh Holland
The blessing
The first oil was discovered by the Chinese in 600 B.C. and transported in pipelines made of bamboo. Global population was about 200 million people. In 1850, geologist Thomas Hunt reported oil seeps from swampy “gum beds” in Lambton County, Ontario. That became the source of North America’s first major oil boom. It was followed by a discovery of oil in Pennsylvania in 1859, and Texas in 1901. Those discoveries set the stage for a new economy. Petroleum was much more adaptable, cleaner, and more flexible than coal and horses.
By 1804, world population had grown to one billion and land transportation was mainly by horse. City streets around the world had become unhealthy open sewers that polluted the waterways every time it rained. The 1885 Benz Motorwagen is widely regarded as the world’s first production automobile. Henry Ford’s 1905 Model T revolutionized auto production and resulted in much healthier transportation infrastructure.
Both the British and German navies converted their fleets from coal to oil, and Iran and Iraq were main sources of oil, but also conflict, during WW1. In 1938, an American oil company in Saudi Arabia drilled into the largest source of petroleum in the world. Europe has relatively few oil and gas reserves and many countries have been dragged into the ongoing competition and conflict over Middle East oil during and after WW2.
Indigenous people introduced the Athabasca oil sands to the Hudson’s Bay company in 1717, but serious development did not start until the early 1970s when Canada’s oil reserves became known as the third largest in the world. Oil became Canada’s number one export and royalties became a major source of government revenue. That catapulted Alberta from being a major recipient of interprovincial equalization payments to being a major provider. In 2019, Alberta’s GDP per capita is $81,000, or 33 per cent above the national average, allowing Alberta to be the only province with no provincial sales tax.
The curse
Unfortunately, Alberta’s unnecessary fear of losing those big advantages has become a curse that is dividing citizens in one of the top-rated countries in the world. In 1988, global population had reached five billion and the UN established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for advancing knowledge on human-induced climate change. Thirty-four years later, global population is 7.8 billion and the world’s top 2,500 climate scientists are telling us that we must achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, mainly by reducing the burning of coal, oil, and gas, to avoid catastrophic effects of climate change.
Governments in every country, whether left, right or centre, are under pressure to do their part. Canada is especially under pressure because our emissions per capita are among the highest in the world. Seventy-five per cent of Canada’s emissions come from processing oil and gas and burning them for transportation, mobile equipment, and residential, commercial, and industrial heat. The 500,000 workers in Canada’s oil and gas industry are feeling insecure because of that pressure. Although those jobs are spread across the country, that insecurity has sadly become a major source of division between the people and provinces of Canada, and between countries.
What can be done about it?
At the root of the problem are the irrational fears and beliefs that pit extreme politics against science. That is now a main cause of civil unrest events in many countries, including the recent border blockade and 22-day occupation of Canada’s national capital. That underlying unrest is easily exacerbated by other pressures like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Far-left thinkers have an irrational faith that wind and solar alone can supply the world’s energy needs, and an irrational fear that nuclear energy is too dangerous. There is no real-world evidence that supports either belief. Far-right thinkers have an irrational faith that climate change is a hoax, and that finite reserves of oil and gas will last forever. Again, there is no real-world evidence to support either of those beliefs. And there are uninformed and unscrupulous opportunists using the internet and social media to exploit both the far-left and the far-right.
That is a tragedy because if they really gave a hoot about what kind of world their grandchildren will live in, they would stop the senseless bickering, and go hell bent in building every possible source and use of clean renewable and nuclear energy before we run out of finite oil and gas. That debilitating unrest can only be quelled by fair-minded moderate leaders who can work together to create a rational and resilient vision for the next 50 years.
Some oil and gas will continue to be needed for decades, but the enormous efficiencies now available in electrified transportation and mobile equipment, co-generation of electricity and industrial heat with emerging small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), and efficient buildings and heating systems, can greatly reduce energy consumption per capita, and avoid the worst effects of climate change. All vehicles and mechanical equipment are normally replaced as they wear out on a 10-year to 30-year cycle. The incremental cost of replacing old tech with new tech is significant but entirely affordable, if the money is not wasted for lack of a rational vision.
Those replacements will provide more than enough good jobs. Canada’s industry, in particular our oil and gas industry, has all the expertise and resources it needs to be a world leader in a rational and gradual transition to a great future. What is needed most is less selfish political squabbling and more political responsibility and cooperation.
Clean and abundant wind, solar, and nuclear energy, and hydro where available, using hydrogen for energy storage, offers the potential for every country to become self-sufficient in energy. That could eliminate the competition for dwindling oil and gas resources that is causing conflict, poverty, and mass migration for millions. Wouldn’t that be a better legacy for leaders?
Hugh Holland, P. Eng. (retired) Huntsville, Ontario
Don’t miss out on Doppler!
Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox three times per week!
Click here to support local news
Dale Hajas says
Hello Hugh,
Thank you for the excellent article and for the historical perspective. Once again we see that extreme thinking to the left or the right is not the way to solve the problem of meeting our energy needs without ‘blowing up’ the planet.
We have to avoid one-dimensional solutions to multi-dimensional climate problems. But, continuing the dumping of CO2 into the atmosphere is like putting air in a balloon – at some point it’s going to pop. So, action sooner rather than later is key but it’s important to implement actions that actually make practical sense; to that end we should look to changes we can fairly easily implement in the electricity and light vehicles sector and in any building projects we undertake, right now.
The tougher stuff can wait until technology catches up and maybe until we can prove to a skeptical population that nuclear power is a very good option to supply much of our energy needs. People remain fearful of the energy source that may be – in my not-an-engineer opinion – our saviour because of failures at Three Mile Island, Fukushima, and most famously, Chernobyl. The death toll of these three accidents is smaller than the amount of North Americans who die every year from smoking. The WHO has said that the largest health outcome from the Chernobyl disaster is anxiety about nuclear energy.
Again, as you’ve stated, those pushing to end all oil dependence RIGHT NOW are in denial about fossil fuels being needed in some places for some time. (It would help to keep Alberta from freaking out too.)
As I read somewhere else, “magical thinking on the left and denial on the right” can cause ideological head-butting and result in all logical and practical solutions getting lost in the shuffle.
This is an all technologies, all hands on deck moment. Let the bickering end and the cooperation begin both at governmental and individual levels. The only thing on the line is the only home we’ve got on planet earth.
J. R. Bruce Cassie says
Once again, Hugh has helped clarify the enormous complexity associated with the world’s energy needs on the one hand and the rationale for Net Zero emissions by the year 2050. His claim that our fellow Canadians from Alberta have an irrational fear of losing their province’s recent economic advantage over the rest of Canadians, then labelling this “a curse” that continues to divide Canadians, is both harsh and exaggerated.
What isn’t exaggerated, however, is Hugh’s belief that comprehensive planning in a spirit of cooperation and responsibility can enable us to make the transition from where we are to Net Zero emissions by 2050. Indeed, new science-based technologies, further development of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, the transition to electrified transportation, use of hydrogen for energy storage… all listed in Hugh’s solution strategy, can and should enable us to save our Planet from environmental collapse.
Without question, Hugh Holland is at the forefront of intelligent thinking about our energy needs now and into the future. His perspective is global, his information is well-researched and his caution is compelling. The clock is ticking.
Oliver Klimek says
Hi Hugh Holland!
Thank you for a rational, reasonable, and well-researched summary of our energy history (and future).
I agree that sources and methods of energy production must change, but what can the average person do to address climate change?
John Oliver says
Great article. Working in the oil, gas and water pipeline sector for most of my working life gave me a unique perspective of how the energy business works. It’s a dirty world out there, weather it’s in Canada, USA, The Middle East, Far East. Asia Pacific, South America, Russia, or in any number of other countries that I have worked. No matter what the oil industry says and how they say it, the only thing that is important to them is to extract as much oil and gas at the cheapest cost at the expense of the environment and the unskilled workers that do all of the grunt labour. The Russian oil industry is probably the worst offender but the other big players are not far behind. Most oil producing countries use TCNs, Third Country National’s for the semi and unskilled work force. These worker are imported by companies from Pakistan, India and the Philippines and are supplied to the oil companies and construction companies to work seven days a week for very little money. They are housed in camps and are mostly kept segregated from the other workers. They get go home for a couple of weeks every six months. I have witnessed many instances of abuse of these workers including being physically abused and the authorities turned a blind eye, after all they are only TCN,s
The environment also takes a big hit as many countries do not have any restrictions on how they operate, as they are only interested in their licensing royalties. Corruption on all levels is also rampant as officials scrambles to get their piece of the pie.
This behaviour by oil producing countries, oil companies and pipeline contractors is unfortunately the norm and not the exception. Cheap labour and poor environmental regulations equals big profits for the producing countries and the energy companies and the sad thing is that the energy consumers, you and me, don’t much care as long as the price at the pumps doesn’t go above $1.25.
So what can we do about it? Not much I am afraid. The law of physics says you can’t get energy from nothing. Whatever you do there will always be a cost and that cost equation will include the environment, cheap labour, delivery utilities to the consumer and big profits for producers.