Latest Keystone XL news.
brianlux
Posts: 42,041
As the Keystone XL decision grows close, I thought it time to post some of the latest news. This truly is an "Iconic Climate Battle".
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-m ... _ref=green
Keystone XL: The Iconic Climate Battle
In February, 50,000 people marched on the freezing Washington Mall to tell President Obama that he must reject Keystone XL and move forward on climate. Since then, Sierra Club activists and our partners have met President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Secretary of State John Kerry at more than 20 events around the nation to repeat the message. Hundreds of people demonstrating the escalating public opposition to Keystone XL - from 200 in Chicago, to 500 in New York City, and 1,000-plus in San Francisco. Just last week, hundreds more met President Obama in Palo Alto and Santa Monica, California, and the size and momentum of these events only continues to grow as the decision on the pipeline looms closer.
It's no accident, and certainly no mistake, that the fight to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has become the iconic climate fight.
The attention and controversy we've generated in this fight has led to a common question, "Why Keystone XL, what's the big deal?" Some climate activists who came late to the battle argue that it's the wrong target. Not so. For those of us who were there at the start of the tar sands campaign seven years ago, Keystone is a brilliant target and a battle that win or lose, we win. Here's ten reasons why has become a critical battle in the war on climate. (see link)
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/aswif ... s_tha.html
Goldman Sachs report finds that Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is linchpin for tar sands production
In a report released last week, Goldman Sachs painted a clear picture outlining why Keystone XL is a linchpin for tar sands production and the significant climate emissions associated with it. NRDC and Oil Change International summarize Goldman Sachs’ key findings in the following backgrounder. In short, Goldman Sachs finds that without Keystone XL, lower tar sands prices and higher transport costs will result in the cancelation or deferment of tar sands expansion projects. Contrary to the State Department’s findings, Goldman Sachs concludes that rail is not a feasible alternative for the tar sands pipeline due to higher costs as well as technical and logistical barriers. In its environmental review, State must recognize what the tar sands industry, the financial sector and the environmental community agree upon – that without Keystone XL, tar sands expansion and the climate impacts associated with it will be significantly reduced. On the basis, the President should reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline as a project that locks the U.S. into decades of dirtier fuel and increased climate emissions.
The Goldman Sachs report is the latest in a number of major developments demonstrating the intellectual bankruptcy of the argument that tar sands expansion, and the climate impacts associated with it, are inevitable. Last week, British Columbia formally rejected the Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline proposal, putting yet another nail in the coffin in the argument that without Keystone XL tar sands will be sent across Canada’s West Coast. Meanwhile Canada’s RBC Dominion Securities concluded that a rejection of Keystone XL would reduce investment in tar sands expansion by $9 billion over the next seven years. Finally, Goldman Sachs’ analysis supports a Reuters investigation showing that while light crude from North Dakota and Canada is being moved by rail, very little tar sands is shipped by rail. Goldman Sachs observes the same logistical obstacles NRDC has repeatedly cited which make it unlikely that rail will provide an economically feasible alternative for tar sands in the absence of Keystone XL.
The time has come for all parties to agree with the facts on this point – the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is critical for the tar sands industry’s expansion plans and the significant climate impacts associated with it.
The question before the Obama Administration is whether a project that will increase the production of the most carbon intensive transportation fuel on the planet is consistent with its inaugural commitment to promote policies that address climate change:
We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-m ... _ref=green
Keystone XL: The Iconic Climate Battle
In February, 50,000 people marched on the freezing Washington Mall to tell President Obama that he must reject Keystone XL and move forward on climate. Since then, Sierra Club activists and our partners have met President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Secretary of State John Kerry at more than 20 events around the nation to repeat the message. Hundreds of people demonstrating the escalating public opposition to Keystone XL - from 200 in Chicago, to 500 in New York City, and 1,000-plus in San Francisco. Just last week, hundreds more met President Obama in Palo Alto and Santa Monica, California, and the size and momentum of these events only continues to grow as the decision on the pipeline looms closer.
It's no accident, and certainly no mistake, that the fight to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has become the iconic climate fight.
The attention and controversy we've generated in this fight has led to a common question, "Why Keystone XL, what's the big deal?" Some climate activists who came late to the battle argue that it's the wrong target. Not so. For those of us who were there at the start of the tar sands campaign seven years ago, Keystone is a brilliant target and a battle that win or lose, we win. Here's ten reasons why has become a critical battle in the war on climate. (see link)
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/aswif ... s_tha.html
Goldman Sachs report finds that Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is linchpin for tar sands production
In a report released last week, Goldman Sachs painted a clear picture outlining why Keystone XL is a linchpin for tar sands production and the significant climate emissions associated with it. NRDC and Oil Change International summarize Goldman Sachs’ key findings in the following backgrounder. In short, Goldman Sachs finds that without Keystone XL, lower tar sands prices and higher transport costs will result in the cancelation or deferment of tar sands expansion projects. Contrary to the State Department’s findings, Goldman Sachs concludes that rail is not a feasible alternative for the tar sands pipeline due to higher costs as well as technical and logistical barriers. In its environmental review, State must recognize what the tar sands industry, the financial sector and the environmental community agree upon – that without Keystone XL, tar sands expansion and the climate impacts associated with it will be significantly reduced. On the basis, the President should reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline as a project that locks the U.S. into decades of dirtier fuel and increased climate emissions.
The Goldman Sachs report is the latest in a number of major developments demonstrating the intellectual bankruptcy of the argument that tar sands expansion, and the climate impacts associated with it, are inevitable. Last week, British Columbia formally rejected the Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline proposal, putting yet another nail in the coffin in the argument that without Keystone XL tar sands will be sent across Canada’s West Coast. Meanwhile Canada’s RBC Dominion Securities concluded that a rejection of Keystone XL would reduce investment in tar sands expansion by $9 billion over the next seven years. Finally, Goldman Sachs’ analysis supports a Reuters investigation showing that while light crude from North Dakota and Canada is being moved by rail, very little tar sands is shipped by rail. Goldman Sachs observes the same logistical obstacles NRDC has repeatedly cited which make it unlikely that rail will provide an economically feasible alternative for tar sands in the absence of Keystone XL.
The time has come for all parties to agree with the facts on this point – the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is critical for the tar sands industry’s expansion plans and the significant climate impacts associated with it.
The question before the Obama Administration is whether a project that will increase the production of the most carbon intensive transportation fuel on the planet is consistent with its inaugural commitment to promote policies that address climate change:
We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.
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Canadian officials say they're encouraged by what they're hearing about a long-awaited report on the environmental impact of the Keystone XL pipeline that could be released imminently by the U.S. State Department.
Those sources in Washington and Ottawa say they've been told the report could be ready for release within a few days — and that it will bolster the case for the controversial energy project.
cbc.ca/news/canada/keystone-xl-report-by-u-s-expected-to-be-positive-1.2516470
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/03/keystone-xl-emissions-state-department_n_4892806.html#slide=3381956
Study Finds Keystone XL Would Have Much Larger Impact Than State Department Suggests
WASHINGTON -- The State Department's final environmental impact analysis for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline downplays the significance the pipeline would have for development of the Canadian tar sands, according to a new analysis from a United Kingdom-based group. The analysis also argues that the State Department underestimated the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that would come with that development.
The Carbon Tracker Initiative, a nonprofit that focuses on how carbon budgets interact with financial markets, released the new report on Monday, making its case for why Keystone XL is more important in the context of global emissions than the State Department's study indicates.
The State Department released the final environmental impact statement, or FEIS, on Jan. 31. That analysis concluded that approval or denial of any specific project to transport oil, including Keystone XL, "remains unlikely to significantly impact the rate of extraction in the oil sands, or the continued demand for heavy crude oil at refineries in the United States."
But Carbon Tracker says this is the "significance trap." The pipeline is only deemed insignificant because the State Department's report failed to fully consider the ways the pipeline would affect production of the tar sands, the group argues.
"In my view, 'significance' is in the eye of the beholder," Mark Fulton, the former climate change strategist for Deutsche Bank and the co-author of the report, told The Huffington Post. And the research finds that Keystone XL would enable a "significant amount of production."
Carbon Tracker says the government's analysis "does not fully explore" how the lower transportation costs of pipeline transportation, when compared to rail transportation, would affect future oil sands production. The price of oil would have to be higher to make shipping by rail cost effective. Given the difference in price points at which the various methods of shipping become cost effective, oil companies could produce much as 525,000 more barrels of oil per day out of the tar sands if they have access to the Keystone XL pipeline.
The pipeline would be responsible for generating a whole lot more emissions than the State Department accounted for, the group argues, because it would be facilitating more rapid development of the tar sands, which would create its own emissions in turn. The report finds that, through 2050, "KXL-enabled production" of tar sands oil would produce as much as 5.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent -- much higher than the maximum of 168 million metric tons that the State Department's analysis found. It would be the equivalent of building an additional 46 coal-fired power plants, or roughly the average amount of CO2 that the United States overall emits annually.
Further, the group argues, under all the Keystone-generated-emissions scenarios that were considered in the State Department's report, the U.S. would fail to meet the target of cutting emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, the goal the U.S. has established in the context of international climate negotiations. The emissions estimates are also not consistent with the goal of limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius, which world leaders agreed to at the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen.
Other groups, like the U.S.-based environmental group Oil Change International, have argued that none of the scenarios for future energy use used in the FEIS would put the U.S. on a path to meeting those stated climate coals. "The State Department is assuming failure in meeting our climate goals," said Steve Kretzmann, the group's executive director. "They're not modeling a climate-safe world."
The Carbon Tracker's interpretation is worth considering, if only because the State Department's FEIS used the group's methodology from previous studies in its own evaluation of the pipeline's production implications, though the government arrived at different conclusions. (See footnote 154 in the market analysis section of the FEIS, which cites its work.) Carbon Tracker's Fulton says that the group's latest report was a response to that inclusion in the FEIS.
A State Department spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on the Carbon Tracker report.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/06/senate-republicans-introduce-bill-to-force-construction-keystone-pipeline
More here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/05/obama-climate_n_6418628.html?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/01/06/3608644/keystone-xl-veto-threat-from-white-house/
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Good! Glad to see Obama showing some knackers on this one.
Like I've said before, I don't want to see anyone out of work and I know we all use oil but pumping land killing tar sand oil through a huge pipe several hundred miles only to ship it off to elsewhere is not in our long-term best interest. Bravo, President Obama!
half hour with EV - problem solved
Had to think about that one for a few seconds and then... :-))
see video at http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/01/08/watch-the-keystone-xl-jobs-myth-that-wont-die/202059
same in any construction field.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Why do we look at construction workers at not having jobs when employed?
"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
Yes, the oil companies will always win and we will continue to destroy our environment and we will all crash and burn and die hallelujah!
But I'll keep working against all that anyway because that's just how I am! :-D
Do you honestly think 1 single politician in YOUR or MY country gives a rat's ass about the environment. If thats the case why is hemp still illegal? Making nature illegal ... WTF. The only thing politicians care about is hoarding and greed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp
"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
Yes, in all of America I think there is one politician in yours or my country who cares about the environment and when I find him or her I'm going to shake his or her hand. Meanwhile, it is just as much my and your responsibility to get the word out about doing the right thing, politicians be damned!
And yes, let's work to get hemp legalized too! Good point, lukin2006!
I would shake his hand! :-D
We will refine it ourselves and sell it to you.
We are your friends and largest trading partner. I am pro-environment, but not anti-oil.
Pipeline is the safest way to transport crude, compared to the alternatives of rail or sea.