Quote:
Originally Posted by Table 5
Regardless of the timeline, the complete end of fossil fuels will just not happen...at least not without a drastic and draconian decrease of quality of life (and for many, life itself, because the impact would be massive). I don’t think many truly understand how much coal/oil/gas increased our quality of life over the last 200 years, and how much of our entire modern existence relies on them. It's not just about life without gas powered cars. It's life without the entire car, and virtually everything else we use today. Life without plastic. Without industrial fertilizer. Without medicines. Without rubber. Without steel. Without microchips. All these things are built from, or with, the critical use of fossil fuels and minerals. I mean life did exist before these things, but it was a much harsher and shorter one.
Now even if you ignore all that, and you're ready to party like its 1799 because you only care about the environmental impact, I think it's critical to understand that while time marches forward and new technologies will replace older technologies, the end of fossil fuels use does not equal the end of us getting our hands dirty. Natural extraction is here to stay no matter what technology you champion. Society does not happen without something being removed, dug up, grown, or hunted from nature. Never has, never will. From the first caveman who picked up a rock, to building the bleeding edge renewable technology, we’ve been exploiting natural resources to survive and thrive since Day 1. Life is extremely energy intensive, and will continue to be so, regardless of your favourite technology you want to replace fossil fuels with.
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The fact is our ability to extract and development fossil fuel resources in a clean & sustainable way has been severely compromised because of the stupid idea that we actually need to END fossil fuel usage instead.
Canada has been a world leader in developing the technology that allows countries & companies around the world to develop their fossil fuel resources at lower emissions. But because that hasn't allowed to continue, and because our government bodies have effectively created a regulatory nightmare that discourages more investment, everything has stalled.
If the argument that more time and money had been invested into battery technology = battery technology that allows to switch away from fossil fuels, why is that argument also not true when it comes to natural gas development?
If Canada would have been allowed to go full scale ahead with developing natural gas plays, is it unrealistic to expect that we'd have plays coming online at less than 0.03 percent?
We are already up to 5x more efficient than the US, how much more efficient are we than every other country, and can you imagine exporting that technology? We could literally solve the emissions problem in 5-10 years. But no, gas = evil. No compromise.