hating oil is passe

No, you read that right... The title DOES read 'hating' NOT 'heating'.

Of course, as we all know, hate is a negative way of expressing one's incapacity to understand, empathize or otherwise find a more constructive and life-affirming way of getting their point across.

So hating oil is passe. It has to be. Thinking otherwise would be tantamount to describing your need for food energy as unnecessary and evil... follow this and you must realize I am saying oil is a necessity of life.

Well it is, isn't it?

It isn't whether you do live without oil that paints you into a corner it is whether you can live without it. Sure, you could make a personal choice to live without oil, but you wouldn't be able to do it. Not even the local health food store goes without relying on oil, or the byproduct of oil, at some point in the chain of inter-nationalized inter-dependency to source product and deliver it to your door.

And no matter what you do about it, you aren't going to make a dent in the foundation upon which you live, even by making a conscious choice about what you buy at the store, put on your table, shade yourself with under the heat of the sun in the summer or heat yourself with in the cold heart of winter. You might as well give up.

Statistics are against you.

Even in the hydrogen economy carbon emissions won't be 100 per cent sequestered. Right now 90 per cent of the hydrogen produced in the world is sourced from reformed fossil fuels. You're still pumping oil out of the ground or releasing natural gas from the crypt of time to extract its precious hydrogen cargo.

The European Union Commission on Sustainable Development has released a draft of its proposed directive governing overall commitments to energy efficiency and energy security. In this draft the EU targets a 60 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by the year 2050.

While this may be good news to some (remember, it takes roughly 80 years for the effects of emissions to dissipate in the 'open' environment) it doesn't mean that oil has been removed from the picture. In fact, there are no specific targets contained in this document that set limits to oil development, procurement or distribution. And nothing in the draft hints that oil companies should now reform existing supplies of refined oil into hydrogen.

The open market dominates. Governments in the industrialized world have all taken a similar tact to the European Union member nations with the caveat that in Canada great consideration is given over to nuclear where nuclear has been implemented already. Private investor ownership greatly guarantees nuclear longevity and the issue is likely to rage on with ferocity for many generations until renewable investments are more attractive than nuclear ones.

Incidentally, nuclear is considered a clean technology by Environment Canada, Industry Canada, Natural Resources Canada, and is an ingrained part of Ontario's electrical generation mix, standing at a whopping 76% of today's base load capacity.

Maybe I should be taken out on the cinder path and punished for my viewpoint on oil. But just who is going to do that? Who is the one person I know that has the right to do that? Maybe a marsupial, but doubtful any human other than a scattered few over there on the dark continent who decided not to join in the agrarian revolution or the following industrial revolution, but seem likely, instead, to develop a footprint in the communications revolutions.

Well, I've said my corporate piece and forgotten the one thing that does make a difference. Careful, it's touchy and feely and could get all over you if you aren't careful. Get out your bleeding heart alert because the word of the day is... investment. No, you thought I was going to say 'togetherness', didn't you. Well, private investment is a togetherness of a sort. Investment in conservation is just another form of paying yourself and the other investors who hold a common share in the same endeavor.

The same could be said of community power initiatives. There are, however, two problems. One is that someone else's investment interests may already be in the way, and two, it isn't necessarily fair that given you can invest in a renewable source of energy and be an owner of a corporate entity, that everyone is going to be given the chance to do so. This second point is probably the one that tells you your investment is going to pay off, no matter what else you can do about it.

We are damn lucky right now that the entire spectrum of generation has been opened to the public. This is a bold and risky move. Special interests like oil aren't going to like it, but be honest, just because someone works for a company you don't particularly like, is no reason not to invite them to invest alongside you. You can either tell them to keep it quiet, or invite them out to the meeting. Chances are even if they believe their technology is cleanest the chance they are offered to invest and profit will at least help your renewable initiative off the ground.

So, the people you should be asking to invest aren't the converted. The people you should be asking to invest are the people who work for and already profit in other energy forms like oil and nuclear.

You might be surprise how willing they are to work with you when you are polite.



-- if I had a polite bone in my body I might convince others I am a Canadian --