Pipeline Protests

itsthepopei

Legendary Member
Joined
Jul 22, 2010
Posts
486
Media
9
Likes
1,201
Points
273
Location
Atlanta
Sexuality
100% Gay, 0% Straight
Gender
Male
im not saying there should be no pipeline im just saying it should be routed so it doesn't needlessly endanger a critical water supply.
 

arkfarmbear

Sexy Member
Joined
Apr 12, 2007
Posts
823
Media
0
Likes
70
Points
173
Location
Arkansas
Sexuality
90% Gay, 10% Straight
Gender
Male
im not saying there should be no pipeline im just saying it should be routed so it doesn't needlessly endanger a critical water supply.


I would like to support your views but no matter where we get the supply from there is some danger to something we want kept clean. And we don't want to pay the costs of making it foolproof.
People in other places don't necessarily want to have to suffer just so we can keep our places pristine.
 

D_Bob_Crotchitch

Expert Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2006
Posts
8,252
Media
0
Likes
106
Points
193
I saw a report today that said there were already thousands of miles of pipelines over that aquifer. It appears this is more political posturing before the election than anything else.
I'd much rather buy oil from Canada than from nations that hate our guts. Let the Chinese buy the arabian oil.
 

vince

Legendary Member
Joined
May 13, 2007
Posts
8,271
Media
1
Likes
1,674
Points
333
Location
Canada
Sexuality
69% Straight, 31% Gay
Gender
Male
The USA already imports more oil from Canada than it does from any other country.

The potential for pollution from transportation and secondary processing of tar sands is bad enough. But the bigger problems are in the mining and the processing of tar itself.

Extraction of oil from the tar sands is not an easy process. It is a dirty, dirty business. It requires vast quantities of fresh water which remains polluted and must be stored in large tailing ponds of toxic sludge. Every barrel of crude produced requires 4.5 barrels of fresh water from the Athabasca River. The amount of water used annually is equivalent to the amount used by the city of Toronto and it not be treated or allowed to return to the environment. The tailing ponds (lakes really) are already 50 square miles in surface area and one of them is held in check by the world's third largest dam. There are no plans in place for dealing with the long term storage of the toxic wastes. Instead the operators are planning to expand them. Any bird that lands in these lakes is dead.

Mining tar sands and produces three to four times the amount of greenhouse gases as does regular crude oil. Huge amounts of natural gas are used to heat the tar in the extraction process. So much so, that for every three barrels of crude produced, the equivalent of one barrel of energy is consumed.

Every barrel of crude produced requires 4.5 barrels of fresh water from the Athabasca River. The amount of water used annually is equivalent to the amount used by the city of Toronto and it not be treated or allowed to return to the environment

The project covers an area the size of England and is set to be expanded once the pipeline capacity to the south is increased.

The destruction of the Boreal forests, the loss of wildlife, the air pollution, lake, river and aquifer pollution, the eventual draining of lake Athabasca, none of these consequences are worth North Americans being able to continue to drive around willy nilly in over weight gas hogs. Especially when there are a plethora of alternatives waiting to be developed that produce cheaper and cleaner energy, jobs, and technological advancements.

Why continue to to invest in the extraction of dirty, toxic substances that kill, using 19th and 20th century technology when we can invest in cleaner, more sustainable systems that will move us forward as a civilization? None of it is pie in the sky either. It makes no sense.

The Tyee – The Harm the Tar Sands Will Do
 
Last edited:

D_Bob_Crotchitch

Expert Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2006
Posts
8,252
Media
0
Likes
106
Points
193
Currently, there is no substitute for oil. As a former Chemical Engineer, I can tell you that oil is the base used for manufacture of far more than just gasoline, oil, and plastic. The world does not want to give up it's necessities, and will continue to crave oil.
 

vince

Legendary Member
Joined
May 13, 2007
Posts
8,271
Media
1
Likes
1,674
Points
333
Location
Canada
Sexuality
69% Straight, 31% Gay
Gender
Male
There are known alternatives for the generation of electricity and and transportation that need to be developed. Oil is too valuable a commodity to be wasted moving us from Point A to Point B. Hootie you right that we don't want to and practically can't give up oil altogether. But the Alberta tar sands carry too high price to be used the way they are. We don't need them that badly.

I've been to Ft McMurray and seen the tar sand developments. I tell you, for miles and miles it looked like hell on Earth. Steam rises from slag heaps and if a bird flies through, the bird dies. Tailing ponds line the river and I couldn't believe how close they were to it. It's a scene out of a Hollywood apocalyptic movie, only real. This was 1992 and the site is much bigger now and if they can open a larger pipe into the American refineries, it is planned to increase in size by a factor of five within ten years. Some say that it is already the largest environmental disaster on the planet. Going by what I saw, that is not hard to believe.

Canadian Big Oil and the Conservative government say that if they are not allowed to build Keystone, then they will sell the oil to the Chinese. I hope Obama doesn't fall that blackmail, but I am fairly certain the pipeline will be approved.

Read up on it. It is a frightening and horrible and completely unnecessary waste of the planet.
 

erratic

Loved Member
Joined
Nov 27, 2007
Posts
4,289
Media
0
Likes
508
Points
333
Sexuality
No Response
Vince knows what he's talking about.

Oil is running out, and remaining oil supplies are increasingly difficult to access (read: ecologically devastating) and expensive to extract. What we have left is unwisely spent on activities that can be powered in other ways. The Alberta tar sands ("oilsands" sounds so much prettier, doesn't it?) are perfectly representative of this, and of the argument over sourcing oil - exceptionally dirty, polluting oil from Canada, or continue sourcing it from despotic regimes? Thing is, I've seen nothing to convince me that it's an either/or argument. It seems that American money is most interested in both environmentally-unfriendly Canadian tar and human-rights unfriendly Gulf oil.

I'm glad to see people protesting the pipelines. There needs to be opposition so that there can be dialogue. Turn it into an election issue. I don't care how much money my country stands to make from this (and it's an ungodly shitload of money); I don't trust the corporations that are mining the tar - or the politicians who stand smugly behind them - any farther than I could throw them.
 

Perados

Superior Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2007
Posts
11,002
Media
9
Likes
2,505
Points
333
Location
Germany
Sexuality
100% Gay, 0% Straight
Gender
Male
the real problem is that there are substitutes for oil in every way you wanna use it. But the big oilcompanies doesnt let them come up. Cause the old investments wouldnt pay off anymore and new investments are expensiv...
 
1

185248

Guest
but the point is, it doesn't have to be generated that way at all. There are viable and much less messy solutions. Methane from pig shit?


Hot air and gasses from forums is another, I reckon with the amount of shit that gets dropped in here at times you could power a battleship, or at least ten thousand fucking machines.
 
1

185248

Guest
I'll bet the folks out on the front lines of the protest are also the same people who oppose offshore drilling, fracking and us being hostage to foreign sources of energy.

Fracking is dangerous and unpredictable. It can affect water tables many miles from the drill site. Once the gas is pumped out what takes it's place? Problems do not become immediatley obvious, it takes years for toxic water and poisons to find their way through crevices and cracks left void in the wake of gas extraction. But when that happens, mining companies have made their money and gone or onsold the business, in this case the new owners become not liable for the crap. I can live without fossil fuels, not fresh water or food.

It's also a sign that the earths rescources are not as plentiful as they once were. So start biting the bullet now on finding renewable energy solutions.....oh hang on, you won't be around when that happens, so why should you worry about it.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

dreamer20

Worshipped Member
Gold
Platinum Gold
Joined
Apr 14, 2006
Posts
7,964
Media
3
Likes
19,747
Points
643
Gender
Male
I understand fracking and aquifers but I don't understand an encased pipe and an aquifer.

the problem with the encased pipe thing is all pipelines leak which is less of a problem in lets say an arid desert nation that has to import 97% of its food but not so much when its leaking over prime farmland and eventually feeding into an aquifer that is taped to water 1/4 of the nations crops

Such was the case here:

Montana Farmer Says Exxon Refuses to Admit Extent of Damage from Oil Spill into Yellowstone River



There are known alternatives for the generation of electricity and and transportation that need to be developed. Oil is too valuable a commodity to be wasted moving us from Point A to Point B. Hootie you right that we don't want to and practically can't give up oil altogether. But the Alberta tar sands carry too high price to be used the way they are. We don't need them that badly.

I've been to Ft McMurray and seen the tar sand developments. I tell you, for miles and miles it looked like hell on Earth. Steam rises from slag heaps and if a bird flies through, the bird dies. Tailing ponds line the river and I couldn't believe how close they were to it. It's a scene out of a Hollywood apocalyptic movie, only real. This was 1992 and the site is much bigger now and if they can open a larger pipe into the American refineries, it is planned to increase in size by a factor of five within ten years. Some say that it is already the largest environmental disaster on the planet. Going by what I saw, that is not hard to believe.

Canadian Big Oil and the Conservative government say that if they are not allowed to build Keystone, then they will sell the oil to the Chinese. I hope Obama doesn't fall that blackmail, but I am fairly certain the pipeline will be approved.

Read up on it. It is a frightening and horrible and completely unnecessary waste of the planet.

Fortunately, circa Jan. 18,2012, the Obama administration rejected the proposed Keystone pipeline project:

President Obama Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline - ABC News
 

titan1968

Loved Member
Joined
Jul 7, 2004
Posts
876
Media
5
Likes
748
Points
313
Location
Montreal (Quebec, Canada)
Sexuality
50% Straight, 50% Gay
Gender
Male
We must invest massively in renewable and green technologies. The argument that oil/gas is all we have in the foreseeable future is not an argument but a cope out. Scientists and 'experts' predicted shortages decades ago. Had we acted then, we wouldn't be in the environmental mess we are in now. What will the oil companies use when there's no freshwater left because of overuse and climate change?

The argument that this new oil would bring down oil prices is total nonsense. How could prices fall if oil supplies are supposedly dwindling? According to a recent article in La Presse, with the exception of OPEP countries, Canadian and American prices (with taxes) are among the cheapest in the world. For example, Norwegian automobile drivers pay twice what we pay at the pump.

In my opinion, there would be considerably less drilling if government oil subsidies were eliminated and if there were less lobbyists from the oil and gas industry-- and less corrupt politicians.

Vince knows what he's talking about.

Oil is running out, and remaining oil supplies are increasingly difficult to access (read: ecologically devastating) and expensive to extract. What we have left is unwisely spent on activities that can be powered in other ways. The Alberta tar sands ("oilsands" sounds so much prettier, doesn't it?) are perfectly representative of this, and of the argument over sourcing oil - exceptionally dirty, polluting oil from Canada, or continue sourcing it from despotic regimes? Thing is, I've seen nothing to convince me that it's an either/or argument. It seems that American money is most interested in both environmentally-unfriendly Canadian tar and human-rights unfriendly Gulf oil.

I'm glad to see people protesting the pipelines. There needs to be opposition so that there can be dialogue. Turn it into an election issue. I don't care how much money my country stands to make from this (and it's an ungodly shitload of money); I don't trust the corporations that are mining the tar - or the politicians who stand smugly behind them - any farther than I could throw them.