The end of oil dependency is only a motion away
WHAT WOULD happen if Canada’s and therefore B.C.’s natural resources were no longer as strongly valued or even needed by the rest of the world?
Over the decades we’ve experienced mini versions of this scenario, usually brought on by a global recession and lasting for a few years. So it’s not unusual and we always rationalize and explain it away by referring to our resource sector as a Boom and Bust type economy.
However, let’s suppose that 10 years from now, someone somewhere invents a new technology that makes oil and gas obsolete. Almost overnight, oil as the engine and prime driver of the industrialized world has been replaced by this new non-carbon technology. The Industrial Age that began with steam will now be driven and likely renamed by this new technology.
In this story line, oil will not disappear overnight as there’s an obvious legacy factor… A time span that is needed to phase out or retool carbon based infrastructure and I suspect that cleansing cycle would be in the neighbourhood of 20 or so years.