Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[CalgaryKid12]

Originally Posted by PaperBagger'14

One of my favourite engineer stories was during a training day on a specific piece of test equipment we had a guy from the US doing a demo and explaining operating procedures. At one point the presenter said “we normalize our test values to 70 degrees ambient”.

A P Eng then asked “is that in Celsius or Fahrenheit?”. Well s*** for brains, if it’s 70 Celsius ambient in your room it probably means it’s on fire.

You should probably stop using that story lol... 70C is only 158F. I cook my pizza at 450F (232C), it aint on fire.

Sounds like it was a likely a valid question (depending on the material obviously).

[you&me]

Originally Posted by Wolven

I mean... if we were to ride the joke to competition, the answer is that the Oil and Gas sector know that Peak Oil is way sooner than they want the public to believe and their plan is to ride out the current generation of intelligence until the industry craters. No future investment is needed as that will just bleed $$ away from the profit bucket.

Also, "common sense" would tell us that when humanity passes peak oil demand and demand starts declining, the most expensive methods of extraction will be the ones to fail first under a contracting market.

At that point, if Alberta doesn't have a strong back up industry to fall back on, the whole province is going to become one of those ghost towns where everyone flees to other locales, the housing market crashes, and people, companies, and the whole province go bankrupt.

I assume you're referring to the oil sands as the most expensive method for extraction in the bolded?

I read recently that the oil sands are now costing less per barrel than anywhere else in North America. The reason they're perceived to be so expensive is the massive capex required to get the mines up and running... But once they are, the opex is relatively minor and the life of the mines are measured decades, rather than years or even months with some of the traditional drilled wells.

I'm far from an O&G shill - literally zero connection for me or my extended family - but it seems sensible to me that if someone is going to produce those last barrels, it might as well be us... To put it indelicately, the damage has been done (with regard to the mines, etc)... we might as well wring out as much as we can from it.

[puffnstuff]

Who is gonna tell them what the ambient temp is referring to in that scenario?

[Mr.Coffee]

Peak oil eh? Bold claim…

[PaperBagger'14]

Originally Posted by CalgaryKid12

You should probably stop using that story lol... 70C is only 158F. I cook my pizza at 450F (232C), it aint on fire.

Sounds like it was a likely a valid question (depending on the material obviously).

Any engineer who’s been involved in electrical equipment testing should also be aware that the vast majority of tests are normalized to room temp (20c//70f). The room in question is not an oven and the equipment is not a pizza lol. The only way possible for this particular room to reach 70C would be catastrophic equipment failure.

It would be a valid question if you had a room temperature IQ.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Citation needed.

Every engineer I ever met in university was no genius. Engineering failure rate is high (though lower than computer science, agriculture or advertising) but I suspect it's because it's a program that attracts people whose parents think it leads to a job versus being suited for that degree.

First year engineers have a lot less responsibility than first year teachers.

Brains or not, Engineering is a brutal program based on workload alone. First year in particular weeds out a lot of students. I heard that UofA has a target of 50% attrition in first year (second hand info from a student). And actually many engineers are geniuses and many have suspect social skills, with a pretty large overlap.

[Drak]

My wife has a degree in Electrical Engineering from Caltech. I like to brag.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by you&me

I assume you're referring to the oil sands as the most expensive method for extraction in the bolded?

I read recently that the oil sands are now costing less per barrel than anywhere else in North America. The reason they're perceived to be so expensive is the massive capex required to get the mines up and running... But once they are, the opex is relatively minor and the life of the mines are measured decades, rather than years or even months with some of the traditional drilled wells.

I'm far from an O&G shill - literally zero connection for me or my extended family - but it seems sensible to me that if someone is going to produce those last barrels, it might as well be us... To put it indelicately, the damage has been done (with regard to the mines, etc)... we might as well wring out as much as we can from it.

Absolutely, go clean that dirt and use the byproduct. The roads are built, the trucks are moving, and there is money to be made. (Just make sure you have enough money for the endgame of restoring the land after the market bottoms out.)

It will get tougher and tougher though as everyone pushing to cash out on the game. OPEC is seeing diminishing returns on their market manipulations and are now pushing more into selling as much as they can while they can. If they can keep pumping out cheap oil below the ~$20 per barrel mark (or whatever it is nowadays) that an oil sands might need to stay at to stay profitable then Alberta companies will be in trouble.

At the same time, OPEC countries are investing big money into renewables. It is almost as if they are saying one thing (oil will last forever) and doing another thing (preparing for the end of oil).

The UCP are simply not that clever. New money should be allocated to building a new industry that can keep this province running after O&G enters it's twilight but the UCP actually believe the propaganda that oil will last forever... or worse yet, they know it won't and would rather crash our province into bankruptcy than actually plan for the future. So of course they keep chasing new money after the old industry instead of prioritizing anything else.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by Wolven

Absolutely, go clean that dirt and use the byproduct. The roads are built, the trucks are moving, and there is money to be made. (Just make sure you have enough money for the endgame of restoring the land after the market bottoms out.)

It will get tougher and tougher though as everyone pushing to cash out on the game. OPEC is seeing diminishing returns on their market manipulations and are now pushing more into selling as much as they can while they can. If they can keep pumping out cheap oil below the ~$20 per barrel mark (or whatever it is nowadays) that an oil sands might need to stay at to stay profitable then Alberta companies will be in trouble.

At the same time, OPEC countries are investing big money into renewables. It is almost as if they are saying one thing (oil will last forever) and doing another thing (preparing for the end of oil).

The UCP are simply not that clever. New money should be allocated to building a new industry that can keep this province running after O&G enters it's twilight but the UCP actually believe the propaganda that oil will last forever... or worse yet, they know it won't and would rather crash our province into bankruptcy than actually plan for the future. So of course they keep chasing new money after the old industry instead of prioritizing anything else.

I think we're on the same page... I've often said that the companies populating Calgary's downtown core are (or should be considered) energy companies... A lot of the skill sets, infrastructure, etc are fairly easily transferable to renewables, etc... While it's easy to criticise, there's a lot of brain power running those companies and while some might miss the boat, it seems unlikely to me that the majority of O&G workers - rather than finding a transition - will simply pack their bags & close up shop while saying "we had a good run"

[puffnstuff]

From the Pembina Institute in regards to the future of oil industry employment

Employment figures demonstrate the impact that this has had on workers. Where once the level of employment in the sector was characterised by periods of ‘boom’ and ‘bust’, depending on fluctuations in the global oil price, after 2012 jobs became decoupled from profits and production levels. Employment in the sector peaked in 2012, at 38 jobs per thousand barrels of oil per day produced. By 2023, it was at 22 jobs per thousand barrels — a 43% decrease, despite the fact that oil and gas production grew 47% during the same period.

Given the pace of the international energy transition, not only do we expect this trend to continue, we expect it to be exacerbated in the years ahead. In the next decade, as Canada’s oil and gas industry faces a global market in which demand for its products is plateauing and beginning to fall, the sector is likely to be smaller overall, and the companies that remain will double down on these cost-cutting behaviours. Governments — especially those with significant oil and gas production in their jurisdiction — have a responsibility to acknowledge this new reality and prepare workers for it.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Peak oil eh? Bold claim…

Is it? I definitely do not view that as a very bold claim. I have always viewed it as an eventual certainty that is going to happen no matter what. All people can really argue about is "when" and "how". 40 years ago all of the talk was around "peak oil supply" but now the conversation has flipped to "peak oil demand".

But I am not sure "when" really matters because the timing to change based on any number of variables:
1) Advancements of new technology
2) Adoption of alternative technologies (current or bleeding edge)
3) Government policies driving the transition
etc.

If "when" is not the most important part of the topic then I would argue that all that really matters is having a plan in place to successfully transition (you want to be Netflix instead of Blockbuster).

The UCP clearly have no such plan, which is dangerous because anyone rubbing two thoughts together should be able to see that having an energy transition plan needs to be a top priority for a place like Alberta that relies SO heavily on exporting legacy energy.

As an exporter of O&G our priority should be to keep exporting and eliminating our reliance on O&G as fast as possible. That way, once we are 100% independent of the O&G sector, any additional money we make from it is a bonus that we know will go away as soon as the rest of the world catches up.

The UCP plan is to try an increase our reliance on O&G which means that the moment that industry struggles, Alberta is screwed.

[photon]

Originally Posted by edslunch

I heard that UofA has a target of 50% attrition in first year (second hand info from a student).

When I did my Electrical Engineering degree we started with like 35.. 3 graduated.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by you&me

I think we're on the same page... I've often said that the companies populating Calgary's downtown core are (or should be considered) energy companies... A lot of the skill sets, infrastructure, etc are fairly easily transferable to renewables, etc... While it's easy to criticise, there's a lot of brain power running those companies and while some might miss the boat, it seems unlikely to me that the majority of O&G workers - rather than finding a transition - will simply pack their bags & close up shop while saying "we had a good run"

Yes, our views are not that different but I think our conclusions differ.

I used to agree but over the last 5 years most of the companies in Calgary have dropped their masks with regard to being "energy" companies. They are dumping renewable projects left and right and appear to be stripping down their workforces to the bare bones needed to keep the lights on while the people at the top maximize profits.

Truly, I do not think the brainpower at the top of these companies care at all about the future of Alberta. They are going to make so much money that the moment Alberta is unprofitable they will have new jobs making profit somewhere else in the world. It is the workers who are going to get crushed by the lack of a transition plan for the province.

Smith has driven away $33B in investments into renewable energy in Alberta, which eliminates a lot of those energy transition jobs that people should be moving into as they are removed from the O&G sector. If Alberta has no new jobs and no new industry then what are the unemployed people going to do? Packing their houses and leaving may become their only choice.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

From the Pembina Institute in regards to the future of oil industry employment

Employment figures demonstrate the impact that this has had on workers. Where once the level of employment in the sector was characterised by periods of ‘boom’ and ‘bust’, depending on fluctuations in the global oil price, after 2012 jobs became decoupled from profits and production levels. Employment in the sector peaked in 2012, at 38 jobs per thousand barrels of oil per day produced. By 2023, it was at 22 jobs per thousand barrels — a 43% decrease, despite the fact that oil and gas production grew 47% during the same period.

Much of the populist resentment the UCP exploits comes from O&G workers and former workers who feel the only thing preventing the 2003-2012 boom from returning is evil Easterners and environmentalists. Energy company bigwigs and cynical politicians are happy to foster that lie. Because yeah, the truth is that the O&G sector will never be a mass employer in this province again, the way it was 15 years ago. There will still be high-paying professional jobs in Calgary’s office towers, but fewer of them. And far fewer rig servicing jobs out in the patch, the kind that saw guys with high school degrees pulling in $100k+.

Expanding pipeline capacity will be good for Alberta’s (and Canada’s) finances by generating royalties and taxes. But someone needs to tell the public the truth about the end of mass employment in the sector.

[TheIronMaiden]

2003-2012 was an amazing anomaly, but it was not normal. Normal is hard times, and we are not quite there, rather than being grateful we bitch that we had cake last year, and this year all we get is toast in jam. Old timers know that sweets are sweets. People in their 40s and 50s would rather watch their toast grow cold than admit they squandered the greatest opportunity in their lives to set their family up for generations.