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TransCanada, the company in charge of the Keystone XL pipeline, has announced that they would re-route the pipeline away from the Nebraska Sand Hills, where it would pass over an aquifer that provides a good deal of water for much of the Great Plains.
At a special session of the Nebraska Legislature, a state senator announced Monday that TransCanada had agreed to adjust its intended route of the Keystone XL oil pipeline to avoid the environmentally sensitive Sand Hills region of the state.
“There had been discussions about this over the last couple of days,” said Matt Boever, a spokesman for State Senator Mike Flood. “Moving it out of that Sand Hills region is important.” [...]
“I can confirm the route will be changed and Nebraskans will play an important role in determining the final route,” Alex Pourbaix, TransCanada’s president, Energy and Oil Pipelines, said in a statement Monday, adding that the company would support legislation in Nebraska that would shift the pipeline route.
This is a serious salvage effort for the pipeline, and it backs up my theory that the biggest obstacle to the project was not environmentalists, but lawmakers in Nebraska. If the state passed the proposed bill giving the governor the ability to veto siting for pipelines, it would have triggered a state-federal confrontation over authority. The passing of the pipeline over the Ogalalla Aquifer engendered the most sympathy in the public as well, and it gave the opposition to Keystone XL a bipartisan cast.
In response, the environmentalists have not been coddled; the Nebraska legislature has. The Bill McKibbens of the world don’t just want the project to be re-routed to protect the aquifer. Their problem is that the pipeline would carry the dirtiest carbon source imaginable, one that requires a tremendous amount of energy just for extraction. McKibben has called it “the fuse for the biggest carbon bomb on the planet.” And yet the main response to the opposition has been to re-route the pipeline.
This will be viewed as a big concession, Republicans in Nebraska will move to support of the project, and after the election it will be granted, regardless of who’s in the White House. That’s the trajectory, anyway.
One goal for environmentalists could be to find whoever will replace Hillary Clinton at the State Department and get them on the record, right now, opposing the project. John Kerry should be getting a call. But to be clear, so far they’ve accomplished nothing more than getting the same pipeline carrying the same tar sands oil to follow a different route.
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To be specific, the biggest obstacle was REPUBLICAN lawmakers in NE. I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever that Obama gives a flying fuck what the Left wants. In fact, he seems to derive pleasure shoving the Left’s face in the dirt.
Thing is, the pipeline is likely doomed anyway if TransCanada can’t keep the customers who intend to use the pipeline. The delay is likely enough to send them to Enbridge — though Enbridge’s own two means for opening the spigot wide for the tar gunk, the Flanagan and Northern Gateway projects, are themselves stalled.
And there’s another thing. By the time the summer of 2013 rolls around, hybrids and full-on electric vehicles will have started to make even more of a dent in American and worldwide gas consumption. Since the Albertan tar sands are incredibly expensive to pull from the ground — $30 a barrel, the most of any oil — they need to sell at $90 a barrel or above to be nicely profitable for all concerned. But that price point was only reached in 2008, right before the great recession knocked oil prices well below $90 for much of the past three years; only since the spring of this year have they gone back above $90.
As hybrids and electrics continue to make inroads into gas consumption, the price of oil won’t stay above $90 for much longer — especially if we go back into the trough of yet another recession/depression.
Look for the Elves to show up if this goes forward.
Why? So they can make a bunch of pointless noise about how _________ used to be against it before they were for it, and the pipeline goes in anyway over the cacophony of sarcasm and snark?
One goal for environmentalists could be to find whoever will replace Hillary Clinton at the State Department and get them on the record, right now, opposing the project.
ever heard of flip flop
These comments emphasize David’s point. It’s a done deal. We do need a third party candidate.
There is a much better solution than the pipeline to refineries. The Tar can be converted to electrical energy.(Plasma Arc Gassification) That saves all the costs and impacts Clean water is one of the byproducts. The material is feed into 10,000 degree converters that can convert everything in a landfill. This project is about making pipeline contractors very rich.
Doing nothing with this tar may be best outcome.
The State Department EIS process has been designed to avoid dealing with all of the environmental impacts like climate change to avoid giving any credence to what people like Bill McKibben are saying. The government cannot go on record as giving any connection between climate change and fossil fuel production, transportation, refining or usage or every part of the industry will be vulnerable to challenge at every step. That’s why the obtuseness about the tar sands going to the Gulf and being for the world demand. Everyone “knows” we need more oil.
I heard today that oil is edging up again to just under $90 a barrel. Whether it will stay there is a different story.
What I still can’t BELIEVE is that a foreign corporation is seizing American land and telling the US where to go….put the pipeline.
I sure hope you’re right and that electrics and other energy forms supplant oil by 2013. The gov would probably do ti anyway just to prove they care not a whit about the environment…worry about climate change is for sissies, obviously, not the he-men we have in office!
I saw this story Sawyer did on the extreme weather this last year and some clown well…see for yourself:
Alaska Storm: Why the Extreme Weather?
“Some scientists?” Like 90%
If three guys want oil to be $110 a barrel tomorrow it will be eventhough the market is closed right now. Those three guys like the pipeline. It is a done deal barring revolution.
The only change I want to see is it doesn’t happen because Amerika is going to move away from clean coal and nukes to Real Clean and at the same time create jobs. What a F*(&^%$ concept
Thanks for the link and I love the ad and if was me I would asked everyone to leave and lit the match.
Good to see you still out and about.
Not that the pipeline should go anywhere… but if it must, why not go straight east to Lake Superior where ports exist, at Superior Wisconsin, Duluth Minnesota, and on up the coast? Then onto tankers that can do double-duty of transporting the goo and contaminating the Great Lakes.
LOL –
So – One should try getting the Sec of State to stop the pipeline when the President has promised Canada to OK it? – this is a bit of a stretch – although it does convey the idea that Hillary Clinton is the evil one promoting this pipeline. BTW, Kerry is my Senator and I can guarantee he will not resign in protest if he is appointed SofS and told to approve the pipeline.
The Steele City to Houston portion of the pipeline is pointless if this oil is to be used to decrease our dependence on foreign oil – build the damn refinery at that location and have an increased supply where it is needed. The Canadian alternate routes west pipelines called Flanagan and Northern Gateway are dead because of native rights and lack of a super tanker port.
Does this not look like this pipeline is already a done deal? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=31pFgmljwGU
The lakes ports can’t take super tankers – without super tankers the transport gets too expensive to sell – making the going west pipeline a possible pretend (there is a cost and speed savings by avoiding the Great Lakes that might offset) as super tanker ports are not near the western terminus.
Oh, the route of the pipeline has been changed. Humanity is saved! Let the building begin. We don’t need no steeenken eviron empacked statement. I am so happy that this will be OKed right after the ’12 election and after due consideration is given.
So…does McKibben consider this a win?
Great video of Red State protests!
Thank you for watching it! The Moscow Idaho activists have been trying to get people to pay attention to what’s going on out there. Facing down those Tar Sands Pipeline Megaloads is brave. If only they could get 12,000 people to see what they’re up against and realize the pipeline is already happening.
I hope you’re right!
What Exxon wants, Exxon gets. Target Exxon, relentlessly connect them to the devastation. Maybe then there is a chance. But only if the word gets out.
Who could have anticipated that as of last week it would not be “game over” for the pipeline?
Game over for the planet amounts to nothing compared to keeping the 1% rolling in dough.
Not “game over” for the planet, just the people.
That may mitigate some of the consumption in the US, but what about China and India? It seems their oil consumption is going way up. They both could benefit from hybrid and electric cars (China is selling electric scooters and banning motorcycles in some areas, but they replace bicycles as much as motorbikes). But is their any evidence that they are buying a significant percent of electrics or hybrids, or planning too?