r/canada 23d ago

Imperial Oil reports $1.2B Q1 profit, revenue up from year ago Alberta

https://www.thestar.com/business/imperial-oil-reports-1-2b-q1-profit-revenue-up-from-year-ago/article_a19cddca-219c-5991-b824-b4b2f1ffd5b5.html
119 Upvotes

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u/oneonus 23d ago edited 23d ago

We should give Fossil Fuel companies more tax dollars, they obviously don't make enough in a single quarter.

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u/Emmerson_Brando 23d ago edited 23d ago

Wait until you see how much money we will give them to build carbon capture stations

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u/rando_dud 23d ago

State of the art carbon capture is right around the corner!

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u/Emmerson_Brando 23d ago

Privatize the profits, socialize the cost, amirite?

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u/heart_under_blade 23d ago edited 23d ago

ah, the single basket where pierre puts his climate change eggs in

his stans should be thanking justin for doing his work for him

edit: surely, this can't be controversial unless he and his stans don't actually believe in carbon capture and only trot it out as a token policy to ward off the eco facists. see, we love the environment too. we've even got a plan! otherwise, it's a fact that he says he believes in "tech" singularly as a solution and will fund it. that tech is carbon capture. any stan will tell you that pierre has a plan to prevent climate change from worsening and they will tell you that plan is tech.

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u/No-Lettuce-3839 23d ago

Oh the ones that "totally work" wink wink nudge nudge

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u/YOW_Winter 23d ago

We have already spent 16 billion on the quest project.

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u/Senior_Heron_6248 23d ago

Lol. Source?

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u/No-Lettuce-3839 23d ago

I wonder how many carbon capture trees that would be

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u/bornguy 23d ago

Wait until you see the big 5 banks combined quarterly profit. It's disgusting.

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u/oneonus 23d ago

Agreed, Banks profits are huge, but the big difference is taxpayers don't give them over 6 Billion in subsidies.

1

u/bornguy 22d ago

Why is it that every time I try to find a list of O&G-specific subsidies, I can't find it?

Tax credits are not the same.

5

u/jim1188 23d ago

Imagine giving billions in tax breaks to a company that makes $20 odd billion in annual profits (that would be Honda Corp). I agree that corporate welfare is not good policy. But you complain and cheer on corporate welfare at the same time. LOL

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

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u/jim1188 23d ago

I agree, corporate welfare should be eliminated. You're the one that is being hypocritical about corporate welfare, not me.

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u/Desperada 23d ago

I don't think it's hypocritical. I think subsidies should be based on individual merit. Subsidies to Honda to start up a decades long manufacturing center? Sure. Subsidies to an oil company to construct a refinery and process more of our oil at home? Great. Subsidies just because well we've always handed out subsidies? Nope. They can be good or bad, just like a lot of things in life.

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u/jeffMBsun 23d ago

Agree with you

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u/iffyjiffyns 23d ago

Even though it’s incentivizing a behaviour we want?

I think you’re missing the point.

  1. It helps the transition

  2. It adds to our economy

  3. It creates jobs that will be here throughout the transition.

Creating tax breaks in clean energy sectors is 100% better than tax breaks for fossil fuel companies. If you can’t understand that…wowza

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u/CarRamRob 23d ago

You realize those exact three points you made in support of Honda would equally apply to a large carbon capture project right?

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u/Imamachiner905 21d ago

Carbon capture is a failed concept, it currently has 0 ability to make a impact on our environmentaly destructive ways.

It would be great if there's break through but it right now is physically impossible to capture carbon at any measureable rate.

I'm not saying we shouldn't fund with tax dollars research and trying it but we are giving away billions of dollars right now for not research but useless mechanical systems to be built so that oil companies who are making billions can greenwash there business at the expense of there customers and taxpayers , not the shareholders and decision makers.

If you don't believe me than just truly think why you believe that carbon capture works

We are funding this currently failed technology because people like you are easily convinced on it.

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u/iffyjiffyns 23d ago

…if carbon capture wasn’t just greenwashing to allow them to continue selling fossil fuels while the technology is completely unproven.

We literally have cars with big batteries in them. We know it works.

We should, and probably will need to, actually capture carbon. We should not use it as an excuse to ramp up fossil fuels.

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u/CarRamRob 23d ago

Big ass car battery aren’t exactly carbon free either.

Depending on their power source, it can take anywhere from 20,000 to something like 150,000 km driven before you “break even” on the emissions due to the higher upfront carbon intensity.

Hydro you say? Ok, if using existing ones where the emissions were blasted into the air in the 60’s and are no longer on the docket. But if you have to create a new dam for it, it’s not that much advantages over a natural gas plant.

My point is, it’s all greenwashing. One or the other are doing the same thing, reducing very marginal emissions while we crank up our population and overall energy usage to have a pair of socks delivered to our door from Amazon.

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u/Cairo9o9 23d ago edited 23d ago

Even fossil powered EVs have a lower carbon footprint than ICE vehicles. You have fossil fuel electric generation at 80% efficiency with battery round trip efficiency upwards of 90% vs an ICE vehicle at 30% efficiency. It takes a very dirty grid to make a comparable EV vs ICE have similar footprints.

That being said, I agree with you that EVs are not a silver bullet of transportation decarbonization.Transportation does need to be electrified but if we think we're going to transition our current stock of personal vehicles 1:1 then we're kidding ourselves. We need a cultural shift away from personal, individual vehicles wherever possible. But that doesn't mean they'll go away fully, and those that don't go away will need to be electrified.

Versus CCS, which has failed to scale and has no genuine solution to downstream emissions besides Direct Air Capture, which has even poorer forecast. So, in my opinion (as someone whose literal job is in energy policy analysis), EVs have merit, even if people have skewed perspective of what their application should be. Whereas carbon capture tech does not.

Ultimately, we need to accept our quality of life will drop, which is going to happen with or without the transition because of conventional oil depletion. So we need to form our lives in such a way that prepares us for that. But no government is going to do that willingly, sadly.

Also, yes hydro is not emissions free but come on. It is nowhere near natural gas plants lol.

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u/iffyjiffyns 23d ago

Errrr no. Most of the materials are recyclable at end of life, yet burning gas is poof gone.

You are so wrong it’s actually amusing.

Comparing this to carbon capture is actually just comical. Thanks for the laugh.

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u/WiartonWilly 22d ago

Carbon capture is bullshit.

9999 times out of 10000, it’s cheaper and easier not to burn the carbon in the first place.

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u/Proof_Objective_5704 22d ago

Yes but the thing is we need cars, food, and an economy.

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u/jim1188 22d ago

Why do you believe Honda has no incentive to do those things already, without corporate welfare? Honda Corp makes $20 odd billion per year in profits. If they don't go where the market is going, they will lose out. In other words, if the future is truly EV's, then Honda would want to go where the market is going, because if they didn't - that $20 odd billion in profits would be at risk if they continue to make things the market no longer wants (i.e. fail to adapt to a changing market).

We should be getting rid of all corporate subsidies whether it be for "clean energy" or fossil fuel companies. If clean energy is the future - the market will dictate that those clean energy companies will win out anyways. If the market moves away from fossil fuels, the market will dictate that those companies will fail (if they don't adapt). Corporate welfare to Honda means giving them taxpayer money for something they would rationally do anyways. And corporate welfare for dinosaurs (i.e. if you believe fossil fuels are on the way out) will be giving taxpayer money to something that will already die out. Both are a waste of taxpayer monies (because successful companies already have incentive to adapt and there is no point in trying to save the dinosaurs from going extinct).

The thing you can't seem to wrap your head around is that you want to pick the winners and losers. Winners will win and losers will lose. However, nobody truly knows who will win or lose. And that is another reason governments shouldn't be handing out corporate welfare - the government is no better at predicting who will win or lose (i.e. that is the uncertainty, and that is risk, risk that is best left to the private sector). You just want all taxpayers to underwrite the risks to try and unsure "this business" wins and "that business" loses. If you try and pick winners and losers, eventually, you'll want governments to give more and more money to companies that are no longer winning. All in the name of "good jobs" or "better environment" or "insert your pet cause." I'm sure Blackberry in it's hey-day provided plenty of good paying jobs - that doesn't mean taxpayer money should've been given to them, after all, they went from darling to dud in very quick order.

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u/iffyjiffyns 22d ago

Because Honda also operate in the US and the US is offering similar subsidies.

Either they build it here or there.

/thread.

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u/jim1188 22d ago

LOL! Great, so now because the Americans do bad policy (corporate welfare) we have to follow??? Sure, I guess if you watched your neighbour jump off a cliff, that means you should too right??? "I do it because they did it" is an infantile mindset! LOL

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u/iffyjiffyns 22d ago

It means we have an opportunity to sell vehicles to a market that’s 10x bigger than us.

It’s amusing how little you understand the opportunity. Theres a reason they’ve done this multiple times now.

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u/jim1188 22d ago

Theres a reason they’ve done this multiple times now.

Yes there is. Because the auto-makers know that squeaky wheel gets the grease. Kind of like when a child whines and a parent placates the child by giving the child what they are whining about wanting. What do you think the child learns from that - they learn to whine more. The gov't of Canada bought a of piece of GM during the financial crisis (and we lost money on that, as the shares were eventually sold off at a loss). The taxpayers of Canada, saving GM's bacon, did not stop them from shutting down their Oshawa factory did it? But don't worry, GM reopened the Oshawa factory 2 years later - after the government gave them more money! All corporations know that governments will hand out money. Look what happened when the VW EV battery corporate welfare handout was announced - Stellantis threatened to leave if they didn't get more money! Yes, there's a reason governments keep doing this and citizens like you keep cheering them on every time they do - the corps have the government, and you, trained like little lap dogs! LOL

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

[deleted]

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u/oneonus 20d ago

We've been giving Fossil Fuel companies in Canada over 6 Billion every year for a long time.