553 replies to this topic

[still learning]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 20 April 2013 - 03:47 AM, said:

And we want more of this via Keystone?

There are (in my mind) two main objections to the proposed keystone pipeline: Spill safety concerns and increased CO2 emissions.

I expect that the spill safety concerns can be addressed with adequate pipeline design and operation.
Near as I can tell the tarsands product is so difficult to pump that pipelines that were intended to carry conventional petroleum may not be up to the job, resulting in failures like happened in Arkansas.  I would think that a pipeline purposely built to carry the tarsands product could be engineered to do the job safely.

It occurred that my other objection, the increased CO2, could be met if the operators of the pipeline carried out some sort of active removal of atmospheric CO2 to sort of "balance the books."  Could some sort of carbon capture and sequesteration, CCS.   Could be carried out at already existing coalfired powerplants.  An alternative might be a large enough tax or fee on the tarsands product transported so that US DOE (or somebody else) could build and operate some sort of CCS scheme.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

So zuckerberg (facebook) is running pro XL pipeline ads?

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Another toxic fire that released more &^%$ into our air.
http://www.freep.com...n-Refinery-Fire

[yoder]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 28 April 2013 - 05:28 AM, said:

So zuckerberg (facebook) is running pro XL pipeline ads?

All the more reason to avoid Facebook.  Never liked it anyway.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

yoder, on 28 April 2013 - 04:52 PM, said:

All the more reason to avoid Facebook.  Never liked it anyway.

Facebook will probably lose even more users because of that. I never joined because they (zuckerberg and others
that work there) don't pay taxes but make millions from users, now they want to poison their users? Madness.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Anonymous, undercover worker at the tar sands in Canada writes about the drugs, booze and bar fights;
and the fact that no one there worries about the environment. A sad eye opener.
Via Rolling Stone.

[yoder]

It doesn't surprise me that the workers don't seem to be concerned about the environment.  They need to make money to feed their families.  We need to make it possible for them to make money by working on wind, solar and other renewable projects instead.

To me it's kind of like saying to a nurse, "you work for a health care system that panders to the wealthy and ignores the middle class and poor so you should leave your job".  The nurse doesn't control the health system, nor does the oil worker control the demand of or the production of oil.

But the drugs, booze and fights are reminiscent of every gold rush, coal rush, oil rush, timber rush that this country has had over the past 230 years.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Makes us weep.

[yoder]

Might as well be a scene on an asteroid or a barren moon.

[E3 wise]

Recently I saw an article, really an open letter to President Obama, from Canadian citizens saying they don't want Tar Sands either, their point was to say they want this to stop and the Keystone to not be expanded, it had over 50,000 signed agreements from Canadian citizens.  The most eye opening part to me was the statement that they did not want the jobs if it would cause more environmental distruction.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

E3 wise, on 01 May 2013 - 02:45 PM, said:

Recently I saw an article, really an open letter to President Obama, from Canadian citizens saying they don't want Tar Sands either, their point was to say they want this to stop and the Keystone to not be expanded, it had over 50,000 signed agreements from Canadian citizens.  The most eye opening part to me was the statement that they did not want the jobs if it would cause more environmental distruction.

Native Americans in Oklahoma are also protesting this. It could ruin water supplies.The Ponca tribe are calling
it "environmental genocide."
Source

And Texas and Oklahoma are still in a battle over water rights. Here.

A huge concern to all the states that the pipeline will run through is the Ogallala Aquifer.
The low levels may be technically off topic to tar sands, but it is related and have many farmers and ranchers
concerned about spills.


"For decades, farmers and others have been slurping up groundwater far faster than nature can recharge it.
Since Americans first began to seriously irrigate the Great Plains, beginning in the 1940s, water levels across most of the Ogallala
have fallen at least five feet, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Almost one-fifth of the area has dropped at least 25 feet, while 11 percent has lost 50 feet or more. In some of the worst-off areas
of Kansas and Texas, the water table has declined as much as 200 feet.
The most recent drought has compounded the problem, drying up riverbeds and forcing farmers to rely even more heavily on groundwater.
It can take as long as 6,000 years for water to percolate through the thick layers of earth and rock separating surface from aquifer.
In most areas, pumping the water is akin to mining iron or copper; once removed from the ground, the resource doesn't come back."
http://www.pewstates...fer-85899460061

[Shortpoet-GTD]

AP-
"More than 50 New York municipalities have banned gas drilling in the past few years,
and more than 100 have enacted moratoriums on drilling activities."
Via Grist

And-

"It is, in fact, an act of ecological violence around which alien infrastructures -- compressor stations that compact the gas for pipeline transport, ponds of contaminated flowback, flare stacks that burn off gas impurities, diesel trucks in quantity, thousands of miles of pipelines, and more -- have metastasized across rural America, pumping carcinogens and toxins into water, air, and soil.
The industry doesn't have to call its trillions of gallons of annual waste “hazardous.”
Instead, it uses euphemisms like “residual waste.”
http://grist.org/climate-energy/

[Shortpoet-GTD]

"TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard confirmed that the company had filed a request on Monday for a temporary restraining order against 21 individuals who, he told The Huffington Post, "have been interfering with TransCanada's property rights and ability to safely construct a pipeline in the state of Oklahoma."
"This is an abuse of the law, in my opinion," Parr said. "TransCanada is trying to shut down peoples' constitutional rights ... all of these acts of civil disobedience are totally nonviolent and nondestructive."
Source

[yoder]

Our country is so very backwards.  We vilify heroes who fight corporate tyrrany and deify those who will strangle and chain us.

Heavy sigh.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

This hearing (almost 2 hours) was on fracking.
If readers have the time; check it out. From C-Span 3.

http://www.c-span.org/

[DeeNeely]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 28 April 2013 - 05:28 AM, said:

So zuckerberg (facebook) is running pro XL pipeline ads?

Elon Musk quit the project over it.

http://www.nytimes.c...ergs-fwdus.html

[yoder]

I like the guy more and more.  SpaceX, Tesla and now this.  He probably has the corrosive personality like Steve Jobs (although I'm just making a W.A.G.), but he's doing cool things.

[DeeNeely]

yoder, on 12 May 2013 - 02:41 PM, said:

I like the guy more and more.  SpaceX, Tesla and now this.  He probably has the corrosive personality like Steve Jobs (although I'm just making a W.A.G.), but he's doing cool things.

He is also behind Solar City: the leading residential solar provider in the U.S.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Keystone pipeline jobs? Not so much.
http://thinkprogress...orth-of-carbon/

[Shortpoet-GTD]

"Companies that drill for oil and natural gas on federal lands will be required to disclose publicly
the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing operations, the Obama administration said Thursday.
Details here

Now if we can just get that same regulation on private lands, we'll be better off.