Stupid To The Last Drop

When I first learned about Stupid to The Last Drop, by William Marsden, I knew that I had to read it. Not only did it relate to the oil and gas industry, it specifically focused on part of Canada. And even better, it was about Alberta, a province where I work every summer. In fact, I work in the oil fields (although I work for forestry companies, not for the energy industry). And saying that I work in “the oil fields” is probably misleading or non-instructive, since just about the entire province qualifies for this descriptor.

The product description for this book gives you a good idea of what it’s all about: “In its desperate search for oil and gas riches, Alberta is destroying itself. As the world teeters on the edge of catastrophic climate change, Alberta plunges ahead with uncontrolled development of its fossil fuels, levelling its northern Boreal forest to get at the oil sands, and carpet-bombing its southern half with tens of thousands of gas wells. In so doing, it is running out of water, destroying its range land, wiping out its forests and wildlife and spewing huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, adding to global warming at a rate that is unrivalled in Canada or almost anywhere else in the world. It’s digging, drilling and blasting its way to oblivion, becoming the ultimate symbol of Canada’s – and the world’s – pathological will to self-destruct.” Well, at least there is no misunderstanding of the author’s opinion about what’s happening in Alberta.

This book is not really focused on peak oil issues, although it touches on them. Rather, it is more written as a hard look at the current state of the industry, and mismanagement of the existing resources. The book has several separate sections which didn’t necessarily flow into one another, but which rather should be looked at as separate aspects of Alberta’s past and current history:

Thermonuclear Oil Extraction – believe it or not, in the late 1950’s, geologist Manley Natland proposed a plan to extract oil from the sands by detonating nuclear bombs under the sands, allowing them to collapse and collect into a spherical reservoirs, for easier extraction. Ironically, the science behind the plan was quite sound, although Natland was fairly dismissive of the consequences of radiation. The proposal was almost carried through, with the US government selling a test nuclear device to a Canadian company, and the federal and provincial government appeare to endorse the experiment until Diefenbaker’s Conservative government turned the tables by banning nuclear testing on Canadian soil.

The Importance Of The Oil Sands – the Canadian/US energy relationship is discussed, and a number of external international implications are brought into light, in an effort to explain the importance of Canada’s supplies of oil and natural gas. The book makes clear the value of oil to the United States, and talks about NAFTA and GATT implications.

Provincial Politics In Oil – a few chapters are devoted to Jeff Tonkin and a slew of Alberta O&G industry scandals including Stampeder Energy, Westar Petroleum, and Big Bear Exploration. I generally found these chapters to be pretty irrelevant and boring.

Reserve Depletion – everyone knows that fossil fuels will run out someday. Former Geological Survey of Canada geologist has speculated that Canada’s natural gas reserves could run out by 2014, if not earlier. “We have to drill an increasing number of gas wells just to keep up with demand. In 1996 we drilled four thousand productive wells to get 15.7 billion cubic feet per day of gas. By 2001 we were drilling 10,757 wells to get 17.4 billion cubic feet per day. These drilling figures have continued to rise. In 2005 we drilled fifteen thousand wells to get 17 billion cubic feet per day. Coal Bed Methane, which is another form of natural gas, was supposed to be the savior … [Hughes] came out with figures that showed recoverable gas was … enough to replenish our reserves for maybe another eight years at most.” This section made me want to re-read “High Noon For Natural Gas.”

Fort McMurray – there is all sorts of discussion about “Fort Mac” and the municipality of Wood Buffalo. Fort McMurray has suffered immensely with the problems that face any boom town with a rapidly expanding population and an inability to develop supporting infrastructure in a timely manner. What surprised me was the relatively low financial support levels that O&G companies in the area provide to the municipality. I would have thought that they would want to contribute a lot more funding to improving the city, because of the dividends that it would pay off in managing their work forces more effectively.

Contamination Of The Environment – there are several chapters devoted to groundwater contamination, the deleterious effects of drilling and “frac’ing” wells, and the general environmental destruction that the O&G industry is causing. Specific references have been made to the Rosebud River Valley’s water well contamination problems (water so saturated in combustible chemicals and gases that it will support combustion, right out of household taps), and Wiebo Ludwig, the “oil patch terrorist” who bombed sour gas wells in 1998 due to his belief that they were harming his family.


All in all, the subjects are fairly disjointed, but appropriately, the book has been segmented somewhat into different sections. Being able to identify with a large number of the locations discussed, and the “grass roots” implications of the problems identified, I found this book to be a pretty interesting personal read. However, the book doesn’t seem to have any real editorial “conclusion” to it. At the end of the day, I got less of a sense of “so much for a sustainable future” and more of a sense that “you can’t mess with oil & gas.” I think the book would have benefited from a final chapter that discussed how readers or Albertans could take specific steps to improve the future of the province. Nonetheless, I was glad that I took the time to read it, and I did learn quite a bit in doing so.

Short-Term Individual Changes To Reduce Energy Consumption

As a society, we have to make a lot of changes to mitigate the effects of energy depletion. However, a lot of people feel helpless when it comes to effecting change, because they feel that their actions won’t make a difference. However, it would be a mistake to think that. Above and beyond the role that societal changes play, people making individual changes in their consumption patterns can actually make a major difference. Just as conservation became a popular buzzword after the oil shocks in the early 1970’s, a large mass of people making changes in personal habits will possibly put off major declines in our standards of living by a few or several years. One should not underestimate the power of grassroots societal shifts.

Several people have emailed to ask me what they can do to try to help solve the problem on an individual level, or what I’m doing personally to help. So before I write a post talking about ways that our collective society should change, I’ve come up with a short list of five simple things that I’ve already done to change my personal habits, which each play a small part in reducing my overall energy footprint. These changes go beyond common-sense items like allowing your house to be cooler in the fall and winter (in northern climates), not standing in front of the fridge with the door open, and pledging not to buy a new car. And just so you know, I don’t have to do any of the things on this list: I just want to. It makes me feel like I’m contributing to the solution (partly) rather than being solely a part of the problem:

01. Compact fluorescent light bulbs: If you haven’t seen compact fluorescent bulbs yet, you will soon. They are becoming immensely popular. Yes, they may cost about four to six times as much as a regular incandescent light bulb, but they usually have a rated life that is five to ten times as long as an incandescent, so the cost equals out. Where you gain, however, lies in the fact that it only takes about one third or less electricity to power these bulbs compared to regular bulbs. Aside from a very small number of applications (ie. if you ‘need’ or prefer yellowish/incandescent light in a particular area, or if the bulb needs to support certain shapes of wire shades of a lamp cover), these bulbs are a sure-fire way to reduce your electrical bill.

02. Wash with cold water: I’m no fashion king, but when it comes to washing my clothing, I’m pretty sure that cold water does almost as good a job as hot water. And it uses far less electricity, because you don’t have to heat the water. Even whites can be washed in cold water – try it yourself.

03. Turn down your water heater: The way that a water heater works is that it keeps a large amount of water on hand at a certain temperature, let say around 150 degrees Fahrenheit. That water may sometimes come directly out your taps as original “hot water,” or it may be mixed slightly with cold water, depending on how you run your taps. If you find that the water coming out of the taps in your home is too hot to run your hands under, so you mix it with cold, or if you need to have a lot of cold mixed in with the hot to make your shower bearable, then your hot water heater is probably set higher than it needs to be. Turning it down by ten degrees or so probably won’t make your life uncomfortable, but over the course of the year, if you only have to keep the water ten degrees cooler than before, you’re saving a lot of electricity again. The only disclaimer I have about this task is that you shouldn’t play with the settings on your hot water heater if you aren’t comfortable working around electricity. Turning the temperature down is quite easy for an experienced handyman, but if you’re not that type of person, ask a friend who is comfortable to turn down the thermostat.

04. Walking to work more often: As a tree planter, I walk about fifteen to thirty kilometres per day, on average. I don`t know why I tend to get so lazy in the winter. Western civilization has made me decadent, but I can change. During the fall and winter, I can certainly take a ten-minute walk to work, rather than driving there. The less that I travel in the car, the better, and since most of my driving is in a very small radius around town, walking is quite often feasible. And for the days when I’m busy and running late, walking will just mean that I have to plan my time better. Besides, spending more time walking to work and from work will be healthy. Well, except maybe for my liver – if I`m walking home from work all the time, I`ll be able to have a couple drinks before I leave.

05. Refrain from using Christmas lighting: A lot of Canadians take great pride in decorating their houses with extensive Christmas lights in December. This will be a hard tradition for many to let go of, but the fact is that it burns a lot of unnecessary energy. If you hold off from putting the lights up this coming Christmas season, you’re effectively saying to your neighbours, “I’m doing my part to help conserve energy.” I`m not saying that you should refrain from having a decorated tree inside just yet (although that may also change in the future), but at least the outside lights can be sacrificed. If you’re not sure about this decision, look at your electric bill before you go digging out the Christmas lights this December.


You may find it interesting that only one of these specific five items, #4, deals with saving fuel or oil directly. The other four items deal with reducing electricity usage. But remember, a high proportion of the electricity generated in North America comes directly from power plants that consume oil or natural gas, so if you can minimize your electrical bill, you’re actually reducing the amount of oil and/or natural gas that you are consuming. And the best thing about all of these items (except for #4) is that it really takes NO effort or willpower to do these. All you have to do is make a decision one time, and you’ll continue to get the benefits again and again after that. Take the plunge – go out right now and make a list of five things that you`re going to do to save energy, and follow it. You can borrow from my list if you want.