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Sun Rise: Suncor, the Oil Sands and the Future of Energy
"Whether you believe Suncor and the oil sands represent one of the great business stories of our generation or a threat to the future of mankind, you will find much on the following pages to answer questions and stimulate reflection. And maybe some controversy as well. That's fine with me. Few things in the twenty-first century are more controversial than the impact of Canada's oil sands and their means of satisfying the world's future energy needs." [book quote used on back cover]
280 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
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December 11, 2012
This book is part business success story, part defense of a much maligned industry, and part call for a rational conversation on the future of global energy. How does a person tell their success story without bragging and boasting? By acknowledging those who helped them. How does an industry defend itself against noisy opponents? By rationally discussing the facts, stating the good and admitting the bad, and by not sinking to the level of those who will say anything, true or false, to turn public opinion in their favour. And how does one point the way forward in the face of growing global energy demands? By finding the responsible middle ground between the shrill opponents of all things petroleum and those big oil reps who would close their minds and R&D departments to the responsible integration of energy alternatives. Rick George does all three successfully in this book. That's it in a nutshell. If you want more detail, read on.
Rick George, born and raised in Brush, Colorado, liked the shiny new pick-ups of the local guys who worked in the oil patch, so he got a summer job as a labourer. He liked the work and took an engineering degree to pursue it further. The rest, as they say, is history. From there George went on to work for Texaco in various locations, to complete a law degree, a business degree and to take on bigger and bigger challenges until one day, while living and working in London, he was offered a seemingly career ending move: to run the struggling and money losing Canadian oil sands operation for the American company, Sun Oil. Many of his friends and colleagues advised against the move, suggesting a move to the oil sands would be "quick sand" for his career, but George combined his small town personal skills (he says his dad knew everyone and always listened to people), his middle-class work ethic, his eternal optimism, his desire for a good challenge and his entrepreneurial spirit, and transformed the seemingly hopeless enterprise into Canada's largest energy company and second biggest company overall, far and away outstripping its once parent company.
The first part of this book is a great success story, both of Rick George himself and the company he ran, Suncor Energy, for just over 20 years. There is much of interest from a purely business perspective as well as from a historical perspective. Particularly interesting are the parts of the story dealing with Suncor's split from the American parent to become a fully Canadian company and the tale of Suncor's take-over of Petro-Canada, a formerly government owned and operated company. Few people recall that the take-over had been attempted once before, 10 years earlier but undermined at the last minute. This story provides some previously unknown details on how that deal fell apart. It is also interesting to hear of how George transformed the company by observing with his own eyes and talking with the ground level employees about what was and wasn't working...listening. This is something George has also done more successfully than any other oil executive regarding the environmental and stakeholder issues of the oil sands - he has listened to his critics rather than writing them off or railing against them in a defensive huddle. And he has applied steady and incremental change to gradually but effectively improve the environmental performance of Suncor and the oil sands overall, something which continues today.
Perhaps now that he is no longer at the helm, George feels more freedom to challenge some of the oil sands loudest critics and to question some of their most shrill criticisms. However, when he does so, he relies on facts and clear reasoning and never resorts to diatribe or name calling, as do so many of the oil sand's detractors. There is much here which will need to be honestly and thoughtfully considered and answered by the opponents of the oil sands if they are to be taken seriously by the general public. For example, George effectively and convincingly deconstructs two of the biggest criticisms of the industry, namely 1) that the oil sands are the dirtiest form of energy in the world and 2) that the world should quit oil cold turkey and switch over to alternative, "clean" energy sources. George points out that there isn't even a fraction of the capacity of alternative energy sources required to replace petroleum-based energy sources and that it is hypocritical for North Americans to preach to the rest of the world, just as their own living standards are nearing ours, that they ought to do with less. George also shows that the (largely American) criticism of the oil sands as a dirty source of energy is highly hypocritical and untrue when the US relies on coal for 70% of its electricity generation and coal dwarfs the oil sands, per energy unit produced and in overall volume, in its "carbon footprint" and GHG emissions. He also compares the various sources of US imported oil and shows how Canadian oil sands oil is not only more ethical (coming from a stable democracy with similar values to the US) source of energy but also puts more Americans to work than any other source of foreign oil the US buys.
Some of the most famous environmental crimes reported about the oil sands are deconstructed in this middle section of the book. George debunks the infamous two-jawed fish, something that the news media got hold of and spread like a bad rash, but then, when a laboratory examination proved it to be normal fish in an advanced stage of decomposition, most media didn't bother to run follow-up stories. Another big news story was the supposedly high rate of cancer diagnosed by one physician among members of a First Nation community down stream from the oil sands. This doctor stated the cause to be linked to the effects of the oil sands development. This accusation was followed up on. The Alberta Cancer Board found the physicians' conclusions were wrong and four of the six cases of bile duct cancer were misdiagnosed, with one case not even being cancer at all. Also, separate bodies found that none of the emissions from the oil sands exceeded allowable limits and they concluded that the emissions would not pose a higher than normal risk to human health.
Personally, my favourite part of the book is where Mr. George challenges celebrity activists to live what they preach and to stop being such hypocrites. In particular, George takes on Darryl Hannah's anti oil sands mantra point by point and exposes her utter ignorance on the subject as well as director James Cameron's completely and massively hypocritical lecture to the world that, "we will have to live with less" (this coming from a man with 3 homes totaling 24,000 sq ft., and a ranch, none of which use solar or wind energy - he also has a fleet of cars, submarines, motor cycles, a Humvee fire truck, a helicopter, a yacht and a private jet which he flew up in on his trip to Canada to view and critique the oil sands). George calls such celebrity-critics out and challenges them to first learn the facts before decrying something they don't understand and then to practice what they preach. In my opinion, taking environment and energy policy advice from a multi-millionaire with mansions, penthouses, a collection of exotic cars, yachts, private jets, and a carbon footprint the size of a mid-sized African nation would be like taking marriage and parenting advice from, well, the same people. A good rule of thumb might be: Never take advice from someone who stands in front of a camera and pretends to be something they are not for a living, unless they are giving you advice on how to stand in front of a camera and pretend you are something you are not. Another good rule of thumb might be: Never trust someone who tells you to live with less and then climbs back onto their private jet to fly off to one of their several mansions to pack the trunk of their Rolls Royce to drive to the marina to embark on a cruise in their private yacht - there's a good chance they are just trying to assuage their conscience by joining a cause.
George points out that hypocrisy doesn't only come from celebrities. He notes how many jurisdictions in the US have attempted to ban the import and use of oil sands derived fuel. He uses California as an example (what's with the land of surf and sun?). California put a ban on oil sands oil because of its wells-to-wheels emissions (the emissions, mainly GHGs, from exploration to refining to transport to market and end use). However, California exempted their own state's heavy oil production from the same rules, even though they have a higher environmental impact and don't have the as stiff regulatory compliance, the same policy of constant environmental improvement and the proven track record Canadian oil sands does. Other US jurisdictions have attempted to ban oil sands oil but won't consider cutting back their own use of coal, a far higher source of GHG and other emissions. George asks how much of these policies are really about the environment and how much is just about being voted in again next election.
As the subtitle promises, Rick George goes on to discuss a future strategy for all things energy. He reissues his call for a Canadian National Energy Strategy (nothing akin to the much hated National Energy Program of the Trudeau era), which would systematically plan and implement a strategy to meet Canada's energy needs into the future, coupled with a strategic approach to exporting energy globally. George gets behind efforts to export oil sands oil to other global markets rather than the current state of affairs where Canada effectively has only one market for this oil: the US. In a single-buyer market like this, the exporter effectively becomes a price-taker, and the whole export market could come crashing down if the importer ever were to make a policy change and severely cut or end such imports. This would leave Canada in a tough position. George calls for the nation to support the infrastructure that would allow for global exports of oil sands oil. This would not only increase the security of income from the sale of oil sands oil (with access to numerous foreign markets), it would increase the value of that resource even in sales to the US. Also, access to additional markets would provide capital to expand oil sands production which in turn would mean thousands of new jobs for Canadians and expanding job and business opportunities for the local First Nation companies in the vicinity of the oil sands (the oil sands have already provided more job and business income to FN communities than any other industry in Canada). George admits that there is significant opposition in Canada, especially British Columbia, to tanker facilities on the Pacific Coast, and while he admits that concern is warranted and safety and environment are critical considerations, he points out that there are many such tanker ports all over the world (in the North Sea, Scotland, England, Norway, etc. and even on the Pacific in Alaska and the lower 48) which overall have operated very safely and as such, this single factor should not be grounds to disallow such tanker facilities.
For those who call for a speedy end to all petroleum based energy generation and the so-called global "addiction to oil", George calmly asks to have a reasonable conversation. Under his leadership, Suncor explored and invested heavily in alternative energy production (wind and bio-fuel). He sees the expansion of alternative sources of energy such as wind, solar, geothermal, etc., as very important, and cutting our consumption by increasing efficiency of all our energy consuming devices (especially vehicles) as critical, but he reminds that all the alternative energy sources combined would not meet a fraction of the world's current energy demands, much less the increased projections of nations such as China, India and Brazil in the near future. George proposes a systematic approach to growing the efficiency of petroleum energy sources (oil and natural gas), phasing out some of the dirtiest sources of energy (like coal) while simultaneously improving our capacity and reliability for the alternative sources. He also advocates not discounting nuclear, as some jurisdictions have, but rather being more careful about where such facilities are located (not near shore lines or fault lines). In the absence of a "magic bullet" to get the world off petroleum based energy production, and supposing fairy dust isn't discovered in the short term, Rick George states the most balanced and even handed approach I've seen to date.
Rick George, born and raised in Brush, Colorado, liked the shiny new pick-ups of the local guys who worked in the oil patch, so he got a summer job as a labourer. He liked the work and took an engineering degree to pursue it further. The rest, as they say, is history. From there George went on to work for Texaco in various locations, to complete a law degree, a business degree and to take on bigger and bigger challenges until one day, while living and working in London, he was offered a seemingly career ending move: to run the struggling and money losing Canadian oil sands operation for the American company, Sun Oil. Many of his friends and colleagues advised against the move, suggesting a move to the oil sands would be "quick sand" for his career, but George combined his small town personal skills (he says his dad knew everyone and always listened to people), his middle-class work ethic, his eternal optimism, his desire for a good challenge and his entrepreneurial spirit, and transformed the seemingly hopeless enterprise into Canada's largest energy company and second biggest company overall, far and away outstripping its once parent company.
The first part of this book is a great success story, both of Rick George himself and the company he ran, Suncor Energy, for just over 20 years. There is much of interest from a purely business perspective as well as from a historical perspective. Particularly interesting are the parts of the story dealing with Suncor's split from the American parent to become a fully Canadian company and the tale of Suncor's take-over of Petro-Canada, a formerly government owned and operated company. Few people recall that the take-over had been attempted once before, 10 years earlier but undermined at the last minute. This story provides some previously unknown details on how that deal fell apart. It is also interesting to hear of how George transformed the company by observing with his own eyes and talking with the ground level employees about what was and wasn't working...listening. This is something George has also done more successfully than any other oil executive regarding the environmental and stakeholder issues of the oil sands - he has listened to his critics rather than writing them off or railing against them in a defensive huddle. And he has applied steady and incremental change to gradually but effectively improve the environmental performance of Suncor and the oil sands overall, something which continues today.
Perhaps now that he is no longer at the helm, George feels more freedom to challenge some of the oil sands loudest critics and to question some of their most shrill criticisms. However, when he does so, he relies on facts and clear reasoning and never resorts to diatribe or name calling, as do so many of the oil sand's detractors. There is much here which will need to be honestly and thoughtfully considered and answered by the opponents of the oil sands if they are to be taken seriously by the general public. For example, George effectively and convincingly deconstructs two of the biggest criticisms of the industry, namely 1) that the oil sands are the dirtiest form of energy in the world and 2) that the world should quit oil cold turkey and switch over to alternative, "clean" energy sources. George points out that there isn't even a fraction of the capacity of alternative energy sources required to replace petroleum-based energy sources and that it is hypocritical for North Americans to preach to the rest of the world, just as their own living standards are nearing ours, that they ought to do with less. George also shows that the (largely American) criticism of the oil sands as a dirty source of energy is highly hypocritical and untrue when the US relies on coal for 70% of its electricity generation and coal dwarfs the oil sands, per energy unit produced and in overall volume, in its "carbon footprint" and GHG emissions. He also compares the various sources of US imported oil and shows how Canadian oil sands oil is not only more ethical (coming from a stable democracy with similar values to the US) source of energy but also puts more Americans to work than any other source of foreign oil the US buys.
Some of the most famous environmental crimes reported about the oil sands are deconstructed in this middle section of the book. George debunks the infamous two-jawed fish, something that the news media got hold of and spread like a bad rash, but then, when a laboratory examination proved it to be normal fish in an advanced stage of decomposition, most media didn't bother to run follow-up stories. Another big news story was the supposedly high rate of cancer diagnosed by one physician among members of a First Nation community down stream from the oil sands. This doctor stated the cause to be linked to the effects of the oil sands development. This accusation was followed up on. The Alberta Cancer Board found the physicians' conclusions were wrong and four of the six cases of bile duct cancer were misdiagnosed, with one case not even being cancer at all. Also, separate bodies found that none of the emissions from the oil sands exceeded allowable limits and they concluded that the emissions would not pose a higher than normal risk to human health.
Personally, my favourite part of the book is where Mr. George challenges celebrity activists to live what they preach and to stop being such hypocrites. In particular, George takes on Darryl Hannah's anti oil sands mantra point by point and exposes her utter ignorance on the subject as well as director James Cameron's completely and massively hypocritical lecture to the world that, "we will have to live with less" (this coming from a man with 3 homes totaling 24,000 sq ft., and a ranch, none of which use solar or wind energy - he also has a fleet of cars, submarines, motor cycles, a Humvee fire truck, a helicopter, a yacht and a private jet which he flew up in on his trip to Canada to view and critique the oil sands). George calls such celebrity-critics out and challenges them to first learn the facts before decrying something they don't understand and then to practice what they preach. In my opinion, taking environment and energy policy advice from a multi-millionaire with mansions, penthouses, a collection of exotic cars, yachts, private jets, and a carbon footprint the size of a mid-sized African nation would be like taking marriage and parenting advice from, well, the same people. A good rule of thumb might be: Never take advice from someone who stands in front of a camera and pretends to be something they are not for a living, unless they are giving you advice on how to stand in front of a camera and pretend you are something you are not. Another good rule of thumb might be: Never trust someone who tells you to live with less and then climbs back onto their private jet to fly off to one of their several mansions to pack the trunk of their Rolls Royce to drive to the marina to embark on a cruise in their private yacht - there's a good chance they are just trying to assuage their conscience by joining a cause.
George points out that hypocrisy doesn't only come from celebrities. He notes how many jurisdictions in the US have attempted to ban the import and use of oil sands derived fuel. He uses California as an example (what's with the land of surf and sun?). California put a ban on oil sands oil because of its wells-to-wheels emissions (the emissions, mainly GHGs, from exploration to refining to transport to market and end use). However, California exempted their own state's heavy oil production from the same rules, even though they have a higher environmental impact and don't have the as stiff regulatory compliance, the same policy of constant environmental improvement and the proven track record Canadian oil sands does. Other US jurisdictions have attempted to ban oil sands oil but won't consider cutting back their own use of coal, a far higher source of GHG and other emissions. George asks how much of these policies are really about the environment and how much is just about being voted in again next election.
As the subtitle promises, Rick George goes on to discuss a future strategy for all things energy. He reissues his call for a Canadian National Energy Strategy (nothing akin to the much hated National Energy Program of the Trudeau era), which would systematically plan and implement a strategy to meet Canada's energy needs into the future, coupled with a strategic approach to exporting energy globally. George gets behind efforts to export oil sands oil to other global markets rather than the current state of affairs where Canada effectively has only one market for this oil: the US. In a single-buyer market like this, the exporter effectively becomes a price-taker, and the whole export market could come crashing down if the importer ever were to make a policy change and severely cut or end such imports. This would leave Canada in a tough position. George calls for the nation to support the infrastructure that would allow for global exports of oil sands oil. This would not only increase the security of income from the sale of oil sands oil (with access to numerous foreign markets), it would increase the value of that resource even in sales to the US. Also, access to additional markets would provide capital to expand oil sands production which in turn would mean thousands of new jobs for Canadians and expanding job and business opportunities for the local First Nation companies in the vicinity of the oil sands (the oil sands have already provided more job and business income to FN communities than any other industry in Canada). George admits that there is significant opposition in Canada, especially British Columbia, to tanker facilities on the Pacific Coast, and while he admits that concern is warranted and safety and environment are critical considerations, he points out that there are many such tanker ports all over the world (in the North Sea, Scotland, England, Norway, etc. and even on the Pacific in Alaska and the lower 48) which overall have operated very safely and as such, this single factor should not be grounds to disallow such tanker facilities.
For those who call for a speedy end to all petroleum based energy generation and the so-called global "addiction to oil", George calmly asks to have a reasonable conversation. Under his leadership, Suncor explored and invested heavily in alternative energy production (wind and bio-fuel). He sees the expansion of alternative sources of energy such as wind, solar, geothermal, etc., as very important, and cutting our consumption by increasing efficiency of all our energy consuming devices (especially vehicles) as critical, but he reminds that all the alternative energy sources combined would not meet a fraction of the world's current energy demands, much less the increased projections of nations such as China, India and Brazil in the near future. George proposes a systematic approach to growing the efficiency of petroleum energy sources (oil and natural gas), phasing out some of the dirtiest sources of energy (like coal) while simultaneously improving our capacity and reliability for the alternative sources. He also advocates not discounting nuclear, as some jurisdictions have, but rather being more careful about where such facilities are located (not near shore lines or fault lines). In the absence of a "magic bullet" to get the world off petroleum based energy production, and supposing fairy dust isn't discovered in the short term, Rick George states the most balanced and even handed approach I've seen to date.
July 3, 2024
“Sun Oil had been founded in Pennsylvania more than a hundred years earlier.”
“The Canadian arm began to develop the oil sands soon after the Second World War, and Sun became the majority shareholder in the Great Canadian Oil Sands, or GCOS, in 1967.”
“Just to complicate things a little more, 25 percent of Suncor had been sold to the province of Ontario in the 1980s, driven in part by a nationalistic fervour dictating the Canadians, whose petroleum industry was dominated by foreign giants, should own a least part of a foreign-owned company that was exploiting its natural resources.”
“The Ontario investment was based on politics, not economics. Canada’s federal government had launched in integrated oil producer and marketer, Petro-Canada, as a crown corporation a few years earlier. Petro-Canada, it was trumpeted, would provide the country with a window on the domestic petroleum industry during a period of international unrest and sporadic global gasoline shortages. As Canada’s biggest consumer of petroleum products, Ontario demanded its own window, which is how the provincial politicians justified their investment of public money in a private company. In fact, their motives were more ambitious. The terms of the agreement committed Suncor to transfer majority ownership and control of the company to Canadians “as quickly as possible”, and if it did not achieve its goal by the end of 1984, the province would retain the right to negotiate the purchase of an additional 26 percent of common shares.”
“The corporate history becomes rather convoluted as the name changed several times over the years. The parent company got its start in life as the People’s Natural Gas Company in Pittsburgh in 1886 but soon became the Sun Oil Company and took on variations of the name Sun Oil and Sun Company before eventually becoming Sunoco in 1998. On the Canadian side, after a brief stint as Sun Company of Canada from 1919 to 1923, the company was known as Sun Oil until 1979, when it became Suncor, and ultimately Suncor Energy in 1997.”
“Of all known oil reserves, only 20 percent are located within countries that can safely be defined as stable democracies, where private petroleum companies are free to operate.”
“In reality, IEA was created as a means of balancing the power of OPEC to some degree, as can be read between the lines in its promise to “ensure the stable supply of energy to IEA member countries and promote free markets in order to foster economic growth” and eliminate energy poverty.”
“Someone calculated the total volume of oil the world consumes each year as one cubic mile. You may want to stop and imagine that for a minute. A pool of oil a mile in each direction and a mile deep.”
“Things at the oil sands had grown so desperate in the late 1980s that Sun Company had instructed Mike to offer 50 percent of the operation to Imperial Oil for $125 million. Had the offer gone through, Sun would have been very pleased to turn a portion of its holdings into cash, Imperial would have acquired the bargain of the millennium, and my family and I might have remained in London. Imperial turned down the offer.”
“As of 2012, Suncor needed a world price on crude oil of $40 per barrel to cover its production costs and sustain capital and $60 per barrel to return a reasonable profit.”
“But Alberta’s rank as the country’s largest petroleum producer could not be ignored. Shell was the first to break the tradition, moving to Calgary in 1984, and I made the decision for Suncor to follow suit in 1995. Imperial Oil finally departed Toronto for Calgary in 2005.”
“Managers succeed in direct proportion to the attributes of the team they assemble around them.”
“Today a barrel of oil entering the pipeline and Fort McMurray, Alberta, takes about thirty-five days to reach a refinery in Houston, Texas.”
“Unfortunately, many oil and gas lines snaking across North America are fifty or more years old, beyond the performance life they were intended to deliver, and we are going to need more investment to inspect, repair and replace them.”
“The Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) estimates that the oil sands industry alone will pay the federal government and the province of Alberta more than $775 billion in taxes and royalties between 2010 and 2035.”
“For example, it takes a thousand liters of water to yield one kilogram of wheat, and fifteen times that much to land a kilogram of beef on your table. Producing a pair of jeans weighing just one kilogram requires 10,850 liters of water to grow and process the cotton, weave and dye the jeans, and go through all the other necessary steps before you carry them home from the store and step into them.”
“Quebec’s position is this: we are already the largest producer of pollution-free renewable energy in all of North America; why should we permit others to set goals and standards relating to environmental protection and long-term energy supply that will affect us?”
“The Canadian arm began to develop the oil sands soon after the Second World War, and Sun became the majority shareholder in the Great Canadian Oil Sands, or GCOS, in 1967.”
“Just to complicate things a little more, 25 percent of Suncor had been sold to the province of Ontario in the 1980s, driven in part by a nationalistic fervour dictating the Canadians, whose petroleum industry was dominated by foreign giants, should own a least part of a foreign-owned company that was exploiting its natural resources.”
“The Ontario investment was based on politics, not economics. Canada’s federal government had launched in integrated oil producer and marketer, Petro-Canada, as a crown corporation a few years earlier. Petro-Canada, it was trumpeted, would provide the country with a window on the domestic petroleum industry during a period of international unrest and sporadic global gasoline shortages. As Canada’s biggest consumer of petroleum products, Ontario demanded its own window, which is how the provincial politicians justified their investment of public money in a private company. In fact, their motives were more ambitious. The terms of the agreement committed Suncor to transfer majority ownership and control of the company to Canadians “as quickly as possible”, and if it did not achieve its goal by the end of 1984, the province would retain the right to negotiate the purchase of an additional 26 percent of common shares.”
“The corporate history becomes rather convoluted as the name changed several times over the years. The parent company got its start in life as the People’s Natural Gas Company in Pittsburgh in 1886 but soon became the Sun Oil Company and took on variations of the name Sun Oil and Sun Company before eventually becoming Sunoco in 1998. On the Canadian side, after a brief stint as Sun Company of Canada from 1919 to 1923, the company was known as Sun Oil until 1979, when it became Suncor, and ultimately Suncor Energy in 1997.”
“Of all known oil reserves, only 20 percent are located within countries that can safely be defined as stable democracies, where private petroleum companies are free to operate.”
“In reality, IEA was created as a means of balancing the power of OPEC to some degree, as can be read between the lines in its promise to “ensure the stable supply of energy to IEA member countries and promote free markets in order to foster economic growth” and eliminate energy poverty.”
“Someone calculated the total volume of oil the world consumes each year as one cubic mile. You may want to stop and imagine that for a minute. A pool of oil a mile in each direction and a mile deep.”
“Things at the oil sands had grown so desperate in the late 1980s that Sun Company had instructed Mike to offer 50 percent of the operation to Imperial Oil for $125 million. Had the offer gone through, Sun would have been very pleased to turn a portion of its holdings into cash, Imperial would have acquired the bargain of the millennium, and my family and I might have remained in London. Imperial turned down the offer.”
“As of 2012, Suncor needed a world price on crude oil of $40 per barrel to cover its production costs and sustain capital and $60 per barrel to return a reasonable profit.”
“But Alberta’s rank as the country’s largest petroleum producer could not be ignored. Shell was the first to break the tradition, moving to Calgary in 1984, and I made the decision for Suncor to follow suit in 1995. Imperial Oil finally departed Toronto for Calgary in 2005.”
“Managers succeed in direct proportion to the attributes of the team they assemble around them.”
“Today a barrel of oil entering the pipeline and Fort McMurray, Alberta, takes about thirty-five days to reach a refinery in Houston, Texas.”
“Unfortunately, many oil and gas lines snaking across North America are fifty or more years old, beyond the performance life they were intended to deliver, and we are going to need more investment to inspect, repair and replace them.”
“The Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) estimates that the oil sands industry alone will pay the federal government and the province of Alberta more than $775 billion in taxes and royalties between 2010 and 2035.”
“For example, it takes a thousand liters of water to yield one kilogram of wheat, and fifteen times that much to land a kilogram of beef on your table. Producing a pair of jeans weighing just one kilogram requires 10,850 liters of water to grow and process the cotton, weave and dye the jeans, and go through all the other necessary steps before you carry them home from the store and step into them.”
“Quebec’s position is this: we are already the largest producer of pollution-free renewable energy in all of North America; why should we permit others to set goals and standards relating to environmental protection and long-term energy supply that will affect us?”
August 1, 2017
I consider this book an attempt at greenwashing the oil sands industry. I am now reading "Tar Sands" by Andrew Nikiforuk, which is an eye-opener.
March 23, 2014
This was a selection by the only male member of my local book club, who feels we should read more non-fiction. As an Albertan, I thought I was fairly well informed about the oil sands and the energy industry in general, but I found this book very educational. I'm sure that environmentalists and opponents to the oil sands will feel that a book by the former CEO of Suncor can't help but be biased, but this is a surprisingly well balanced book that examines all aspects of the energy industry and the complex issue of how to provide for the world's immense energy needs while having the least possible impact on the environment and causing the least social damage. Rick George is a very intelligent and thoughtful man, who has given a great deal of thought to the issues facing the energy industry and whose insights are quite impressive. He expresses himself clearly and his passion for the subject makes what I expected to be a very dry book very readable.
June 7, 2013
This book seems to be about a powerful, smart man who turned the tar sands into a money making proposition. It is also an argument for our continued use of hydrocarbon fuel in the face of climate change and CO2 emissions. Of course it's about making money and creating jobs. I felt compelled to read this because of my deep dislike of an industry and government who feel anything is okay as long as money is made. I frankly did not believe his assurances that the environment would be restored and that pollutants are controlled. However, it gave me insight into what drives the other side.
February 18, 2014
Well written account of the rise of Suncor through their improvements of their GCOS site in Fort McMurray and their takeover of Petro Canada. Written by the former CEO of Suncor the text details much of the thinking behind operational decisions and the subsequent rise of this large oil company when many thought the oil sands were a poor risk. Better engineering of processes led to a breakthrough in developing one of the world's largest oil deposits. The personal touch is not done to much and George sticks to the reasoning and does not politics of the day cloud his analysis.
February 23, 2013
A well balanced approach to a complex and contentious subject.
April 26, 2013
One of those books that actually can change how you feel about something, in this case, the oil sands. Very well written, clear and quite even-handed about the whole complicated situation.
Read
January 28, 2016An interesting perspective on the oil sands development.
April 12, 2025
No doubt Rick George is worthy of a feature in The Outsiders. Personal preference would’ve been more of a focus on oil and gas than energy transition… to each their own
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews