After a winter away, I finally tackled my magazines and newsletters. A central theme surfaced and repeated itself: oil and oilsands, gas and coal, versus renewable energy sources.

Some believe we’ve found all the world’s oil reserves already. Proponents of the “peak oil” theory believe that we’re all going to freeze in the dark sometime in the not too distant future.

Others point to a trillion barrels of the sticky stuff, known to be sitting under the oilsands right here in Alberta plus an estimated several trillion barrels more not yet scooped out.

That gives Canada about four times Saudi Arabia’s reserves, although the International Energy Agency hasn’t yet caught on to that fact. It seems to consider only our conventional oil reserves, about 175 billion barrels, and lists us as number two to the Saudis. Nope, we’re number one by a wide margin.

Other oil reserves are being discovered in other places worldwide, much of it under the oceans. And there will be more.

There’s a huge glut of natural gas; witness current low gas prices mainly due to the recent discovery and recovery methods from shale formations and the fact that no one in the industry predicts major upward price adjustments anytime soon.

Peak oil theorists have been wrong at least 10 times since the 1970s. We have, maybe, 800 years of supply before we run out if we find no more reserves, an unlikely possibility.

Solar and wind energy are, so far, so expensive to construct and operate compared to oil, gas, coal, nuclear or hydro-generated power, they’re at least a decade away from general use. To boot, they don’t produce sustainable energy when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow.

Both wind and solar produce excess energy, which can be stored and traded to public electric grids. Again, storage is expensive to build and maintain, requiring substantial government or electric system subsidies to make the trades viable. While it would be nice, they just aren’t viable for ordinary folks yet. And ordinary folks, unfortunately, pay for those subsidies and trade-offs.

Environmentalists say our oilsands are dirty and want them shutdown — pointing out that current technology produces massive amounts of CO2 and kills ducks that land on tailings ponds. One wonders if the so-called environmental disaster of the oilsands is anywhere near the ongoing catastrophe from BP’s offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Shutting the sands down isn’t the answer. The world needs our energy and our economy needs the business and the jobs.

Every major player in the sands is working on technology to reduce and eventually eliminate carbon emissions, find cheaper and more effective production methods and even reduce tailings ponds entirely. They’re cleaning up their act. Meantime, vehicles and heating devices will decrease fuel consumption and burn cleaner so less becomes more.

The renewable sectors will refine their technologies too, reducing costs and increasing production consistency.

We won’t run out of oil, gas or coal. Their use will decline as renewables become more viable and cost effective and they become more efficient. So it’s only a matter of time until there’s a new mix of energy sources. We’ll preserve the reserves.

That ought to suit both environmentalists and the dinosaurs.

Alan Caplan TEP is with CBA Wealth. He can be reached at 780-640-1721 or e-mail him: acaplanatcba@hotmail.com