Gas Prices

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

Buying a Tesla or any all-electric vehicle will be the best for all of us in BC.

If you live in the city and commute on a highway, yes.
For everyone else Tesla's offerings are pretty useless when the snow falls and the pavement ends.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

Buying a Tesla or any all-electric vehicle will be the best for all of us in BC.

Yes, people forget the purpose of a carbon tax isn’t to raise revenue or punish oil companies but to influence consumer behaviour. Car buyers will start reevaluating their needs when they purchase a new vehicle.

[WestCoastEcho]

Originally Posted by whatnext

So buy a Tesla.

Not everyone can afford a Tesla, and there's other problems as well, such as the knock on effects on the rest of the economy and infrastructure.

Take, for example, grocery deliveries to grocery stores. Cost of fuel suddenly going up means transportation costs go up, which everyone will pass along to the consumer, meaning higher grocery costs.

And that's assuming there's fuel available to fill the trucks, planes, ships, and trains... which could lead to empty store shelves when you go grocery buying as your groceries could be stuck at any point of the supply chain due to a lack of transportation.

And locally grown produce will also be affected; for one, a lack of transportation could mean that produce will rot at the farm, waiting for pickup. Also, since farms are highly mechanized with lots of equipment that run on diesel and gasoline, it could also mean that produce could also rot in the fields as well. And if it is just higher fuel prices, it means that farmers would also have to increase their prices, which trickles down the entire supply chain.

And trying to convert the economy and supply chain so they can run on electric vehicles would cost money (a lot of it), and significant time; I expect that the new UCP government if they choose to go down this path would aim at creating the maximum amount of chaos by intermittently cutting fuel deliveries off and restarting them to prevent the BC government from being able to implement a long term remedy without causing the BC government to waste significant amounts of money.

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by MIPS

If you live in the city and commute on a highway, yes.
For everyone else Tesla's offerings are pretty useless when the snow falls and the pavement ends.

Norway begs to differ with your opinion and over 50% of new cars there are electric. They still pump a lot of oil also.

[WestCoastEcho]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

Norway begs to differ with your opinion and over 50% of new cars there are electric. They still pump a lot of oil also.

Norway's per capita income is significantly higher than BC, and there's substantial subsidies on EV's. Along with extremely high taxes on gas powered vehicles, to the point where a EV is actually cheaper to buy than the equivalent gas powered vehicle.

For example, a VW Golf in Norway would set you back 23,434 Euro's, plus the following taxes:

• 4,330 Euro CO2 tax
• 243 Euro NOx tax;
• 1830 Euro Weight Tax;
• 250 Euro Scrapping Fee;
• And a 25% VAT (5858 Euros);

This would end up with a total all in price of 35,945 Euro's.

The equivalent VW eGolf has a list price of 34,600 Euro's, but there's no taxes on the eGolf since it is a EV, with the only additional fee being the scrapping fee. This means that a eGolf has a total all in price of 34,850 Euro's, which means that the eGolf is a better value compared to a regular Golf.

I would also note that if you look at the map of where people are buying and registering EV's in Norway, you would see that the bulk of EV sales occur in the southern regions of Norway, particularly around Oslo and Hordaland:

https://insideevs.com/electric-car-lessons-norway/



Part of this is because there's a ton of other incentives to buy a EV in the southern regions of Norway, such as relaxed or no tolls on bridges and highways, preferential parking availability, and no congestion charges in urban areas for EV's.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by WestCoastEcho

And trying to convert the economy and supply chain so they can run on electric vehicles would cost money (a lot of it), and significant time; I expect that the new UCP government if they choose to go down this path would aim at creating the maximum amount of chaos by intermittently cutting fuel deliveries off and restarting them to prevent the BC government from being able to implement a long term remedy without causing the BC government to waste significant amounts of money.

Pro-oil or anti-oil, that plan's probably gonna blow up in their faces: Kenney’s threat to ‘turn off the taps’ to B.C. ‘doesn’t make any business sense:’ experts

[GMD]

Originally Posted by retro_orange

It's going to be interesting when they realize that Kenney's rhetoric isn't gonna be the magic bullet to make Alberta boom again. What is concerning is that everyone else (BC included) will be blamed for continuing stagnation and Kenney will be empowered to stoke more right wing extremism. Alot of new all electric vehicle models coming up, it's not the 90's or 2000's when Alberta last boomed and all we had to choose from was a 2 seat Honda Insight or first Prius. Alberta needs to diversify, maybe Kenney should encourage vehicle comapnies to build electric vehicle factories that will actually maintain a steady workforce not subject to boom and bust cycles.

Yes, this is a key point, it seems like the tipping point is approaching for passenger vehicles (nationally Q3/18 electric vehicles sales were up 166% year over year, while 15%(!) of passenger car sales in Q3/18 in B.C. were electric) and other types of transportation are coming along behind as well. Meanwhile, demographics show the developed world population aging with working age population shrinking overall, and boomers are just heading into that, 'maybe Grandpa shouldn't be driving anymore...' age range, and more and more places are putting in bans on diesel and/or ICE vehicles in the 2030s/2040s, so that's hardly good news for demand either.

As one of the highest cost oil producers (for new production), Alberta will be one of the first to get squeezed, the oilsands aren't going to shut down any time soon, but I can't see much need for development of additional capacity so that will kill investment levels, and their natural gas reserves are depleted as well and the electricity advantage of low cost coal supplies is going away too.

The problem is, if you take away the fossil fuels, what reason is there to be in Alberta, really? It's not like the weather is great, or the scenery, or it is particularly accessible to the rest of the world or at any key points on any transportation routes, or that the cities are big enough to serve as magnets for people from anywhere other than nearby neighbouring areas. Right now, taxes are lower, and the demographics are favourable, but how can they sustain that if the fossil fuel industry tanks and all the folks from B.C., the Maritimes, etc head back home, and meanwhile all of their salaries (doctors, nurses, teachers, etc., are stuck at higher levels than in other provinces).

Albertans have a can-do spirit, so maybe they will find a way, and I'm sure there will be some oil price spikes along the way that will help them out, but they sure have some big problems on the horizon, and pipelines are not the biggest of them by any means over the medium to long term.

[WestCoastEcho]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Pro-oil or anti-oil, that plan's probably gonna blow up in their face: Kenney’s threat to ‘turn off the taps’ to B.C. ‘doesn’t make any business sense:’ experts

I think Kenney means it, and Alberta does have existing legal tools at their disposal that could cause significant chaos to BC fuel markets for the long term.

For one, Alberta owns a ton of in-kind bitumen they get in lieu of royalty payments from oil companies. They could nominate that bitumen for transport on the Trans Mountain pipeline, specifically for the purposes of marine transportation, of which the quota for shipments for marine transportation has never fully been maxed out.

This means that refined and light products gets squeezed off the pipeline, and since heavy crude significantly reduces the capacity of the pipeline due to its viscosity, a change in the product mix being sent down the Trans Mountain pipeline in favour of heavy crude means less overall capacity as well.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by WestCoastEcho

I think Kenney means it, and Alberta does have existing legal tools at their disposal that could cause significant chaos to BC fuel markets for the long term.

For one, Alberta owns a ton of in-kind bitumen they get in lieu of royalty payments from oil companies. They could nominate that bitumen for transport on the Trans Mountain pipeline, specifically for the purposes of marine transportation, of which the quota for shipments for marine transportation has never fully been maxed out.

This means that refined and light products gets squeezed off the pipeline, and since heavy crude significantly reduces the capacity of the pipeline due to its viscosity, a change in the product mix being sent down the Trans Mountain pipeline in favour of heavy crude means less overall capacity as well.

Then as the article says, all that Alberta's done is cut off one of its biggest customers. BC can find another source, or get off oil faster - whichever comes first.

[WestCoastEcho]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Then as the article says, all that Alberta's done is cut off one of its biggest customers. BC can find another source, or get off oil faster - whichever comes first.

Finding another source is practically impossible.

For one, the entire Western North American fuel market is incredibly tight; the West Coast of the US is part of PADD 5, which is one of five Petroleum Administration of Defense Districts (PADDs) as defined by the US EIA. PADD 5 is heavily isolated, with only the Trans Mountain pipeline being the only connection that runs East to West. And as the US EIA puts it:

https://www.eia.gov/analysis/transportationfuels/padd5/pdf/transportation_fuels.pdf

Because PADD 5 is isolated, in-region refineries are the primary source of transportation fuels for PADD 5. In 2013, PADD 5 refinery production was sufficient to cover about 91% of in-region motor gasoline demand, 96% of jet demand, and 113% of distillate demand. Heavy reliance on in-region production further complicates the supply chain when disruptions occur. When disruptions occur, all of these factors noted above combine to limit short-term supply options, lengthen the duration of supply disruptions, and cause prices to increase and remain higher for a longer period than would be typical in markets outside PADD 5.

So, the US West Coast is already short on gas and jet fuel supplies to begin with. And many of the US refineries on the West Coast sell the bulk of their product through long term contracts, meaning BC gets whatever scraps we can get from the spot market to fill our existing needs. This is why when a refinery goes down in Washington, fuel prices spike significantly in BC.

Also, BC has no major marine import facilities for fuel; the only terminal is the Suncor Burrard Products terminal in Port Moody, and they are not setup for importing fuel from ships; they are built to export crude.

Geography also works against the Burrard Products terminal as it is built significantly higher up than sea level, which means any pumps that would allow import would have to work against gravity to do so.

Furthermore, if one were to try to import fuel from overseas, such fuel would need substantial finishing work to be done to it as North American fuel standards are significantly higher than Asian or European fuel standards, and BC has a Green fuel requirement, which means that such fuel needs to be blended with ethanol before it can be sold in BC.

And getting off oil will be extremely costly and time consuming; for one, currently, there is no fully electric Class 8 heavy truck in production at the moment; only Tesla has a prototype, and their order book is already full, and Nikola is also in the early prototype phase. And there's no electrified track in BC to run electric trains, not to mention that a significant shift in power consumption towards electric vehicles would also mean significant investment in electric generating capacity in order to meet demand... which means more projects such as Site C.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by WestCoastEcho

I think Kenney means it, and Alberta does have existing legal tools at their disposal that could cause significant chaos to BC fuel markets for the long term.

For one, Alberta owns a ton of in-kind bitumen they get in lieu of royalty payments from oil companies. They could nominate that bitumen for transport on the Trans Mountain pipeline, specifically for the purposes of marine transportation, of which the quota for shipments for marine transportation has never fully been maxed out.

This means that refined and light products gets squeezed off the pipeline, and since heavy crude significantly reduces the capacity of the pipeline due to its viscosity, a change in the product mix being sent down the Trans Mountain pipeline in favour of heavy crude means less overall capacity as well.

And they’d probably get sued by Parkland and the US refiners who have contracts with them.

[WestCoastEcho]

Originally Posted by whatnext

And they’d probably get sued by Parkland and the US refiners who have contracts with them.

No, because the allotment for marine transportation was designated as priority volume per the NEB back in 2010.

And Parkland won't care because they get their crude supply via both rail and pipeline, and the US refiners would actually be extremely happy as they would get more of the heavy crude that they prefer to run off of.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by WestCoastEcho

And getting off oil will be extremely costly and time consuming; for one, currently, there is no fully electric Class 8 heavy truck in production at the moment; only Tesla has a prototype, and their order book is already full, and Nikola is also in the early prototype phase. And there's no electrified track in BC to run electric trains, not to mention that a significant shift in power consumption towards electric vehicles would also mean significant investment in electric generating capacity in order to meet demand... which means more projects such as Site C.

Sounds good, because apparently Site C is not needed.

BC's going to have to rip the bandaid off anyway, seeing as the alternative is being jerked around by Washington and Alberta for the next few decades.

[WestCoastEcho]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Sounds good, because apparently Site C is not needed.

BC's going to have to rip the bandaid off anyway, seeing as the alternative is being jerked around by Washington and Alberta for the next few decades.

Which is based upon current and forecasted consumption levels based upon expected population growth... you don't think that switching the entire transportation infrastructure over to EV's wouldn't significantly increase demand for electricity beyond that of the existing forecasts?

Also, some of the modelling is flawed; for example, one of the models used is assuming that commercial demand would only increase by only 3% between 2017 and 2037. In a province with a 23% growth in population, the service and commercial parts of our economy are only going to grow at 3%? That's a totally unreasonable assumption.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by WestCoastEcho

Which is based upon current and forecasted consumption levels based upon expected population growth... you don't think that switching the entire transportation infrastructure over to EV's wouldn't significantly increase demand for electricity beyond that of the existing forecasts?

Also, some of the modelling is flawed; for example, one of the models used is assuming that commercial demand would only increase by only 3% between 2017 and 2037. In a province with a 23% growth in population, the service and commercial parts of our economy are only going to grow at 3%? That's a totally unreasonable assumption.

Agreed, completely unreasonable. So then BC Hydro's "overestimates" will be reached on or even slightly ahead of schedule, and much to the environmentalists' dismay Site C becomes 100% justified. Add a couple of geothermals on top, and the province is well and powered for the foreseeable future.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by MIPS

If you live in the city and commute on a highway, yes.
For everyone else Tesla's offerings are pretty useless when the snow falls and the pavement ends.

I drove my Chevy Bolt EV to Banff during last fall during a snow storm that caused them to shut down the highway through Kootenay National Park. It's also accumulated plenty of miles on gravel roads. Snow or lack of pavement doesn't stop electric cars, and with it's powerful motor, instant torque and one-pedal driving I'm having more fun with my Bolt than any other car I've ever owned.

The car is fully charged every time I leave the garage, so I never have to spend any time charging it unless I'm on a long trip. In 1-1/2 years and 40,000km I've only had to take it to the dealer once - for a software upgrade. There's virtually no maintenance - essentially just brake and coolant fluid flushes every 5 years. And of course it's way, way cheaper than gas even before gas prices started to rise.

The biggest issues with electric cars are their initial cost and the need for charging stops during a cross country trip. Those problems are gradually being solved as battery technology continues to improve.

[WestCoastEcho]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Agreed, completely unreasonable. So then BC Hydro's "overestimates" will be reached on or even slightly ahead of schedule, and much to the environmentalists' dismay Site C becomes 100% justified. Add a couple of geothermals on top, and the province is well and powered for the foreseeable future.

If BC were to go completely fossil fuel free, it would require at least 3-4 more Site C dam equivalents in order to meet demand.

And BC Hydro's conservatives estimates is warranted because the alternative is not enough energy generation capacity, with the end result being brownouts, which could affect emergency services.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by WestCoastEcho

If BC were to go completely fossil fuel free, it would require at least 3-4 more Site C dam equivalents in order to meet demand.

And BC Hydro's conservatives estimates is warranted because the alternative is not enough energy generation capacity, with the end result being brownouts, which could affect emergency services.

but there are also other issues to consider on-top of just generating capacity. not only would it need to be increased, there would need to be more substations and more transmission lines. even right now they are warning of possible brownouts in Vancouver if the new substation at Nelson doesn't come online in time including the transmission grid required for it.

whatever would be saved in gas would quickly be added to taxes to pay for all of this i am sure.

[WestCoastEcho]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

but there are also other issues to consider on-top of just generating capacity. not only would it need to be increased, there would need to be more substations and more transmission lines. even right now they are warning of possible brownouts in Vancouver if the new substation at Nelson doesn't come online in time including the transmission grid required for it.

whatever would be saved in gas would quickly be added to taxes to pay for all of this i am sure.

Exactly. Consider how much Site C dam is going to cost, and consider that you are looking at roughly 3-4 or more projects the same size of Site C to meet all of the demand, plus all of the infrastructure to support the transmission and distribution of the power to communities; the end bill is going to be in the hundreds of billions just to do all of that.

And it is not like these projects are easy to get approved and built; consider the ongoing opposition to Site C, and the timeframe in which such large projects get built. Even if we started today to lay the groundwork for all of these projects and upgrades, it could take until the mid 2050's, assuming no delays, before all of this capacity is available.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by MIPS

If you live in the city and commute on a highway, yes.
For everyone else Tesla's offerings are pretty useless when the snow falls and the pavement ends.

You're talking out of your ass again. EVs are great in the snow due to weight distribution (close to 50/50). AWD models are plentiful.