Environmental Outlook: The Keystone XL Pipeline
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-02-05/environmental-outlook-keystone-xl-pipeline
For this month's Environmental Outlook: environmental, economic and political implications of the State Department's upcoming decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Guests
Michael Brune
executive director of Sierra Club.
Matthew Koch
vice president of the Institute for 21st Century Energy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Coral Davenport
energy and environment correspondent for National Journal.
Comments
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The Keystone Pipeline has been pumping oil since it`s completion in 2010. It`s even had a major spill. The oil in the Keystone XL line to Texas is bound for China,after refining. Most folks don`t realize what big oil has been up to in the last 15 years. They bought out many small and micro refineries. This policy enables the oil companies to create a crisis any time they want. Close a plant for maintenance,the price goes up a little. Have 2 or more major accidents,as happened in 2012,with the Venezuelan refinery explosion,and the California closures,and gas nears $4 a gallon,most everywhere, and $5 on the coasts. Every barrel of oil exported to China takes with it another U.S.job.
If people are serious about controlling gas prices,take oil off the future commodities trading of Wall Street. Stop the oil companies from buying these futures.This is like rigging the game. The more oil future the oil companies buy,the higher the prices go.Not bad,considering they use the taxpayers own money in their corporate welfare scheme of the 'Oil Depletion Allowance'.
cliffin parmaohio is correct that tar sands sludge would be bound for export, to China or any high bidder. (The Koch Brothers would be the biggest benficiararies.) Worse than that contribution to global warming is the process required to liquify the sludge enough to pump through a pipe.
The toxic spoil from that is left to poison Alberta. But the sludge is so caustic it eats thick pipes in just a few years so that a spill over USA aquifers is inevitable. See, a pipeline is more than a pipe. It's a right of way and a maintenance responsibility where all the pipe and valves and pumps need replacing before too long. We're talking about something where the product is under a thosand pounds per square inch pressure so that it behaves like a rapidly moving solid. Under corporate thinking today "maintenance" amounts to new carpet in the corporate office and not infrastructure upkeep. So, all things combined, the Keystone XL is a license to leave a trail of despoilation from Fort McMurray to Houston. (And, the sludge boom is ruining the Canadian government, fast and furiously.) Once the crappy soot is burned there will remain no money to reclaim the wastelands. That all will have been gambled away at Libertine financial casino. (Technology that does a little good for a few but a lot of bad for many will always deserve a NO vote.)
Yesterday, while researching the intended purpose of expanding the Panama Canal,they site increased traffic due to moving all kinds of natural resources. Coal,gasoline,natural gas,iron ore.All kinds of needs for manufacturing.All the things China needs to take more jobs from Americans. ARE THE SHALE GAS RESERVES HEADED TO CHINA?
We are at a crossroads that calls for long-term thinking about energy. The era of fossil fuels is coming to an end as we exhaust all but the dirtiest and deepest sources of oil and coal. The Keystone XL pipeline is a marker for the crossroads—we either commit to huge investments in further development of fossil fuels (including infrastructure for tar sands and shale gas) or we dedicate our resources to developing and bringing to scale renewable energy. This is why the pipeline decision is so important. The physics of climate change are moving our climate system into dangerous territory. The time to act is now.
Larry Chamblin
Pensacola, FL
clifffromparma, excellent comment. Speculation is driving up our energy cost beyond what the actual market demand for those goods would. Keystone is only going to benefit the sellers of the product, not US consumers. Another Big Lie being pushed onto voters is that this pipeline will do anything to secure our energy "future".
Cliff: All brokered commodities are fungible geographically and almost always go to the highest bidder. And when you say all our resources and ores are going to "China" through the enlarged Panama Canal you must also realize that China's abudant rare earths are wasted on pocket toys coming here and going to Europe. Also think of the energy wasted hauling things around the planet on ships and planes to no good end.
I think it quite too late, Cliff, for your appeals to nationalism, local ownership and national security because transnationalism in trade agreements has negated all these things. Take GE for instance: They float stateless somewhere offshore extracting money from the Treasury without paying taxes while exporting jobs. Obama just dissolved his "jobs board" that had been under the chairmanship of one of their elite. Maybe the joke had worn thin.
The preservation of the Ogallala Acquifer is crucial and needs to be a priority. What good is all the technology and energy if we have no water to drink or for food production purposes?
It seems everything possible is being done to destroy our natural world - our resources cannot withstand all the population increases, the severe droughts, and man's foolishness and short-term thinking. Amnesty for anyone wishing to come here will not help, and neither will destroying our land so oil can be shipped to China, or anywhere else.
We can all kiss the America we've loved goodbye, and I don't say that lightly. No one wants to consider the impacts of all this superfluous technology, processes, and people on the nation's carrying capacity.
Larry Chamblin: Seems like Germany and Japan are attempting to make the jump to sustainable infrastructure but that the Global Oligarchy is using their hand puppet (USA military and financial terror) to try blocking their shot. Look for the left hand to come into play: China. The left and right hands know not what the other is doing, but the puppetmaster knows. Puppetmasters can't help themselves; it's an addiction. (Oil, usury, whatever.)
Calamity Joe- Disaster Capitalism is the centerpiece of Shock Doctrine (see Naomi Klein).
Corporate Capitalism has run its course and now is devouring itself. Austerity imposed on those who do the necessary work is a terminal symptom. (Do you agree that the Hurricane Sandy cleanup has boosted the GNP?)
Building this pipeline fits into a belief system that the planet is simply not bountiful enough to survive upon as it was given to us. We think, "there simply won't be enough jobs unless every pipeline is build and every drop of oil is extracted. We simply must take and use everything we can. Only then will we be sufficiently wealthy and well off." Maybe it's time to let go of being in total charge, trust the planet, trust in the Universe that there will be other jobs, life will go on, and there will be wealth and contentment if we choose not to destroy the environment.
Jobs, yes, but at what price? If we employ people in such an environmentally damaging project, aren't we shooting ourselves in the foot?! What is the legacy we are leaving to our children in allowing this project to go forward? We must take the long rage view and channel resources into clean energy.
so why this route? If it is so safe to build the pipeline why not go across Canada to the West coast or across to the Great lakes? I have read that most of the oil produced would not to go the US but out of the country. So why this route?
herd mentality
Matthew Cook did not answer your question Diane about how much would be exported. You said you had read 90 percent. He said I doubt that much but then never said how much would be exported. Matthew Cook please answer Diane's specific question with a specific answer. How much would be exported?
Matthew Cook did not answer your question Diane about how much would be exported. You said you had read 90 percent. He said I doubt that much but then never said how much would be exported. Matthew Cook please answer Diane's specific question with a specific answer. How much would be exported?
Why is this dirty resource not left to Canada to exploit and refine fouling their land not ours?????
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/05/23/canada-oil-refineries_n_1539701....
The Canadian prime minister is on record during his testimony before parliament that the primary purpose of the pipeline is for export to Asia and other foriegn markets... not the US. As for the guest commenting about how it's targeted for this market - the US Energy department is already planning on us being energy independent soon... using our own resources. Why is he touting biased talking points?
Record drought was mentioned. The proposed route passes through not only dry land, but land that is subject to fire. How could the infrastructure possibly be safe from wildfire?
I`m sorry but,the folks from the Unites States Chamber of Commerce are disgusting. They fund anti American candidates. They seem like they are in love with China.They support tax breaks for the job exporters.
Originally the XL pipeline was to be export oil through Vancouver.That oil has always been targeted for Chinese consumption..The Canadians were smart enough to know a bad deal when they`ve been shown it.They rejected this scheme. Why can`t we ?
Matthew Koch cites "tremendous economic benefits" - What about the 'externalities' related to these kinds of jobs (pollution, potential spills, biodiversity loss, climate change)? We must take them into account in evaluating this project.
Who will be liable for damages to aquifers? Companies should be required to hold a deposit for cleaning efforts. It should be large enough to cover the costs of a major spill.
I am guessing such industrial activities would not be profitable if the companies involved had to accurately cover the potential for damages. Just like nuclear- only profitable if the government underwrites the building.
America's leading export right now is refined petroleum products like gasoline and diesel. To say that the "very little" of the oil from Canada would be exported is a bald-faced lie.
the question is who will make the steel pipes needed for the pipeline? From what I gather it will be contracted to South Korea or India who have been accused of making sub-standard materials. Shouldn't U.S. Steel handle it? That
means jobs!
I am from Houston. Local activists recently took pictures within some of the pipe and showed daylight through some of the welds. Please have your panelists discuss the record of pipeline breaches by TransCanada.
With every comment, I find myself more confused. This type of oil is so energy intensive and creates such toxic waste, won't effect the price of oil globally and most of the refined oils will then be shipped overseas. Where, then is the benefit of having this poison shipped into our country--a benefit to us AS A COUNTRY? The only benefit I see is to the corporate entities who will make the profits. Investors should run the risks in the place where it has been approved to be excavated. Build the refineries and pipelines in Canada.
I know that the oil refineries outside of Salt Lake City, Utah are booming, as I breath in the toxins that seem to hang in our valley in the winter (air quality being compared to China). There are a number of oil refineries closer to Canada, including those that are my neighbors. Why a pipeline all the way to Texas except for the ability to send it off to foreign ports?
Sandra
Salt Lake City, UT
It isn't about the tar/oil sands, it's abut the "RIGHT of WAY". The permission to transport from Up North to the Gulf and the transportion of anything that can be deliveried. Fresh Water for the arid states, Chems ? maybe they'll build a superhighway TOLL ROAD, ect...
Discussions have centered on climate change, jobs, money, the economy - everything but the actual engineering challenges involved which, today, are unprecedentedly difficult and the companies competing to build the thing have absolutely terrible records of sub-standard steel, poor weilding, terrible spills, failure to pay fines, failure to properly cleanup the spills, telling falshoods, and are overall utterly incompetent from both an eithical and technical engineering perspective!!
A. This is not the only oil pipeline bneing considered that is controversial. Another pipeline to the Canadian inside passage is controversial because Canadians are leery of the environmental dangers it presents.
B. Gains in employment are likely to be short term due to construction jobs. Already there are refinery workers in Illinois, who largely oppose the XL project because their jobs are in jeopardy when the it is completed. There is likely to be no increase in refinery jobs on balance.
C. The pipeline, as it exists now, provides jobs and fuel, and heating oil that is primariloy consumed in the US and haslowered the cost of those products in the midwest US. Shifting the flow of oil to the Gulf where it can be exported readily, will ultimately cause gasoline prices in the midwest to climb.
I live in MI where we saw 1 million gallons of tar sands oil spil in our rivers and pollute our land in 2010. We can no longer put profit above people and planet. If we want jobs for the 21st century that don't jeopardize our future and our childrens future we should invest in renewable energy and move beyond fossil fuels.
When discussing the challenge of addressing climate change Senator John Kerry recently stated, "I will be a passionate advocate on this not based on ideology but based on facts and science, and I hope to sit with all of you and convince you that this $6 trillion market is worth millions of American jobs and we better go after it."