Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 12/11/2008 10:38:25 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
CALGARY, Alberta — Walk into the downtown Calgary office of U.S. Consul General Tom Huffaker, and he’ll show you his well-worn plastic bag of bitumen.
Huffaker, the U.S. government’s eyes and ears spanning a huge chunk of Canadian real estate covering two western provinces plus the expansive Northwest Territories, likes to pass around the bag containing several of the spongy, black chunks — made up of oil, sand, water and clay — as an icebreaker.
Up close, the tar-like bitumen may not seem like anything of particular value, but when complex, costly processing methods are applied, it becomes liquid gold. The resulting heavy oil extracted from the bitumen deposits in the oil sands around Fort McMurray in northeastern Alberta represents a major part of the future strategy of the United States to rely less on oil imported from Saudi Arabia or Venezuela.
In fact, Canada is already the No. 1 source of oil shipped to the U.S., accounting for nearly 20 percent of imports. Nearly 2 million barrels of crude are shipped from Canada to the U.S. each day, making up the majority of the total 3 million barrels a day of Canadian production. Only Saudi Arabia has more proven oil reserves under the ground than Canada.
Huffaker is happy to relay these types of facts to American visitors. He’ll also mention that, as the largest trading partner with the U.S., Canada ships huge volumes of natural gas and electric power south of the border each day. And millions of U.S. light bulbs run every day on nuclear power that owes its source to the province of Saskatchewan, the world’s largest uranium producer.
It’s all part of one of the most extensive trading relationships in the world. In 2007, Canada imported $220 billion worth of goods from the U.S. — its biggest trading partner — while exporting $356 billion worth of goods into the U.S., which works out to 80 percent of Canada’s total exports. The single bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario, with Detroit carries more goods back and forth each year than all of the goods shipped between Japan and the U.S.
Fueled by the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, Canada-U.S. trade now directly supports 7.1 million jobs, including 521,750 jobs in Texas. Some $12 billion in Texas exports headed north to Canada in 2007 — including $297 million worth of exports from Houston.
“Even if it’s our biggest trade relationship that doesn’t mean it can’t, and will, get bigger,” says Huffaker. “People often make a big issue about the future of that relationship when there’s going to be a new president or energy secretary, but there is always this bedrock relationship, and no matter who holds the big jobs on either side of the border, they know how important the relationship is.”
Huffaker helps U.S. companies that have recently relocated to his region of Canada deal with the governmental complexities of undertaking such a major step, and also might help stickhandle some U.S. regulatory issues for Canadian pipeline operators teaming up with U.S. partners to build projects south of the border.
“The biggest issue we deal with is the whole Canada-U.S. connection related to energy security, climate change and the oil sands. The U.S. government is pro-oil sands, but local decisions on environmental standards and carbon footprints are for Albertans and Canadians to make,” he says.
During the run-up to the hotly contested U.S. presidential election, energy was certainly on the minds of Americans when oil hit its peak of $147 a barrel in the summer. Although both Barack Obama and John McCain mentioned repeatedly about the need to wean the U.S. from its dependence on foreign oil, Huffaker and Canadian officials were confident that Canadian oil was excluded from that discussion.
“I’m pretty sure that when President-elect Obama is talking about foreign crude, he’s really talking about offshore crude, and not throwing in Canadian crude,” says Dave Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
“Naturally, we’re always concerned when people talk about restricting access to markets. But (Obama’s) clarifications about what he was talking about with foreign oil were certainly helpful.”
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was quick off the mark, calling for a new climate change pact to be negotiated with the U.S. within a day of Obama’s Nov. 4 election victory — seeking to quell what was seen as a rising tide of opposition within the Obama camp about so-called “dirty oil,” in reference to Alberta’s vast oil sands deposits — that are vital to the U.S. energy supply. Obama pledged during the campaign to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, about a 15 percent reduction.
Greenhouse gas emissions related to oil sand production are about 15 percent higher than for conventional crude, according to Collyer.
While both countries are looking at setting up new market-based emission trading systems, Collyer expects that the interdependence of the two countries will push both sides toward joint discussions. Both countries seem headed toward the goal of creating a more streamlined national policy rather than depend on the potpourri of emissions plans adopted by individual Canadian provinces or U.S. states.
California, for example, has passed regulations forcing gasoline marketers to reduce carbon emissions traced all the way back to their production sources.
“At the end of the day, Canada and the U.S. want their own policies on this issue, but collaboration is important,” Collyer says. “It makes sense to look at environmental policy within the context of energy policies, and whether a cap and trade system is really the right framework. If Canada and the U.S. can come to terms on a policy that makes senses for this continent, we’ll be in better shape to negotiate internationally.”
yes, energy independence means independence from OPEC. Independence from countries like Iran and Venezuela that want to screw us with a crisis if their demands aren’t met.
bookmark
Obama better shut up about this so-called “dirty oil” if he knows what’s good for him.
.
We have to get our oil from somewhere, since we seem to be too prissy to drill at home. Might as well send our money to Canadians- at least we know they won’t blow us up.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.