Help stop the Keystone XL pipeline AGAIN!

Ah I see you've become a true white collar Calgarian. I do wonder if you would have argued in the same manner 6-7 years ago.

I'm not going to choose an explicit for or against side, but only to issue a few points.

It's been said already, but those pipelines will spill at some point. Whether that risk is worth taking is the true question. It is impossible to claim that there will be no direct environmental disbenefits. The product being moved is also more abrasive than what most pipelines currently carry. The Northern Gateway would also see condensate being piped the other direction in a parallel line. Anyway, I'm not here or able to get into exact technical details.

But you aren't exactly presenting your points with the best of rationality.



I think the ferry sinking was pilot error wasn't it? I'm pretty sure the

captain was found to be at fault, which no one was surprised about as

he was reportedly a fuck-up

So what if the ferry crash was due to a captain fucking up? Aren't future captains susceptible to the same things, especially seeing as how they will be navigating super tankers? Maybe nothing will ever happen, maybe something will.



Why is expanding our energy production capacity a bad thing???

On the converse is it necessarily a good thing? I would say that on the short-term and without really looking at it from a systems point of view then yes, this is a good thing. More money in Albertans' and Canadians' pockets (theoretically) so they can go and spend and consume more. That is, afterall, the sign of a positive and successful economy...

Then there is that little issue of GHGs. I mean it isn't perhaps the soup du jour in Alberta to "believe" in such things, but that doesn't mean that the contribution isn't there globally - hence, making this more than a NA or even Chinese problem. Not too mention entrenching society on a whole on a further oil path dependency, or at least that of NA. What is it, 5% and rising of Canada's 2% contribution? Yeah, it isn't much. Find me another natural single concentrated source that can display that same amount - not industry or electricity generation method. I'm not sure that one exists.

That being said, Calgary and Alberta, indeed Canada is increasingly becoming a one trick pony. Sure we are reaping the economic benefits now. What happens when oil runs out? And it will: 130 billion barrels currently recoverable in the Athabasca sands. World currently uses ca. 80 million a day. Math doesn't look pretty. (Very simplified analysis.) And I think anyone that understands markets knows that oil doesn't have to literally run out, to "run out." Then we will be left with a society that eschewed knowledge and innovation for easy resource money, and easy it is. What happens too once Suncor and Syncrude and CNRL and company start seeing the economic viability of the projects go down, taking the economy with it and then not being able to further pay into, what is likely already a lackluster remediation fund. Oh, the cost of remediation. See Giant Mine, NWT or Faro Mine, Yukon. Their figures aren't and won't be pretty. The oil sands mines will make that look like peanuts.

While we are at it, have you ever had the pleasure of boating on a Suncor tailings pond? I, the lucky guy I am, have.

The pipelines will only reinforce and catalyze all this - this basically massive science experiment where we haven't been able to evaluated the consequences properly in relation to the speed of development.

There are points against it. You've made a few. Even for a second

seriously believing that it's not going to happen, though, is not sense.

It's the opposite of sense. It's going to happen. Delaying the

inevitable is contrary to everyone's interests.

The above may all be well and good. Some points for here, some points against there. However, this comment is really where I think you should know better, and I make no reservations saying that.

It's a similar route the Conservative Gov is currently taking too, using a politics of power to say what is right or wrong. Last time I checked Canada is a democracy, one where deliberation and discourse is encouraged. While the 18 month process does seem excessive, somehow attributing it to the fact that everyone's grandma and their dog can speak to an issue that the supposedly have no stake in as being fallacious, points to a foregone conclusion and the use of the process as rationalization.

While this is a bit of an aside, Canada is increasingly losing its world reputation as a country of relative progress, these pipelines included. Essentially, the world, or at least Europe has taken note and I don't think it's necessarily something to be proud of. At least not for myself as a Canadian.

Finally, using that as a segue into the main point. How is this in everyone's interest? I couldn't give one bit of a fuck if those pipelines are built. I personally don't think it benefits me at all. In fact, summarizing the points above, I think of it more as a disbenefit for me. I don't (not anymore and never will again) work in the oil industry and I don't see a development path based on it being one that is beneficial in the future. Instead, we are just delaying our inevitable problems or being overly optimistic that somehow it will all work itself out.

Why shouldn't those processes be allowed to slow down the development? Why should oil stay cheap. It already is too cheap and "allowed" us in some respect to "beat" the system as we had known it in the previous oh, since humanity. Instead we built shitty cities, infrastructure, and indeed an entire economy based on cheap, finite energy.

Here is an idea, and this isn't aimed at anyone directly. Take you bike. Forget your 3000 sq ft house in the suburbs. Forget about an SUV. Don't buy the latest iPhone. You want to get off foreign oil - consume less. Standard of living does not equal Quality of Life.

On that final note, that is why I actually am not against the pipeline either. The companies are only doing what the consumer demands. They see it as profits and use their muscle to their advantage, but the consumer is the one that is providing the reasoning for it in the first place. I would also rather see money put toward alternatives, but charity is not a privates mandate. You need to pay for what you want.

 
Honestly I can't stand this opinion... I respect the environmental argument against fossil fuels but when you are pushing the perspective that people need to be "broken" or "rehabilitated" from their chosen lifestyle it becomes akin to fascism. You have the right to be against consumerism and even the modern way of life if you choose to be that ignorant but keep it to yourself it has no place in decsions like this that stand to improve so many peoples lives. The majority of average people want nothing to do with reverting to an agrarian or less modern society, they want to improve and make our current lifestyle more sustainable while at the same time increasing their quality of life. Not sacrificing prosperity for ideologic utopian BS.

Building this pipeline would not be "entrenching society as a whole on a further oil path dependency" whatever that means, building is improving on and developing our current system of production and transport. Advancing our methods and improving our current standbys is inherently a good thing even if you think building the specific pipeline is not. Protecting and considering the environment and working toward higher saftey standards is also inherently good if done without limiting or hurting our energy lifelines and economy.

But acting like anything relating to fossil fuel development or its use bad from the begining or a step in the wrong direction, simply because it revolves around oil is a joke. Being anti-consumerism (what ever that means coming from an elitest, and pampered citizen of the first world) is ignorant and i would argue even destructive to the overall well being of a society and its economy. You can believe what ever you want of course, but don't hold up the rest of us who want to prosper and advance modern society.
 
Short answer, fuck yes it is absolutely a good thing for people from all walks of life and economic classes. From the average gas or food consumer who rely on cheaper crude price to dictate cheaper food and gasoline rates. to the lower-middle class/ working class people who will get work. To local business that will boom near the major construction sites and from the influx of workers. To the massive companies which will profit and currently provide thousands of jobs... The environment won't be left out either, bigger projects like this in America and Canada will push stricter saftey regulations/ standards etc because we care more, here frankly, than in the middle east or Africa or Russia and other major producers.

Not to mention and this is admittedly a pipe dream, but the less we rely on the Middle East for oil the less me have to worry about their issues, politics and conflicts. Its one of the only reasons besides terrorism obvisouly, and human rights issues that we have to even bother with them.
 
lands11 or whoever the fuck he is, like most 'environmentalists' is a complete fucking nut job. He also has zero understanding of economics. ZERO (said in USMC drill instructor voice)
 
I suggest that if you don't understand something, you are better off not

to try and counterpoint it. Secondly, don't misconstrue what I've

said, and thirdly, please start understanding something about the world

outside of your own.

Yeah, it benefits everyone... Yet somehow we still have protests against it.

Why don't we see how Bangladesh fares under increased climate change

dynamics marginally generated through lifestyle choices parelleling the

law of diminishing utility? How about the Tibetan plateau or

sub-saharan Africa? Interesting how the regions most effected by above

normal rates of climate change are the ones least responsible for

creating the problem in the first place.

I'm not telling you how to live your life. Do whatever you want, but

don't try justify under the guise of it being what you want, therefore

it is good. I want to sail a 100 million dollar yacht with 4 wives with

a fresh powder on board. Exagerated to make a point. Less so - I want

all the ameneties of living in a city, but don't want to sacrifice

anything to contribute to an economy of agglomeration - the principle of

a city in the first place.

Dislike the opinion all you want. I however, am not presenting it as an opinion. It is a fact. See above paragraph. Lifestyle choices, as North Americans' and lesser so Europeans' inherently are, that consume resources on a massively overallocated basis, while dispelling their disutility to the whole world are not an opinion. I'm not saying I'm not guilty of this, but I do acknowledge it.

And because you obviously didn't get it the first time, I'm suggesting

to you that if you want to reduce your dependency on foreign oil,

consuming less is perhaps the operative solution. Is this that hard to

understand? Consume all you want, but don't be surprised when you run into problems and resistance (environmentally, economically - read: your trade deficit and debt to gdp ratio and inevitably socially, when sectors of society as a whole are not as privy to the welfare of your increased consumption, quick example, Apple Factory Workers.) Again, don't confuse Standard of Living with Quality of

Life.

Finally, where did I say I was against everything to do with fossil fuel develoment?

How is that for elitist?
 
So what if the ferry crash was due to a captain fucking up?

His entire point was that the strait was extremely dangerous to navigate. That may be true, but the example he used to illustrate it was a ferry crashing, so as to imply that the danger here has recently claimed a large sea vessel. I don't think that's the case, and so I don't think the incident is an example to use as evidence for his premise.

Not too mention entrenching society on a whole on a further oil path dependency, or at least that of NA.

I don't really agree with this. It may, but it doesn't have to. Where there is money and a vibrant economy there are alternatives, where there isn't, we have none. For example, I mentioned wind projects earlier - many oil companies in Alberta are increasingly investing in wind projects because we incentivize that by allowing faster depreciation for those projects and the assets associated with them - which means tax deductions. The reason oil companies invest in this notwithstanding that it's not immediately cost-effective (i.e. they're money losers) is that they have income to offset from their oil and gas businesses (less gas, lately, but you get the idea). We also allow energy companies to effectively trade in losses in other energy companies, with the result that an entrepreneur who wants to make a go of an alternative energy business has at least some risk cushion in that even if the business never gets off the ground, his accumulated losses will have value to, say, Suncor, so he can recover some of it. But Suncor's never going to want those losses if it doesn't have significant income to shelter. Those are two extremely narrow examples confined solely to tax policy.

What happens too once Suncor and Syncrude and CNRL and company start seeing the economic viability of the projects go down

What makes you think this is likely to happen any time soon? Hell, SAGD rendered a sizeable chunk of the province economically viable more or less overnight. I constantly hear from our business-side guys about some new fracking method or something that's been cooked up to increase efficiency (and understand very little of it). There are constantly new innovations being made that make recovery more economical, not less. Not to mention on a basic supply vs. demand basis, if your view that oil is so finite a commodity that scarcity will be a problem in the immediate future (which has been predicted as imminent for several decades now), that would suggest to me that there will be very few projects which AREN'T economically viable - at the most basic level, viability is cost to recover a barrel vs. price of a barrel.

It's a similar route the Conservative Gov is currently taking too, using a politics of power to say what is right or wrong. Last time I checked Canada is a democracy, one where deliberation and discourse is encouraged.

First of all, no it isn't a democracy - it's a representative polyarchy. There isn't going to be a national referendum on Gateway or Keystone, we don't vote for specific measures, we vote for representatives who create policy initiatives and set economic targets and appoint people to bodies like the NEB. That's why this is inevitable - those factors are all going to ensure that these things happen. That's reality.

Now, deliberation and discourse? Of course those are encouraged - which is why the NEB errs on the side of "oh you have an opinion? Well let's hear all about it" rather than keeping out everyone who can't demonstrate a clear and pressing stake in the approval process and speeding it up immensely. This is frustrating and at times counterproductive (if only because the people with legitimate issues to talk about can end up being mixed in with the rabble) but ultimately necessary because discourse IS important. Delay is not. Delay is essentially stalling, not contributing. The discourse as to how best to do this thing may slow the process, but that's not the kind of delay I'm talking about. If you simply try to stall, you're effectively putting pressure on a company like Enbridge's construction schedule and creating bad incentives. That is likely to lead to a less well-built pipeline. Make no mistake, these lines should be the most expensive, best made, best thought-out route wise that can possibly be built, and that can't be accomplished without having the discussion beforehand. But those costs should be directed at IMPROVING the actual line, not dealing with people who just want to stubbornly oppose for as long as they can hold it off.

Finally, using that as a segue into the main point. How is this in everyone's interest?

Simply put, projects like these are big-picture. They generate an industry boom. Particularly, this is helpful to the people of Alberta - in addition to all the new jobs, the ripple effect of piles of additional money flowing in leads to growth and development. That can't be surprising. But regardless, everyone has an interest in the Federal government having the ability to budget for things like parks maintenance, or road construction, or new schools and hospitals, or even just a tax cut - without the oil patch, I seriously doubt the GST would be at 5% right now. As I said off the bat, having money flowing into our economy from the USA and China gives us the alternatives to do a whole lot more, and the scale of what this can bring in over time makes those alternatives so significant that they very well should impact the lives of just about everyone who lives in this country. Doesn't matter if you work for oil.

While we are at it, have you ever had the pleasure of boating on a Suncor tailings pond? I, the lucky guy I am, have.



Why on Earth would you want to do that? Admiring the ducks?
 
I'm just going to throw something in here..

shouldn't the US be shitting all over Canada for building a pipeline to directly supply a communist country with oil?

If this was during the Cold War Canada would be fucked.
 
if harper was the american lap dog like all the left wingers in this country thing he is, he would still be waiting with hat in hand for obama to say yes. instead he said, that's cool, ill find someone that will. canada benefits from alberta's wealth via federal equalization payments or whatever that interprovincial transfer of wealth is called to boost the have-nots.
 
Well we don't want another cold war again/ A war with China would be endless and stupid with out nukes

Fuck it, we know they have a doomsday machine, those fucking commis

Dr-Strangelove1.jpg
 
Yeah I'd sign it if it wouldn't create jobs and keep gas/oil/etc. prices from rising astronomically, but amazingly, this pipeline is going to do such things. So please, tell me why the pipeline shouldn't be built?
 
I'm not 100% against all types of non-renewable resource expansion, simply because it is impractical and unrealistic. However in the case of the Northern Gateway pipeline, I believe that the risks it poses, even in comparison with other pipeline routes are inappropriate. Leaks can go days without being detected, and there is no way to effectively monitor the entire length of the line. As well, the pipeline would run through areas extremely prone to landslides, with one natural gas pipeline in the area being broken multiple times in the past few years because of this. The same thing goes for the tanker route; it's extremely windy and wavy for a good part of the year; spreading and spilled oil very fast, and possibly disallowing any effective clean-up until the weather gets better. We can all argue over whether it's worth it, because of all the jobs it will create and the economy, but when it comes down to it, the environment is something we will all have to live by. The effects of this aren't just a leak or a spill, which has the possibility of destroying the thousands of jobs and millions of dollars a year in economic benefit that the coast fisheries and tourism brings to BC. They are also the expansion of one of the least energy effective projects in the world. It almost takes the same amount of energy to extract the oil than the oil will give when used. For people saying we can use this energy to explore alternatives, well, it would be just as efficient if we did it with the oil, and the gas that is going to be used to get it out of the ground. As the Earth's population grows we're not going to all be able to own a car. If everyone in the world did, well scientifically speaking, we'd be straight fucked. The problem is that people feel so entitled to everything that they have, their comfortable houses, and fabrics and food. We only were able to achieve all of this off of extra energy; energy that the sun gave the Earth over millions of years. After it's gone, we get what it gives us every year; and we can't collect it very efficiently. It's not about doing something down the road to combat our dependence on oil, any oil, it's about making that active decisions now. This isn't for the animals, or the trees, it's for everyone if we all want to survive, because things are going downhill very fast.
 
Little off topic here but, something that was bouncing around in the office yesterday

Why is it not refined here in alberta?

We have all this natural gas that is SO cheap right now, why not use it to power a refinery?

 
How much unrefined oil does the US import?

How much refined oil does the US export?

Who does it export to?[/u]

How much refined oil does the US consume?

How much refined oil does the US import?
 
There is a lot of domestic production, in fact the Bakken field in North Dakota is the primary reason why US production is booming right now.

This whole debate is so foolish it hurts. There are thousands of pipelines running across the US. They have a very low failure rate. This is only politicized because it is close to an election cycle.

The republicans are fucking retarded, they are trying to use this as a voting issue. There was a set timeline for the environmental review. They tried to jam the project through before the review was complete. The pipeline will get built because the review will say it is good to go. Then everyone wins. No debate here.
 
So the benefits "out-weigh" the environmental risks??

are you kidding me?

You kill 10 people in this world if it were to save 100,000?? yep thats the same thing.

And if you think its not the same thing then WHERE THE HELL is the line in the sand??

You are on the opposite side of the spectrum; having ZERO respect for the environment where some have respect for it.

what do we call you?? an Oil-Freak who cares about money and doesnt care for the people it is going to affect.

ITS NOT THAT DAMN HARD TO WORK WITH THIS WORLD.

JOBS ARE EVERYWHERE. LOOK A BIT HARDER AND STOP BEING SO LAZY.

 
I agree with Gulf production and expansion but definitely not Canadian supply.

Its just not worth it.

I think oil should be drilled for off the coast.

that might take a while to expand though considering where we are right now with technology and the means to incorporate it into a million dollar a day off shore drilling rig.

we'll just have to wait and see...

 
Little known secret, the fishing is great.

A couple things, because I re-remembered why bothering with this stuff on NS is a complete waste of time (I have, afterall, been here long enough that I should know better) and in retrospect to some of the posts following yours (Gnarton, Tasche whatever,) I simply want to post a few quick last points. I do appreciate the level of discourse that you actually present.

The oil sands were subsidized for a long period of time. Oil is still subsidized, both directly and indirectly on the consumption side.

I don't think Canada ranks very high in the western world in alternative energy development. I wasn't talking exclusively about that anyway when referring to path dependency. I mean as a whole - consumption side as well and all that comes with it. Poorly built cities, means of transportation etc.

 
Hahah this is a give and take world. I would certainly allow 10 to die if it saved 100k those who wouldn't are deranged. I would kill even more if they were bad guys. What the fuck does that have to do with this pipeline. Cobra Command is right this is a mentallly challenged argument
 
I'm choosing not to participate anymore. Rationality wins again. you give them documented evidence, links to government studies about risk mitigation in the affected areas, the economics behind oil production and consumption, the failure of subsidization of companies like Solyndra, The inevitability of production in Canada, $5.00 a gallon gasoline as the national average by Labor day, and ideologue environmentalists STILL choose to believe that we can simply flip a switch and all environmental problems will go away, alternative energy will reign, and the evil oil corporations burn to the ground. It's like a watermelon... green on the outside, a communist red on the inside.

This is irrational... what if, 100 years from now, Solar energy companies (no more oil companies) are driving up the price of energy so high that you can't put food on your table for your family and grandchildren? Would you rail against the "ethically responsible" energy company, that doesn't pollute the environment, but has put you out of a job and well being for your family, even with subsidization efforts from the government? Is that corporation "evil" to you?

It sure is to me.

That's not to say that we shouldn't try to make alternative energy more efficient more efficient. We should, and people stand a lot of money to make from doing that, hence the reason it will eventually occur. but in the end, this comes down to dollars and cents. Entrepreneurs will want to attack this market for the big upside, but it will take some time and prudent government investment over the long run to make it happen.

The evil corporation argument is such an uneducated, base, nonsensical and antiquated way of thinking, and should not be placed in the heads of you youngsters by movements like Occupy Wall Street. They are seriously missing the point. Corporations aren't evil, socialism and "fairness" takes the fuel out of the engine of progress. See: Greece
 
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