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Obama Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the find-something-else-to-argue-about dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The Keystone XL pipeline controversy is finally coming to a close. On Friday, President Obama denied a construction permit for the pipeline, ending a seven-year political fight. Obama said, "America's now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change. And frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership. And that's the biggest risk we face — not acting." Secretary of State John Kerry added, "The reality is that this decision could not be made solely on the numbers — jobs that would be created, dirty fuel that would be transported here, or carbon pollution that would ultimately be unleashed. The United States cannot ask other nations to make tough choices to address climate change if we are unwilling to make them ourselves." The decision comes as no surprise to the oil industry, and they've been busily working on other ways to transport the oil. "U.S. imports of oil from Canada hit a record high of 3.4 million barrels a day in August, up from just under 2 million barrels a day in 2008, the year the pipeline was proposed."

22 of 369 comments (clear)

  1. fighting carbon pollution? by iggymanz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So now the oil will be transported by truck and rail, which of course pollutes much, much less than sending it through a pipe via electric pumps.

    is obama and his administration fucking retarded? did he flunk basic math and science?

    1. Re:fighting carbon pollution? by PackMan97 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Exactly! At best this oil will cost more to produce (Obama's goal) and will end up in more pollution (the opposite of what Obama wants to achieve). It also has the side effect of encouraging Canada to build more refineries to process this oil and build their own pipeline to the their coast to ship it and get thus eliminate a bunch of American jobs. Bravo, Mr President!

    2. Re:fighting carbon pollution? by amiga3D · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not about reality, it's about perception. It doesn't matter which pollutes more only which is perceived to be worse.

    3. Re:fighting carbon pollution? by olsmeister · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or, it'll be transported via ship overseas, which can result in an even larger catastrophe. I agree, he dropped the ball on this one. The oil is going to be mined, it will be sold, and it will be refined - the only question is where. The carbon will enter the atmosphere, except now it'll be accompanied by the additional carbon required to ship the oil the refinery in a much less efficient manner. I can only surmise that the decision was based entirely on politics and not on common sense.

    4. Re:fighting carbon pollution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      >is obama and his administration fucking retarded? did he flunk basic math and science?

      Hang fahr, boy, that je's proves he's a muslim Kenyan socialst commie liberal fascist gay-married pedofile puppy-kicker who's bent on destroyin' our sacred an' holy 'Murican way o' life. Why that's th' only reason he ever dee-cided to b'come the preszident o' this hear U-nited states!

      It'z all his dastardly nefariois plot so's he could wreck our great christian country and surrender us an' all our guns and' bibles to the commies like Putin and Osama Been Laden and Planned Parenthood!

      Oh mah, whut would Jebus say??

    5. Re: fighting carbon pollution? by JWW · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Yep. And all that noise about how unsafe the pipeline is will be exposed as so much bullshit when (not if) a derailment causes a raging fire, many deaths and the evacuation of any towns near the conflagration.

      BTW oil shipped east by rail within Canada has already caused deaths.

      Rational thought is something reviled by the "Green" movement. It's all really about more government control.

      If things really were so dire we'd be shutting down the coal plants as the new nuclear plants come online, but that's not what they really want. They want control not zero carbon emissions.

    6. Re:fighting carbon pollution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There were to be almost no jobs after the pipeline was built. What do you expect all the workers to do? All you need is like three guys every hundred miles or so. One to watch the gauges, and two to investigate leaks. You then have a crew of ten every 500 miles to repair leaks. Probably be a total of 100 American jobs, and that is if they don't bring down Canadians to do the job anyways.

      WHAT FUCKING JOBS ARE YOU YAMMERING ON ABOUT. Fucking idiot. And of course they wanted to lay this pipeline right above the sandhills and the Ogallala aquifer.

      The whole canard about lowering prices was a joke too. If anything it would raise the prices in the Midwest. If you build a pipeline all the oil goes to refineries on the gulf and we end up having to ship the finished product into the Midwest raising prices. Right now it is refined in the midwest and sold locally.

      Go read here about what they want to put at risk. And remember that aquifer is the only reason the land this side of the Mississippi is the breadbasket of the country. The only reason they wanted it to run south was so they didn't risk their own natural wonders.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandhills_%28Nebraska%29
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer

      This was a shit deal for America. No fucking jobs, higher fucking gas prices, theft of land from Americans by a foreign company, and then we get to risk our natural wonders!! All for what, so a Canadian oil company gets to make more money!

      FUCK YOU AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON YOU IGNORANT PIECE OF SHIT.

    7. Re: fighting carbon pollution? by Jaxim · · Score: 3, Insightful

      More likely billionaire campaign contributor Tom Steyer is happy. The liberals keep talking about the Koch brothers ruining politics, but it's Stryker and George Soros who are the real threat.

    8. Re:fighting carbon pollution? by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Who benefits most from the pipeline? TransCanada. All the pipeline does is make is easier and cheaper to ship oil from the tar sands. There will be some jobs to build the pipeline but after that only a handful to maintain it. The problem is the US will spends billions to build it. Will it increase refinery capacity? No. Will it make it easier to extract oil from the tar sands? No. Do US refineries benefit from getting more oil? No as most of the oil will be simply shipped out of the Gulf of Mexico to Europe. So the only purpose of the pipeline was so that TransCanada saves money on shipping at the expense of the US.

      Then there is the possible environmental problems. Pipelines leak. If there is an incident with a train or truck, the impact is much less than a pipeline spilling millions of gallons of oil somewhere in the US when it is used.

      Then there is the economic aspect of extracting oil from the tar sands. At the current gas prices, it's not economical to get oil from the tar sands. So when gas prices are low, the pipeline won't even be used. So the US is paying for a half-used pipeline.

      So the US pays a lot of money so that TransCanada saves money on shipping. When it is in use, there is a greater chance of environmental impact. When it is not being used, the US paid a lot of money so TransCanada didn't save money. There was no real economic advantage to it at all.

      If TransCanada wants to build the pipeline with 100% of their own money, they can do it. Don't do it with US taxpayer money.

      --
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    9. Re:fighting carbon pollution? by John+Jorsett · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The Koch bros must be mighty pissed off right about now.

      Maybe it'll pop your bubble, but they're probably delighted, given that they have big investments in the rail transport system that's profiting hugely from transporting oil. As someone once said, "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

    10. Re:fighting carbon pollution? by chriso11 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would rather we spent the money on useful construction jobs, like repairing our failing bridges (http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2015/06/04/how-a-decaying-infrastructure-hurts-u-s-manufacturing/).

      --
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    11. Re:fighting carbon pollution? by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Which means...you run longer trains and more of them. And let's see, if each tank car has a 10^-whatever chance of derailing per mile traveled, what happens when there's more cars, more trains, and more wear on the tracks. Does the chance of derailment get bigger or smaller. This is not a trick question.

    12. Re:fighting carbon pollution? by tnk1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Buffett runs the trains and has a share in the oil.

      This hurts him not at all. Do you think that the oil *isn't* going to be brought up because of the failure of the pipeline?

      I don't know if Keystone was good or bad for the US in general, but the only thing that's a real threat to the oil sands exploitation is low priced Saudi oil. It's still profitable to truck and ship that oil because it is oil and everyone needs it.

      I think there is some sort of odd belief that the oil has been "stopped". You can't stop oil production without a better alternative. If anyone thought this was a "win" for alternative fuels, they are mistaken. The only people who may have benefited are the people who don't lose their land and who could, in theory, have to deal with the aquifer if there was a spill. You don't stop oil production by trying to stop transport of oil already drilled. Too many people need it and will ensure it gets where it needs to go.

      Frankly, I think it would have been a marginal win for the environmentalists to let the pipeline go in. Trucks and trains are a definite pollution and carbon issue, whereas a spill is a theoretical risk while the oil would have been transported without the waste of the trucks and trains. I think this is NIMBY "environmentalism" at work.

    13. Re:fighting carbon pollution? by fatwilbur · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If TransCanada wants to build the pipeline with 100% of their own money, they can do it. Don't do it with US taxpayer money.

      What on earth gave you the idea US taxpayer money was being used to build this pipeline, and not TC's capital? Wow, guess I haven't read the craziest of the anti-KXL propaganda...

    14. Re:fighting carbon pollution? by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "The oil will be used regardless."

      Oil will be used, THAT very expensive and polluting to extract oil will likely not be as long as the oil prices stay below what it costs to develop the tar sands.

      And jobs aren't *that* important. There are MANY things I'd rather not do despite what ever jobs they might create. Like restart slavery, or have government funded turd polishers, etc. There has to be a line drawn somewhere. The Keystone XL pipeline was bad for America (except for the many GOP Congresspeople who were investors in TransCanada) in EVERY way except for the bullshit 'jobs' excuse, which was a weak excuse to begin with.

      --
      while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
    15. Re:fighting carbon pollution? by rtb61 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The pipeline seems to have been one great big scam from the start. With the fossil fuel era coming to an end, a mad scheme developed to pump up tar sands, claim huge value with a government subsidised pipeline and then dump that tar sands upon the pension funds of a gullible public only to see it all collapse as it is forced to compete with other countries desperately trying to dump as much fossil fuel as quickly as possible before it all gets banned. Large fossil fuel capital investment, you should seriously consider getting rid of it, not that you will not get stuck with it any how as the vulture capitalists seek to dump the impending losses on pension funds and government bail outs. The delusion of the attack on Russia by ramping up fossil fuel production, all a lie to hide the reality of ramping up fossil fuel production to dump as much as possible as fast as possible for the highest price possible in a flooding market. The only reason the pipe line project was canned because it is quite simply to close to the end of fossil fuels and it would end up looking really, really, corrupt. Not that it stops them but sometimes it could have quite severe ramifications, they might actually be held accountable.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  2. No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is the technology required to build an oil refinery beyond the societal abilities of Canada? Do they really need to freeride off the USA even more than they already do?

    Is it too much to ask that TransCanada build a Canadian pipeline transversing Canada to their own Canadian refinery, thereby securing all the supposed economic benefits for their own country?

    Fuck Canada!

  3. Re:Political bullshit that has nothing to do with by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You do know the keystone pipeline would raise the cost of oil and lessen the supply to the industries you quote right?

    What the lobbyists who produce this information and fancy commercials and radio talk shows don't tell you is where this oil is going?

    It is not going to you. It is going to cars in China who are used to paying $9 a gallon for gas. If all of North America's gas could be sold for %300 why would they sell it to you, or fertilizer, plastic, electrical, or medical companies? Unless you want to pay $7 a gallon for gas of course.

    This is why Obama vetoed it. We have all the liability of a potential accident with less product.

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    http://saveie6.com/
  4. Re:Economic calculations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Climate change requires coordinated action from all (or most) major countries. If the US went ahead with Keystone, then politicians or bureaucrats in other countries would say, why should we stick out our necks on this. The USA isn't making any sacrifices and they're the worst (or in top 2) polluter.

  5. Re:Political bullshit that has nothing to do with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What about the concerns that a for profit, foreign company was proposing to use eminent domain to acquire the pipeline right-of-way? I don't think that got the press it deserved and was not a precedent we wanted to set as a country.

  6. Same with the anti-nuke crowds by trout007 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The just flat our refuse all evidence, even with the worst case scenarios accidents at Chernobyl and Fukashima, the millions of lives saved by using nuclear power. And this is with the handicap their efforts have wrought by preventing the adoption of new designs and technology to the point where we are planning on running reactors until they are 80 years old. Imagine if we were on 6th or 7th generation reactors? Imagine if we were allowed to use breeder reactors? Nobody would be talking about using fossil fuels for electricity production.

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    I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
  7. Good by rsilvergun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There's no issue here. Keystone was just a way for Canada to get it's oil to China cheaply. There's no benefit besides a few hundred jobs. OTOH there's a strong likelihood that sooner or later the pipeline will burst and spew oil everywhere for days. We here in America don't have the best track record of making oil companies clean up their messes....

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