Guest post by Steve Goreham
Originally published in The Washington Times
On Friday, the Department of State released a 2,000-page draft review of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project. If approved, the pipeline will carry up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day from oil sands in Canada and the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and Montana to Gulf Coast refineries. The review did not recommend approval of the pipeline, but raised no major objections, concluding that the project was “unlikely to have a substantial impact” on the climate or oil sands production. Nevertheless, the same-day outrage from liberal politicians and environmental groups was caustic.
The report found that the $3.3 billion Keystone XL project would create 42,100 US jobs during the two-year construction period. In addition to construction of the pipeline, new electrical transmission and power substations would be required. The project would generate an estimated $65 million in use and sales taxes for traversed states.
If approved, Gulf Coast facilities would refine more oil from Canada and the northern US and less from the Middle East. Keystone could potentially replace 45 percent of the oil imported from the Persian Gulf. At $90 per barrel, this would supplant $27 billion in annual payments to Saudi Arabia and Gulf Coast nations with payments to Canada and US citizens.
Van Jones, CNN contributor, raised fears of an oil leak, calling Keystone the “Obama pipeline” and saying that a leak “could be the worst oil disaster in American farmland history.” Proper environmental care must be taken, but Americans know how to build pipelines. The proposed 875-mile pipeline would add to the 55,000 miles of U.S. crude oil pipelines that have been operating for decades. The lower Great Plains region over the Ogallala aquifer is already crisscrossed by tens of thousands of miles of pipelines. The report concluded that potential oil leaks were unlikely to affect groundwater quality in four major aquifers.
However, oil leaks are a red herring issue. The keystone pipeline battle has always been about the ideology of Climatism, the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate. Proponents of the theory of man-made warming warn that mankind’s tiny contribution to a trace gas in our atmosphere, carbon dioxide, causes extreme hurricanes, droughts, floods, snowstorms, rising seas, polar bear extinction, and other projected calamities. Canadian oil sands have become a lightning rod for climate activism.
Congressional representative Henry Waxman issued a press release, stating “The draft impact statement appears to be seriously flawed. We don’t need this dirty oil. To stop climate change and the destructive storms, droughts, floods, and wildfires that we are already experiencing, we should be investing in clean energy, not building a pipeline that will speed the exploitation of Canada’s highly polluting tar sands.”
Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford said “…it’s just untrue that piping oil from the Tar Sands will not have a devastating impact on our climate. To fulfill his promise to the American people to address global warming, the President must say no to the Keystone Pipeline.” But the State Department draft review points out that Canadian oil sands will be mined, regardless of whether the pipeline is built or not.
The review estimates that if Keystone is not built, oil sands production will be only 0.4 to 0.6 percent less that if the pipeline is built, or less than 0.83 million metric tons of CO2-equivalent emissions annually. This difference equates to less than two hours of U.S. emissions, a negligible amount. Seventy-four million US housecats annually cause an estimated 196 times this emissions volume. Why isn’t Greenpeace urging President Obama to ban cats?
If not through Keystone, mined oil will be transported by rail, truck, or planned pipelines in Canada. Last month, the China Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) completed the purchase of Nexen, a major producer of oil from Canadian sands, for $15 billion. CNOOC would not have purchased Nexen without assurance by the Canadian government that the oil can be harvested.
Mr. President, it’s your decision. On one side is the common-sense choice of more jobs, economic growth, reduced dependence on Mideast oil, and a negligible increase in greenhouse gas emissions. On the other side is Climatist ideology. Which will you choose?
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
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@30:00listen to a teenager ask Suzuki what kind of alternative fuel should he be thinking of for the car he wants to buy when he gets a few year older..
Suzuki tells him “muscle power”. The adults applaud.
The kid must be in shock. He had no idea Suzukli would snatch his mode of job seeking, mate seeking, socialization, travel.
What were the green lunatic adults thinking about when they handed down the sentence for this youth ( their “reality” for 5 years hence), only to drive their cars home ?
“Unlike investment in renewable power sources that have no limit on the fuel source.” And no limit on the money [or “investment”] they will take out of your pocket while you try to decide whether to stave off freezing or buy food.
Yet another prediction of cooling. I’ve seen many people here make such statements. Personally I think such predictions are rather brave. If you think as I do that natural variability is responsible for most of the recent warming, then that means conceding the possibility that this natural variability might lead to still further warming in future.
Yes I am aware that the sun is entering a quiet phase and such phases have coincided with cool periods in the past. But mechanisms to explain this remain at the level of tenuous speculations. The most popular suggested mechanism works by changing cloud nucleation rates. But in the modern atmosphere cloud nucleation is also effected by particulates from industry and by aircraft contrails – so even if we accept that this mechanism caused the little ice age, it isn’t at all clear what will happen today.
The climate remains a chaotic system. The most predictable thing about the climate is its unpredictability.
You know theres something very obvious that we have all been overlooking:
Environmentalists oppose anything that reduces unemployment.
Why: Well its too obvious really, a person who is barely able to survive and has no spending money has a smaller carbon footprint than someone who has a job, a salary and, wow, even takes holidays abroad and drives acar.
Now this is one instance where we really dont need to ask what they think. Because, given that the above (unemployment reduces a persons carbon footprint) and given that an environmentalist places carbon emissions reduction above everything else, then, its axiomatic that they must prefer others to be unemployed.
This is a thing worth remembering.
…oh BTW, IMO your housecat analogy is MOST unfortunate. Environmentalists are already zealously campaigning to have that symbol of ourculture prohibited as well.
I knew those cats were up to something. Them and their smug looks..
izen says:
March 5, 2013 at 2:07 am
“…”
__________________
What’s with you people? You all use the same talking points and your last stand against everything that makes sense is to claim as you did that the oil still won’t be enough, so why go after it? You say the oil sands will soon be depleted, so why bother? Your alternative is to champion what are the very worst performing energy sources in terms of economy, reliability and often, ecology.
It’s not the cats.
It’s the badgers!
I knew it, that confirms it and my dog agrees, these global warming alarmists are ‘cat deniers’. ; > )
Trains are a 19th century solution to a 20th century problem: more cost, more environmental impact, more pollution more risk. In a demonstration of just how corrupt the media role in this, recently NPR has been promoting trains as a viable means to transport this volume of crude. It is interesting that in this day of budget crisis govt. funded media seemingly faces no cuts, and just happens to support the lucrative role of one of the President’s billionaire pals who happens to own the train that carries the oil.
izen,
Your claim makes no sense. The oil it replaces is primarily for domestic use. Do you think that the development of this pipeline to market is just some eeeevil plot? By the way, Mexico is moving to dramatically increase its oil production from frakking and other technologies. The anti-oil fanatics keep making this fallacy about running out of oil and do not seem to consider that that have been wrong each and every time they have claimed we are running out. An interesting question for me is why the anti-oil people seem to have any credibility in the policy discussion at all?
One can legitimately argue the validity of climate change claims but there is one thing that is not in dispute: the TAR sands is the largest human endeavor on the planet. In order to mine the bitumen, vast quantities of water are redirected from the Rockie Mountain watershed, heated into steam (buy burning already extracted TAR) and injected into the TAR to soften it. The TARsands deposit is the size of Scotland and the water that is used to extract the TAR will be left to sit in open tailing ponds that will eventually be the area of a couple of the great lakes. A toxic pool of contaminated water, toluene and benzene. This is all while the Canadian government refuses to require the TARsands companies to remediate ANY of the resources (land or water) in the process of this ill-considered extraction method – preferring instead to leave the issues of the environment to future generations. In other words… “take the money and run”. American business spokespeople may be OK with their northern neighbors leaving a toxic legacy to future generations – after all – it’s not in your backyard – but I can tell you that there are growing numbers of people in Canada who are opposed to the TARsands development as it is currently planned. We don’t think it’s right to leave the largest toxic mess in human history to be cleaned up by future generations just so a few fat ass executives can abscond with extortionate profits.
By the way… I use capital letters when mentioning TARsands because it’s not “oil sands” – it’s not “heavy crude” – it is what it is – – – TAR. Now… think of BILLIONS of barrels of that being shipped all over the planet. Would you really want to risk losing control of it anywhere along its chain of distribution? Any mechanical system is prone to failure – so in the case of TAR, toluene and benzine (two of the most carcinogenic chemicals on Earth) wouldn’t it make more sense to isolate these materials until they are rendered safe products for shipping?
Have a look at this site.
http://www.businessinsider.com/canadian-oil-sands-flyover-2012-5?op=1
They’re photos from the air of the development as it is currently operating. Multiply what you see here by 6 or 7… That’s what will be left for your kids, grandchildren and many future generations.
A housecat named ‘Princess’? How ironic.
izen says:
March 5, 2013 at 2:07 am………………………………………….
Unlike investment in renewable power sources that have no limit on the fuel source.
————————————————
I agree with you izen.
We need nuclear energy. We need a lot of it and soon.
cn
izen says:
“Unless crude oil prices double again there is not more than a few years of viable production possible from the tar sands, so the pipeline will be obsolete within a decade or so”
?? Where do you come up with that? Is this not a science site? Please provide a source.
The right to keep and bear cats shall not be infringed.
Meanwhile, President Obambam dithers.
Barry Sheridan says (March 5, 2013 at 12:17 am): “I wonder what those who claim to be environmentally conscious really believe in. ”
ETHICS AND ASYMMETRY: SKIN IN THE GAME AS A REQUIRED HEURISTIC FOR ACTING UNDER UNCERTAINTY, C. Sandis & N.N. Taleb
Abstract: We propose a global and mandatory heuristic that anyone involved in an action that can possibly generate harm for others, even probabilistically, should be required to be exposed to some damage, regardless of context. We link the rule to various philosophical approaches to ethics and moral luck.(http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/SandisTaleb.pdf)
You guys all forget that this is what the cats heard
” “
Mr. President, it’s your decision. On one side is the common-sense choice of more jobs, economic growth, reduced dependence on Mideast oil, and a negligible increase in greenhouse gas emissions. On the other side is Climatist ideology. Which will you choose?
Geez, when you put it that way to President Obama, common sense will lose every time.
You need to show some tie-in between the pipeline and political corruption, big unions, and ACORN led community organizing and it may get a nod from Obama.
Just sayin’…
Climate hawk John Kerry and the State department have concluded the pipeline will have little effect on climate. This paves the way for Obama to approve the pipeline and at the same time betray his environmental supporters. Lol!
I can’t wait to hear the excuses the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, WWF, Hollywood celebrities, Bill Maher, MSNBC, etc, will come up with to let Obama off the hook.
I can’t wait.
Let the beer and popcorn flow. Wahoo!
Read the report.
This is a goverment subsidy to the fossil fuel industry to prop up the gulf coast refineries.
The feedstock is too expensive for domestic consumption as vehicle fuel, it will need to be refined onto more profitable materiels for export.
Peak oil is not about the oil running out, it is about passing the maximum that can be extracted per year from a lnown reserve. That is what is happening now with the conventional oil fields in Mexico/Venezuela. And why the fossil fuel interests are so desparate to get the tarsands output to keep the refineries going for longer.
Turchynsky, the deposits were called “tar sand” by those who paddled past them, but the oil and gas industry refers to formations by what they produce. Thus we have gas sands, gas shales, oil shales, oil sands, and so on. Tar is in reality a specialized byproduct of refining for other, lighter substances.
Environmental issues in Canada are part of the jurisdiction of provincial governments instead of the federal government, and the Alberta government does indeed require the lands to be remediated after use. Well over 90% of the water used for extraction is recycled, and technologies for increasing that percentage are now leading to the shrinkage of tailings ponds as dewatering methodology improves, and despite the increasing oil production levels.
The oil sands operations are succeeding in cleaning up one of the world’s greatest oil spills, one which has been oozing into the Athabaska River for millenia prior to the indians immigrating there.
Nope. Not cats…it’s bike riders…http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/04/ed-orcutt-bike-riders-pollute-environment-washington_n_2805658.html
What good is an additional 830,000 BPD when refinery capacity has been in a steady decline since 1982?
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=8_NA_8SWP0_NUS_MBBL&f=A
Pro AGW groups will simply double their efforts in reducing or shutting down refineries. The crude delivered via Keystone will simply back up because there isn’t the capacity to refine it.