Thrust ahead
President Trump signed executive orders Tuesday clearing the way for the controversial Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines to move forward.
He also signed an executive order to expedite environmental reviews of other infrastructure projects, lamenting the existing “incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible permitting process.”
Yes indeed – we mustn’t take the time necessary to investigate the environmental impacts of what we do, even at this time when we know for sure that we’ve already made the world a much more difficult place for future generations. Hell no, we must barge ahead regardless, because we’re just that greedy and selfish.
The orders will have an immediate impact in North Dakota, where the pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners wants to complete the final 1,100-foot piece of the 1,172-mile pipeline route that runs under Lake Oahe. The pipeline would carry oil from the booming shale oil reserves in North Dakota to refineries and pipeline networks in Illinois.
The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and other Native American groups have been protesting the project, which they say would imperil their water supplies and disturb sacred burial and archaeological sites. The Army Corp of Engineers called a halt to the project in December to consider alternative routes.
The executive order from Trump on the Keystone XL pipeline threatens to undo a major decision by President Obama…
And that of course is all the reason President Shithead needs.
Is his scalp sitting a bit loose? <– that was supposed to be sarcasm! Or something.
What does the environment matter? It’s just a bunch of plants and birds and things…can you sell them? Can you charge them for a room at your hotel? Are they coming in and spending money at your casino? No? Well, there’s my point exactly.
I knew this would happen fast. He frequently said he wanted to relieve the regulatory “burdens” on industry.
And now he’s shutting down communications from government scientists. So far he’s muzzled the EPA and the ARS. More to come, mark my words…
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/trump-bans-government-scientists-from-sharing-their-work-with-the-taxpayers-who-funded-it/
Did they send the army out there yet or just the militarized police? ‘cuz that could sure as hell get even uglier than it has been…
Nah, just Ammon Mammon Whazisname with some other volunteering anti-federales. :~)
The Keystone pipeline from Canada will completely rid America of any and all dependence on imported, tanker-transported Saudi oil.
After the Exxon Valdez and the oil slick disaster in The Gulf just a few years back, perhaps it’s better to transport oil a short distance overland by pipeline rather than across 15,000 miles of ocean in unsafe tankers battling 40 and even 50 foot waves.
Most oil spills occur in the oceans. They are are almost always maritime disasters.
I mean, Trump aside, this actually makes quite a bit of sense.
Now, I confess to not being up to date on American geography, but does not that pipeline basically endanger most of the major water supplies in the Midwest and some of the Southwest too? I fail to see how that is much better for America!!! than a possible spill in one of the oceans. Also not good overall, of course, but Trump.
John – I was going to write something to answer you, but I deleted it. But…pipeline spills are quite common, even though they don’t make the news as often.
And I’m sorry, but Canadian oil isn’t imported? When did we take over Canada?
If the question is what to do with fossil fuels, there is only one answer that “makes sense”, and that is to leave it in the ground. The climate doesn’t care who finishes it off..
I’m an environmental scientist. That is going to make my work much more difficult. At least, until the day he no longer allows us to teach that subject at all, makes it illegal to even list the course in our catalog, and I am stood up against the wall and shot.
Then my job will be lying down dead. I think I could probably do a reasonably good job of that, if given a chance to study up.
Bingo.
Yes, I suppose it’s still ‘imported’, but it’s sourced *locally* when compared to other oil imports. Unlike the Saudis with their arms purchases, we use our oil revenues to buy California grapes, field-grown veggies, and citrus products from Florida.
So think about it; every time you fill your gas tank, you’ll contribute to Canada’s health!
Because global warming is going to be sooooo good for Canada…we’ll just rip all that stuff out of the ground, burn it, and turn the world into a tropical paradise, right?
Or, we could reduce our driving (I fill my tank every six weeks, and I live in an area without mass transit – I drive a tiny car, and plan my trips). We could try to do things differently. We could make changes…
No, I’m wrong. We’ll just pump oil through the aquifers, the farmlands, the atmosphere…grand idea.
John, the pipeline was originally planned to pass much closer to a city (I forget which one), but was relocated further away due to the risk of contaminating the municipal water supply. Because the risk pf pipe spillage is real, but underreported.
the pipeline was originally planned to pass much closer to a city (I forget which one), but was relocated further away due to the risk of contaminating the municipal water supply. Because the risk pf pipe spillage is real, but underreported.
I completely agree with you. However, as pertains to contaminated municipal water supplies, dangers such as e-coli contamination are far, Far more likely to happen. When you think about the contamination of potable water supplies occurring around the globe, spillage from oil pipelines is probably the least cited culprit.
What I find strange about the oil industry is the way in which so much of it revolves around maritime infrastructures. In the Mid-East we have Arab-Gulf on-loading facilities and in America tons of off-loading facilities. Then we have the oil-tanker business, perhaps the most important maritime element. Finally there are all those off-shore oil platforms basking in the calm, warm, tranquil waters of The North Sea and the North Atlantic’s Labrador Current…
All of these maritime infrastructures are owned by entrenched interests, and those interests represent countless BILLIONS of dollars.
We make movies about oil platform disasters, but when one happens in real life, minimal attention is paid. There are probably far more people killed in off-shore disasters than by oil contaminated ground water.
However, whenever an alternative land based mode of transport or land-based sourcing of oil is proposed, everyone gets their backs up.
The irony here is that ALL of the oil slated to be carried by the Keystone Pipeline ( Alberta’s Tar Sands) is oil that is already lying all over the ground.
John,
People who live in third world oil production countries with lax regulation and enforcement might beg to differ. Still, the USA will possibly come to understand if Trump succeeds in gutting environmental protection…
Anyway, when protecting public safety you apply a risk matrix. Likelihood of occurrence x severity of harm from occurrence.
Part of the reason there is so much maritime infrastructure in the modern oil industry is because all of the readily accessible oil on land that was economic to get at has already been got. once the US and Europe had developed their own on-land resource they went off overseas and developed other countries on-land resources. That generally required shipping by sea. As those resources were developed and we needed still more oil, they developed offshore wells. Only once they had reached the economic limits of maritime extraction did they return to on-land resources that have now become economic, either through improved technology, rising prices or generally both. That is where tar sands come in. I note that some oil reserves are so badly contaminated by toxic elements that are not economic to remove that they have not been commercially developed (Iran has massive reserves of such oil).
As for Alberta’s tar sands. It is really to accurate to say it was lying all over the ground. While at the surface in places it was actually generally covered by a layer of soil and forest. Because it was tar saturated rocks (soft admittedly), generally covered by soil and vegetation, and in a cool climate, there was very limited release of toxic hydrocarbons into the ecosystem at dangerous levels in a widespread manner.
Extracting those tars and turning them into usable oils has a devastating effect on the immediate ecosystem. After that the spills of those oils during transport are just as bad wherever they happen as similar composition oil from other sources.
I’m sure iknklast could expand on this in a much more authoritative way if she has a mind to.
Extracting those tars and turning them into usable oils has a devastating effect on the immediate ecosystem. After that the spills of those oils during transport are just as bad wherever they happen as similar composition oil from other sources.
I don’t disagree with you here.
If , as you seem to point out, all things are equal with regards to the environmental impact of oil extractions, wouldn’t it be wiser to source your oil from countries that are stable, friendly and not in the business of exporting violence?
Some of these environmental concerns really aren’t about the environment at all. They’re fig leafs behind which certain entrenched interests protect their turf.
And I don’t trust certain environmental groups because they won’t reveal the sources of ALL of their funding.
I think that might be stretching my brief comment a little far. Blog comments are not the place for detailed and nuanced discussions (unfortunately), especially when I’m at work and supposed to be doing something else (also unfortunately). Environmental impact depends on a number of things doesn’t it? How easily accessible is the oil? What technique(s) will be used to extract the oil and transport it? What is the environment(s) and ecosystem(s) that will be impacted and how sensitive are they to the consequences of a spill? What systems and processes does the operator have in place to prevent spills, mitigate the effect of inevitable spills and clean up afterward? Is it even practical to do any of the above? Remember Deep Horizon? That represented a huge technical and logistical challenge in the heartland of America’s oil industry. if the same thing had happened on the other side of the world way way distant from all the logistical assistance and expertise that could be bought in… really doesn’t bear thinking about.
Wouldn’t it be wiser to pursue alternative forms of energy, which it is now accepted are economic and practical, simply requiring ongoing refinement and scaling up? Hell, even the Governor of the Reserve Bank of England thinks so and he’s not a warm cuddly green liberal sitting around a camp fire singing folk songs (or maybe he is, but that seems unlikely).
Maybe? Examples? Even if they were, it’s not as if the carbon economy is not an entrenched interest trying to protect their turf. You really just described politics, economics and society generally. you have to accept that, accept that to one degree or another you are part of one or more of those blocks and act to achieve the outcome you think right/desirable.
Hard as it is to believe, there actually are people who vote against their personal self interest hoping to achieve a better outcome for everybody. Many of the much maligned ‘Liberal Elite’ fall into exactly that category. The average Trump supporter or the average Libertarian? Not so much I feel.