That’s nice…but there were nearly a half a million cars built in 1916 BEFORE this very limited road system was funded by the Federal government, so your point is still a fail. Of course, you could point out that the states built roads before that, but it still putting the proverbial cart before the horse…or car in this case…either way.
And my problem is with people who don’t understand what the market actually IS and who complain about it from the perspective of ignorance and who point at vertical failures as some sort of proof that the ‘free market’ doesn’t work. As I said, this is a discussion for another thread…or, you could search back on debates on this subject in the past if you want to see all of the various arguments and permutations of the debate on this subject.
CT means Conspiracy Theory, and it’s my impression of the rest of your argument, i.e. you are talking about a bunch of things in there, most of which have more than a whiff, to me at least, of CT.
I think that we are all getting a bit far afield though from what the OP actually wants to discuss in all of this, and I know the OP a bit…he’s probably not happy about that. So, I’m going to step out at this point unless you or slash has something more specifically about the keystone XL project and why there is opposition to it that hasn’t already been addressed.
I don’t think climate impacts are a legitimate reason to reject individual projects. Individually, the approval or rejection of any of these projects cannot amount to a significant increase or decrease in GHG emissions. We need to be implementing policy level approaches to climate change, which are likely to include internalizing the environmental costs of carbon. Maybe those policies make Keystone XL not profitable and sink it, but maybe they don’t. There may be other concerns with Keystone XL, but I don’t think climate should be the ultimate reason for rejection.
The Good Roads Movement was formally organized in 1880 (initially to promote bicycles, true, but they were big into lobbying for local and state governments to build roads, and Detroit became the center of auto manufacturing in large part because it was the center of bicycle manufacturing). In fact, the federal government started its first systematic survey of American highways, the Office of Road Inquiry, in 1893; exactly how many cars were in this country by then? (The Office of Road Inquiry, through many reorganizations and renamings, is the ancestor of the Federal Highway Administration.)
The State of Alabama, for another example, (not a state in the forefront of much of anything) by 1904 already had 50,000 miles of public roads, admitted only a small percentage of which were surfaced, and a state law requiring all able-bodied males between 18 and 45 to spend ten days a year working on the public roads and highways, or pay a fixed fee into the county road fund.
Government involvement in road-building goes back much much further than you seem to be aware.
I exaggerate only slightly. I heard many estimates of thousands of jobs. I’ve heard many Republican pols say that the pipeline will result in cheaper gas. Ask any Republican what his energy policy is and he will say Keystone. Ask what his proposals are for jobs and he will say Keystone. The Republicans have been billing this as the greatest thing since sliced bread for years now.
No, I’m well aware of the fact that governments built roads in the past. The Romans built the things over 2000 years ago…I’m sure you’ll be working that into your argument next. 
They were for, you know, trade and commerce as well as communications and logistics networks that also had a military purpose. The government didn’t build the things in anticipation of giving a helping had to the auto industry and getting them on their feet.
Besides being aware of the history of roads both in the US and elsewhere I’m also aware of the goal post shifting you are engaged in…and my guess is so is everyone else. You claimed that cars were a novelty item until the gubberment poured in money to make them viable, which is both wrong and a total tangent to the discussion here.
The auto industry, to give themselves a helping hand, lobbied the government to build improved roads. (See, e.g., who helped fund the Good Roads Movement and related lobbies in the 1890s and early 1900s.) No, the government didn’t just decide to help car manufacturers, but politicians do react to organizing lobbying efforts.
Would you care to cite where I made that claim? (Perhaps you are unable to distinguish between the names slash2k and swampspruce?)
XT, you are making a lot of assumptions about what I do and do not know. Ad hominem attacks aren’t going to support your arguments although they do make a sound. FWIW, I will fully acknowledge that I haven’t the foggiest clue as to what you think “The Market” is or isn’t.
I never expressly said, or meant to imply, that the government built roads just for the edification of the oil/auto industry. What I tried to say is that in large part, the government and ergo taxpayers have in the past (in this case, the late 19th and early 20th centuries) subsidized growing infrastructures and new technologies like the electrical grid, roads, and the telegraph/telephone until those gained sufficient purchase to be adopted by commercial operators. Personally, I believe that oil companies have used their influence to hinder the development of alternative energies because it will cut into their profits. That’s not CT (thanks for responding to that), that’s business.
I’ve already detailed why Keystone probably shouldn’t go ahead in a previous post before this hijack, but here is the Reader’s Digest:
- The Kalamazoo River cleanup has shown that cleaning up heavy crude or dilbit (They are essentially the same) is more costly and toxic than light crude.
2)Pipelines are fallible, as is any method of transport, and pipelines are safer than trucks or trains, but it is likely that they will experience a failure especially as they age. - The intended route crosses several areas that would suffer catastrophic problems should a major spill occur, notably the Oglalla Aquifer which currently feeds water to roughly 20% of the useable farmland in the US.
- This pipeline will not generate any meaningful long term employment and ultimately will not serve to make the US less energy dependent, two things its proponents are saying as gospel.
Sorry, swampspruce, I do know you didn’t really make the claim XT asserts either, but I had nothing to do with introducing the subject into the conversation. I merely pointed out the fallacy of using the dates of interstate construction to refute what you did say, and reacted when XT then accused me of moving goalposts.
I’ll let anyone interested in the digression scroll up to see who misread who. Why don’t we just drop that and continue on with the actual discussion under debate, and if either of you wants to start a separate thread on what the market is or the history of roads and how the were or weren’t impacted by the auto industry we can do it that way…fair?
[QUOTE=swampspruce]
- The Kalamazoo River cleanup has shown that cleaning up heavy crude or dilbit (They are essentially the same) is more costly and toxic than light crude.
[/QUOTE]
No, I don’t think it has. Can you answer my earlier question about how this would be more toxic and a more challenging clean up in an aquifer? Maybe some cites to back that up?
I don’t think anyone is saying that pipelines are infallible, but you can mitigate the risk with proper design and maintenance.
Same as point 2. Now, if you want to say that the risk is not worth the reward, then that’s something else…and I’d probably agree with that.
Well, it would make us marginally less dependent on oil coming from hot spots like the ME, and it will generate income…income that can be taxed. However, I agree that this is the best argument against the pipeline, since the risk/reward benefits are marginal at best.
35 permanent jobs and perhaps thousands more hired to clean up the spills. Win win!
I answered this earlier. Light crude floats; diluted bitumen sinks. See the Kalamazoo spill, versus the Bemidji spill in the late 1970s. At Bemidji, the research shows that much of the spilled crude is “floating” atop the water table, but Kalamazoo shows that tar sands oil behaves differently and doesn’t stay in the upper levels.
How would this be accomplished? Tar sands and other “heavy” oil is mostly used for making diesel, and the U.S. already exports a million barrels of diesel a day. The whole point of the pipeline is to get the crude to the export markets, because demand for diesel in surging in Latin America and Europe.
Are you talking about where it crosses the Arkansas and Platt rivers? Because I’m not seeing how heavy crude is going to penetrate, easily, several hundred feet of rock down to the aquifer, which was the question I asked you earlier that you didn’t answer. Showing a cite of how a heavy oil spill affects a river is different than showing how it would affect an underground aquifer. BTW, I did open that link, but perhaps you can quote the relevant parts wrt how it will affect the aquifer, since I must have missed that.
Do you project then that the US will never use more diesel and can not increase our use of it in the future for some reason? Because we export it today does not equate to a market locked in stone that way for all time, and market forces can certainly change if the price points change. If there were an issue in the ME with access to oil, are you saying that we’d simply continue on as always and ship whatever we get from Canada off while starving for oil here?
Regardless, it will bring in tax revenue either way…it’s not going to come into the US and be exported out without creating revenue.
Also, are you still holding to that 35 jobs thing? Do you not see that, by your own assertion here that there are going to be a few more jobs generated by either refining the stuff or distribution or transhipment?
You seem to be quibbling at this point, since I already admitted that the benefits will be marginal. You are focused on magnifying the risks, which are also marginal and attempting to belittle any benefits (also marginal)…which is basically the exact opposite of the right, who are doing much the same thing but from the other perspective.
As I was saying: Scientists say fossil fuels must go untapped.
No, I’m not talking about the river crossings. As I noted in post #58, in the Nebraska Sand Hills and adjacent areas the aquifers are at or very near the surface. It’s not a matter of several hundred feet of rock; it’s a matter of surface ponds and streams directly connected to the underlying aquifer, or with only a few feet of permeable rocks separating the heavy crude from the drinking water. See, e.g., this map of the pipeline route versus the water table in Nebraska: even with the revised route, in some areas the pipeline would be running through the aquifer instead of above it, because the water table is higher than the four-foot depth of the pipeline.
I’ve offered several links; for which one do you require additional assistance?
No, I’m not making that statement at all. I am however asserting that in today’s market, the KXL will not reduce our dependence on oil from the Middle East. Can you point to anything in today’s market, or the market over the next several years, that shows otherwise?
Who is “we” in that sentence? The government won’t control the oil; the multinational companies that have already signed or will in the future sign long-term contracts for the Keystone XL oil will have full control, and those companies are likely to continue to honor their contractual obligations. What would be the incentive for them to do otherwise, absent a nationalization of the American refining industry (which is, ahem, a tad unlikely).
Where and how is this tax revenue going to be collected, given that the refineries are all in Foreign Trade Zones?
[QUOTE=slash2k]
No, I’m not talking about the river crossings. As I noted in post #58, in the Nebraska Sand Hills and adjacent areas the aquifers are at or very near the surface. It’s not a matter of several hundred feet of rock; it’s a matter of surface ponds and streams directly connected to the underlying aquifer, or with only a few feet of permeable rocks separating the heavy crude from the drinking water. See, e.g., this map of the pipeline route versus the water table in Nebraska: even with the revised route, in some areas the pipeline would be running through the aquifer instead of above it, because the water table is higher than the four-foot depth of the pipeline.
[/QUOTE]
It’s a matter of near the water table in only some very small and specific locations, not over the entire length of the proposed pipeline that traverses the aquifer. And you still having backed up your assertion that this type of crude is going to be harder to clean up in an aquifer, merely asserted it while showing a cite talking about the difference in a river. Since you admit that you aren’t talking about the river crossings you still need to back that up.
The State Department rates the threat as fairly low. I realize that several environmental groups disagree, but I’m going based on that, since to me the State Department (who have already said it’s not in the US’s aggregate interest to do this pipleline and so don’t seem to have a dog in the fight) is more neutral than various environmental groups WHO HAVE A BIAS.
Why the one that actually proves your assertions, of course. What part of that aren’t you tracking on. Here, let me make it easy…show me a cite backing your assertion, and helpfully cut and past the relevant parts from it. Preferably, show me a cite from some source without an obvious bias, but really anything that actually backs up your assertions would do. Thanks in advance.
If I could predict the future, especially the future of the ME, I’d be richer than the gods. The potential is there, however, and again the risks and benefits are marginal at best. But handwaving them away completely, as you are trying to do doesn’t make them go away. I freely admit that the Republicans (and the folks who are actually trying to build this pipeline) are overplaying the benefits…just as you and others are the risks.
Why, ‘we’ is the market, of course. No, the government won’t and doesn’t have to nationalize the industries for there to be a shift away from gasoline to diesel…or even to refining more difficult to refine heavy oil such as that coming in from Keystone (ALREADY coming in, since some of the pipeline is already in place and shipping oil from Canada to the US…and much of the rest is ALREADY coming here via rail).
Well, there you have me…I assumed that the oil would be taxed, but looking it up it appears not as I was thinking. I believe there are still leases for the land, and of course the workers will be taxed, as well as other things, but at least from my cursory search it seems you are right about the oil being transshipped to a free trade zone. Of course, if it IS eventually refined in the US that would change that equation (I assume anyway), but maybe this is even more marginal than I thought in my admittedly cursory look at this ridiculous issue a few months ago.
There is only one nitpick to that, the problem is the emissions not the fossil fuels. True, as a practical matter now it is clear that the usage of them will release the CO2 into the air, but I do think that technology can also help on that front in the near future.
http://mitei.mit.edu/news/new-way-capture-co2-emissions-lower-costs-easier-installation
There is that CO2 capturing methods and there are already experimental power plants that capture their emissions.
What I’m talking about here is that if we are still having a congress that continues to offer subsidies to the fossil fuel industry we should restrict and increase the subsidies, but only if solutions like those ones are being considered and deployed by the fossil fuel industry.
IMHO the fossil fuel industry will find a way if the incentives, regulations and trading systems come into place; unfortunately we have a congress that has more incentives on keeping the status quo.
So its a super long straw to suck poisonous shit out of Canada. If we’re lucky, it won’t break, and we can keep it from poisoning our water long enough to refine it so it can poison our air. And if oil prices continue to drop, we can simply repurpose the pipeline to steal Canada’s water. If they bitch about it, we raise their rent.
What could possibly go wrong?
Much of the ‘poison’ is already being shipped through the US, though…via rail car. In fact, they are estimating that if Keystone isn’t approved, all of it could be shipped that way (at more expense and greater risk, of course).
Why are you defining a hundred miles or more as “small and specific”? Look at that map again. The area most at risk is “only” 20 miles or so in Holt County, Nebraska, where the water table is never below 20 feet, but there a number of other shorter areas along the route with similarly shallow access to the aquifer. Remember, the KXL would have to leak more than 294,000 gallons per day even to trigger the leak detection equipment (one percent of flow)
To my knowledge, nobody has deliberately dumped tar sands crude into an aquifer to see how easy it is to clean up, and there are very very few examples of aquifer cleanups in the first place, so citations are hard to come by. Most of what I’ve seen have been speculations, usually by environmentalists. However, the Bemidji aquifer cleanup showed that light crude oil in an aquifer behaves pretty much like light crude oil in any other water supply: it floats. (Do you want a citation to this?) The Kalamazoo spill shows that dilbit doesn’t behave that way: it contaminates all levels of the water column. You are apparently expecting that dilbit that behaves differently from other crude in one kind of water to behave just like other crude in a different kind of water, and I can find no support for that assertion.
The first major study of the comparative risks of dilbit versus conventional crude is expected to get underway sometime this winter–it will be by the National Academy of Sciences. No date for completion has been announced.
The State Department’s review has already been termed “inadequate” by the Environmental Protection Agency. Why do you pick one over the other?
You said, and I quote, “BTW, I did open that link.” Okay, WHICH LINK did you open? I’ve linked to several sources; I can’t read your mind. This should not be a difficult question.
You said “it WOULD make us marginally less dependent” [emphasis added]; that implies a level of certainty that “the potential is there” does not convey. Sure, I can imagine sets of circumstances that might work out that way, but I don’t regard those as even likely, much less certain. You seemed really sure and certain until you were called to justify it.
That doesn’t address the question at hand: whether, in the event of a supply disruption from the Middle East, the refineries with contracts to export their production would break those contracts to deliver the output to domestic markets instead. Why would the market condone or encourage such actions? (And I remind you that was the question you posed: “If there were an issue in the ME with access to oil, are you saying that we’d simply continue on as always and ship whatever we get from Canada off while starving for oil here?” [with a smirk])
Further, refineries built and optimized to process a particular grade of oil cannot convert on the fly to processing a different grade. In particular, refineries built for turning light sweet crude into gasoline require investments in the tens of millions of dollars to be able to process heavy sour tar sands oil into diesel. The tar sands require specialized equipment; “crude oil” of unspecified grade is not a readily fungible commodity.