Be realistic about Keystone pipeline
Tuesday September 13, 2011
In George Bissell's letter of Sept. 5, he congratulated both Robert Hyde and The Eagle for Mr. Hyde's letter opposing the proposed Keystone XL pipeline which would transport crude oil recovered from the Alberta oil sands in Canada to our Gulf of Mexico refineries for processing. His point being that burning this oil would result in greater carbon dioxide and other pollutant emissions than those derived from other sources.
Let me stipulate that although progress has been made and is ongoing at present to lower the amount of carbon present in this oil, Mr. Bissell is correct and the burning of petroleum obtained from the oil sands would indeed have a greater adverse environmental impact than oil from other sources (read here from our "friends" in the politically unstable Middle East, Venezuela, and Nigeria). Although environmental concerns must be considered, they should be balanced by other factors when arriving at a decision as to whether to construct a pipeline.
Firstly, Canada is going to sell the oil from its oil sands. If it is not sold to the U.S. it will be to the Pacific rim nations (read here, China). Have no doubt about it, energy starved China will buy and burn this oil in which case just as much carbon dioxide will have been liberated into the atmosphere as if we had burned it here. So not building the pipeline will not protect the planet from this negative impact. In fact more energy will be consumed to get the oil
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by tanker to China. The pipeline will however provide the U.S .with a source of oil from Canada, a stable, friendly ally rather than from these more labile foreign sources -- a fact which has not gone unnoticed by our State Dept.
Secondly, the pipeline will be a boon to our own oil fields as it will not only have the capacity to carry the excess amount of crude presently sitting unused in Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf refineries but will also be able to transport all of the oil presently being pumped from the Bakken formation in South Dakota with capacity to spare to accommodate Bakken's expected rise in production.
Additionally, the last time I looked we had a 9.1 percent unemployment rate with zero new job creation in August. The pipeline is projected to create an estimated 138,000 jobs with its building and maintenance and could inject some $20 billion into our economy. Sure I wish we had a clean, renewable source of energy but the reality is as of yet we don't and until we do we cannot be so cavalier in energy policy decision making as to be unwilling to weigh all the variables.
BARBARA JOSEPH, Williamstown
"Be realistic about Keystone pipeline." Letter to the editor. The Berkshire Eagle. 13 Sept. 2011: Print.
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/letters/ci_18881593 (Limited time only link)
The premise: That they are selling oil in Canada, and that they want to bring it down in a pipeline to the gulf states. Also that if we do not buy it and pipe it down there, that other countries will buy it anyhow and the same damage will occur, if not more.
ReplyDeleteConclusion: We should just shut up and buy it, at least it will not be coming from the middle east, and it will not fund conflict countries, and that we will keep our money within our country and Canada, maybe Mexico can come aboard once they figure their situation out.
Good start; perhaps it was not necessary to quote the entire letter, but just the relevant passage. Your standard form reconstruction still contains some extraneous verbiage. Remember: simple, direct declarative statements capturing the intended meaning without any frills.
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