https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/climate/biden-paris-climate-agreement.html
Joe Biden is a man of his word: he said that he was going to end the Keystone XL pipeline - and he did. Boom, executive order signed and the pipeline stopped.
Screams from the Reactionary Republicans were immediate and predictable. Conservatives are rarely concerned about environmental damage (especially to minorities). So their concern and outrage was couched in terms of economic loss. Fox (Fake and Phony) News reported that ten thousand jobs, paying over a billion dollars in wages, would be lost if the pipeline was canceled. And some of those jobs would even be good union jobs (because, of course, Reactionary Conservatives are always trying to save union jobs while trying to kill unions).
Biden is fulfilling a campaign promise to cancel the XL pipeline as part of his effort to fight global warming and move America away from fossil fuels and on towards greener, more sustainable forms of energy. Is he making a mistake? Is he really going to destroy 10,000 jobs?!
No, of course not. Biden is doing the thing right in canceling the Keystone pipeline. But before we understand why canceling the it will not destroy jobs and wealth we first need to remember how big a threat the pipeline is to the environment.
Whenever you hear a conversation about Keystone, remember these things:
-The Keystone pipeline is a long tube of poisonous stuff.
Before we can grasp how bad the Keystone pipeline is to the environment (our - America’s - environment) really is we need to remember what it is and what it is carrying.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/keystone-xl-pipeline
The Keystone XL pipeline is a huge pipeline company jointly owned by TC Energy Co. and the government of Alberta. It was planned to run 1,169 miles from Hardisty, Alberta, south into the United Stares through Montana, South Dakota and down to Steele City, NE. From there it could link up to a couple of other Keystone pipelines, one of which would ultimately send the oil down to ports on the Gulf of Mexico where it could finally be pumped into tankers and shipped abroad, mostly to Asia.
The pipeline, if linked to the two other existing Keystone pipelines, would have been able to carry as much 830,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day to various refineries in America.
https://wisconsinsafeenergy.org/environmental-impact/
Have you forgotten what tar sands oil is? It’s ugly, nasty, poisonous stuff. If you shot a sludge monster in the chest, the stuffed that oozed out would look a lot like tar sands oil. Technically, the stuff in the pipelines is called dilute bitumen (known a dilbit) - a thick oil tar that has to be mixed with other, lighter petroleum products in order to get it to flow through the pipelines. But really, the goo is so sludgy and thick that you also have put it under 1,400 psi of pressure and heat it to a constant 180 F to make it move!
And it is really harsh and foul: the unprocessed tar sands oil (the stuff that must flow thousands of miles through our country to get to our refineries) is full of abrasive particles (sand and dirt), is fifteen times more acidic (than processed oil), and contains five to ten time more sulfur than conventional oil (it also includes such chemicals as benzene and xylene).
The giant pipeline carrying this toxic, poisonous stuff would run for more than a thousand miles through three states (and more when linked to existing Keystone pipelines) both above ground and below.
-Tubes leak.
What are the chances that this gooey, toxic stuff is going to leak out of its pipeline and poison the environment?
TransCanada (TC Energy) put the official spill estimate at 0.00013 spills per year per mile, with only 11 total per 50 year lifetime. They anticipate most leaks to be small and quickly visible by aerial detection and observation protocols carried out every two weeks.
That’s what the industry guys say. However, John Stansbury, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, believes these statistics are severely understated. By compiling historical data he expects the spill count to hover around 91 spills per 50 year lifetime, or 0.00019 spill per year per mile, nearly tenfold the TransCanada estimate.
One study found that between 2007 and 2010, pipelines moving tar sands oil in Midwestern states spilled three times more per mile than the U.S. national average for pipelines carrying conventional crude. Since it first went into operation in 2010, TC Energy’s original Keystone pipeline System has leaked more than a dozen times: one incident in North Dakota sent a 60-foot, 21,000-gallon geyser of tar sands oil spewing into the air.
Can we possibly detect and prevent spills and geysers when pumping tar sands oil? Not according to Dr. Stansbury. He fears that most of these spill will not be detected for long periods of time. Buried in the ground, spills and leaks in the pipeline may not manifest themselves for many weeks to be visible by aerial inspection; it could take 90 days for leaked petroleum to reach the surface. In such a scenario, a moderately small leak would release 7.9 million gallons of dilute bitumen into surrounding soil. Finally, Dr. Stansbury points out that the pipe wall is thinner than in previous pipeline projects and the substance carried is under higher pressure and more corrosive, increasing the likelihood of a leak relative to the previous estimation.
The threat of long term climate change damage by the Keystone pipeline is reason enough to kill it off. But we should not forget the more ordinary threat to our environment would have been a thousand mile tube of hot, highly toxic sulfurous oil under tremendous pressure, crossing hills, grasslands, rivers, and forests. The pipeline has already shown that it will leak and who knows when or how long it would take to find and repair the damage in the thin pressurized pipes.
-Canada wants its tar sands oil running south, not west.
https://www.clearwatertimes.com/news/pipeline-sections-that-leaked-back-at-full-pressure/https://www.clearwatertimes.com/news/pipeline-sections-that-leaked-back-at-full-pressure/
The Keystone pipeline is a venture between two parties: the TC Energy Co. and the provincial government of Alberta, so it’s an all Canadian affair. What the company really wants to do is get the oil out of Canada and into the hands of foreign buyers, especially in Asian. That’s why they are planning on building the new segment of Keystone pipeline down to Nebraska, where it can hook up to get the oil to American ports on the Gulf of Mexico. But, if you look at a map of the two provinces, you can easily see that the town of Hardisty, Alberta, is not so far from the port facilities of Vancouver, BC.
A pipeline to Vancouver would provide oil that could be exported directly to various Asian markets, which was something the Canadian government was very keen to do. In fact, as late as 2016 Canadian Prime Minster Trudeau was considering a plan to extend the Kinder Morgan KMI.N Trans Mountain Pipeline out to Vancouver from Alberta for just this purpose.
If a tar sands oil pipeline would produce so many high paying jobs and allow the Canadian government to open up markets in Asian for export, why not build the it from Hardisty west to Vancouver, instead of south to Steele City, Nebraska? After all, at about 1,200 miles it’s obviously farther to Steele City, Nebraska than to Vancouver. Such a deal - over the mountains to Vancouver - a shorter route, with all the jobs and money staying with Canadians.
The reason is that too many Canadians did not want a huge amount of tar sands oil running by pipeline (or anything else) through British Columbia down to Vancouver. In fact, the British Columbia provincial government placed new restrictions on all shipments of tar sands oil. Here is their announcement on January 30, 2018: “Today, British Columbia’s Minster of the Environment and Climate Change Strategy George Heyman announced restrictions on any increase in shipments of heavy oil - including tar sands crude - by pipeline or rail through B.C. while a scientific panel appointed by the province conducts a review of the scientific uncertainties around tar sands oil spill cleanup.”
And so it remains. Regardless of the advantages, there is still no pipeline running tar sands oil from Hardisty to the port of Vancouver. And here is what killed Kinder Morgan’s pipeline hopes, (see previous citation for this): “This new form of oil is much more difficult to clean up than conventional crude oil — studies have shown dilbit (diluted bitumen) sinks when spilled into fresh water, which is exactly what happened during the dilbit spill in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in 2010 (see The Enduring Legacy of the Kalamazoo River Oil Spill). Dilbit also presents new challenges for first responders and cleanup crews because the chemicals used to dilute the bitumen to a liquid state so it can be pumped through pipelines are extremely toxic and when spilled evaporate into a poisonous cloud.”
Reactionary conservatives in America really don’t care much about the environment problems caused by moving tar sands oil. But the environmental costs are very high, and can easily outweigh the economic advantages of the this toxic brew.
In Part Two of Pipeline Lies we will see that losses from cancelling the Keystone pipeline are misleading and wildly exaggerated.
Joe Biden will not let the United States live in the past with an energy source that is inherently dangerous and rapidly becoming outdated.
Vote progressive, live progressive, prosper progressive.