rolling7

President Obama has struck again at the future expense of the American taxpayers by deferring a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the gulf coast.
I think this Obama administration had made a wrong decision on this case, and this administration is leading this country in the wrong direction. A decision to delay the pipeline project until after the 2012 election is obviously a political move. It must be seen, by even the most ardent of his supporters, as an absolute cave-in to the liberals in the Sierra Club.
Whereas Obama and his minions claim to want to create jobs, they have absolutely rejected job creation by knuckling under to pressure from the radical left. Even their labor union supporters are in favor of moving ahead with the project. People all along the route of the pipeline who would have found employment because of this project should stand up in revolt against this most blatant political manipulation.
Obama obviously cares little about the welfare of America, as he had constantly shown during his tenure, and is not bothered by the serious possibility that this oil will be sent to Canada's west coast and sold to the Chinese. This is an absolute outrage and can only be characterized as such.

Deafness

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Banjo

I'll rather not share our natural resources with the Americans. They have plenty for themselves. Keep your straws out of our milkshakes.

Jiro

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TWA

Pretty lame. He should have made one decision one way or another, preferably against. The Keystone pipeline is already an environmental disaster just waiting to happen, and the XL addition would only increase the chances of that exponentially.

kokonut

Hardly.

Energy Transmission in the United States

The Keystone pipeline with a total length is 2,148 miles where 1,379 total miles of new pipeline was already built in the U.S. Adding another 2,148 miles to some 55,000 miles of crude oil trunk lines will hardly increased any risk exponentially-wise. That's a 3.5% increase on the number of miles of pipeline added to an existing 55,000 miles of pipeline.

We have pipelines that move oil and gas going all across the United States. Most of them are mostly buried.

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"... turns out they are telling the truth."

TXgolfer

A 3.5% increase in pipeline is going to raise the risk exponentially? What are they using whiffle pipe?

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TWA

Ah, but what you two fail to mention is that the the XL addition will just about double the amount of oil. More oil = more potential catastrophe.

kokonut

Ah, but you forget, the 55,000 miles of existing trunk pipeline (plus 30,000 miles of gathering pipelines) pumps 7.6 billion barrels of crude oil a year. The Keystone would pump 328 million barrels of oil a year which represent a 4.2% increase in oil volume. As for comparison with the Alaskan oil pipeline which covers 800 miles worth pumps and supply the 328 million barrels of oil per year, which, btw, celebrated their 15th billionth barrels of oil just this year ever since 1977 when oil first flowed thru that.

Yeah, "exponentially".

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"Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
-Thurgood Marshall, former Supreme Court Justice


"... turns out they are telling the truth."

Jiro

just like oil tanker ship that got supersized

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Jiro

oh my! lotsa of quibbling in here

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rolling7

This statement is weak. It is like saying the more actions you take in life the more
catastrophe your life will be. Of course, you have to take precautions every moment of your life but you also have live life to the fullest. Having you giving thought that by making sure precautions are taken Obama would create extra jobs? Unless you are of opinion that the people of USA are willing to be oil-free, this is a win-win for us.

BTW: QUESTION for our Canadian members on AD, if you are so opposed to sharing does that mean the oil will NOT go to any other country (i.e. China)?

jillio

No concern for the environmentally vulnerable areas involved or the sky rocketing gas prices that would result?

Regarding the creation of jobs:

•In 2008, TransCanada’s Presidential Permit application for Keystone XL to the State Department indicated “a peak workforce of approximately 3,500 to 4,200 construction personnel” to build the pipeline.
•Jobs estimates above those listed in its application draw from a 2011 report commissioned by TransCanada that estimates 20,000 “person-years” of employment based on a non-public forecast model using undisclosed inputs provided by TransCanada.
•According to TransCanada’s own data, just 11% of the construction jobs on the Keystone I pipeline in South Dakota were filled by South Dakotans–most of them for temporary, low-paying manual labor.
•Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) and the Transport Workers Union (TWU) both oppose the pipeline. Their August 2011 statement: “We need jobs, but not ones based on increasing our reliance on Tar Sands oil. There is no shortage of water and sewage pipelines that need to be fixed or replaced, bridges and tunnels that are in need of emergency repair, transportation infrastructure that needs to be renewed and developed. Many jobs could also be created in energy conservation, upgrading the grid, maintaining and expanding public transportation—jobs that can help us reduce air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and improve energy efficiency.”

http://www.tarsandsaction.org/spread...s-keystone-xl/

Banjo

Every country should be responsible for its own natural resources. They should not have to rely on the others.

kokonut

Not every country has that same kind of natural resources in other countries that are rich in. If a country is willing to sell their natural resources to other countries that are poor or lacking any natural resources (e.g. oil) then let them. North American happens to be sitting on the most richest natural resources on planet Earth. And the U.S. has the capacity, the means to drill for our own oil and gas to sustain ourselves, and sell abroad our natural resources. You see, "Drill, baby, drill" is working in Canada. Proof positive it works just as it working very well in the Bakken shale in North Dakato and the Marcelleus shale in the Pennsylvania area on helping the economy and creating jobs.

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After AD.

"Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
-Thurgood Marshall, former Supreme Court Justice


"... turns out they are telling the truth."

darkdog

That oil is going to be drilled and sent somewhere. If not to the US, probably to China. That will involve a pipeline out west rather than down south and shipping across the Pacific. Is that really any safer for the environment?

Also, we in the US will get oil from somewhere. If it doesn't come from Canada, it will come from unstable regimes in the middle East in tankers.

There is no perfect risk-free option, just trade-offs between several imperfect options. Taking this pipeline off the table only leaves us with worse options.

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TWA

Good points, but increasing oil production in any way should not even be an option anymore. This country needs to start getting very serious about alternative, clean, renewable energy. So far, it's just been lip service and small pork barrel deals. We need a massive campaign to start weaning ourselves off oil within the next 10-20 years. Any increase in oil production is just a delay of the inevitable.

Banjo

No. Our natural resources belong to us, not you. Keep your straws out of our milkshakes.

rolling7

[QUOTE=Banjo;1969451]Every country should be responsible for its own natural resources. They should not have to rely on the others.[/QUOT

Excellent post, just not reality in a human world.

rolling7

Excellent post, now this is reality

jillio

[quote=rolling7;1969548]Evidently it is. Decision on the XL pipeline has been deferred.

rolling7

Are you sure you wont let China drink if they bring their own straw. If all Canada was like you, I would agree with you but all Canada aint like you. Just like all America aint like me.

rolling7

[quote=jillio;1969552]By a clown

jillio

[quote=rolling7;1969556]I knew you were hallucinating! Orderlies!

naisho

It also comes at a risk to harvest these natural resources too. Living on top of the Marcellus shale is no exception. There are less lives to be toying with in North Dakota drilling, but plenty to be messing with in WV, MD, VA, PA, NY. Hydrofracking isn't 100% safe and we know it.

Virtually 99.99% of Cornell is opposed to the Marcellus drilling mostly because of the fact that it will likely contaminate groundwater in the areas they're drilling for it. They are having conventions and discussions on it weekly as we type.

Now those people in those area, they're now going to start needing more water sanitation and quality departments in those areas around to verify that the water is toxin-free. Who will be paying the money for these departments? Taxpayer dollars?

The energy companies aren't offering that much either. I've got friends and family around the shale area, and can see that the amount that they are offered for drilling to allow (if they own land) are nowhere near enough to cover themselves in the case a medical emergency happens in the long term from drinking poisoned/hydrofracked water.

DeafCaroline

It's now the law that gas shale corporations are exempted from disclosing chemicals used during fracking to the Safe Drinking Water Act. AKA The Haliburton Loop.

In 2005, the Bush/ Cheney Energy Bill exempted natural gas drilling from the Safe Drinking Water Act. It exempts companies from disclosing the chemicals used during hydraulic fracturing. Essentially, the provision took the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) off the job. It is now commonly referred to as the Halliburton Loophole.

Gasland: A film by Josh Fox

naisho

^^^ Yes, it's a great documentary. I recommend anyone who is interested in learning about the issue to watch it. It simplifies the amount of reading material necessary to understand what the energy drilling companies are doing when they are hydrofracking for the shale energy. It looks good and clean, professional on the outside, but once you look inside it's nothing but bad bad bad.

There are reasons why NY and PA passed laws near major cities to disallow drilling. They know that their clean water supply is at stake.

rolling7

See...I don't complain about members going off topic on my thread....post away

Beowulf

Pies...

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kokonut

.: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works :: Minority Page :.

The issue I understand coming from you is the frequency of cross contamination between hydraulic fracturing and water wells. Fracking is hydraulic fracturing based on fluid pressure exerted on rocks far below the ground (a few thousand to several thousand feet below) to force oil and gas out of the porous rocks. I'm not adverse to seeing regulations improve such as introducing to Congress the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (FRAC Act). That Act would amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to regulate hydraulic fracturing under the same laws and regulations that are used for the Underground Injection Control (UIC) program which has its own controversy as well. Updating and improving this regulation is necessary to help protect groundwater resources. This is NOT an unregulated activity.

I think a lot of the negative public perception on shale gas and hydraulic fracturing is mostly from the lack of technical awareness of how shale gas extraction occurs.

I'm also not adverse to expand on drilling studies based on drilling methods, geologic type and formation, groundwater understanding in the confined, unconfined and semi-confined aquifers, etc...etc.... There will be cross contamination issues and it will happen. This has been true with groundwater withdrawal (nothing to do with oil and gas) where cross contamination between fresh water and brackish or saline water has happened many times. We can only learn from it and reduce the risk of such cross contamination.

Also, what many people don't realize is that in that region (Pennsylvannia, West VA, Ohio, western Maryland, etc) it sits on a geologically rich shale formations (Marcellus and Utica shale) whose rocks are naturally fractured due the folding of the shale stratigraphy over the hundred of millions of years (btw, the Appalachian mountains are ancient mountain chain which is much, much older than the mountains of the west and was underwater many times, hence the many shale and coal seams found throughout the eastern Appalachian states). It is common that groundwater in aquifers naturally gets "contaminated" with methane and natural gas seepage. They are known as VOC or Volatile Organic Compounds. Benzene is one of the VOC species found in natural gas.

Of the "4,528 (groundwater) samples collected and analyzed for volatile organic compounds (mostly benzene, toluene, styrene, and xylenes)" from 1979 to 2006, in Pennsylvania, 23.5 percent exceeded the MCL (maximum contaminant level). Pretty telling, huh? And this was before hydraulic fracturing which began in 2007.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/314/pdf/ds314.pdf

Lastly, this horizontal hydraulic fracturing is typically done anywhere from over 2000 to 8000 feet below the surface into the Marcellus shale formation (Utica shale beneath the Marcellus shale is even deeper!). Access to groundwater aquifer for domestic use typically occurs a few feet below the ground surface to depths over 100 to 200 feet. Some 20,000 new private wells are drilled each year around in Pennsylvania. Yet water quality problem persists and it is a huge drinking water problem for the state because many aquifers are found in shallower shale and limestone geologic formations. In shale aquifers you'll find "hydrogen sulfide (which causes the rotten-egg odor), iron, and manganese often occur in certain sandstone and shale aquifers." Also, "corrosive water from acidic sandstone and shale can cause the lead and copper to dissolve from household plumbing, leading to toxic concentrations capable of causing serious health effects in humans."
http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/freepubs/pdfs/uh183.pdf

You have two things, horizontal hydraulic fracturing occurs anywhere from 2000 to 8000 feet below the ground surface versus groundwater wells for domestic use and consumption typically go several below to 100 to 200 feet below the ground surface. This is one of the biggest reason the problem of proving that hydraulic fracturing causes groundwater contamination problem. Hence, proving that the forced VOC will cause it to migrate upward thousands of feet (through several different kinds of geologic formations) and affect groundwater quality near the surface. Plus, much of the groundwater are already naturally contaminated with variety of contaminants including benzene that is found in natural gas, for example, in many cases as I have already shown to you in the above (see links to documents I've provided).

As a reminder to those reading this, avoid movies like "Gasland" because it is designed to prey on the public limited understanding about geology, hydrogeology and the geological technology being used to access gas and oil today. It's not that simple to assume a direct connection when you're dealing with such a technology being used several thousand feet below to a groundwater contamination problem several tens of feet below the surface. Now, I'm not saying this is not possible. I've already addressed that I'm not adverse to seeing more studies on hydraulic fracturing and groundwater contamination and, if any, a connection between the two.

Just to let you know I have a M.S. in geology with an emphasis on contaminant hydrogeology, groundwater and contaminant modeling which includes DNAPL and LNAPLs. I still do hydrogeology work today.

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Before AD.

After AD.

"Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
-Thurgood Marshall, former Supreme Court Justice


"... turns out they are telling the truth."

DeafCaroline

You work for any gas companies?