As cold as this spring has been, we could use 100 XL pipelines–assuming, of course, that CO2 has any significant impact on temperature increase at all.
@Bruce Cobb You are correct. Oil Sands oil costs more to produce. It is however, still quite profitable.
Richard Todd
May 8, 2013 10:27 am
And of course there are no emissions from all that middle east tanker traffic…..
Pete
May 8, 2013 10:45 am
Chip writes …
“In other words, how much global warming will the Keystone XL pipeline produce?
“Isn’t that what everyone wants to know?
“Why is it then, that such numbers are never given?”
Indeed!
All one needs to do is thinking beyond the end of one’s nose.
Nice job, Mr. Knappenberger!
In these terms, the difference between the State Department’s Environmental Impact Statement and those of its critics all but vanish.
In fact, the author being generous in saying that there is any difference at all. What is the most surprising point is that the DoS hasn’t used the climate-impact numbers rather than arguing volumes of Carbon.
The 3 C climate sensitivity Chip used is based on climate models that do not include any significant natural causes of climate change. They hindcast sea-surface Northern Hemisphere linear best-fit warming trend during the period 1944 to 1976 of 0.013 C/decade when measurements show a cooling trend of 0.044 C/decade, http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/figure-8.png?w=960&h=626
During the period 1910 to 1944, the models underestimate the warming trend by a factor of 4.5, model mean trend is 0.036 C/decade, measurements show 0.161 C/decade. http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/figure-7.png?w=960&h=626
During the period Jan 1982 to Feb 2011, the models overestimate the sea surface warming trend at the equator by a factor of 6! http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/Tisdale_Lat_SST_Model.jpg
There is a huge discrepancy between the model mean and current global temperatures due to the absence of warming over the last 16 years. http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/ClimateModels_Obs2.jpg
Models fail in all these periods because they do not include the solar magnetic effects, which correlate very well to temperatures. Alec Rawls has called this failure to include solar magnetic effects “omitted variable fraud”. Correlations of solar magnetic flux to temperature show that the sun explains 50% to 80% of climate change. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/22/omitted-variable-fraud-vast-evidence-for-solar-climate-driver-rates-one-oblique-sentence-in-ar5/
Chip says “the new findings are indicating a value [of climate sensitivity] close to 2.0°C”. Most of these estimates do not include the solar effects. They just adjust the IPCC forcings to better match the recent temperature data. Therefore, many of these “finding” also commit omitted variable fraud.
Comparing out-going longwave radiation to temperature, such as the Lindzen & Choi method, accounts for all sources of climate change, including solar effects. They estimate 0.7 C climate sensitivity.
Chip estimates that, using the EPA assumption that most of the oil expected to flow through the pipeline would not be produced if the pipeline were not built, the pipeline would result in a temperature rise of 0.00001 C/yr with a climate sensitivity of 3 C, or 0.000007 C/yr with a climate sensitivity of 2 C. Rejecting climate sensitivity estimates that utilize “omitted variable fraud” and using the realistic 0.7 C climate sensitivity estimate, the pipeline could cause 0.000003 C/yr temperature rise in response to incremental emissions of 18.7 million tonnes CO2.
Considering the fact that there are other pipeline options under consideration and the oil sands oil is flowing to the US in greater volumes by rail, the mid-range of the State Department estimate of incremental emissions of 2.7 million tonnes CO2/year is much more reasonable. Using the realistic 0.7 C climate sensitivity to doubling CO2 and the State Department mid-range estimate of incremental emissions, the temperature impact of the Keystone pipeline would be (0.000003X2.7/18.7) 0.00000043 C/year, or 0.00002 C in 50 years.
Since AGW is false, it matters not whether there is a difference in emissions from different categories of petroleum or different modes of transportation.
What matters is:
(1) safe and secure transportation (the pieline is far safer than rail or motor transport)
(2) US energy independence (830,000 bbl/day less from enemy countries)
(3) forcing the enviros to back off from their campaign of obstructivng and destroying everything.
This makes eminent sense. This is the sort of argument that regular folk will cleave to, the question that needs to be asked on every blog that decries the pipeline, along with the link to MAGICC so people can calculate it themselves:
[…] it is essential to translate the additional carbon dioxide emissions that may result from it into climate units—such as the global average temperature. In other words, how much global warming will the Keystone XL pipeline produce?
Isn’t that what everyone wants to know?
Why is it then, that such numbers are never given?
It is not as if there is no good way of calculating them—that is precisely what climate models are designed to do.
Peter Miller
May 8, 2013 1:16 pm
It makes sense that Russia’s Gazprom is behind the scenes providing funding and disinformation against shale fracking for natural gas in Europe.
The same might be happening in the US with the Keystone pipeline. Big Oil could easily be funding the anti-pipeline Ecoloons. Except in this case, the term ‘Big Oil’ means the national oil agencies of countries with despotic governments, who do not have America’s best interests high on their list of priorities,
Fracking and the Keystone pipeline have huge strategic consequences for the USA. There are a lot of bad guys out there who think an oil self-sufficient USA is not a good idea.
Yep, the CAGW mob will always run with what SOUNDS the worst. Manipulators, every one of them – it’s what they DO and why they shouldn’t be trusted.
Excellent speech, Paul. Let’s hope the House takes it on board. Green villains have way and beyond gotten away with too much by using emotive phrases to scare the little people who don’t know what it all means (but it sounds bad, so it must be serious). Time to smack the people-users and abusers back into place. Actually time to do that was ages ago, but at least it’s happening now. Good to see it.
Janice Moore
May 8, 2013 3:20 pm
Thank you for so GENEROUSLY sharing your hard work and excellent analysis (gay lines and all, LOL), Mr. Knappenberger. Much appreciated.
The greenies’ lack of logic is astonishing. There is surely only one serious green argument against the Keystone XL pipeline, and it goes like this:
The oil is going to be extracted and used somewhere anyway. The pipeline is the most attractive option because it produces less emissions than the alternatives. But the net benefit is less than 0.00000001 deg C per annum. This is too small to worry about, so there is no real benefit in building the pipeline, so it should be stopped.
[Note, this is a green argument, so there is no need to say what emissions are of. But I have to admit that it needs refining because green arguments never refer to temperature changes less than +6 degrees, and just arguing that KXL would reduce emissions by only a tiny amount wouldn’t work either because 1lb of CO2 outweighs all the world’s economies. Gee, it’s hard being green!]
Bill_W
May 8, 2013 5:03 pm
You don’t understand. Digging a hole in the ground is bad. There could be a leak and then we would have all that nasty oil in the ground. Kind of like it was before, when we got it out of the ground.
kramer
May 8, 2013 6:10 pm
The 181 million metric tons per year from the assumption that all Keystone XL oil is additional oil in the global supply would result in about 0.0001°C of annual warming—one ten-thousandths of a degree.
How did he get this number of 0.0001C?
As cold as this spring has been, we could use 100 XL pipelines–assuming, of course, that CO2 has any significant impact on temperature increase at all.
@Bruce Cobb You are correct. Oil Sands oil costs more to produce. It is however, still quite profitable.
And of course there are no emissions from all that middle east tanker traffic…..
Chip writes …
“In other words, how much global warming will the Keystone XL pipeline produce?
“Isn’t that what everyone wants to know?
“Why is it then, that such numbers are never given?”
Indeed!
All one needs to do is thinking beyond the end of one’s nose.
Nice job, Mr. Knappenberger!
As noted above, the Athabaskan crude will get to market— of that, there is no doubt.
Right now, it is being delivered by rail transport. That is not only less energy efficient, it also carries a 3× higher risk of spill (as reported here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-08/killing-keystone-seen-as-risking-more-oil-spills-by-rail.html )
If all this oil is so nasty then why do some green groups invest their monies in fossil fuel companies? Just this month we had a few articles on this very point.
The Guardian
“The giants of the green world that profit from the planet’s destruction”
The Nation
“Time for Big Green to Go Fossil Free”
The Nation
“Why Aren’t Environmental Groups Divesting from Fossil Fuels?“
In these terms, the difference between the State Department’s Environmental Impact Statement and those of its critics all but vanish.
In fact, the author being generous in saying that there is any difference at all. What is the most surprising point is that the DoS hasn’t used the climate-impact numbers rather than arguing volumes of Carbon.
The 3 C climate sensitivity Chip used is based on climate models that do not include any significant natural causes of climate change. They hindcast sea-surface Northern Hemisphere linear best-fit warming trend during the period 1944 to 1976 of 0.013 C/decade when measurements show a cooling trend of 0.044 C/decade,
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/figure-8.png?w=960&h=626
During the period 1910 to 1944, the models underestimate the warming trend by a factor of 4.5, model mean trend is 0.036 C/decade, measurements show 0.161 C/decade.
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/figure-7.png?w=960&h=626
During the period Jan 1982 to Feb 2011, the models overestimate the sea surface warming trend at the equator by a factor of 6!
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/Tisdale_Lat_SST_Model.jpg
There is a huge discrepancy between the model mean and current global temperatures due to the absence of warming over the last 16 years.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/ClimateModels_Obs2.jpg
Models fail in all these periods because they do not include the solar magnetic effects, which correlate very well to temperatures. Alec Rawls has called this failure to include solar magnetic effects “omitted variable fraud”. Correlations of solar magnetic flux to temperature show that the sun explains 50% to 80% of climate change.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/22/omitted-variable-fraud-vast-evidence-for-solar-climate-driver-rates-one-oblique-sentence-in-ar5/
Chip says “the new findings are indicating a value [of climate sensitivity] close to 2.0°C”. Most of these estimates do not include the solar effects. They just adjust the IPCC forcings to better match the recent temperature data. Therefore, many of these “finding” also commit omitted variable fraud.
Comparing out-going longwave radiation to temperature, such as the Lindzen & Choi method, accounts for all sources of climate change, including solar effects. They estimate 0.7 C climate sensitivity.
Chip estimates that, using the EPA assumption that most of the oil expected to flow through the pipeline would not be produced if the pipeline were not built, the pipeline would result in a temperature rise of 0.00001 C/yr with a climate sensitivity of 3 C, or 0.000007 C/yr with a climate sensitivity of 2 C. Rejecting climate sensitivity estimates that utilize “omitted variable fraud” and using the realistic 0.7 C climate sensitivity estimate, the pipeline could cause 0.000003 C/yr temperature rise in response to incremental emissions of 18.7 million tonnes CO2.
Considering the fact that there are other pipeline options under consideration and the oil sands oil is flowing to the US in greater volumes by rail, the mid-range of the State Department estimate of incremental emissions of 2.7 million tonnes CO2/year is much more reasonable. Using the realistic 0.7 C climate sensitivity to doubling CO2 and the State Department mid-range estimate of incremental emissions, the temperature impact of the Keystone pipeline would be (0.000003X2.7/18.7) 0.00000043 C/year, or 0.00002 C in 50 years.
Since AGW is false, it matters not whether there is a difference in emissions from different categories of petroleum or different modes of transportation.
What matters is:
(1) safe and secure transportation (the pieline is far safer than rail or motor transport)
(2) US energy independence (830,000 bbl/day less from enemy countries)
(3) forcing the enviros to back off from their campaign of obstructivng and destroying everything.
This makes eminent sense. This is the sort of argument that regular folk will cleave to, the question that needs to be asked on every blog that decries the pipeline, along with the link to MAGICC so people can calculate it themselves:
It makes sense that Russia’s Gazprom is behind the scenes providing funding and disinformation against shale fracking for natural gas in Europe.
The same might be happening in the US with the Keystone pipeline. Big Oil could easily be funding the anti-pipeline Ecoloons. Except in this case, the term ‘Big Oil’ means the national oil agencies of countries with despotic governments, who do not have America’s best interests high on their list of priorities,
Fracking and the Keystone pipeline have huge strategic consequences for the USA. There are a lot of bad guys out there who think an oil self-sufficient USA is not a good idea.
Yep, the CAGW mob will always run with what SOUNDS the worst. Manipulators, every one of them – it’s what they DO and why they shouldn’t be trusted.
Excellent speech, Paul. Let’s hope the House takes it on board. Green villains have way and beyond gotten away with too much by using emotive phrases to scare the little people who don’t know what it all means (but it sounds bad, so it must be serious). Time to smack the people-users and abusers back into place. Actually time to do that was ages ago, but at least it’s happening now. Good to see it.
Thank you for so GENEROUSLY sharing your hard work and excellent analysis (gay lines and all, LOL), Mr. Knappenberger. Much appreciated.
The greenies’ lack of logic is astonishing. There is surely only one serious green argument against the Keystone XL pipeline, and it goes like this:
The oil is going to be extracted and used somewhere anyway. The pipeline is the most attractive option because it produces less emissions than the alternatives. But the net benefit is less than 0.00000001 deg C per annum. This is too small to worry about, so there is no real benefit in building the pipeline, so it should be stopped.
[Note, this is a green argument, so there is no need to say what emissions are of. But I have to admit that it needs refining because green arguments never refer to temperature changes less than +6 degrees, and just arguing that KXL would reduce emissions by only a tiny amount wouldn’t work either because 1lb of CO2 outweighs all the world’s economies. Gee, it’s hard being green!]
You don’t understand. Digging a hole in the ground is bad. There could be a leak and then we would have all that nasty oil in the ground. Kind of like it was before, when we got it out of the ground.
The 181 million metric tons per year from the assumption that all Keystone XL oil is additional oil in the global supply would result in about 0.0001°C of annual warming—one ten-thousandths of a degree.
How did he get this number of 0.0001C?
j ferguson says:
“what a wonderful essay…
Agree. Ferd Berple’s comments are always well worth reading.
Don’t think I’ll throw my coat away yet…..