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Comment by dblohm7 | Hacker News Reader

I don't know about your second sentence, but your first sentence is absolutely correct.

I am an Albertan who lives in Calgary, where TC Energy is headquartered. I am by no means a shill for Big Oil and am thankful that I do not work in that industry.

Having said that, I do not think that blocking the supply side of the equation helps as much as certain parties believe that it does. As long as the demand for oil exists, the suppliers will find a way.

This also has side effects that some parties do not consider: Railroads have finite capacity, and when more of that capacity is absorbed by oil shipments, there is less capacity for the transportation of other goods, like grain.

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Demand is partly driven by how cheap oil is.

There is demand for energy. Cheap oil is a great source. If oil gets more expensive because it now has to be shipped with more risk in smaller quantities via rail/truck, then renewables can compete even better.

I don't think there's any realistic policy option to reduce energy demand as a whole, but if we can reduce demand for certain types of energy we might have a shot.

No doubt this is true, but it sure would be nice if we could instead tax the oil and raise revenue for the public good, rather than deliver profits to private railroad companies.

Biden lifted sanctions on Russia to allow an undersea pipeline,

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57180674

I don't think demand reduction was an objective with Keystone.

The first sentence in the linked article says it’s a gas pipeline, which is very different than an oil pipeline.

this is only kind of true. WHile rail IS more expensive you can't compare a barrel in a pipeline with a barrel on a train. Pipelines need to carry diluted oil products to make them flow and then sometimes return that back to the source, so there's extra flow. Pipelines use far LESS energy to transport which is kind of ironic; and they are way, way safer.

I don't see this as an environmental move based on the political signalling it buys and other moves made by the US administration. If we agree that we want to reduce demand for certain types of energy than the first thing we should do is promote FF from Canada that are relatively clean, highly regulated and produced by a trusted democracy over the ones that will be used to fill this void from 3rd-world dictators with no environmental controls.

The Natural Resources Defense Council says:

>Tar sands extraction emits up to three times more global warming pollution than does producing the same quantity of conventional crude. It also depletes and pollutes freshwater resources and creates giant ponds of toxic waste. Refining the sticky black substance produces piles of petroleum coke, a hazardous by-product. “This isn’t your grandfather’s typical oil,” [senior policy analyst for NRDC’s Canada project] says. “It’s nasty stuff.”

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/dirty-fight-over-canadian-tar-s...

This is unrelated to the claim that transport by pipeline is less environmentally harmful than transport by train or truck.

Seems related? Making Canadian crude less competitive means less tar sands oil extraction.

I was responding to the parent's last sentence:

>If we agree that we want to reduce demand for certain types of energy than the first thing we should do is promote FF from Canada that are relatively clean, highly regulated and produced by a trusted democracy over the ones that will be used to fill this void from 3rd-world dictators with no environmental controls.

I was pointing out that tar-sands oil probably does not meet the "relatively clean" criteria.

If they can't transport as much by train or truck (due to capacity/expense) then thats a gain for the environment.

If a big fat permanent pipeline makes it more cost effective to extract and sell even more tar-sand oil, then thats a loss for the environment.

A high price of oil makes it profitable to sell oil.

A market-based acceleration in renewables energy use requires well funded energy companies to pivot. High priced oil doesn't get them to do that. Low priced oil doesn't either, but a sharp drop in oil prices can.

Some other incentive is still necessary.

> A high price of oil makes it profitable to sell oil.

Only if your costs are below the high price. Blocking this pipeline raises their costs to transport the oil, eating into profits.

It doesn't cause a shift into renewables. The providers along that pipeline might simply be fucked. The regional and global rate just stays more attractive to the more vertically integrated players.

You know there's more to the equation than that.

Oil is fungible and the market is global. Making it less efficient to transport oil in North America just reduces the profit margin for North Amereican oil companies.

I'm all for reducing oil company profits, but I think it would be better to do that through carbon taxes than by forcing operational inefficiencies.

It seems like the executive branch of the US government has the power to impair the oil industry in North America, but not to implement a carbon tax. It seems to me like it will help a little on the margin, but not nearly as much as carbon pricing would.

I agree with a carbon tax, but I also think we don't need to go out of our way to support north american oil companies. If that oil gets pumped out its going to get burned as well.

Oil is fungible, but like any commodity it still obey's supply and demand.

allowing a pipeline to be built isn't really "going out of our way". if it were being subsidized, that would be a problem.

but in general, i think it's better to allow a local oil industry, and properly tax and regulate it, than it is to allow all those profits to go offshore to less-regulated, less taxed foreign operations. people aren't going to stop using oil just because they can't get the locally-produced stuff.

The keystone XL received investment and loan guarantees from government.

Beyond that there's a lot of goverment effort that's needs to happen to "allow" it to be built. Securing right of ways or emininent domain on land it passes through.

Disagree on the supply-side angle: If we cut our dependence on oil for power and transport but the supply stays high, it’ll lead to a drop in prices. People will be incentivized to find new profitable uses for this cheap oil, which will then cause oil usage to go back up again. If we cut supply while cutting demand, that’s less likely.

Of course in the end, the real solution is a carbon tax that factors the bad externalities of oil into its price (which would likely make it unprofitable for a lot of purposes regardless of the free market price). However, that seems unlikely in the near future due to one party denying that the problem even exists. In light of that, I could see a (grim) argument that really rough solutions like denying pipeline permits are the best we’ve got on hand at the moment.

Isn't the point of the pipeline to send the oil to Gulf Coast refineries? There's not that many direct uses for dirty Bakken crude, which also happens to be particularly dangerous to ship by train.

The alternative methods of transport will be more expensive, which will lead to a decrease in demand.

Yeah, I’ll just not drive to work...

This has never been true for consumers. The only “demand” it impacts are companies, who then move their jobs to China where they can use coal powered plants.

There is no world where this artificial increase in prices is good.

Green energy is improving, nuclear is improving. It’s improving because it has to compete with alternatives, like oil. Green energy is not cheap or widespread enough today for consumers or industry. So it’s only the people of the country that lose.

This has always been true of consumers.

- Let's buy a smaller/more efficient car instead of the bigger/less efficient one

- Let's move closer to work

- Let's carpool

- Let's not buy our teenager a car just yet

Etc, etc. Cost of ownership effects all sorts of choices, always has, always will.

I was wondering, just for the effect, if i could translate this list into the world of computers

-Buy smaller/more efficient computers instead of the bigger/less efficient one

-let's move closer to work

-let's share computers

-let's not buy our teenagers a computer just yet

Feels strange to read. But ok, who knows, maybe compu, umm, smartphones fall out of favour some day as well.

From a consumer perspective

- Cheaper phones, they're just slower

- Lower resolution videos and images, less data, less cpu cost.

- Single shared desktop instead of everyone having a laptop

- Literally the same

---

From a business/software eng perspective

- Less compute, let things take longer.

- More efficient programming languages. Simplify problems (e.g. use aggregate statistics instead of working on the whole data set).

- Timesharing on servers

- Pen and paper for people who don't really need one? Don't buy the delivery driver a computer, just tell them where to go? This one is hard to make a business analogy out of.

We do that stuff.

> -Buy smaller/more efficient computers instead of the bigger/less efficient one

Smaller process size and better power management makes your mobile device have better battery life. 80 Plus, energy star, performance-per-watt benchmarks.

> -let's move closer to work

Hughesnet and dial-up are not good WFH options.

> -let's share computers

Cloud, client/server.

> -let's not buy our teenagers a computer just yet

Cancelled Instagram-for-kids?

> -Buy smaller/more efficient computers instead of the bigger/less efficient one

I've run laptop cpu based desktops instead of desktop cpus (chromebox, nuc, lots of similar products with less known branding). It probably makes a difference, especially it you have a dedicated GPU in the desktop. Max power is certainly reduced, usually idle power too, for raw compute tasks there's a balance because the tasks will take longer and maybe end up using similar power. For games and stuff, you'll get way less fps (or lower settings, or realistically both), but use less power if you play the same amount of time.

> -let's move closer to work

I dunno how much power difference this makes.

> -let's share computers

I've done this, one at a time limits max power consumption, but may lead to higher utilization. Multiple monitors and keyboard/mice is an option too, but more fiddly. Maybe a little power savings vs two desktops, but it worked better with two gpus, so maybe not.

> -let's not buy our teenagers a computer just yet

This is kind of like the sharing one earlier.

That’s my point, you should always try to do what benefits your people (as a leader). Idk what this is, it’s just disproportionately negatively impacting the poor and middle class.

At the same time, this forces jobs over seas and Biden lets Russia build a pipeline to Europe limiting the USAs ability to sell and compete. Literally none of this is helping the environment or the citizens he leads.

I'm just addressing this part "This has never been true for consumers. The only “demand” it impacts are companies", it's wrong, it does impact demand from consumers, substantially.

Whether impacting consumer demand is a net positive for the population (due to climate change) or net negative for the population (because it's preventing useful stuff) isn't something I really want to weigh in on on the internet, I don't hold strong enough or well supported enough opinions.

If you work with information, there is no fundamental reason to live close to "work". It is much more efficient to live where you want to live as there is no need to travel - you are already there.

Yep. Americans used to drive enormous boat sized cars, then suddenly a lot of people liked these small Japanese cars.

I wonder why that happened????

I, a consumer, chose to live in a place where I could get to work without a car (and not having to drive was an explicit part of my decision-making). Consumers make this kind of choice all the time. That not every consumer can choose not to drive doesn't mean the idea of trying to influence consumer behavior is unreasonable.

This has never been true for consumers.

Well thats just not true. People make decisions about what to drive and how to drive it and how far to drive it based on the price of gas.

Why not tax the pipeline to simulate that cost increase? Isn't that the best of all worlds?

that pipeline that now will never exist was substantially owned by the Canadian and ALbertan government. If it was built we would see a very efficient transfer of profit directly to new initiatives. Now we're no further ahead AND we own a pipe-less pipeline project.

In an idea world, probably, but unfortunately taxes are politically toxic in the US, to the extent that imposing a new tax whose costs will ultimately be born by consumers is impolitic in a way that creating new consumer costs whose revenue accrues to private actors isn't. Voters aren't rational, and elected officials can't do a lot about that.

Also, revoking the permit can be done entirely by executive action, where a new tax would require cooperation from Congress, which the administration would never get.

This was actually the argument of the governments of Canada, to build it, but add a carbon tax.

Canada now has a federal carbon tax, BC has a carbon tax and Alberta did have one, but the previous government was thrown out in favour of a deeply conservative one (that is now woefully unpopular so the pro-carbon tax party is probably coming back).

You can see one possible issue with the case of the Albertan government changing. Easy to add/remove taxes, hard to add/remove pipelines. There's also even some question of whether the carbon tax will be effective. It arguably hasn't done that much in BC. This is probably because for political reasons it has been set low. A previous conservative government "froze" the tax at low rates. Scientists note the tax needs to be literally $100s more per ton of CO2 to be effective.

In my experience the carbon tax has seemed like a good idea, but has seemed in practice more of a political tool to generate the public acceptance of pipelines. The actual CO2 impact of the pipeline is absolutely in zero way mitigated by the carbon tax.

Except I doubt everyone is going to walk to work, eat only locally grown produce in the winter (hope you like potatoes), feed the world without fertilizer and replace plastics with ... what, smug self-satisfaction?

Unfortunately that demand is sticky. In North America, we have built our entire societies around plentiful fossil fuels. We cannot just turn that ship around on a dime.

The track system of course has finite capacity, but how close to that finite capacity are they running, and how much of that capacity is the new oil demand?

If new new oil demand makes the capacity go from 9% to 12% that is one thing, and quite another going from 68% to 98%...

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