Alberta Politics Thread v2

[puckedoff]

Lets just rename the pipeline the Hyperloop and then Vancouver will want it.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

If its pellets can we use a rail gun?

Ballistic Bitumen.

[Tacopuck]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

Lets just rename the pipeline the Hyperloop and then Vancouver will want it.

All TMX needs to win over Vancouver support is an over-filtered instagram account with snarky comments

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

What about transportation on trucks? That would be a game changer I would think.

It's being done on a small scale. It's hugely expensive and the quantities that can be moved are small compared to rail or pipe so it is not the first choice. Our Ops manager in Estevan is saying there is some stuff being trucked to North Dakota as prices are better there and you can actually get a shipping allowance in a pipeline.

[White Out 403]

There's a video on the AB NDP where Kenney is recently asked if he regrets bragging in San Fran about denying gay partners from visiting their sick and dying partners in hospitals. I can't find a youtube of the video, so the transcript is roughly:

reporter: do you regret that in hindsight?

kenney: we all say things we regret

reporter: *presses* well, how about that thing specifically?

kenney: with a rather emotionless face and shaking his head no ...sure..

I felt like it was an episode of lie to me it was that bad. What an #######.

https://www.facebook.com/AlbertaNDP/...079206062/?t=5 (hope this link works)

My favourite part is he is nodding when he says "there are things I regret in life that I've said" and he then right away shakes his head no when he says "sure"to that specific thing lol

God I love how transparent we are as human beings.

[Bownesian]

^^^
Deja vu.

Back to pipelines, I was thinking the other day about the export problem with the Refinery idea.

Energy East involved converting TCPL's natural gas line to the Ontario/Quebec border to take Dilbit. Is it technically feasible that the natural gas portion of the line instead be converted to accept refined products like the existing Trans Mountain line so that a hypothetical new Alberta refinery could send refined products (and synthetic crude as needed) east to Ontario to be distributed from there?

We'd then crack and refine the bitumen here, ship refined products to market (and synthetic crude to Ontario refineries that need it), ship petcoke by train where it's needed (probably west), and it might make the Alberta refining option more feasible.

[Ozy_Flame]

Further to Kenney's comments from White Out 403, that incident appears to be connect to this today:

United Conservative Party board member quits party over concerns about Jason Kenney’s record on LGBTQ rights

An openly gay member of the United Conservative Party has left over leader Jason Kenney’s “troglodyte words” about gay rights.

On Thursday, Cody Johnston, a board member and campaign manager for the UCP, sent a letter to executive director Janice Harrington saying he wanted to be removed from all party boards and have his membership cancelled.

“I can no longer sit on any UCP board with a leader like Jason Kenney,” said Johnston during an interview.

“He was elected to serve people in his constituency and Albertans across the province as a whole. You don’t get to pick and choose who you represent.”

[DiracSpike]

Originally Posted by Bownesian

^^^
Deja vu.

Back to pipelines, I was thinking the other day about the export problem with the Refinery idea.

Energy East involved converting TCPL's natural gas line to the Ontario/Quebec border to take Dilbit. Is it technically feasible that the natural gas portion of the line instead be converted to accept refined products like the existing Trans Mountain line so that a hypothetical new Alberta refinery could send refined products (and synthetic crude as needed) east to Ontario to be distributed from there?

We'd then crack and refine the bitumen here, ship refined products to market (and synthetic crude to Ontario refineries that need it), ship petcoke by train where it's needed (probably west), and it might make the Alberta refining option more feasible.

It's a neat idea, one drawback though is you would still have to compete with the local eastern refineries that are currently supplying them, and they have a massive advantage being so close. One benefit to the hypothetical refineries here would be the cheaper feedstock compared to the premium Brent that the eastern refineries import but I don't think it would be enough.

[Frequitude]

If an Albertan refinery made economic sense, private industry would have already built one. Occam’s Razor.

Refineries are bad investments. The golden age of refinery construction is over. There’s a reason Northwest could only be built once Albertans effectively guaranteed the debt.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

If an Albertan refinery made economic sense, private industry would have already built one. Occam’s Razor.

Refineries are bad investments. The golden age of refinery construction is over. There’s a reason Northwest could only be built once Albertans effectively guaranteed the debt.

CBC column on refinery's that touches on what your saying


https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/alb...4941644http://

xperts say Alberta already has more refinery capacity than it needs and the biggest problem facing the province's oilpatch remains unsolved — a lack of export pipeline space.


"It sounds, if I may be so blunt, like a little bit of desperation," said Roger McKnight, chief petroleum analyst with En-Pro International.
"What is the market? Where is it going? How does it get out of the country?"

Calgary-based petroleum industry analyst Michael Ervin doesn't expect there will be much interest from industry to build a new refinery in Alberta without a sizeable subsidy.


"I doubt that the private sector will really see a business case for this unless the Alberta government was willing to ante up close to the entire cost of building a refinery," said Ervin, who estimates the cost of constructing a typical refinery at around $15 billion.

To me it just doesn't make sense to throw a bunch of money into refineries unless we're guaranteed pipeline access to tide water or anywhere for that matter.


If we build another refinery, its just going to create more of a products surplus.

[Dion]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1073586893793579008

[Jacks]

Kenney should pick his battles a little better. You can criticise Notley for a lot of things but being vocal about troubles facing the oil industry, at least lately, isn't one of them.

[Frequitude]

On the separation front, I’d cut BC into our oil riches and take them with us. It’s what they’ve wanted all along anyway...a share of the royalties to account for their perception of the risk. They get oil money now, we get tidewater now, and we’d all also get a share of the nat gas industry which some think will become the dominant energy source in the future. Add in Saskatchewan’s agriculture, fertilizer, uranium, and oil, and we’d finally have some leverage to renegotiate a very one sided confederation.

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by Jacks

Kenney should pick his battles a little better. You can criticise Notley for a lot of things but being vocal about troubles facing the oil industry, at least lately, isn't one of them.

Exactly. Stick to the easy wins like a carbon tax they didn’t campaign on, that even worse the carbon tax was terribly constructed, the PPA fiasco, the deficit, all the pro-union anti-oil people in her government, etc.

The last type of fight Kenney should be getting into is one based on if 10-20 year old actions are a true representation of one’s current self.

[killer_carlson]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

On the separation front, I’d cut BC into our oil riches and take them with us. It’s what they’ve wanted all along anyway...a share of the royalties to account for their perception of the risk. They get oil money now, we get tidewater now, and we’d all also get a share of the nat gas industry which some think will become the dominant energy source in the future. Add in Saskatchewan’s agriculture, fertilizer, uranium, and oil, and we’d finally have some leverage to renegotiate a very one sided confederation.

All of BC or just interior and north?

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

On the separation front, I’d cut BC into our oil riches and take them with us. It’s what they’ve wanted all along anyway...a share of the royalties to account for their perception of the risk. They get oil money now, we get tidewater now, and we’d all also get a share of the nat gas industry which some think will become the dominant energy source in the future. Add in Saskatchewan’s agriculture, fertilizer, uranium, and oil, and we’d finally have some leverage to renegotiate a very one sided confederation.

You'd have to bring Manitoba into the fold for all that eventual Hudson's Bay beachfront property.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

All of BC or just interior and north?

Leave Vancouver out please

[Frequitude]

Nah, all of BC. I know it’s tough to say given how big of dinks they’ve been to us, but we need to be honest, we need tidewater. So does Saskatchewan. And we want their nat gas reserves and LNG infrastructure. Manitoba can come too.

Imagine all that leverage over the east. “Sooo were going to take your food, wood, energy, fertilizer, uranium. And we’re just going to buy your manufactured goods and mining materials from Asia.”

Obviously nowhere near that simple and largely tongue in cheek. However BC definitely needs to be part of any successful separation idea/threat.

[transplant99]

Kenney has made it clear now that if elected he will spur reform on the equalization issue by holding a referendum that (if passed by voters) would require the feds to sit down and re-negotiate things in good faith using the SC decision of the Quebec Secession Reference.

Get ready for an ad blitz after the new year to get their message out.

The UCP numbers:

We have made a net contribution of $220 billion to the rest of Canada through our federal taxes over the past decade. We have been the country’s greatest job creation engine. We have moved tens of thousands of Canadians from poverty to prosperity.

Events this week have shown that Alberta is being taken advantage of.

Every year Alberta sends $20,000,000,000.00+ (20 BILLION) in transfers to other provinces through the federal government.

I don't think he is any to pleased with Premier Legault either

Quebec is the main beneficiary of Alberta-funded federal transfers, even though:

We have a huge deficit, while they have a big surplus;
Our economy is smaller than it was four years ago, while Quebec’s economy has been booming;
Our unemployment rate is higher than Quebec’s;
Quebec refuses to allow exploration for oil & gas; and
Quebec has lower tuition rates, daycare rates, and corporate taxes.
And would it be too much to ask provinces that benefit from Alberta’s resources to not stand in the way of us getting a fair price for those resources?

Instead, we are getting insults and blockades.

Justin Trudeau recently gave Quebec a veto over New Brunswick’s effort to revive the Energy East pipeline.

Quebec’s new Premier, Francois Legault, immediately exercised that veto by saying that “there is no social acceptability for dirty Alberta oil in Quebec.”

“Dirty Alberta oil?”

“Social respectability?”

Quebecers consume 360,000 barrels of gas and diesel every day, much of it imported. They benefit massively from wealth generated by Alberta energy. But the Quebec Premier condemns that energy as “dirty,” while saying he will block our effort to ship it to Eastern Canada and global markets?

This is how our generosity is repaid in our time of need?

[CaptainCrunch]

If you want to stunt the rising separatist mood in Alberta then hold the referendum on equalization. However I doubt even if we voted on negotiating on equalization that the Federal Government would allow the formula to be changed because frankly Quebec is too important politically.