Since the end of the “Olympic truce”, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has invaded Ukraine, supposedly to “denazify” this neighboring country. This war launched a shock wave, a real tsunami, across the world! Despite our sympathy for the Ukrainians, world leaders are showing great restraint to avoid the outbreak of a third world war. Among the negative effects we are experiencing here is the inflation of food and fuel prices. Two dollars for a liter of gasoline, as we saw a few weeks ago, it hits!
As a result, all of Canada’s oilies, from Jason Kenney to the Quebec Petroleum and Gas Association (APGQ, alias AEQ) and the Montreal Economic Institute (IEDM), shouted loud and clear that more oil and gas must be produced to break Europe’s unhealthy dependence on Russian hydrocarbons. It sounds populist, but it lacks realism. No offense to these merchants of mirages, building major infrastructure like the Energy East pipeline or the gas pipeline to the Saguenay, it takes a minimum of three years, even using the shortcuts of the fast lane.
Breaking 20,000 wells in the St. Lawrence Valley also takes time before things change for European countries. By then, Vladimir Putin’s war will be over for a long time, but we will be stuck with this oil infrastructure for at least 40 years. Which can only aggravate climate change!
The MEI proposes actions that cannot be implemented quickly. On the other hand, the International Energy Agency (IEA), where the real energy experts have been for a generation, “estimated that up to three million Russian barrels per day would be short from April and predicted that the “prospect of large-scale disruptions in Russian production threatens to create a global oil supply shock.”
To remedy this drop in supply, the IEA proposes 10 concrete actions that could reduce world consumption by 2.7 million barrels per day within 4 months. Their first point is to reduce the speed limit on highways by 10 km/h. Another point is to reduce public transport fares to increase ridership. Eight other small simple actions would immediately reduce energy scarcity. And as a bonus, these actions would also reduce the production of greenhouse gases (GHGs), which trigger climate change.
As for the suggestion of “replacing dictator Putin’s oil”, Chris Hatch of the National Observer points out that the oil market is global and that even a gas station located a few kilometers from a Canadian oil well will sell its gasoline according to the daily price of Brent. Worse ! The global oil market is dominated by regimes that disregard human rights. No matter where the molecule comes from, the transnational oil companies reap huge profits with the active complicity of the worst dictatorial regimes.
The petticoat of the IEDM protrudes. Its mission is to promote oil: “According to the Vancouver Observequoted in a paper by André Noël in Ricochet, the Koch brothers financed the MEI through their foundations. The MEI is formally associated with the Heritage Foundation, one of the many foundations supported by the Koch brothers and which promote oil, according to the Foundation’s latest annual report. »
If we are serious about reducing Russia’s energy blackmail on European economies, we must immediately reduce our consumption, as the IEA suggests. This would be a good start towards a planned decline in oil demand. It would also be a step towards a permanent transition in favor of green energies and a reduction of GHGs which would allow us to respect the Paris Agreement. The temporary shortages caused by the war in Ukraine would act as an accelerator towards a low-carbon economy, for the greater good of humanity, but to the chagrin of promoters of fossil fuels, such as Jason Kenney, the Koch brothers or the IEDM .
Wisdom dictates that we imitate the Norwegians. When they were big oil producers, they reaped the profits in Norway’s sovereign wealth fund. They are now making an energetic transition to electric mobility. More than 83% of new cars sold in Norway are electric vehicles, which do not need a drop of petrol. With such a policy, Norwegians are not dependent on the gas or oil of regimes with little respect for human rights, such as that of Vladimir Putin. This independence in terms of fossil fuels shields them from any implicit blackmail.