Keystone XL Pipeline

[gnarlylove]

Here is the full proposed route.

Below are two pictures of the result of separating the valuable crude from the sand. I call them Sulfur Block Mountains:

These mountains will only grow with time. This is inherently ugly and is no way to go about meeting energy demands.

Luckily, latest polls show a jump to 40% in opposition to the pipeline. There was also a drop from 65% support to 55%. The more Americans find out the less likely they are to support this bid to continue our dependence on oil. I bet very few people are aware of the scale of these sulfur mountains or that it is hardly a major job-creator. Of course this creates jobs but at $5.3B (some estimate $7B) its awfully expensive to create just 9,000 direct jobs for 2 years or less. Long term there will only be a few thousand employed.

Let's hope this gets shut down once again just like last year! Contrary to lowering oil prices, it will do no such thing. Oil prices are set on a global level and the tar sands will not provide enough oil to significantly change the market.

However, southern points have already been marked and some built. This does not bode well. If approved, the main beneficiaries will be oil executives in Canada like TransCanada who is paying big for ads. As the crude is shipped to Texas, some oil men will score big too as their older plants are fit to refine the heavier crude. Although it will slightly reduce our dependence on Venezuelan or Persian oil, the benefits can hardly be said to go to the consumer. Largely a few wealthy men will profit over the long term and the environment and farming communities will suffer. We will still depend on foreign oil and nothing much will have changed.

 

[gnarlylove]

Today the State Department released its final report on the environmental impact of the Keystone XL pipeline.

The headlines in the mainstream media faithfully repeated the oil industry’s spin. It’s true that the oil industry lobbyists did everything they could to sway this report to their liking – and we’re going to have to fight hard in the coming months to overcome their influence.

But the real news is that this report – despite being written by a deeply compromised contractor that was practically handpicked by TransCanada and the American Petroleum Institute – still couldn’t refute one crucial fact.

The State Department’s review has acknowledged—for the very first time—that the tar sands pipeline could accelerate climate change.

Make no mistake: the climate upheaval that will result from the tar sands expansion driven by the Keystone XL will far exceed the State Department’s projections—which continue to downplay the risks to our planet. Not the smartest way to proceed continuing the precedent of no action.

But the State Department’s final review provides President Obama with more than enough ammunition to reject the climate-wrecking pipeline. It’s up to him.

The President has promised to stop the tar sands pipeline if it will drive significantly more global warming pollution and climate chaos.

The evidence is now overwhelming that this project would do exactly that. It’s time for President Obama to keep his word, stand up to Big Oil and put our climate first.

The Keystone XL would pump a river of corrosive, toxic tar sands oil from Canada right through the American heartland—endangering water supplies, threatening our farms and homes and creating a grand total of a few dozen permanent jobs. Meanwhile, most of the oil will be exported.

How can that possibly be in our national interest? It's only in the interest of the few hundred people who continue to prosper wildly.

 

[gnarlylove]

With the release of the State Department’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (or FEIS) the final decision is near. It kicks off the State Department’s 90-day National Interest Determination – a process involving other agencies, that should be more difficult for the oil industry to corrupt, and will allow Secretary Kerry to step in and show climate leadership.

Then, the final decision will be solely in the hands of the president. It is a decision that has wide implications for his presidency, and the progress we can make fighting climate change. He will have to decide which side he is on: Will he do what’s best for big oil or will he do what’s clearly in our national interest and reject this pipeline?

 

[waltky]

Granny says if dey want more natural gas - dey oughta hook up a pipeline to Uncle Ferd's g/f's butt...

As Keystone XL Pipeline Clears One Hurdle, WH Hints at Further Delay
February 3, 2014 -- The U.S. State Department on Friday released yet another "final" environmental impact statement that finds no major objection to the Keystone XL pipeline -- a project that would contribute approximately $3.4 billion to the U.S. economy and create 42,100 jobs, according to the State Department's own report.

So why won't President Obama approve the job-creating project that's been in limbo since 2008? White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough repeatedly dodged that question Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "So is this thing ready to be greenlighted by the president? What would hold him back from saying, yes, the Keystone pipeline should be built, should go forward?" David Gregory asked McDonough on Sunday. "He laid out his view on this last summer, which is that -- his view is that, if this is to go forward, it should not significantly exacerbate the climate crisis in this country," McDonough replied.

"Right," Gregory said. "Didn't the State Department answer that and said it won't?" McDonough said the State Department report is "important to that process. We'll hear from other Cabinet secretaries." He then noted that the U.S. is now producing more oil than it imports. "You didn't answer my question," Gregory said. McDonough pointed to a news report about the "terrible drought in the West" which he blamed on "climate change." "So we're going to obviously resolve the Keystone question, but that's one in a much bigger issue...climate."

Gregory tried again, asking McDonough to "just indulge me -- what would stop (Obama) from saying yes at this point, given his own State Department saying there's not a big impact on the climate, from doing this?" McDonough replied that Obama is going to "insulate this process from politics." "I didn't ask about politics. You got a State Department study," Gregory said.

"We have one department with a study," McDonough agreed. "Now we have other expert agencies -- the EPA and many others -- who have an -- the Energy Department -- an opportunity to look at this and make their determination. The president wants to protect their ability to do that, make this decision based on the best analysis and most sound science."

MORE

See also:

'Energy Policy' Will Solve Climate Change and Create 'Mother of All Markets'
February 3, 2014 -- Just as computer technology greatly expanded Americans' wealth in the 1990s, the clean energy market could do the same thing in the years ahead, Secretary of State John Kerry told the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday.

He touted climate change as a societal challenge and an economic opportunity: "We created the greatest wealth the world has seen during the 1990s, greater even in America than the period of the Pierponts and the Morgans and the Rockefellers, Carnegies, Mellons--much greater. You know what it was? It was a $1-trillion market with 1 billion users. It was the high-tech market, the personal computer mostly, communications. "The energy market that we are staring at--that is the solution to the climate change," Kerry continued. "Energy policy is the solution to climate change. That market, my friends, is a $6-trillion market today with 4 to 5 billion users today, and it will grow to some 9 billion users over the course of the next 20 to 30 years. "It is the mother of all markets, and only a few visionaries are doing what is necessary to reach out and touch it and grab it and command its future."

Kerry urged conference attendees to read the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "It's really chilling," he said. "And what's chilling is not rhetoric; it's the scientific facts, scientific facts. And our history is filled with struggles through the Age of Reason and the Renaissance and the Enlightenment for all of us to learn some respect for science. The fact is that there is no doubt about the real day-to-day impact of the human contribution to the change in climate." Kerry said although climate change is solvable, the skeptics need to be convinced by the ruling class: "There seems to be an absence of will, an absence of collective leadership that's ready to come together and tell our people -- not what they're necessarily telling us through this crazy social media... but for us as leaders to suggest to them, this is what you ought to be interested in, because it actually affects your life and your livelihood and your future."

Last November, in a speech to the Organization of American States, Kerry called the "new energy market" the "biggest market in human history." "The Americas have become the new center of our global energy map," Kerry told the OAS. "Our hemisphere supplies now one-fourth of the world’s crude oil and nearly one-fourth of its coal. We support over a third of global electricity. And what that means is that we have the ability and the great responsibility to influence the way that the entire world is powered. "To do this, it will require each of our nations to make some very fundamental policy choices. We need to embrace the energy future over the energy of the past."

In that speech, Kerry talked about deploying new energy technology and connecting electrical grids throughout the Americas, to create a shared market. "If we harness the power of the wind in Mexico and the biomass in Brazil, the sunshine in Chile and Peru, the natural gas in the United States and Argentina, then the enormous benefits for local economies, public health, and of course climate change mitigation could reach every corner of the Americas and beyond."

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article...-climate-change-and-create-mother-all-markets

 

[Mr. H.]

We can't have "inherently ugly" shit piling up now can we?

Those sulfur blocks are ultimately removed and remediated. Sulfur is a valuable commodity, you know.

Go masturbate somewhere else.

 

[RGR]

Let's hope this gets shut down once again just like last year! Contrary to lowering oil prices, it will do no such thing. Oil prices are set on a global level and the tar sands will not provide enough oil to significantly change the market.

They already have, becoming one of the largest producing oil fields on the planet, which means they are already far past just "significant".

However, southern points have already been marked and some built. This does not bode well. If approved, the main beneficiaries will be oil executives in Canada like TransCanada who is paying big for ads.

Transcanada paying big for ads doesn't much benefit oil executives in Canada. Might help out an ad agency somewhere, but the Canadian oil folks make their money in other ways.

As the crude is shipped to Texas, some oil men will score big too as their older plants are fit to refine the heavier crude. Although it will slightly reduce our dependence on Venezuelan or Persian oil, the benefits can hardly be said to go to the consumer.

Stop using oil and then let us know how non-beneficial it is to you. Might make up for your thoughtless comments on the rest of the downstream hydrocarbon distribution chain.

Largely a few wealthy men will profit over the long term and the environment and farming communities will suffer. We will still depend on foreign oil and nothing much will have changed.

Plenty will change. I would sooner donate to the trade imbalance with Canada than some other country, particularly those specializing in using the money to try and kill Americans.

 

[RGR]

But the real news is that this report – despite being written by a deeply compromised contractor that was practically handpicked by TransCanada and the American Petroleum Institute – still couldn’t refute one crucial fact.

The State Department’s review has acknowledged—for the very first time—that the tar sands pipeline could accelerate climate change.

Considering that there hasn't been much in the way of temperature change for more than a decade now, accelerating no change is meaningless.

May I recommend stopping your personal contribution to CO2 emissions if you believe so strongly that they are related to climate change?

Make no mistake: the climate upheaval that will result from the tar sands expansion driven by the Keystone XL will far exceed the State Department’s projections—which continue to downplay the risks to our planet. Not the smartest way to proceed continuing the precedent of no action.

What are you talking about, no action? The world saved itself with Kyoto, for some reason right about the time folks signed that one, temperature increases stopped! OBVIOUSLY it worked....

How can that possibly be in our national interest? It's only in the interest of the few hundred people who continue to prosper wildly.

So you don't use any oil? You don't profit from the exploration for, development and distribution of oil by USING any? Amazing....so your computer doesn't have any plastic using hydrocarbon chemical feedstock? Amazing....what did you build it from...wood?

 

[whitehall]

Statistics prove that pipelines are safer than shipping petroleum by truck or train or ship and cheaper too. Funny how everyone but the freaking president thinks the Keystone pipeline is a win win.

 

[jwoodie]

Here is the full proposed route.

Below are two pictures of the result of separating the valuable crude from the sand. I call them Sulfur Block Mountains:

These mountains will only grow with time. This is inherently ugly and is no way to go about meeting energy demands.

Yah, windmills are sooo beautiful (except in Hyannisport).

 

[Mr. H.]

RIGZONE - US State Dept: Without Keystone, Oil Trains May Cause 6 Deaths Per Year

Feb 2 (Reuters) - Replacing the Keystone XL pipeline with oil-laden freight trains from Canada may result in an average of six additional rail-related deaths per year, according to a U.S. State Department report that is adding to pressure for President Barack Obama to approve the line.

About 40 people considered missing in Quebec train disaster; five declared dead | Globalnews.ca

 

[longknife]

You and I both know the greenie wackos would rather have trains burst into flames or massive destruction when trucks carrying the natural gas get into an accident.

 

[gnarlylove]

of course folks it is generally safer than trains. no one is disputing that.

the issue which i know you disagree with is that america should not be moving forward by installing a guarantee of increased fossil fuel consumption. those of us who respect that planet as our provider has seen the damage done and we think its time to change our future. the future is unwritten and we are determined to live in harmony with nature instead of pumping nature dry till.

just respect that fact that people can respectfully disagree with your ideas and be intelligent. i imagine you all are decent folks. i think the environmental impact of kxl is real and ensures future generations problems to come. its based in money and not in what's best for the world. some confuse these two and think what's good for man is necessarily good for the earth. i disagree on both accounts, it's neither good for man nor good for earth. benzene and other toxins come from this and will continue to send 100s and 1000s of people into cancer treatment and respiratory treatment in texas where the refineries are among a litany of other risks.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Gnarly if you don't want us to obtain more energy please get the fuck off of the Internet

 

[gnarlylove]

its called responsiblity. if we fail to be responsible to our planet, it will no longer offer us the abundance.

there is a balance, as with every thing on the planet. however, you have not striked that balance between hatred and respect.

so welcome to the internet where your kind rule: where indecency and ass holes have no conception of how to treat opposition except through ceaseless denial and personal attacks.

have a fucking fantastic day you fellow piece of star dust!

 

[RGR]

of course folks it is generally safer than trains. no one is disputing that.

the issue which i know you disagree with is that america should not be moving forward by installing a guarantee of increased fossil fuel consumption. those of us who respect that planet as our provider has seen the damage done and we think its time to change our future.

Guarantee of increased consumption? Now why in the WORLD would you say that? Do you really think that the human demands for power generation will suddenly skip one of the largest resources on the planet because dumbass Americans decide to not be the ones to get their cut of the inevitable? And folks like you using hydrocarbons to provide electricity so that you can post on your computer utilizing plastics derived from those same hydrocarbons you are whining about?

But you are whining because you RESPECT the environment, and want everyone else to behave in a way you can't even emulate yourself? Sure, we always believe the hypocrites.

it's neither good for man nor good for earth. benzene and other toxins come from this and will continue to send 100s and 1000s of people into cancer treatment and respiratory treatment in texas where the refineries are among a litany of other risks.

Life involves risk. What part of that do you so obviously not understand? Vegans can be hit by a bus...or meteorite...as easily as Texans living near refineries. Don't like your risk profile? Feel free to change it, but don't pretend your values are any different than those used by fascists down through the ages to force compliance with a lifestyle that YOU certainly can't be bothered to accept.

 

[RGR]

its called responsiblity. if we fail to be responsible to our planet, it will no longer offer us the abundance.

Apparently you require everyone else to be responsible...except you? See, that doesn't work so well. Frank has it pegged.

Fascists are quite common, the reason for the fascism is irrelevant, eco-fears is quite a common one right now.

Comply with my stand on all good humans should only eat granola or else off with your head!!

 

[gnarlylove]

Looking for quality reading on the XL? Look no further: Clearing Our Heads About Keystone | "Global Possibilities"

 

[gnarlylove]

Keystone PipeLIES Exposed - Spills from Center for Media and Democracy on Vimeo

 

[RGR]

Looking for quality reading on the XL? Look no further: Clearing Our Heads About Keystone | "Global Possibilities"

Pretty bad reference Gnarly. Got anything that has a non-advocacy approach, and isn't trying to sell living in mud huts and eating only granola because the author wants to force everyone into a lifestyle that THEY think everyone should live like.

 

[Mr. H.]

Governors cite President Barack Obama saying decision on Keystone XL pipeline to come soon | CJOnline.com