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There goes the Keystone XL pipeline.......to China

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Faster horses

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I don't know why anyone would dare mess with the 'greenies;
in America.

We can thank Obama for this. He sold out to the greenies.
This is one he can't blame on Bush.

from today's Billings Gazette:



The White House plan to seek alternate routes for a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline presents a tangle of new problems for the project's backers, and any of those obstacles could still sink the proposal before the first spade of dirt is turned.

Shifting the path to avoid a major aquifer could increase the number of perilous stream crossings and put the line closer to populated areas. Major changes also risk alienating pipeline supporters, who tout the economic benefits of creating thousands of jobs. And the most vocal opponents plan to keep up their fight regardless of the route.

The obstacles are tall enough, some observers say, that the company behind the venture could even decide to bypass U.S. markets altogether and sell fuel directly to China using a pipeline through western Canada to the shores of the Pacific.

TransCanada's $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline would carry up to 700,000 barrels of crude a day from Alberta's tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries.

The original route crossed six states, including Nebraska, where opponents worried about threats to the massive Ogallala aquifer. The line also would pass through Montana, South Dakota, Kansas and Oklahoma.

Largely because of complaints from Nebraska, the State Department agreed Thursday to look for new routes that would steer clear of the state's Sandhills region and the aquifer, which flows beneath eight states and provides irrigation to huge farming areas. That effort will delay a final decision until early 2013.

TransCanada's director of field operations, Jim Krause, declined Friday to go into any detail about possible alternative routes.

"We only got the news late yesterday," Krause said. "We're mulling a lot of things."

Thirteen alternate routes were reviewed and rejected by the State Department over the past three years. Among those were paths to follow an existing TransCanada pipeline that roughly tracks the Canadian border east from Montana across North Dakota and then turns south to go through eastern South Dakota and Nebraska.

That option, favored by Nebraska's governor, passes through a much smaller portion of the Ogallala aquifer. But it was rejected in part because the route is longer and would have raised the project's price tag by about 25 percent, or an estimated $1.7 billion.

Also rejected were two routes that paralleled a stretch of Interstate 90 in South Dakota to avoid the Sandhills. Those would have cost almost $500 million more and involved putting the line through more densely populated areas and across more streams and rivers that could be fouled if the conduit broke or leaked.

Two western routes that passed through Wyoming and Colorado were thrown out because they would have added several hundred miles to the line, again making it more expensive.

An industry consultant who worked for the federal pipeline safety agency under the Bush administration said any changes probably mean building a longer pipeline than TransCanada originally planned. That could expose the project to still more objections because a longer pipeline has more points at which it can fail.

"You could set this pipeline up for a death by a thousand cuts: Next, year, the new route's not good enough," consultant Brigham McCown said. "I'm very skeptical about the fairness of the process at this point."

The environmental group Friends of the Earth has sought a broader government review that would address national energy policies and whether it is in the country's best interest to expand the use of a fuel considered more environmentally damaging than conventional oil.

"I don't think there is an alternative route that solves the problems of this project," said Damon Moglen, the group's climate director.

But a wider review was rejected by Assistant Secretary of State Kerri-Ann Jones. She told reporters on Thursday that the process would focus on alternative routes.

Jones also ruled out any significant changes to the pipeline path outside of Nebraska, saying that for now the agency's review will be limited to that state.

Kevin Cramer, chairman of the agency that regulates North Dakota's pipeline industry, said there is fear that TransCanada could scrub its plans to build the pipeline through the Midwest and instead build one through western Canada to ports on the Pacific, where the crude could be shipped to overseas markets.

TransCanada had faced political pressure to let U.S. oil companies tap into the Keystone XL, which under the previously selected route would pass through or near rich oil fields along the Montana-North Dakota border.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer had threatened to hold up Keystone's 280-mile route through his state if builders did not agree to an "on ramp" that would take domestic crude south. Sen. John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican, also pushed for access to the pipeline. The company announced in January that it would accept crude from both states.

North Dakota is the nation's No. 4 oil producer and is projected to surpass California and Alaska in the next year, trailing only Texas.

Mark Lewis, a partner in the Bracewell and Giuliani law firm who represents pipeline developers, owners and operators, said any new route will be fraught with potential environmental problems. And, of course, the rerouting might cost too much.

"If you have to reroute it through a more developed area, that becomes more expensive just to acquire the rights of way," Lewis said. "The best place, just from a pipeline perspective, is open, rural land."
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Copyright 2011 The Billings Gazette. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Posted in Montana on Friday, November 11, 2011 3:34 pm | Tags: Montana, Oil Pipelines, Energy, North Dakota, Transcanada, Nebraska, Texas, Keystone Pipeline, South Dakota
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Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_104d70dc-0cb6-11e1-805f-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1dSDkKWlw
 
well so much for raising our countries approval rate.. now we have pissed of the Canadians..
Canada defiant after U.S. oil pipeline rebuff

Canada will keep promoting crude from the tar sands of northern Alberta as a secure source of energy despite a U.S. decision to delay approval of a pipeline to carry the oil from Alberta to Texas, officials said on Thursday.

The U.S. move to put off a decision on TransCanada Corp's proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline for 18 months is a significant blow for Ottawa, which has strongly backed the project.

The right-leaning Conservative government - which garners much of its support from Western Canada and is a firm supporter of the oil and gas industry - says the United States is better off buying oil from Canada, a neighboring stable democracy, than from other suppliers.

It has also touted the thousands of jobs that building the pipeline would create in Canada and the United States. Prime Minister Stephen Harper had referred to a U.S. approval as a "no-brainer".

Washington's decision to delay approval, which could end up killing the project, Canada currently exports about 2 million barrels of oil a day, almost all of it to the United States.

the only other answer is to build or increase capacity at northern refineries, refineries that are already operating well above 90%
 
Steve said:
well so much for raising our countries approval rate.. now we have p****d of the Canadians..
Canada defiant after U.S. oil pipeline rebuff

Canada will keep promoting crude from the tar sands of northern Alberta as a secure source of energy despite a U.S. decision to delay approval of a pipeline to carry the oil from Alberta to Texas, officials said on Thursday.

The U.S. move to put off a decision on TransCanada Corp's proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline for 18 months is a significant blow for Ottawa, which has strongly backed the project.

The right-leaning Conservative government - which garners much of its support from Western Canada and is a firm supporter of the oil and gas industry - says the United States is better off buying oil from Canada, a neighboring stable democracy, than from other suppliers.

It has also touted the thousands of jobs that building the pipeline would create in Canada and the United States. Prime Minister Stephen Harper had referred to a U.S. approval as a "no-brainer".

Washington's decision to delay approval, which could end up killing the project, Canada currently exports about 2 million barrels of oil a day, almost all of it to the United States.

the only other answer is to build or increase capacity at northern refineries, refineries that are already operating well above 90%

Nope, not at all as most of us with brains in Canada want the refineries built here to begin with . :wink:
 
Faster horses said:
Harper called it a 'no brainer'....shows how many brains Obama has.
We'll pay for this decision for a long time to come.

If our new premiere has a back bone we will be building more refineries in Alberta . Even though you will not be creating jobs in the US there will be work for them here ,and experienced workers are always in demand .

Saskatchewan is supposed to have even bigger tar sands in their province than Alberta , so once that is tapped into it will be full steam ahead. Tonnes of jobs and hopefully some economic stability soon.
 
Faster horses said:
Harper called it a 'no brainer'....shows how many brains Obama has.
We'll pay for this decision for a long time to come.


FH- in all your chastisement and blaming-- I hope you are including the Republican NIMBY'S....According to XL executives they expected the national/international greeny and enviromentalist groups opposition- and already pretty much had them handled and had received approval-had balanced out enviro Dem opposition with Union Dem backing-- until they began getting opposition from locals and Republicans (mainly from only one area of the country) ....And as has been being done on many of the other land issue this administration has taken local advice seriously before making land decisions...

NIMBYS played a big role in killing this!!

Wed Aug 31, 2011 at 10:40 AM PDT.

Key Republican announces opposition to tar sands pipelineby Joan McCarter


This is big news for the large coalition of groups, and individuals, fighting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Nebraska's Republican governor has written a letter urging President Obama and Sec. of State Clinton to reject a pending permit application for the pipeline.

Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman (R) urged President Obama on Wednesday to reject a pending permit application for a controversial pipeline that would carry Canadian oil sands through his state.
[...] Heineman stressed that he is not opposed to oil pipelines generally. But he blasted TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline because it would cross part of Nebraska's Ogallala Aquifer, which provides water for the state's farmers and ranchers.

"Maintaining and protecting Nebraska's water supply is very important to me and the residents of Nebraska," Heineman said in the letter. "This resources is the lifeblood of Nebraska's agriculture industry."

Heineman's letter lends a high-profile Republican voice to ongoing efforts by environmentalists, ranchers, public lands groups and many Democrats to scuttle the project, which would carry Canadian oil sands from Alberta to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.

The Republican governor rejected the State Department's final environmental impact statement, which said a pipeline spill would "affect a limited area of the aquifer around the spill site."

The State Department's rather blasé attitude toward the potential environmental impacts of this pipeline has been blasted by the opposition, including NASA scientist James Hansen, who called the report greenwashing. Hansen's argument is global, focusing on the global warming impacts that tar sands exploitation would create.

Heineman's objection is, rightly, local, and it's opposition that has stretched from Idaho and Montana, where the megaloads—massive trucks carrying equipment to the tar sands—threaten some of the most pristine waters in the lower 48, through all of the states where the actual pipeline will run.

Now that there's bipartisan opposition to the plan, the White House might start taking it a little more seriously. It's time that the president and his staff finally talk about the issue.


Wed Sep 07, 2011 at 09:58 AM PDT.

GOP Sen. Johanns opposes Keystone XL pipelineby Joan McCarter


Another Nebraska Republican is joining the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline, the planned conduit from Canada's tar sands fields to refineries in Texas. Last week, Republican Gov. Dave Heineman wrote to President Obama and Sec. of State Hillary Clinton in opposition to the pipeline, which could potentially endanger the state's Ogallala Aquifer, a critical water source for the state's agriculture industry.
Today, Sen. Mike Johanns joined Heineman in urging Obama to reject the pipeline proposal.

"I support Governor Heineman's request that President Obama and Secretary Clinton deny the current application from TransCanada to build the Keystone XL pipeline along a route crossing Nebraska's Sand Hills and the center of the Ogallala Aquifer," said Johanns. "The proposed route is the wrong route. It's clear to me, after traveling throughout the state, that most Nebraskans agree a better route is needed.
"Amid much discussion about authorities, one thing is irrefutable and that is the State Department's authority to approve or reject TransCanada's current permit application. The Governor has now unequivocally stated that the application should be denied; I agree. TransCanada should be forced to select a more appropriate pipeline route."
 
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Friday that the delay may kill project and could add momentum to efforts to open up the Asian market for Canadian oil.

"The decision to delay it that long is actually quite a crucial decision," Flaherty told Bloomberg News at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Honolulu.

"I'm not sure this project would survive that kind of delay."

"It may mean that we may have to move quickly to ensure that we can export our oil to Asia through British Columbia," Flaherty told Bloomberg.

Flaherty will visit Beijing and Tokyo from Monday to Thursday. His talks in China will include increasing oil exports to that market.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2011/11/11/keystone-flaherty.html
 
hypocritexposer said:
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Friday that the delay may kill project and could add momentum to efforts to open up the Asian market for Canadian oil.

"The decision to delay it that long is actually quite a crucial decision," Flaherty told Bloomberg News at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Honolulu.

"I'm not sure this project would survive that kind of delay."

"It may mean that we may have to move quickly to ensure that we can export our oil to Asia through British Columbia," Flaherty told Bloomberg.

Flaherty will visit Beijing and Tokyo from Monday to Thursday. His talks in China will include increasing oil exports to that market.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2011/11/11/keystone-flaherty.html

It was going to go there irregardless ,this may expedite things more quickly .
WE need to build more refineries here asap !!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO IF'S AND'S OR BUTS !!!
 
hillsdown said:
hypocritexposer said:
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Friday that the delay may kill project and could add momentum to efforts to open up the Asian market for Canadian oil.

"The decision to delay it that long is actually quite a crucial decision," Flaherty told Bloomberg News at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Honolulu.

"I'm not sure this project would survive that kind of delay."

"It may mean that we may have to move quickly to ensure that we can export our oil to Asia through British Columbia," Flaherty told Bloomberg.

Flaherty will visit Beijing and Tokyo from Monday to Thursday. His talks in China will include increasing oil exports to that market.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2011/11/11/keystone-flaherty.html

It was going to go there irregardless ,this may expedite things more quickly .
WE need to build more refineries here asap !!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO IF'S AND'S OR BUTS !!!


I agree, but even with more refineries, people like OT would protest the shipping of the fuel across the border. (he probably already sees many trucks shipping meat and oil past his laneway :lol: )

And the oil companies would be making too much profit and we might even see protests, by true "Patriots" start up in Zuccotti park or something...

Maybe we could just ship the oil in railway cars, that would be safer.

:roll:
 

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