Canadian rocker Neil Young and his Lincvolt, based on a 1959 Lincoln.
Neil Young and his Lincvolt could be important part of international energy debate
Neil Young thinks the Alberta oil sands look like Hiroshima and cause cancer. The problem for Neil is his trip illustrates precisely why there is so much demand for oil sands crude.
The Lincvolt, owned and built by Neil Young, burned in 2011 and had to be rebuilt.
The iconic Canadian rocker, who these days makes his home in northern California, drove his ethanol-powered 1959 Lincoln, dubbed the “Lincvolt,” to Fort McMurray to shoot footage for a documentary showcasing his environmentally-friendly automobile. Later, he riled Alberta oil sands supporters with some intemperate comments at a National Farmers Union conference in Washington, D.C.
“Fort McMurray looks like Hiroshima. Fort McMurray is a wasteland,” said Young.
“People are sick. People are dying of cancer because of this. All the First Nations people up there are threatened by this. Their food supply is wasted, their treaties are no good. They have the right to live on the land, like they always did, but there’s no land left that they can live on. All the animals are dying.”
How did Neil Young get such a great view of tailings ponds and the gigantic extraction plants that separate the oil from the sand?
He hired a helicopter.
Tailings ponds north of Fort McMurray aren’t pretty, but they are necessary to produce oil required by North American consumers. Photo: Peter Essick, ngm.nationalgeographic.com
And the helicopter burned aviation fuel probably refined from crude oil produced in the very plants Neil flew over with local videographer Tim Moen, whose blog post provided insight into the musician’s process and motives.
By burning fuel in the helicopter, Neil participated in the ethical paradox that bedevils us all: We want to be green, we don’t want to create greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change, but we also want to drive the kids to school, vacation in Maui this winter, fly to Toronto for that all important sales meeting, and heat the house when it’s -30.
We need oil every day of our lives.
Hell, Neil needs oil, too. He and his old band, Crazy Horse, have announced 2013 tour dates in North America, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand. I suspect they’ll be flying to Germany, France, Italy, Norway, etc.
And who will begrudge them? As a fan, I hope to take in a few Neil concerts before either he or I croak. You probably do, too.
But the oil to power the airplanes that take them across the ocean, the big trucks that move their gear around, the taxis that take them to and from the venues, and so on, has to come from somewhere.
Alberta oil sands production is forecast to reach almost 7 million barrels a day by 2030. Graphic: Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
These days, it’s not coming from easy to produce conventional sources. According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers’ 2013 forecast, production of conventional light and heavy crudes are not expected to increase between now and 2030.
Let’s face it, folks, the easy to get stuff has been got a long time ago. What we’re left with is mature hydrocarbon reservoirs with mostly declining production.
In fact, there are only two or three ways to get new sources of oil, and none of them can be considered environmentally friendly: the Canadian oil sands, shale oil that requires the controversial hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” process, and deep water off-shore wells that since the 2010 Deep Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico make everyone nervous.
That causes a problem for you, me and Neil. If we only want to power our cars, the airplanes we travel on and the homes we live in with fuel produced from aesthetically pleasing and eco-friendly places, we have two options: use less so that supplies of conventional crude are sufficient or use renewable energies.
Give Neil Young some credit, the man has put some time, effort and his own money into creating a plug-in hybrid car based on a very cool looking 1959 Lincoln. The Lincvolt uses a 40-hp electric motor and has a biodiesel-powered drivetrain.
According to the Lincvolt website, Neil Young intends “to inspire a generation by creating a clean automobile propulsion technology that serves the needs of the 21st Century and delivers performance that is a reflection of the driver’s spirit.”
Neil, we wish you well. I’m not sure a great beast of a car weighing two tons is the most efficient use of fuel, but your heart of gold is in the right place.
Unfortunately, Neil is still stuck with the same dilemma I mentioned earlier in this column. You need to get to work, Neil needs to fly all over the globe entertaining good folks like you and me, and that requires oil that comes from places like the Alberta oil sands.
What’s a buddy of Daryl Hannah, who accompanied him on his northern Alberta trip, to do?
For starters, he could use his gigantic celebrity megaphone to inject some reality and nuance into the debate about our hydrocarbon economy and the oil sands.
He could acknowledge the role consumer demand – like his sold out concert tours – plays in inducing production from the oil industry. No one produces oil if there are no customers demanding it, right?
And he could educate himself on the oil sands.
According to young Mr. Moen, Neil Young knows virtually nothing about oil sands production. For instance, he had never heard of SAG-D, a process that uses steam to soften the bitumen so it can be produced up a well-bore, and which does not involve mining bitumen or creating tailings ponds. SAG-D is used to produce around 52 per cent of oil sands crude. And according to CAPP, the percentage of crude produced by this process is forecast to increase.
Neil Young clearly has an interest in the debate over the future of energy. And I have a lot of respect for a rock musician who spends his own money trying to do something concrete about it.
But the Hiroshima comment was just silly and will soon be forgotten.
But if Neil Young decided to play a serious part in an international debate on energy, he could contribute a great deal by putting that celebrity megaphone to good use.
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