Recomended Energy Reads
Black Bonanza: Canada's Oil Sands and the Race to Secure North America's Energy Future
- Details
- Category: Recommended Energy Reads
- Written by Peter McKenzie-Brown
By Alastair Sweeny
|
|
 |
Book review by Peter McKenzie-Brown
By the time you’ve finished Alastair Sweeny’s fine but controversial book, you’re likely to have quite a different perspective on Alberta’s oilsands.
You may already be puzzled at the thought that, in an energy-hungry world, the second-largest petroleum deposit on Earth is being tarred by many brushes. You have probably already heard that the oilsands is a dreadful source of “dirty oil” because production emits climate-altering carbon dioxide, consumes tremendous amounts of water and leaves vast volumes of toxic compounds in hazardous tailings ponds. An articulate champion of the oilsands industry, Sweeny uses good research to challenge all those claims.
For a rollicking good read with a small number of clearly defined messages, Sweeny’s Black Bonanza really hits the mark. Consider two of the many questions he raises in his preface. “Why are millions of people obsessing about carbon dioxide, a trace gas in the atmosphere, three per cent of which is due to human emissions? And, why are government officials demanding that billions of dollars be spent to control this gas that is so essential to plant growth, while real pollution concerns cry out for solution and scores of our fellow citizens starve to death or die from preventable diseases?”
A historian by education and a writer by occupation, Sweeny’s chapters on the development of the oilsands are particularly worth reading. He captures the experiences of people well, and has an instinct for the compelling quote.
The author successfully argues that Alberta’s oilsands have been demonized in large part because environmental organizations need easy, controversial targets to use in their annual fundraising campaigns. Similarly, celebrities and politicians know that they can get press by visiting Fort McMurray and proclaiming that the mines and plants are an environmental disgrace, so they do.
Sweeny is on another mission, however. His main message is that the oilsands present a tremendous strategic advantage to North American energy security and should be developed immediately. Canada would benefit enormously as it became a petroleum superpower, and North America would remain an ascendant geopolitical entity as it used a combination of secure crude oil, economic strength and technical expertise to develop the inexhaustible energy of the sun.
While the text is riveting, Sweeny must destroy the foundations of the complex climate change and peak oil debates to make his case convincing. He picks away at the multi-faceted and technical ideas of climate change science, but his treatment is unfortunately short and therefore superficial.
Similarly, his efforts to dismiss peak oil are dicey. He correctly observes that there is plenty of oil in the world’s unconventional oil deposits, especially the oilsands. However, he disregards the key argument of peak oil theory: unconventional deposits can’t be developed quickly enough to displace depleting supplies of conventional oil.
Sweeny’s book is worth the read. It’s provocative, informative and entertaining. Importantly, it does much to rebalance conventional wisdom.
