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Keystone XL pipeline: Why is it so disputed?
BBC News * US and Canada 24 January 2017
US President Donald Trump has signed executive orders supporting two controversial oil pipelines, Keystone XL and Dakota Access. Keystone XL has been at the centre of the controversy.
What is Keystone XL?
A planned 1,179-mile (1,897km) pipeline running from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, to Steele City, Nebraska, where it would join an existing pipe. It could carry 830,000 barrels of oil each day.
It would mirror an operational pipe, also called Keystone, but would take a more direct route, boosting the flow of oil from Canada.
A section running south from Cushing in Oklahoma to the Gulf opened in January 2014. At the coast there are additional refineries and ports from which the oil can be exported.
The pipeline would be privately financed, with the cost of construction shared between TransCanada, an energy company based in Calgary, Alberta, and other oil shippers. US-produced oil would also be transported by Keystone XL, albeit in smaller quantities than Canadian.
Why do the US and Canada want XL?
Canada already sends 550,000 barrels of oil per day to the US via the existing Keystone Pipeline. The oil fields in Alberta are landlocked and as they are further developed require means of access to international markets. Many of North America's oil refineries are based in the Gulf Coast, and industry groups on both sides of the border want to benefit.
An increased supply of oil from Canada would mean a decreased dependency on Middle Eastern supplies. According to market principles, increased availability of oil means lower prices for consumers.
Mr Trump said the project would create 28,000 construction jobs.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said he will work with the new US leader regarding the pipeline, and that he was "confident that the right decisions" would be taken.
How was XL approved?
The Canadian National Energy Board approved the pipeline in March 2010 but Mr Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, did not issue the presidential permit required in the US.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advised him not to approve the pipeline.
Mr Obama said the project would not:
- lower petrol prices
- create long-term jobs
- affect energy dependence
Donald Trump issued the permits within days of taking office, stipulating only that American steel be used in the work.
"We build it in the United States, we build the pipelines, we want to build the pipe," he said. "It's going to put a lot of workers, a lot of steelworkers back to work."
Why so much opposition?
Even back in 2011, the US state department appeared confused about the issue.
After first saying XL would not have significant adverse effects on the environment, it advised TransCanada to explore alternative routes in Nebraska because the Sandhills region was a fragile ecosystem.
Beyond the risks of spillage, the pipeline means a commitment to develop Alberta's oil sands.Despite the recent push to find renewable sources of energy and move away from fossil fuels, the amount of oil produced in northern Alberta is projected to double by 2030.
It's argued by some that by developing the oil sands, fossil fuels will be readily available and the trend toward warming of the atmosphere won't be curbed.
The fate of the pipeline is therefore held up as symbolic of America's energy future.
In the here and now, more energy is required to extract oil from the Alberta oil sands than in traditional drilling, and Environment Canada says it has found industry chemicals seeping into ground water and the Athabasca River.
This risk to local communities is one of the reasons many have opposed the project.
First Nations groups in Northern Alberta have even gone so far as to sue the provincial and federal government for damages from 15 years of oil sands development they were not consulted on, including treaty-guaranteed rights to hunt, trap and fish on traditional lands.
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It is interesting that Trump has signed 2 controversial executive orders supporting the Keystone XL pipeline and the Dakota Access. The Trump KXL pipeline, built by a foreign company carrying foreign oil through foreign steel pipes to be shipped to foreign ports will supposedly "put America first?"
The word, "Dilbit", means "Diluted Bitumen" and the term Keystone XL means, "Keystone Express Line". There is a great debate among environmentalist about the amount of damage that would be done to the environment, not "if" or "when", there would be damage. The following article segments were taken from the "Places Journal" 2017.
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About the Author
Jim Robbins
Jim Robbins is a veteran science and environmental journalist who contributes regularly to The New York Times, e360, and Condé Nast Traveler. His latest book is The Man Who Planted Trees.
The U.S. Department of Energy recently reported that tar sands production generates as much as 20 percent more carbon emissions than conventional crude, due to the intensive energy required to strip-mine the viscous fuel, or steam it in place, and transport it across vast distances. That’s why a hundred leading scientists have called for an end to the expansion of tar sands mining. “If Canada wants to participate constructively in the global effort to stop climate change, we should first stop expanding the oil sands,” said Thomas Homer-Dixon, of the University of Waterloo. “More growth simply shows Canada has gone rogue.” James Hansen, the former NASA climate chief, has said that if mining expands as planned, it is essentially “game over for the planet.” If that’s true, Esquire Magazine was hardly exaggerating when it called Fort McMurray “the little town that might just destroy the world.” And the little town of Hardisty is its co-conspirator.
Although climate change is the primary driver of pipeline opposition, bitumen spills are a close second. When I was in Hardisty, the evening news led with the story of a major spill in Fort McMurray, where a state-of-the-art, double-walled pipe owned by the Chinese company Nexen Energy leaked undetected for more than two weeks, discharging more than a million gallons of bitumen onto the tundra, one of the largest spills in Canadian history. Activists noted that the high-tech pipe was supposed to have numerous safeguards against leaks. “That’s their selling point,” said Grand Chief Ed John, hereditary chief of the Tl’azt’en people in northern B.C. and head of the First Nations Summit. “‘We have world-class pipelines and we have world-class safety standards,’ they say. And here’s an example of where your world-class standards are not working.” When bitumen mixes with water, it can be even more damaging than refined oil. In 2010, an Enbridge pipeline ruptured in a wetland near Marshall, Michigan. Sensors in Manitoba picked up the drop in pressure, but engineers dismissed the signal, mistaking it for a gap between two different batches of dilbit. For the next seventeen hours, the thick, heavy crude flowed through the marsh into the Kalamazoo River, oozing downstream for some forty miles. Nearly a million gallons leaked before the pipeline was shut down.
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The New York Times Crude, Dirty and Dangerous
This oil is no ordinary crude oil, and it carries with it risks that we’re only beginning to understand. Its core ingredient — bitumen — is not pumped from wells but is strip-mined or boiled loose underground.
Industry insiders long considered bitumen to be a “garbage” crude. But now that the light, sweet oil we covet has become more scarce and its price has skyrocketed, bitumen has become worth the trouble to recover. At room temperature, bitumen has the consistency of peanut butter, thick enough to hold in your hands. To get it through pipelines, liquid chemicals must be added to thin it into what’s known as dilbit, short for diluted bitumen.
Last month, the National Transportation Safety Board issued a report that was harshly critical of the federal government’s regulation and oversight of pipeline safety following a spill of more than one million gallons of dilbit into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in 2010. The accident underscored not only how different dilbit is from conventional oil, but how unprepared we are for the impending flood of imports.
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