Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumA Presidential Decision That Could Change the World: The Strategic Importance of Keystone XL
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/02/11-0Presidential decisions often turn out to be far less significant than imagined, but every now and then what a president decides actually determines how the world turns. Such is the case with the Keystone XL pipeline, which, if built, is slated to bring some of the dirtiest, carbon-rich oil on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. In the near future, President Obama is expected to give its construction a definitive thumbs up or thumbs down, and the decision he makes could prove far more important than anyone imagines. It could determine the fate of the Canadian tar-sands industry and, with it, the future well-being of the planet. If that sounds overly dramatic, let me explain.
Sometimes, what starts out as a minor skirmish can wind up determining the outcome of a war -- and that seems to be the case when it comes to the mounting battle over the Keystone XL pipeline. If given the go-ahead by President Obama, it will daily carry more than 700,000 barrels of tar-sands oil to those Gulf Coast refineries, providing a desperately needed boost to the Canadian energy industry. If Obama says no, the Canadians (and their American backers) will encounter possibly insuperable difficulties in exporting their heavy crude oil, discouraging further investment and putting the industrys future in doubt.
The battle over Keystone XL was initially joined in the summer of 2011, when environmental writer and climate activist Bill McKibben and 350.org, which he helped found, organized a series of non-violent anti-pipeline protests in front of the White House to highlight the links between tar sands production and the accelerating pace of climate change. At the same time, farmers and politicians in Nebraska, through which the pipeline is set to pass, expressed grave concern about its threat to that states crucial aquifers. After all, tar-sands crude is highly corrosive, and leaks are a notable risk.
In mid-January 2012, in response to those concerns, other worries about the pipeline, and perhaps a looming presidential campaign season, Obama postponed a decision on completing the controversial project. (He, not Congress, has the final say, since it will cross an international boundary.) Now, he must decide on a suggested new route that will, supposedly, take Keystone XL around those aquifers and so reduce the threat to Nebraskas water supplies.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)... and two other states. The refineries exist. The crude will be refined somewhere.
This amounts to being an obstruction to delay the inevitable.
Similar pipelines crisscross this country already.
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If Obama does not stamp his approval, it will be symbolic only.
Champion Jack
(5,378 posts)It will change the world for the people who lose their property due to eminent domain.and, it will help the Koch Brothers
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Oil pipelines have been around for decades and they all leak. Have any ruined aquifers. I suppose you are referring to the Ogallala. You know how deep that water is?
All of this is a huge tangent, however. The premise of the OP is that Obama will change the world if he refuses to sign off. I don't see it.
NickB79
(19,257 posts)In his inauguration speech, he made a very big deal about how his administration was going to do all it could to combat climate change.
Signing the XL pipeline into law a few months later would show to the world how little weight his words actually carry.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)But, not signing won't change much.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)Concerned Canadians are working to stop constructions of pipelines to the Pacific. In the northeast people are trying to stop that pipeline from transporting tar sands oil. And Keystone is the third way out. I think most of the pipes on that graphic don't even exist yet, or don't transport tar sands oil.
Clearly, building more pipes and fatter pipes will allow them to get the stuff out faster.
Building all these new pipes would make a real, large, measurable difference in the amount of carbon being burned.
The goal should be to keep this oil in ground. And that means stopping these pipes from being built.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Greg Palast
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/koch-brothers-hugo-chavez-and-the-xl-pipeline
Ive been tracking a tube of black putrid ooze, a toxic viper slowly slithering 2,000 miles across the belly of America, swallowing all water aquifers, politicians and reason in its path. The XL Keystone Pipeline.
As Nagini, the murderous snake in the Harry Potter tales, had its master Voldemort, I figured the Keystone XL Pipeline must also have its own dark lords. And the Dark Lords of the Keystone Pipeline left clear clues: environmental horror, political payouts and the odour of sulphur stronger than explained by the stinking hot tar inside it. I smelled Koch. David and Charles Koch are each worth $20 billion (£12.7 billion), and theyre quite certain thats not enough. And so they need the XL Keystone Pipeline. The XL Keystone will take Canadian tar-sands oil, the filthiest crude on the planet, and suck it down to Texas Gulf Coast refineries. Albertas oil-glop reserve, if it can get to the US market, will warm the planet by nearly 0.4°C all by itself.
Why in the world would America pistol-whip Mother Nature to bring oil to Texas? I mean, its just plain weird to suck heavy tar oil out of Canada to drag it across the entire middle of the USA and import it into the oil-exporting Lone Star State. Heres where a little lesson in oil chemistry comes in. You cant just throw any old crude oil into an oil refinery. These giant filth factories are actually quite sensitive. The refineries of the Texas Gulf Coast are optimised for heavy crude. It would cost billions of dollars to rebuild the giant Flint Hills Corpus Christi Refinery, owned by Koch Industries, to use the less-polluting Texas oil drilled nearby.
The Kochs need heavy crude. But the Brothers Koch have a problem. Heavy crude is controlled by a heavy dude President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela...