Keystone XL Pipeline won’t be good for US
By Tom Buckelew
The newly-sworn in U.S. Congress, dominated by Republicans are avidly pushing through their agenda. They have sworn to pass the Keystone XL Pipeline bill and have the votes to do it, both in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The pipeline is to carry shale oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada to the port of New Orleans for refinement into gasoline. That sounds like a good idea but is actually anything but a good idea.
Tar sands contain a type of petroleum that is interspersed within sand, water and shale stone. It is extremely viscous (thick) and must be diluted with lighter hydrocarbons before it can flow through any pipeline. In addition, it is difficult to mine since it must be dug from the ground and trucked to a refining site in order to make it transportable through a pipeline.
In order to be able to make money from tar sands oil, a barrel of oil on the global price line must be at least $95. In the not-so-distant past, oil surpassed $150 a barrel but those days are gone. Oil has been trading globally at less than $50 a barrel in recent weeks. That has had serious repercussions on oil exporting nations such as Venezuela, Russia and Iran, all of whose economies depend heavily on their oil industry. The falling price of oil is based upon a number of factors. One…the U.S. has increased its production to the point that its oil imports from the OPEC nations have fallen to 40 percent from a high of 88 percent; Saudi Arabia (the biggest producer in the world and driving force of OPEC) has increased its production at a time of global glut for a number of reasons, one of which is to drive the price of oil down to: damage the economy of neighboring Iran (a Shiite Muslim country …Saudi Arabia is Sunni Muslim and the two sects of Islam are bitter enemies) and… to make shale oil unprofitable.
Saudi Arabian officials have vowed to continue to pump oil even if the price of a barrel reaches $20. There are some analysts who claim that by 2020, shale oil will no longer even be produced, making any pipeline a huge economic boondoggle.
The tar sand oil of Alberta is actually closer to Pacific Coast ports than to the Gulf of Mexico port of New Orleans. Why don’t they build a pipeline to the west coast? Because… the people of Alberta and British Columbia don’t want the pipeline built across their land and Canada won’t pass a pipeline bill despite their government being a conservative one. It’s a classic NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) policy. Ask yourself…would you be OK with your neighbor putting a sewer line through your property without your permission?
But won’t more oil translate into lower gas prices? The answer…no. It turns out that the oil industry wants the oil to be piped to New Orleans in order to refine it into gasoline…but that gas will be exported to the highest bidder which certainly isn’t the U. S. While we enjoy cheaper gas here, gasoline in Europe is still selling at $6.50 in France to over $8 per gallon in Italy so you can see why the oil industry wants to export gasoline.
The Republicans claim that jobs are the reason to push the pipeline with an estimate of 35,000 to 42,000 new jobs. However, those jobs will last only two years and then be replaced by pipeline inspectors…about 35 long term jobs. The 35,000 jobs sounds good even if only for two years but at a time when an average of better than 200,000 jobs are added nationwide each month, it seems small.
There are many disadvantages: The profit from all this oil refinement won’t go to the U.S. but to Canada though I’m sure there are many wealthy Americans who have heavily invested in the oil industry. They’ll get rich but the average American won’t see a dime.
The pipeline will be passing through the rich farmland of the midwest, crossing over huge aquifers (natural water reservoirs) which provide much of the drinking water and irrigation water for that area. Should a pipeline rupture (they have to be under high pressure to pump the thick oil) and contaminate the aquifers, there is no possible way to rectify the pollution. ( Now, I might note that Republicans counter that the tar sand oil is now being transported by railroad and there is every possibility of a derailment and spill. However, that possibility though real is usually containable unlike the two pipeline ruptures which have occurred in the past week…one under the frozen Yellowstone River which likely will never be fully cleaned up and a pipeline break in North Dakota two days ago which spilled fracking brine contaminated with hydrocarbons).
The oil takes considerable energy to get out of the ground, prepare for transport and refinement at a time when we should be cutting back on the use of non-renewable energy. The mined areas are heavily damaged and the shale must be deposited somewhere. Air and water is polluted in the mining process.
There is an increase in atmospheric C02 emissions both during the extraction process and the consumption of the eventual end product exacerbating climate change.
President Obama has vowed to veto the Keystone XL Pipeline bills presented to him. Understand the significance and thank him.
Dr. Tom Buckelew, a resident of Uniontown, is a professor emeritus at California University of Pennsylvania.