Keystone XL

Energy Irony: Trans Canada Wants 15 Billion From Obama

gregladen — Mon, 27 Jun 2016 06:16:45 +0000

Energy Irony: Trans Canada Wants 15 Billion From Obama

Governments, and the people, should be filing law suits against the energy industry for causing the imminent collapse of civilization as we know it. But instead, the opposite is happening.

From Reuters:

TransCanada formally seeks NAFTA damages in Keystone XL rejection

TransCanada Corp is formally requesting arbitration over U.S. President Barack Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, seeking $15 billion in damages, the company said in legal papers dated Friday.

...

The Keystone XL was designed to link existing pipeline networks in Canada and the United States to bring crude from Alberta and North Dakota to refineries in Illinois and, eventually, the Gulf of Mexico coast.

Obama rejected the cross-border crude oil pipeline last November, seven years after it was first proposed, saying it would not make a meaningful long-term contribution to the U.S. economy.

TransCanada is suing the United States in federal court in a separate legal action, seeking to reverse the pipeline's rejection.

About 750,000 homes could be fitted with some really sweet solar arrays for that money. Let's do that instead!

gregladen Mon, 06/27/2016 - 02:16

Tags

energy

environment

climate change

global warming

Keystone XL

Trans Canada

It would require an amendment to the USA Constitution to prevent such law suits (since international treaties trump national laws). "Free trade agreements" have been universally bad for USA citizens, and profitable to the USA citizens' enemies.

I'm a little torn on this one. The US has screwed Canada many times over via the Softwood Lumber Treaty and under NAFTA Chapter 11 (http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/14/canada-sued-investor-state-disp… ) so ya we get a bit of our own back (sorta). Also more importantly this could educate the US population (and heaven forbid Congress) on one of the worst aspects of FT agreements - the ability of foreign corporations to sue you for passing laws (or not passing approvals) that affect their profit potential. What is essentially an assault on a country's sovereignty (albeit a voluntary one via agreement signing.)

The other side for me is I don't want to see a carbon based energy company succeed in anything anymore.

Douglas C Alder: The other side for me is I don’t want to see a carbon based energy company succeed in anything anymore.

Looking over the entire proposed project, I do not see where the profit is in selling oil ("tar sands / tar shell"); the right-of-way is worth more than any and all oil Canadian corporations and send through a pipe. The lower liability and comprehensive insurance rates is worth more than the oil-- it costs less to underwrite a pipe line than underwrite tanker ships and trains.

There is a solution: the USA should put an import tax on every liter of oil going through the pipeline, making the oil too expensive to pump across the border. The USA constantly does this for other products.

I agree with both Desertphile and Douglas Alder.

I would also add that your opinion that "we" should be suing energy companies " for causing the imminent collapse of civilization as we know it" is a bit overblown.

First, what would you sue them for?

Providing a legal product which everybody uses?

Everybody uses fossil fuels, to drive their automobiles, to heat their homes, to transport goods and so on.

In fact, one could argue that fossil fuels are essential.

Secondly, as much as some people would like to draw an analogy to the tobacco case - it is misguided in my opinion.

I think if all fossil fuel companies got out of the business, our country would grind to a halt pretty quick - and 300 million people would be screaming for them to get back into the business of mining and distributing coal, oil and natural gas.

Renewables just cannot provide 100% of our energy needs.

Not now and not for the foreseeable future.

RickA, you managed to exclude from your highly selective fantasy list the things that fossil fuel companies are already being investigated for.

RickA: "[....] I think if all fossil fuel companies got out of the business...."

No one said they should; no one wants them to; no one said they can.

Desertphile #6:

What do you think the effect of "Governments, and the people, should be filing law suits against the energy industry for causing the imminent collapse of civilization as we know it. " would be on fossil fuel companies?

It would drive them out of business.

That is the goal, isn't it?

Greg #4:

Are you referring to the subpoena?

That is just discovery for a fishing expedition.

People are hoping to find something from the subpoena so they can justify a suit.

I am not aware of what litigation you are referring to.

Could you expand on what you think fossil fuel companies are currently being investigated for?

Desertphile

My point, such as it is, was not about profit, it's about carbon based energy companies succeeding at anything going forward. It's well past time to leave it in the ground and if that means companies like Trans Canada that enable the oil production companies by transporting their oil go broke - so be it, I won't shed any tears for them, or any energy company that doesn't have the courage and foresight to stop what they are doing and go full force on renewables.

We are fast running out of time, if we haven't already, to take effective corrective action to keep us under a 2C rise in temperature. Companies that continue to extract coal, oil and to a slightly lesser degree gas , are consigning the world to hell and my grandchildren to an early death. The Sixth Great Extinction is lumbering towards us, picking up pace and these companies are abetting it. There's no "we can't afford to take action, people will lose jobs, the stock market will crumble, the economy can't absorb the change" argument that has any validity in the face of what is coming.

The executives at Exxon who have known for decades what their company and others like it have done to the climate are as guilty of genocide as the Nazi leaders that went on trial at Nuremberg after WWII and as far as I'm concerned deserve the same fate.

Douglas #9:

I have to disagree about your Exxon guilt statement.

Knowing that fossil fuels might cause some portion (currently not determinable) of the 8 inches sea level rise in the 20th century, or some portion (currently not determinable) of the 11 ish inches of sea level rise we expect in the 21st century does not a genocide make.

https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/learning/conditioninfo/treatmen…

Desertphile - :) I ceased paying any attention to him a looooong time ago.

" “Free trade agreements” have been universally bad for USA citizens"

I think it's bit more complicated that that.
a. you can replace the "USA" with any other country name.
b. *Trade* in general benefits all participants

It might be better to re-phrase the above as,
"so-called free trade agreements are not made with the intention of benefiting Nations nor their citizens - their sole purpose is to benefit the mega-corporations whose bought-and-paid-for politicians introduce these agreements".

Craig, they can also be to entrench the current power structure.

Keystone XL Will Become ExKeystone, 'ell yeah.

gregladen — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 09:42:02 +0000

Keystone XL Will Become ExKeystone, 'ell yeah.

According to sources, like this one, President Obama is about to nix the Keystone XL deal.

One of those "hastily called" press conference is set for just before noon Eastern.

Sorry about your stock values and stuff, TransCanada.

https://twitter.com/gregladen/status/662672566436257793

gregladen Fri, 11/06/2015 - 04:42

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The KochRoaches bought and leased a hell of a lot of the right-of-way property; did Obama get their permission first?

It's not just resting (as TransCanada wanted); It's not pining for the Prairie Provinces — it is a late pipeline!

I am glad of this.

Hillary Clinton Opposes Keystone XL Pipeline

gregladen — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 13:38:21 +0000

Hillary Clinton Opposes Keystone XL Pipeline

This just came in from NBC

Last week, Clinton said,

"I have been waiting for the administration to make a decision," she said last week in Concord, NH. "I thought I owed them that. I worked in the administration. I started the process that is supposed to lead to a decision. I can't wait too much longer. and I am putting the white house on notice. I'm gunna tell you what I think soon because I can't wait. I thought they would have it decided way, you know, way by now and they haven't."

And moments ago she said:

"I think it is imperative that we look at the Keystone XL pipeline as what I believe it is: A distraction from the important work we have to do to combat climate change, and, unfortunately from my perspective, one that interferes with our ability to move forward and deal with other issues," she said during a campaign event in Iowa Tuesday.

"Therefore, I oppose it. I oppose it because I don't think it's in the best interest of what we need to do to combat climate change."

gregladen Tue, 09/22/2015 - 09:38

Tags

Climate Change

Hillary Clinton

Keystone XL

Keystone XL will not be build even if the state department approves due to the period of low crude prices we are in, The oil is uneconomic at the current pricing level. Anyway wait and see who wins the Canadian Election in Oct, as that could also kill it.

Is there a good reason why we cannot pin from this blog to Pinterest?

Heather, good question. There is a reason, but I'm not sure if it is good.

The people higher up had that disabled in the scienceblog template because of concerns over image ownership and rights and such. I'm not sure I understand that argument, but I think I disagree with it.

Thanks for bringing it up. I'll direct the management's attention to the issue again and see if they would like to make a change. I think pinning in Pinterest should be allowed.

Dear President Obama and Secretary Kerry: An Open Letter on Keystone XL

gregladen — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 08:52:53 +0000

Dear President Obama and Secretary Kerry: An Open Letter on Keystone XL

An Open Letter on the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline from Scientists and Economists

April 7 , 2014

President Barack Obama
The White House 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Secretary John Kerry
U. S . Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear President Obama and Secretary Kerry,

As scientists and economists, we are concerned about climate change and its impacts. We urge you to reject the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline as a project that will contribute to climate change at a time when we should be doing all we can to put clean energy alternatives in place.

As you both have made clear, climate change is a very serious problem. We must address climate change by decarbonizing our energy supply. A critical first step is to stop making climate change worse by tapping into disproportionately carbon - intensive energy sources like tar sands bitumen. The Keystone XL pipeline will drive expansion of the energy - intensive strip - mining and drilling of tar sands from under Canada’s Boreal forest, increasing global carbon emissions. Keystone XL is a step in the wrong direction.

President Obama, you said in your speech in Georgetown last year that “allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest. And our national interes t will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”

We agree that climate impact is important and evidence shows that Keystone XL will significantly contribute to climate change. Fuels produced from tar sands result in more greenhouse gas emissions over their lifecycle than fuels produced from conventional oil, including heavy crudes processed in some Gulf Coast refineries. As the main pathway for tar sands to reach overseas markets, the Keystone XL pi peline w ould cause a sizeable expansion of tar sands production and also an increase in the related greenhouse gas pollution. The State Department review confirmed this analysis under the scenario that best meets the reality of the opposition to alternativ e pipeline proposals and the higher costs of other ways of transporting diluted bitumen such as rail. The review found:

“The total lifecycle emissions associated with production, refining, and combustion of 830,000 bpd of oil sands crude oil is approximately 147 to 168 MMTCO 2 e per year. The annual lifecycle GHG emissions from 830,000 bpd of the four reference crudes examined in this section are estimated to be 124 to 159 MMTCO 2 e. The range of incremental GHG emissions for crude oil that would be transported by the proposed Project is estimated to be 1.3 to 27.4 MMTCO₂e annually.”

To put these numbers into perspective, the potential incremental annual emissions of 27.4 MMTCO 2 e is more than the emissions that seven coal - fired power plants emit in o ne year. And o ver the 50 - year expected life span of the pipeline, th e total emissions from Keystone XL could amount to as much as 8.4 billion metric tons CO₂e . These are emissions that can and should be avoided with a transition to clean energy.

The contribution of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to climate change is real and important, especially given the commitment of the United States and other world leaders to stay within two degrees Celsius of global warming. And yet, the State Department environmental review chose an inconsistent model for its “most likely” scenarios, using business-as-usual energy scenarios that would lead to a catastrophic six degrees Celsius rise in global warming. Rejecting Keystone XL is necessary for the United States to be consistent with its climate commitments. Six degrees Celsius of global warming has no place in a sound climate plan.

Secretary Kerry, in your speech in Jakarta, you said, “The science of climate change is leaping out at us like a scene from a 3D movie – warning us – compelling us to act.” Rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would be a decision based on sound science.

The world is looking to the United States to lead through strong climate action at home. This includes rejecting projects that will make climate change worse such as the K eystone XL tar sands pipeline .

Sincerely,

John Abraham, Ph.D. Professor University of St. Thomas

Philip W. Anderson, Ph.D. Nobel Prize (Physics 1977) Emeritus Professor Princeton University

Tim Arnold, Ph.D. Assistant Project Scientist Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego

Kenneth J. Arrow, Ph.D. Nobel Prize (Economics 1972) Professor emeritus of Economics and of Management Science and Engineering Stanford University

Roger Bales, Ph.D. Professor of Engineering University of California, Merced

Paul H. Beckwith , M.S. Part - time professor: climatology/meteorology Department of Geography University of Ottawa

Anthony Bernhardt, Ph.D. Physicist and Program Leader (retired) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Damien C. Brady, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Marine Science Darling Marine Cent er University of Maine

Julie A. Brill, Ph.D. Director, Collabo rative Program in Developmental Biology, and Professor, De partment of Molecular Genetics University of Toronto Senior S cientist, Cell Biology Program The Hospital for Sick Children

Gary Brou hard, Ph.D. Department of Biology McGill University

Ken Caldei ra, Ph.D. Senior Scientist Carnegie Institution for Science

Grant Cameron, Ph.D. Coastal Data Information Program (CDIP) Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego

Shelagh D. Campbell, Ph.D. Professor, Biological Sciences University of Alberta

Kai M. A. Chan, Ph.D. Assoc iate Prof essor & Tier 2 Canada Research Chair (Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services) Graduate Advisor, RMES Institute for Resources, Environment & Sustainability University of British Columbia

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Keith W. Kisselle, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Biology & Environmental Science Academic Chair of Center for Environmental Studies Austin College

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gregladen Mon, 04/07/2014 - 04:52

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Peak Oil vs. Peak Chocolate Chip Cookies

gregladen — Sun, 02 Feb 2014 10:27:42 +0000

Peak Oil vs. Peak Chocolate Chip Cookies

Peak Oil is a controversial concept. Some people actually think that the production of oil in nature is continuous (which is a tiny bit, but hardly at all, true) so we can keep pumping oil out of the ground and it will just keep being produced by tiny microbes. But aside from that particular, and annoying, made-up controversy, "real" Peak Oil (or should I say Peak Real Oil) is still controversial. Peak Oil is defined as the moment when the maximum rate of petroleum extraction occurs, and thereafter production declines steadily, like on a bell curve. But that is, in my view, the wrong way to look at it. I would like to propose a different way, and to understand this approach we first must understand chocolate chip cookies. Which is not difficult.

If you make a batch of chocolate chip cookies, then everyone in the house starts to eat them, when does "Peak Chocolate Chip Cookies" occur? Obviously, this occurs the moment the chocolate chip cookies are pulled out of the oven. That is when the maximum number of cookies are available. Subsequent "extraction" rates are not a function of cookie availability, but rather, the social politics of the household, the number of hungry people, and other factors. The cookies will be "extracted" at any one of a number of rate functions. Often, the initial number of cookies extracted from the cooling rack, cookie plate, or cookie jar starts out very slow because they are too hot and have not achieved structural stability so they are hard to eat, especially for dunkers. But then the rate may go way up and then, because the cookies are being consumed rapidly, and/or people become sated, it may go down. Or, the baker of the cookies may bake them in secret and hide them in the cookie jar until after dinner, then reveal the existence of the cookies at which time peak extraction commences. Or there may be house rules as to how many cookies everyone can eat which will affect the rate of extraction. And so on. But no matter what, Peak Cookie happened the moment the cookies were pulled, baked, from the oven. (We will leave the consumption of cookie dough prior to baking for discussion at another time.) The point is, it is easy to see that "Peak Cookie" happens at the moment baking ends, and the variation in extraction rate thereafter is a function of many factors that will vary from household to household and from time to time. And all those factors are important events or processes. Peak Cookie, as a concept, is uninformative of the social dynamics, demographics, and collective individual proclivities of the household, which really are the things that matter.

This analogy reveals the fact that the "peak" (measured as production) is only part of a function of how much substance (cookies, oil) there is, and is, until the amount of substance is just about to run out, more a function of other things. For oil, this includes knowledge (of oil deposits), technology (to extract harder to get at oil), geopolitics (some oil is in countries that are currently in a snit, or that we don't talk to), and of course, economics.

And, really, what I want to know about, and what you want to know about, is our own personal peak oil, or more manageably, our encompassing society's peak oil. For instance, if a large deposit of oil is unavailable because we say so (for conservation reasons unrelated to petroleum) or political reasons (because it is buried beneath an enemy's territory) then we can't count that oil in our calculations of availability, and thus, extraction. Oil that is in our own country and not under a national park, on the other hand, is different.

In this way, perhaps a better way to think about Peak Oil is to look at the historical complexity of the process of bringing this fossil (oil is a fossil) to a place and refine it to a form that we can burn in our homes, cars or factories. Looked at it this way, from the perspective of the United States, we have had several "Peak Oil" moments.

Not counting whale oil, we experienced our first Peak Oil moment when the vast oil fields in Texas and Oklahoma and a few other places started to dry up. When that happened we started to buy more oil from countries that we really had very little respect or love for. Today, we get a fair amount of oil from a region of the world where we occasionally have to go to war to keep that oil supply open. And, we have to look the other way when the governments of those countries continue with highly objectionable policies. Imagine having a two grocery stores near your house. One of them is run by a really nice family, pillars of the community, your kids go to school with their kids, everything is fine. The other is run by a paroled sex offender who is also suspected of being a mass murderer. Plus he is a jerk. At first you always get your groceries at the store run by the nice family. But then they retire and move to Florida and you are now forced to do business with the child molesting, mass murdering jerk, because you really have no other option. That is a moment when the cost of grocery shopping, no matter what the cost of the actual groceries, becomes very high. That is a kind of peak groceries. It has little to do with the economics of the groceries. And yes, "Peak Oil" as traditionally defined is usually embedded in an economic model. This is why my suggestion of what "Peak Oil" means is different: When you (metaphorically) sell your soul to continue to obtain a resource, you've reached a moment in time that is very important.

The initiation of serious off shore drilling is another moment in the extraction of oil. Off shore drilling is expensive and dangerous at many levels. In the United States we shifted towards off shore drilling as our on-land deposits were worn out, and because it is somewhat cheaper (sometimes) to take nearby offshore oil than foreign near-the-surface on-land oil, and for geopolitical reasons. Those costs may not always be expressed in the "spot" prices of oil in dollars per barrel. But they are real costs.

Fracking is something that has been done for years. It is a nice trick to extract more from a deposit that has started to become tenacious. The technique is used for water, liquid petroleum, and gas. It is messy and expensive and usually results in a flow of product that soon diminishes, so whatever investment was made in the process initially does not have long term benefit. When you start fracking, that means you've reached one of those peaks. You are doing something you really didn't want to do because availability or cost of the same product through other means is diminished.

The Canadian Oil Sands and other tar sands type oil has been known of for years, but it has been very little exploited. It is dirty, dangerous, expensive, and often inconveniently located. But we have been using more and more of this undesirable resource, and we are talking about using a LOT more of it in the near future. The costs of using this type of resource, aside from the continued pouring of fossil carbon (as carbon dioxide) into the atmosphere, are huge. But we are doing it. Another peak.

The alternative way of thinking about Peak Oil proposed here has the benefit of being more realistic and useful because it identifies not one peak but rather multiple peaks. Also, and this is important, one aspect of this definition of Peak Oil that is new is not to measure price or some overall measure of availability which might exclude significant costs (known as "external costs"), but rather, to identify the things we really do to continue to extract the resource. Over time we are doing more and more difficult and costly things, with many of these costs going well beyond price of the product. Such extra costs include deadly warfare and allowing governments and media to be taken over by the petroleum industry with all sorts of negative side effects that go well beyond the extraction, refining, and shipping of petroleum products.

Every major shift in strategy of access to ancient petroleum can be interrogated as a possible "Peak Oil" moment.

Yes, yes, I fully understand that I've strayed very far away from the usual definition of Peak Oil. But in so doing, I think I've pointed out a more important reality inherent in the business of extracting a non-renewable resource from the earth. A simple Peak Oil curve is the subject of a great deal of argument and speculation. The problem is, this argument and speculation tends to miss the point. We are like an addict with easy access to some drug that is highly addictive, gets you really high, is not too expensive, and can be easily obtained. Then the drug source runs dry so we seek out shadier sources and start to get in trouble. Then those sources start to dry up so we turn to different drugs with more severe health effects. But that starts to become less available, and paying for it gets more difficult so, eventually, we start rooting around under the sink for anything that looks consumable and might serve to get us high or at least, knock us unconscious. Eventually, we hit the drain cleaner. That kills us. There was not a smooth curve of availability of opium that went smoothly up and down. Rather, there was a series of shifts from a not so bad thing to a worse thing to an even worse thing to the horrid end and they find our body under the back porch where we were rooting through the recycling looking for spent cans of shaving cream.

Peak Oil is a gloss. The real story is a tragedy with several acts.

____________________
Peak Oil graph from Wikipedia

gregladen Sun, 02/02/2014 - 05:27

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Peak oil has to due to maximum rate of extraction, i.e. dQ/dt, moreover, it is process, not an event....

This post is clearly not up to your usual high standards and suggests that you clearly out of your element...

Sorry...

Or, if I may be so bold as to suggest, my post is brilliant and you totally missed the point!

But thanks for the comment. It will be useful for readers who skipped the first paragraph.

Meanwhile, have a cookie.

Hey, I thought it was well done! Good crunch, but not burnt on the bottom. A fresh perspective (as well as a fresh chocolate chipper) should always be appreciated even if just for that. There were more than a few good chips in this one.

Oh, we both know that a world of hurt is coming from AGW or PO, probably both...

And as much as you and I would like to see a happy ending to the story, it would appear that what is playing out is the solution to Fermi's Paradox in real time...

Either a civilization figures out how to move beyond it's fossil fuel endowment or it dies trying. If the history of our species is any guide, when AGW becomes absolutely undeniable they will start spraying S02 in the stratosphere....

You know the rest of the story...

Excellent post - something fresh on a tired and played out subject

in fact i was thinking of "peak peak oil" - that time when the most articles on the subject were extracted from the trove of minds turned that way after appropriate time in the appropriate cooker

i myself experienced "peak peak oil poetry" - that time when i was most prolific as a "poet"

whatever, your post may be one of those statistically predictable outliers

perhaps an appropriate line
would render an end that's sublime
the peaks rise and fall
and we all drop the ball
it's just a matter of time

we could always get lucky with a bunch of volcanoes.

I thought it was well done, and the analogy is also useful because it's something that almost everyone has experienced personally.

There's something else about Peak Oil that's interesting: the concept of _one single peak_ plays into the emotional core of all dramatic narrative: that a story has a peak moment where all the plot details come to a head. This sets us up to anticipate a "dramatic moment", such as waking up one day to news headlines that oil prices have suddenly spiked to $200/bbl and grocery store shelves have been emptied by terrified crowds. When that doesn't happen, we tootle along as if nothing's the matter.

What's important about your posting here, which IMHO should be made to go viral, is that real life doesn't work like cinema: this story won't have its peak moment in the plot, but instead there will be a series of adjustments, each one involving more and worse compromises than the rest, all incremental so each of them doesn't seem "that bad."

As for Saudi, anyone who doubts that it's a truly horrid regime should look up the human rights situation there for women and girls.

And the one point on which I differed with the President during his SOTU speech, was where he said that natural gas was "the bridge fuel." In truth, natural gas is a band-aid on a life-threatening wound. The real bridge fuel will be thorium, which, in conjunction with renewables, could provide power for hundreds of years: more than sufficient to get us from here to full commercial deployment of fusion.

G...

When you wish upon a star....

How many Thorium reactors would it take to replace existing coal and NG fired capacity? How does that compare with the existing number of conventional reactors? Is there is an existing design, what about U-233 proliferation?

As far of PO is concerned, it is very true that the fast crashers such as Hirsch were wrong. The plateau has been flat and there is no discernible 2nd derivative in the rate of production. But it should be very clear that a consequence, the Export Land Model, is playing in places like Egypt...

Fusion is pipe dream, simple as that. I would bet that we have a better chance of seeing a high current 500 MeV cyclotron optimized for muon production so as to breed plutonium via the neutron flux from D-D mu-catalyzed fusion than we do of seeing a "conventional" fusion reactor....

Greg, yeah, I suppose volcanoes could save us for a bit,...Not a bet that I would want to take though. The way I see, H. Sapiens will be doing a Peter Pan from the Balcony despite all the knowledge and understanding we have amassed...

Can't stop trying though...

Brilliantly done.

Oversimplified, Greg. And ignores that what we are extracting is an energy source, strongly influenced by costs of production (and sustainability of market price of product). As the price goes up, reserves that were unavailable (because of unfavorable economics) can be exploited. As alternative sources of energy are developed, they will replace fossil fuels to the extent (and only to the extent) that they are economically feasible (not necessarily price competitive, but at a cost that a user will pay; vide UK electricity costs that are borne even though the wind/solar/ecology costs make them uncompetitive--a political decision, not a free-market result).

Plus, the effects of present-valuing the benefits of production...sooner is worth more than later.

And the cookie factory would be influenced by new startups if the prices of cookies got high enough!

A story: When I was a senior in ChemEngr school (1952) I was advised to avoid the petroleum industry as there was only some fifty years of proved reserves of petroleum. Years later it dawned on me that no one would spend money to prove up reserves any longer than that, because the present value of a barrel of oil to be produced fifty or more years in the future would be less than the current cost per barrel spent to prove it up.

BTW, cookies are a no-no in our household; too fattening!

JimB

BTW, how about the hurt that Seattle put on the Broncos!

An Argument Against Building the Keystone XL Pipeline

gregladen — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 12:56:17 +0000

An Argument Against Building the Keystone XL Pipeline

There are a number of arguments against building the Keystone XL Pipeline, but there is only one that counts. We have to keep the carbon in the ground. Building the pipeline is not that.

We've discussed this before.

There is now short video ad from Keystone Truth that makes a more specific argument. It isn't really an argument against building it (see above for that) but rather, a more detailed look at what Keystone XL involves, putting a finer edge, perhaps, on why it should be opposed by Americans. The ad, titled "Sucker Punch - Keystone Truth," is designed to inform Americans that they are probably getting suckered by the builders of Keystone. Keystone supporters claim that by linking the Canadian Tar Sands to the Gulf Coast of the United States we would become "energy independent." But there is good reason to believe that the whole point of Keystone is to provide an efficient way to move the tar sands gunk through, not to, the United States for sale overseas. Furthermore, the ad claims, probably correctly, that one of the major financial backers of this effort, perhaps even the major backer, is China. (China has invested 30 billion of the 100 billion invested so far. I believe this is the largest single investment.) It makes sense that a plan to move Canadian tar sands gunk out to the rest of the world would involve foreign investors, and it also makes sense that China would be one of these, if not the Big Panda in the room, because China has the cash to do this. And, probably, the thirst for the gunk itself.

Here is the ad:

It is possible to see the ad as "Red Bating." This is where we prey on American anti-Asian racism, which often involves the tropes of the clever Oriental Entity and/or the Red Scare. It makes China a bad guy using themes that reach back into American cultural history to exploit long established and deep racialized hatred and mistrust.

This may be true. But it is also true that the ad does not really invoke any of the traditional symbols of this sort of thing. Yes, it shows a lot of red along with the China part of the story, and the red flag with the stars on it, and it even highlights, using a B&W vs. Color contrast, the red in the Chinese Flag and the red in the Canadian flag. But, it is also true that red is the color of China and is used abundantly by the Chinese in pro-China patriotic depiction and decoration, especially in places like ... well, like Red Square. Also, that is the Chinese flag and that is the Canadian flag. And China really is investing a lot of money to get the tar sands gunk to a particular market where they will benefit.

One could say that the Chinese, the Canadians, the pro-Keystone Americans, and the Keystone corporate structure are all depicted as the capitalists they are. Running dog capitalists even, if I may borrow a phrase. But yes, the ad not so subtly allows for viewers to make the link to deep seated fear and distrust.

So here we go again. Progressive liberal left wingers (left wingers!) heavily analyzing our own message (because this is a message that works for our side) and possibly even fighting over how to make the argument to the extent that we weaken the argument ourselves. But we keep our integrity. The reason the right wing wins so many of these battles of rhetoric is because they almost never do that.

Suckers. We are. But perhaps we like it that way.

UPDATE: We may be hearing more about Keystone XL on Thursday.

gregladen Wed, 01/29/2014 - 07:56

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Climate Change

Keystone XL

I find the timing to be odd. In a time when we are using fracking to release massive amounts of oil and gas, already dropping the prices of both (So much that coal, as an industry, is pretty much dead.) they want to take advantage of low energy prices by adding a more costly, both economically and environmentally, product to the mix. Strange.

It isn't as if the oil sands are going to go bad if not exploited in the near future, and there is no prize for being the first nations to run out of energy resources. You can do a whole lot with petroleum products, even the very crude stuff produced by tar sands. Fertilizers, plastics, pharmaceuticals all, mostly come from petroleum products. Long after we move on to solar-electric power, or fusion, or zero-point, or what have you for energy we will still need plastics and paint.

Fact is that given the things you can do with petroleum products it seems the most wasteful is to burn them for energy. So why the rush to exploit this source now? When we run out of economically exploitable oil and gas, and really need some petroleum dependent pharmaceuticals to cure cancer or Alzheimer's then polluting some small amount of water and land, and spewing some excess carbon will seem worth it. Until then I think we would all be better off, barring a few billionaires, keeping the oil sands right where they are.

If we're going to wander off into the argument that petroleum is best reserved for plastics / other organic molecules production instead of fuel, we should start with the fact that plastics / chemical production accounts for a tiny fraction of the total amount of petroleum extracted from the Earth and refined. Less than 1%. In other words, the price of crude oil could increase by a factor of 100 (puttin the price of gasoline somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 / gallon) and plastics production would still be a reasonable option.

Even if we decided to quit burning all oil today, there'd be more than enough oil around already extracted from the ground, never mind the stuff still under the ground, to make plastics and all the other organic chemistry we do for centuries.

Yes, we use crude oil to make plastics. Yes, plastics and related activities are a huge industry. But the amount they use is utterly trivial compared to the amount we burn.

That's probably also true for natural gas to the extent that it is used for things other than burning. (More so possibly?)

So, let me get this straight:

There's already far more than enough capacity to refine heavy oil on the Gulf Coast. Yet the Chinese are willing to re-export the Canadian bitumen, tacking on the extra cost of shipping it through the Panama Canal and to Chinese markets.

That makes no sense. Why would the Chinese pay more for oil than they had to? Why would a supertanker arrive at the Gulf Coast, unload the conventional light or heavy oil its carrying for Gulf Coast markets, then re-load itself with bitumen to be shipped abroad? Why would it be shipped raw out of a market where refiners want that bitumen and there's far more than enough capacity to already refine it?

It's very simple: the bitumen that gets to the Gulf Coast will be refined there for U.S. and international markets. Why? Because there's big demand for it and lots of capacity. This, in turn, will displace other crude oil imports into the Gulf Coast, which means that other crude oil becomes available in the world markets for the Chinese to acquire.

If you've been following the market, this has been part of China's game all along. Yes, they'd like to refine some of the resource they own if they can (for which they'll need exports off of the west coast of Canada or the U.S. and only if it makes economic sense). But they'd be just as happy displacing other oil imports out of the U.S., which they can then grab on the world market instead.

China wants cheaper oil, not just any oil.

That's a pretty good argument, but they've invested billions, so how is that explained?

Just because they've invested that much in it, it doesn't mean they have to ship it to China to be refined. They can sell the bitumen wherever they want, most likely in the place that makes the most economic sense.

For example, American companies sink billions of dollars into petroleum exploration around the world every year with no intention of that oil or gas they produce of ever reaching American shores.

In terms of costs, it makes complete sense for the Chinese to ship that bitumen to the Gulf Coast and sell it to to refineries there. If that bitumen displaces Nigerian crude oil out of the U.S., that Nigerian crude will likely find its way to European refineries, which would then potentially bounce out Saudi Arabian crudes or other Middle East crudes, which then become available for China.

At that point, everybody saves a little money on shipping costs because oil doesn't have to be transported as far and it also doesn't have to go through costly canals, like Panama or the Suez. What refineries want is cheaper crude and, if they can save a few bucks by reducing transport costs, they'll find a way to do it.

So, China invests those billions of dollars in the oil sands and economically wins even if its refineries never take physical possession of the bitumen.

Otherwise, if Chinese refineries do acquire that bitumen through the Gulf Coast and refine it, Chinese consumers pay more for their gasoline and diesel because of the higher shipping costs. Or Chinese refineries have a harder time competing against imported refined petroleum products because of higher feedstock costs. Either way, their economy is worse off.

That is what the argument being made is, that the investors want yo sell it on the market.

I should add that, if using pipelines and rail to ship the bitumen to the west coast of Canada and the U.S. to export it from there can save Chinese refineries money in the end, they'll do that too.

Yes, that's the argument, but does it make any economic sense for Asian refineries to get their hands on bitumen from the U.S. Gulf Coast?

If that bitumen can easily be outcompeted by other crudes, then it makes no sense at all.

Producers would have already paid about $10/barrel to ship that bitumen to the Gulf Coast through Keystone and then they'd have to pay more to ship that bitumen through the Panama Canal and to Asia.

The world oil market is incredibly competitive and those extra shipping costs would very likely push bitumen out of the Asian market. This, of course, makes Steyer's argument that "Keystone is only being built so Chinese companies can refine dirty oil" not a very good one. You can use that argument against the Northern Gateway and TransMountain expansion projects, but it's not very applicable to Keystone.

Finally, again, it makes far more sense for the Chinese to sell that bitumen within the U.S. market.

But that does not explain the pipeline. Bitumen is already transported to the US and refined. It's what I put in my car here in Minnesota. It would be cheap and not subject to as much regulation to expand current transport and expand refinery capacity here. The refine in the US and sell here strategy is being dismantled by Keystone XL.

The United States refinery fleet is already very big and running underutilized. There's no point in building more refineries that'll just sit there idle and losing money when there's more than enough room in the existing fleet to do the job.

What explains Keystone XL is that there was a big expansion of coking capacity in the refineries of the U.S. Gulf Coast over the past twenty years. These refineries are currently running underutilized and they're looking for heavy crude. Meanwhile, there's a big supply pool of it in western Canada that looks cost competitive with other sources of heavy crude oil in the world.

So, the market at the Gulf Coast wants the bitumen. That's why Keystone XL was proposed.

Let's look at this another way. Currently, the Gulf Coast U.S. is a world market for oil, paying world prices. So, the Chinese can sell the bitumen there for world prices OR they can pay a tanker to ship it to their refineries in Asia where those refineries essentially pay those same world prices. If it costs $10/barrel to ship that oil, they just lost $10/barrel. It makes absolutely no sense to do that.

I'm sorry, but the argument foy shoring up transport to the upper plains and building more refinery capacity there is still perfectly sound.

I'll admit they've been increasing heavy-oil refining capacity in the mid-west, but they'd have to expand it alot more to absorb all that bitumen. To put this in perspective, the addition to the BP Whiting refinery cost $3.8 billion, all for 102,000 barrels per day of coking capacity, or about 15% of proposed Keystone XL throughpout.

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=8_NA_8CTC0_R2…

Meanwhile, the capacity at the Gulf Coast coast is already there and they don't have to spend a nickle to take that heavy oil. To the market, it's a no brainer. And it's why nobody will be dumping huge amounts of cash to build more coking capacity in the U.S. midwest.

media@thenextgeneration.org

Focus-group tested nationwide in all demographics to have the most impact and longest retention. Promote this phrasing nationally, Now!
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20140302/NEWS/303020074/

Keystone Kills!:

World Health Organization says:
#1 Cause of Cancer = Petroleum
#1 in $$$ to elected officials = Petroleum industry!
Cancer rates increasing massively!
Outlaw petro-politics & Keystone Cancer!

"This may be true. But it is also true that the ad does not really invoke any of the traditional symbols of this sort of thing. Yes, it shows a lot of red along with the China part of the story, and the red flag with the stars on it, and it even highlights, using a B&W vs. Color contrast, the red in the Chinese Flag and the red in the Canadian flag."

Ya, it doesn't invoke any of those traditional stereotypes...except this one. and that one. and the other one...

*symbols

Breaking: Former Obama Campaign Staff's Letter on Keystone XL

gregladen — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 06:26:23 +0000

Breaking: Former Obama Campaign Staff's Letter on Keystone XL

A letter signed by (so far) 145 former Obama campaign staff calls on President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. There is no doubt that President Obama's action on climate change will be a large part of his legacy, and at this point, President Obama's position on Keystone XL is unclear. It is true that the Obama administration is doing some good things (like this) but building the Keystone Pipeline is one of the worst things he could allow to happen.

Frustrated with this situation, the people who helped put President Obama in the White House, twice, are speaking out. Here is the letter:

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama,

On November 7th, the day after Election Day, we took a break from entering last-minute data or cleaning our OFA field offices and crowded around iPhones and laptops to listen to you talk.From strip malls, grungy basements, and non-descript headquarters in our adoptedcommunities of Petersburg, VA or Manchester, NH or Aurora, CO, we paused for five minutes tohear from the man who inspired us to leave our homes and give every last ounce of energy tore-elect our President, a leader so awe-inspiring that we’d tear up just knowing he’d be in our zip code. You told us on the phone that day, “When I was your age, I had this vague inklingabout making a difference, but I didn’t know how to do it...I ended up becoming a communityorganizer.” So did we.

It’s in that spirit that we write to ask you to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. We trust you tomake the right decision after you weigh all arguments, but one thing you taught us as organizersis that nothing can stand in the way of millions of voices calling for change. Mr. President, weare just a few of the millions of young people across the country who are frightened at theprospect of runaway climate change. One of the reasons we came to work for you in the firstplace is because we trust you understand how big this challenge is.

You can help cement your legacy as a climate champion by rejecting this pipeline. You alreadyknow all the reasons we can’t afford this pipeline -- that it will lock in gigatons of carbon pollutionover the next four decades and that it could spill into our nation’s most valuable water sources --we’re just asking you to think of us when you make up your mind. Dozens of supporters acrossthe country told us they were casting their ballot for someone they could count on to make thetough calls when it came to our security and our health care and our climate. They voted for you,Mr. President, because we told them you’d be on the right side of history when you had to makethese calls. Because we knew you’d do the right thing and stop this pipeline.

You closed out our call on November 7th by saying to us, “Over the last four years when peopleask me how do you put up with the frustrations of Washington, I just look to you. I think aboutwhat you guys are going to do. That’s the source of my hope and my inspiration, and I know thatyou guys won’t disappoint me.” For so long you have been the source of our hope andinspiration. Please don’t disappoint us. Reject Keystone XL.

Sincerely,

Then there are 145 signatures (see this document)

If you are a former Obama campaign staffer, you can click here to add your name.

HERE is the press release from We Are Power Shift

gregladen Thu, 06/20/2013 - 02:26

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Thanks - signed. Nice to see they accept non US residents. I told then guess who will be held criminally responsible if global climate change gets out of control.

Did the Keystone XL Environmental Contractor and the State Department Act Inappropriately or Illegally?

gregladen — Sat, 18 May 2013 10:04:27 +0000

Did the Keystone XL Environmental Contractor and the State Department Act Inappropriately or Illegally?

Several environmental advocacy groups are asking the US State Department to launch an investigation over the State Department's handling of the Keystone XL review.

This is a bit nuanced but important, and I want to make clear what is going on here.

Normally, environmental impact assessments are done by private contractors ultimately hired by the entity that is building the project that could have the impacts. I often hear people complain that Trans Canada, the group that wants to build the Keystone XL pipeline across the United States to allow the export of it's bitumen (a kind of soft coal like oily thing) overseas to places like China and Europe, "hired the contractor" that did the environmental impact assessment, and therefore they are corrupt and evil and so on and so forth. But this is how it works. The entity doing the work is responsible to pay for and supply support for the review. There is nothing wrong with that.

Also, there is a more specific allegation that individuals who work for the contractor that did the Keystone XL Pipeline review have worked previously for Trans Canada and other oil interests and therefore the are corrupt and evil and so on and so forth. This, in itself, is also incorrect. Yes, those individuals have worked for Trans Canada and other oil interests, but this is normal, expected, and in fact, a good thing. You really don't want to have individuals with zero experience working on these important jobs, and you really don't want to have an industry where people get trained up, with advanced degrees and apprenticeship, to work in a given sub sector of environmental management, then allow them to have one contract then put them on an ice flow.

Having said all that, which is true and must be kept in mind when complaining about Trans Canada and Keystone XL, there is a problem. The system where corporations hire contractors to look into environmental effects is corruptible. This isn't the most corruptible way to do this. If government agencies did the work themselves, or hired subcontractors, that would be corruptible too. There is no way to do this that is not corruptible.

For this reason, regulatory agencies are supposed to keep a close eye on what happens. There are forms that must be filled out honestly that might reveal potential conflicts of interest, for example. Once these forms are in the hands of the appropriate regulatory agencies, their veracity must be checked, and if there is any problem, that must be very closely looked into.

From the information I've seen, it seems almost 100% likely that the process of arranging for the second Keystone XL environmental impact assessment involved some serious mistakes, and there is almost as good of a chance that those mistakes involved purposeful manipulation of information by the environmental contractor as well as by the State Department itself.

I'm not going to try to prove this to you or even summarize the information because it is all well laid out in THIS PDF of a letter from Bold Nebraska, Center for Biological Diversity, Environment America, Friends of the Earth, League of Conservation Voters, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Nebraska Farmers’ Union, Public Citizen, Sierra Club and 350.org. It would appear that the contractor, ERM, failed to disclose its ties to the American Petroleum Institute, TransCanada and other companies that stand to benefit from Keystone. There may be nothing wrong with having those ties but they must be disclosed so they can be looked into and monitored. Also, the State Department employees attempted to cover these ties up during the review process, which implies collusion between the regulatory agency and the contractor.

Go read the letter and learn all the details.

Then, you might want to sign this petition from Friends of the Earth to "Tell Secretary of State John Kerry: Investigate Big Oil’s Influence on the Keystone XL Review."

Private contractors hire other private contractors to do environmental review, and this process is overseen by regulatory agencies, with the State Department in this case being a regulatory agency. But who oversees that process, to makes sure it stays clean, fair, and legal? Well, you, the citizen. And who helps you do that? Organizations created by citizens, such as those noted above.

So that's what is happening now. Time to act. Your move.....

gregladen Sat, 05/18/2013 - 06:04

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