The Green Timberwolf

What you should know about the Keystone Pipeline

Blogged by: Abie

The Keystone XL Pipeline is a proposed 875-mile pipeline project that would extend from Alberta Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas. The pipeline would allow delivery of up to 830,000 barrels per day of crude oil from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin and the Bakken Shale Formation in the United States to Steele City, Nebraska, from there it would be delivered to refineries in the Gulf Coast area. TransCanada Keystone Pipeline has applied for a Presidential Permit that, if granted, would authorize the proposed pipeline to cross the United States-Canadian border at Morgan, Montana.

The pipeline is a controversial topic because of the environmental concerns that come with it. The main complaints from environmental groups is that there will be a spill, and that the pipeline will create a conduit to market for petroleum extracted from the Alberta oil sands, an unconventional energy source requiring far more fuel, water and carbon emissions to extract than conventional oil and gas.

There are two ways producers get the sands out of the ground, both damaging to the immediate environment. In one method, large amounts of water and natural gas are used to pump steam into the sands to extract the oil, which creates toxic environmental runoff.

Alternatively, energy companies strip-mine the sands and then heat them to release the oil, a practice that has already destroyed many acres of Alberta forest. An environmental review by the State Department concluded that production of oil-sands petroleum creates about 17 percent more carbon pollution than production of conventional oil.

The United States Department of State Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs has overviewed the project and came up with six main enviormental concerns

• Climate change
• Potential oil spills
• Water resources (effects on ground water)
• Destruction of wetlands
• Threats to endangered species
• Potential effects on geology, soils, other biological resources (e.g., vegetation, fish, and wildlife), air quality, noise, land use, recreation, and visual resources.

On friday the House voted 266 to 153 to approve the measure, though Obama has threatened to veto the project. The bill goes to the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to stage a lengthy, high-profile debate that is likely to stretch through Obama’s State of the Union address Jan. 20.