It’s been a good couple of weeks for the Keystone XL pipeline. As we
move into summer and get ever closer to the project’s finish line, the
inevitability of its construction becomes clearer. Despite
hyperventilating activists and overheated rhetoric about the dangers
posed by oil pipelines, more and more evidence continues to be released
about the economic and environmental benefits of the Keystone XL project and others like it.
Exhibit one: Since the early days of the Keystone XL opposition,
activists have tried to claim that diluted bitumen, the type of oil the
pipeline will carry, is somehow more corrosive than other crude oil and
will leave the pipeline prone to leaks. Pipeline engineers and safety
experts have long understood that diluted bitumen behaves no differently
than other types of conventional crude during pipeline transport. Time
and again, scientific studies
— including studies from Batelle Memorial, Penspen Integrity, PHMSA,
the University of Calgary, Natural Resources Canada and the journal Nature — have confirmed the safety of transporting diluted bitumen.
Anti-pipeline activists also fail to acknowledge that diluted bitumen
has been transported to the United States by pipeline for years. Still,
it took a new report from the National
Academy of Sciences to finally put that trope to rest. The report,
released last week, cogently concludes that “diluted bitumen has no
greater likelihood of accidental pipeline release than other crude
oils.”
Exhibit two: The President’s declaration in his recent climate change
speech that he would approve the Keystone XL pipeline only if it could
be shown to not “significantly exacerbate” climate change. With this
statement, the President has signaled that the pipeline will eventually
be approved. First, the President understands that it is safer, more
energy-efficient, and produces fewer greenhouse gases to transport oil
through a pipeline than using other modes of transportation like trucks.
Moreover, the Department of State’s own draft Supplemental
Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) confirms that Canadian oil sands
will be mined regardless of the project, therefore negating any
arguments that the pipeline would incentivize oil production and thus
lead to increased greenhouse-gas emissions.
Despite this conclusion,
activists continue to claim that if the Keystone XL pipeline is not
built, then Canadian oil companies will simply stop the production of
oil sands. The March SEIS rightly points out that even without the
project, oil sand production will make it to market, most likely on
tankers bound for China, where environmental controls are much more lax
than in the United States.
In addition, the 830,000 barrels per day of Canadian crude that will
flow through the pipeline will offset heavy crude from Venezuela and
Saudi Arabia, which has a much larger per-barrel carbon impact. In fact,
transporting crude from Saudi Arabia is 194 percent more carbon
intensive than transporting Canadian crude.
No one can make the rational argument that Keystone XL would
“significantly exacerbate” climate change. It would seem that if the President is being straight with us, the Keystone XL pipeline will be approved.
Of course
none of these items will sway activists or quiet them down. In fact
some groups are now claiming that the State Department should do a third
environmental impact statement on the most studied pipeline in history.