 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. It's the three o'clock block here in a given Wednesday. And we normally do energy in America. Today we're doing energy in North America. That's Canada, you know what I mean? And we have Ken Rogers, Dr. Ken Rogers, who is a retired businessman who follows among other things the business of oil and gas. And you know, that's a full disclosure. He has got to talk about that. But first, let's talk about the inauguration, Ken. Welcome to the show. Well, thanks for having me, Jay. And on behalf of my fellow Canadians, I'd like to say we're delighted to have Biden instead of Trump. Most of my friends tend to think that living in Canada with Donald Trump in charge was like, especially because of his handling of the coronavirus, was like living above a meth lab. Now most of Biden's policies, we're quite pleased. Well, what did you think of Trump, you know, who's passed four years? Well, we unfortunately had to think about him a lot, but none of it was good. Unfortunately, I think he was a catastrophe for the United States. And I think he was, you know, more of a catastrophe for the rest of the world. His handling of the coronavirus was, was a disgrace and certainly very un-American in my mind. I mean, I fortunately had gone to university graduate school in the United States and had great fondness. But to see those riots at the Capitol building and to see things like, you know, the Charlotte, you know, hooray for the Ku Klux Klan and the Proud Boys type of attitude is just not the America that I saw. Now, with regard to Biden, most of his policies seem to be very close to what Canadians would like. The Keystone Pipeline is a major exception to that. And it's probably the only one exception that I disagree with, you know, for example, most Canadians would be more inclined to favor the Green New Deal than the same percentage of Americans. I think it's a stronger force here. Certainly I'm on that side. You know, I just think when it comes to like the Keystone scenario that my way of describing Green New Deal that I like does not end up, you know, simply eliminating all oil and gas. You know, you can't get to the objectives or the concepts behind the Green New Deal without having a continuation of oil and gas. You need to focus on things like carbon capture and CO2 sequestration rather than simply saying, you know, let's obliterate the industry. I don't know if that's the kind of thing you wanted an opinion from Canada on. You know, certainly Keystone decision will cause a lot of political problems in Canada. I would say that one of our provincial premiers is guaranteed to lose his job because of Biden's decision. You know, and part of that is that's the province in Canada, Alberta, that produces the most oil and gas and where that Keystone pipeline has started. Well, after Trump had given the final approval and permits, because the Saudis in Russia had intentionally tried to artificially lower the price of oil and gas to shake out competition, the province decided, well, it's such an important factor to that province and to Canada that the province invested one and a half billion dollars in the pipeline and guaranteed six billion of debt. That's a lot of aid to have in your face tomorrow morning or this afternoon after Biden has nixed the project. You know, not dissimilarly, you know, Canada is not like Kuwait, where the oil and gas industry is the only source of jobs and source of government revenue. But it's an awful lot bigger percentage than it is in the U.S. You know, it is Canada's, I would like to think of it as our biggest industry. It certainly is by far our most important export and where I think, you know, the Keystone decision, aside from being unreasonably harmful to Canada, is really detrimental to the U.S.'s best interest. You know, for example, the X in Keystone XL really stands for exports. Well, that pipeline is now a couple of thousand miles long that already exists. The oil is flowing through it every day. But the piece that has been axed really is for extra volume solely to go to the U.S. Gulf Coast for export, that the X stands for export. Well, think of as an American and saying, what a nifty deal it is if you can get some other country to get this neat resource, you know, and ship it to our refinery, and we can do our little tap dance and convert it into nice chemicals or whatever else and then sell it on the world market. So what you have is an export going from, you know, Fort Arthur, Houston, and the area in which we're sharing the proceeds. Well, if you don't send the Canadian resource there for the American to get his pound of flesh out of, we both lose. You know, it's a big, it's a hit that's unnecessary because, you know, the rest of the world isn't going to give up on having energy. I mean, I'm sure your program includes because you're in Hawaii, you'd have a lot of Chinese interest where in China, you know, how many coal plants are they building every month, brand new coal fired power plants? Well, you've got to get some exports of LNG or equivalent in order to get the world's level of pollution down. You know, the cause, I mean, to say, well, that pipeline would spoil the US's credibility and being a leader for climate change. That's just phantom. That's hokey pokey. Or to say that the Alberta oil sands is dirty oil when, you know, the refineries on the Gulf Coast are buying oil from Venezuela and Nigeria. Well, or Maya, like the Mayan oil or the Venezuelan oil is exactly the same texture quality chemical qualities as as the stuff that's coming from the Alberta oil sands and the oil sands are very, very highly regulated compared to any oil and gas in the United States. And and it's really compared to 10 years ago, you know, it's really pretty clean oil now, you know, the idea of just off the cuff saying, oh, that's really dirty oil, dirty, dirty kind of thing. And it's just incorrect. It's unreasonable when you put it in the perspective of what oil is there in the world that's available for use. I mean, you got the the Balkan oil from sort of North Dakota, et cetera, you know, can sell at a premium in New England because their refineries have been set up to process that light crude, where all of refineries in the Middle West, like in, you know, Southern Illinois and Minneapolis and those on the Gulf Coast, virtually all of them are designed to process heavy crude. Well, once you got it in a pipeline, it's the same crude as anybody else's. So they're arguing, you know, if you want to argue, should you not have that pipeline? Well, now they're shipping the same stuff by oil tanker, or at least by by tankers on trucks and tankers on in trains. You know, there was a massive explosion. You may or may not have known a couple years ago in a in a small town in Quebec, and that magnetic was cold. But that was oil from the Balkan. And the Alberta crude is being shipped all over the place now by by training because there's lack of pipeline capacity to meet the demand that's out there. Another side of the oil and gas industry is really Canada buys a ton of oil shipped from places like the the Balkan feel in in North Dakota to Quebec or Southern Ontario, whereas, you know, the crude from Alberta is going in particular to lots of the states on the west side of Rocky Mountains. You're smiling, but I don't know why I'm I'm fascinated with this. And you mentioned the name before the show that in fact, to build keystone as far as it has gone, well, it's complete, but to build it cost billions. And I wonder if you could talk about that. Where did that money come from? Is it is it paid back? Is it a loan? Is it equity? Who's who's going to lose if you cut off the keystone? Oh, well, there's a single corporation called T C energy. It used to be called Trans Canada Corp. They're the sole owner of the pipeline other than the province of Alberta's investment, where the province of Alberta was really expecting once the pipeline was done, Trans Canada would have the the muscle to finance the repurchase of that interest. Well, the piece that's missing, you know, the one that's being vetoed, where you've got a whole pipeline network that's already there, like it goes about 500 miles from Alberta to across going east in Canada to a little bit near Winnipeg or almost to Minneapolis. Then it runs straight south, roughly on the Minnesota North Dakota border and keeps chugging south until it hits the Gulf Coast. Importantly, along the way, it feeds most of the refineries in the in the US Midwest. And and then it goes to Cushing, Oklahoma, which is pretty well, the major storage distribution center in the US for for oil. And then it goes to the Gulf Coast, Port Arthur. And there's a couple of branch lines that run, say one from Port Arthur over to Houston and one up at the upper end to feed refinery in in in the Midwest, particularly a couple big ones in in Illinois. But that's going to be about 1500 miles straight, straight south, yeah, from the Canadian border of Port Arthur. Yeah, plus the 500 miles to get get that far east. Yeah. You know, but the the piece that was going to be just for export, the the K XL part, the X piece was to add an extra, you know, I think it's a little under a thousand miles. If you went directly from Alberta to the middle of Nebraska or just south, straight north of Cushing, Oklahoma, and you just go diagonally across Montana and the northeastern corner of Wyoming and then down and run structure so that you can up the capacity to get those exports going from the Gulf Coast. You know, it has you know, even our federal government in Canada as a huge percentage of its income, like their let's call it revenues, are based on the oil industry from Alberta. Canada has a slug of more social benefits than the US does. Like burning sand, there should be really happy to be in Canada. In terms of life is life is good in Alberta. But, you know, do you understand from, you know, your your travels and your reading, why this is so iconic, why Joe Biden felt that he had to do this on the very day he was inaugurated, why it's so important to him, you know, in terms of energy policy. Well, I would say it was a political promise. And I think that it became a big issue in the campaign with Hillary versus Trump, where very early in it, Hillary said she was against Keystone, that it was contrary to the climate objectives of the United States. Well, you know, what climate objectives when it came to Trump, you know, he didn't care about it, but therefore Keystone became a political issue. It was really a political football so that somewhat like the Trump lie that he really won the election that he won by a landslide. And you got these people like Ted Cruz saying, you know, agreeing with them. Well, that really causes enough misinformation that the political football rolls along on its own. And I think that that's an awful lot of it. It's just a bunch of bad assumptions or misinformation or important factors not being taken into account. Yeah, what it sounds like to me, Ken, is that in the politicization of Keystone, if you like Trump, you like Keystone. If you don't like Trump, you don't like Keystone. So the merits are really around Trump rather than around Keystone. And, you know, interesting comparison. Go ahead. And no, well, that's sort of the scenario. But basically you have special themes that each of the American parties and around the world. It's not much different, but the political parties take position. You know, in theory, the Republicans favor a balanced budget or they're against more spending. Well, but you've got to get some issue that somebody can wave the flag on. And Keystone tended to be one of those. It's just taken. This reminds me of this reminds me of Obama had a wonderful way that was something like an overinflated issue relative to the truth. You know, like say it was something along those lines. I remember reading it, but my memory is not good enough to quote it. This reminds me of the wall. They had a little news piece. Maybe it was playing in Canada because everything it plays here plays in Canada. This morning about the wall, Trump has recently visited the wall and and Biden has ordered that the construction of the wall stop and there's this there's this heavy equipment down there at the base of the wall that we're working on the wall. These these fellows are working on the wall yesterday. And today they heard that Biden didn't want to do the wall anymore. And he would order a proclamation to stop working on the wall. And everybody doesn't know what to do. The guys in the heavy, what do we do? Do we just stop and drive our equipment off somewhere else? Do we finish the part we were working on? Do we finish the day that we are working on? Or what do we do? And then you get this very complicated thing about the transition, the transition from working on the wall to not working on the wall. I mean, and there's no there's no provision for this. Maybe there will be later. But for now, it's just it's going to stand there half finished after spending billions on it. It's going to stand there half finished. Somebody said it was a monument to Trump standing there half finished. It's not even half finished, less than half finished. But the same kind of transitional problem. This same kind of transitional problem, you know, exists with other other initiatives, other projects like this. For example, Keystone, you know, millions have been sunk into it for the Canadians are concerned. What do you do now? You lose the billions. You stop cold on it. How do you make the transition from one side to the other? Well, I think, for example, the apportion of the the piece that's been canceled has even been constructed. Now, it's in Canada, but I like your analogy with the the wall. I didn't know that Biden had stopped the construction of the wall that was on their way. There, you know, as I understand it here in Canada, that not very much of the wall that Trump was telling for was even built and and historically, lots of Democrats have supported a wall in certain places in order to, you know, have some reasonable control of immigration. But I think it's an excellent example that solely because the other party wanted it or favored it, you draw a line and so the Democrats don't like it because the Republicans did. Where, you know, it shouldn't have been a political issue in the first place. I mean, the United States has, you know, two or three hundred thousand miles of pipelines now and they handle all kinds of stuff in those pipelines and to build a brand new pipeline with the latest technology and having been beat up through a variety of environmental tests. This would probably be the best pipeline in the United States in terms of quality and protection, you know. And so, you know, it's not any problem where somebody would say, you know, you've got to have a couple of sensitive areas that the aquifer that's sort of in northeast Wyoming and in several other surrounding states. It's not a very deep aquifer as well as the Sandhills area. Well, you know, they rejiggered the pipeline so it doesn't go through hardly any of that. And, you know, I think I think that the corporation met every test that somebody pushed at them. Now, you know, I'm a believer that no corporation's an angel. You know, they're only as good and honest as as the government supervision or inspection forces them to be. You know, but when I'm when I'm coming to a discussion, what I'm coming to from this discussion is this sort of like some of the projects we have in Hawaii, where you get your permit, everything looks good. The powers that be at the time, you know, are saying good for you. You met you met all the regulate regulatory requirements and you can go ahead. The next administration comes in, they say, stop. The next administration comes in and they say, start. The next administration comes in and they say, stop. How can you do big projects that way? How can Wall Street have the confidence in the regulatory system to say, yeah, here's a billion dollars, why don't you spend it on the project? Because they never know whether it will be politicized and whether, you know, a given regulatory decision will be reversed the next time the administration is reversed. It's a real comparison here and it's hard for, you know, Wall Street or investors in general, global consortia to invest in large, you know, multi-billion dollar projects when when they cannot rely on permits that they get, even though they spent a lot of money and time getting those permits, we have that right here in Hawaii. And I'm sure it exists elsewhere in many capacities. And so the people in Canada, you know, the business guys, the ones who have invested in it, the ones who have relied on the development of this infrastructure, they must be pretty upset because they're losing a lot of money. And I guess my next question to you is, what about the people in general? What about the government? Does this move affect the relations between these two, you know, ancient allies, the US and Canada? Is this a foreign policy issue? Depending where you are in Canada. You know, if you took three of the 10 provinces in Canada that have oil and gas exports, they would they certainly would think so. Whereas, you know, other provinces and may not, but in terms of the totality, it ought to be. I mean, when the United States wants to do anything internationally, whether you're going to have a war in Afghanistan or Iraq and you want to get some international troops, who does the US come to first? The US has always depended on Canada to be their best ally, their first guy to come to the plate for anything that sounds morally good. So it's kind of when you just, you know, kick Canada in the groin economically, you know, and yet out of the other side of Biden's mouth, he's saying, well, we want to get the world back together. We want to say raw for the Paris Agreement. We want to get, you know, back to the Iran nuclear deal. You know, you want to have because of the new technology and rockets, maybe you need some kind of Arctic warning stations, you know, reinstate that idea. You know, the China and Russia wanted, you know, exploit the Arctic and you can't do anything the Arctic without Canada being part of it. You know, well, you know, if you were looking for the province of Alberta, instead of Canada in total, they'd tell you the US to go jump in the light. You know, that is, does it deserve some reaction? And this Keystone decision is just so huge in importance to Canada. It's a diddle squad issue to the US. I think that's key to Biden's misunderstanding is it's just a nothing decision to him. It's sort of as if it's inconsequential other than it was like a political point where it's it's really a major issue in Canada, a economically for jobs, be in terms of the government finances. And thirdly, in terms of of Canada's exports, where if Canada can't export more stuff, then it doesn't have the money to buy US goods. Has the view of the average Canadian over the past four years, the view of the United States changed? I mean, there was a there was a writer in the Irish Times who coined the notion that he had pity and that Europe has pity on the United States. How is how is Canada how does Canada feel about that? The view of of Canadians about the United States has definitely changed. Canadians are more cynical about the United States. The United States alleges to be, you know, in favor of democratic values and equality, but has racial problems that, you know, Canada does not have. We we have systemic racism, but not to the degree US does. The United States is just a big bully. If you took Trump's attitude or the actions on tariffs on aluminum and steel, you know, why would you have a tariff on Canadian aluminum? You know, when you've got the auto pack between the countries, it's simply, you know, a cause of inflation. When Trump says that tariffs, the tariffs are paid for by China. You know, the average Canadian thinks, how stupid can the typical American be if they believe that, you know, and Canadians are really surprised that so many people believe Trump's lies about the election was stolen? You know, I think that needed the reinforcement of some of these conflict of interest senators like Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham and the fellow from Missouri, I forgot his name. You seem to be the worst of the bunch. Josh Hawley, that's the one. Yeah, yeah. Those people, you know, create a law. And so you get the capital riot that arises from it. Well, when you have a bunch of that stuff, it's kind of hard for a Canadian to believe that the Americans are as confident as they used to be. Because they're not. They just like the proof of the pudding is in their action. Now, we're absolutely relieved Biden will be there. Maybe you can give back to a more normal level of sanity. But if you're going to have QAnon people in the House of Representatives, you're going to have, you know, the Congress gal from from New York, Alexandria, Ocasio Cortez, I think that's how you say your name. Yeah. But where she's concerned, being in a secluded room with fellow congressmen, because they're really on the inside of the enemy. You know, what kind of oath did somebody give to the Constitution to do good for America that then would cause their immediate business or congressional associate to have fear because of their dishonesty, their lack of patriotism? Could you think you think that the insurrection at the capital could ever have happened in Ottawa? Anything can happen anywhere. I mean, we did, you know, civilized places, developed Mussolini and Hitler and most dictators have got into place with with some kind of similar sets of steps. And you know, democracy is all it's not a safe, solid thing that you've got to keep at it. You know, you depend on the honesty of politicians. And you know, unfortunately, the United States seems to have a habit of taking people that do not deserve to be re-elected and re-elected. You know, once like state senators in particular tend to be they represent so many people and and people are not interested enough in politics that they follow that what a jerk the person was that they don't kick them out. They just vote by name recognition. And so you get these, you know, people that are solely interested in retaining power or getting power rather than doing good for the country. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. It's an interesting perspective. You know, we forget that that Canadians are so close to us. We forget that, you know, there's a common bond in not only not only language and culture, but you know, legal legal roots. And we forget that you you know what's going on in the United States. Well, and we also forget that you may not have exactly the same view of things as Americans would have. And you have in many ways a fresh view of it. And maybe a thoughtful, more thoughtful view. You can see it at a certain distance and so you can come to some valuable conclusions. And that's why I think we're to talk to you some more. We are to have another show maybe in a few months after we see what happens with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we may we may see remarkable things. And we may, you know, be very interested in your perspective as it goes forward. Yeah, I noticed and the problems of British Columbia in particular, that when there were 20 or so candidates for the lead of the Democrats, that the one that was always the favorite that people here hope would win was Kamala Harris. In the end, I think it's a good duo. But I might correct your comment about Canada having a fresh and perhaps better perspective on some issues. I think Canada always has a biased view. You like to think that where you're from is better than where the other guys from. And that's always important to take into account. You know, we're where I live, we're really close to Washington State. You know, everybody smiles and says, you know, gee, Washington State has one and a half times as many people as British Columbia. And it's got 10 times as many covid cases and that type of thing. You know, it's it's a national pride or whatever you want to call it. And Ken, I've got to I've got to close the show down. We're out of time. This is our kind of built in everybody would like to see where about out of time. Ken, we'll have to continue this conversation the next time. And I do want to continue with the next time. Thank you so much for coming around today. I really appreciate your thought. Hopefully I helped you out on the short notice. Yeah, short notice is important. Thank you so much. Ken Rogers, retired businessman in in in Canada and British Columbia. Dr. Ken Rogers, we'll see you soon. Take care. All right. Bye.