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KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE
Breaking news - Keystone XL oil pipeline plan 'to be rejected' - BBC
President Obama called Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper to
explain that the decision was not on the merits of the pipeline but rather on
the "arbitrary nature" of a Feb. 21 deadline set by Republican
legislators as part of a tax measure he signed - link
"Let's be the generation that finally frees America from the
tyranny of oil." These words from President Obama are what generate
the actions of Bill McKibben, who orchestrated the Keystone protests in Washington
DC. Now he writes in Rolling Stone to explain all. Read
Latest news:
Jan 11 2012: Oil lobby's financial pressure on
Obama over pipeline revealed. Obama has until 21 February
2012 to make a decision on whether to approve the pipeline, under a compromise
tax measure approved late last year. In all,
the oil and gas industry has given nearly $12m in direct contributions to
members of Congress in the last two years. link
Jan 3 2012: Pipeline inspector-turned whistleblower calls Keystone
a potential “disaster”. Mike
Klink is a former inspector for Bechtel, one of the major contractors working
on TransCanada’s original Keystone pipeline, completed in 2010. Klink, who says
he’s speaking as an engineer and not an environmentalist, has just published a
scathing op-ed in the Lincoln Journal Star criticizing
Keystone XL. As an inspector, Klink's job was to monitor the construction
of the first Keystone pipeline where he oversaw construction at the pump stations
that have been such a problem on that line, already spilling more than
a dozen times. "I am coming forward because my kids encouraged me to tell the
truth about what was done and covered up," said Klink. link
December 23 2011 - push for 60-day review likley to ensure rejection of pipeline (more) Activist
leaders explain how they beat the Keystone XL pipeline - link
Below
- Why this pipeline is important
- Problems ahead for Keystone
- What's happening in Canada
- The European connection
- Why Nebraska is a prominent factor - is the pipeline safe?
- Washington DC protests August/September 2011
| Why this pipeline is important |
The proposed Keystone XL Project would consist of approximately 1,711 miles of new, 36-inch-diameter pipeline, with approximately 327 miles of pipeline in Canada and approximately 1,384 miles in the United States. The project would cross the international border between Saskatchewan, Canada, and the United States near Morgan, Montana and would have a nominal transport capacity of 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil. Click here for a map of the project (Note: one barrel = 42 US gallons.)
November 2011: New study requested by Obama could halt Keystone. The Obama
administration is to reassess the route of the controversial Canada-US oil
pipeline, delaying a decision on the project by up to 18 months. Studying a new
route for Keystone XL is now expected to push the final decision past the 2012
presidential election. The state department's handling of the $7bn
project is already under review for alleged wrongdoing. Correspondents say the
delay will spare President Obama the need to make a politically
sensitive decision - that will be closely watched by environmental groups and
the oil industry - during a presidential election year. link In a statement President
Obama said:"We should take the time to ensure that all questions
are properly addressed and all the potential impacts are properly understood."
Bush administration legislated against tar sands oil In 2007, President Bush signed into law Section 526 of the Energy Independence and National Security Act of 2007 which prohibits the US government, the largest single fuel purchaser in the U.S., from using taxpayer dollars to purchase fuels that have a higher carbon footprint than conventional oil. This little-known law is significant because Congress crafted it, in part, with the explicit intent to block the US from buying Canadian tar sands oil, considered the dirtiest oil on the planet. Meanwhile the Canadian government has been working behind the scenes to strike Section 526 from the books to clear the way for tar sands extraction. According to Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and one of the leaders of the Keystone pipeline protests, the burning the recoverable oil in the Alberta tar sands by itself would raise the carbon in the atmosphere by 200 parts per million (ppm). It wasn’t hard to figure out that this would increase the 390 ppm carbon in the atmosphere today by more than half. The leading NASA climate change specialist James Hansen summed up what’s at stake saying: “If the tar sands are thrown into the mix it is essentially game over” for a viable planet. link
Argument in favor of Keystone: Within a few years of its completion, Keystone XL would deliver upwards of 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada's oil sands region to U.S. refiners. The Energy Information Administration reports that the additional oil production would secure reliable Canadian imports that would supply 57% of our crude oil needs, up from 51% in 2010. In a larger context, the pipeline would be part of an access strategy that could supply 92% of this country's liquid fuel needs by 2035. According to the Canadian Energy Research Institute, U.S. jobs supported by Canadian oil sands could grow to 465,000 in 2035. Nearly 1,000 companies from 47 states already are involved in oil sands development.
The jobs argument. A Cornell study finds only 2,500 to 4,650 temporary jobs over two years would result from building the pipeline, not the 20,000 claimed by the TransCanada Corp. (A one year extension of a federal solar grant program could create 37,000 jobs.) Another downside is that during 2010, spills and explosions in America caused one billion dollars worth of damage and 22 oil workers were killed during that period. link
Nov. 15 2011: TransCanada says it can after all re-route the pipeline, contradicting earlier statements it would be impossible. link
| Some problems ahead for Keystone |
Oct. 7 2011: Pipeline faces question of conflict. The State Department assigned an important environmental impact study of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to a company with financial ties to the pipeline operator, flouting the intent of a federal law meant to ensure an impartial environmental analysis of major projects. link
Oct. 6 2011: More lobbyists found complicit in gaining State Dept approval of tar sands pipeline - link
Oct. 3: E-mails released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the environmental group, Friends of the Earth, paint a picture of a sometimes warm and collaborative relationship between the lobbyist for the pipeline company, Trans-Canada, and officials in the State Department, the agency responsible for evaluating and approving the $7bn project. link
Approval would face continuing legal delays. Legal and regulatory snags lurk at federal and state levels and each could mean more costly delays if the $7 billion project were approved. Environmental groups are girding for a host of battles aimed at putting the brakes on Keystone XL, which is already about a year behind schedule, legal sources said. The first lawsuit over wildlife could be filed this week. link
July 2011: State Department blamed for inadequate assessment. For the second time in a year, the State Department has issued an environmental impact statement about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry diluted bitumen, an acidic crude oil, from the tar sands of northern Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast. The State Department is involved because the pipeline crosses an international border. And for the second time in a year, the Environmental Protection Agency has excoriated the State Department for the inadequacy of its assessment. link
| Environmental Protection Agency officials found the first two drafts to be far from satisfactory and gave the first draft its lowest grade of 'inadequate' almost a year ago. They also report that on a well-to-tank basis the heavy crude extracted is 82% more carbon intensive than conventional oil. |
April 2011: States have authority to accept route of pipeline. A federal memo suggests states have ultimate say on keystone pipeline's route. Advocates say the memo proves that states have the authority to regulate or reroute the controversial oil sands pipeline. link
February 2011: Some landowners mount legal bid to deny right-of-way to pipeline.
TransCanada has gathered easements to use the property of 5,354 landowners along the oil pipeline's route. Some in Oklahoma are among the last holdouts. Oklahoma attorney Harlan Hentges said "The prospect of a foreign company using the U.S. law to take land from U.S. citizens, this is problematic." link
| What's happening in Canada |
50% of Canadians oppose Keystone XL pipeline. link
Nov. 2 2011: Battle
brewing over pipeline plans in B.C. So far British
Columbia has been spared the kind of intense pipeline fight that buffets the
proposed Keystone XL project to carry Alberta crude from the oil sands to
Texas. But not for much longer. Pipeline
politics in this province are heating up. This
week, the pivotal Tsleil-Waututh Nation declared its strong opposition to the
potential expansion of Kinder Morgan’s existing oil pipeline to Burrard Inlet
and the increase in oil-tanker traffic it would bring to their traditional
waters. link
September 27 - Action in Ottawa. According to the RCMP, approximately 400 people gathered on the lawn of Parliament Monday morning to protest the tar sands developments and two pipelines planned to ship the oil to the U.S. and to the British Columbia coast. Both pipelines are strenuously opposed by several First Nations communities. The RCMP said 117 people were arrested and charged with trespassing under Ontario law. link
| The European connection |
Why Europe is connected to the Keystone project - link
Stephen Harper's Canadian government,
allied with big oil, is lobbying Europe not to regulate tar sands oil. link
October 27
2011: The European Commission's plans to class fuel from oil sands, including
Canada's, as highly polluting are based on science and it will proceed with
talks with EU member states to implement the measure. EU
Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard denied that it is politically motivated,
saying "We have the knowledge and the fact that oil sands are more CO2-polluting
than other kinds of fuel. And therefore we say it should have a specific value.
It's nothing targeted against this particular fuel. We are doing that with all
our different biofuels. It's the same methodology that we are applying for
different things in the same directive." The 2008 fuel quality directive
assigns greenhouse gas emissions values for a range of transport fuels, most of
which were dealt with by the end of last year. link
Oct. 4 2011: Europe moves closer
to banning tar sands oil. link
Oct. 21:: European
Union proposals to rank Canadian oil sands as a highly polluting fuel can
probably be defended if Ottawa challenges the move at the WTO legal advisers to the EU's executive have said. link
Oct. 27 2011: Britain at odds with Europe. The
European Commission had decided that under the Fuel Quality Directive
(FQD) it would classify oil from tar sands according to its
life-cycle emissions, but the British Government is reported
as trying to persuade other EU countries to adopt a compromise motion
described by green groups as a “wrecking amendment”. According to an official document seen by the
Financial Times, the UK is opposed to “singling out oil sands and oil shale”
and is instead pushing for a different methodology that would account for the
greenhouse gas emissions of all crude oil sources. The Government says that it
is a distortion of the truth to say that the UK is intervening in favour of oil
from tar sands. It says it wants to drive down emissions from all sources, not
just tar sands, and wants to see all heavy crudes dealt with equally. Britain
has come under attack from environmentalists for seeking to delay attempts by
the European Union to penalise oil derived from tar sands. link
| Why Nebraska is a prominent factor - is the pipeline safe? |
Sept. 25 2011: Opposition in Nebraska. Environmentalists hoping to block a proposed underground oil
pipeline that would snake 1,700 miles from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico have
pinned their hopes on an unlikely ally — the conservative state of Nebraska. Few
states are as red as Nebraska, which hasn’t supported a Democratic presidential
candidate since 1964. But opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline has risen
steadily since the project was proposed three years ago. The reason: Fears of
contaminating the Ogallala Aquifer, a vast subterranean reservoir that spans a
large swath of the Great Plains and provides water to much of Nebraska as well
as seven other states. Opponents have grown to include Nebraska’s conservative
governor and two U.S. senators, a Republican and a conservative Democrat. link
Nebraska update: November 2011: Nebraskans ready to fight alternmative routes. Concern is growing that new legislation won't protect landowners outside the Sandhills, who may be impacted by a rerouted pipeline. link Nov. 22: Nebraska’s Governor signs bills to reroute XL pipeline away from the ecologically sensitive Sandhills region and Ogallala aquifer and to fund an environmental study for a new pipeline route. link
The jobs argument. A
researcher from Cornell University told Nebraska lawmakers that TransCanada had
exaggerated the number of jobs Keystone would create. While TransCanada advertized
20,000 direct jobs, using figures
supplied by the company submitted to the State Department TransCanada suggests 2,500 to
4,600 jobs would be created during the two-year construction period, and half of the
pipeline would be constructed overseas calling into doubt the 7,000
manufacturing jobs created. link
Nov.
22 2011: Nebraska’s Governor signs bills to reroute XL pipeline away from the ecologically sensitive Sandhills
region and Ogallala aquifer and to fund an environmental study
for a new pipeline route. link
July 11 2011: Pipeline carriers under-estimate number of accidents possible. A
new report warns that a rupture in the planned Keystone XL pipeline could
release up to 6.9 million gallons into the Yellowstone river, a nightmare
scenario far outstripping the present spill. The report, produced by an
environmental engineer at the University of Nebraska, sets out four worst-case
scenarios for a spill on the Keystone XL project, which is designed to carry
oil from the tar sands of Alberta to the refineries of Texas.(This follow the
early July 2011 ExxonMobil leak which released 42,000 gallons of crude oil into
the Yellowstone river. ) But environmental groups argue an accident on the Keystone
XL would carry a vastly greater risk. The ExxonMobil pipeline carried about
40,000 barrels a day. The planned Keystone XL would carry more than 700,000
barrels of a thicker and more corrosive type of crude.
The
study argues the pipeline operators TransCanada Corp, have significantly
underestimated the chances of a spill and painted an overly optimistic picture
of how long it would take to shut down the pipeline, noting that TransCanada,
in its estimates, sees the possibility of 11 serious spills on the pipeline
during the course of 50 years where a more realistic estimate would be 91
accidents during that half century. Issue is also taken with TransCanada's
claims that it could shut down a pipeline within 19 minutes of a leak. A slow
leak in a remote area of Montana or Nebraska could go undetected for days or
even weeks between inspections, he warned. It took 56 minutes before ExxonMobil
crews managed to stop the leak into the Yellowstone this month. link (Pictured
is a rupture of the Endridge pipeline Summeer 2010 that spilled roughly
800,000 gallons into the Kalamazoo River, shutting the pipeline down
for 2 months - link.)
Sept. 19 2011: Is the pipeline safe? Semantics are being used to assure the pipeline is safe according to the NRDC whose research shows that only 12 of the 57 conditions set by federal regulators differ from the minimum standards already required for pipeline safety. Environmental watchdogs counter that those much-boasted-about claims are based on nothing more than smoke and mirrors. And they have compiled evidence to back up their accusations. "The State Department is saying it doesn’t need to do a study because Keystone XL will be safer than any pipeline built in the United States," NRDCs Anthony Swift said. "That's why we're concerned. In a lot of respects, the State Department is taking TransCanada’s assertions at face value." link
October 20 2011: Kalamzoo spill. 840,000 gallon tar sands oil spill clean-up in Michigan still ongoing after 15 months at projected cost of $700 million. link
July 2011: Montana leak may have carried tar-sands oil. link
July 2011: Keystone XL
pipeline fight flares in wake of Yellowstone river oil spill. link
| Washington DC protests |
Link to the November 6th White House action which drew 10,000 people.
September 2011: Protests grow around the world. In New Zealand, protestors
shut down the Canadian Embassy for three hours. In Germany, climate organizers
led a bike protest through Berlin that visited major sites connected to the tar
sands, including the Canadian Embassy. In Durban, South Africa a picket against
the Keystone XL pipeline met Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she
visited the US Embassy there. Across Africa, climate activists working with
350.org have been visiting Canadian and US embassies to deliver messages
demanding an end to tar sands development. Similar actions also took place in
Rio de Janeiro, Bonn, Mumbai, Sao Paolo, and Lima. link (Pictured - ptrotest in Wellington, New Zealand) As the 2-week protests end, 1,252 have been arrested in total.
Bill McKibben debates the pipeline on PBS Newhour - Aug.29
[Mark
Ruffalo video on the Keystone XL pipeline demonstrations in Washington DC –
August 2011 – view here]
Aug. 24: Nation’s largest environmental organizations stand together
to oppose pipeline - read
August 2011 - Opposing
the Keystone XL pipeline - New York Times
| August 3 2011: An open letter from 20 prominent scientists (listed here) to President Obama: Politico link on Keystyone here.: "We are researchers at work on the science of climate change and allied fields. We are writing to add our voices to the indigenous leaders, religious leaders, and environmentalists calling on you to block the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada’s tar sands. The tar sands are a huge pool of carbon, but one that does not make sense to exploit. It takes a lot of energy to extract and refine this resource into useable fuel, and the mining is environmentally destructive. Adding this on top of conventional fuels will leave our children and grandchildren a climate system with consequences that are out of their control. It makes no sense to build a pipeline system that would practically guarantee extensive exploitation of this resource. When other huge oil fields or coal mines were opened in the past, we knew much less about the damage that the carbon they contained would do to the Earth’s climate system and to its oceans. Now that we do know, it’s imperative that we move quickly to alternate forms of energy—and that we leave the tar sands in the ground. We hope those so inclined will join protests scheduled for August and described at tarsandsaction.org. If the pipeline is to be built, you as president have to declare that it is “in the national interest”. As scientists, speaking for ourselves and not for any of our institutions, we can say categorically that it’s not only not in the national interest, it’s also not in the planet’s best interest." |
| June 8 2011: An open letter to Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer from the Northern Plains Pipeline Landowners Group on the Keystone project in light of the recent ExxonMobil oil spill in the state. link |
Inside Climate News (formerly Solve Climate) recommended source for material on Keystone.
Politico link on Keystyone XL pipeline.
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