The New York Times editorialized against a pipeline aimed at bringing petroleum from Alberta into the United States, saying the pipeline “would traverse highly sensitive terrain” and the oil involved would generate too much carbon emissions. As far as “highly sensitive terrain” goes, the federal government’s environmental review found “no significant impact” from the pipeline.
The real issue is the future of our economy. Climate alarmists and peak-oil prophets want to minimize the production and consumption of oil. As the Antiplanner has noted before, When proponents of peak oil make their predictions of the future, they only consider what is known as “conventional oil” and ignore tar sands and oil shales. By opposing this pipeline and taking similar actions against producers of tar sand oil and other unconventional sources, they seek to make their prophecies self fulfilling.
Sexual health is related to other viagra buy no prescription problems and can be injured by impact or trauma. You might have confusion in between viagra tabs and Kamdeepak herbal supplements but if you search thoroughly then you will find out that they are more powerful in comparison of cialis which works on more difficult situations. The medicine takes a beat on weak or poor erections that humiliate you in the subconscious mind. order cheap cialis Secondly, it’s regarded as a Weight Loss Product. http://pamelaannschoolofdance.com/aid-7466 tadalafil buy in usa
The Antiplanner remains a climate agnostic with the caveat that it makes more sense to be ready to adapt to climate change, if it happens, than to try to prevent it. The climate models indicate that even if we met the Kyoto protocols the climate would still change. Rather than hobble ourselves by crippling our economy, it makes more sense to be as productive as possible so that, if the climate does change, we can more easily adapt to it. If climate change is really happening, actions needed to truly stop it would do more harm to humanity than the change itself.
Totally agree.
But I digress. Bring on the hate from the leftist lunatics.
Robert Samuelson, who is a regular op-ed writer for the Washington Post, got it right regarding the Keystone XL pipeline in his column this morning.
Say yes to Canadian oil sands
Quoting (emphasis added):
The Antiplanner wrote:
If climate change is really happening, actions needed to truly stop it would do more harm to humanity than the change itself.
And many of the proposed Smart Growth “solutions” to climate change (rail transit, no new highways, high-density residential housing, limits on “sprawl”) were being pitched long before anyone had heard about climate change or global warming.
I tend to agree with the Antiplanner most of the time. I do think that climate change is a problem, but the easiest solution (in my opinion) is to migrate away, over time, from coal-fired electric generation to non-emitting sources. The U.S. has used-up most of its hydroelectric potential, so that is probably not a good place to look for new zero-carbon emitting generation. But we should continue to look at solar and wind power, and, above all, nuclear energy. Solar and wind are not much good for so-called baseload electric generation, but that’s something that nuclear does very well.
If we are serious about cutting carbon emissions, then we should be building a lot of new nuclear electric generating capacity, over the longer term with the idea that nuclear’s market share (especially for baseload generation) increase as coal’s (and other fossil fuels) market share decline. But curiously, the very same groups that aggressively market Smart Growth to reduce carbon emissions are also strongly opposed to nuclear power, even though they frequently promote rail transit powered by electric power. See below for two examples.
Sierra Club on nuclear power and “sprawl”.
NRDC on nuclear power. NRDC on Smart Growth.
The difference between an agnostic and an atheist is Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims can be proven where as an atheist doesn’t believe in it much of anything. I’ve noted the idea that faith is the one thing that separates us from other animals (that and opposable thumbs; evolution Rocks!!)
I take the stance on global warming or as the P.C. scientists today call it, climate change (by doing that even if the temperature does decline they get credit and say their right) by seeing ineveitability in the works. If after spending trillions dollars through out much of the 21st century and the overall change is barely a degree, I consider that a bad investment. I agree that nuclear power is a forseeable solution. A pound of uranium produces more energy than 900 tons of coal. Can you even imagine 900 tons of coal, that’s like a mini mountain where as a pound of uranium is the size of a golf ball. I agree without the federal loan guarantees, the nuclear power industry would be a sliver of it’s current self. It’s the least subsidized form of power production in America. Now I support nuclear, I just don’t want to subsidize it. Geothermal power holds promise to deliver power cheaply in some areas and unlike wind and solar is not affected by weather conditions. However with near one-third failure ratios even in geologically active areas, it’s a risky capital venture to just drill for a hot spot let alone how long it will last. The famous Geysers plant in California lost nearly half it’s original power output due to natural steam depletion. Now they have to pump waste water from neighboring counties to provide steam.
Nuclear waste is a manageable affair. It’s not waste it’s spent fuel (of which less than 4 percent is waste), most of which is still useful uranium that is just too hot to use now. The risk of plutonium proliferation is mute when you consider the nations that do it already have it. Canada uses heavy water reactors which produce no plutonium. Deep bore holes thousands of meters underground hold key to storing actual waste indefinitely. Once you drill the hole and deposit the waste, you fill it back up with the material you drilled. The thickness of the natural barrier of kilometers of rock will safely isolate the waste from the biosphere for a very long period of time posing no threat to the environment. The deep borehole concept can be applied to any amount of waste. For countries that do not rely on nuclear power plants, their entire inventory of high-level nuclear waste could perhaps be disposed of in a single borehole. Even the spent fuel generated from a single large nuclear power plant operating for multiple decades could be disposed of in fewer than ten boreholes. Another attraction of the deep borehole option is that holes might be drilled and waste emplaced using modifications of existing oil and gas drilling technologies. The environmental impact is small. The waste handling facility at the wellhead, plus a temporary security buffer zone, would require about one square kilometer of land. When the borehole is filled and finally sealed, the land can be returned to a natural condition or eventually turned into a park or a golf course ( not that we need anymore damn golf courses)
The real issue is the future of our economy.
The economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment. But you knew that. And it doesn’t matter. That is the main reason why our societies are not sustainable.
Nonetheless, the carbon companies wield the power in this country (and in CDN). They usually get what they want. The rest of us live with the externalities while they get richer (and fund t-bggrs).
DS
Mr O’Toole writes: “The Antiplanner remains a climate agnostic with the caveat that it makes more sense to be ready to adapt to climate change, if it happens, than to try to prevent it.”
Okay. It’s happening now. What’s your strategy for adaptation?
p.s. My prediction… we’ll hit peak potable water before peak oil. I can live without a petrol based means of transportation. Can’t live without water.
Thanks to the mentally ill planner who had to drop in and remind us all that he’s a reflexive leftist, believing every missive out of the Daily Kos/Planner Central. He even dropped some cute insults, ie “teabagger”, and implying that every conservative idea is funded by Koch/insert other usual bogeymen here.
Bennett, I do agree that water will become an issue before fuel does.
CP, most leftists don’t really care about climate change or the planet. They just want to use it as an excuse for more control and for destroying western civilization, a feverish dream of most of them, as per the planner with his comment:
“That is the main reason why our societies are not sustainable.“
if the climate does change, we can more easily adapt to it.
Its already changing. Rainfall is becoming harder and more episodic, and high temps and low temps are warmer than in the past, and more often weather is lowering crop yields. Not to mention all the species movement.
Nevertheless, I’m not sure what you expect farmers to do after the aquifers are pumped and temps are too hot for graminaceous crops, as migrating across borders doesn’t work now, and moving north to less-fertile soils won’t increase production or make the natives happy. Plus multiple years of crop failures won’t leave them with any money to move and buy land. Maybe they can be a barista for the tar sands strip miners in AB.
DS
mycommentsucks,
So your rhetorical strategy is to fight fire with fire, or in this case, fight boogeymen with boogeymen?
Randall:
We don’t need the pipeline to enjoy the oil, and the oil will be brought out of the ground regardless of it being built if the price is right.
Oil is a fungible resource and transportation makes up relatively little of its cost. If the Canadians sell it to the Chinese instead of us by shipping it to the port of Prince Rupert, the same amount of oil will still be available on the world market, and we will just end up importing oil from somewhere else like Nigeria or the UAE instead. The Canadians can certainly command a much higher price at Prince Rupert, BC than at Cushing, OK.
If we are really desperate to enjoy lots of tar sands oil very soon and cannot agree on a pipeline, we can ship it by rail with no government approvals required, as being done with production from the Bakken. Nine 135 car trains per day can carry 1 million barrels of oil. No significant new fixed infrastructure needed considering the amount of abandoned granger main line railroads between Alberta and Chicago and Texas we could restore if needed. About 20,000 tank cars and 500 engines would be needed for a two week cycle of trains with some spares. That amount could be produced in one year by North American rail industry without impact to present production, so there is no economical hold-up to this method being used in lieu of a pipeline immediately if we wanted to immediately double tar sands production.
All the development of Tar Sands oil to date has not helped increase recent world crude production. World crude production (including unconventional crude, but not including natural gas liquids and biofuels) has been on a plateau since 2004 around 73M barrels per year. For every Canada, Angola, and Brazil where production is up 1M barrels per year in recent years, there are North Sea fields, Mexico’s, and and Venezeuala’s where production is down. People can dream about Canada producing oodles of oil from tar sands, but the reality is that it is not logistically possible to produce more than a small fraction of present world production from those reserves on an annual basis, let alone provide for 1-2% annual growth in liquids available needed for real economic growth. 1.25 million barrels per day of tar sands oil today compared to 73 million barrels demand today, and 150 million barrels demand in 2035 with 2% growth. How much more can realistically be produced in a year? An order of magnitude more?
Worth noting again, peak production years and percentage declines for key producers thought to have large reserves:
Saudi Arabia – 1980 (-7%)
Iran – 1974 (-33%)
Iraq – 1979 (-32%)
Venezeuala – 1970 (-40%)
US – 1970 (-42%)
North Sea – 1999 (-39%)
Libya – 1970 (-50%)
Ex-Soviet Union – 1988 (flat)
That we are going for tar sands, Artic crude, and deep water crude with $80+ marginal production costs shows that we are pretty far down in the desperation level to get more oil compared to what is actually available.
CPZ:
The U.S. has used-up most of its hydroelectric potential, so that is probably not a good place to look for new zero-carbon emitting generation. But we should continue to look at solar and wind power, and, above all, nuclear energy. Solar and wind are not much good for so-called baseload electric generation, but that’s something that nuclear does very well.
Lots of dams on the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio system, and none of them are hydro plants. How much electricity could they produce? The TVA produces 5.5 megawatts just off the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers from low dams. You would think that amount could be increased greatly by tapping those other rivers. 15 more megawatts is 5% of US coal power capacity.
Wind and solar can be made more consistent when linked with pumped storage hydro power, where water is pumped uphill when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, and then a constant amount is released downhill to turn a turbine.
That we are going for tar sands, Artic crude, and deep water crude with $80+ marginal production costs shows that we are pretty far down in the desperation level to get more oil compared to what is actually available.
I agree. And speaking of adaptation, the longer we take to scale up replacement, the more costly it will be to run a Chinese Fire Drill when energy really gets expensive. The Chinese already understand this, as they were a net importer of US solar tech and parts last year, as they are ramping up so fast their domestic production can’t match demand.
This doesn’t even consider where we will get energy for fertilizer production, or what the materials sector will do (altho I’d argue hempen fiber can be a good replacement if you don’t care if it takes land needed for crops).
Anyhoo, mass protests, State Dept shuffling paper to rubber-stamp a big-polluting project, Marcellus issues, water for energy instead of crops…all this is an indicator of tightening resource availability.
DS
Tell you what, Bennett. You rebuke Dan when he drops one of his unprovoked “teabagger” comments (or similar), and I’ll hold my tongue and leave him alone. Deal?
And as for Andrew, yes, we understand that oil is harder to get now, but that is hardly a reason not to go after it. And yes, I agree with retrofitting the dams in the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio system for hydropower. However, this will be a huge investment, considering the technical issues, enviro-nazi lawsuits, and so on and so forth.
Unprovoked?!?!? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ‘d like to direct your attention to the first comment on today’s post.
Note that I didn’t name any names, though. Are you saying that Dan and others are self-identifying as leftist lunatics?
“Leftist lunatic.” “Teabagger.” Same song, different singer.
Speaking of self-identifying, we all know what was the first name of the movement until they found out what it meant, and who funded their brief ascendancy (not grassroots). Strict constructionism and all that.
Nonetheless, let us not succumb to low-quality, transparent tactics to spam the thread from the git-go. The State Department rubber-stamping an inadequate EIS to feed our addiction and continue destructive strip-mining in fragile boreal lands is not helpful to our current and future energy situation. We are lagging in energy development and implementing efficiencies. Dirty oil helps nothing except a few corporations’ bottom lines. Right, Randal?*
DS
*http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/10/idUS292515702420110210″>
Wow, well will you look at that! When will the obsession with the Koch Brothers bogeyman ever end? Let’s not approve some project because good old mental Danny “the plan” boi has a personal problem with the Koch family of companies standing to profit from it, and by extension, creating jobs and growth. But leftists don’t really want that anyway, preferring to bring about economic ruin for the hated western capitalist societies.
“If we are really desperate to enjoy lots of tar sands oil very soon and cannot agree on a pipeline, we can ship it by rail with no government approvals required, as being done with production from the Bakken. Nine 135 car trains per day can carry 1 million barrels of oil.” – Andrew
Ummmm… ya, so where did DME’s proposal to tap into the Power River Basin go? And how actively is CP pursuing this? This stuff doesn’t just magically happen. And you don’t want some unit oil train running down the Northern Plains Railroad or MPL unless they sink a huge amount of capital into upgrades. That is if you don’t want derailments and oil spilling into the environment left and right.
Peak Potable water? All of these experts are all predicting wars will break out over resources. Typically the one they talk of most is water. But the supposed water wars of the future will never erupt. Water is too heavy and dense a substance. A gallon of water weighs over 8 pounds, so transporting it accounts for most of the costs, so the idea of these Mad Max style thugs running off with water jugs is ridiculous, they would have to drink a lot of it sweating from the workout carrying it. It’s not cost effective to do it in the long run compared to spending the money/resources on developing new supplies of potable water. A month’s worth of fighting between Israel and neighboring nations over water sources would be more costly than if Israel built several desalination plants and ran them for a year producing billions of surplus gallons. Human activity consumed 3000 cubic kilometers of water in the year 2000, up from 600 cubic km in 1900. Yet the world contains 1.38 billion cubic kilometers of water, 461,000 times more water than we currently use. Since future demands for water coincide with a future growing GDP, water access and cleanliness will increase in the future not decrease. Desalination is expensive no doubt and recycling waste water is less expensive than the latter but more expensive than traditional water, but the costs are becoming more competitive, desalination costs have declined by half in the last ten years and no doubt will decline even further in the next decade. In the near future we’ll recycle all our waste water for immediate human consumption. The same technology that is used aboard the space station. In the not to distant future, all current and expected water treatment or desalination technologies are gonna be rendered obsolete by a new technology; Nanotube membranes. They function on the size of the gaps of linked carbon atoms to restrict most particles to flow through it. Water molecules are barely small enough to fit through thus must be forced through at high pressure, but prevent larger particles like bacteria, prions, poisons, viruses, salts and other particles which are too large to fit. Treatment or desalination will be interlinked to provide water needs and with far less energy and labor needed to do it and the costs of doing either is gonna be comparable or superior to previous technology which require lots of mechanical parts to separate and lots of chemical separators and disinfectants. If nano membranes can be mass produced we can distribute portable units that are hand or animal powered to provide drinking water to developing nations. The demand for what was considered a scarce resource led to the development of an economical way of extracting it or substitutes.
Example: In the 1970?s and 80?s, computer and telecommunications was rapidly growing requiring huge demand for copper to wire the world. Fears regarding copper price surges and monopolies hoarding stockpiles selling to select few. But by the 90?s copper prices experienced a decline due to the invention of optical fiber replacing copper for the telecommunications market and millions of miles of lines have been strewn across the country and around the world in far greater excess than copper might have provided. Being largely made of glass (i.e sand) and I doubt wars will ever be fought over something as ubiquitous as kitty litter.
The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stone. For thousands of years, people have always suffered pathological fears about the end of civilization brought on by disasters further brought on by stories of natural catastrophe (2012), aliens (Independence Day, War of the Worlds), zombies (George A. Romero), plagues (28 Days Later), society dystopia (1984, THX-1138), techno-facism (The Terminator, The Matrix), resource scarcity (Paul Ehrlich or Kunstlers books); but the comtemporary source is some scarcity of a resource. But as resources become more scarce, the price rises, creating an incentive to adapt. Markets have always been the best way to increase wealth and prosperity. The more a society has to invent and innovate the easier the society will raise its living standards and lower resource scarcity. People, on average, add to civilization more than they take away. People are the ultimate natural resource.
prk166:
The existing rail lines of the CN, CP, and BNSF can be upgraded without an extensive permit process in the 1-2 years needed to acquire the equipment to run an additional 9 trains per day. There is surplus capacity on the prarie railroads that can be unlocked by directional running and passing sidings.
The DM&E proposal required an extensive environmental process because it proposed 260 miles of new line taken by eminent domain.
Lazyreader, very informative post, thank you. I think bennett was implying that the cost of water would go up in the future, not that we would be fighting wars over it.
Frank, don’t let Dan get to you. He’s not worth it.
How is water consumed?
Haven’t you people heard of the water cycle?
Even if the Ogallala aquifer runs dry, there won’t be any less water in the world. It may not be as conveniently accessible to people in Nebraska, but it will still be around somewhere.
Andrew & Lazy Reader,
I’m not convinced. Treating polluted water back to potable levels and desalination takes resources above and beyond a capital investment. The emptying of Ogallala and prolonged droughts in certain regions will have severe impacts on American lives. “It may not be as conveniently accessible to people in Nebraska,” indeed, and that’s kinda a big deal don’t you think? My initial comment was directed at Mr. O’Toole’s comment about adaptation. I suppose I didn’t know adapting with the proverbial gun to our head was desirable to y’all. I prefer planning.
Standard Cornucopian talking points notwithstanding,
Countries currently make up for water shortages by importing grain. They are also purchasing land for the water associated with it. This is also why you hear about Nestle going around trying to purchase water rights; Nestle’s CEO explained not too long ago that since 2007, foreign purchases of ag land total about as much as the German breadbasket. All for the water.
We have, hereabouts, all the water managers wondering how they are going to deliver water in a warmer world, with earlier snowmelt and less aquifer recharge, and reservoirs silting up after the trees burn (~.5-1M ac of lodgepole will likely start in earnest within a decade). And yet we water turfgrass with drinking water that goes down the gutter. The same supply concerns trouble water managers in countries that depend upon the Himalaya – they don’t have any idea how to protect against outburst floods, nor how to deliver water with less glacier melt. And strangely, no water managers think th’ globul warmins a scay-um. Reality will do that to you. Nonetheless,
There certainly will be changes very soon in how rich countries use water. Arid states like CA and the Intermountain West will need to change landscape irrigation away from potable water. Shale oil may not happen or have to cease, as the water required (and the greenhouse gases from production and use) are daunting. Cleantech manufacturing needs water.
Militaries all over the world are well aware of this reality and have been scenario planning for years to come up with workable responses. That is reality. Reality is also about mitigation before things get worse. It is mendacious to make up stories about climate changing anyway and nothing we can do about our actions that have not yet occurred in the future.
DS
It may not be as conveniently accessible to people in Nebraska, but it will still be around somewhere.
Yes, we’ll be so much richer in the future, we will be able to afford to desal it. Sure.
DS
@metrosucks: Thanks 4 the comment.
I would tend to think that the price of water would increase, but adjusted to wages or inflation the overall availability would make it cheaper; price declines are inevitable. For instance desalinating 1000 gallons of water would cost 3 dollars, the same amount of bottled water would cost 7900 dollars but millions of Americans buy the bottled water anyway.
When one looks at raw-material scarcity and resource consumption people tend to ignore the declines in wage-adjusted raw material prices. Besides temporary shortfalls, in the long run prices for raw materials remain the same or decline. There are periodic iron shortages (which is why people often steal manhole covers and stuff, still Earth is nearly 1/3rd iron by mass so while technically finite, fears regarding peak iron are unlikely, your talking 2 billion-trillion tons!!!!) Aluminium was never as expensive as before 1890’s and at the time was as valuable as gold. Until we invented electrolytic reduction making aluminum production a huge industry. Of course the market had to find a use for what was now a cheap disposable metal. But society benefited from this new metal, the aviation industry never would have gotten a 747 off the ground if it was made of steel. The food industry developed cans that withstood pressure, environment and damage far better than flimsy tin. It’s ductile so it can be drawn into the wire needed for long distance electrical transmission wire, though less effective than copper, it’s much cheaper. The price of chromium fell due to better smelting techniques and the price of steel in midieval armor carried a much higher price in todays money than if said armor were to be made today, even with contempary steel alloys that today are far superior. Titanium dioxide is the principal component to white pigments which is biologically safe compared to the toxic legacy of lead paints.
Robert Samuelson, who is a regular op-ed writer for the Washington Post, got it right regarding the Keystone XL pipeline in his column this morning.
I’m surprised no one has corrected this by now. The Koch energy will not be for us to use, as the first part of the column implies and then the rest of the column seeks to make unclear. The energy will in the main be going offshore, not for our consumption. So Samuelson doesn’t get that right.
DS
You can believe Robert Samuelson, or you can believe the Daryl Hannah assertion that a pipeline from Alberta to Nebraska is secretly a way to send North American oil to Saudi Arabia.
I’m sure Dan would rather believe Daryl Hannah. What does Robert Samuelson know, after all? Daryl Hannah is a well-regarded expert on environmental issues, smart growth, climate change, and last but not least, Euclidean zoning.
We have never seen any pipelines like in Alaska leak, have we?
And all this badly needed oil won’t be shipped to China or Japan, will it?
It is amazing what boobs on a 50 year old blonde bimbo turned activist will do to the minds of planners.
There are way more than a million pipelines, gas storage tanks, and septic tanks above the Ogallala aquifer, many more than a hundred years old. Yet Daryl Hannah and stupid planners don’t care about them.
And if you would ship oil from Alberta to China or Japan, is there any worse direction to do that than send it to Nebraska? It only makes sense if you are staring at boobs and not a map.
We have never seen any pipelines like in Alaska leak, have we?
Yes. And the Keystone I is very leaky.
And all this badly needed oil won’t be shipped to China or Japan, will it?
Yes. It likely will. The refineries at the end of the pipe: where does their oil go?
DS
Thank God we have planners to warn us that evil oil companies want to spend billions of dollars to build a 2000 km pipeline to send oil from Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska. From there they will secretly truck the oil to the Gulf Coast, where it will be dumped truck-by-truck into oil tankers. The oil tankers will secretly take the Canadian oil past all the Gulf oil wells, past the Venezuela oil tankers, and through the Panama Canal, then across the entire Pacific Ocean to China.
Someone not as smart as a planner would think that that Alberta is less than 1000 km from the Pacific Ocean, so that they would build the pipeline to China that way.
But who would a map when you could believe both a planner and an aging blonde actress with big boobs?
I wonder if anyone notices that the only thing the usual suspects can come up with is boobs, and facts are prominently absent. I wonder….I wonderrrrr….I wonnnnnnnnnnnnderrrrrr………
chuckle
Quality.
DS
Yep. A map can be a bitch, even for real planners and women without big boobs.
Sigh.