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Originally Posted by Ducay
Good post IliketoPuck and a good linked article, solid summary at a macro level.
Excellent quote, I find "greenies" fail to understand this fact that oil demands keeps growing and growing as the world develops. Even if solar/renewables grow at a ridiculous pace (faster than they even are now), they will barely cover the growth in energy use, let alone replace the baseline 100 million bpd usage nowadays.
The world needs oil, will continue to use oil until renewables comes a long long way, and all we are doing in Canada is squandering the value we have been given.
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In addition to this, we aren't just squandering the value we have been given, we're actively killing the Canadian economy.
Green energy isn't like natural resources. The economy that revolves around green energy is based on the technology behind extraction, it has nothing to do with the energy itself. Green energy can't be exported because (cost wise) it makes significantly more sense to just import the technology and produce your own. Why pay for the energy produced by the sun, for example, when everyone has access to it.
We would be so, so much smarter to funnel this carbon tax into becoming a technology leader in green energy in order to drop our imports of the technology, position ourselves to export to emerging markets and have self-sustaining energy programs. "Green initiatives" would be a natural product of our technology leadership, it shouldn't be the first step.
I think something like 45% of our exports are directly related to petroleum products? That's a lot. Green tech wouldn't replace it, but having nothing to replace it while you actively kill it is insane.