Obama rejects Keystone oil pipeline

[Kulindahr]

Yeah but giving up that pipeline is ignorant considering we will not ween ourselves from oil for the next 50 years

There's another way to deal with that, but it's being ignored: "anything to oil", called thermal depolymerization by the developer/inventor, could supply the U.S. with a lot more oil than this new pipeline, and more cleanly and cheaply. Over four fifths of household trash can be turned into oil, but it isn't being done.

Why? The same reason that this pipeline is having trouble: regulations. Just as every jurisdiction along the pipeline can protest and make demands, every jurisdiction where investors might want to put a plant has to give approval. We need to streamline that somehow.

 

[JayHawk]

Well that is a wonderful idea Kuli but it seems way too good to be true. Plus the web site describing the first plant states that we would make about 4 billion barrels of oil per year and we currently use around 7 billion per year.

http://www.changingworldtech.com/why/index.asp

If that is true I would love to see the largest plastics trash pit on earth cleaned up and turned into energy. The great Pacific garbage patch or trash vortex is a disgusting mark left on the world by mankind.


They have to use heat and pressure to do this so why not build them alongside nuclear power plants?

 

[opinterph]

I wonder if the expansion at Vogtle will allow Georgia to shut down one of these huge polluters?

I don’t think there are any plans to close either coal-burning facility. Scherer and Bowen rate among the worst polluters, because they are both BIG. Plant Vogtle is co-owned by 4 different power companies, including Georgia Power.

 

[M4P]

I don’t think there are any plans to close either coal-burning facility. Scherer and Bowen rate among the worst polluters, because they are both BIG. Plant Vogtle is co-owned by 4 different power companies, including Georgia Power.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I've heard these plants generate more emissions than the oilsands do

PS: Nice kitty opinterph

 

[Kulindahr]

Well that is a wonderful idea Kuli but it seems way too good to be true. Plus the web site describing the first plant states that we would make about 4 billion barrels of oil per year and we currently use around 7 billion per year.

http://www.changingworldtech.com/why/index.asp

The guy who owns the technology is off to Europe, where the regulations are rational: one permit, and he's good to go in the whole nation, instead of multiple permits for each plant here.

BTW, I think that's 4 billion using trash -- there are plant species that could be harvested and thrown in, which IIRC could make another half-billion barrels.

That would be 4.5 billion barrels we wouldn't have to import. That means like $400 billion dollars that would stay here, driving jobs (and not helping subsidize terrorists).

If that is true I would love to see the largest plastics trash pit on earth cleaned up and turned into energy. The great Pacific garbage patch or trash vortex is a disgusting mark left on the world by mankind.

That's something I would tackle if I were a billionaire: offer a prize for effective methods for cleaning that up. And you're right; it would make fair feedstock for a t.d. plant. The dead fish caught there could go in, too.

I saw an interesting proposal for cleaning it up: seed the mass with some kind of seaweed that latches onto everything it touches, and add fertilizer from time to time until it's one 'solid' mass -- then slice it into chunks and tow it away. That would work, too; seaweed can be feedstock.

They have to use heat and pressure to do this so why not build them alongside nuclear power plants?

Brilliant! I love it! Every nuke plant should have a few t.d. plants around it!

The problem is the plants should be close to their feedstock sources, which means cities... where nukes generally aren't.

 

[Kulindahr]

I don’t think there are any plans to close either coal-burning facility. Scherer and Bowen rate among the worst polluters, because they are both BIG. Plant Vogtle is co-owned by 4 different power companies, including Georgia Power.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I've heard these plants generate more emissions than the oilsands do

PS: Nice kitty opinterph

They're nasty polluters; I don't know if they're that bad. I do know that the tech I mentioned before, thermal depolymerization, can take in ground-up coal as feedstock. The oil that comes out has all the metals and sulfur and (yay!) radioactives out of it -- something much nicer to burn than the coal.

 

[chrisrobin]

Congratulations* China!!!!

You have a friend in President Obama.

He's a Communist too! I did not know that. Actually, all U.S. oil ends up on the world market. It has nothing to do with Obama. Maybe China will purchase part of our oil, maybe it won't. I'm surprised that no one has pinned the wreck of the Costa Concordia on Obama. Oh, well - the year is young.

*By the way, one of Willard's favorite words is congratulations, but as a nonsequiter. I guess imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

 

[Jack Springer]

There's another way to deal with that, but it's being ignored: "anything to oil", called thermal depolymerization by the developer/inventor, could supply the U.S. with a lot more oil than this new pipeline, and more cleanly and cheaply. Over four fifths of household trash can be turned into oil, but it isn't being done.

Why? The same reason that this pipeline is having trouble: regulations. Just as every jurisdiction along the pipeline can protest and make demands, every jurisdiction where investors might want to put a plant has to give approval. We need to streamline that somehow.

I don't think the plant in Carthage is even operating anymore.

 

[rareboy]

I don't know why everyone thinks that all the Canadian Oil would suddenly go to China.

It isn't as though Canada gives a shit where the oil is sold...or has any control over it at all.

The American and international companies that are raping the oil sands don't care whether they are extracting oil from Canuckistan or Uzbeckistan and it will all end up in the world crude and refined oil products market.

But I would point out just one more time fellas. The pipeline is not dead.

It will be a zombie project that will come back to eat the brains of all politicians of all stripes.

 

[hotatlboi]

There is absolutely no dispute that jobs would have been created. And they would be real jobs paid for by private industry, not the taxpayers. Who many jobs is a matter of some dispute. Estimates vary from 500-100,000. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57361212/keystone-pipeline-how-many-jobs-really-at-stake/

Obama's claim to be studying the pipeline is pure horse shit. We currently have over 2.3 million million miles of pipelines criss crossing the country. It's very well established technology that works day in and our without any issues.
http://phmsa.dot.gov/portal/site/PH...VgnVCM1000008049a8c0RCRD&vgnextfmt=print#QA_5

It's political pandering to Obama's base and nothing more. It was a no brainer way of creating jobs and Barry even fucked that up!

Again, you are ignoring the fact that it was the overwhelmingly Republican state of Nebraska that was mostly responsible for putting the brakes on this to begin with.

But yeah I'm sure it's the goal of most Republicans in Nebraska to see Obama reelected.

 

[Kulindahr]

I don't think the plant in Carthage is even operating anymore.

I know they were doing a ch. 11 bankruptcy, but as long as oil is $80+ per barrel, they can make a profit. The company was also planning on a plant in Colorado, where they could get animal wastes free -- in Carthage, they had to pay for what the turkey plant used to pay to dispose of!

 

[JayHawk]

http://www.chron.com/business/steff...gh-exaggerations-to-fill-miles-of-2642909.php


great read about the pipeline... all opinion but very balanced and spot on

In making its decision, the administration was supposed to determine whether the pipeline was in the national interest. From that standpoint, the permit should have been approved. As I've argued before, while the U.S. may not immediately need the Keystone line, a strategy of securing energy supplies as crude becomes constrained in the global market makes sense.

 

[Kulindahr]

http://www.chron.com/business/steff...gh-exaggerations-to-fill-miles-of-2642909.php


great read about the pipeline... all opinion but very balanced and spot on

I think this is important:

Redford seems to believe that by blocking the Keystone permit, at least until TransCanada reapplies for it, environmentalists scored a victory for "clean" energy. They did nothing of the sort. They have not made clean energy more affordable, more reliable or more available.

Nor would the Keystone pipeline by itself have made us more secure, had a meaningful effect on world oil prices or been a magic bullet for high unemployment.

I'm beginning to understand that environmentalists are exactly like Republicans in the House: they truly believe that by "starving the beast" a utopia will naturally emerge.

If we could permanently silence both groups, it might eliminate enough hot air to make a difference in global warming.

 

[hermanding]

Isn't an alternative route under consideration in Nebraska by its government?? I saw the NE governor saying something about having the route plan ready to present to the State Department for approval no later than early August.

 

[Kulindahr]

Isn't an alternative route under consideration in Nebraska by its government?? I saw the NE governor saying something about having the route plan ready to present to the State Department for approval no later than early August.

I'm not sure of the schedule, but yes -- it's Republicans holding it up, and Republicans demanding it be approved before the details are done. It would have been irresponsible to approve it at this point, and in fact open to court challenge because there are steps that have to be followed.

I don't like it because I think it's silly to pipe it all the way to the Gulf when the country needs a new refinery anyway -- it would make sense to put one in near where it's needed. Maybe Obama should suggest that Nebraska could use a refinery and the jobs it would bring.

 

[rareboy]

^ Or maybe we could just put the refinery in southern Alberta. lol.

It is funny how the Republicans and many others somehow see this TransCanada Pipeline project as some sort of obligation to provide Americans with jobs.

While some of us are seeing this as an opportunity to create more refining capacity in the Canadian West.

 

[Gatorguy]

I'm not sure of the schedule, but yes -- it's Republicans holding it up, and Republicans demanding it be approved before the details are done. It would have been irresponsible to approve it at this point, and in fact open to court challenge because there are steps that have to be followed.

I don't like it because I think it's silly to pipe it all the way to the Gulf when the country needs a new refinery anyway -- it would make sense to put one in near where it's needed. Maybe Obama should suggest that Nebraska could use a refinery and the jobs it would bring.

^ Exactly Kuli. Great idea re: the refinery.

 

[bankside]

^ Or maybe we could just put the refinery in southern Alberta. lol.

It is funny how the Republicans and many others somehow see this TransCanada Pipeline project as some sort of obligation to provide Americans with jobs.

While some of us are seeing this as an opportunity to create more refining capacity in the Canadian West.

It would probably go in Edmonton actually, since we have that capacity already. And more than one person has fought the pipeline on exactly that basis: we should not be shipping crude.

 

[rareboy]

Of course, the oil industry does not want more refinery capacity. The hurricane season or a shut down refinery allow them to spike the price of petroleum products with regularity.

But I guess crude is crude. It is what the market craves and no cost is too high to get it there.

 

[M4P]

It would probably go in Edmonton actually, since we have that capacity already. And more than one person has fought the pipeline on exactly that basis: we should not be shipping crude.

Refining in Alberta sounds well and good but we'd still need to export the final product

I believe the reason behind refining it in the Gulf Coast is logistical - what America doesn't need can be shipped elsewhere