Assignment 10.2: The Keystone XL Pipeline

The first thing I discovered about the Keystone XL Pipeline was that it is incredibly hard to find unbiased sources on it. There seems to be a very divisive issue on whether it should expand or not. The basic idea is that this is a pipeline that would go from Alberta, CA all the way down to Nederland, Texas, USA, and would cary 830,000 barrels of oil daily. A pipeline already exists in that way, the Keystone pipeline, but the proposed Keystone XL would be a shortcut that travels a quicker path, depicted below:

(A map of the Keystone Pipeline, in brown, and the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, in blue dotted lines. Source: http://keystone-xl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/TransCanada-Keystone-Pipeline-System-Map-2015-06-08.jpg)

The Keystone XL website claims that this new pipeline is essential for providing jobs in the US, can allow us to discover more crude oil on our own land, and reduces foreign dependency on oil. Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman has approved the route through Nebraska, although this route will not exist: President Obama has decided not to approve a permit for this pipeline. Many environmentalists have protested the building of the XL pipeline for a few reasons. The kind of oil this pipeline would carry, heavy oil-sands petroleum, derived from the naturally occurring oil sands that are mixed with clay and water, among other things. People fear that were this pipeline to leak, it would be much more devastating than regular oil. Another concern is about the way this oil-sand petroleum is processed. There are two ways the petroleum can be derived, and neither way is healthy for the ecosystem. From the New York Times:

“In one method, large amounts of water and natural gas are used to pump steam into the sands to extract the oil, which creates toxic environmental runoff.

Alternatively, energy companies strip-mine the sands and then heat them to release the oil, a practice that has already destroyed many acres of Alberta forest. An environmental review by the State Department concluded that production of oil-sands petroleum creates about 17 percent more carbon pollution than production of conventional oil.” (Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/us/politics/what-does-the-proposed-keystone-xl-pipeline-entail.html?_r=0)

The jobs this pipeline would create would be almost entirely temporary; out of the roughly 40,000 new jobs that politicians are citing this would create, only 35 of them would be permanent. It seems clear that this project would only do more harm, in terms of the environment, than good, in terms of the economy.

Sources:

About the Keystone XL Pipeline

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/02/24/3626301/keystone-xl-vetoed/