Peaceful Protest Underway against Tar Sands Oil Pipeline

[TomT]

Agreed in principal.

1.3 millions of barrels of crude is a substantial amount of the worlds daily supply, that civil engineer was not a team player. You people understand that oil is critical to our survival?.. No oil, no diesel to deliver your groceries to your local store. We have to secure a substitute to oil BEFORE we can consider stopping these pipelines. Yes it may involve more gas fracking.

 

[AndyH]

1.3 millions of barrels of crude is a substantial amount of the worlds daily supply, that civil engineer was not a team player. You people understand that oil is critical to our survival?.. no oil, no diesel to deliver your groceries to your local store. We have to secure a substitute to oil BEFORE we can consider stopping these pipelines. Yes it may involve more gas fracking.

Herm, 1.3 million barrels is less than a drop in the bucket. It's what, about 7% of the US burn rate? We can displace 40% of our demand simply with increased efficiency - making this pipeline irrelevant.

As for your 'team player' comment... :evil: This man, if his story is true, is the absolute best definition of a true team player. Because he was looking out for the company and their profits! If they do things correctly they can rake in the cash for a long time!

Diesel is not the only way to deliver groceries to the store. And centralized distribution is not the only way to ship food, and oil dependent industrial farming is not the only way to grow food.

The negatives strongly tip the balance away from this pipeline being a good idea.

 

[AndyH]

Anyone Surprised?

http://www.foe.org/new-foia-docs-reveal-smoking-gun-regarding-state-department-bias

We have received a new round of documents from the State Department in response to our Freedom of Information Act request. These documents are deeply disturbing in that they provide definitive evidence of pro-pipeline bias and complicity at the State Department -- including one “smoking gun” email in which State Department employee Marja Verloop literally cheers “Go Paul!” for pipeline lobbyist Paul Elliott after he announces TransCanada has secured Senator Max Baucus' support for the pipeline.

 

[AndyH]

Bill McKibben addresses Occupy Wall Street protest - calls for Nov 6 protest at White House.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13S5uqPLJUk[/youtube]
(NYC won't allow PA equipment - that's why they echo the speaker.)

 

[Stoaty]

Anyone Surprised?

http://www.foe.org/new-foia-docs-reveal-smoking-gun-regarding-state-department-bias

Wish I could say yes. In many respects, Obama has turned out to be Bush 2.0 :twisted:

 

[AndyH]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/67387.html

President Barack Obama indicated Tuesday he’ll be making the final call on the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline that would run from Alberta to Texas.

In an interview with Omaha, Neb., station KETV, Obama said the State Department — which was expected to make the decision on the pipeline — will instead deliver recommendations to the White House on the proposal.

 

[edatoakrun]

Very good perspective of the CO2 effects in RealClimate:

There is no shortage of environmental threats associated with the Keystone XL pipeline. Notably, the route goes through the environmentally sensitive Sandhills region of Nebraska, a decision opposed even by some supporters of the pipeline. One could also keep in mind the vast areas of Alberta that are churned up by the oil sands mining process itself. But here I will take up only the climate impact of the pipeline and associated oil sands exploitation. For that, it is important to first get a feel for what constitutes an “important” amount of carbon.

That part is relatively easy. The kind of climate we wind up with is largely determined by the total amount of carbon we emit into the atmosphere as CO2 in the time before we finally kick the fossil fuel habit (by choice or by virtue of simply running out). The link between cumulative carbon and climate was discussed at RealClimate here when the papers on the subject first came out in Nature. A good introduction to the work can be found in this National Research Council report on Climate Stabilization targets, of which I was a co-author. Here’s all you ever really need to know about CO2 emissions and climate:

•The peak warming is linearly proportional to the cumulative carbon emitted
•It doesn’t matter much how rapidly the carbon is emitted
•The warming you get when you stop emitting carbon is what you are stuck with for the next thousand years
•The climate recovers only slightly over the next ten thousand years
•At the mid-range of IPCC climate sensitivity, a trillion tonnes cumulative carbon gives you about 2C global mean warming above the pre-industrial temperature...

...Commentators who argue that the Keystone XL pipeline is no big deal tend to focus on the rate at which the pipeline delivers oil to users (and thence as CO2 to the atmosphere). To an extent, they have a point. The pipeline would carry 500,000 barrels per day, and assuming that we’re talking about lighter crude by the time it gets in the pipeline that adds up to a piddling 2 gigatonnes carbon in a hundred years (exercise: Work this out for yourself given the numbers I stated earlier in this post). However, building Keystone XL lets the camel’s nose in the tent. It is more than a little disingenuous to say the carbon in the Athabasca Oil Sands mostly has to be left in the ground, but before we’ll do this, we’ll just use a bit of it. It’s like an alcoholic who says he’ll leave the vodka in the kitchen cupboard, but first just take “one little sip.”...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/11/keystone-xl-game-over/#more-9280" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[evnow]

Anyone Surprised?

http://www.foe.org/new-foia-docs-reveal-smoking-gun-regarding-state-department-bias

We have received a new round of documents from the State Department in response to our Freedom of Information Act request. These documents are deeply disturbing in that they provide definitive evidence of pro-pipeline bias and complicity at the State Department -- including one “smoking gun” email in which State Department employee Marja Verloop literally cheers “Go Paul!” for pipeline lobbyist Paul Elliott after he announces TransCanada has secured Senator Max Baucus' support for the pipeline.

Not really. I've always thought Humans (atleast the American kind) will burn every last ounce of fossil fuel they can get their hands on - before seriously looking for alternate energy.

 

[AndyH]

http://www.350.org/en/about/blogs/latest-dc-protest

http://www.energydigital.com/oil_gas/-thousands-of-protesters

Thousands of protesters encircled the White House today, calling for the President to stop the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. After the President indicated he would be making a final decision on the construction of the massive pipeline-set to run from Alberta to Texas-last week, protests have escalated.

Protests to TransCanada's plans in the US are not new and the fate of the situation is hard to tell. Thus, TransCanada’s Plan B is to set to use British Columbia as an alternate route to transport oil to Asian markets.

But, a majority of British Columbians are showing opposition to oil tankers along their coasts as well. The Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline just failed to win endorsement from Premier Christy Clark. Last week, natives in the Tsleil-Waututah Nation opposed the plan to expand the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

Apparently, the promise of thousands of construction jobs isn’t winning the approval of most. It’s going to be a battle between the people and Big Oil, dependent on the President’s decision. In the meantime, protesters bring media attention to the environmental implications of building the Keystone XL pipeline as they gather today in a last stitch effort.

 

[AndyH]

Friends--

There are days along any journey that stick with you, and today was one of them.

Under blue Indian Summer skies, more than twelve thousand people from every corner of the country descended on Washington; then, with great precision, they fanned out to ring the White House and take a stand against the Keystone pipeline.

What speaker after speaker today made clear (and they came from every part of our movement: indigenous leaders, labor organizers, environmentalists, young people, preachers) was that today was in no way a grand finale -- there's lots more work to do.

I have no idea how this battle is going come out -- only that, together, we stand a chance to shut down this dirty pipeline and shift the flow not just of oil but of history. This day was an important part of that history, and we’ll carry it’s power with us as we take this fight forward.

Thanks in advance for all the work we'll do together, shoulder-to-shoulder, on the road ahead.

Onwards,

Bill McKibben

 

[EVDrive]

@ Herm, The right thing to do is to move our groceries and other cargo by train which is, according to the railroads themselves, 4x more efficient than moving freight by truck. If we moved our freight by train in the US we would save 10 billion gallons of fuel a year and reduce pollution from land freight transport by 90%.

Source: http://www.aar.org/~/media/aar/Background-Papers/The-Environmental-Benefits-of-Rail.ashx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I have heard other sources say trains can be 10x more efficient, but likely not with our current fleet of trains. If they went electric, maybe.

 

[AndyH]

Fellow EVers - thanks for being part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/11/oil-sand-landscapes/

Alberta's Tar Sands - Before and After:

 

[AndyH]

...moved to gas thread... Sigh...senior moment.

 

[TomT]

Part of the problem is that our railroad infrastructure has been allowed to deteriorate to the point where it is barely adequate to move what it is currently handling, let alone more. Railroads in this country are decades behind those in Europe, Japan and elsewhere and falling further behind and becoming even more decrepit every year.. Add to that that many of the railroads teeter on the edge of bankruptcy, and you don't have a very rosy picture of the future for them in the U.S....

@ Herm, The right thing to do is to move our groceries and other cargo by train which is, according to the railroads themselves, 4x more efficient than moving freight by truck. If we moved our freight by train in the US we would save 10 billion gallons of fuel a year and reduce pollution from land freight transport by 90%.

 

[evnow]

On the pipe line front - the interesting news is that the decision is being delayed (that might make it toast all by itself). Lot of questions about the State department's handling of the issue - as usual lobbyists calling the shots and there will be an investigation into that.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/11/keystone-xl-pipeline-inspector-general.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[AndyH]

Received: 10 Oct 11 2:27pm CST

Dear Friends,

Um, we won. You won.

Not completely. The president didn’t outright reject the pipeline permit. My particular fantasy--that he would invite the 1253 people arrested on his doorstep in August inside the gates for a victory picnic by the vegetable garden--didn’t materialize.

But a few minutes ago the president sent the pipeline back to the State Department for a thorough re-review, which most analysts are saying will effectively kill the project. The president explicitly noted climate change, along with the pipeline route, as one of the factors that a new review would need to assess. There’s no way, with an honest review, that a pipeline that helps speed the tapping of the world’s second-largest pool of carbon can pass environmental muster.

And he has made clear that the environmental assessment won’t be carried out by cronies of the pipeline company--that it will be an expert and independent assessment. We will watch that process like hawks, making sure that it doesn’t succumb to more cronyism. Perhaps this effort will go some tiny way towards cleaning up the Washington culture of corporate dominance that came so dramatically to light here in emails and lobbyist disclosure forms.

It’s important to understand how unlikely this victory is. Six months ago, almost no one outside the pipeline route even knew about Keystone. One month ago, a secret poll of “energy insiders” by the National Journal found that “virtually all” expected easy approval of the pipeline by year’s end. As late as last week the CBC reported that Transcanada was moving huge quantities of pipe across the border and seizing land by eminent domain, certain that its permit would be granted. A done deal has come spectacularly undone.

The American people spoke loudly about climate change and the president responded. There have been few even partial victories about global warming in recent years so that makes this an important day.

The president deserves thanks for making this call--it’s not easy in the face of the fossil fuel industry and its endless reserves of cash. The deepest thanks, however, go to you: to our indigenous peoples who began the fight, to the folks in Nebraska who rallied so fiercely, to the scientists who explained the stakes, to the environmental groups who joined with passionate common purpose, to the campuses that lit up with activity, to the faith leaders that raised a moral cry, to the labor leaders who recognized where our economic future lies, to the Occupy movement that helped galvanize revulsion at insider dealing, and most of all to the people in every state and province who built the movement that made this decision inevitable.

Our fight, of course, is barely begun. Some in our movement will say that this decision is just politics as usual: that the president wants us off the streets - and off his front lawn - until after the election, at which point the administration can approve the pipeline, alienating its supporters without electoral consequence. The president should know that If this pipeline proposal somehow reemerges from the review process we will use every tool at our disposal to keep it from ever being built; if there’s a lesson of the last few months, both in our work and in the Occupy encampments around the world, it’s that sometimes we have to put our bodies on the line.

We need to let the president and oil companies know that we're ready to take action should they try to push this pipeline through in a couple of years. There's a pledge to take nonviolent action against the pipeline up on our site, and I'll be keeping your names an emails safely stored away so that you'll be the first to know about anything we need to do down the road. You can sign the pledge here: http://www.tarsandsaction.org/pledge

In the meantime, since federal action will be in abeyance for a long stretch, we need to figure out how best to support our Canadian brothers and sisters, who are effectively battling against proposed pipelines west from the tar sands to the Pacific. And we need to broaden our work to take on all the forms of ‘extreme energy’ now coming to the fore: mountaintop removal coal mining, deepsea oil drilling, fracking for gas and oil. We’ll keep sending you updates from tarsandsaction.org; you keep letting us know what we need to do next.

Last week, scientists announced that the planet had poured a record amount of CO2 into the atmosphere last year; that’s a sign of how desperate our battle is. But we take courage from today’s White House announcement; it gives us some clues about how to fight going forward.

And I simply can’t say thank you enough. I know, because of my own weariness, how hard so many of you have worked. It was good work, done in the right spirit, and it has secured an unlikely victory. You are the cause of that victory; you upended enormous odds.

I’m going to bed tired tonight. But I’ll get up in the morning ready for the next battle, more confident because I know you’re part of this fight too.

Bill McKibben, for tarsandsaction.org

 

[abasile]

According to the pro-tar sands Alberta provincial government (see http://www.oilsands.alberta.ca/FactSheets/GHG_and_the_oil_sands_July_20_2011%282%29.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false, the lifecycle GHG emissions from Alberta tar sands oil aren't much worse than from "typical" crude. I find their figures surprising. Obviously, reputable environmental organizations believe that the GHG emissions are far worse than typical crude. Can anyone provide links to respected literature that refutes Alberta's figures?

 

[Pipcecil]

I am lucky enough to work with some freight goods movement people and help out occasionally. For freight trains in the US, the typical threashold is 200 miles or more distance it is more efficient to move by train, under 200, its by truck. The freight industry as a whole wants to push this to 100 with maybe 50 as a high-pie-in-the-sky wish.

The problem with dealing with the major freight companies is that most don't look beyond 3 or 4 years. We tried to implement a solution to Tower 55 in Fort Worth, one of the most congested rail crossings in the US, but both major railroads didn't want to do the project, because, according to their calcuations, the intersection won't reach "critical" (i.e. gridlock) for another 10 years, so why spend the money now (sheesh).

 

[AndyH]

According to the pro-tar sands Alberta provincial government ... Can anyone provide links to respected literature that refutes Alberta's figures?

Here's a start...

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/4/1/014005

Study of energy needs and GHG for tar sands oil recovery and conversion to synthetic crude:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ef0700984

Additionally, it was found that steam, hydrogen, and power are the most GHG-intensive energy inputs to the process, accounting for 80% of the GHG emissions in the base case. CO2 accounts for 95% of the total GHG, while methane and nitrous oxide are responsible for the remaining GHG emissions of all the producers in the base case.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es800531f
(hmmm...forum doesn't like something in here either...)

 

[abasile]

Thank you, Andy, for the literature. If one looks at the most optimistic estimates of tar sands GHG emissions, perhaps Alberta's PR is in the same ballpark. One interesting point is that the overall emissions go up significantly with in situ extraction, even as it is touted as an improvement because of the reduced impact on the landscape.

We really need to reduce our dependence on Middle East oil. But obviously the best way to improve our energy security is to simply use less oil and avoid the tar sands. Given the limited supply of EVs, we could still get there pretty quickly if most people were to trade their unnecessary trucks, SUVs, and other gas guzzlers for fuel-efficient cars, to start with. True patriots will consider these issues in their vehicle purchase decisions.