Whose Growth Is Second Only to China?

Holy Oil Revenue Batman. 12% growth for the past 4 years. Income doubled in the past ten years. Where is this economic powerhouse: India? China? No, the prarie province of Alberta.

[quote]Oil-rich Alberta is enjoying the strongest period of economic growth ever experienced by any Canadian province, according to a Statistics Canada study released Thursday.

Record oil prices, along with surging demand for energy and the perception of a dwindling global supply have created the conditions for the hottest economy in the country. Alberta’s nominal gross domestic product jumped 43 per cent between 2002 and 2005, and there is no sign of slowing down in 2006.

The ”unprecedented” economic boom has left Alberta with the lowest unemployment rate of any province in Canada — or any state in all of North America, Statscan said in a study published in the Canadian Economic Observer.

Globally, the frenzied economic expansion in Alberta is almost as strong as in China, which has the fastest rate among the world’s large economies. Since 2002, China has posted 14.8-per-cent average annual growth, compared with a 12.7-per-cent average in Alberta.[/quote]

theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ … ter_newsUp

Isn’t it just because of the price of oil or something? Won’t it stop when the price goes back does? And fix that link :stuck_out_tongue:

Those Albertian must be manipulating their currency or disregarding environmental issues up there.

It’s oil sands. Big money.

cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/ … 5184.shtml

[quote=“j99l88e77”]It’s oil sands. Big money.

cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/ … 5184.shtml[/quote]
Right, only while the price for oil is at a certain price. When it gets high enough, other people will be drilling holes looking for more oil (and whatnot), more will be found, the cost of extracting it from Canada will be too high, and all will be “back to normal.”

The oil sitting in the sand up there isn’t something new. It just costs too much to extract.

[quote=“miltownkid”][quote=“j99l88e77”]It’s oil sands. Big money.

cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/ … 5184.shtml[/quote]
Right, only while the price for oil is at a certain price. When it gets high enough, other people will be drilling holes looking for more oil (and whatnot), more will be found, the cost of extracting it from Canada will be too high, and all will be “back to normal.”

The oil sitting in the sand up there isn’t something new. It just costs too much to extract.[/quote]

Actually, it’s not too expensive in dollar terms, it’s too expensive in “energy terms”. It takes the energy equivalent of 2 barrels of oil to get 3 barrels of tar-sands oil. But the source of energy they use to extract tar sands is not oil but rather natural gas, which in a few years will also become much scarcer (yes, we’re running out of that too). It’s kind of crazy to turn natural gas into oil, but that’s basically what’s happening in Alberta. It might make sense economically (because natural gas is cheaper than oil), but it’s an environmental disaster.

Natural gas is a cleaner-burning fuel than oil. We should be using it to make electricity or heat homes, not converting it into oil. By using natural gas to make oil out of tar sands, we are nearly doubling the amount of CO2 we put in the atmosphere for every gallon of gasoline burned.

Investors have been making a killing off canadian oil trusts for years. Some have a 10% dividend payout, which due to some damn trade thing is 100% tax free for AMericans.

Who’s your daddy? :smiley:

But MTK is right, high oil prices are HELPING Albertans. If that easy oil is found in Mexico, hello Ghost Town.

[quote]
Natural gas is a cleaner-burning fuel than oil. We should be using it to make electricity or heat homes, not converting it into oil. By using natural gas to make oil out of tar sands, we are nearly doubling the amount of CO2 we put in the atmosphere for every gallon of gasoline burned.[/quote]

Yup. And the big NG run hasn’t even begun yet essentially because the US has no NG refineries. I own stock in a NG drilling company and when they aren’t drilling more and more holes in the ground, they are buying more equipment to do so.

IMHO the Canadian tar sands boom will be like the texan boom. It will go bust hard, but as it booms, no one cares.

What’s the difference? :wink: Besides, I said the cost was too high.

Alberta’s growth is unsustainable over the long term, of course. But in the short term, there’s loads of money to be made. The province is at full employment and there’s not enough workers to go around.

One critical area of worker shortage is in home building. On the radio last month, an interview with someone in the Alberta housing industry stated that they are so short on roofers that developers are willing to give free 1-year training to those that are willing. After a 1 year apprenticeship, the starting salary for roofers is about C$120,000 per year (over US$100,000) in the hottest markets and it’ll only go higher.

Forget teaching English. Come y’all with your hammers.

What’s the difference? :wink: Besides, I said the cost was too high.[/quote]

Natural gas is (currently) considerably cheaper than oil, so it’s profitable (in dollar terms) to waste it making oil out of tar sands. It is not profitable if you measure in BTUs (British Thermal Units). Eventually, we will hit “peak gas” and be in a shortage situation, and the price of NG will rise sharply. When that happens, it will no longer be profitable (in $$$ terms) to mine tar sands, and the whole operation will collapse rather dramatically. I can’t give you a date when that will happen, but geologists have been speculating maybe 5 to 10 years from now.

The oil companies have seriously proposed building nuclear powerplants in Alberta to support their tar sands extraction industry. Of course, they would like somebody else (the government?) to pay for this. Nuclear powerplants are a lot more expensive than burning natural gas, and of course if you build them, why not just use the electricity directly for heat and running electric trains (or electric cars), and dispense with the polluting tar sands industry? Every time you take a form of energy and convert it into another form (ie: NG to tar-sands oil) you lose a lot of energy in the process.

cheers,
DB

P.S. Last weekend I saw the move “Who Killed the Electric Car?” Great movie, not easy to find a theater showing it.

movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809353030/details

all the more reason to make Canada the 51st state of the United States of America…

“All you bases are belong to us!”

[quote=“creamypanda”]all the more reason to make Canada the 51st state of the United States of America…

“All you bases are belong to us!”[/quote]

Yes, we are terrified now that we have seen just how well you can invade and occupy another country.

[quote=“creamypanda”]all the more reason to make Canada the 51st state of the United States of America…
[/quote]

Didn’t NAFTA already do that?

Albert. But, it’s sooo cold.