The Keystone XL pipeline extension, proposed by TC Energy (then TransCanada) in 2008, was initially designed to transport the planet’s dirtiest fossil fuel, tar sands oil, to market—and fast. As an expansion of the company’s existing Keystone Pipeline System, which has been operating since 2010 (and continues to send Canadian tar sands crude oil from Alberta to various processing hubs in the middle of the United States), the pipeline promised to dramatically increase capacity to process the 168 billion barrels of crude oil locked up under Canada’s boreal forest. It was expected to transport 830,000 barrels of Alberta tar sands oil per day to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas. From the refineries, the oil would be sent chiefly overseas—not to gasoline pumps in the United States.
Some three million miles of oil and gas pipelines already run through the USA, but KXL wasn’t your average pipeline, and tar sands oil isn’t your average crude. It’s derived from a sludgy, sticky deposit found beneath the wilds of northern Alberta’s boreal forest. These sands contain bitumen, a gooey type of petroleum that can be converted into fuel. It’s no small feat extracting oil from tar sands, and doing so comes with steep environmental and economic costs. Nevertheless, in the mid-2000s, with gas prices on the rise, oil companies ramped up production and sought additional ways to move their product from Canada’s remote tar sands fields to midwestern and Gulf Coast refineries.
The proposed Keystone XL extension actually comprised two segments. The first, a southern leg, had already been completed and now runs between Cushing, Oklahoma, and Port Arthur, Texas. Opponents of this project—now called the Gulf Coast Pipeline—say that TC Energy took advantage of legal loopholes to push the pipeline through, obtaining authorization under a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers nationwide permit and dodging the more rigorous vetting process for individual permits, which requires public input. The second segment was the hotly contested 1,209-mile northern leg—a shortcut of sorts—that would have run from Hardisty, Alberta, through Montana and South Dakota to Steele City, Nebraska.
Dirty energy lobbyists claimed developing tar sands would protect the national energy security and bring U.S. fuel prices down. But environmental reviews by both the Obama and Trump administrations concluded that the Keystone XL pipeline would not have lowered gasoline prices. NRDC and its partners also found the majority of Keystone XL oil would have been sent to markets overseas—aided by a 2015 reversal of a ban on crude oil exports.
This lines up with an industry trend: Oil and gas companies are exporting 8.4 million barrels of crude oil and refined fuels every single day. That’s up nearly threefold from a decade ago, and an amount equal to 42 percent of our consumption. And these exports are more than 10 times the capacity of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
A fully realized Keystone XL would have led to more mining of that “nasty stuff” by accelerating the pace at which it’s produced and transported. (Indeed, Keystone XL was viewed as an essential ingredient in the oil industry’s plans to triple tar sands production by 2030.)
It would also have led to greater greenhouse gas emissions—which, the latest scientific reports makes clear, we simply can’t afford if we’re to avoid the most catastrophic climate impacts. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initially stated that, on a wells-to-wheels basis, tar sands oil emits 17 percent more carbon than other types of crude, but several years later, the State Department revised this number upward, stating that the emissions could be “5 percent to 20 percent higher than previously indicated.” That means burdening the planet with an extra 178.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually, the same impact as 38.5 million passenger vehicles or 45.8 coal-fired power plants. Finally, massive fossil fuel infrastructure investments like KXL undermine efforts to minimize global warming and prioritize clean energy like wind and solar. Leading climate scientist and former NASA researcher James Hansen has warned that fully exploiting Canada’s tar sands reserves by moving forward with these projects would mean “game over” for our climate. In short, tar sands oil represents no small threat to our environment, and our best stance against it, as the rallying cry goes, is to “keep it in the ground.”
The victory against Keystone XL shows that the tables have begun to turn–and that more power now lies with the advocates for climate justice than ever before. (NRDC).
Read more:
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/what-keystone-xl-pipeline#biden
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/major-victory-keystone-xl-pipeline-canceled
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/no_keystone_xl/in_harms_way.html
https://commonslibrary.org/how-defeating-keystone-xl-built-a-bolder-savvier-climate-movement/