Archive for the ‘The Energy Challenge’ Category

Takeaways from World Energy Congress in Montreal

September 18, 2010

1. When it comes to a global energy future we can all agree to, the path forward involves huge geopolitical, economic and environmental constraints. This means the range of available options is narrow, and none are without drawbacks. It is likely to be a long, untidy journey that involves a mix of technological innovation, mitigation of environmental impacts, systems adaptation, intergovernmental cooperation and behavioral change. Many different interests will need to be brokered (or broker themselves) in the process. It is a massive design challenge. That is the stark (bland?) reality of it.

2. There are at least two moral dimensions to the challenge, and they seem in many ways inextricable: (1) ensure that all people in the world have access to energy (or, in short, eliminate energy poverty, and (2) ensure that our global energy system does not impact the environment in unacceptable ways.

3. Some technologies are promising, in particular, hydrogen fuel cells, superconductors (both of which have immediate applications and many potential applications) and nuclear fusion (which is a long way off, but in the works).

4. At the same time, I did not hear a lot of “breakthrough thinking” or fresh ideas at the conference. It is hard to completely reimagine our global energy system because of its scale. It is unlikely that anything (with the possible exception of, god forbid, world war) will change the game over night.

5. The overwhelming consensus among energy leaders of all stripes is that hydrocarbons will be with us for decades to come. As a result, many believe we need to emphasize carbon capture and sequestration efforts in addition to increasing supply from renewables and changing human behavior.

6. The electric car is about to arrive, possibly with a vengeance.

7. Localized production will become increasingly important, and is seen by many to offer great advantages over centralized production when and where it makes sense economically.

8. Our existing transmission grids are a joke and we need to make them smarter.

9. Our ability to process and store nuclear waste has improved dramatically over the last 20 years, but there are still challenges – in particular, cooperation between governments about where and how to store it.

10. Sustainability does not mean the same thing in the developed world as it does in the under-developed world. This is because they each emphasize different moral aspects of sustainability (as noted in point 2). Essentially, if you don’t have energy, you’re more willing to make environmental compromises in order to get it.

11. Our electricity system is increasingly becoming intertwined with our broadband system: this is a phenomenon that is loaded with its own set of challenges and opportunities.

12. Photovoltaics have potential, if we could make them economic.

13. China is a paradox. But who doesn’t love a good paradox?

14. My personal impression after listening to many government leaders speak, is that our current political systems are ill equipped to deal with the challenges we face in the future, including the energy challenge.

And a few notes on Montreal…

1. Two great restaurants I will go back to are Saloon (in the gay village) and Barroco.

2. Smoked meat sandwiches – what is the big deal?

3. Traffic lanes mean nothing; they are “rules of thumb” at best. Someone told me that driving in a straight line is “very Anglo.” Also, nobody signals to change lanes.

4. Everything is underground: the gyms, nightclubs, supermarkets, are often 2 or 3 stories below ground.

5. People are beautiful, wine is good, food is incred, cheeses are divine, and there is no shortage of style. I have been told this before, but didn’t really expect it to be as refreshing as it is.

6. One exception to the above: all the smokers. Ick.

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Raising the Level of Sophistication in the Oilsands Dialogue

March 30, 2010

I’m not sure what more there is to say. ;)

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Why the real solutions for a new energy future will come from Alberta.

January 6, 2010

About a year ago I was in Toronto for an event to discuss the future of energy in Canada, and happened to strike up a conversation with a professor from an established university there. She was adamant that four barrels of fresh water are consumed for every barrel produced. When I told her that this wasn’t the case, that producers have reduced the amount of water used to less than a barrel, that in a lot of cases it’s undrinkable water being used, not fresh water, and that the water is recycled with efficiencies of greater than 90%, she just shook her head violently and said “No! You’re wrong!” Well, I’m sorry. You’d think I would have known better.

You can only imagine my frustration in trying to explain to her that such a thing as SAGD exists, let alone how it works.

And nevermind when it comes to the THAI process, the use of light hydrocarbons as solvents to replace steam, underground well delivery, or any of the many environmental improvements that are in one stage of development or another. Let’s just say the conversation wasn’t going anywhere. The idea that innovation could improve things even more in the future – hogwash as far as this professor-on-a-mission was concerned.

And speaking of innovation, last fall I was involved in putting together a really great Corporate Social Responsibility initiative, designed to teach the innovation process to high-school students that live in a community tied to the oilsands.

In order to make the event as good as it could be, we contracted some of the greatest innovation experts in the world, from a hot industrial design shop in the silicon valley with a reputation for tackling some of the world’s tough problems. They were going to lead students through a two-day innovation workshop.

Eventually the supplier backed out. (It’s a long story, and to their credit they extricated themselves in a way that demonstrated integrity, providing a suitable replacement). I knew, that at least partially, it was their discomfort with Alberta’s less-than-ideally managed oilsands brand that had led to their decision to terminate the relationship. As one of the partners acknowledged, “the oilsands are a controversial space to participate in.”

But here’s the rub. Solutions for the future of energy are likely to come only from people who have a frame of reference that is both deep and wide enough to understand the realities of energy.

They need to be able to think in terms of vast distribution infrastructures. They need to be competent with math of millions of barrel of oil equivalents, and all the physical and economic realities that it takes to create them. They need to have an inside perspective on how and why energy is consumed, how it can be used efficiently, and what that means from the moment energy is captured to the moment it is used to drive a car down the road. (And even the moments after that, if we’re talking cradle to cradle).

And these people, no doubt some of them at least, will have cut their teeth in the training grounds of Alberta’s oilsands.

This province, which has learned some tough lessons in the last decade, has much to offer the world and much to be proud of. Let’s not forget that Alberta is home to some of the most sophisticated energy thinkers in the world. Now and in the future, it will be our province that supplies many of the solutions, the tried and true, the “unconventional” and even the curve-jumping, game changing ones.

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Why Satya Das’ Oilsands Tax is a Bad Idea

January 5, 2010
Satya Das’ book Green Oil has garnered significant attention, and he wrote an op-ed which appeared in the Globe and Mail yesterday.

While I agree with many of the points Das makes, particularly the idea that the oilsands can help fuel a cleaner energy future, the truth is government is largely ineffective at managing innovation, and that this is much better left to entrepreneurial corporations who are skilled at adapting quickly to change in ways that make economic sense.


Nor are governments good at betting on which innovations will succeed quickly and which ones will not. (Some might point to a narrow focus on investment in CCS as an example).

Yet another tax on the oilsands, putting even more money in the hands of government, would be one of the least successful ways to spur innovation in the energy space, and would further harm the business environment in Alberta. Instead, companies who innovate should receive incentives as encouragement to bring technological improvements to market faster. This would include both traditional oilsands companies and others who are seeking to drive the future of renewables and create the “next” energy infrastructure. By making Alberta a place where these kinds of companies can prosper and do business in a low cost environment, everyone wins.

The long term payoff to the people of Alberta for these innovations would be enormous. But let’s not kill the golden goose in order to hatch eggs which have not yet even been laid.

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Are people asking the wrong questions about climate and energy?

December 13, 2009

Climate change is definitely a hot topic, with Copenhagen, hacked emails, and studies by environmental groups being reported on daily. Almost everyone is weighing in.

Most of the debate hangs on the question of whether or not humans are causing a spike in global temperature, and to a lesser extent, whether or not the spike exists at all. On the surface, these seem like appropriate questions with which to begin, but one starts to wonder if they are borne of a limited understanding of what is ultimately required in order for humanity to navigate through this challenging time in history.

For those who are certain that climate change is happening and that it will be a catastrophe, I wonder why they are not asking “how can we adapt to a changing world, put systems in place to address the negative effects, and perhaps even capitalize on some of the changes in order to create advantages for the world?” Why is so much energy being focused on shifting away from carbon based fuels at a rate that would cause our world to unravel, and probably make any destabilization caused by rising temperatures seem like a pony ride?

And for those who don’t think climate change is going to be the catastrophe that many say it will be, shouldn’t we still be asking how we can conserve energy and make our social and technological infrastructure more efficient in order to be able to do more with less? Shouldn’t we still be thinking of energy as one of the most compelling issues of our time?

As much as climate change is a hot topic, it will ultimately pale in comparison to what I think will be the burning issue of our age: call it the “energy challenge”, or the “energy future”, or “energy economics”, or whatever you want. This question requires no scientific consensus; it is simply this: how in tarnation are we going to fuel the future? How, in a world where demand for energy is going gangbusters and conventional supplies are shrinking, will we manage to keep going?

I honestly believe, that when it comes to the challenges we as the human race will face in the next 50 years, the solutions will not be what we expect. But we need to start with better questions.

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Enhanced Oil Projects: A nice new name, but is it too late?

November 13, 2009

A major in situ oilsands player (Cenovus, formerly EnCana) has decided to remove the word “oilsands” from its vocabulary. The company says its SAGD projects should not be confused with mines. (Mines = the National Geographic photospread that everyone automatically thinks of when they hear the words oil and sands in the same sentence). In order to distinguish their drillable oilsands projects from mining, they are now calling their projects “Enhanced Oil Projects”. The word “enhanced” comes from “enhanced oil recovery”, a term specific to drillable in situ operations.

This does not seem like a black and white decision. There are both pros and cons to EnCana’s decision.

The Risks / Negatives

  • This move could be seen as disingenuous. Stakeholders may think that it is just an attempt to pull the wool over their eyes.
  • This will provide ammunition to special interest groups and NGO’s to criticize EnCana and promote distrust of “big oil”.
  • This seems like a distraction from the real issue: I.e. how to achieve balanced policy that ensures the long term competitiveness of our economy, a secure and stable energy supply, and embraces the paradoxes of the journey toward an energy infrastructure built on renewables.
  • Since it’s a distraction, the Greenpeace war room could very well take great pleasure in knowing that the Alberta’s oilsands (er, I meant enhanced oil) industry is involved in such a tactic. It gives them an opportunity to keep hammering their “climate crimes” message, while a big corporation diverts a whole bunch of resources to scraping the word oilsands from every presentation, web page, pamphlet and corporate document.
  • Oh yeah, rebranding = expensive! So somebody has to be hoping this will pay off.

The Potential Payoffs

  • The conversation about the oilsands has been dominated by the interest groups. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and for many people in the world, their first impression of the oilsands was decided by the NGO’s. I think that by changing the name of their projects, Cenovus hopes to “reboot” the discussion and reframe the way their projects are seen, which is understandable.
  • Mining and In Situ are two different sectors, with different advantages and challenges. I think Cenovus is right to want to tell the unique story of their projects.
  • This is a bold step that, if nothing else, demonstrates Cenovus’ belief that the framing is incorrect. To do something this drastic is a signal to the public that the conversation needs to change.

Okay, so what do they need to do in order to be successful?

  • Cenovus must be 100% transparent about the name change. They should have a page on their website that outlines what the name used to be and fully explains the change. They cannot sweep anything under the rug.
  • Cenovus must recognize that at the end of the day, brands belong to people, and people will ultimately decide whether companies are good or not, no matter what language those companies use to describe their practices.
  • Cenovus will need to listen to people, and they will need to ultimately demonstrate that their company is responsible and balanced in its approach.

One final thought
The energy challenge is probably the most compelling issue of our time. It is a complex, morally significant subject that involves every single human being on the planet. And it cannot be solved by looking at it from a single perspective.

The oilsands are only a part of this discussion, but to the extent that they are a part of it, they deserve comprehensive, meaningful dialogue that is both intelligent and from the heart – not “sloganeering,” which seems to come from both sides of the debate.

If the oilsands industry wants to take the discussion back from the interest groups, we should focus less on what names we go by, and more on engaging passionately and authentically in the public dialogue. We should seek to listen to and integrate all different perspectives on the topic (even if we acknowledge that some are more “rational” than others). And we should move past the dry, technical aspects of the discussion and focus on the human, moral aspects.

Personally, I think the interest groups have, up till now, totally dominated when it comes to the moral side of the debate. At the same time, I find their moral arguments to be unsophisticated, two-dimensional and incapable of standing up under scrutiny. It is my view that oilsands advocacy will actually get somewhere when it refuses to have the discussion within the terms of those two-dimensional arguments and starts to reframe the discussion within a more realistic, sophisticated big picture.

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Posted in Branding, The Energy Challenge | 5 Comments »

The Moral Argument for Oilsands Development

November 6, 2009

Here is my advice to the oilsands industry in Alberta:

This may seem like an anathema to engineers, geoscientists and accountants, but when it comes to the public debate over our industry, the truth is just not going to be enough. The anti-oilsands narrative continues to gain subscribers, not because it is true (I don’t believe it is), but because its emphasis on liberation from corporate domination – esoteric as the idea may be – is in step with the evolving social zeitgeist. The psychographics of the world’s population are shifting, and a growing number of individuals are coming to engage in social activism to overcome what they see as oppressive power structures. For some, this activism provides a profound sense of meaning.

The problem is, perhaps in their exuberance, anti-oilsands fundamentalists do not see the many layers and contexts that occupy the multidimensional and dynamic world of the energy challenge, now and in the future. Rather than embracing the complex paradoxes involved in the long journey toward a more efficient, cleaner, and sustainable global energy system, they have entirely overlooked the dignity of modernity, proclaiming that the whole thing is “hell on earth”.

But the paradoxes exist: Without energy – energy from hydrocarbons – the world would not exist as it is today, and society would not be as wonderfully complex as it is. It would, in fact, not be complex enough to give rise to the level of cognition out of which such social activism is capable of emerging in the first place.

In the future, the world will increasingly demand loads and loads of energy: to cure diseases, curb hunger, address inequities, foster development, advance human capabilities, and – in general – to work toward the project of the Enlightenment. Perhaps the jury is still out on whether that is a project that will succeed, but one thing is certain: it will require energy. And most of the energy available to fill that requirement in the foreseeable future will come from hydrocarbons, even if we invest aggressively in renewables, and even if we take massive steps toward greater efficiencies in the way we use it. (Incidentally, I think we absolutely MUST become more efficient in our energy use – whatever you think about climate change, the destabilizing impacts of an insufficient supply to meet global energy demand will be real.)

For these reasons, and many others, there is a compelling moral argument to be made for oilsands development. The question is, will we have the courage to make it?

Here is the key to unlocking this argument: The oilsands industry must resolve the tensions that are part of the fabric of contemporary culture: on the one hand people want creative freedom, the chance to experience and express all of who they are, and to evolve. On the other hand, even if it is not consciously acknowledged, there is an dark side, a sense of guilt involved in living one’s “best life”, because not everyone has these opportunities, and it feels like oppression. In Freudian terms, this shadow aspect of the way we live is too difficult for many to face. The guilt has been externalized and located in “dirty oil”, which is now functioning as a scapegoat.

Industry’s rhetorical task is to dismantle this framing and fearlessly tell the real story about energy. But in order to do so, we have a lot of “sloganeering” to overcome. We are about two years behind when it comes to participating in the dialogue. I hope that we are not too late.

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Being a climate change denier: Talk about a tough job!

November 4, 2009

A colleague showed me this series of articles by geologist Neil Hutton. They seem to raise some legitimate questions about the widely accepted theory that anthropogenic effects on the climate system are occurring as a result of CO2 emissions.

One thing I did not know is that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change‘s (IPCC) Summary for Policy Makers – the part that is actually read by media and people who make decisions that affect our lives – sometimes contains statements that directly contradict the actual scientific report. On precisely the main issue – whether or not humans are causing variation in global temperature.

Hutton provides data that seems to suggest sunspots have a measurable correlation to global temperature, whereas atmospheric concentration of CO2 does not.

Read Neil Hutton’s articles and decide for yourself:
Climate Change Series (for Reservoir Magazine Jan. – May 2009) – Dr. A Neil Hutton

So I really don’t know what to think about all this. But if what Mr. Hutton says is true, it seems to require an actual response from climate change proponents.

I don’t know if it is fair to just dismiss him as a “denier”. He seems to have thought this through. And if what he says is true, it looks as if it raises serious questions about the central arguments made by climate change activists. But sadly, I am not a climatologist. (Some days I really wish I was).

I guess I would like to hear what some other experts have to say about this article. Are Neil Hutton’s ideas, and those of other “deniers” really easily dismissible?

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Posted in The Energy Challenge | 5 Comments »

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