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What is wrong with the Keystone XL?

SkinsNDeacs

SkinsNDeacs

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I honestly don't know that much about it but in my limited knowledge it's hard to find a problem with it. It certainly doesn't seem to be anywhere near the savior that Pubs make it out to be but I don't know why Dems are so steadfast against it. Is this a form of the Dems getting drug to the far left like the Pubs have been drug to the far right over the last few years?
 
SkinsNDeacs said:
I honestly don't know that much about it but in my limited knowledge it's hard to find a problem with it. It certainly doesn't seem to be anywhere near the savior that Pubs make it out to be but I don't know why Dems are so steadfast against it. Is this a form of the Dems getting drug to the far left like the Pubs have been drug to the far right over the last few years?
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It promotes a very dirty extraction technique and opens up US lands to the risk of oil spills with little accrued future benefits.
 
Not building the pipeline is effective only if it results in transportation costs that prevent Canada from producing the oil. Otherwise, we're just jacking off.
 
DistrictDeacon said:
It promotes a very dirty extraction technique and opens up US lands to the risk of oil spills with little accrued future benefits.
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Again, don't know that much about it but from what I understand this oil is going to be extracted anyway and it will be shipped by freight and rail that is much more dirty and at a higher risk of a spill. The State Department released a study that this will save 40% on emissions as opposed to the other ways to ship it...and it will be shipped. I want alternative fuels as much as anyone but we have to live in reality.
 
I don't know that I care about Keystone XL one way or another. It's of very little benefit to America for more than a year or two.
 
That might be the case but why are the Dems blocking it so steadfastly? Even if it is of "very little benefit" why fight it so hard? Especially when 60% of Americans think it should be built. Seems like bad politics at the very least.
 
b/c it's the definition of modest, short term gain with little benefit being buttressed with risk of spills in the US and the promotion of one of the most destructive extraction methods outside of mountain-topping. sounds like you think environmentalism is dumb, not politics.
 
Again, stopping this pipeline will not stop the extraction. This oil will be extracted and will be shipped. The studies have shown that the environmental impact is greater without the pipeline than with it.
 
SkinsNDeacs said:
Again, stopping this pipeline will not stop the extraction. This oil will be extracted and will be shipped. The studies have shown that the environmental impact is greater without the pipeline than with it.
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You don't think they'll extract more oil and do it more quickly if they can ship it for much less money through a pipeline?
 
SnD: you realize all of your posts belie your assertion in the OP, right? Today's word is "coy."
 
I read the entire wikipedia page about it to become informed (hell yeah!). I don't know why anyone is vehemently in favor or opposed to it. Doesn't seem to have that many realistic negative consequences but also does not seem to be serving that grand a purpose either. I don't really care one way or the other.
 
SkinsNDeacs said:
Again, stopping this pipeline will not stop the extraction. This oil will be extracted and will be shipped. The studies have shown that the environmental impact is greater without the pipeline than with it.
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Because the pipeline takes it across the US. There will be spills. Spills which can't be easily cleaned up because of how awful the oil is. We get no benefit from the oil as it is too poor for US to use, and all of the risk of oil spills. All so Koch brothers can get rich, one of Republicans main donors.
 
It will be extracted. It will be transported through the US. A pipeline is both safer, and less environmentally harmful, than the alternative, according to all studies I've read. It's not as if pipelines are a new thing. The article this image comes from relates it to cars vs plane crashes. Planes are WAY WAY safer than cars, but a plane crash attracts a lot more attention than the 90-100 daily deaths that occur as a result of cars. The small spills and accidents that occur from the thousands and thousands of trucks and train cars transporting this stuff across the US will very likely add up to be more detrimental than the unlikely pipeline spill that would make the news, yet we'll never hear about it and feel good that we kept that evil, dangerous pipeline from being built.

pipeline_line_map-630x420.gif
 
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bernbp5 said:
Because the pipeline takes it across the US. There will be spills. Spills which can't be easily cleaned up because of how awful the oil is. We get no benefit from the oil as it is too poor for US to use, and all of the risk of oil spills. All so Koch brothers can get rich, one of Republicans main donors.
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This. If it ever involves oil, the Pubs are always "all in" even if it produces little revenue & especially if there is a chance for a spill. Hey oil spills create jobs too.
 
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bernbp5 said:
Because the pipeline takes it across the US. There will be spills. Spills which can't be easily cleaned up because of how awful the oil is. We get no benefit from the oil as it is too poor for US to use, and all of the risk of oil spills. All so Koch brothers can get rich, one of Republicans main donors.
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From the link posted above:

They are already shipping this oil through the US by means that are far more subject to spills:

Last week, TransCanada began shipping oil through the southern leg of the Keystone pipeline, which runs from Cushing, Okla., to Port Arthur, Tex. But the company is still waiting for a State Department permit for the 1,179-mile northern leg that would carry heavy crude from Canada into Montana and run to the small town of Steele City, Neb.
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The assessment also said that a variety of rail transportation options would result in 28 percent to 42 percent more emissions than the pipeline. The State Department has cited rail as a reason why blocking the pipeline would not slow oil sands development, although a spate of oil train derailments — including a derailment Friday in southeast Mississippi — has highlighted the dangers of that alternative.
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The oil is not that much poorer than the oil we are already refining:

The report concludes that crude extracted from the oil sands results in 17 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than the average barrel of crude used in the United States but only 2 percent to 10 percent more than the heavy crude it would likely replace at Gulf Coast refineries.
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SkinsNDeacs said:
Again, don't know that much about it but from what I understand this oil is going to be extracted anyway and it will be shipped by freight and rail that is much more dirty and at a higher risk of a spill. The State Department released a study that this will save 40% on emissions as opposed to the other ways to ship it...and it will be shipped. I want alternative fuels as much as anyone but we have to live in reality.
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I guess you could take the stance that the quickest way to alternative energy is burning through every last drop of fossil fuels first.
 
I'm pretty indifferent to it. With any new oil endeavor, I just would like to know for sure who pays for the cleanup when spills happen and how they plan to do that.
 
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