Energy Minister Blair Lekstrom acknowledges peak oil and downplays offshore drilling

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      Energy Minister Blair Lekstrom says there are no staff in his ministry working on offshore drilling at this time.

      Lekstrom made the revelation late Wednesday (May 19) afternoon during the estimates debate for his ministry.

      "I think it is fair to say that what we're seeing with the environmental disaster taking place in the Gulf [of Mexico] today brings into question whether that can be done," Lekstrom said, according to Hansard. "So we will not pursue the extraction of any resource in this province unless it can be done in a manner as I stated, and we stand by that."

      During the same debate, NDP energy critic John Horgan asked Lekstrom if the Oil and Gas Commission had done any work in connection with peak oil.

      Peak oil is the point when global oil production will start going down because of diminishing supplies.

      Lekstrom replied that staff are following the peak oil debate.

      "There are people that think we have plateaued or peaked, and there are others that don't," he said, according to Hansard. "So it's an ongoing debate, and our staff do follow that."

      It's the first time the B.C. government has publicly acknowledged the possibility of global oil production peaking.

      Horgan then asked Lekstrom if he's prepared to table any documents or briefing materials produced by his ministry on peak oil for the public to review.

      "I will point out that we do have a PowerPoint that we will ensure that we get to the member," Lekstrom said. "As well, I would offer, if the member would want, a briefing to the member on the issue of peak oil, through our ministry."

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      Comments

      8 Comments

      Petey

      May 21, 2010 at 5:31pm

      Sorry baldy; Jim Prentice says cool it

      seth

      May 23, 2010 at 1:48pm

      Shame on Lekstrom for keeping BC powered far into the future on Big Oil and its odious products.

      The $65B Lekstrom signed us up for from his stockbroker cronies over at Pirate Power is completely wasted on buying 1 Gw average of worthless intermittent power. Now he wants to spend another $10B on a destructive ultra high cost Site C dam adding .5 Gw average to that miserable total.

      That same $75B would have purchased 22 Gw of todays enhanced Candu nuclear reactors or 45 Gw of almost ready to order mass produced nukes, enough to get BC completely of fossil fuels, and generating tens of billions in annual electricity export profits to the US. As we convert the freed up natural gas would be used for CNG auto fuel, and NG derived methanol and dimethyl ether (propane) would replace ethanol in current E85 flex fuel vehicles and in diesel in trucks and locomotives.

      None of thousands of sq miles of the forest and farm lands , river beds Lekstrom currently plans on destroying would be needed - No oil drilling necessary.

      Here's Pirate Power chief Dr Bruce Ripley P.Eng on nuclear.

      "It is an absolute no-brainer, and we should be doing it," said Bruce Ripley, President and Chief Operating Officer of Plutonic Power Corporation.

      "For my government in British Columbia, I think that they are making a big mistake by precluding nuclear," added Ripley.

      Ripley was speaking at the San Francisco Money Show, a US investment fair in which Plutonic Power was participating and where exhibitors and presenters seek to enhance their profiles for potential investors.

      Unlike Dr.Ripley Phd, P.Eng Lekstrom barely got through high school and ended up pulling telephone cable for BCTel. Why is that no knowledge smart asses like him get into government and all of a sudden think they know something?

      Unlike BC where Canwest Gordo and the rest of the MSM has kept silent or negative on the nuclear power issue paid off by Gordo's pirate power gang, US media has had a more honest discussion on nuclear, resulting in support for nuclear power at 75%. If BC citizens knew the facts it would be even higher here.

      The technology to eliminate nuclear waste by using it for new reactor fuels was invented in the US, is well understood and shutdown by ignorant politicians the latest being Bill Clinton. Japan, France, India and China are well underway in use of that technology, in new reactors.

      Lekstrom needs to call Bill Gates and/or Dr. Ripley and ask for his help.

      We don't have time to wait.
      seth

      stickyfeet

      May 24, 2010 at 2:24pm

      Is it bombshell news that BC's energy ministry is "following" peak oil developments. Nope. They are doing nothing as evinced by the bland statement that some in the bureaucracy believe "we have plateaued and others do not".

      Wow! Translation: we will have an energy crisis and will do nothing until it arrives. And then it will be said that no one saw it coming, but at least excuses will be recycled and so soon after the financial crisis. Kudos.

      See:

      http://trivcap.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/cheap-oil-bubble-open-letter-to-...

      http://trivcap.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/u-s-deparment-of-energy-peak-oil...

      StickyFeet
      http://trivcap.wordpress.com
      Inside the box thinking.

      seth

      May 24, 2010 at 4:31pm

      No better a spokesman for Greenpeace than the anon above who displays the abysmal ignorance Greenpeace has shown in causing the deaths of almost a hundred million of people worldwide from lung disease, the continuing deaths of millions annually, the sickness of hundreds of millions more and by causing global warming maybe the end of civilization and the deaths of billions.

      Ironically it was Greenpeace who by stopping Nuclear power in the seventies that lead Canada to develop the Tar Sands - the subject of this article.

      Greenpeace's choice of coal over nuclear produces enough toxic radioactive ash to fill all ten thousand sq miles of Lake Erie to a depth of 40 feet every year. All the worlds nuclear waste would fit on a football field filled 1 meter deep in the middle of that already ruined forever coal ash moonscape.

      That nuclear waste is valuable nuclear fuel for the Gen IV reactors in service and planned in Japan, France, India and China and Russia. After powering the world on existing nuclear waste for hundreds of years the tiny amount of low level waste from these units would fit in a toolshed, stored for 30 40 years then burned up in a fusion reactor.

      I assume Reis is now a big advocate of nuclear power.

      See my recent companion comment on the Lekstrom topic for more info.
      seth

      Jay C

      May 25, 2010 at 12:17pm

      nuclear is no silver bullet here.... current uranium supply is only meeting 58% of global demand, and it's not being found in any quantity to keep up presently, let alone an expanded industry. Just stop with the "Go Nuke" hysteria. It doesn't power 800 combustible engines either.

      seth

      May 26, 2010 at 10:13am

      If current uranium supply is only meeting 58% of global demand then reactors all over the world must be shut down for lack of fuel? Somehow they are not.

      Such is the quality of thinking of the nuclear denier.

      AECL is currently returning old PWR rods with DU added into fuel rods at Qinshan, China and could do the same with old fuel rods (nuclear waste) from Vermont Yankee.

      Current reactors can also use thorium and MOX (nuclear waste) fuels.

      www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/March2010/23/c3481.html

      Generation 4 reactors like India's new 500 Mw unit could supply all the world's energy needs for hundreds of years burning existing nuclear waste. They can also supply fuel for the current gen of reactors.

      Nukes can power combustable burning engines as well by using nuclear generated hydrogen combined with CO2 into synfuel.

      You nuclear deniers really need to educate yourselves before commenting.

      seth

      norm

      Jun 2, 2010 at 8:38am

      There is absolutely no shortage of Uranium. The stuff is everywhere.
      The problem is viable Uranium. The extraction and upgrading process is expensive.

      Go dig up about 200 tonnes of rock and mineral soil in your backyard. Chances are very good that you'll come up with near 1kg of Uranium.