Today, readers are debating solutions to Canada’s current oil woes.
Crude oil storage tanks at Enbridge's facility in Sherwood Park are seen against the skyline of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada November 13, 2016.Chris Helgren/Reuters
From What’s the economic Plan B for Alberta? There isn’t one by Gary Mason
Gary, well put. We at an inflection point where high costs and declining demand in the long term, together with lower cost fracked oil, have led to the global transition of investment away from Alberta bitumen and make the business case for long term investments in pipelines very challenging. - RichardC3
Green energy may very well be the way of the future, but it is certainly not the present. I don't know why so many people seem to have trouble with this concept. If the oil industry said, "You are right. Green is where it's at and we're shutting everything down immediately" doesn't everybody realize what a mess we'd be in? Cars, trains, boats, planes? Emergency power generation? Plastics?
"Green" in not ready, and yet it's proponents keep treating the oil industry like a urinal; I just can't fathom the ignorance. How about we support oil and green; over time? As the "new kid" matures, we shift from the old to the new. The transition timeline is decades, not months. - My2CentsEh
World daily oil consumption equals 100,000,000 barrels per day. 50,000,000 internal combustion engines are being added to worlds collective fleet every single year. Why is Canada handcuffing Alberta from pursuing plan A? - WilversideWizard
From Notley urges Ottawa to help move oil as province eyes buying rail cars to break glut by David Ebner
Nobody should be without a plan B, but boom-bust-echo economics has to end in Alberta. This means a national program to deal with our own energy needs and pipelines both east and west with refineries along the way. However this also requires a realization by all Canadians that carbon MUST be taxed and that a levy must be placed on some of its transmission that should go directly to solar, geothermal, and perhaps wind. Additionally lets get on with it. Harper didn't build one millimeter of pipeline and Trudeau bought one he cannot use. - bobPITA
Why are the oil companies not buying these tanker cars? Why do they expect the government to buy them instead? It is in the companies’ best interest to get the oil to market and at the highest price they can achieve. The tanker cars would allow them to do that. And they should be able to recover the costs quickly. As well, the new federal tax regulations would allow the companies to write off their costs much faster. Time to step up to the plate, oil industry. - ToryForever
If only we had a way to move oil to tidewater without relying on rail. If only we could get oil to the east instead of relying on Saudi oil. I wonder what other countries do that have oil, and perhaps they could give us some ideas. Canada that land where ideas go to die, and where our government works hard at seeing just how much money they can lose on our natural resources. We should had started the pipelines by now, to the west coast and to the east, instead we lose billions, as the government figures out new ways to see just how poor we can become. - JeffSpooner
This won't address the current crisis and is a bit off topic but, as a long term solution, is it feasible to build and expand refining capacity in Alberta, thereby allowing export of the products as higher value added products, rather than to continue to sell the raw material below market value? That would also potentially retain high paying, high skill jobs in Canada rather than exporting those as well to the US. - ozpcr
we are into this mess because the politicians did not see the problems. Likewise we are not seeing the problems looming in other parts of the economy. Seeds are being sown for a general collapse. - Robert MacDiarmid
Not sure what the governments cut is on a barrel of oil, but my preliminary calculations show there is no justifiable payback on a 3 billion investment in rail cars. - Expectationzs
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