KXL pipeline gets green light from State Department

Mike says on February 1, 2014 at 9:09 am
“Allan M. let’s not forget reversing the East-West pipeline so we can feed our refineries with Canadian crude.”
_____________
Good point Mike – the following post is from Sept2012 – with new comments included in CAPS.
The enviro-extremists have fought hysterically to prevent the reversal of lines 9A and 9B move Western Canadian Crude from Sarnia to Nanticoke and Montreal. As I recall, these pipelines originally flowed east, and were later reversed to flow west, and are now being reversed again to flow east. There is NO real environmental issue here. To understand the extremists’ views in their own words, see http://www.green-agenda.com/ Obama should pick his friends more carefully.
Regards, Allan
http://www.jeffrubinssmallerworld.com/2012/09/06/why-i-am-canadian-for-the-great-bear/
The logical export point for oil or products is not Kitimat or Vancouver; it is Prince Rupert. Look (Google Map) at the narrow passages that tankers have to negotiate out of either Kitimat or Vancouver. Prince Rupert has a wide open run to the sea – it appears to be much safer. imo.
Regarding the oil price differential: In April 2012, UK Brent crude was approx $120 per barrel, US West Texas Intermediate was about $100, and Edmonton Light was about $80 per barrel. These are similar quality crudes. April 2012 was an unusual month, but it demonstrates the problem of inadequate crude oil transportation and export capacity out of Canada.
Regarding building more refineries in Canada: How are you going to ship your products, since Canada does not have a system of product pipelines? Mixing of various crude streams in pipelines by batching is established, but one cannot batch products in crude pipelines – the cross-contamination is too great. So you would end up shipping products by rail tank car, which is more likely to result in spills due to derailments, etc. Maybe this is an acceptable risk – I don’t know.
WE KNOW NOW – SEE 6JULY2013 LAC MEGANTIC DERAILMENT DISASTER – 47 PEOPLE INCINERATED.
http://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas-overview/transporting-oil-and-natural-gas/pipeline/~/media/Files/Oil-and-Natural-Gas/pipeline/Liquid-Petroleum-Products-map.ashx
Eastern Canadian consumers are now paying high Brent prices for their gasoline, because our Alberta- Saskatchewan crude only goes as far east as Sarnia. This is changing, as two pipelines (9A and 9B) to Nanticoke (Hamilton) and Montreal are now being reversed. If BC continues to block a sensible westbound crude export pipeline route, then perhaps we should extend the eastbound crude line to Quebec City (Valero Ultramar refinery) and Saint John (Irving refinery) and thence to tidewater for export. It is a long shipping distance, but it also gives Eastern Canadian consumers access to our less expensive Canadian crude oil.
http://www.enbridge.com/ECRAI/Line9BReversalProject.aspx
http://www.enbridge.com/ECRAI/Line9ReversalProject.aspx
ADDENDUM: ONCE TO MONTREAL, I UNDERSTAND CRUDE CAN BE SHIPPED BY TANKER TO QUEBEC CITY AND ST JOHN REFINERIES AND ALSO FOR EXPORT.
We could also reverse the Portland (Maine) to Montreal crude pipeline for export purposes, but that route is being effectively blocked by environmental extremists. To understand their views, in their own words, see http://www.green-agenda.com/
Canada is now the 6th largest oil producer in the world and the largest foreign supplier of oil to the USA. Canada has the strongest economy in the developed world, This is due to the Canadian oilsands, now the mainstay of the Canadian economy. To understand how we got here, see http://www.OilsandsExpert.com

One sees analogies between green energy schemes (scams?) and Sunday’s Superbowl blowout.
Lots of hype leading up to the kickoff, but a really disappointing result.
Superbowl Score: Seattle wins 43 – 8
Wind Power Score: Another blowout – see below.
Gone With the Wind: Weak Returns Cripple German Renewables
Investments in renewable energy were supposed to be a sure thing, with wind park operators promising annual returns of up to 20%. More often than not, however, such pledges have been illusory－and many investors have lost their principal to boot. The latest example is the German renewable firm Prokon, which, despite being backed by €1.4 billion of investments, declared bankruptcy, leaving 75,000 stakeholders out in the cold.
In courts around the country, complaints are mounting from wind park investors who haven’t received a dividend disbursement in years or whose parks went belly up. A study based on 1,150 annual reports found that, on average, investors got an annual return of 2.5%, despite prospectuses promising them returns of 6% to 8%.
Europe’s Green Frankenstein Monster
“We can avoid what could well be a human calamity,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in 2007 after EU leaders decided to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% and to generate 20% of the EU’s energy from renewable sources by 2020. While these policies might have no discernible effect on the climate, they are a calamity for the EU. Like Frankenstein, the EU has created a renewable-energy monster it does not know how to tame.
The European Commission has just published an analysis showing that the US cut its emissions by 12% since 2005, with American firms paying 2.6% less for energy, while the EU cut its emissions by 14% while European industry paid 16.7% more. Currently the energy price differential is 45%. With Europe home to 44% of the world’s renewable capacity, the Commission acknowledges that, because member states over-incentivized investment in renewables, they compounded the challenges posed by weather-dependent electricity generation.
The article ends with a pithy observation: “For the rest of the world, Europe offers a stark lesson. When it comes to unilateral cuts in greenhouse emissions and aggressive incentives for renewables, this is a global race you don’t want to win. As Europe shows, the winner loses—big.”
From http://www.friendsofscience.org

Thank you Bill – good comments.
Robert Bryce wrote a good article. I must however disagree with Bryce on one point:
The reality is simple: The U.S. is the world leader in carbon policy. It has cut carbon-dioxide emissions more effectively than the EU while generating an economic boom from the shale revolution.
I suggest that the CO2 reduction from the shale gas revolution was entirely accidental, a by-product of the shale gas revolution that was strenuously opposed by the Obama administration until ~late 2013.
Low-priced shale gas energy is a game-changer that could drive a major recovery in the US economy, but the numerous phony challenges by alleged “environmental groups” are stalling the recovery and should cease now.
I was involved in the early days of one of the first environmental groups in Canada in the late 1960’s. It is disappointing to see how the “green movement” has become increasingly controlled by ultra-left fringe elements, who use the environmental smokescreen to advance their extremist economic agenda.
Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace wrote an essay in 1994 that describes the situation.
For more evidence, read http://www.green-agenda.com/
Regards, Allan
[excerpt]
The Rise of Eco-Extremism (Patrick Moore, 1994)
Two profound events triggered the split between those advocating a pragmatic or “liberal” approach to ecology and the new “zero-tolerance” attitude of the extremists. The first event, mentioned previously, was the widespread adoption of the environmental agenda by the mainstream of business and government. This left environmentalists with the choice of either being drawn into collaboration with their former “enemies” or of taking ever more extreme positions. Many environmentalists chose the latter route. They rejected the concept of “sustainable development” and took a strong “anti-development” stance.
Surprisingly enough the second event that caused the environmental movement to veer to the left was the fall of the Berlin Wall. Suddenly the international peace movement had a lot less to do. Pro-Soviet groups in the West were discredited. Many of their members moved into the environmental movement bringing with them their eco-Marxism and pro-Sandinista sentiments.
These factors have contributed to a new variant of the environmental movement that is so extreme that many people, including myself, believe its agenda is a greater threat to the global environment than that posed by mainstream society. Some of the features of eco-extremism are:
• It is anti-human. The human species is characterized as a “cancer” on the face of the earth.
The extremists perpetuate the belief that all human activity is negative whereas the rest of nature is good. This results in alienation from nature and subverts the most important lesson of ecology; that we are all part of nature and interdependent with it. This aspect of environmental extremism leads to disdain and disrespect for fellow humans and the belief that it would be “good” if a disease such as AIDS were to wipe out most of the population.
• It is anti-technology and anti-science. Eco-extremists dream of returning to some kind of technologically primitive society. Horse-logging is the only kind of forestry they can fully support. All large machines are seen as inherently destructive and “unnatural’. The Sierra Club’s recent book, “Clearcut: the Tragedy of Industrial Forestry”, is an excellent example of this perspective. “Western industrial society” is rejected in its entirety as is nearly every known forestry system including shelterwood, seed tree and small group selection. The word “Nature” is capitalized every time it is used and we are encouraged to “find our place” in the world through “shamanic journeying” and “swaying with the trees”. Science is invoked only as a means of justifying the adoption of beliefs that have no basis in science to begin with.
• It is anti-organization. Environmental extremists tend to expect the whole world to adopt anarchism as the model for individual behavior. This is expressed in their dislike of national governments, multinational corporations, and large institutions of all kinds. It would seem that this critique applies to all organizations except the environmental movement itself. Corporations are criticized for taking profits made in one country and investing them in other countries, this being proof that they have no “allegiance” to local communities. Where is the international environmental movements allegiance to local communities? How much of the money raised in the name of aboriginal peoples has been distributed to them? How much is dedicated to helping loggers thrown out of work by environmental campaigns? How much to research silvicultural systems that are environmentally and economically superior?
• It is anti-trade. Eco-extremists are not only opposed to “free trade” but to international trade in general. This is based on the belief that each “bioregion” should be self-sufficient in all its material needs. If it’s too cold to grow bananas – – too bad. Certainly anyone who studies ecology comes to realize the importance of natural geographic units such as watersheds, islands, and estuaries. As foolish as it is to ignore ecosystems it is absurd to put fences around them as if they were independent of their neighbours. In its extreme version, bioregionalism is just another form of ultra-nationalism and gives rise to the same excesses of intolerance and xenophobia.
• It is anti-free enterprise. Despite the fact that communism and state socialism has failed, eco-extremists are basically anti-business. They dislike “competition” and are definitely opposed to profits. Anyone engaging in private business, particularly if they are successful, is characterized as greedy and lacking in morality. The extremists do not seem to find it necessary to put forward an alternative system of organization that would prove efficient at meeting the material needs of society. They are content to set themselves up as the critics of international free enterprise while offering nothing but idealistic platitudes in its place.
• It is anti-democratic. This is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of radical environmentalism. The very foundation of our society, liberal representative democracy, is rejected as being too “human-centered”. In the name of “speaking for the trees and other species” we are faced with a movement that would usher in an era of eco-fascism. The “planetary police” would “answer to no one but Mother Earth herself”.
• It is basically anti-civilization. In its essence, eco-extremism rejects virtually everything about modern life. We are told that nothing short of returning to primitive tribal society can save the earth from ecological collapse. No more cities, no more airplanes, no more polyester suits. It is a naive vision of a return to the Garden of Eden.
**************