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Obama Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline (washingtonpost.com)
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."
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?
Obama denys the permit a few days after transcanada requests to table the permit process (due to falling oil prices) and everyone cheers.
It's notable that Obama is making a political calculation (wanting to retain "leadership" relating to climate change, the pipeline not increasing "energy security") rather than an economic or environmental one.
Reading his statement on the matter, his economic justifications are irrelevant ("the pipeline wouldn't create jobs or lower gas prices for Americans"): since it's not proposed that the US government pay for the pipeline, these issues are only relevant against costs -- and he doesn't discuss any costs! He isn't citing the direct environmental damage of digging the pipeline and creating associated infrastructure (roads, power cables, pumping stations etc). He isn't citing the risk of leaks.
I was wondering if Obama would claim climate risks since that would have required him to quantify his estimate of the accuracy of the models used to predict the climate effects of the pipeline. But naturally he didn't claim risks to the climate -- only risks to US leadership on climate issues. That's a fair reason to make national-level decisions, but is not a win for the environment.
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!
Nature already polluted all of this sand with oil. All the oil companies are doing is removing the oil leaving nice clean sand behind.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
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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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.
"The decision comes as no surprise to the oil industry, and they've been busily working on other ways to transport the oil."
Like, for instance, the railroad that Obama's 1%'er buddy Warren Buffett owns. I'm sure there's no connection there, though.
Oh, and is it cleaner to transport by rail?
http://bigstory.ap.org/article...
Nope.
And is it going to cut carbon emissions? Are we pretending that Canada's just going to leave it in the ground if we don't buy it?
Do you have ESP?
You can stop with the high drama. This is business, and nothing but. Simple short term cost/benefit ratios are all that is considered. They didn't like the numbers, so they pulled the plug.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
A couple actual facts, and yes, to begin, this has nothing to do with the environment. Over the past few years US crude productions has risen sharply and imports have fallen dramatically. This has caused the price of crude to fall to level where exploration cannot be supported. All the oil companies are cutting back on exploration, some are exiting all together selling their leases. Politics, for instance, had nothing to do with shell pulling out of the arctic. It was that the arctic is still very expensive, and at $40 a barrel, no one is making money. Second, the pipeline is a conservative nightmare on many levels. Primarily it requires the US federal governement to take land from US citizens and give it to a foreign corporations. Many citizen land owners in Texas and other very conservative states have sued for their right to keep their land and not have it annexed to a foreign country, but the conservative courts have said that the landowners do not have the right. Finally there is the simple matter of production. The US has enough crude to refine. The pipeline made some sense when oil was high as there was going to be money to be made so investing in infrastructure made sense. Now, again, with crude at 40, there is no money to be made. However there is money to be lost. Oil refining has a lot of external costs in terms of health care costs, falling property values around the refinery, and yes, environmental destruction. The Canadians know this which is why they are outsourcing refining to their hick neighbors to the south instead of building infrastructure themselves and reaping the rewards of the alleged profit that comes with it.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
"The only winner is Venezuela"
I wanted Keystone XL approved just to fuck with Maduro.
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
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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They requested a delay with the hope that a possible republican administration will pick it up in 2017.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
When America quits importing oil from the world market, that drives down the demand, which with the current supply on the world market, with more coming, it would drive down prices. This is called the laws of supply and demand. .07/kwh, it would require oil to drop to less than 20/brl to equal that. IOW, electricity is DIRT cheap, compared to oil.
Secondly, the prices of oil in America are actually QUITE low. If you compare brent (roughly international) with WTI (west texas with better grade oil compared to brent), you will find that WTI is 10/brl LESS. Why less? Because our costs are pretty darn low as well as our supply is greater than our demand.
Now, if America quits importing oil, then you can bet that global prices will plummet even further. And with average nighttime electricity prices in America at
And If America is moving quickly to much lower costs electricity and nat gas on our vehicles, china will go ballistic and work hard to drop their imports of oil.
IOW, by focusing on our burning of oil, rather than one location of where it comes from, the dems COULD have caused the world wide drop of CO2 over the next 5 years. This is why dems are SOOO foolish.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Seriously, I'm asking. I've generally heard much, much lower numbers (in the hundreds best case). There'd be a flurry of jobs while the pipeline was build, but after that nothing. Now, if we made them _lease_ the land for a hefty sum of the profits plus make them buy lots and lots of insurance for the spills...
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I'm hesitant to reply to a troll, but here goes.
> we'd STILL need about 50% of existing demand just to continue the rest of our lives like we do now.
I'm curious where you got this figure from. Let me check your rectum.
> No modern electronics at all. No plastics. No fertilizers on a global scale. Far fewer pesticides, none that actually work. The medical industry too would cease to exist as we know it today.
Nonsense. We already know how to synthetically produce petroleum-like substances. These things would just get a bit more expensive, that's all.
The only reason the petrochemical industry is as large as it is, is because of the glut of cheap oil available during the 20th century when the industry was expanding. If there's a lot of something, people are going to find ways of using it. In a lot of cases the pathway from petroleum to a useful product is actually really complex and only makes sense if petroleum is cheap. If not, there are other, cheaper ways.
> Thats right, without oil you wouldn't be able to eat, get medicine or talk on the phone. No Internet.
Yeah, it's common knowledge that eating was invented in the 20th century.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.