U.S. to re-route Keystone XL due to environmental concerns
- Thread starter mentalfloss
- Start date
It's the truth.
Just look at what happened in Nigeria yesterday as an example of the destruction coming a 'safe' pipeline.
These poor farmers and ranchers are going to stop using anhydrous ammonia and give up half their yields?
I wouldn't trust any pipeline made and assembled outside North America, for all we know they used straws in Nigeria.
Well,I wouldnt trust any of the ones that were planted 20 years ago,theres going to be lots of failures soon and as a previous Encanna rep and pipeline inspector I know its going to happen.
Things are different now but 20 years ago,holy ****!
Corners were cut,this will show up in the next few years.
There's thousands of miles of old pipe in the ground in Alberta that will start leaking soon.
GOP killed Keystone, environmentalists say
WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Republican critics of U.S. President Barack Obama might have killed the Keystone XL pipeline by forcing the administration's hand, environmental groups said.
A measure inserted in a bill to extend payroll tax benefits gave Obama about two months to determine whether the proposed Keystone XL was in the national interest.
Nebraskans had protested the original route for the tar sands pipeline from Canada would pass over a key aquifer. That triggered the U.S. State Department to re-examine the route for the trans-national pipeline, meaning a decision wasn't likely until after November 2012 presidential elections.
Republicans said the project is "shovel ready," playing off Obama's "We Can't Wait" campaign to pressure him to approve the project. The State Department, however, said the time limit was insufficient.
Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, director of international programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Washington publication The Hill the Obama administration doesn't have room to maneuver.
"The president is going to have no choice but to reject the pipeline," she said.
This, she notes, could play well for Obama's environmental base in the run-up to 2012 elections. Environmental groups say tar sands oil is bad business, pointing to a tar sands oil spill in Michigan that's taken more than a year to clean up.
"It seems like (Republicans) wrote themselves into a corner (with the tax bill)," said Sierra Club spokesman Eddie Scher.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Republican critics of U.S. President Barack Obama might have killed the Keystone XL pipeline by forcing the administration's hand, environmental groups said.
A measure inserted in a bill to extend payroll tax benefits gave Obama about two months to determine whether the proposed Keystone XL was in the national interest.
Nebraskans had protested the original route for the tar sands pipeline from Canada would pass over a key aquifer. That triggered the U.S. State Department to re-examine the route for the trans-national pipeline, meaning a decision wasn't likely until after November 2012 presidential elections.
Republicans said the project is "shovel ready," playing off Obama's "We Can't Wait" campaign to pressure him to approve the project. The State Department, however, said the time limit was insufficient.
Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, director of international programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Washington publication The Hill the Obama administration doesn't have room to maneuver.
"The president is going to have no choice but to reject the pipeline," she said.
This, she notes, could play well for Obama's environmental base in the run-up to 2012 elections. Environmental groups say tar sands oil is bad business, pointing to a tar sands oil spill in Michigan that's taken more than a year to clean up.
"It seems like (Republicans) wrote themselves into a corner (with the tax bill)," said Sierra Club spokesman Eddie Scher.
Whew!
Thank goodness that we have the privilege of having Susan from the Nat Res Defense Council to provide an objective, non-partisan analysis on this issue.
Not likely, these lines are inspected/checked on a regular basis, so any detection of corrosion is repaired. Small leaks are bound to happen but the amount leaked will usually be a small amount.
Really good article on the globe and mail which puts perspective on this project and other pipe projects..
For decades, pipeline permitting applications were fought largely on technical grounds, and they’ve virtually all been successful. Two other major cross-border oil pipelines – the first instalment of Keystone, and Enbridge Inc.’s Alberta Clipper – had been speedily approved in the years prior.
But Keystone XL was the first major pipeline to confront a country that had suddenly turned a sharp eye on the oil industry. The BP spill had erupted amidst still-simmering concerns about global warming – and in the following months, a series of pipeline spills into important U.S. rivers made headlines.
Against that backdrop, Nebraska’s boiling sands transformed from an engineering challenge into a political and social challenge – one that TransCanada, and the industry in general, was ill-equipped to handle.
“The world fundamentally changed in the last 18 to 24 months – starting with Macondo [Gulf spill] and the whole visibility of that,” said TransCanada chief executive officer Russ Girling in an interview. “It was a different kind of awareness of the oil industry than we’ve ever seen, I think, publicly.”
The politics of pipe: Keystone's troubled route - The Globe and Mail
For decades, pipeline permitting applications were fought largely on technical grounds, and they’ve virtually all been successful. Two other major cross-border oil pipelines – the first instalment of Keystone, and Enbridge Inc.’s Alberta Clipper – had been speedily approved in the years prior.
But Keystone XL was the first major pipeline to confront a country that had suddenly turned a sharp eye on the oil industry. The BP spill had erupted amidst still-simmering concerns about global warming – and in the following months, a series of pipeline spills into important U.S. rivers made headlines.
Against that backdrop, Nebraska’s boiling sands transformed from an engineering challenge into a political and social challenge – one that TransCanada, and the industry in general, was ill-equipped to handle.
“The world fundamentally changed in the last 18 to 24 months – starting with Macondo [Gulf spill] and the whole visibility of that,” said TransCanada chief executive officer Russ Girling in an interview. “It was a different kind of awareness of the oil industry than we’ve ever seen, I think, publicly.”
The politics of pipe: Keystone's troubled route - The Globe and Mail
Well Nigeria's spill is making headlines now. 2 months earlier Shell said that environmental reports were unnecessary.
All of these spills are tainting public opinion.