Cow Country and Energy

Oh, Canada

Cow Country and Energy

Smokin’ Joe and his brother, Smokin’ Joe

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            If we were wealthy, we would stay home in New Mexico through the fall works and shipping time until early winter, live in the cow country of the California Central Coast from then until the grass turns golden, and then head north to Alberta for the summer. For those who know what I mean …you might agree.

            Cow Country is Cow Country

            The early morning flights I took out of San Francisco were filled with awe. They didn’t have anything to do with the city itself, nor would they have been viewed similarly by another traveler, but I was always breathless looking across the Bay. 

The feeling was always the same, especially if it was spring. Looking out through that soft air to the Oakland Hills conjured up what it must have been when ‘a thousand cows and more’ dotted that expanse. God created nothing more beautiful than California in the spring.

            The feeling reoccurred when we saw Canada. The first trips were into British Columbia to visit David Lane at Summerland. He ran the great apple program at Agriculture Canada.  How beautiful that grass was!    

            We thought we had seen the best until we saw Alberta. It started at the Calgary airport with a greeter welcoming visitors to the Stampede. He was standing on some hay roping an occasional traveler as he or she exited the concourse. He and I made eye contact and I directed his attention to a fellow who surely didn’t live around cows.

            The cowboy threw the most beautiful little hoolihan and caught that fellow in mid stride. To our surprise, the guy freaked out flipping around like he was trying to get away from a grizzly bear. He was terrified! He left there pointing and jabbering. We could only imagine what he was saying!

            We were still laughing when we stepped out into the sun only to stop in our tracks. There it was … Alberta summer grass.

            The Stampede

            Perhaps the most patriotic ‘American’ event we ever witnessed took place over the next two days. It even culminated in a spectacular Fourth of July celebration!

            We felt at home. Big American (North American!) diesel pickups, gooseneck trailers, cow people, cowboys, good horses, and in every direction from the city was that grass. We felt it in Airdrie, Cochrane, Turner Valley and up to Banff.

We didn’t feel like foreigners at all. We were all grass people … of the West.

            Smokin’ Joe emerges

            The first time we saw Joe Lucas rope in person was that performance at Calgary.  He was riding that little bay horse that surely had more heart than he was big. All cool and collected he backed quietly into the box. He carried Smokin’ Joe to one of his two Stampede victories. They shared that victory.    

            We saw all the stuff that is purely Alberta. The Mountie horse team with those maple leaves somehow teased onto their horses’ hips, free style bronc riding, the chuck wagon races, the Heritage Museum at Cochrane, the beauty of Banff, and the allure of Lake Louise.

It was at the latter that one of my favorite rooms in the entire world was found. There is no better place anywhere to drink Glenlivet than looking out over the lake at the lounge at Lake Louise.

            Smokin’ Joe II emerges

            Few people are aware that very important discussions have begun in Canada. The public hearings are pursuing the likelihood of pumping the Alberta tar sand to the British Columbia coast at Kitima for export to the Pacific Rim.

              The Obama decision to render the Keystone Pipeline an environmental victory has not set well with the Canadian government. We have been led to believe Canadians are content to sit there and let the President flaunt his ideology unchallenged. We need to think again.

            There is a new generation of politicos in Ottawa, and they are displaying spine that their American neighbors only wish they had. In an open letter to the public, Canadian Natural Resources Minister, Joe Oliver, has served notice this game is now managed for Canada’s best interests.

            While we assume we must endure the continuing Obama juggernaut, the Canucks are amazed the American citizenry has allowed the environmental movement to seize control of the Keystone process. There is also an annoyance that a polarized, emasculated American Congress has allowed it to happen.

            “Canada will not allow environmental and other radical groups to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda,” Minister Oliver has written.

Finally, and thankfully … a new Smokin’ Joe has arrived!

            A welcome war

            Never before has a Canadian challenged the lock on the environment wielded by Big Green in the manner of Jack Oliver. He and his counterparts appear to have no intention of being patient with Obama in the Keystone process.

It appears the heretofore taboo suggestion of naming names has also been thrown out. The first barrage takes aim at funded radical efforts from the States. Pushed by the press to name what foreign money is flowing into Canada to fight the pipeline, Minister Oliver provided two names … The Tides Organization and the Hewlett Packard Foundation.

He also divulged a partial list of the “jet set” Hollywood crowd who is pushing the issue. Among his list were Robert Redford, James Cameron, Daryl Hannah, and Leonardo DiCaprio “all whom have lent their personas to various movements aimed at shutting down portions of the Canadian economy”.

Big Green is not used to being called out. They have enjoyed mutual exclusivity in the past by having their efforts always couched in sacred environmentalism while being exempt from any suggestion of economy wreckage. It makes them nervous.

Minister Oliver is dealing with one of the tactics of the foreign funded attacks. Big Green has demanded podium space at the hearings for 4000 speakers which adds up to 200 testimony days. How is the Canadian government going to handle it?

“This is a federal jurisdiction and so we can either through regulation or legislation deal with these issues,” Oliver continued. “There are some $500 billion of projects in the works. We can’t take them for granted.”

Other fronts

Meanwhile, the green vision of Valhalla is showing signs of cracks on all horizons. The Japanese company JOGMEC has discovered a deposit of frozen methane hydrate that could provide the entirety of Japan energy requirements for … 300 years. 

This product joins the cavalcade of shale and tar oils along with emerging technologies of existing fuels that continues to shatter the expectation that skyrocketing oil prices will push the world toward renewable energy.    

Methane hydrate has traditionally been a nuisance in oil drilling, but new technologies are changing that. The Norwegian oil company, STATOIL, has announced that the product must be reclassified as a fuel. They believe its time has come as a source of natural gas. The frozen product occurs in huge deep water deposits around the world.

STATOIL has also offered an estimate of the abundance of the product. It potentially contains more energy than the world’s reserves of coal, oil, and gas … combined!

The facade

Who believes that Big Green will support Renewables even if they were viable? Any person who has witnessed the big scale wind farms invariably walks away with a different attitude. 

Who thinks for a moment that when the technology advances to the point that somebody is making profits that the frenzy for Renewables will remain gushy? When the open land of the West is invaded by heavy equipment and the land is stripped of fauna and flora for mirrors and more windmills, will Big Green have their cheerleaders out on the sidelines cheering?

To make Renewables work, profits that equal or exceed oil will have to be achieved. If that happens, the fight over sensitive habitat will take a new direction. Endangered species are already poised to cover every square mile of federal land. Just wait for the bull dozers to arrive!

The Truth

I prefer grass covered hills dotted with cattle alongside a robust harvest of subterranean fuel … real fuel that spews forth real BTUs. Is my view archaic?

Standing there in the San Francisco Airport visualizing what those hills must have been like when Henry Miller first saw them lies at the core of my argument. I have nothing against the Americans who live and exist in those expanding neighborhoods, but I’ll suggest something. Which is truly more environmentally friendly . . . those hills covered with a thousand and more cows …or all that humanity? 

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher.  “I read an account of a Texan. He had ridden out into a California spring and didn’t return on time. When he arrived, he was asked about his tardiness. It was the grass he said. He had to ride to yet one more valley to see if it was all real.”