I have a question about the Keystone Pipeline that perplexes me
Just where will the US receive major benefit from allowing a Canadian firm to ship its tar sands across our country to be shipped out to the world market? I can see where building the pipeline will create a relatively small number of jobs for a short time, and I guess that's a plus. Then there will be some refinery jobs I suppose, but refineries operate on a stunningly low number of workers so there isn't much benefit there. Same thing with the port operations that will ship the finished product off our shores, very few people are employed in loading oil onto ships.
So what's in it for us? Well, we get all the risk associated with moving a corrosive, erosive, poisonous, sludge over thousands of miles of country including the very great potential for polluting one of our major acquifers while the Canadians get all the profit, that much I understand. But what is it in the project that would even begin to suggest that President Obama should, ultimately, approve it? It appears that Canada gets all the profit, the US gets all the risk, and the rest of the world gets all the oil.
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I have never seen any link in the chain by which any resultant refined oil from this project will land in the US distribution system.
Canada is the US number 1 supplier of oil. It actually doesn't matter if it ended up in the US system though. Its a global commodity. Wherever it is sold, it will impact global supply and prices.
a select few who would benefit from this slow moving train wreck...
Most notably, the Koch Brothers and their filthy cabal which includes Haliburton and other names we've heard but seemingly forgotten already.
So Enbridge/TransCanada are the actuaries in the Keystone pipeline as they are the "company" that build and operate the pipelines. But the tar sands mining operations in themselves, I think, are linked to the brothers. That being said, the brothers do own the refineries in southern TX where the stuff will be further processed for shipment to other continents.
The equally ugly part of this that everyone should understand about this whole fiasco is that not only will there be no significant number of jobs generated here, it is also a device through which our fossil fuels prices here will escalate unabated as the high price of fuels elsewhere will be used to coerce us into paying more or go without by way of imposed shortages. A main reason for continued efforts to thwart any growth in renewable energy production here by numerous corporate megolocrooks including Wall Street f*cks and government shills.
So most of us should disregard the stupid arguments against renewable energy and go for it in sensible, small generation options like point source generation and the like. It would serve us in a number of helpful ways by creating a huge number of jobs building and installing these smaller systems; cut our costs; reduce the affects of storm damage, especially for things like big hurricanes since there wouldn't be entire grids wiped out but most likely only individual buildings or city blocks; it would reduce all those "phone poles" and lines overhead and reduce the mega wind farm and solar farm issue that is threatening wild lands and wildlife; and certainly help us to have the power to tell the corporate pigs that we want a divorce and actually get one with a much smaller set of punishing consequences for doing so.
But what do I know? People don't like to hear what I have to say so...
"Why don't you smelly proles just STFU. Smirk. Sneer. Smirk." - Koch BoyOs (R - Greedheads)
