The Keystone XL pipeline is a pipeline that connects the oil sands of Alberta to ports of the Gulf of Mexico. It consists of four phases. Phase 1 linked the oil sands to refineries in Illinois[1], with a total of 3,456 kilometers of pipe, 2,219 km located in the United States and 864 km located in Canada. It was finished in 2010. Phase 2 linked the Phase 1 pipeline in Steele City, Kansas to a refinery in Cushing, Oklahoma. [2] Phase 2 is 468 km long. Phase 2 was finished in 2012. Phase 3 was separated into two, 3a and 3b. Phase 3a started at Cushing and connected to Port Arthur, Texas. This was a total of 700 km. 3a was completed in Feb. 2014. Phase 3b, which is still in progress, is a 76 km pipeline that will link into the Houston area.
Phase 4, which would travel through Montana to allow a shorter distance, is the controversial portion of the project. One major issue involved is that Phase 4 would have originally traveled through the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska, which provides water to 82% of inhabitants of the Great Plains area and 30% of American irrigation water.[4] The result of an oil spill here would be catastrophic, possibly destroying the economy and population of the Great Plains. As such, President Obama rejected this proposed route.[5]
The current issue is whether the Keystone Pipeline would cause more pollution than it is worth. Current research suggests the Keystone Pipeline would cause a considerable amount of carbon emissions[6], but there are still arguments that the economic gain would be worthwhile. These ignore the issue that building more oil and gas infrastructure is never worth the economic gain, as regardless of the current benefit it will in the end create more fossil fuel infrastructure and delay transitions to less polluting alternatives. Creating a new pipeline may cause some immediate economic benefit, though mostly to the oil companies, but the long term cost of reinforcing dependence upon fossil fuels and creating even more pollution is simply not worth it.
There needs to be a clarification on what purpose the pipeline will serve. Is it there to provide more energy, or is it there to provide more supply? These may seem like the same thing, but there is a clear difference. If more energy is the goal, the best solution would be to construct more nuclear reactors and expand the current power grid. Nuclear reactors can be built anywhere and are much more space-efficient, making them a clearly superior system. If more supply is what is required, the issue is economic rather than social. The goal here would be to create profit, but even that would be better done by creating long-term systems that can continue selling power rather than constructing infrastructure around an inherently limited resource like fossil fuels. Once the oil sands are used up, all we will be left with is a huge dirty metal pipe underneath the ground. Continued reliance on and expansion of fossil fuel energy does not make sense from a social or economic standpoint.
- http://www.downstreamtoday.com/news/article.aspx?a_id=6776&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
- http://www.ipi.org/ipi_issues/detail/keystone-has-been-shipping-canadian-oil-to-the-u-s-for-years
- http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/the-politics-of-pipe-keystones-troubled-route/article2282805/singlepage/#articlecontent
- https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Ogallala_Aquifer.html
- http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/11/14/142322356/transcanada-says-it-will-reroute-keystone-xl-pipeline
- http://www.sei-international.org/publications?pid=2450