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Oil spills, pipelines, and angry environmentalists, oh my!
In San Francisco, California, hundreds of protesters stage a demonstration against war and the Keystone XL pipeline outside of a fundraiser to be attended by U.S. President Barack Obama at the home of Ann and Gordon Getty.
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The politics of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline are heating up again. The Keystone is aimed at bringing more oil from Canadian oil sands to the United States.
But a pipeline spill in Arkansas has environmental activists wagging their fingers at building more pipelines to transport oil. Specifically, the type of oil that comes from Canadian oil sands -- a jet-black thick, goopy crude.
Opponents say the accident shows this type of oil is thicker, has more friction and makes the pipeline hotter and riskier.
Last night, retired billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer hosted a fundraiser for President Obama. Steyer is bankrolling candidates who've come out against the Keystone pipeline.
At the fundraiser, President Obama didn't come out for or against the project. The president did say, "The politics of this are tough.”
Wow.... I was REALLY disappointed in Scott Tong's poor reporting on Marketplace today about the Keystone XL pipeline. For a contributor to the show's Sustainability Desk and supposedly someone knowledgeable about energy, this report missed virtually ALL of the important details of this story!
The Keystone XL project is NOT just another oil pipeline. As the renowned NASA climate scientist James Hansen (newly retired) has said, if the toxic Tar Sands oil pipeline is built, it is GAME OVER for the planet! We must commit to a wartime-like effort to get off of fossil fuels, and move to clean, renewable energy as fast as possible. In 2012, Germany produced more electricity from renewable solar energy and wind energy than from fossil fuels, and they have far fewer sunnier days than much of the US.
We are already PAST the point where the planet is going to exceed a 2 degree Celsius increase. If Keystone proceeds, we may well be on our way to a 6 degree increase. Our polar ice caps are already melting, our oceans are becoming more acidic by the day, our coral reefs are dying, our fisheries are threatened, and each of the last several decades has been hotter than the prior decade. 99% of the world's climatologists agree that Climate Change is real and largely caused by human action. Getting scared? You should be!
This is NOT a story about a few fringe environmentalists - this is nothing less than a battle for survival of the human race, and that is why President Obama will be followed by Keystone XL opponents at every public appearance he makes.
Keystone XL will NOT decrease our reliability on foreign oil. Its 1700 mile route to the Gulf Coast refineries does not benefit America, but only the Oil & Gas Billionaire Koch brothers and Canadian petrochemical companies. The refined product will be sold largely to foreign buyers, not to Americans. Ironically, as the current product is largely land locked in Alberta, they can only get a lower price for the product because there are only a few states close enough to sell it to. If Keystone XL is built, they can charge MORE for the same product that has no buyer today!
As we've seen recently and repeatedly, more oil spills are inevitable. Exxon and others have done a poor job maintaining their existing pipelines and are not capable of cleaning up spills that contaminate drinking water supplies.
Want more reasons for President Obama to turn down this nightmare? Tar sands are a toxic sludge that has to be heated by natural gas to even move through pipelines. (This is not Texas Sweet Crude). It is a poor net energy deal to produce! Texas crude yields 15 joules of energy for every 1 joule expended. Keystone? Only 4 joules to 1 because of the intense energy and water demands required to squeeze a tiny amount of oil from these sands. It is already ruining the Alberta environment with toxic ponds visible from space that threaten much of Canada’s drinking water. You never hear about a Solar Energy spill. That's called a nice sunny day! China and Germany get it, and have overtaken us on wind turbine manufacturing, businesses we could have and should have dominated but instead we continue to subsidize Oil and Gas companies Billions of Dollars each year, even though they are among the most profitable businesses on the planet!
Even many Canadians don't want to pipe it through British Columbia to the Pacific Coast, a much shorter distance than all the way to Texas! If built it would doom us to an irreversible world of sea level rise, flooded coastal cities displacing millions, and food and water shortages unlike anything ever experienced.
Scott Tong should do some basic self-education by visiting www.350.org or reading Bill McKibben's widely distributed Rolling Stone article: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new... . Marketplace, please do better reporting next time. There will be a Spring and Summer of continued Keystone XL protests to cover until President Obama gets on the right side of history and turns down this project so next time American Public Media, give the protests the proper background your listeners deserve to hear.
This report about the Keystone pipeline did not even mention climate change. It implied that the petroleum transported by the pipeline was intended for the U.S. market. In fact most of it will probably be exported. And you referred to opponents of the pipeline in a flippant and condescending manor that suggests that we should not be taken seriously. This is biased reporting, and, as such, misinforms your listeners about a critical issue. We get enough misinformation from the big oil corporations; they really don't need your help.
