Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipe Line

[Diane Amberg]

People are in a big dither over this. Pros and Cons please?

[Anmar]

The pipeline runs right over the biggest water delivery system for the midwest.  Just a little leak or act of sabotage and our midwestern breadbasket looks like Kuwait circa 1992.

[Diane Amberg]

Unfortunately the urban legends are flying too with all kinds of awful things predicted.
Colonial pipeline was put in right behind my parents place @50 years ago, literally behind our grape arbor at the foot of our pasture. It goes from Houston to New York right up the east coast states..There has never been a serious problem ,no leaks, no sabotage and it crosses all kind of aquifers. It's big pipe too at least 36'' and I think perhaps 40'' behind our place.   
  I wonder how real the risk really is. It doesn't take much any more to activate the nuts and conspirators ,especially those who will swear to anything for a big check.

[sodbuster]

The pipeline runs right over the biggest water delivery system for the midwest.  Just a little leak or act of sabotage and our midwestern breadbasket looks like Kuwait circa 1992.

Anmar, I have been talking about this for a few years with my best friend from Calgary. I know the Canadian opponents say it runs across their aquifers, but I had not heard that it also, runs across the largest water delivery system for the Midwest. No doubt that a little leak or an act of sabotage will cause problems. Energy that we all are so good at consuming has it's problems. Valdez oil spill, BP oil spill, Three Mile Island, Japan's Earthquake Tsunami Nuclear leak and the smaller ones. I am all for other alternative energy sources. I lived in Alaska just a short distance from the Alyeska pipeline. I live close to a high volume\ high pressure gas pipeline. All present dangers. My question is how is the Keystone project anymore dangerous than any other delivery system of all our various energy sources. Just a question.

David

[Warph]

To say that i'm totally against it would be a lie.  Anmar and David have two good points, but.... this is a two way street, here.   Okay... the objection to the Keystone XL Pipeline is driven by concerns over climate change and anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions contributing to it.  I can see this point.  However, trying to shut down the use of fossil fuel energy is irresponsible.  We cannot go "cold turkey" on fossil fuels.  Rather, we can begin to take definitive steps to develop and deploy engineering processes that will lead to industrial plants that facilitate clean fossil energy and performance-based policies driving it.

But..... unfortunately, the U.S. has done very little in this direction.  What we have here is a failure to communicate.  The U.S. needs to get their ass in gear and rectify this situation.  If the pipeline is disallowed by Obuma, there is a good chance that it will veer west to fill oil tankers that will sail to Asia, particularly China who needs the oil badlly and is gobbling it up wherever it can.  We cannot allow this.  The U.S. receives only about 10 percent of our oil from the Middle East.  Without the Canadian sources, we would have to rely more heavily on Middle East sources and we do not want to do that.     

To me, Pipelining represents by far the safest means of transport of crude oil.  The construction of this pipeline and related industrial activity would provide much-needed jobs for the middle section of the country.  And I don't think the pipeline is not an environmental monster, as often portrayed, but rather a tool to provide Americans with fossil fuel they both need and are unwilling to give up.  It would be more patriotic to march on Washington and ask that our government initiate a long-range energy and climate change strategy and firm policies to achieve a clean energy future that uses the cheap abundant fossil energy we have.  We need this.

[Diane Amberg]

Thanks for the input. It wouldn't affect me either way as we already have ours.The various thoughts are interesting to hear.

[Anmar]

David,  I agree with you that no mode of transpotation is fail safe.  I also agree with warph that transporting oil isn't the real problem, the real problem is that we arent doing enough to fine better sources of energy. 

I think this pipeline is a lot different from others in that its much longer, much more exposed, and thus more vulnerable.  In other countries that are plagued by violent social uprisings (see Nigeria, Iraq) people attack the oil pipelines pretty frequently.  Everyone is so worried about terrorism, right?  We've been bombing the Iraqis for 20 years now.  The Iraqi's like to blow up oil pipelines.  Think about it.

[W. Gray]

Well this sure clears up what you folks were talking about.

The soil base in Colorado around here sure has a lot of sand in it already.

The Great Sand Dunes National Park is just a short distance south of us with more sand than the Arabs could use.

I sure wasn't wanting more sand coming in here via a "Sands Pipe Line" from Canada. 

[redcliffsw]

Warph, why would you want the Fed's to intiate long range energy strategy.  More Gov't is not the answer and Gov't does not have the answers.  Don't know why we want to return and re-visit government strategy.  You can't expect cheap fossil enery from the government - ain't gonna happen.

The best stimulus is to get back to the Constitution.  Think liberty, not democracy.

[Diane Amberg]

Just for the sake of accuracy, Keystone supposedly will be @2,000 miles and Colonial is 5,500 miles, much longer. It's being built, I think by Trans-Canada Oil. Not sure what the Constitution has to do with it. Please explain.