Well, shit, it should all be subject to regulation. Geez, milk is subject to regulation, this stuff is a bit more toxic than that.
I don’t know that it requires all that much testing. We already have a pretty good idea how nasty the tar sands oil is. Its not like its frakking compound. Its not a trade secret, we can probably regulate effectively without it unless industry lobbyists start squacking about treating this stuff like it wasn’t healthy for you.
You do realize that the state department did a public risk assessment. They took years doing it. If you aren’t satisfied at this point, you will probably never be satisfied and just don’t want the pipeline no matter what.
That’s assuming that the sun never burns out and that the human race lasts forever, right? There are plenty of pipelines that have not had the sort of catastrosphic failure you are talking about and with today’s pipeline technology, I don’t think it likely to happen before the demand for oil drops so low they are going to be using that pipeline to transport maple syrup.
Well, shit then why not just have the government drill oil on federal lands and pump it into the strategic oil reserve and sell any surplus into the domestic market for domestic consumption.
Or they will just keep shipping it by train.
Yeah, that’s never going to happen.
I don’t see where Americans are getting screwed. Refineries get feedstock to replace the feedstock that Venezuela is failing to produce, We transport is safer and cheaper than our current method. Where is this screwing you are talking about?
Modern pipeline technology makes it pretty hard to have spills of more than a few thousand barrels. Its not like these pipelines are deepwater drilling operations. They are sometimes not even entirely underground.
No, no the stuff has to be diluted if its to flow through the pipeline. And the chemical additives are trade secrets whose formula won’t be released to the regulators. To be clear, I don’t know how much of a problem that is - I can see it plausibly needs to be addressed, but that’s it. This issue isn’t unique to Keystone, though Keystone has a pretty large scale (1 yard wide pipe).
Yes, true. It’s at this stage when I think the politicos should cut some sort of deal in exchange for concessions. I don’t know how currently obstructionistic politics fits in though.
I read in the Economist magazine that green billionaire Tom Steyer opposes the pipeline. The Environmental Defense Fund, which trends rational, is also on board with the antis. So I’m a little torn: my instincts say to regulate and build, but it’s possible that there’s something that I’m not aware of, perhaps related to political bargaining. The other 98%'s website makes it look like they are part of the anti-corporate left. My take is that while their style of agit-prop is not wholly ineffective, it does have limited reach. Too many people have their livelihoods tightly bound to medium or large corporations, directly or indirectly.
Did it take into account everything there is to know about dilbit? I doubt it, since they are treating the actual composition of dilbit as a trade secret.
For one, there has never been a dilbit pipeline like the KXL, so your objection that they have never had ‘the sort of catastrophic failure you are talking about’ is utterly moot. They CAN’T have this sort of failure- they aren’t a 900,000 bbl/day dilbit pipeline, no?
As for ‘I don’t think it likely to happen before _______’, well, I don’t believe you, so there ya go. Cite or this argument is over.
Because they don’t want to? They don’t want the tar sands developed either- this is crisis management, that’s why.
Until the refinery is built, and assuming train transport of dilbit isn’t banned.
Here’s a lesson in America 101: we don’t like foreigners coming over here and blowing shit up. If you are a foreigner who hasn’t blown up shit here before, and you’re thinking about blowing up shit here in the future, you may not be prepared for just how much blowback you are going to receive in exchange for blowing up shit here. With all the compassion in my heart, I urge you to reconsider blowing up shit (or the equivalent) in America.
Wake. The. Fuck. Up! A dilbit pipeline on this scale is the equivalent of a Russian Roulette game, only instead of some moron getting capped, some random American region will get utterly destroyed forever. Guaranteed. Canada is putting itself in a position similar to that of a nuclear terrorist with its insistence on this pipeline. Nobody wants that conflict. Least of all Canada. Please, drop it.
Gee, where have I heard that before?
NOT having a dilbit pipeline makes it especially hard to have a dilbit spill. Impossible, in fact. Not having an XL diblit pipe across America is the ONLY solution.
We might not know the exact chemical composition but we know that its basically other petrochemicals like lighter forms of crude oil or natural gas condensate right?
I am wary about taking a position based on inarticulable concerns. If they were using it as a political bargaining chip then the objective is meritorious and they would let us know or it is scummy and the other side would let us know. I suspect what you see is what you get. They are obstructing any marginal increase in the use and refining of yet another petroleum resource.
One of the EDF’s strategic postures is to push an agenda that will move us closer and closer to clean renewables (thats why they support natural gas as a bridge to wean us off of coal). Introducing a cheaper yet dirtier form of crude into the system is the opposite of what they are trying to do. They would rather we stick with somewhat more expensive cleaner forms of crude or natural gas condensates.
Yeah, we have a pretty good idea. whats in it.
Thats true, but the current Keystone pipeline (that carries ONLY dilbit, carries 600,000 to 700,000 barrels/day. We are not talking about a pipeline that is orders of magnitude larger than what we already have. The new pipeline will carry bakken crude as well.
And this pipeline would be the safest pipeline in America. It has more safety features than any currently existing or proposed pipeline. The current Keystone
Cite for my belief about a future event?
You don’t have to argue with me but you can’t cite that a catastrophic spill WILL occur either so I don’t see your point. The current pipeline already carries up to 700,000 barrels/day.
I was just pointing out how unrealistic your proposal is.
Can you name something that has been banned the way you envision dilbit being banned?
WTF are you talking about? Has Canada threatened to blow shit up or are you saying that we would react the same way to a railroad accident that we would react to 9/11?
Calm. The. Fuck. Down! We already have a dilbit pipeline that transports about 70% of what Ketstone XL will trasnport. Do you have a cite that a dilbit spill will utterly destroy an American region forever? Or are you exaggerating a bit?
I don’t think they are going to drop it, in fact I think that the Keystone XL pipeline will get approved by THIS administration. I still don’t see this screwing of the American people that you claim is going on.
It really seems like you don’t realize that the Keystone pipeline already exists and is piping 600,000-700,000 barrels of dilbit for refining every day.
The EPA isn’t satisfied that they can prepare a response since they don’t have enough information.
Terrible news. I mourn for the doomed.
I am being more idealistic than realistic this time around, yes.
CFCs were banned. Things would have to get pretty bad before trainloads of dilbit were banned though. For example, there aren’t going to be any rule changes on the handling of fertilizer after the explosion in West, Texas. Looks like it will be too late before this threat is addressed.
No, not that. This is getting put past the American people in a way it didn’t get put past the Canadians in that the true risks, like the composition of the dilbit itself, is being kept a secret. When the shit hits the fan, people are going to be furious. This pipeline is a disaster waiting to happen, so in that way ‘Canadians’ are threatening to blow shit up, yes.
I hope not. Exploding trains of dilbit would screw the American people. A pipe of this scale spewing dilbit everywhere will be far worse. It’s really a crying shame, especially considering that the people affected don’t get anything in return for the risk they are being asked (forced) to assume. A refinery at the the source, supporting an American Sovereign Wealth Fund, would not only stop the dilbit at its source, it would allow for Americans to actually tap into some of the energy being produced. But no, only externalized costs for Joe America.
Well, they don’t know until they actually know but if they heard about a dilbit spill, I bet they would have a pretty good idea what they needed to do.
AFAICT, dilbit goes straight into the cracking towers and gets refined into various petroleum products. Its pretty clear that the dilutant is a petrochemical.
There is nothing to mourn yet. Its like mourning for people who live within 50 miles of modern nuclear power plants. Sure something horrible can happen but there are enough circuit breakers and safety features in place nowadays that the chance of a nuclear meltdown in a modern nuclear power plant is very very small abesnt and actof sabotage by knowledgable saboteurs. Similarly the chances of a catastrophic pipeline breach is very very small absent sabotage by knowledgable saboteurs.
Seeing as how the idealists in the environmental debate are largely getting ignored you are just asking not to be taken seriously.
CFC posed a global environmental threat just by its use. Dilbit poses a localized environmental threat based on catastrophic events occurring. So I don’t really think the two are comparable but if your point is that we know how to ban things, then I agree. If your point is that we have banned things like dilbit before, then I still can’t think of an example.
Are you seriously under the impression that the risks associated with the Keystone XL aren’t getting enough airtime?
Its only externalized if you can’t sue the pipeline and I am pretty sure you can.
Again, one of the reasons the pipeline hasn’t been approved already is because the EPA has insufficient information about the composition of dilbit, and so has not been able to prepare an emergency response plan. And you seem to have already forgotton the literally orders-of-magnitude difference in severity between a crude spill and a dilbit spill, posted in this very thread. To handwave the issue away by saying ‘it’s a petrochemical’ is simply irresponsible and no way to make policy.
For one, diblit contains high levels of benzene, which is simply no bueno. Besides that, it could be full of _________. Could be anything. Sarin gas could be the secret ingredient for all we know.
You have an inappropriate lack of curiosity here. If they can’t say what is in it, sorry, we can’t say they can pump it across our land. Canadians have a better handle on what we’re dealing with here and rejected this project in their land flat out. Here, the thing is being pushed through via demagoguery, like just about everything else these days. The stakes are too high for that though.
Here’s a compromise: we’ll keep secret the reasons why we don’t approve this pipeline.
Um, no. A modern nuclear power plant is not literally guaranteed to leak the way this pipeline will. A nuclear power plant provides a benefit to the people asked to assume the small risk of its presence, whereas the XL is worth exactly nothing to the Americans affected- less than nothing if you take into account the environmental impact of tar sands development.
This project will stand for 50 years or more. While the region it passes through is not famous for earthquakes, they do happen regularly enough on that time scale. It won’t take much of a quake to rip the pipe in half.
People who assure us that it won’t burst aren’t being truthful.
My point is the current reality of this project sucks, and I’d have it improved. To build a refinery in Canada addresses everyone’s concerns- it doesn’t halt development of the tar sands, we don’t ship dilbit across 1700 miles of American territory, and Americans can then tap some of the fuel and benefit from the resulting American Sovereign Wealth Fund. That’s idealistic because honestly I expect the shittiest choices to be made wrt to policy on this issue.
The current reality is that the population is being demagogued into accepting this project which amounts to all risk, no benefit. I am not just going to get used to the 21st century oligarchy doing this to my country. But over and over again, demagogues get taken seriously in this country and not those with the public interest in mind. Whose side are you on, Damuri Ajashi?
That’s right.
Some things can’t be fixed by lawsuits. And only a fool would put trust in today’s legal system when it is the general public vs. oil interests. The only rational course is to stop the dilbit pipeline before it is built, refine the dilbit at its source and distribute the product from there. The current plan is nothing but a big ‘fuck you’ to the American public.
Is that your idea or do you have a link? No snark intended.
I’ll note that some of the stuff is being shipped to MidWest refineries and refineries in southern Canada. ISTM that a compromise would be to skip the gulf coast refining.
To defend Try2B Comprehensive: he’s offering a counterplan and isn’t opposing Keystone outright.
Amplifying an earlier point: James Hansen opposes Keystone and he is not a loon. Those sorts of things give me pause. Is he misunderstanding the politics or is it me?
I dunno. ISTM that this is the sort of thing that could be negotiated though. Companies could still patent their secret sauce. They just couldn’t have exclusive rights to it in perpetuity. ISTM that if you want to do disaster planning you want to know what you’re cleaning up. (Then again, if you’re going to blanket the area with absorbents anyway it might not matter.)
I would guess that he opposes it on principle, for the same reason many others do including myself, the principle being that it’s a long-term investment in any energy source in which we absolutely should not be taking a long-term view – and in terms of its local pollution and global GHG impact this is a particularly nasty kind of oil. On a related note, the idea that “Canada” wants this is unfair; roughly about half of Canadians oppose the pipeline just as a lot of Americans do, and the number opposed has recently been growing. It’s being endorsed by the current right-wing pro-oil loony federal government which seems anxious to endorse anything Big Oil wants.
I disagree with this POV though. I say that if you patch the problem by building a nuke in Canada or by installing a Toshiba Mini-nuke then we might be ok. Even better would be to get the bloody policy right with emission taxes or tradeable emission permits, and let the resources flow to their proper positions. But for any number of reasons, that’s politically difficult.
The response might be: MfM: I hate to break it to you but first-best policy is not on the table. So we have to make due with 2nd best opposition to bad environmental practice. It’s not the best way, but it’s what we have. They might also have an obstructionist view in mind. In other words, they want to block big oil’s access to certain profitable opportunities until a rationalistic climate policy is put in place. Political hard-ball.
Yes. Check out this report on the KXL by the Natural Resource Defense Council. A few of the key points below; if it is TL/DNR, at least click the report and check out the comparison of dilbit to crude on page 6, and the comparison of spill rates in pipelines due to corrosion in Alberta vs. the US on page 8. To your specific question, please note that historically Dilbit has been ‘upgraded’ into ‘synthetic crude’ before being pumped into the US. As unplanned expansion of tar sands production has outstripped Canada’s capacity to upgrade the substance, the executive decision at the top has consisted of, “fuck those retarded yokels in the US; pump 'em full of dilbit!”:
Only our enemies or the ignorant would promote and support this project.
While I downloaded and appreciated the link, my skim didn’t find a proposal for the on-site refining of tar sands crude. I was intrigued by their emphasis on pipeline safety relative to global warming concerns.
News roundup:
NYT article from yesterday: Obama admin extends interagency review of State Dept report. So the EPA, Homeland Security et al have more time to review the 11 volume report. U.S. Delays Final Call on Keystone XL Pipeline - The New York Times
The status quo until recently has been to ‘upgrade’ dilbit before it is piped into the US. My suggestion to refine it fully is to address the concern that the people affected get nothing from this project- they can siphon fuel from the Keystone in this case.
I no longer think it will be approved by the Obama administration. I don’t think they will turn it down either. I just think they’ll be able to continue to delay until they’re out of office based upon the never ending need for further study.
This is the problem more than anything else. They just refuse to make a decision.
This is silly. Benzene is naturally occurring in crude oil, natural gas, coal, etc. The diluent used is not unknown. It can’t be anything. It varies based on the viscosity of the tar sands bitumen and based upon availability. It is mostly either natural gasoline or condensate. Guess where a lot of it comes from, the U.S. who has seen an increase in NGL and condensate production from the various shale resource plays. We’re exporting it to Canada to be used as a diluent to reduce the viscosity so that it can be transported by pipeline or rail.
You are not at all being reasonable here. By definition Canada’s oil production is worth something to Americans since we’re paying for it. Not only that, we’re buying it in increasing volumes every year. It just doesn’t make any possible sense for you to claim there is no value to Canadian oil production. Why are we and the Chinese competing for a bigger share of the production if it is of no benefit?
Your plan seems to entirely disregard the concept of comparative advantage which is basically at the heart of all international trade and the economic system of the entire western world.
Do you have a cite that the EPA doesn’t grokk what dilbit is made of?
The letter seems to indicate taht they have a pretty good idea of what a dilbit spill might be like (based on the Kalamazoo river spill)
Yes it is orders of magnitude more difficult to clean up a dilbit spill, IF the spill occurs in water. Its a good thing they aren’t laying any of the pipe in water. So now the choice is fewer expected spilled barrels using a pipeline or more spilled barrels using rail.
I agree dilbit contains benzene but tarsands opil does not, dilbit does. How do we know this? Because we have a pretty good idea what goes into dilbit. Dilbit conatins lighter crude and natural gas liquids that contain things like benzene and naptha.
No, no it couldn’t. Its not a black box.
I was actually going to say the same about you.
You seem to be getting all your information from people who are intent on killing this pipeline (mostly because they think they can somehow stop or slow down dilbit production, and its impact on global warming) and raising question to which there are readily available answers. Fer Chissake, you didn’t even realize that we are ALREADY piping hudreds of thousands of barrels of dilbit across the country every day on the Keystone pipeline. I don’t see how you can accuse anyone of not being inquisitive enough.
We CAN say what is in dilbit. Even wikipedia knows what’s in dilbit. The only people who don’t seem to know are the ones who are objecting to the pipeline.
Then why are there still several dilbit pipeline projects that are competing with Keystone XL?
Of course none of them have been approved yet but there are already dilbit pipelines across canada and some of the current pipeline operators are trying to expand their capapcity.
And most of that demagoguery is coming from the environmental side.
You keep saying this and people keep responding by saying that the stuff is going to keep being transported by rail unless we get the pipeline so the risk is already thre. We are simply diminishing and shifting that risk. The net environemental impact of the pipeline is damn near ZERO because the dilbit is going to get refined whether or not we approve the pipeline.
In which case the pipeline shuts down and only the dilbit taht is in the ruptured section spills.
And noone thinks its a good idea except you. Its ceratainly not a commercial one and the environmental community is not interested in refining the stuff at all because it has twice the carbon footprint as regular crude. Also the caosts and risks associated with shipping refined products is very different than shipping relatively inert petroleum.
Well nothing will halt development short of a precipitous drop in the price of crude.
This is an unlikely enough event that people are wiling to bet BILLIONS of dollars that it won’t happen.
You are assuming that your ideas are practicable. People will generally make the choice that results in the highest profit. Government isn’t going to get involved and probably shouldn’t.
Most of the demagogouery is coming from the environmental community. If you perceive it some other way then you are suffering from a skewed perception.
I’m on the side of rationality. The objections to the Keystone XL pipeline are largely irrational. I would love to live in a world where we didn’t need petroleum but we do so i try to be rational about it. The ONLY reason the Keystone pipeline has not been approved already is because of the demagogouery coming from the left and the pressure to build it is not coming from the right, it is coming from left right and center.
Wow!! The risks are being so overhyped that people who don’t know very much about the pipeline think they know everything about the risks associated with it.
So why isn’t this one of the things that can be addressed by the legal system?
I think we have the best legal system in the world. One that has bankrupted large corporations and forced oil companies to pay billions of dollars.
As between the political system that will determine whether or not the pipeline ever gets built and the legal system that will determine any liability that might arise from the piepeline, who do YOU think the oil companies have greater influence over?
The pipeline ALREADY EXISTS this is best seen as an expansion of an existing pieline’s capacity. Youa re acting as if you are preventing dilbit from crossing the border when you oppose this pipeline.
The environmental position is to stop tar sands productions entirely. They see it as a particularly high carbon source of fuel and are not nearly as concerned abotu the safety concerns as they are about the carbon issue. The environmental safety concerns seemed to work a bit in the midwest so they are playing up that angle but the bit objection they have is to the refining the oil at all. that si why noone on the envirnmental side of the argument is taking up T2Bcomp’s idea of refining the stuff near the production sites.
You seem to have a very good grasp of what one side of the argument whats you to believe.
I would suggest that the folks you are getting your “information” from would object to refining the stuff by the production sites. We would have no change in the carbon impact of the tar sands and transportation of refined products is several orders of magnitude more hazardous than transportation of tar sands. You think benzene in tar sands is a problem, try dealing with the level of benzene in gasoline. You think sludgy dilbit spills fast? Try dealing with the speed with which gasoline spills.
You might agree with me that at this stage postponing a decision is a decision. And that industry was and is familiar with this stance.
If we had a functional political system, the stakeholders would get in a big room and forge a compromise. But compromise is anathema to one of our two major political parties. So that option -used routinely before 1992 (and on occasion later), is off the table. The US is morphing into a Parliamentary system which can work but not within a framework that emphasizes checks and balances.
Thanks for the link: I’ll try to look at it later. In the meanwhile, here’ my citation:
That’s one of the sorts of things that could be hammered out in my hypothetical big room. Big rooms fell out of fashion after Mitch McConnell figured out that bipartisanship disproportionately favors the party holding the Presidency. My fear is that McConnell discovered a flaw in our constitutional structure. It happens.
