Sorry, already responded to that before you said it:
And until you come up with a serious response to my posts, I’m just gonna have to say “thanks for playing” and leave it at that.
Hilary’s lead over Bernie is growing again. And would be even wider with Biden is left out of the question.
The AFL-CIO should consider endorsing Republican this year. At least if they want to maintain their power.
Could someone elaborate on this? My understanding is that the oil is going to be extracted and transported either way, and that currently a lot of the output of this particular project is being transported by truck and rail, which are more dangerous than via pipeline. What is the substantive argument in favor of opposing the pipeline? Sorry for the hijack.
But at the same time, among Democrats and Democrat-leaning voters - Hillary has a 70% net approval rating and Bernie only is at 53%. Her unfavorability is higher than his but that’s because 35% are “unsure” about him.
Sure-better to back a party that is actively trying to destroy you than a party that sometimes disagrees with you. Excellent point!
Those peddling this line are either ignorant of basic economics, or are counting on their audience being so. Transporting oil by truck or rail has a cost. Transporting it by pipeline also has a cost, though a lower one. Oil has a price, and not all oil costs the same amount to produce. At any given value of those parameters, some oil will be profitable, and so will be extracted and sold, and some will be unprofitable, and so will not be extracted and sold. Anything that increases the costs of producing and distributing oil will decrease the amount of oil extracted.
The safety point is also debatable. If a truck or a train overturns, at least you know it’s happened, and can take action to mitigate the damage. The pipeline, however, could be leaking considerable amounts even without being detected at all, and even if it is detected, it could be hard to find where the leak is.
Unless they did something crazy and built in sensors or something. They do have stats on this stuff, so what’s debatable is what’s our major concern in regards to safety.
In theory that may be right, at least with respect to prospective new projects. But it doesn’t follow that the decision to sanction any given new project in the area hinges on how the oil is transported; this will be all the more true if oil prices rebound from current lows. A colleague of mine has spoken directly to the senior managements of some of these companies and asked them point-blank whether the approval of Keystone bears on their development plans, and they’ve told him it does not. Maybe they don’t understand oil economics as well as you do.
Your point WRT to the safety issue is well taken.
Yes, they do. And what’s the threshold for those sensors?
Donald Rump, the management of those companies might be saying that, but if so, they’re either lying or idiots. I’d bet on the former, because them saying that improves the odds of the pipeline being built, and the pipeline being built would improve their profits. They’re probably planning less development if the pipeline isn’t built, but they don’t dare say that, because if they did, they’d be handing ammunition to their opponents.
Let me phrase it a different way: what basis do you have for believing that the pipeline is what pushes any prospective projects from “reject” to “accept?” I mean, theoretically if the price of sesame seeds goes up McDonald’s will sell fewer hamburgers, but it would be pretty goofy for an anti-carnivore organization to make a sesame seed tax the centerpiece of their campaign.
There is a massive variety of sensors. Since the pipeline isn’t built, who knows? Instead of refusing the project outright, the government could demand very precise sensors in sensitive areas. That would make the pipeline less than economical if demanded throughout but a compromise could be found.
Since you say we are being bamboozled by the “they are going to move the oil anyways” argument, maybe you could flesh out the cost difference and how much of transport of crude figures into the cost of production? When cost of extraction for oil sands crude is at least triple that of many easier oil patches, how much is a lack of pipeline going to cut Alberta extraction?
Why do you imagine that the extraction companies want to build the pipeline at all, if transporting by trucks will make them just as much money?
I didn’t say it wouldn’t save money. But that doesn’t mean they’ll extract less Alberta oil. If the oil is profitable, they’ll pull it out of the ground and transport of crude isnt the biggest cost. Do you think oil extraction will speed up because of a pipeline?
Looking myself, the shipping costs might run $10 a barrel more for trains over a pipeline. Right now I could see that making a differenceat least as expanding oil sands production.
I don’t know. It sure seems plausible that if they make a $X/barrel profit instead of $X-10/barrel profit that they will be incentivized to invest more in getting barrels out faster. But I could also imagine that there’s only so much that extraction can be ramped up, and maybe the profit margin is large enough that they essentially ramp it up as much as practical with or without the pipelines.
So, it seems to me that you’ve got to go look at the actual analyses of the consequences of the pipeline, which IIRC generally conclude that the pipeline will result in more GHG sooner.
Of course, there are also alternative pipelines that could be built if Keystone is not approved.
Presumably the economics are better with the Keystone project vs the alternatives. But it’s at least plausible that the difference doesn’t sway the fundamental investment decisions being made by the producers one way or another. That’s what they seemed to be expressing to my colleague, anyway, though they could certainly be posturing.