My Blanket Fort

I’m Back, and now a rant about oil

I find myself wanting to rant more and more about everything and Twitter sometimes just doesn’t cut it. So I’m (once again) going to make an effort to blog a little more. 

Something that irked me a few days ago was the announcement by the Obama Administration to delay approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline until 2013 (after the 2012 election). Being in the business it is easy to see why he did this, he hasn’t been very tough on environmental policy and his supporters, mostly the green ones, have noticed. So by kicking this can down the road he avoids approving a pipeline that Enviros hate for reasons I will dispel later, and he has their support for his re-election.

I will say this first, this pipeline is not crucial for US oil consumption, however it will create jobs in the energy sector, lower oil prices in the US, and move our oil dependencies further away from the Middle East. Something that everyone wants in our shit of an economy right now; jobs and lower energy costs.

A quick over view of the Keystone XL. It is an extension of the already existing Keystone Pipeline. It would pump and additional 700,000 barrels of oil a day to US refineries. (The Current Keystone Pipeline pumps about 600,000 barrels a day). The oil would be from the Athabasca oil sands in Alberta Canada. Canada is the largest supplier of oil to the US, and the last time I checked the friendliest supplier too.

So why not approve the plan. Well Enviros are afraid of a few things:

1) Building such a long pipeline will increase the threat of a failure in the line that results in an underground spill. This is might sound scary, but the US already has thousands of miles of pipelines across the country. This 3,000 km pipeline would be an increase of 1% in the US pipeline network. Pipeline bursts are rare, and in the event of one, the pumps are shut down immediately to reduce spillage. 

3) The proposed route takes it through some sensitive areas in Nebraska and Kansas. Well TransCanada has already agreed to move the route to avoid these areas. So this is no longer an issue.

2) It takes energy to pump this oil from Canada to the US. This pipeline working at capacity would result in an emissions increase of 18 million tons of CO2 per year. Again, a valid point if Weather, I mean global climate change, is caused by CO2. However, just because 18 million tons is a big number doesn’t mean it is significant. Last year China’s total CO2 emissions rose by 780 million tons. That’s right folks, if we added this pipeline and operated it at full capacity, we would emit as much additional CO2 in one year as China did in 8.4 days.

Here is the best part though. If we don’t build this pipeline, Canada is still going to have all this oil and no one to sell it to. So supply and demand will drive the market and Canada will find someone who is in desperate need of oil and sell it to them. And can you guess who really needs oil, yep China. Canada will build a pipeline to their western coasts and then load the oil up on tankers and ship it to China. And then China will probably just set it on fire to add CO2 emissions for fun and laugh at the American Enviros. 

Plain and simple, it is just stupid for us to delay building this pipeline. It’ll add jobs, it’ll reduce energy costs, and it’ll have a lower environmental impact than the other alternatives.