Word: oil
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Welcome to booming Alberta, the Texas-size province that contains roughly 85% of Canada's proven oil and gas reserves, half of its coal, some major untapped hydropower sites, and vast, oil-bearing tar sands...
Under the Canadian constitution, these mineral rights belong to the provincial government. So Alberta, rather than the national government in Ottawa, has gleefully collected the rewards of gushing oil and gas prices. The province takes an average 43% cut for oil and 33% for gas from the energy companies' local production revenues, and its royalties surged from $1.3 billion in 1974 to $4 billion this year. Coveting more of this wealth for themselves, many Canadians outside the province call Alberta "OPEC North" and refer to its leaders as "blue-eyed sheiks." After traveling throughout the nouveau riche province, TIME...
Calgary is already the headquarters for 483 of the 587 oil and gas companies that have main offices in the country. It is not hard to spend $250,000 for a four-bedroom house, but heating bills in Alberta average only $27 a month, and gasoline sells for 53? a gal. Thanks to energy royalties, Alberta is Canada's only province with no sales or gasoline taxes. Its property and income taxes are the lowest of any province; for a family of four earning $17,000, the overall tax burden is $912 a year, vs. $2,130 in Quebec...
...1980s. The fund makes major loans to other provinces (at competitive rates), but its main purpose is to bankroll Alberta's economic future. The provincial government has acquired its own Pacific Western Airlines; set up a local company to invest in all forms of energy, including oil from the thick, gummy tar sands; and offers fat incentives to new firms willing to open up in smaller communities...
...quite possible that Alberta's energy bonanza will not give out for many decades. Expert estimates of conventional oil reserves range from 5 billion to 8 billion bbl. (The U.S. has proven reserves of 28.5 billion bbl., and Mexico has 16 billion bbl.) Most significant, Alberta has huge additional "unconventional" sources of energy that are not yet economical to tap but will become increasingly feasible -and necessary-as oil prices rise. The basic sources are heavy bitumen oil and the tar sands, which together could provide as much as 320 billion bbl., or enough to supply the entire world...