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There are thousands of miles of pipe lines all over the U.S. I wonder how many people realize how all that jet fuel gets to an airport from the tank farm. Or how the gas gets to their kitchen range from the well fields.
I know of lines that are still in use that were put in back in the early 40's.... Yeah, those pipelines are a recipe for disaster all right... Of coarse when you expect a perfect world in any way, you are bound to be disappointed......
They are afeared for all thuh furry critters. I caint wait fer it to come thisa way so as I can put gas from North Amurica into my truck stead of gas from Saudy rabieyer
I say we invest and Refine it in Alberta. A new refinery means permanent jobs (unlike temporary construction jobs). Higher value exports can go right into the U.S. distribution system. Only reason to ship oil to Texas is to load it onto ships to sell it overseas. Oklahoma storage facilities are already overfilled with crude...potential bottleneck there anyway.
The pipeline's purpose is to export essentially unprocessed bitumen, in the largest possible quantities, out of Canada and to the petrochemical complex in Texas. Where it will be processed into finished fuel, plastics and chemicals in a myriad of forms for sale around the world, including back into Canada.
We could say that this is just taking advantage of an opportunity. The Americans are running out of domestic oil. They are looking for a substitute. By plugging Canada into Texas, we are fulfilling our franchise as America's largest energy provider. “Ethically,” as the project's mummers and barkers would have it.
But what is really going to go down that pipeline are Canadian jobs. And forgone capital that belongs to our children and grandchildren. And then, there's the small matter of the environment.
Let's start with Canadian jobs. In promoting and facilitating this project, the Harper government is, once again, scripting Canada in the world economy to be a source of raw, unprocessed resources. Tommy Douglas used to rail against this in the 1940s. Then: Why are we exporting raw logs when we could be exporting furniture? Now: Why we are exporting raw bitumen when we could be exporting the hundreds of products that are derived from our own petrochemicals?
The answer is that Mr. Harper – and his friends in the industry – are, as neo-cons and the interests they serve always do, going for the quick buck. The easy solution. The road where everybody gets their bonus and their new car right now. Everyone except the people of Canada
– who get to live with the consequences of an over-valued petrocurrency, without benefiting from the value-added economic activity our own resources generate.
Dumb.
So then there is the question of foregone capital – the theft from our children and grandchildren. The quick-buck boys behind this pipeline project seek to mine the maximum amount of bitumen, as quickly as possible, at the lowest possible royalty rates (note the debate on this issue in Alberta when Premier Ed Stelmack tried to address it), sold for the lowest possible price – all immediately to be spent in a supposedly “low-tax” environment.
Imagine instead developing our petroleum resources more deliberately; charging appropriately for those resources; ensuring they build a job-rich industrial, value-added economy here in Canada – and that most of the treasure derived from these one-time, never-to-be renewed fossil resources were preserved in an investment fund. Then our children and grandchildren would inherit both a high-job, developed economy, and an pool of capital to build a future economy.
The controversy over the pipeline in Nebraska is that they want to run it through the sandhills. The sandhills sit directly over the Ogallala aquifer, which supplies the drinking water to over 85% of the people in the state. It's a shallow aquifer, and the soil composition in the sandhills is such that if there was a leak, it would be incredibly difficult to contain and the entire state's drinking water would be contaminated. A leak would also shut down agricultural production--Nebraska's biggest industry--the aquifer is also used for all of the pivot irrigation systems in the state.
FYI--Nebraska is about as red state as it gets. The R governor there, and most of the R leadership, are fighting this. The governor has convened a special session of the general assembly to demand either greater safety controls, or to attempt to reroute the line. The biggest group supporting the pipeline at this point are trade labor unions who want the short term jobs--the rest of the state is up in arms about it. They're furious with the Obama admin and the state department for not stepping in to stop this.
You're completely wrong about the politics behind this if you think it's some misguided attempt by environmentalists to block progress.
Yeah it appears many would be for it if it didn't cross the aquifier. That thing doesn't just feed nebraska but Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, NM, SD, Texas. What they don't mention is the ethanol boys are really against it. They want to bleed the oil as dry as they can so the subsidies for their product keep pouring in too.
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