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.

The Tecumseh Curse

There is a "curse" in American politics, which alleges that every American President who is elected in years ending in the digit "0" will die before they leave office. Apparently, this curse was initiated in 1811 when Tecumseh was defeated by General William Henry Harrison, who was leading US forces at the time. Since that battle, let's take a look at what has happened:

1820: Well, let's skip this year. The curse can't be perfect, and some things take a while to get rolling.

1840: Henry Harrison (yes, the same former general) was elected President. At his inauguration speech, he gave an hour and a half long speech on a windy day. Unfortunately, he caught a cold, and died of pneumonia a month later.

1860: Surely you all know what happened to Abraham Lincoln, who was elected in 1860 and shot by John Wilkes Booth in 1865 while still President.

1880: James Garfield was elected, and six months later was shot & killed by Charles Guiteau.

1900: William McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz. Interestingly, he survived at first, but doctors didn't want to risk removing a bullet from his body, and although the X-ray machine had just been invented and was available in Buffalo, where he was shot, doctors decided that the new machine was too risky to use on the President. He died a week later after going into shock.

1920: Warren Harding was elected. Later in his term, he died of a heart attack in San Francisco. Many Americans allegedly thought this to be a good thing, since he was such a weak president.

1940: Roosevelt was re-elected President. Later in the same decade, he died of a brain aneurysm while still in office.

1960: John F. Kennedy was elected, and then on November 22nd, 1963, was shot (ostensibly by Lee Harvey Oswald, although many conspiracy theorists would argue against that).

1980: Ronald Reagan was elected. Here again, the curse seems to be weakening. Although there was an assassination attempt on him by John Hinkley, and he was shot, the wound was not fatal. Some superstitious people allege that he survived because his wife, Nancy, organized public prayers for him and invited many Native Americans to participate.

2000: George W. Bush was elected. On May 10th, 2005, he actually survived an assassination attempt in Georgia (the country), when Vladimir Arutinian threw a hand grenade at him and the President of Georgia. However, the grenade failed to go off.

It remains to be seen whether or not Bush will outlast the Tecumseh Curse. He has about, um, just under two years remaining in office, if the inauguration of the 2008 Presidential election winner takes place the following January. And whatever many of us think of his political abilities (or lack thereof), hopefully he will not be assassinated while in office.

While at university, I've studied a number of disciplines, including math & computer science, engineering, commerce, history, and Spanish. For the past few days, I've been cooped up at home and working on accounting, and I thought I would procrastinate for an hour before bed: hence the reason for this little post. History is so much more interesting than accounting ...