Keystone XL pipeline rejected in U.S. Senate

We are all Indians to the fossil fuel cowboys, but this time the Indians won. The U.S. Senate yesterday rejected the Keystone XL pipeline. It won’t end there, but it should, because solar power is cheaper, faster, cleaner, and actually does bring jobs to the U.S.


Picture from US Uncut

Of course, TransCanada has a backup plan for getting its dirty Alberta tar sands oil to overseas market: a pipeline entirely through Canada to New Brunswick. Which means the past several years of TransCanada insistence that Keystone XL was necessary was just so much bs. Which indicates how much we should believe other Keystone XL claims, such as those about jobs the pipeline would supposedly create.


Source: Reuters

Angelo Young, International Business Times, 8 October 2014, No Keystone XL Pipeline? No Problem, Says Canadian Firm Planning To Send Crude East Instead Of South,

Momentum is building for an all-Canadian oil pipeline that would serve as an alternative to the proposed Keystone XL project, which is on indefinite hold. The proposed north-of-the-border pipeline would be North America’s largest and comes as U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian oil companies attempt to heed the concerns of farmers and environmentalists.

Nebraska farmers don’t want Canadian heavy crude piped over their watersheds on its way to the Gulf Coast. Environmentalists are against the oil being taken out of the ground at all.

Facing U.S. pushback and internal opposition from Native American groups for the shorter Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific Ocean, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the country’s largest energy concern, TransCanada Corporation, seem ready to develop the Energy East Project as an alternative.

Interesting that TransCanada’s Energy East Project would end up in St John, New Brunswick, home of CanaPort LNG Import Terminal. So, is CanaPort going to switch to export, maybe of both LNG and oil? Or ship the oil on to the proposed Goldboro, Nova Scotia LNG export terminal and add oil to the exports from there?

Let’s recall that Spectra Energy and TransCanada are competing directly in British Columbia for LNG export. So it wouldn’t be surprising to see them running pipelines for different fossil fuels to the same locations. Doesn’t really matter: there is no good place to export tar sands oil. Solar power is cheaper, faster, far cleaner, and brings jobs right here where we need them.

Meanwhile, Spectra and FPL’s Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline is just as much of an unnecessary and hazardous boondoggle as TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline.

Solar power for the Sunshine State, Georgia, Alabama, and the rest of the U.S.!

-jsq