NDP will not stall transmountain

[The Green Barbarian]

There are 'green' alternatives to most of those things you listed. And I don't think anyone expects petroleum products to become completely obsolete. There will likely always be a need for them, but not to the extent where they 'll have to be mined and refined from the Alberta tar sands.

I disagree. The Alberta Oil Sands will continue to be an important source of energy for probably another century at least. And as Dr. Weaver said in his paper in Nature magazine, the effects to the environment, if you believe in the man-made climate change hypothesis, will be minimal at best. So all in all, thanks to the thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of economic activity the oil sands create for Canada, they are amazing. Here's to the next 100 years of oil sands mining and development!

[Smurf]

Truthfully I don't believe there are replacements, especially not in the quantities needed to replace the amount of petroleum that is used world wide. Just my opinion.

What do you figure might replace asphalt around the world in the near future? What might replace the 100's probably 1000's of lubricants we need around the world? What will replace plastics in the volumes needed to build the 100's of millions of new EV's that are supposedly coming soon? What will the trillions of solar panels that will be needed continuously when we have made the great transition? Do you see any problems here?

[The Green Barbarian]

Do you see any problems here?

Of course they don't Smurf. Math is hard. All you have to do is think in a linear fashion. Oil is bad. Why? Because an unproven hypothesis I really really want to believe in says so. Why do I want to believe it? Because the "cure" to the unproven hypothesis is mass wealth distribution, the true wet dream of any and all socialists. So oil is bad, wealth will be redistributed if we advocate for other far more expensive energy sources, so let's do it! Forget all of the problems this ideology will cause. Who cares if millions, perhaps billions will die! So what. Let's just go and get everyone "off oil" at all costs. This small group of incredibly fanatical people have been allowed to manipulate the public and fear monger for far too long. As the failure of Al Gore's latest Inconvenient Lie movie shows, a lot of people are tired of hearing this nonsense, and are finally shutting it out. As they should.

[lasnomadas]

The tag-team continues to be in denial. We no longer live in the 20th century. We have evolved, and it's time the tar sands promoters started to evolve as well. You can close your eyes, plug your ears and hum, but eventually you'll have to listen to reason. Even the buggy-whip manufacturers had to finally admit that the 'horseless carriage' would make them obsolete eventually.

And guess which horseless carriage was the first to grace the roads? It was the electric car, and why do you suppose the ICE models replaced it? (Be sure you provide links to your reply.)

[hobbyguy]

las - the simple physics of energy density. You have been shown links on that topic, but clearly don't understand it.

[lasnomadas]

There seems to be a disconnect in communication here. To which of my comments do you refer?

[Smurf]

Doesn't understand or doesn't want to?

[The Green Barbarian]

The tag-team continues to be in denial. We no longer live in the 20th century. We have evolved, and it's time the tar sands promoters started to evolve as well. You can close your eyes, plug your ears and hum, but eventually you'll have to listen to reason. Even the buggy-whip manufacturers had to finally admit that the 'horseless carriage' would make them obsolete eventually.

The reason that the "horseless carriage" replaced buggy whips and horse-drawn carriages was that the gas-powered car was a sustainable business model that worked. Electric cars and solar and wind can only survive by bilking taxpayers of billions of dollars. Technologies and new ideas only evolve when something better comes along that people can afford to adopt in mass quantities. Solar and Wind power are far too expensive. I am all for electric cars, don't get me wrong, but only when the billions of dollars of subsidies are not needed for them to survive. I realize now is when most enviro-fanatics start babbling about all of the non-subsidies or fake subsidies given to oil and gas, but it's just pure apologist crap.

[lasnomadas]

^^ Still waiting for your explanation as to why the first automobiles were powered by electricity, and why they were 'conveniently' replaced by the ICE vehicles? Could it have had something to do with oil company lobbyists?

[mikest2]

^^ Still waiting for your explanation as to why the first automobiles were powered by electricity, and why they were 'conveniently' replaced by the ICE vehicles? Could it have had something to do with oil company lobbyists?

How about storage of fuel ? It only takes 5 minutes to fill a vehicle with liquid fuel, or stoke the fire on your Stanley Steamer.
The economy would screech to a halt if every vehicle on the road took 4 to 12 hours to refuel.
Edit to fix spelling

[lasnomadas]

Back in the day, I don't think that recharging the battery in an electric car was a consideration. I must do more research before debating this further. (Electric vs. gasoline-powered cars is probably off-topic on this thread anyway.)

[Smurf]

Who would they be lobbying, customers of the car companies. Wouldn't that be called advertising. I don't remember the government having anything to do with what kind if car you bought until recently and it is costing the taxpayers a lot of money so the rich can have their toys with us helping to pay for them. Electric cars had the same basic problems they do now only today they have improved a bit. Only time will tell if they ever actually become viable to replace petroleum fuelled vehicles, planes, ships, automobiles, motorcycles etc. in the everyday world.

[lasnomadas]

How I long for the good old days when we could have a coherent conversation on these threads. Now it's "Dude, where's my comment?"

Let me try to tie this in with the NDP and the trans mountain pipeline: The everyday world stinks if we can't stop exporting bitumen to China via pipeline across B.C., then onto oil tankers. There has to be a better way to make a buck.

[The Green Barbarian]

There has to be a better way to make a buck.

such as?

[lasnomadas]

I'm glad you asked. First of all, we could stop importing trinkets from China in exchange for fossil fuels. Then we could start manufacturing value-added products rather than shipping raw logs out of the country. We could also put people to work in jobs that would benefit Canada instead of foreign countries. Canada is falling behind in technology, infrastructure upgrades, alternative renewable energy. We have to drop the 'hewers of wood and drawers of water' mentality and move into the 21st century.