DON'T BE FUELISH
By
William Thomas

In Europe the price of diesel widely used by truckers, fishermen, farmers and private drivers is almost $9 per gallon.

In Spain, where self-employed haulers say fuel prices consume up to 60% of their income,
recent “breakdowns” by 70,000 Spanish truckers blocked the highway in both directions in southwestern France.

French drivers slowed traffic near Bordeaux to demand lower fuel prices on the eve of a nationwide truckers strike, as big lorries driving at low speed jammed access roads around Madrid, Valencia and Murcia.

"We are the ones who move the merchandise that this country needs to function," truckers' representative Julio Villascusa told a radio station. "If we don't have the money to keep buying fuel to offer this public service, well, then this country comes to a halt."

Spanish fishermen have also been on strike since May 30 to protest rising fuel costs, and 85% of their fleet remains moored. As roads closed and supplies ran short, shops closed and ferry links between the Balearic Islands and the Spanish mainland were cancelled due to lack of fuel.

In neighbouring Portugal, drivers also blocked roads last week, causing food stocks at supermarkets to run out, and several petrol stations in Lisbon to run dry. Portela airport diverted airlines to other airfields to refuel, saying it could supply only emergency, military and state flights.

In India, a general strike over fuel prices shut down Assam, while Kashmiri police used water cannons and batons to disperse government workers protesting fuel prices. [International Herald Tribune June 9/08]

In the Philippines, the presidential palace was besieged by lorries. In Thailand, farmers are demonstrating and fishermen are burning their boats in nationwide protests against soaring fuel prices. Lorry drivers warned the government to subsidise their fuel - or face at least 100,000 heavy vehicles gridlocking an already nearly stalled Bangkok. [London Evening Standard June 12/08]

Think it can't happen here?

Canada may be behind the rest of the world. But unless our leaders start showing some compassion, wisdom and foresight - we'll catch up.

TIGERS IN THEIR TANKS
But there was good news in the midst of so much misery. Posting a record profit of almost $11 billion for the first quarter of 2008 alone, Exxon bilked consumers a staggering $117 billion - more than a third of the projected 2008 $311 billion US deficit.

Despite flat production from their own tapped-out oil fields, BP and Royal Dutch Shell also posted terrific first quarter earnings. As riots raged over fuel prices during the first quarter of 2008, Chevron racked up revenues of $65 billion - up from $33 billion in the same period the year before. As his tigerish company pulled in the second-highest quarterly earnings for any corporation in U.S. history. Exxon CEO, Rex Tillerson received a raise, bringing his annual pay packet to $22 million. [Women's International Perspective May 5/08]

PASS THE GRAVY
While ferry crews nervously await the 2010 expiry of their contracts and more union-busting measures by a Campbell government cited nine times by the UN for labour violations, Tillerson's taste of treasure is proving contagious. Pay Raise Fever swept the BC Ferry Services Board of Directors into rewarding themselves with what one skeptical MLA called, “a 60% 'gravy train' boost to their pay check.”

Many appointed directors of B.C. Ferries have close ties to Genghis Campbell's B.C Liberals.

"The Transportation Minister said 'boo hoo' to ferry users and now he's saying 'here's the cash' to his friends," observed MLA Gary Coons. "Communities up and down the coast of B.C. have said the same thing everywhere I've been - their lives and businesses have been devastated by the fare increases... Now there's salt in the wound knowing B.C. Liberal friends have been rewarded for those increases with a much fatter pay check."

Still believe that democracy can't be co-opted by a government that does not listen? Back in October 25, 2007, Democrat MLA Claire tabled a motion in the legislature to return the ferries to their former designation: “Be it resolved that this House agrees that the BC Ferry network is an integral part of BC's public highway system.”

But the Campbell house did not agree. Not after implementing a Coastal Ferries Act that removed revenues to run the smaller ferries from the profit-making big boats - while mandating that they pay their own way.

As Ms. Trevena later reminded the provincial government, "Ferries are part of our highways - anyone who lives on an island can tell you that. They link public roads - whether it is the Trans Canada highway from the Mainland to Vancouver Island or a rural road on Vancouver Island to another island community. Recognizing this reality will go a long way in dealing with the spiraling costs of ferry fares, which are hurting people and businesses.”

But hey, those big pay raises have to be paid for.

“We're talking about $730,000 that is going to board members coming out of taxpayers' pockets and coming out of ferry fares, the MLA added. “The minister cannot blame everything on the increase in oil prices.” [BCNDPCaucus April 15, 2008]

As for the company's impoverished CEO, after wrecking a major U.S. transportation company and pulling the ripcord on a $228,000 Golden Parachute, Hahn collected a further $360,000 U.S. “consulting fee” during the first year he also raked in his $300,000 annual salary from BC Ferries.

How cool is that?

“Here's a guy whose qualifications for the job of running our ferry fleet appear to consist of the part he played in the dismemberment of a multinational corporation that racked up $3.3 billion in debt before it declared bankruptcy two years ago, leaving investors with $250 million in losses and $45 million in unpaid taxes,” reporter Terry Glavin revealed. “In other words, the relevant talents of the guy that Gordon Campbell's appointees have hired to run B.C.'s ferry fleet appear to lie mainly in breaking up and selling off a major transportation company's assets” - and laying off 25,000 employees. [Georgia Straight Dec 18/03]

“I have to ask, why do we pay a guy $250 an hour who, by his own admission, doesn't know what he's doing?” former SoCred Cabinet Minister Bruce Strachan told the press.

It was an interesting question many families could ponder as they cancelled more “town trips” and wrung their hands over climate-challenged vegetable gardens on what are fast becoming prison isles.

But BC ferry crews have reported that David Hahn has mostly given up riding his private ferries because every time the ferry boss ordered even coffee, servers would ask him, “Do you want gravy with that?

BIG GULP
No question, we are running out of our civilization's main fix. Most of the world's oil comes from Saudi Arabia. But not for much longer. According to an insider, Saudi reached its peak oil production in late 2004. Now the Kingdom's 50 year-old oilfields have to be kept flowing by injecting water - a perilous process that wrecks oilfields and leaves some oil unrecoverable.

This is of explosive significance, insists Houston-based energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, warning: "We could be on the verge of seeing a collapse of 30 or 40% of their production in the imminent future. And 'imminent' means some time in the next three to five years - but it could even be tomorrow."

Today, 49 of the 65 countries possessing oil have passed their production peaks. Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates produce around 20 million barrels a day. If the rate of demand continues to grow at 1.5%, they will fail to meet global demand by 2011. If it rises to 2.5%, as predicted, they will run short this year. If demand hits 3.5% - the rates in China and the USA right now - oops!

Dr. Colin Campbell, a former executive vice president of Total-Fina and long time Peak Oil prophet, told an international oil meeting that the widespread reporting of false reserves by oil producing nations threatens the security of energy supply as much as bombs under pipelines.

Two years ago, Fatih Birol admitted that Saudi production was "about flat.” The bizarrely optimistic chief economist of the International Energy Agency added, “There is no spare capacity. But we expect demand to increase by the fourth quarter by three million barrels a day."

"Many reserve figures are highly questionable. Many great oil fields are increasingly old and inefficient," said a less sanguine Dr. Campbell. Chris Skrebowski, editor of Petroleum Review - a leading trade journal of the oil industry - thinks Campbell is “a bit of an optimist." Skrebowski accurately predicted, "Supply will get very tight from 2008 or 2009. Prices will soar. There is very little time and lots of heads are in the sand."

Already, oil deliveries are falling behind exploding global demand. The peak year for tanker capacity was 1981. That was the year oil refinery capacity also topped out. Global rig counts also peaked that year.

"In my opinion, unfortunately, there will be no linear change," said Iran's Ali Bakhtiari. "There will only be sudden explosive change… When the crisis comes there will be enormous changes."

When the BBC asked other delegates to the oil conference whether such a steep production increase is feasible, the answers were unambiguous: "Absolutely out of the question," "Completely impossible," and "Three-million barrels - never, not even 300,000."

One delegate laughed so hard, he had to support himself on a table. [Independent Jan 20/06; BBC June 7/04]

FULL SPECUALTION AHEAD
Oil speculators are laughing like Croesus. In search of advantageous investments following the bursting of the Internet and real estate bubbles, sovereign funds, pension funds, university foundations and other types of institutional investors are massively investing in oil - and are already holding enough wheat to make all the bread, pasta and baked goods that Americans will swallow over the next two years.

Andrew Clare, professor at London's Cass Business School and a former chief economist for asset management, shows that speculators have increased the price of oil by 30 to 40 percent. And there are no reasons, he say, why foodstuff prices should not, on average, be affected to the same degree. [Les Échos June 5/08]

Especially with heavy Midwestern rains in the U.S. wrecking corn crops slated for cars and cattle. [FarmPolicy.com June 9/08]

OH OH, CANADA
Meanwhile, the B.C. Government insists that truckers, summer tourists and ferry-dependent islanders absorb rising gas prices, fuel surcharges - and North America's first carbon tax, slated to boost pump prices for ferries and motor vehicles alike next October.

This is curious, because ferry crews on so-called “minor routes” report that the current fuel surcharges are a disguised price gouge. As one ferry worker told a public meeting, “The fuel surcharge on one morning sailing alone pays our fuel costs for the rest of the day.”

Informed of hassles and heartaches throughout the islands, where long-time families are being forced into a desperate Diaspora to escape crushing ferry costs, Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon told the BC legislature: “Boo Hoo.” [Vancouver Sun Apr 16/08; Hansard Apr 15/08]

Falcon failed to explain how his government expects visitors to the $2 billion Winter Olympics in specially logged Whistler to pay for airline tickets priced out of reach of most travelers before 2010. Thai Airways International, for example, has just raised its fuel surcharges up to 100%, after the cost of jet fuel ascended 85% last year. [London Evening Standard June 12/08; [New York Time May 21/08]

Hahn told the CBC that when he took the helm in 2003, BC Ferries was spending $45 million a year for fuel. Now they're spending $140 million. And by the time the Rock The Boat coalition rallies for increased ferry funding to offset rising costs on July 4, 2008, a Morgan Stanley analyst expects oil prices to reach $150 a barrel. [CBC June 19/08; FarmPolicy.com June 9/08]

This logic sounds compelling. But rising fuel costs are providing perfect cover for corporate-government managers working hard to transform public “essential services” into “user pay services” - just when increased funding to cover inflation is urgently needed.

Essential services are not for profit. British Columbians should not fall for this scam. Truth is: Fuel costs remain negligible on the short ferry runs - and could be cut even further.

Here's a novel idea: SLOW DOWN! Fewer trips, bigger loads, slower speeds = Big Fuel Savings. 

Across the USA, where trucks haul 70% of all freight, 3.5 million truckers have agreed to
reduce fuel consumption by 86 billion gallons and carbon dioxide by 900 million tons over the next 10 years by reducing engine idling, and slightly cutting back their highway speeds to 68 mph for new trucks and 65 mph for all others. [AP May 8/08]

They may even gear further down as fuel prices continue to rise past the $1,000 it now costs to fill a tractor-trailer rig. For the big boats steaming regularly across the Georgia Strait at 22 to 24 knots - despite adverse seas or headwinds - the thought of reducing speed and significantly lowering fuel consumption has apparently never entered the minds of Messrs. Falcon, Hahn or Campbell.

LOOKS LIKE GIL ISLAND AHEAD - BETTER CHANGE COURSE NOW!
Still, despite occassional despite dips as customers recoil from pump digits spinning like slot machines, fuel prices are going to keep relentlessly rising - increasing the cost of nearly everything, everywhere, all the time. But if all those costs for essential deliveries and services continue to be passed on to the public, oil dependent North American societies are going to come apart - with consequences far more expensive (on many levels) than fuel tax breaks or special interim subsidies.

Demonstrations and strikes have already forced the governments of India, Malaysia and Indonesia to raise fuel subsidies. In Malaysia the Prime Minister pledge to keep prices fixed for the rest of the year. In Bangkok, Finance Minister Suraphong Suebwonglee said the government “is seeking to subsidise the transport sectors as the whole.”

In South Korea, a $10 billion government aid package is cushioning the impact of rising fuel prices. But for how long? Alexei Miller, head of Russia's natural-gas monopoly said he expects the price of crude to nearly double to $250 a barrel "in the foreseeable future." [International Herald Tribune June 9/08; London Evening Standard June 12/08; Wall Street Journal June 11/08]

Driven by depleted oilfields, maxed-out refineries and surging demand, petroleum prices will continue to rise beyond unaffordability into unavailability. Faced with permanent and worsening oil shortages, governments will go broke attempting to indefinitely offset oil prices.

But instead of saying simply “Boo Hoo” and inviting open rebellion, the government of British Columbia can take a leadership role right now. Some expert suggestions:

1. Reduce ferry fares for commercial vehicles immediately.

2. “Pedestrianise” city centres. Increase funding for an integrated public transport system, including ferries connecting with shuttles and transit that encourage people to leave their cars at home.

3. Reduce provincial and GST taxes at the pump. After crude oil costs, taxes are the second largest contributor to the price paid at the pump. This year, fuel taxes add an average 35% to the pump price versus 20% in the U.S. Most British Columbians pay 20¢ in taxes per litre. But motorists in Vancouver pay 32¢ (including a 6 Transit Tax¢). [bcgasprices.com]

4. Abandon obsolete dreams as fiscally depleting and environmentally dangerous as endless highway and runway expansion, and future costly “pork barrel” blow-outs like Olympics that depend on highly polluting and increasingly unaffordable jet transport. [Canwest News Service June 20/08]

5: Get other provinces onboard to press Ottawa to cancel the North American Free Trade Agreement. Under NAFTA, Canada sends most of Alberta's oil south of the border and must therefore import oil for domestic consumption. We can't cut energy sales to America, we must pay the U.S. market price for oil, and we are locked into an “escalator” clause that says the more we export, the more we must export. And you were wondering why the pump price has leaped 50% since January, 2006… [Vancouver Province Mar12/04; bcgasprices.com]

6. Lobby Ottawa to regulate commodity market speculators so they cannot cash in on human hardship - which they increase by betting on rising food and fuel prices in a self-fulfilling impetus.

7. Begin focusing on how to maintain essential services, while easing oil-dependent constituents through the tectonic upheavals of post-Peak Oil. This means helping British Columbians to move away from their oil dependency now.

8. Investing massively in increased energy efficiency in office buildings and in alternate energy will see a rapid, ongoing and steadily increasing payback in the forms of reduced oil dependency, reduced energy costs, cleaner air, soil and water, many more jobs and business opportunities, and increased tax revenues. Can you say win-win-win-win-win-win?

PAY ATTENTION
Energy efficiency for power plants, cars or homes is the easiest way to slow global warming and net huge oil savings, the UN urges. This means tougher standards for cars, factories, coal-fired power plants and buildings using fossil fuels - right away. [Reuters Aug 28/07]

“The earth, air, ground and surface water around all our communities contain solar and earth energy that can be tapped to provide for about two-thirds of our heating needs in buildings,” reminds Andrew Pape-Salmon, a professional engineer and Senior Policy Advisor on energy efficiency with the BC Ministry of Energy and Mines Government of British Columbia.

“Passive solar building designs maximize the useful contribution of solar energy into homes and offices at a low net cost, reducing needs for lighting, heating and cooling energy inputs. These designs have southern-oriented windows or absorptive walls that allow heat to enter the building during the winter heating season, while specially-oriented awnings keep the heat out in the summer,” says Pape-Salmon.

“Solar thermal energy technologies can be used to provide hot water for buildings, pools, agriculture and light industry, providing one-third to one-half of the total energy needs in a typical home. Low environmental impact renewable energy supplies, if coupled with aggressive energy planning and conservation measures, could provide for more than half of our future energy needs without depleting primary energy resources. [opinion-canada.ca]

“Lighting improvements are almost a no-brainer, and sometimes there's no capital cost,” chimes in energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins. Just looking at the lighting in commercial spaces, Lovins can save 70 to 90 percent of lighting energy - often by adjusting Venetian blinds, and also by harvesting and distributing natural light. [buildings.com Feb/02]

In another North American first, individual buildings in a new suburb west of Calgary have no furnaces or hot-water heaters. Instead, they are served by anti-freeze protected pipes delivering hot water heated by 800 solar collectors mounted on garages and roofs to a central energy center for later distribution. Since the sun shines less in winter, when more heat is needed, surplus summer hot water is transferred into a field of 144 boreholes drilled 37 metres into the ground. By the end of each summer season, the surrounding soil will be heated 80 Celsius. Reversing the process, the same pipes will deliver this hot water to well-insulated homes throughout the winter. [Calgary Herald Jan 7/06]

GREEN MEANS GO
The demonstration tidal generator at Race Rocks, which functions like an underwater windmill and works when currents are flowing in either direction, “will change how we consume fossil fuels over time,” said B.C. Energy and Mines Minister Richard Neufeld in 2005. [Times Colonist Feb 26/05]

That time is now. And not just for tidal generators.

"BC can be a global leader in green energy technologies if it chooses to," declares Guy Dauncey. Writer of breakthrough books on alternative economics, BC Sustainable Energy Association president, and author of the report, Sustainable Energy Solutions for BC, Dauncey identifies tidal energy as BC's largest long-term source of potential power: 13,000 billion Watt-Hours a year!

A further 12,500 GigaWatt-Hours/year could be obtained by 20025 without spending a dime - just by not wasting electricity in B.C. And with its coastal winds and mountain valley venturis, BC also has the potential for another 11,000 billion annual Watt-Hours of electricity obtained from wind energy. Currently, Prince Edward Island derives 5% of its electricity needs from North America's largest turbine, whose 150-foot blades power more than 1,000 homes by harvesting the wind on North Cape. [opinion-canada.ca]

To see what's possible, compare the current BC government to Germany's initiatives, where renewable energy jobs shot up to 249,300 last year. By 2020, as many as 400,000 people could be employed in Germany's booming renewable energy industry.

"The systematic expansion of renewable energy is not only good from the environmental and climate policy point of view but also for innovation, growth and employment in Germany," exults German Minister for Environment, Sigmar Gabriel.

Solar sector jobs are being added the fastest. Biomass, accounts for 39% of all renewable energy jobs in Germany, wind power accounts for 34%. Wind power technology exports hit $9 billion in 2007. Today, renewable energy sources generate 222 terawatt hours in electricity, heating and fuels - accounting for 9% of the country's total energy consumption and saving 114 million tons of carbon dioxide every year. [RenewableEnergyWorld.com Apr 8/08]

In BC, Dauncey's report shows, more than 400,000 full and part-time jobs can be created over the next 25-years just installing solar hot water roof systems and retrofitting homes and businesses to double their energy efficiency. Training programs, perhaps under joint government-business initiatives like the German model, and industries exporting clean energy technologies could employ even more people.

"The challenge is not technical," Dauncey notes. "It lies with the decision to prioritize sustainable energy.” [opinion-canada.ca]

So let's get going!

Resources Canada's Office of Energy Efficiency:

See also:
http://www.greenfuels.org
http://www.canwea.ca
 

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