We’re not running out of oil.
The August sale of oil and gas dispositions brought $95.8 million into the province’s coffers, compared to the $14.8 million the August sale raised in 2009.
“It shows the level of commitment to the province that the oil sector has,” Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd said. “Clearly companies are stepping up and bidding very strongly into the oil sector of our province.”
Boyd said the latest land sales report is a good indicator that the strong drilling activity experienced so far this year will continue.
A government report earlier this week showed that 1,253 oil wells have been drilled in the first seven months of 2010, a 96 per cent increase over 2009 when only 639 oil wells were drilled.
Much of the oil industry’s interest continues to be focused on the southeast part of the province, where the oil-rich Bakken formation is located.
(On a related topic, we’re calling the latest installation* “McMillan #7”.)
Oil & gas are natural resources. If something is not useful it is not a resource. If a farmer found oil bubbling up from his water well 200 years ago he fell to his kness and asked God what he had done to be so cursed. Oil was of no value as it was not useful.
My highly trained mind is certain there are things in this Earth for which we currently have no use and, therefore, these things are not natural resources (they are natural but not resources). A some garage in Tractor Rut, SK (or Tiny Town, ON) there may be some fellow who is close to an invention or discovery which will create a HUGE demand for one of these natural non-resources and the non-resource will become VITAL to our national interest (and must be taxed/ nationalized whatever).
Oil will eventually cease to be an energy source as did whale oil. If the collectivists don’t kill inititive, something better will be found to replace oil.
Just my thoughts.
Perhaps good feelings can be captured to produce energy. Like, if we all start to think good thoughts and do away with the evil of the past.
Don’t laugh. It *could* theoretically work.
From IMDB Pro: ‘Foundation’: A mathematical genius and heretic named Hari Seldon predicts the fall of civilization. 1,000 years later, a mysterious entity begins to over-run the galaxy.
Uranium is a natural resource also. Go Nuclear!
btw, don’t know if you guys saw it here, but they are clear-cutting 20 square kilometers of forest in Denmark, in order to build a wind power facility.
Wind power serves an important political purpose. By committing to large scale wind production, it has allowed the Ontario government to defer the hard question about new nuclear plants.
At the same time, the wind construction allows the government to pretend that the coal phaseout in 2014 can still happen. It may make no sense whatsoever in terms of energy supply, but it makes great sense in politics, as it allows the provincial Liberals to outflank the NDP on environmental issues.
Who knows? They may even believe their own propaganda. Brad Duguid is not exactly the sharpest pencil in the drawer.
Destroy the Middle East there will be enough resources for everyone else thereafter!
Seems to me like they are the most selfish bastards on earth. Share it – or die!
I felt a Federation of Planets moment just now, all goosebumpey and liberal inside.
No, oil isn’t running out, but good oil is. The EROI of oil newly found oil reserves are often quite low, much lower than easy to extract ME oil. The oil sands are the worst source of energy in terms of the EROI…that’s including all the alternative energy sources too.
“Destroy the Middle East there will be enough resources for everyone else thereafter!
Seems to me like they are the most selfish bastards on earth. Share it – or die!”
Wow, so, so, so utterly ignorant of facts. You clearly don’t have a clue about US-British-ME history. The ME has been handing over it’s oil on whatever terms are laid out by US-Britain for decades, while any nationalistic endeavors have been suppressed with facade ME governments, coups, and support for dictators all coming from the US tax payer.
Good to see you guys get two legs up finally, you have deserved it after years of moronic ndpeers running the province into transfer payments, there is nothing more demeaning to a person than accepting welfare when they know they want to work. That is what socialists want to achieve, like Obongo, make everyone dependant on the state, like Turdoh did and the great Russian count would do very quickly if Canada were stupid enough to follow the morons in the cbc ctv and Peeair Bourques world and elect Jiggy Iggy as PM.
Otter, don’t expect the green wackjobs to complain about Denmark clear-cutting those 20 square kilometers. Its for the cause of course.
Thanks bartinsky, love the way you say it.
The Kyoto Peak Oilers are taking the Mother Of All Baths. Even their Ace In The Hole, the gulf “disaster”, has turned against them. The world now knows oil is not all that bad and there is a he!! of a lot left down there.
From Sask to Alberta, the ultimate in horizontal drilling.
It would be so kool and deserving if it was actually ‘Kate #7’ !!
Good on Saskatchewan for escaping the shackles of the ‘noble poor’ philosophy that held it down for so long.
We in Alberta are busy cleaning up Mother Nature’s oil spill in our north.
Psssst. Let you guys in on a little secret. The oil sands continue over into Saskatchewan. Get busy!
The Danes’ current clear cutting for a mega wind farm….????
The Danes’ experience with wind parallels Germanys experience…..intermitant needing another standby. Denmark can export wind in return for hydro and nuclear power from Norway and Sweden. Germany needs Natural Gas generators making wind doubly pricy.
Germany is ending it’s wind adventure but Denmark exports wind-mills so feels it needs to promote wind.
The excuse for clearing the forest is to spread the wind resource to gain reliability. Only one problem—Denmark is so small that when the wind dies over Horn’s Reef….it also dies in the north…… Denmark is much smaller than Newfoundland.
There is merit to Norm and cgh posts….
BTJ …….boiler-plate…….
Saskatchewan should make hay before the Environmentalists move in.
I found this site that explains how Environmentalism is Fascism
http://www.ecofascism.com/
One of the articles is:
The Environmental Movement in Alberta
Environmentalism is the confluence of several global forces. Firstly, there is the effort by metropoles to undermine hinterland development. From Europe’s perspective, most of the Earth is hinterland. The main North American metropole is the US Northeast. In Canada, the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor suppresses the West and North. Secondly, environmentalism is a campaign by regions poorly endowed with oil and coal to pry humanity away from these economical energy sources. Perpetrating this campaign are the metropoles (Europe, US Northeast, and central Canada). The main victim is the North American Midwest, Alberta in particular. Thirdly, environmentalism is the arch-conservative landed interest’s asphyxiation of economic liberalism, especially its smothering of open markets in land.
http://www.ecofascism.com/article21.html
If we could only harness all the hot air coming from the Neo-con anti-environment crowd, our energy problems would be solved.
BTJ – I had to look up EROI – “Energy Return on investment”. Obviously I agree with your statements that ME oil has a far superior EROI, because it’s true.
Nuclear – I also agree with Otter – we should have been going that way years ago!!
Interestingly – I’ve read some stuff recently about oil being a renewable resource – bubbling up from below – as per an article in the Wall Street Journal referencing Eugene Island
http://www.biosulf.org/1/pop41.htm
By the way – the statement “we’re not running out of oil” is misleading. If you’re over at a friend’s house, and drinking wine, and he keeps going in to the cellar to bring up another bottle after you finish – you have no clue if he has one bottle left in the basement, or several cases.
“If we could only harness all the hot air coming from the Neo-con anti-environment crowd, our energy problems would be solved.”
Agreed!
“BTJ – I had to look up EROI – “Energy Return on investment”. Obviously I agree with your statements that ME oil has a far superior EROI, because it’s true.”
Nuclear has a huge EROI, which is why I favour it as a potential energy source. The biggest problem with oil is not so much that we’re running out of it, it’s that we’re running out of easily extracted oil. New sources such as tar sands and shales have significantly lower EROI’s than most other sources of energy, lower than wind, lower than solar, lower than geothermal and not even on comparable to ME oil or nuclear.
Keep pumping ‘er outa the ground lads!
You’ve got Quebec’s in vitro fertilization program to pay for.
I moved back to Saskatchewan after 13 years in Alberta. As soon as Stelmack was elected things went down hill fast. After Ralph left the Alberta PC party turned into the Alberta Liberal Party Lite. I wonder if there are any ‘Miss me?’ Ralph Klein billboards in Calgary?
When I left SK the province was still under NPD control and the defeatist ‘we can’t do that here’ attitude was well entrenched. The Sask Party has turned things around and it will be a long time before you see another NDP government in SK. Once you start treating people like grown-ups it’s hard to go back to the old system.