Keystone XL pipeline

[philunderwood]

www.qando.net/?cat=18

Keystone XL pipeline: Energy security held hostage

Published August 25, 2011 | By Bruce McQuain

One of the arguments you consistently hear from the left is we can’t become “energy independent”, or said another way, we can’t become independent from “foreign oil”.

Well, there’s foreign oil and then there’s “foreign oil”. While it is true, at least at the moment, that we’re unable to fully develop and use our own national fossil fuel assets to make us independent, there is certainly a way we can pick and choose from whom we buy our oil to lessen the possibility that we’ll become hostage to unfriendly foreign powers. Friendly neighbors who are close are the solution to our energy security. But only if we recognize that fact and understand how strategically that lessens our energy vulnerability markedly.

Obviously two close neighbors, Mexico and Canada, fit that profile. So it seems a no-brainer to exploit those relationships and do all that is possible to make sure it is the US that secures the bulk of what they’re willing to produce and offer on the world market, no?

No, apparently.

It seems there’s an expectation on the part of the left that President Obama and his administration will block the Keystone XL pipeline that would transport oil taken from Canada’s oil sands to the US. A means of tying up secure oil from a safe, secure and friendly neighbor are in the air because of absurd environmental concerns. And those protesting the pipeline fully expect Obama to back their demands.

Of course, unsaid, until now at least, is Keystone XL isn’t the only pipeline Canada will build, and it certainly isn’t going to wait on the US to make up its mind:


Considering geography, exporting oil from Canada to a non-American market doesn’t sound easy; Canada’s tar sands are close to the U.S. border, but not much else. So we asked John Baird — Canada’s new foreign minister, who was in Washington recently to speak with Ms. Clinton — which nations would buy oil that America decided not to take. His answer was quick and unequivocal: the Chinese. New pipeline infrastructure will transport oil between the tar sands and Canada’s west coast, from which tankers can ship it across the Pacific Ocean. And, even now, Chinese firms are buying stakes in Canadian tar sands.

Ron Liepert, energy minister of Alberta is crystal clear about which nation is most interested:


He noted China is poised for action, investing $15 billion in the province over the past 18 months. "There is a long-term plan to get oil to the East," he said.

That investment isn’t being made for grins. It is being made by China to secure their energy future at the cost of ours.

As usual, when it comes to this administration, we dither about our energy future and security, while others act aggressively. Another reason to have them join the growing ranks of the unemployed in 2012.

~McQ

[philunderwood]

www.qando.net/?tag=nebraska

More on the Keystone decision and why it was a decision based in politics, not what was best for America

Published January 21, 2012 | By Bruce McQuain

More fallout from the Obama Keystone XL pipeline decision. Read this carefully:


Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in a telephone call yesterday, told Obama “Canada will continue to work to diversify its energy exports,” according to details provided by Harper’s office. Canadian Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver said relying less on the U.S. would help strengthen the country’s “financial security.”

The “decision by the Obama administration underlines the importance of diversifying and expanding our markets, including the growing Asian market,” Oliver told reporters in Ottawa.

Currently, 99 percent of Canada’s crude exports go to the U.S., a figure that Harper wants to reduce in his bid to make Canada a “superpower” in global energy markets.

Canada accounts for more than 90 percent of all proven reserves outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, according to data compiled in the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Most of Canada’s crude is produced from oil-sands deposits in the landlocked province of Alberta, where output is expected to double over the next eight years, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

“Relying less on the U.S.” “Diversify our markets”. “99% of … crude exports go to U.S.”

Those three phrases shout one thing in unison: The U.S. is an unreliable trading partner.

One more shocking statistic, if we want to talk about safe and secure petroleum supplies in our future – “Canada accounts for more than 90 percent of all proven reserves outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries”.

In case you missed it that’s OPEC. That’s right the very oil cartel in which we find most of the less than friendly oil exporters in this world.

As Gale Norton points out, this should have been a no brainer:


This seems like a truly simple determination. Iran is threatening to blockade the 20 percent of the world’s oil supply that flows through the Strait of Hormuz. The American economy is struggling from high unemployment. The volatility of oil prices, reflected in periodic spikes at the gas pump, is a threat to productivity. A privately funded pipeline project that would create tens of thousands of jobs while helping stabilize America’s energy supply clearly seems to be in the national interest.

Here we have, next door to us for heaven sake, a supply of oil from a friendly nation which is about as secure as it can get and we do what?

Reject it.

Warren Meyer, writing at Forbes, hits upon some apparent truths:


But local environmental concerns were merely the public pretext for a decision that is much more troubling. Opposition to the pipeline began to rally among radical environmental groups long before any of them had the first clue about the pipeline route. The real goal of these groups was not to protect water along the pipeline route, but to make it impossible to develop new sources of oil in Canada. Unable to stop Canadian oil drilling and tar sand extraction programs, environmental groups are now trying to block any pipeline that is proposed out of the oil producing regions.

As I pointed out yesterday, the “local concerns” had been addressed or were being addressed successfully according to the Governor of Nebraska. And, as Meyer points out, there was no real reason for this decision except:


The Keystone decision only makes sense in the context of a general push to limit energy supply and roll back our industrial economy and all its amazing gifts. Part and parcel of this same effort has been the growing opposition to natural gas fracking. Fracking is an underground procedure that has been used safely and successfully for decades to extend the life of older oil wells. Fracking is one reason that serial predictions of older fields “running out of oil” have been repeatedly incorrect.

Recently, though, fracking has presented the promise of substantially increasing our domestic energy supply by opening up new shale formations previously thought to be impossible to produce. With this new promise, anti-growth, anti-energy environmentalists have suddenly taken notice, and are gearing up to try to kill this exciting (and ironically quite clean) new energy source.

I think he has a very valid point – a point that William Tucker has also written about. This is about stopping progress. This is about a selfish belief that since they have theirs, the rest has no need for more. Here’s Tucker’s description:


It is not that the average person is not concerned about the environment. Everyone weighs the balance of economic gain against a respect for nature. It is only the truly affluent, however, who can be concerned about the environment to the exclusion of everything else. Most people see the benefits of pipelines and power plants and admit they have to be built somewhere. Only in the highest echelons do we hear people say, "We don’t need to build any pipelines. We’ve already got enough energy. We can all sit around awaiting the day we live off wind and sunshine."

And that’s precisely the case with Keystone. Meyer again:


Ostensibly, Obama made the decision to block the pipeline because of concern over contamination of the Ogallala Reservoir, a vast underground water source that makes much of Midwestern agriculture possible. And I am sure there are folks whose concerns are narrowly about the Ogallala or other environmental and NIMBY concerns along the proposed route. But the US has tens of thousands of miles of petroleum pipelines, many cris-crossing this same general area. There is nothing unprecedented or unmanageable about this particular line. Had these routing issues been the actual problem, the Obama Administration could easily have approved the line with conditions or route modifications.

The national security and energy needs of the nation are being held hostage by an affluent elite who have decided, because they can, that enough is enough. And they have the perfect soul-mate/tool to implement their desires in the Oval Office. Don’t forget, this is the guy who said that at some point, “you’ve made enough money”. They couldn’t be more simpatico.

Meyer also asks a question to make a point about the red herring of the route:


Does anyone doubt that had this exact same route been for high speed rail, rather than a pipeline, it would already have been approved and President Obama likely would have been proposing to throw a pile of taxpayer money at it to boot? This despite the fact that high-speed rail almost certainly has more environmental negatives than an underground pipeline. The route has always been a red herring — the real goal is reducing energy supply.

He’s dead right. Also:


The Keystone XL pipeline would have single-handedly carried more energy to the United States than the sum of all the green energy projects funded by the Obama Administration. And it would have done so entirely with private funds rather than the Administrations increasingly ill-fated and ham-handed attempts at venture capitalism with taxpayer funds.

And:


In the case of the pipeline, the Obama administration killed a private infrastructure project that is widely supported, covers its own costs, and requires no taxpayer money. I wonder where Thomas Friedman is — does he still lament our inability to do large infrastructure projects of the kind President Obama just blocked, or does he only support large state-funded triumphal projects? This seems yet another example of what I called the tendency of government to shift capital from the productive to the sexy.

Spot on.

There you have it, all laid out in a neat bundle. A “private infrastructure project that … covers its own costs and requires no taxpayer money”, vs. an environmentally destructive government boondoggle that most oppose and neither the federal or state government can afford?

The choice of this administration is the latter.

Finally, to once and for all put the “route” issue to bed, check out this map. Find Omaha. Yes, that’s right, there are oil pipelines all over Nebraska.

And surprise …the XL pipeline is the second phase of TransCanada’s pipeline plans.


TransCanada won approval in 2008 for the first Keystone pipeline, which carries crude oil across Saskatchewan and Manitoba and through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois. That portion began moving crude in June 2010.

Uh, yes, that’s right … Nebraska. And apparently, at least to this point, everything has operated as expected with no environmental problems. So could these route problems have been handled without rejecting the pipeline in question? Of course they could have.

P.S. I’ll have a lot more to say about fracking (which suffers from the same sorts of attacks by the same sorts of groups) in a post soon.

~McQ

[twinder]

I'll admit. I only have a very limited knowledge about the pipeline. I haven't really researched it. With that said, I don't understand the concerns about the water aquifer. If there are already pipelines buried near this aquifer, without any problems, then why the concern now?

If the aquifer is truly "at risk" then why not place the pipeline above ground like was done for the Alaskan pipeline several decades ago? I recall much of this being done this way to allow the natural migration of animals and not necessarily for any environmental concerns.

It is getting more and more difficulty for anyone to believe that this President wants prosperity for this Country. His actions simply don't show that.

[Ritty77]

Great article. Here is the pipeline map referenced: www.theodora.com/pipelines/united_states_pipelines_map.jpg