Post by Ryan Maue
Friday evening news dump — in this case, the United States State Department drops a big one and essentially green-lights a “controversial” pipeline project. The Keystone XL project Final Environmental Impact Statement is not a “decision” on the final construction of the project, but a key hurdle in the process.
“The $13 billion Keystone XL Pipeline cleared a key bureaucratic hurdle on Friday even as environmental groups vowed to continue fighting the project.” Most of the news is covered everywhere on the web, i.e. MarketWatch
With that state of emergency declared with Hurricane Irene, the organized criminal disobedience syndicate has decided to put their “sit-ins” on hold, and return for an even bigger response next week, or something.
I thought the Obama administration was going to follow science when making its decisions, something the previous administration did not do as we have been told by the liberal media for several years now. In their August 3 Letter from Scientific Experts to President Obama, the “Who’s Who” of the left-wing climate science establishment argues:
“The tar sands are a huge pool of carbon, but one that does not make sense to exploit. It takes a lot of energy to extract and refine this resource into useable fuel, and the mining is environmentally destructive. Adding this on top of conventional fossil fuels will leave our children and grandchildren a climate system with consequences that are out of their control. It makes no sense to build a pipeline system that would practically guarantee extensive exploitation of this resource.”
The Green movement is apoplectic, including the journalists that peddle their wares. That’s where I want to focus a later post, on how journalists are “reporting” the news.
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200 ppm wouldn’t be nearly enough. To get a little protection against cooling, and to maximize ag yields, our goal should be “2,100 by 2100!” That means another 1,700 ppm or so. Clathrates, anyone?
Well, golly gee … I wonder why the Obama administration is approving such an enterprise. Let’s see now …
9% unemployment
possible 20,000 jobs with pipeline construction
November 2012 election
That pretty much hits the high points.
http://pindanpost.com/2011/08/27/laborgillards-last-straw-coming-to-you-next-week/
the end of Labor’s bizarre lunatic tax that was to send $650 billion overseas, for a few worthless pieces of paper instead.
“Bob Tisdale says:
August 26, 2011 at 6:50 pm
The ecocentrics post starts with: “For the past week, hundreds of activists—from celebrities and scientists to ordinary citizens—have come to Washington to protest the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.”
Hundreds? Mind boggling.”
Classic. In the small (15,000 population) of Broome, around 7000 turned up to protest against a giant gas hub, second largest in the world, that is being forced on this tourist town in Western Australia. This is despite several alternatives that are better. Protests and blockades are ongoing with regular updates on http://www.pindanpost. com
Life’s a bitumen. Bill McKibben is having a cow, and an aneurism. Hurricane on one side, its cause on the other. No Sarkhov needed. As Irene becomes a windy rainstorm (albeit a major bloody inconvenience), Athabaska Goop gets the green light, but not the green stamp.
Meanwhile Kurdish Iraq is set to become the biggest conventional oilfield in the world….
(popcorn)
The irony is the pipeline SAVES on CO2 emissions since the oil will be purchased from Canada come what may. Only question is whether you have to burn fuel oil to get it to San Diego in tankers or not burn fuel oil by pipeline to the Gulf refineries.
…well, there goes my 5 Mkm2 Arctic sea ice extent prediction!
Peak oil always was a crock, because all products derived from hydrocarbons are derivable from all hydrocarbon sources.
There are vast deposits of coal, shale oil, oil sands and heavy oil.
Enough for many hundreds of years.
The issue has been bringing the cost of technology to extract down to the point where it is cheaper than imported oil, with a very substantial risk premium in case OPEC crashes the price of oil to bankrupt these efforts. Which it tried in the 1990s.
Nothing changes – you can 100% guarantee anything to do with energy which makes sense, the greenies will be against it.
However, if it is goofy and/or very expensive, inefficient and makes no economic sense, they will be for it.
This could turn into more Keystone Cops than Keystone pipeline. Why are American environmentalists worrying about tarsand extraction? It will be done in Canada a country nearly twice the size of the US with 10% of the population. They don’t seem to worry and the extracting company does a nice tidy up job after the event.
It is about time that some Americans got real about what a modern civilisation needs to survive and the first requirement is cheap energy which Canada is helping you to. A word of thanks would be better than the winging.
Friends:
The article reports:
“In their August 3 Letter from Scientific Experts to President Obama, the “Who’s Who” of the left-wing climate science establishment argues:
“Adding this on top of conventional fossil fuels will leave our children and grandchildren a climate system with consequences that are out of their control.”
The climate system has always provided consequences that are out of anybody’s control. Or are they claiming hurricane Irene is being controlled?
Droughts, floods, heat waves, cold snaps and severe storms have always happened. They probably always will. Nobody can control them and the pipeline will not change that one jot.
People have always had to cope with “consequences” of a climate system that is out of control. Our children and grandchildren need the affluence provided by adequate fuel supplies to assist them to cope.
The pipeline is needed for the sake of our children and grandchildren.
Richard
Tom on 26/8 9.25 pm. I think you made a ‘typo’ you are referring to the committment to the UNCCF that Combet signed that was 600 million a year from Carbon taxes, we haven’t got 650 billion yet? Ozzies debt has just topped two hundred billion though. Not sure what you were referring too. Yeah the Gillard stat dec but look I hope that isn’t another Grench
fantasy with faked emails.
“Whether to approve this pipeline is the most important environmental decision President Obama will make before the election. If he sides with greedy oil companies instead of people and the climate, he will essentially be urging a huge part of his base to sit out the election.”
He’s more likely to gain much more support from floating voters than he might lose from the Green movement if he approves the pipeline and in doing so show the nation that he is on their side and will back common sense decision vital to the economy of the nation. He will show strength if he faces down the ridiculous ravings of the Green movement. with all their blustering led by the stupid ‘game up’ Hanson, who, with his jackbooted friends. dosn’t seem to understand the word ‘democracy’, living as he does in his fairyland of make believe.
CodeTech says:
August 26, 2011 at 6:07 pm
Stephen Wilde:
You’re right. New techniques have been developed to extract the oil in-situ, without resorting to any mining. On a previous here, I tried to explain this to someone who apparently cannot read. The individual keep repeating the phrase “open pit mining”, in spite of my attempts to make clear the process developed by Shell Oil do not use these techniques.
Originally, it was thought a great deal of water would be needed to extract the oil. Shell tried to obtain water rights on the Yampa River and met with howls of protest.
They dropped those water plans.
I believe they have solved that particular problem. I also believe they are simply waiting for an administration that will be more accommodating than the current one. Interior Dept has kept a pretty tight lid on opening up the oil shales to development. Who knows, 2013 may see the start up of oil shale development.
A Texas university has also developed a technology capable of producing oil from coal at less than $30 per barrel. When I contacted the professor behind the research, I was told they can’t talk about it because an oil firm is buying the rights. Of course coal deposits in Wyoming and Montana are in private hands, so there will be no government approvals needed.
I do believe Peak Oil is another myth. Of course if some elements of our society can prevent the development of these fuels, it can be a self fulfilling prophecy. Sort of like a wood burning tribe having a ‘Peak Wood’ crisis when members are forbidden access to the forests.
Steve Oregon says:
August 26, 2011 at 8:02 pm
Steve,
As this link demonstrates, the CO2 hypothesis on AGW has been falsified:
http://www.climate4you.com/ClimateReflections.htm#20080927:%20Reflections%20on%20the%20correlation%20between%20global%20temperature%20and%20atmospheric%20CO2
CO2 keeps going up, yet world temperatures go their own way. There is very little correlation between CO2 levels and climate. You have to have correlation before you can even think about a causal link between the two.
No shame in leaving our children and grandchildren trillions in debt and an order of magnitude larger in liabilities, but nay we will not leave them a bad “climate”. IMO take care of our freaking spending spree, perhaps leaving them with means to rectify any bad climate we leave them. Is there no tipping point in debt and liabilities?
So these greens are against creating thousands of local jobs and in favour of propping up OPEC dictatorships? Maybe I’d have some respect for these people if they instead staged a sit-in at a polluting oil installation in Saudi Arabia or Suidan, but I’m not holding my breath. Hypocrites, all of them.
Keystone of course built a pipeline to Cushing Oklahoma last year. I have pics on my cell phone. The biggest “incident” was a tiny missing the mark of perfection in the steel of some imported pipe. This pipe wll last 40 years and after testing, one day removed. It can go decades without a leak. My fathers land had a pipleine crossing and in it’s total length no leaks in 40 years. It was removed becauase API tests found tiny corrosive pits. Crude is corrosive and they watch it for safety. Natural gas is also corrosive. They want natural gas for electric turbines? It is also high pressure.
Leo G says:
August 26, 2011 at 6:45 pm
“t really is a catch 22, as we need energy now to build the energy and transmission infrastructure of tomorrow. It will not magically appear, no matter how many stars we wish upon.”
Leo, it’s not a Catch 22, it’s unviable. About 30 years ago i read first about the concept of a “solar breeder”, that would be a factory producing solar cells and running entirely on energy produced by its own products, and producing a surplus.
A simple concept enough so why has nobody tried to demonstrate it works to this very day, well i don’t even put a question mark there, it’s not even a rethorical question. If it worked it would be done, so obviously it doesn’t.
The conclusion is: As long as we build solar cells we need an abundant source of cheap energy because without one we couldn’t be making solar cells. “Energy Of Tomorrow”? Don’t hold your breath.
Pipeline fiends say there will now always be a hurricane:
“It does not escape our attention that storms of this size and character will be the new normal on a warmer planet.”
http://www.tarsandsaction.org/weather-update-827-828/
It all boils down to ethical oil – what oil do you prefer to consume – from dictatorships where they stone women, where women cannot even drive a car, where free speech I’d surpressed and workers explored OR from Canada ?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ethical-oil-ad-campaign/article2112295/
It all boils down to ethical oil – what oil do you prefer to consume – from dictatorships where they stone women, where women cannot even drive a car, where free speech is surpressed and workers are exploited and where oil revenues go to switzerland private account and where the local inhabitants live in polluted environments OR from Canada ?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ethical-oil-ad-campaign/article2112295/
Steve Oregon says:
August 26, 2011 at 8:02 pm
If we were to burn all of the oil at once, yes it might raise CO2 by 200ppm. But we aren’t going to burn it all at once. It will be burnt over decades, probably many decades, which will give plants plenty of time to consume the CO2 and re-sequester much of it.
Regardless, so freaking what? The planet would be much better off if the CO2 concentration in the air was three times it’s current value. 200ppm is just a good downpayment.
Dig baby dig… Drill baby drill…. Pipe baby pipe. 🙂
Oil from Canada is already reaching the U.S., but by rail and truck. Pipelines are more cost effective and use less energy. Trying to stop construction of the pipeline is illogical from any standpoint unless your aim is to punish yourself.
Another illogical decision based on a similar thought process occurred, probably unnoticed, in Washington State. The Port of Vancouver, WA, has determined that they will not allow shipment of US coal to China or anywhere else through their port. So, it goes through another port at greater expense and puts the potentially huge revenues into the pockets of someone else. Ah, but they feel so righteous.
Which came first, stupidity, or eco-derangement syndrome?