{"id":12131,"date":"2015-02-05T10:58:02","date_gmt":"2015-02-05T15:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=12131"},"modified":"2015-02-05T10:59:44","modified_gmt":"2015-02-05T15:59:44","slug":"pipelines-are-bad-economics-invest-in-renewable-energy-instead-harvard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/pipelines-are-bad-economics-invest-in-renewable-energy-instead-harvard.html","title":{"rendered":"Pipelines are bad economics: invest in renewable energy instead –Harvard"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nLet’s stop wasting money on the slide-rule technology of Keystone XL\r\nor Sabal Trail: they’re both bad investments, either short-term or long-term.\r\n

\r\nAndrew Winston wrote for Harvard Business Review 30 January 2015,\r\n\r\nWhy the Keystone Pipeline Is the Wrong U.S. Energy Debate<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nIn the short run, with oil at $50 per barrel, Keystone will connect\r\nrefineries to oil that may be unprofitable to extract. In the long\r\nrun, as the world turns away from fossil fuels aggressively, the\r\npipeline will be moot — a relic of the past.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nEither way it’s a poor investment.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nWhat, then?\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n

\r\n<\/a>\r\nSo the real question is, what kind of infrastructure do we want to\r\nbuild? Do we approach every project as a one-off way to create some\r\ntemporary jobs, or do we have a strategy in place that improves our\r\nlong-term competitiveness? Imagine if we were thinking today of\r\nbuilding our education infrastructure by investing in blackboards\r\nand slide rules. Instead, many school districts, including my son’s,\r\nare wisely handing out Chromebooks and iPads to every child.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nSimilarly, why would we invest in yesterday’s energy technologies\r\nwhen we have smarter options? Our investment choices should make our\r\ncountry more resilient, healthy, and prosperous. By that logic, the\r\npipeline is a bad investment choice. That’s just simple arithmetic\r\nand economics. Given the challenging future facing unconventional,\r\nexpensive fossil fuels, the Keystone XL is literally a pipeline to\r\nnowhere.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\nThe Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline, like the Keystone XL tar sands oil\r\npipeline, is a bad investment, both short-term and long-term.\r\nNo more money-pit fossil fuel pipelines (or nukes).\r\nLet’s get on with\r\n\r\nwhat actually is profitable: renewable energy to fix climate change<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Let’s stop wasting money on the slide-rule technology of Keystone XL or Sabal Trail: they’re both bad investments, either short-term or long-term. Andrew Winston wrote for Harvard Business Review 30 January 2015, Why the Keystone Pipeline Is the Wrong U.S. Energy Debate, In the short run, with oil at $50 per barrel, Keystone will connect […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[47,14,15,264,265,6124,559,6687,24,36],"tags":[8214,8212,8719,8704,8705,8754,8755,308,8701,8213,6176,8702,12,7,562,8782,6076,7063,8211,8714,6072,6,8716],"class_list":["post-12131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-economy","category-education","category-energy-conservation","category-energy-efficiency","category-natural-gas-2","category-oil","category-pipeline-2","category-solar","category-wind","tag-andrew-winston","tag-blackboard","tag-climate-change","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-energy-conservation","tag-energy-efficiency","tag-fracking","tag-georgia","tag-harvard-business-review","tag-keystone-xl","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-natural-gas","tag-oil","tag-pipeline","tag-sabal-trail","tag-slide-rule","tag-solar","tag-tar-sands","tag-valdosta","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-39F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12131"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12134,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12131\/revisions\/12134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}