Slashdot Mirror
Obama Delays Decision On Keystone Pipeline Yet Again
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports that once again, the Obama administration has pushed back a final decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline possibly delaying the final determination until after the November midterm elections. In announcing the delay, the State Department cited a Nebraska Supreme Court case that could affect the route of the pipeline that may not be decided until next year, as well as additional time needed to review 2.5 million public comments on the project. Both supporters and opponents of the pipeline criticized the delay as a political ploy. Democratic incumbents from oil-rich states have urged President Obama to approve the pipeline but approving the pipeline before the election could staunch the flow of money from liberal donors and fund-raisers who oppose the project. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell said in a statement that "at a time of high unemployment in the Obama economy, it's a shame that the administration has delayed the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline for years." Activists say its construction could devastate the environment, but several State Department reviews have concluded that the pipeline would be safe and was unlikely to significantly increase the rate of carbon pollution in the atmosphere. Even if the pipeline was canceled, it said, the oil sands crude was likely to be extracted and brought to market by other means, such as rail, and then processed and burned."
Every action that increases the cost of gasoline increases the profit in producing it.
What the anti oil people have failed to grasp is that they're making the oil companies rich at everyone else's expense.
If I didn't know better, I'd think the whole anti oil campaign were a conspiracy by the oil companies to raise prices. Because that has been the result.
We are only getting fracking in the first place because oil got expensive enough to justify the practice. If oil were cheaper then there would be no fracking.
Increase the cost further and see what happens next. But it won't be the green revolution.
Long story short, batteries are what is holding back green technology. Batteries are shit. Until that changes the green revolution will mostly be a luxury feel good item for the wealthy. Anyone outside of the elite simply won't be able to afford to go fully solar with an electric car, etc.
Which means we're on gas. And prices for gas will have to get astronomic before it will overwhelm the price advantage that gas has over electric.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
It seems he likes to make all of his decisions after november.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
What they need to do is build refineries in North Dakota, where there is plenty of oil, and also natural gas to power them.
We don't want all the refining capacity of the nation to be in the Gulf where it could be all shut down by a hurricane. (stronger and more frequent due to climate change)
Why can't we have a pipeline that brings fresh water, instead of oil? That would be a lot more helpful. We've been a serious drought for years, and there's no sign it will let up.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Mitch McConnell is a riot. Always when the turtleman speaks one should verify the facts and when you look at the data from no other than TransCanada about the number of *permanent* jobs this specific pipleline will add to the US economy it tops out at around 3600. Meanwhile you have Americans suing to not have that pipeline cross their land or have their land commandeered by the federal government.
My part of the country gets about 5% of our electricity from coal. The largest share (though not the majority) is natural gas, with big chunks of hydro, nuclear, and small but growing chunks of wind and solar and biomass/landfill gas. The carbon intensity of the electricity in my region per usable energy (say, per mile the vehicle can go) is less for electric than for gasoline, by a pretty wide margin.
Furthermore, if a person has PV panels on his own house, he can legitimately claim that his vehicle is low carbon emissions even if he does live in Kentucky or Ohio or Arizona or any other significantly-coal-dependent state.
Furthermore, coal plants are being retired all around the country. There's currently about 300 GW of coal fired capacity in tUSA -- by 2020 it will be closer to 220 GW. Folks who want less carbon emissions are opposed to building new capital infrastructure which will facilitate more carbon emissions for decades to come. Those folks would rather spend money (and create jobs) building wind turbines and solar farms and expanding subway and bus lines and switching more truck delivery to rails and switching from the manufacturing of gasoline fired autos to electric vehicles.
The folks who oppose the Keystone aren't in favor of coal fired electric power plants. That's pretty freaking obvious.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
If you're going to extract tar sands of their crude, then refining the crude in ND doesn't change anything. You've still got to ship liquid petroleum products from ND to the rest of the country -- and, in fact, the rest of the world since the USA is a net exporter of refined crude -- be it pipe, rail, or truck. Moving the refinery doesn't change the need for transport.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
North Dakota has saturated rail and road traffic trying to get it's crude out of the state. At the same time Natural gas is simply being burned off because there's no pipeline infrastructure to transport it. Pipelines that were being used to transport natural gas to the midwest from the east coast and gulf states will no longer be able to be used next year because they are being converted for use in transporting chemicals needed for tar sand conversion in Canada.
The reason big oil companies want the pipeline from Canada and not North Dakota is because there's a multibillion dollar tax loophole related to foreign oil processed in US refineries for export. Which is why the pipeline runs to the coast. Keystone Excel will have no effect on US fuel prices because it's not designed to sell fuel on the US market. It's quite likely that Keystone will result in refining capacity being taken out of the US market as it's used for export. All the signs point to this project actually costing the tax payer more at the pump in the end.
Let's also not forget the natural gas problems this creates for the upper midwest. They currently get their natural gas from Canada. Tar sand production need incredible amounts of natural gas. That's expected to increase prices people will be paying to heat their home. At the same time there's no plans now or in the future to bring more natural gas to upper midwest from the east coast. If anything they are losing capacity in order to support the tar sand production.
Every action that increases the cost of gasoline decreases the consumption.
Oil has a very flat demand curve. When the price doubled from $2 to $4 per gallon, demand went down about 3%. In the long run, people will buy more efficient cars and change their commuting patterns, but in the short run most people have no choice but to just suck it up and pay.
America produces most, but not all, of the oil it consumes. The oil companies make WAY more profit on domestically produced oil, because foreign governments capture most of the profit on their oil exports. If demand drops due to higher prices, the oil companies import less foreign oil (the least profitable) and make a windfall on domestic oil.
In the present day, the steam plant is located far from the occupants of the car, thus the cars are safer. But otherwise, it's the exact same technology. That's progress(tm)!
Come to think of it, have we made any really startling breakthrus since the internal combustion engine and computer itself? I mean, other than obvious stuff like improving those gadgets and linking them together.
Futurist Traditionalism
Obama Delays Decision On Keystone Pipeline Yet Again
Canada ponders legalizing p2p filesharing for not-for-profit, personal use
Obama Approves Keystone Pipeline and Fast-Tracks Implementation
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
Just a reminder: this includes regulation. It's a great excuse to charge more money and use what the laws do not specifically prohibit as a chance to make even more.
Futurist Traditionalism
I would have loved to been a fly on the wall in Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office when this non-decision was announced. Obama has once again taken the cowardly way out and punted a tough decision. He wants to continue to fundraise from environmentalists by saying "We're being tough on the Keystone pipeline and insisting it meets our environmental standards!" and then do the same with the big business crowd by saying, "We haven't said no to Keystone, we just want to make sure it meets our environmental standards." He doesn't actually want to make the decision, because then one crowd or the other will tell him to pound sand. Even though the entire job of being President of the United States is about making those decisions!
Worst president of my lifetime. Not even close.
I know a guy who runs a sandwich shop. Next time I see him I'll tell him to throw away 50% of his ingredients, leave the ovens on full even when he's closed and take on employees whose sole function is to break things.
He'll be pleased as puch at all the extra money he'll make!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Let's not be so quick to the default presumption that his African heritage won out over the Irish he got from his Mum.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
what in the name of god are you trying to say?
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Except that hasn't really happened.
What is happening is that oil companies are laughing at you all the way to the bank.
At you... laughing... to the bank.
Keep it up... they find it hilarious.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
"People who showed up to help Bundy in Nevada are domestic terrorists" - Harry Reid
"People complaining they are having issues with Obamacare are outright liars" - Harry Reid
"The only reason to oppose Obama is because of racism" - Jimmy Carter
"People protesting against the ACA were waving their flags around like Nazis" - Nancy Pelosi
"Help me to get reelected to destroy my political enemies" - Barak Obama
Lets see. I can list a ton of quotes from the LEADERS of the DNC. If you want I'll go on and list some from Bill Maher that you won't be able to match from anyone on the right. Perhaps you can show examples of the GOP doing the same? No? For how bad they are you can't find anything?
Perhaps if you weren't such a twat you would see that the partsianship is being instigated from the leadership of the DNC, period.
I like how articles forget to mention that the State Dpt. reports were made up of people who had ties to, or paid by those in the gas and oil industry. That is why environmentalists are still up in arms. Feel free to look up who put the report together and see who they work for. It's all there.
I think he's saying Jesus will return to implement pre-existing conditions and be very involved with the health care debate.
Keystone is at best a waste for America and at worst a natural disaster waiting to happen. It's a pipeline down to Mexican refineries so Canada can sell cheap tar sands oil to China. The problem is it's a _long_ pipe line, and they have a history of breaking and nobody noticing (since it costs lots of $$$ to monitor them) until after a community's ground water is heavily contaminated. If it happens in a mid sized town or city where it's too expensive to buy everyone out those people are just screwed.
The problem is these sorts of things are only a matter of time. With current tech maintenance costs more than allowing the disaster to happen. If the companies were severely punished for the spills that wouldn't be an issue. But if BP had to clean up their last mess they wouldn't exist as a company, and the owners would be broke. Those guys just buy off politicians until their in the clear. Heck, the CEO of TEP cried a little on Camera and got away with giving thousands of people cancer because he wouldn't pay to upgrade the safety on his factory. It was called a "Once in a 100 year event", but there were records showing it had been 100 years since the last one. That's some Mighty fine work there, Lou.
So to summarize my rant: You're asking me, as an American, to take a big risk that sooner or later is practically guaranteed to end in an etiological disaster in exchange for at best a few thousand jobs and a bit of cheap oil for China? I think This just about sums up my feelings.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Fascinating. Quoting people on the other side directly is tantamount to "attacking them".
If you think that, you might consider what you think about people who say such things.
Do you have ESP?
Obama only acts fecklessly after endless dithering.
THAT is why you don't elect a "community organizer" (the politically correct term for "street agitator") President. They don't know how to lead.
Corporatism != Free Market
Hmm, I wonder if our beloved President 1% knows any 1%ers who, say, owns a railroad company?
Oh.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
I wonder how Burlington Northern's doing on this latest news.
Do you have ESP?
Speaking of profits....I live in the Northeast, where we have high gasoline taxes. The "greedy oil companies" make about
7 cents on every gallon sold. The state and Fed governments make over 30 cents per gallon sold. So who's "greedy" ?
The suppliers of a needed commodity? Or our governments, who did NOTHING to make that energy available to the rest of us,
except give their "permission" to sell it?
To liars, the truth is an attack...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
which means what in the context of this topic?
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Meaningless vitriol. I suppose you will debunk the IPCC's 5th report on global warming next. This world has serious problems, and there is no time for the idiotic stall tactics of politics of the plutocracy. If the human race cannot cut through the damn red tape, then it will go extiinct with the rest of life that already has disappeared in this current man-made mass extinction all life is in. You want to believe Jesus is going to appear and save everyone from themselves, then get out of the way.
If you want to know what Jesus would say and do you should read The Bible yourself. He's quoted heavily in the first half of the New Testament. Don't listen to what Christians these days say he would or wouldn't do or say. Obviously they don't actually read it themselves and don't know because you have gained a seriously warped idea of what Jesus actually stood for. Most of the lessons his famous parables are meant to teach were actually economic nature.
I'm all for the End of Oil. But the tar-sands vilification got so it pissed me off and I find myself in a surprising place - in the trench with companies I've never liked. What gets to me:
- Greenpeace created the "world's dirtiest oil" moniker with a large, sustained media campaign. I'm amazed it survived the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. I mean, really, it's worse than just spewing a fantastic amount of raw crude right into one of the world's most fecund ocean biomes and commercial fisheries, no way to clean it up at all? Greenpeace isn't a bunch of guys around a card table anymore, their budget is $300M/year. They love theatrical campaigns more than scientific ones; it's about what creates emotion, not real ecological results.
- Presuming (perhaps, a big presumption) that we keep on top of them with regulation, the open-pit mines are eventually filled back in and trees stuck on top - the ones where they've already done it are of course the first stop on the tour. Yes, the current mines are 200 sq. mi., "you can see them from space" ...where they look like a brown postage stamp on a green billiards table, the boreal forest being over 200,000 sq.mi. Know what else is 200 sq. mi. or so? New York City, which was a rich hunting and fishing land of the Manhattan Indians. It's not being restored to forest any time soon, because it provides living space for 8 million people, rather than 8000 Manhattans. The tar sands are providing what currently is an (unfortunate) necessity of life for 20 million people.
- Accounts vary (for some reason) but I tend to trust New Scientist Magazine as pretty objective - their figure was that it takes the release of 70kg of carbon to extract tar sands oil, compared to 50kg for conventional. But both barrels are then *burned* releasing 200-300kg (depends on gas/diesel/etc), so the total lifecyle increase of carbon is under 10%. Yes, that's bad, but concentrating all hatred of carbon onto one source of it is, again, theatre, not science. It's like banning 3000lb SUVs and feeling very virtuous as you buy a 2700 lb SUV.
- But above all, picking on these companies and their pipeline schemes is attacking the *producer*, not the consumption end. Speaking of "America is addicted to oil", how has that strategy worked out for the War on Drugs? It's funny, the same very liberal folks who will shake their heads at the raw stupidity of the Drug War ("all it does is drive up the costs and bring in more ruthless producers to fill the hole") imagine it will work on energy that everybody wants to buy.
I'm all for shutting down the tar sands - but by hitting the consumption end, with research and incentives for batteries, electric cars, thorium and fusion power plants...the latter having the much greater benefit of first killing off coal-powered electric generation, a greater greenhouse issue than all oil. But when the inflection point hits with electric transportation and oil consumption actually goes *down*, the most expensive sources (tar sands) will be the first ones shuttered. Speed the day.
PS: Yes, I'm from Calgary. But I don't work in oil/gas, nor does anybody close to me. This is not as much about Canada as you may imagine. Almost all the $200B invested up there is from American companies. We barely tax them - less for oil than Palin's Alaska or Cheney's Wyoming. Our cut was just jobs building it. My family pioneered Alberta for two generations before oil was discovered - and they'll be around after it's all gone. Good riddance; but the ridding has to *work*. To make it work, we have to change a whole technological base of a society, not just rail at scapegoats.
High fuel prices decrease fuel consumption for poor people, rich people don't care they drive the most inefficient vehicles.
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/best/bestworstNF.shtml
Never mind the private jets and yachts but they are important they need those thing. Or cargo ships being exempt from fuel tax, take away the free trade agreements and tax exemptions and shipping stuff from China in not profitable anymore. "Just 15 of the world's biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world's 760m cars." Whats the real problem? Cars or ships? Also ships are exempt from low sulfur fuel regulation. There are 90,000 cargo ships in the world.
http://www.theguardian.com/env...
It's about bringing the oil to an export facility folks...They industry minimally "processes" it to make it legal then sends it away. They can't wait to short our own supply. Like BP did with Alaskan oil sent directly to China. Sell at a loss, just to short us for the last years. That's what drove it from $2 to $4 a gallon remember? Don't forget it. About natural gas...this was done in the west...or tried to. But we saw what they were doing and denied passage of the pipeline. First it was a facility to IMPORT, but actually was for EXPORT the industry tried. But lied - is the important thing. It hasn't hurt one bit but now they are rail shipping crude for export here! Ask yourself and big oil... Where's it going?. Like someone else here said Why not build a refinery on North Dakota soil where they could use the gasoline/diesel??? Because THAT would bring the cost down. Here's the only way to bring the cost down... build a life with out oil, it is possible no matter what others would have you believe. Don't be scared.
I could carve a better man out of a banana.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Canada can build their own export facilities and deal with the environmental mess when their pipeline bursts (and their taxpayers can pick up that bill.
The problem isn't just that it's not _benefiting_ America, the problem is that it's not benefiting America AND there's a substantial risk that there will be a large scale environmental disaster that the company who owns the pipeline will never pay to clean up.
We have no reason to OK it and every reason _not_ to OK it.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The "greedy oil companies" make about 7 cents on every gallon sold.
The gas station owner may make 7 cents, but the oil companies make far more than that. Otherwise the supply would disappear when the price dropped from $4 per gallon to $3.93.
Yep, the NIMBYs and BANANAs will scream "No, no, no, no dangerous pipeline, no smelly industries or farms, no ugly windmills or cell towers". Then in the next breath they'll be "Why are we importing all this food and energy? We should buy local. And why does my cell phone reception suck?" And they'll never make the connection, ever.
As Keystone falters and tar sands mining provokes mounting protests, our nation is compelled to end political bickering on climate legislation. Obama's decision has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with leadership. See my op-ed at http://www.theecoreport.com/gr...
Tell me, how much does the government make on every gallon of gasoline sold? I honestly don't know what the number is but I'm quite sure it's more than 7 cents.
Who's more "greedy" and "evil"? The oil companies for making 7 cents or the government that makes far more? I speculate the federal government does not really have their heart in finding alternatives to oil because they have not figured out how to tax it yet. Since they don't know what "it" is just yet they can't tax it.
If we ever do figure out what will replace oil then I suspect it will not be because of government funded research. The government is a political entity, not conducive to the quick thinking required of real honest research. I feel that the federal government will have to release its grip on energy willingly or see the new economy race beyond its reach. Either way the size and scope of the federal government, and therefore its tax burden on us, must shrink.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
The government didn't delay to choose, they have chosen to delay.
Not building the pipeline does not mean the oil won't be produced in Canada and shipped to refineries in the USA, it just means it will cost more to do so. More cost because it takes more energy. More energy means more waste. More waste is bad for the environment.
I thought this president was supposed to stop the oceans from rising or something.
I remember Obama debating McCain when the issue of nuclear power came up. Obama said some non-sense about investigating safe nuclear power. McCain said something about actually building nuclear power plants. We don't stop the rising of the oceans by taxing coal, banning oil drilling, and pouring money into unproductive solar panel factories. We reduce carbon output by building alternatives to coal and oil that actually produce power with less carbon output at a lower price. That means nuclear power.
President Obama, where is this nuclear power research you promised? Shouldn't research in nuclear power involve building nuclear reactors? The research reactors don't have to produce power I suppose but we should see them go critical. Computer simulations can tell us a lot but the theories they provide need to be tested in real life.
We'll verify nuclear weapons designs with real detonations but no government official or agency seems willing to verify nuclear reactor designs with reactors achieving criticality. Perhaps it's more accurate to say no Democrat would allow new nuclear reactors to go critical.
I also thought we were going to get an "all of the above" energy policy from the Democrats. No nuclear power so far but we've got windmills that kill endangered birds. Maybe I need a Republican in office to get energy choices that mean reduced carbon output. Maybe we'd get pipelines to transport natural gas to wells aren't forced to burn it off on site. Maybe we'd get oil wells in places that don't involve polluting large areas of the ocean floor. Maybe we'd get solar panel factories that produce product. Maybe we'd get electric cars that someone other than the 1% could afford.
Let's assume the Republicans take control of both the House and Senate. Does that end the delay? Or, would the Democrats not allow the Republicans to take credit? What if the Democrats win both houses? Would they still decide or keep holding on so they can use the issue again for the next election? Something tells me that only the Republicans will allow this pipeline. Then we can stop spilling oil into our oceans, killing endangered birds, and see real transition to nuclear power.
The Republicans are greedy, corrupt, assholes that don't deserve any government office. At least they have a plan to produce energy that doesn't involve killing rare birds, covering beaches with oil, or burning off natural gas at the well head when it could be burned for heat.
I hate having to choose the lesser evil.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Seriously, can we stop using false information and stop treating straight up lies as fact? Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment is on the decline and the lowest it's been since the recession.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
Suggest you look up "inelasticity" in the context of economic theory. Energy has quite inelastic demand. Most people in the US cannot in the short term change how they get to work just because the price of a gallon of gas goes up. People will continue to heat their house in winter even if the cost of heating it goes up. Etc.
NON-geek Linux user since 1998