{"id":65260,"date":"2024-11-09T09:18:17","date_gmt":"2024-11-09T17:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/energi.media\/?p=65260"},"modified":"2024-11-09T09:18:17","modified_gmt":"2024-11-09T17:18:17","slug":"alberta-needs-a-plan-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/energi.media\/markham-on-energy\/alberta-needs-a-plan-b\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta needs a Plan B"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oil finally has a competitor (electricity)<\/h2>\n

Alberta already has a Plan A. It\u2019s called the Emissions Reduction and Energy Development Plan<\/a>. To understand how risky it is, you need to understand OPEC\u2019s \u201cOil and Gas Forever\u201d worldview, which is the basis for how the Alberta government thinks about the energy future.<\/span><\/p>\n

OPEC\u2019s recently released World Oil Outlook 2050 forecasts mid-century oil demand at 120 million barrels per day, up from 103 million barrels currently. You read that correctly. Just as the global energy transition grabs another gear, perhaps two, the cartel is doubling down on the status quo.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

OPEC forecast comes with OPEC narrative<\/b><\/h3>\n

\u201cOPEC does not believe that energy sources are locked in a zero-sum game,\u201d Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais wrote in July, \u201cnor can the history of energy be reduced to a succession of energy replacement events.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"In other words, the energy future will look much like the past.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After 1945, the rapidly industrializing world couldn\u2019t get enough energy and primary energy demand skyrocketed, led by fossil fuels. Hydro and nuclear also grew rapidly, but were added to fossil fuels. Diversification, not displacement.<\/span><\/p>\n

OPEC thinks history will repeat itself. This time, the rapid growth of energy consumption will be led by emerging middle income economies in the Global South. An expanding middle class in India and Brazil and Indonesia want the same lifestyle as the North. The new voracious appetite for consumer goods will ensure that wind and solar are absorbed into the energy mix and do not displace hydrocarbons in the 21st century.<\/span><\/p>\n

Premier Danielle Smith and the oil and gas industry share OPEC\u2019s view.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s all Smith talked about during the World Petroleum Congress in Calgary a year ago. She pilloried the International Energy Agency for predicting peak oil demand by 2030, calling it a \u201cpolitical activist organization.\u201d Recently, she has mused about doubling Alberta\u2019s oil output to eight million barrels per day. Every second day it seems she is in the media excoriating Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for supposedly holding up West Coast LNG expansion.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Smith and OPEC, oil and gas are entering a golden age of expansion, not staring down the barrel of demand destruction.<\/span><\/p>\n

During her World Petroleum Congress press conference, I asked her if Alberta had a Plan B, just in case the IEA turned out to be right. Smith\u2019s long-winded politician\u2019s non-answer made it clear there is no Plan B.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n